“And that key!” Octave ventured to observe.
But the doorkeeper, furious at a tenant’s having been able to see his authority disputed, fell on mother Pérou, wishing to show that he knew how to make himself obeyed. Did she take him for a fool? She had again splashed the door of his room with her broom. If he paid her out of his own pocket, it was to save him from dirtying his hands, and yet he continually had to clean up after her. Might the devil take him if he was ever again charitable enough to have anything more to do with her! she could go and croak. Without answering, and bent double by the fatigue of this task so much above her strength, the old body continued to scrub with her skinny arms, struggling to keep back her tears, so great was the respectful fright that broad shouldered gentleman in cap and slippers caused her.
“I remember, my darling,” called Madame Gourd from her easy chair in which she passed the day, warming her fat person. “It was I who hid the key under the shirts, so that the servants should not be always going into the loft. Come, give it to Monsieur Mouret.”
“They’re a nice lot, too, those servants!” murmured Monsieur Gourd, who, from his many years in service, had preserved a hatred for menials. “Here is the key, sir; but I must ask you to bring it me back, for no place can be left open, without the servants getting in there and misconducting themselves.”
To save crossing the wet courtyard, Octave went back up the principal staircase. It was not till he had reached the fourth floor that he gained the servants’ staircase, by taking the door of communication that was close to his room. Up above, a long passage was intersected twice at right angles, it was painted pale yellow with a dado of darker ochre; and the doors of the servants’ rooms, also yellow, were uniform and placed at equal distances, the same as in the corridor of a hospital. An icy chill came from the zinc roof. All was bare and clean, with that unsavoury odour of the lodgings of the poor.
The loft overlooking the courtyard was in the right wing, at the further end. But Octave, who had not been there since the day of his arrival, was going along the left wing, when, suddenly, a spectacle which he beheld inside one of the rooms, by the partly open door, brought him to a standstill and filled him with amazement. A gentleman was standing in his shirt sleeves before a little looking-glass, tying his white cravat.