“It is very extravagant,” I say, as I recklessly order coffee. “You know there are places where we can have déjeûner for one franc fifty, or even for one franc twenty-five. Just think of it! We might have saved a whole franc on this meal.”
“We save much more than that, when we have ménage. It will cost so little then. You will see.”
“Will it really? Come on, then, and let’s have a look at your apartment. It may be taken just ten minutes before we get there. They always are.”
Off we go as eager as children, and with rising excitement we reach the mouldering rue Mazarin. We reconnoitre a gloomy-looking building entered by a massive, iron-studded door. Through a tunnel-like porch-way we see a tiny court in the centre of which is a railed space about six feet square. Within it stand a few pots of dead geraniums and a weather-stained plaster-cast of Bellona, thus achieving an atmosphere of both nature and art.
The corpulent concierge emerges from her cubby-hole.— Yes, she will show us the apartment. There has been a Monsieur to see it that very morning. He has been undecided whether to take it or not, but will let her know in the morning.
This makes us keen to secure it, and it is almost with a determination to be pleased that we mount five flights of dingy stairs. A faded carpet accompanies us as far as the fourth flight, then deserts us in disgust.
Nothing damps our ardour, however. We decide that the smallness of the two rooms is a decided advantage, the view into the mildewed court quaint and charming, the fact that water is obtained from a common tap on the landing no particular detriment. The girl, pleased that I am pleased, becomes enthusiastic. It will be her first home. Her heart warms to it. Scant as it is, no other will ever be quite so dear. With the eye of fancy she sees its bareness clad and comforted. Poor lonely house! Seeing the light ashine in the wistful blue eyes, I too become enthusiastic, and thus we inspire each other.
“It’s a dear little apartment,” I say. “How lucky we are to have stumbled on it. I’m going to take it at once. We’ll pay the first quarter’s rent right now.”
“You must geeve somesing to the concierge,” she whispers as I pay.
“Ah, I see! a sop to Cerebus. All right.”