by Robert Merle
“I beseech you, Maître Recroche,” said L’Étoile, who appeared to be working so hard at maintaining his patience that sweat was dripping from his brow. “I beg you! Decide! It’s getting very late!”
“Decide!” stalled Maître Recroche. “Baba! That’s sooner said than done! The chamber-ettes I’m referring to are only big enough for two and there are four of these gentlemen.”
“Then we’ll sleep two to a room,” I conceded.
“Baba,” returned Maître Recroche, “the thing is, the beds in these rooms are scarcely wide enough for one!”
“But we’ll have to fit two in a bed,” I said.
“Not on your life!” gasped Maître Recroche. “Two big men like yourselves would surely break these little bedlets!”
“Whatever is broken we’ll pay for,” I parried.
“Well said!” agreed Maître Recroche as if to himself, running his right index finger along his nose. “I can imagine things working out with this lodger, if I lodge him. However, Monsieur de Siorac,” he countered, “the window is agonizingly small and is covered in oil paper rather than glass.”
“Then I’ll open it.”
“Don’t you dare! It overlooks the Cimetière des Innocents, whose soil gives off such poisonous vapours that they’ll eat up your flesh within nine days! Why, the night air is so sulphurous and gaseous that it sets off will-o’-the-wisps!”
“Maître Recroche,” I demanded, “name your price!”
“All right, if I must!” sighed Maître Recroche with a nasty glint in his little blue eyes. “Venerable medical doctor,” because you are the friend of Monsieur de L’Étoile, I will charge you a mere three écus for the three of you for the month, whether you stay the month or not.”
“Three écus for two chamber-ettes!” cried L’Étoile, raising his arms heavenward.
“Nay! Nay! You’re mistaken!” corrected Recroche with a benign air. “I mean three écus per mini-chamber, and one sol per day for each horse, but you must pay for your own hay.”
“Six écus!” cried L’Étoile. “That’s highway robbery! Lower your price!”
“Baba!” replied Recroche. “Highway robbery? The problem is that there is a great demand for rooms in Paris now. What can I do? I have to live. My chamber-ettes are more in demand than palaces in Poland and I offer them to this gentleman only out of my great love for you!”
“I thank God and I thank you for your generous sentiments,” said L’Étoile through closed lips.
“That’s six écus in freshly minted coins, hard cash and paid in advance,” said Maître Recroche, lowering his eyes humbly, yet speaking in very harsh tones.
We had to summon Samson, and push him very hard before he would consent to disburse such a sum for lodging and stables. This done, the assistant Baragran, carrying a bright lantern and riding pillion behind Miroul, accompanied us, while, with swords drawn, we took Pierre de L’Étoile to his lodgings and returned, dead tired, our arses aching from so many hours in the saddle. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the pain we felt at being so badly and dearly lodged ourselves.
“Maître Recroche,” I enquired, once our horses were stabled and fed, “might you have some wine to offer us before we bed down?”
“Baba! Some wine?” simpered Recroche, raising his long arms. “You’ll not find a drop of wine, vinegar or spirits of any kind in this house! Thank God, no one in this house imbibes! It’s too costly a luxury!”
“Water, then!”
“Baba! Water! Do you think my water is like the air you breathe? It’s not that vile water from the Seine that they serve in Parisian taverns, water tainted with enough offal, piss and all kinds of filth to give you diarrhoea that would kill you! My water is drawn from my well, pure of mud, gravel, sea salt or sulphur.”
“In short, it’s water. I assume we must pay for it, Maître Recroche?”
“But of course!” trumpeted Maître Recroche, rubbing his nose. “It will cost you one sol a day for the four of you and two sols for your horses.”
“At that price, I assume you allow us to bathe!”
“Who do you take me for?” gulped Maître Recroche indignantly. “The Duc d’Anjou? We have no bathing basin in this house, nor any wood to heat one. You must go to the public bathhouses like everyone else in Paris.”
Having said this, he led us into a large room, which he called his workshop, where, by the light of two candles, his assistant, Baragran, a maid of about my age and a boy of about fifteen were sitting in a circle sewing, the poor lad yawning to break his jawbones he was so sleepy.
