After some five minutes, heavy footsteps were heard in the corridor, and a tall woman, thin as a lath, whose flat hips indicated a most profound contempt for every sort of hoop-skirt, entered the room occupied by Cherami. This woman had a huge nose, huge mouth, huge teeth, huge ears, and feet and hands to correspond. A child who had heard the tale of Little Red Riding Hood would inevitably have been afraid of her, mistaking her for the wolf disguised as the grandmother.
To complete the portrait, we may add that Madame Louchard had a yellow complexion, bleared eyes, and a nose always smeared with snuff; that her costume consisted of a long dressing-gown, shaped like an umbrella case (a reminder of the style in vogue under the Directory); and, finally, that her head-dress was a white cap, around which was tied a colored cotton handkerchief.
"Well! what's the matter? What are you shouting and hammering for? Couldn't you get up, Monsieur Lazy-bones? I should think it had been light long enough."
Such was this lady's way of bidding her tenant good-morning.
"You are right as to that point, Queen of Cythera," replied Cherami, half rising.
"God forgive me! I believe he intends to get up before me! Was that why you called me--to let me see that sight? That strikes me as a strange kind of joke!"
"Nay, nay, virtuous Louchard; I will not rise in your presence. I know the rigidity of your morals, and I respect them! I know that with you Richelieu and Buckingham would have wasted their time."
"I don't know those gentlemen, but it would be just the same with them as with others! I have told you a hundred times that, since my husband's death, the late Louchard, men are nothing to me!"
"It would seem that the late Louchard was a phoenix, a jewel, the very pearl of husbands?"
"On the contrary, he had a lot of hidden drawbacks, and he was always drunk. That's what made me take a dislike to your sex, in the matter of love."
"Very good! I agree with you, on my honor. I think you did well to adopt that course."
"Because it makes you resemble Dido. But let us change the subject; tell me quickly what time it is."
"_Dame!_ it's a good half-hour--yes, at least half an hour--since I heard the clock strike twelve."