"I will give him a
warning."
She rose, took the arm of Vandenesse, who was waiting in the passage,
and returned jubilant to her box; by and by she left the Opera and
ordered her carriage for the next morning before eight o'clock.
The next morning, by half-past eight, Marie had driven to the quai
Conti, stopping at the hotel du Mail on her way. The carriage could
not enter the narrow rue de Nevers; but as Schmucke lived in a house
at the corner of the quai she was not obliged to walk up its muddy
pavement, but could jump from the step of her carriage to the broken
step of the dismal old house, mended like porter's crockery, with iron
rivets, and bulging out over the street in a way that was quite
alarming to pedestrians. The old chapel-master lived on the fourth
floor, and enjoyed a fine view of the Seine from the pont Neuf to the
heights of Chaillot.
The good soul was so surprised when the countess's footman announced
the visit of his former scholar that in his stupefaction he let her
enter without going down to receive her. Never did the countess
suspect or imagine such an existence as that which suddenly revealed
itself to her eyes, though she had long known Schmucke's contempt for
dress, and the little interest he held in the affairs of this world.
But who could have believed in such complete indifference, in the
utter laisser-aller of such a life? Schmucke was a musical Diogenes,
and he felt no shame whatever in his untidiness; in fact, he was so
accustomed to it that he would probably have denied its existence.
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