Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/37

mean revenge. As to the door-keeper, I brought back from a country excursion a dozen hideous toads and let them loose in the court-yard at one in the morning. Then we lowered a sponge, saturated with alcohol and set on fire, at the end of a wire from our window on the fifth floor, and gave the door-keeper a sight of such a will-o’-the-wisp as is scarcely seen save at the opera in Robert the Devil. We heard a cry of terror as the lodge was lit up. In the morning Murger went down and asked Madam Cerberus whether she had any letters for him? Without replying she told him how the house was haunted by ghosts who made punch at night and were not ashamed to get drunk with toads, adding that it was unbearable, and that he and his friends were lucky in having notice to leave. During the five weeks we remained there the lodge remained lit up all night.

“But Espérance Blanchon had arrived at the last hour of pleasure that was to strike for him in this world. His portrait being finished was varnished, framed, packed and forwarded to his mother. He then left us, and hearing nothing more of him, after some time we made enquiries and learnt that he had written to a member of his family that he was to be looked for at the bottom of the pond at Plessis Piquet. Murger and I at once went to Plessis Piquet and saw Father Cens, the innkeeper. He had seen the poor fellow come along in a deluge of rain holding up an umbrella as though to protect Murger’s frock-coat, which he still wore. Father Cens thought, and rightly, that he recognized one of his customers, and great was his surprise when he saw him, instead of turning to the left, resolutely walk into the pond with his umbrella still up. It was impossible to do anything in that deserted locality to hinder the suicide. Some days later a man-servant of his mother’s came and had the body placed in a coffin to