OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

THE LODGER IO9
Still in a drunken stupor, he was evidently quite unconscious of
her presence.
" Well? " Antoinette asked when her mother came back to the
kitchen.
" Oh, he's asleep. Somehow I couldn't bring myself... But
really he ought to be told. Monsieur Moise, won't you do it—just
to please me? "
Moise kept silent. Valesco prudently slipped out of the kitchen,
for he had no wish to be saddled with this unpleasant task, and
returned to his post behind the curtain.
The street was still almost empty. Sometimes a tram went by,
bathed in sunlight, but with its windows frosted over. The distant
stridence of a tin trumpet could be heard down on the left; the
vegetable-man was going his round. The police officer had lit a
pipe, and smoke was mingling with the white cloud of his breath.
The air was calm and clear, and the least sound evoked an echo,
as on the fringes of a mountain lake. A rumbling high in the air
announced the passage of a train of skips on the aerial trackway.
A little locomotive, too, could be heard puffing and blowing on
a colliery siding, and emitting a high-pitched whistle every time it
made a move.
The plain-clothes man, it seemed, was waiting for someone or
something, for he now kept throwing glances in the direction of the
town. Madame Baron set to peeling potatoes, while Antoinette,
forgetting for once to tidy up the bedrooms, stood with her back
to the range, hugging her knitted shawl round her breast. Suddenly
she asked:
" Are you quite sure there's someone in the field behind? "
" Well, Monsieur Valesco saw the other policeman going that
way."
" Because, if there wasn't, he could climb over the wall. And
once he'd crossed the railway line ..."
The policeman had been at his post for over an hour, and Elie
was still asleep. The sickly-sweet odour of hot rum pervaded the
kitchen. Even Antoinette had had a tot.
" Take a glass upstairs to Monsieur Valesco," her mother said.
" There's no fire in his room, and it's perishing by that window."
Then she plucked at Moise's sleeve. " For goodness' sake say something
1 What do you think I ought to do? I'm all a bundle of nerves,
really, but I have to hold myself in because of Antoinette." Her lips
were quivering; she seemed on the brink of tears.