“Wait for me here,” said Recroche, “I’ll fetch your water.”
“What’s this, friend?” I said to Baragran once the master had left. “You’re working by candlelight?”
The assistant, who had a square face, broad shoulders and hands that looked like they could strangle a bull, at first said not a word in response, appearing to be entirely consumed by his efforts to thread a needle with his thick fingers. Which he succeeded in managing, to my great surprise, without a hitch.
“Gotta live,” he mumbled at last.
“Listen to that!” mocked the girl, raising her nose. “This fat parrot stupidly repeats every word his master utters!”
“Go easy there, Alizon!” snarled Baragran.
This Alizon, who, since our entrance, had kept one eye on her work (she was sewing a bonnet) and one eye on us, was as lively, light and dark-skinned as a fly in hell and her speech seemed more concise and to the point than any I’d heard that day.
“Am I a fish that I shouldn’t say what I think?” she continued. “I have only my mouth to comfort me in my distress!”
“Quiet down, silly hen! Who keeps you alive, if not our master?”
“That shit-for-brains,” she hissed back. “It’s we who keep him alive! I don’t know whether I’m alive or dead I work so hard for him! It’s all right to put needle to cloth from dawn to dusk! But at night! When am I supposed to sleep? Even his mule gets to sleep! Am I less than a mule?”
She said this as if convulsed in anger and yet she never missed a stitch, and it was marvellous to watch the agile velocity of her fingers as she spoke, all the while throwing looks at us that would have awoken the dead.
“’Sblood!” cried Baragran. “If the Baronne des Tourelles insists on having her bonnets ready at dawn before she leaves for the country, isn’t it our job to satisfy her?”
“No! No! And No!” Alizon burst out, her black curls shaking furiously. “We should have refused to work at night! I told you, but you wouldn’t listen, you big idiot!”
“You stupid ninny!” snapped Baragran. “Am I one of those saboteurs who band together, stop their work, ruin the master’s business? D’you think I want to end up unemployed and without a crust of bread like I was before?”
“You’ve got no balls and fewer brains!” seethed Alizon, drawing herself up on her stool (to show off her figure, I guessed). “Our master is not so easily ruined, but you’ll be dead long before he is!”
“I’m not afraid of work,” said Baragran proudly, though his reddened eyes and hollow cheeks seemed eloquent evidence of his adversary’s point.
“Maybe not, but you’ve got nothing but bull’s fat between your ears! What’s life worth if it’s spent on fattening up our master?”
As she was saying this, Maître Recroche returned, carrying two pots of water that were so small that I would have called them, in his particular parlance, potlets or mini-pots. ’Sblood, they economized even on water in this house, even though it was free and not produced though the sweat of other people.
“The master isn’t so fat, you chatterbox!” he said in a way that made it clear he’d been listening at the door, though he said this more in jest than in anger.
“He’s fat in coins,” proclaimed Alizon, “and no one’s going to take him down a peg! He gives little to those who serve him!”
“What!” cried Recroche, pretending to be offended. “Bara
gran, don’t I give you six sols, ten deniers a day? Isn’t that fair wages in Paris?”
“Yes, master,” interjected Baragran.
“Aren’t you happy!”
“Yes, master,” conceded Baragran.
“Yes, master! Yes, master!” mimicked Alizon, her black eyes throwing flames. “Did you ever see such a ridiculous, flat-footed arse-kisser? What about me, Maître Recroche? I work every bit as much and as hard as this imbecilic lice-picker and I’m a trained bonnet-designer whereas he’s only a cap-maker, so did you ask me if I’m happy with my three sols, five deniers? Ask me so I can tell you directly!”
“What can I do?” whined Maître Recroche, as he scratched his nose. “It’s the custom to pay a wench half of what a man makes.”
“That works out well for you!” sniffed Alizon.
“My friend,” Recroche observed, “if I really wanted to accommodate myself, I’d lay off Baragran” (at which his assistant jerked up his head, eyes filled with fear) “and hire another wench.”
