Chapter 7 CHAPTER 6 TYPICAL MALE AND FEMALE CONCERTATORS

Rue Normandie is a street that seems to be in the provinces once you enter it: it is overgrown, a passerby is a sensation, and the neighbors know each other.The houses were all built in the time of Henry IV, when the residential quarters were built, each street was named after the province, and there was always a beautiful square in the center of the residential area, dedicated to France.The plan to build European settlements is a replica of this plan.Everything in the world is always being copied, including human thoughts.The house where the two musicians live is an old house with a yard in the front and a garden in the back; but the front house facing the street was built when the Marais was the most fashionable in the last century.Two Friends occupies its entire three floors.The front and back houses belonged to Mr. Pelelot, an eighty-year-old man who had left the house in the care of Mr. and Mrs. Sibault, who had been his gatekeepers for twenty-six years.However, in the Marais district, people don’t pay much money to the porter, and it’s hard for the porter to make a living by watching the gate. Therefore, in addition to getting a 5% rent rebate and taking some firewood from each carload of firewood, Mr. Qianbo, He also earned some money by his craft: he was a tailor, like many porters.After a long time, Qian Bo no longer worked for the clothes store owner, because the small townspeople in the residential area gradually believed in him, so he had a job that no one could take away, specially serving the residents of the three nearby streets. Sew and mend, turn over old clothes.The concierge was spacious and tidy, and he had a separate room in it.The Sibaults were therefore considered the happiest couple in the line of porters in the Marais.

Sibo was a short man, olive-skinned from sitting cross-legged on a workbench as high as a barred window-sill facing the street, and earned about forty sous a day; but fifty-eight was a porter. The golden age of the trade; they were used to the concierge, kept there like oysters in their shells, so that everyone in the neighborhood knew them. Mrs. Qian Bo was originally an oyster beauty. After experiencing all kinds of romantic affairs that an oyster beauty would deliver to her door without asking, she fell in love with Qian Bo at the age of twenty-eight and quit her job at the Blue Bell Restaurant. that job.The beauty of women in ordinary households does not last long, especially those women who sit and work on the front wall of the restaurant.The heat from the kitchen hit their faces, and the lines on their faces were baked hard; the leftover wine they drank with the waiters seeped into their skin, and no flower could lose so quickly like the oyster beauty.Fortunately, legal marriage and concierge life came just in time to save Mrs. Siable's looks.She maintained a masculine beauty, like a model for Rubens, and her friends in the Rue Normandie called her "Fat Lady" in a nasty way.Her complexion was comparable to a chunk of Isini butter, translucent and alluring.Although she is fat, but when it comes to work, no one is as quick as her.Now, she has reached the age when that kind of woman has to shave her beard.Doesn't this mean that she is forty-eight?A bearded concierge, one of the strongest guarantees of order and security to a homeowner.If Delacroix had been able to see Madame Cibot with the triumph of holding the broom, he would have made her a Bellona!

①It refers to the beautiful female worker who specializes in cutting oysters in small restaurants. ② The goddess of war worshiped by the ancient Roman religion. How strange that the position of the Siborgs—in the language of the indictment—should one day affect that of the two friends!Therefore, in order to be faithful, it is necessary for a writer of history to go a little further into the details of the concierge.The rent of the whole house is about 8,000 francs a year. There are three complete suites in the front house. The depth of the house is twice that of the old house, and the old house facing the street, between the yard and the garden also has three rooms.In addition, a man named Remonenke occupied a front room and was doing scrap iron business.In the past few months, this Remonenke has changed his career to become an antique trader. He is well aware of the value of those old antiques in Bunce's collection. When he sees musicians coming in and out, he always greets him in the shop.Calculated on the basis of a 5% rebate of the rent, the Qianbo couple would get about four hundred francs a year, and they would spend nothing on housing and firewood.In addition, Qianbo earned an average of seven or eight hundred francs a year from working, plus the annual reward, the couple had a total income of sixteen hundred francs, but they ate up all of them. The life of the couple is indeed better than that of common people. "It's just once in a lifetime!" Mrs. Siable often said.She was born during the Great Revolution, which shows that she has no idea of ​​Christianity at all.

This janitor with yellow eyes and haughty eyes had worked in the Blue Bell Restaurant in the past, so she was really good at cooking, and those colleagues were very jealous of her husband.Now, Qianbo and his wife have passed middle age and are about to enter the threshold of old age, but they have no savings of hundreds of francs in their hands.They both dressed well, ate well, and had lived with absolute integrity for twenty-six years, and were well respected in the neighborhood.They don't have any family property, and as they say, they have never plotted anything. Mrs. Qianbo's words are full of "yeah".She said the same thing to her husband: "You are a baby!" Why?This is the same as she doesn't take religion seriously, and she can't say why.

