“Monsieur Malberg—why, I don’t know myself; but wait, he must be in Paris, for I saw his blackamoor going upstairs just now; indeed I believe he was carrying a bottle in a wooden case—you know the kind of bottle I mean; what there is inside must be fine!”
Georget lowered his head sadly, saying to himself:
“If Monsieur Malberg is in Paris now, we can’t go to his country house without his permission, without finding out whether he still wants us; but I would have liked to start to-day, for if I stay in Paris I can’t do otherwise than go out on the boulevard.”
“I say, Monsieur Georget,” continued the concierge, “if you want, I’ll go up to Monsieur Malberg’s and I’ll ask his yellow negro if his master is here.”
“Oh! if you would have that kindness, Monsieur Baudoin, I should be very much obliged to you!”
“With pleasure. I am not sorry to leave the lodge for a minute. If that creature asks for drink, give her water; she don’t like water and it’s a punishment for her.”
Baudoin went up to the third floor, and Georget remained in the lodge, absorbed, not in his thoughts, but in a single thought; for it was impossible for him to think of anything else than Violette’s going to Monsieur Jéricourt’s room. The concierge was absent a long time, but at last he came downstairs again, swearing as usual. “Ten thousand cursed names! how can a man take such animals as that into his service? They are brutes, and nothing else!”
“Well, Monsieur Baudoin, is Monsieur Malberg in Paris?”
“Just imagine, Monsieur Georget; I rang the bell upstairs,—I was very sure that there was someone there; however, it was a long while before anybody opened the door; I rang again and the black fellow appeared at last. ‘Is your master here just now?’ I asked him. That vagabond of a Ponceau began to laugh and showed all his teeth—I must admit that all colored men have extremely white teeth; probably it’s the white that their skin lacks. I asked my question again, and the slave answered, shaking his head violently: ‘No, no, no, master not here! Me here with Broubrou, Babo, and Zima; me come to fetch Zima!’—As I didn’t understand what he meant with his Broubrou and his Babo, I said to him: ‘But I didn’t come to ask for you.’—With that he made a face at me and left me there, and went back into the salon. But I heard him talking and jabbering; you would have sworn that there were two people disputing. That is what makes me think that the negro lied when he said that his master wasn’t in, for it couldn’t be anybody else that I heard him talking to.”
Georget, understanding only vaguely what Baudoin told him, concluded that he would do better to go up to Monsieur Malberg’s himself, and learn what to expect. He wiped his eyes and left the lodge, without answering the concierge, who asked him if his wife Hildegarde was still breathing.