“Ah, no you wouldn’t! You’d be scared that the two wenches, having such stinking wages, would join together to protest against your miserliness and refuse to work!”
“Now, now, Alizon,” said Maître Recroche, frowning, “let’s have no talk of protests here, or I’ll throw you out in the street! It’s a crime forbidden by the doctors and lawyers!”
“And so is working all night by royal ordinance!”
“Baba! Royal ordinances!” sneered Recroche, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Hey, Coquillon, my friend!” he said, shaking the young apprentice. “Wake up and get that needle going! The baronne is expecting her bonnets at dawn!”
“Now here’s one who likes to laze about,” teased Baragran, “and have his work done by others!”
“That’s because he’s the son of a master,” Alizon added bitterly, “and is so spoilt that, after three years as an apprentice, what does he know? Nothing! Couldn’t make a man’s hat, or a square bonnet in fine linen, nor yet a velvet professor’s cap! And you can bet he’ll be promoted to master by the guild with or without any creative work.”
“Go to with your jealousy!” sneered Maître Recroche. “It’s Providence who decides whether we’ll be born rich or poor, and she must be respected. Good gentlemen,” he continued, turning towards us, “please to follow me and I’ll show you your micro-chambers.”
Oh, reader! The miser wasn’t lying, for whatever terms he used to describe his lodgings were all too generous given the two cramped bowels of chambers that awaited us, which each contained only the narrowest of beds, an uneven table, a tiny washbasin, a stool and nothing else. The floorboards were badly joined, and even more badly planed, squeaking loudly at the slightest step, and the walls and ceiling were so dirty and encrusted that you would have thought that a million flies had blackwashed them with their faeces. And for the “windowlet”, roughly the size of a handkerchief, it opened not onto the cemetery, which at least would have assured us some peace and quiet, but onto the rue de la Ferronnerie and, beyond that, the tombs of the Innocents. I could see its crosses shining lugubriously, lit by the light of the moon, which was full and beautiful, and which illuminated right in front of the windowlet a hawthorn that had grown over the cemetery wall, thanks to the plentiful fertilizer provided by the fat of those buried therein. As for the air, it was hardly as noxious as Maître Recroche had claimed, but it was nevertheless bitter, verging on putrid.
“Don’t go claiming I didn’t warn you!” gloated Maître Recroche. “These little chamberlings are not palaces, after all! It used to be that I could provide free lodgings to my companions. But the judges and magistrates forbid these practices, yet didn’t raise our prices for the other rooms, which caused us great penury! Messieurs,” he said with a trace of a bow in which we could feel the scorn of the thief for his victims, “I wish you goodnight. You will be well sheltered here from the inclemency of the weather and the perils of the hooligans of Paris.”
“Might you not,” I observed as he withdrew, “allow us a bit of light?”
“Alas, I cannot,” whined Recroche, “I do not offer candles to my lodgers.”
“I’ll pay you, then!”
“That will be two sols,” murmured Recroche, his eyes modestly lowered.
“Two sols for a candle!” cried Samson, whom I’d never seen so heated and angry. “Two sols! That’s robbery!”
“And so I’m a thief, am I?” snarled Recroche, spinning around as if he’d been stung by a wasp and sneering in derision. “In that case, I refuse to lodge you, Messieurs, and that’s final. Prices correspond to need. Don’t buy things if you think they’re too costly, but I’ll not tolerate these nasty and egregious accusations!”
“What a perfect scoundrel,” I mused. “He not only wants to rob us, he demands respect for doing so!” However, I grabbed Samson forcibly by the arm, pulled him to one side and said, “Pay no attention to my younger brother. I’m the one who does the bargaining. The price named is the price we’ll pay. Give me the candle, if you please. Here are your two sols. Maître Recroche, with all due respect, I bid you goodnight.”
This said, I made him a bow as perfunctory as the one he’d given us, which had the desired chilling effect: he turned on his heels and went down the stairs without a word—and without light either, for I slammed the door behind him, leaving him in total darkness. ’Sblood! This candle was ours and we’d paid dearly for it, including the flame!