The couple were very proud of this kind of aboveboard life, the respect of people in the six or seven nearby streets, and the management power of the house entrusted to them by the owner, but they also lamented in private that they had no money in their hands.Mr. Siable often complained of sore hands and feet, and Mrs. Siable always complained that poor Siable still had to work at this age.There will come a day when a porter, after thirty years of watching the gates in his life, will stand up and denounce the injustice of the government and demand that he be awarded the Legion of Honor!As long as someone in the residential area tells them that a certain maid has only worked for eight or ten years, and her name is written in the master's will, and a life annuity of three or four hundred francs is given to her, it will immediately be in a A porter's rumors and discussions abounded, and from this one could understand how jealousy plagued the menial errands of Paris.

"This kind of thing! The boss's will, this matter will never fall on people like us! We have no such luck! But we are more useful than those servants. We are all trustworthy, and manage their money for them. Guarding the house, but we are treated like dogs, out and out, this is the end!" "It depends on luck." Qian Bo always said that every time he came back from the outside with a piece of clothing. "If I had let Qianbo be his concierge and I would have been a cook, we would have saved thirty thousand francs." When Mrs. Qianbo was chatting with her female neighbor, she always put her hands on her thick waist. With the last cut, he yelled loudly, "I've gone wrong all my life, just to have a safe place to stay warm and guard a comfortable concierge, so that I don't lack for clothes or food."

When, in 1836, the two friends moved to live on the third floor of the old house, a certain confusion arose in the Siborgs' house.Here's the thing.Schmuck, like his friend Bunce, had the habit of having the doorman, male or female, in the building wherever he lived, to do his housework for him.When the two musicians moved to the Rue Normandie, they agreed that they should be on good terms with Madame Siebel.Madame Cibot thus became their maid, at twenty-five francs a month, twelve francs and fifty centimes each.After a year's work, the eminent concierge became the household of two old bachelors, just as she had the power over the house of Pellelot, the Countess Bobino's great-uncle.Their business is her business, and she opens her mouth as "my two gentlemen".In the end, she found that the pair of hazelnut tongs were as soft as sheep, easy to get along with, and never suspicious of others, just like children. Out of the kindness of a commoner woman, she began to protect them, love them, and serve them with absolute sincerity. Sometimes they even scolded them a few words, telling them not to be deceived by others. In Paris, some families increased their expenses because of being deceived.that's it.Two bachelors spent twenty-five francs a month, and unexpectedly got a mother, which was really unexpected.

The two musicians saw all the advantages of Mrs. Sibo, and innocently praised her, thanked her, and gave her a few coins, which strengthened the united family.Mrs. Siebel preferred to be appreciated more than how much money was given.As we all know, fraternity often doubles the value of wages, and when Sibo served his wife's two gentlemen, whether it was running errands or mending clothes, she only charged half price. In the second year, another factor was added to the mutual friendship between the third floor and the concierge.Schmuck made a deal with Mrs. Sieber, satisfying his sensuality and his wish to leave him alone in life.Mrs. Siebe got thirty sous a day, forty-five francs a month, including Schmuck's lunch and dinner.Pons found his friend's lunch very satisfactory, and offered eighteen francs to cover his lunch.

This provision of food put nearly ninety francs a month into the porter's purse, so that the two lodgers became inviolable figures, angels, archangels, gods.It is doubtful that the king of the French could be served like a pair of hazelnut crackers, although the king knows how to serve.The two of them drink pure milk poured from the milk carton, and they read the newspapers on the second and fourth floors, free of charge, the tenants on these two floors get up late, and you can explain to them when you need it The newspaper did not arrive.Besides, Mrs. Siable kept the rooms and clothes and terraces as clean as a Flemish home.Schmuck never imagined that he could enjoy such a blessing: Mrs. Sibo made his life very convenient; he gave six francs a month, and she did the laundry and took care of the sewing.It costs him fifteen francs a month to smoke.These three expenses add up to sixty-six francs a month, multiplied by twelve, to seven hundred and ninety-two francs.Add the rent and taxes of 220 francs, and the total is 1,200 francs.Sibo was responsible for Schmuck's clothes, which cost an average of one hundred and fifty francs a year.

Twelve hundred francs a year were the living expenses of this profound philosopher.In Europe, how many people's only dream is to live in Paris. If they know that they can live happily on the Rue Normandie in the Marais district, under the care of Mrs. Sibo, with an income of 1,200 francs a year, then they There will be a surprise! Mrs. Siebel was astonished to see old man Bunce coming home at five o'clock in the evening.Not only did this never happen, but her husband didn't see her at all, and he didn't even say hello. "Oh! Sib," she said to her husband, "Mr. Bunce must be a millionaire, or mad!"

"It looks like it to me." Sibo replied, he let go of the sleeve he was working on, and in tailor's terms, he was crocheting that sleeve.