OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

THE LODGER 37
some small pork pies; he got more money from his people than the
others, and whenever he ran short, always managed to raise a loan.
" Do you know Rumania? " he asked Elie.
" Yes, I once spent a year at Bucharest.'
" Fine city, isn't it? And Constanta! What a glorious climate!
It's a bit of a change living in a hole like this, where one wallows
in mud from one year's end to the other."
" Then why do you stay here? " Madame Baron retorted.
" No offence meant. ... But ask Monsieur Nagear. Just ask him
if there's any other country that can touch Rumania. And living's
dirt cheap there; why, a-fowl costs only a few centimes! "
The blood had come to Elie's head, and the clatter of knives and
forks, the buzz of voices, confused him. It was impossible for him
to move an inch without touching Moise on his left or Valesco on
his right. His mind seemed to have gone blank, and he gazed with
unseeing eyes at the people round the table, the biscuit-tins, the
cups of coffee, as he went on eating, almost unconsciously, his meat
and vegetables. Suddenly he heard Madame Baron's voice directed
towards him.
" What do you drink with your meals? " she asked.
" In my country we always have raku I don't expect you know it.
. . . I'll have water, please."
He had no appetite. His nose felt hot and swollen and there was
a throbbing in his temples as if he were immersed in an over-hot
bath. Baron, who had finished his meal, pushed back his chair and
opened an evening paper.
Each of these people lived for himself or herself; the Barons no
less than those birds of passage, their lodgers. While old Baron
puffed at a big meerschaum pipe, and read his paper, Antoinette
began washing up on a corner of the range.
Elie wasn't thinking of Van der Boomp, or even of Sylvie-~though
it was in this house she had spent her childhood. All sorts
of vague ideas were drifting through his mind. That he was older
than the other lodgers; that, as he was paying for full board, he'd
be treated with special consideration. This last thought gave him
pleasure.
" Do you like cheese to finish off with? "
" Yes, but I don't feel hungry tonight."
He had given his landlady a thousand francs, one of the notes
from the wad, though the monthly rate was only eight hundred
francs.