Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/246

 ONCE A WEEK. it

iht

8heC)

My

a sword, she would was a two-edged one.

—



have

know

•

it

dress was in a hurry for her money, because token off all relations with her hor

apron that reaches from his chin to his toes ; blacks boots, runs errands, delivers letters,

Jo

ing

and she was determined to



is in short, ready for any duty, and to I have met a few like put a bright face on it. him; one or two in students' hotels near the Pantheon, one in the Rue d'Angouleine St. Honore (where people conceive that they are bound to give themselves airs), and two or three in bourgeois' houses of unpretending But the concierge is a spy and a aspect nuisance, whether amiable or angry, frank or prying and full of scandal. He is the bete noir of the Parisians. They riddle him with small shot ; he provides thousands of pleasantries for the cheap journals there is a sneer all over the house when he raps at the doors of the

and

abundantly at the wine-shop. to the story, it finishing touch given I believe our servant, all the street.

herself

solace

pleased

—

« of her heart, explained that the laundress called twice before the family was stirring once when breakfast was in pro;

gress

and once when everybody was out



.ad

her

money

the

in

But the explanation threw the

and



afternoon.

ecaillere into

laughter she shook her head, and would e her ingenious scandal destroyed. I fared badly, the entresol and the





If

Stung to the quick

second-floor fared worse. .



ruing with the hourly spying of the

nightfall

various apartments on

the entresol rushed out, took other in his new quarters before 3

.



while the second-floor

—they

year's day,

were

new year's

by him, because Monsieur returned home late It will be easily imagined that did not escape the talk of the street. concierge told the ecaillere, who told the

in the Madeleine our cook, that the Polish lady in the secoud-floor, sat in her room, crying, all day long. The street knew that the .t an umbrella that he gave twenty for it, and that before it had been in the possession of his family twenty - four I think hours, his wife left it in an omnibus. the concierge must have celebrated the Pole's misfortune with an extra at

market,

the

who

boot-stall

told



•

the

example of the entresol. If not a mouchardy he had lis nose was in every I

bag of roa

its

OOgh its

bu

gift

gives them. hands, that

•les

woman

and with

his

the morning of new good wishes, leaves his

This is his way of present of a few oranges. announcing that he expects a solid pecuniary

—

Poles, and, I grant, mysterious ones to boot " turned out" according to the concierge

The



In always occupied with his own business. the morning he envelopes himself in a blue

The laun-

the laundress. tpoo

—

new concierge, I watched him narrowly before I committed myself to a bargain for the was a homely working-man quiet, and rooms,

When

artistically complete.

,

[Feb. 20, 1864.

that entered the house.

plait, in a winwere calling a bird to reyed before I could returned home a brown wrinkled face iplexion than a

many, for Fear been agreed on all prudent to be on excellent

and his



gifts are

It has long it

is

terms with the

man who

guards the gate of

your house, who receives your letters, and who knows many of your secrets. He is laughed His tyranny is felt at, but he remains strong. every hour in the day, but Paris must be rebuilt before it can be shaken off. He can be punished if he betrays his trust ; a lodger can compel the landlord to dismiss him, if he misbehaves himself; but while he is merely a reckless gossip, a malicious brewer of mischief, or an eccentric who is crushed by an over-

weening estimate of the importance of his duties, he must be tolerated, and not only be tolerated, he must be petted. A Parisian's house is not his castle it is that of his conBlanchard Jerrold. cierge.

—

1

PROSERPINE.

—

I

and pulled tho

bell,

tied a

with a cotton

little

window by arching

I

A

champaign covered -with eternal flowers In the first dawn of wakened summer time, In the early dawn when all the hills and fields Were white with silver dew, and violets drank The sprinkled moisture, and through '

veils of

mist

The fair laburnum dropped its golden rain Then Proserpine, deep-circled with the light, The purple light of youth, and Cyane

polled.

1

lanvl,

—

And

her choir of maids, with loosened zones, lands in the vales of Sicily, talked in voices like the whispering surge, all

1

itiff

Ml "

'

"

brown irho,

•"

told, baa a

Undreue

And

1

i

I

have

for the tcaUttre.

Chafing the pebbles of the barren shore. So, till the climbing ran within its sphere i then a cold and sudden night,