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Updated: September 3, 2025
I should not be far off. Open the window, clap your hands, and I should come." Valef and Brigaud went away together, and D'Harmental went back to Bathilde, whom he found very uneasy. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and Buvat had not returned it was the first time such a thing had ever happened.
The good woman scolded well on their return, but Buvat closed her mouth by shrugging his shoulders and saying, "Bah! one can't put old heads on young shoulders." And, as Nanette had a great respect for proverbs, which she occasionally used herself, she generally gave way to the moral of this one.
After having opened the doors of all the cupboards, sounded all the paneling, Buvat had gone down on his hands and feet, and was stretching his head timidly under the bed, when he thought he heard steps behind him. The position in which he found himself did not permit him to act on the defensive; he therefore remained motionless, and waited with a beating heart.
There was in the house No. 6, in the Rue des Orties, of which Buvat occupied the attic, a young couple who were the admiration of the whole quarter for the harmony in which they lived. They appeared made for each other. The husband was a man of from thirty-four to thirty-five years of age, of a southern origin, with black eyes, beard and hair, sunburned complexion, and teeth like pearls.
"And what do you think of that?" "Oh! I think," said Buvat, "that they will pay the two months together." "Oh, yes! two months together! Do you hear, Ducoudray? He thinks they will pay the two months together. He is a simple fellow, this Buvat." "We shall see next month," replied the second clerk. "Yes," replied Buvat, to whom this remark appeared very just, "we shall see next month."
"The Prince de Listhnay, Rue du Bac, 110." "A prince, monsieur, a prince!" "Yes; a Spaniard, who is in correspondence with the 'Madrid Mercury, and sends all the news from Paris." "Oh! that is a great honor." "It will give you some trouble, however, for all the dispatches are in Spanish." "Diable!" said Buvat. "Do you know Spanish?" asked D'Harmental. "No, monsieur; I do not think so, at least."
"And if they do not pay you next month, nor the following months, what shall you do, Buvat?" "What shall I do!" said Buvat, astonished that there could be a doubt as to his resolution, "I should come just the same." "What! if you were not paid you would come still?"
She remained, then, with a beating heart, her neck stretched out, and her eyes wandering hither and thither, when all at once her unquiet glances concentrated on a point. The young girl gave a cry of joy, for she saw Buvat coming round the corner from the Rue Montmartre.
Poor Buvat went out, without imagining that for the first time she desired his absence. Buvat was a lounger, as every bourgeois of Paris ought to be. From one end to the other of the Palais Royal, he stared at the shops, stopping for the thousandth time before the things which generally drew his attention.
Left alone, Bathilde listened to the steps of Buvat, who went up into his own room; then she heard the creaking of his door, which he double locked; then, almost as trembling as Buvat himself, she ran to the window, forgetting even to pray. She remained thus for nearly an hour, but without having kept any measure of time.
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