tenements where, at the end of four years, you unexpectedly learn that
up on the fourth floor there is an old man lodging who knew Voltaire,
Pilatre de Rozier, Beaujon, Marcel, Mole, Sophie Arnould, Franklin,
and Robespierre. What Monsieur and Madame Marneffe had just said
concerning Lisbeth Fischer they had come to know, in consequence,
partly, of the loneliness of the neighborhood, and of the alliance, to
which their necessities had led, between them and the doorkeepers,
whose goodwill was too important to them not to have been carefully
encouraged.

Now, the old maid's pride, silence, and reserve had engendered in the
porter and his wife the exaggerated respect and cold civility which
betray the unconfessed annoyance of an inferior. Also, the porter
thought himself in all essentials the equal of any lodger whose rent
was no more than two hundred and fifty francs. Cousin Betty's
confidences to Hortense were true; and it is evident that the porter's
wife might be very likely to slander Mademoiselle Fischer in her
intimate gossip with the Marneffes, while only intending to tell
tales.

When Lisbeth had taken her candle from the hands of worthy Madame
Olivier the portress, she looked up to see whether the windows of the
garret over her own rooms were lighted up. At that hour, even in July,
it was so dark within the courtyard that the old maid could not get to
bed without a light.

"Oh, you may be quite easy, Monsieur Steinbock is in his room. He has
not been out even," said Madame Olivier, with meaning.

Lisbeth made no reply. She was still a peasant, in so far that she was