“Samson,” I said, “you will share a room with maestro Giacomi and I with Miroul.”
Samson’s displeasure at this arrangement was quite evident, and seeing his reaction, Giacomi (who clearly understood the reason for my choice) hastened to announce in his exquisite Italian and with great delicacy, “I have already shared a bed with Miroul and will be happy to do so now.”
“Not a bit of it! It shall be as I’ve decided.”
And giving a warm embrace to my gentle Samson, I pushed him towards the other micro-chamber; seeing which, he asked with his inimitable lisp, “My brother, have I cauthed you thome dithpleathure?”
“Not at all!”
“Then why don’t you share my bed?”
“Because Miroul is thinner than you.”
This explanation seemed entirely to satisfy him, naive as he was. But seeing that Giacomi had not followed us and that we were alone, he whispered awkwardly, “Did you ask Dame Béqueret…”
“Of course!” I replied, secretly happy, and raising the candle the better to see his face.
“And what did she say?”
“That she knew her.”
“Ah!” he sighed with a most delicious smile, which almost immediately gave way to a look of deepest chagrin. “These are sinful thoughts, are they not?”
“Then think them without thinking about them!” I laughed, and partly in jest and partly with deep emotion, I embraced him again. “Giacomi,” I called, “your bedfellow is waiting for you!”
Giacomi gave me a big, friendly smile, but said not a word, so tired was he. Leaving him the candle, I went to lean on the windowsill of my micro-chamber and contemplate the Cimetière des Innocents bathed in moonlight. “Well,” I thought, nearly dead from fatigue, and thoroughly disgusted by our lodgings, “is this where I’ll end up at the conclusion of my earthly voyage, in one of these little tombs?”
My present shelter is hardly the smallest or darkest of all those I shall doubtless have to occupy.
“Monsieur,” said Miroul, as though he could feel my melancholy, “don’t let it eat away at you! You’ll get to see Madame Angelina as soon as you’ve found out her address.”
How he knew, before I even suspected it, that she was the reason for my deepest worries, I’ll never know. But banishing this thought as soon as I understood it, I said goodnight to Samson, who, having undressed, was bringing me the candle. I undressed as well and was going to throw myself on my bed when there was a knock at the door. Thinking it was Maître Recroche again, I went to open it, n
aked as I was, with a candle in my hand.
“Oh! Good Monsieur! And handsome at that!” said Alizon, not a bit embarrassed to see me naked as Adam. “If you’ve done with the candle, might I beg it of you? If I have to work for three sols with but one I’ll ruin my eyes.”
“What? Your master didn’t give you the other one?”
“No, he took the other to bed with him.”
“Oh, you poor girl, he sold us your candle!”
“Nasty vulture!” hissed Alizon. “He’d shave an egg!”
At which I laughed, never having heard anything like it in Périgord.
“Begging your pardon, Monsieur. I wish you goodnight.”
“What?” I gasped. “You don’t want the candle?”
“No, Monsieur! Not if it’s yours!”
“Alizon, it’s yours. I don’t need it to sleep by.”
“But Monsieur, I’ll burn it down to nothing and you’ll have nothing to light you at dawn.”
“Go ahead, take it! No need for ceremony.”
“Oh, Monsieur, I thank you,” gushed Alizon making a deep bow. “I’ll remember this sweet gift. And if I dared at this time of night, I’d give you a kiss.”
“Oh, go ahead, my friend!” I laughed, offering her my cheek, on which she deposited a chaste little kiss and then fled, candle in hand, down the stairs as nimbly as you please.
“Monsieur,” smiled Miroul as soon as I’d closed the door, “you’ve made a new friend!”
“And you,” I answered with some spite, “another in Montfort-l’Amaury.”
“Ha! Monsieur, are you still upset about that?”
“Not at all,” I lied, “now come to bed you rascal, enough tarrying! I’m exhausted.”
“Monsieur, I shan’t. As thin as I am, I’d take up too much room. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“I wouldn’t hear of it! It’s all rough planking! Get in the bed! I order you!”