Granville's estate

The carriage driven by Papa Peter drove through the dilapidated square and the street with damaged street lights, and when it arrived at the rented place of Sologne Grostedt in Moore Street of the Holy Temple, Louis looked at the carriage from the window and stopped. place, very hesitantly sent out his own doubts to Alred.

"... Al, is that what you said, 'a three-story building similar to 79 St. George Street'?"

This is a courtyard composed of many old houses. In other words, District No.12 is full of such courtyards. Because of the extremely dense buildings, the houses here are all crowded together. The only thing that can separate them is Winding streets and occasional squares, otherwise all the houses might be joined together to save space.The buildings here are so dense that the moss and vines on the roof slabs grow together. Each building has its own neighbors. Residents on each floor of the building can see another family in the opposite building through the open windows. , and even leaned out to shake hands with each other.

The signboard of the place where their carriage stopped said "150 Two Moore Street". The outer wall was full of traces left by the years, yellow and dirty, and some places had fallen off. Louis couldn't see it. With anything comparable to St. George's Street, among other things, the privacy that can be enjoyed at 79 St. George's Street is probably a very luxurious thing here.

"Ahem, the place Sologne rented is a bit inside, and it's better there than outside."

After they got out of the carriage, they first passed through a semi-dark aisle. This aisle was more than one meter wide at the end facing the street, and it seemed to be less than one meter wide at the end; at the end of the aisle was a small Because it is surrounded by buildings in all directions, it probably does not get the sun all the year round. Going to the right side from here is the whole building with a small attic they are looking for that Sologne rented. building.

The door on the first floor was half-closed. When they opened the door and walked in, they saw countless bags stacked together, so many that there was only a narrow passage in the middle that could allow at most two people to pass through; The mixture of thick sand and sawdust was probably used to keep out the moisture, but even that couldn't eliminate the darkened damp feeling that is characteristic of the ground floor with only one window.

On the part of the ground closest to the door, there is no sand, sawdust, or goods piled up. Instead, a thick rope as thick as an arm was pulled obliquely at a height of about half a meter from the ground, and one end of the rope was tied to the door frame. , and the other end is tied to an iron lamp holder nailed into the wall.Sitting on the ground was a man with sweat stains on his worn clothes and a porter-like appearance. When they walked in, he was resting with his hands down and resting his head on the rope, looking exhausted from exhaustion.

"The boss is on the third floor."

Hearing someone come in, the porter who was resting on the rope said this feebly, and he didn't even look up at Louis and the others.

"I see." Alred said, leading Louis to go inside: "Louis, the stairs here are very steep, you have to be careful when you go up!"

"Uh... ok."

Even with Alred's reminder, Louis almost missed a step when going up the stairs, half of the reason was that the step was higher than the others, and half of the reason was that Louis happened to look back at the porter at that time— —Looking over the goods from the stairs, the porter was motionless leaning against the rope in that posture. If he hadn't spoken to him when he first came in, Louis would have wondered if he was dead.

The second floor is also full of goods, but most of them are packed in wooden boxes. Different marks are drawn on the boxes, which clearly show that their value is much higher than that of their potato-like counterparts on the first floor; On the other hand, there are only a few wooden boxes here and there, so this is a barely passable place to live. The window is half open, and in the living room there is an old sofa that doubles as a couch, two chairs, one with a broken leg and another A small square table joined together and a battered chest of drawers, all that remained was a bedroom with a locked door and a narrow ladder leading to the attic above.

When Alred and Louis came up, Sologne was eating bread. Unexpectedly, on the third floor besides him, there was a woman drinking wine, dressed in a strange shape that Louis had never seen before: lost Her lustrous blond hair was brushed into a high chicken heart, but disheveled from not having enough pomade; He got up, revealing his thighs wearing suspenders, and even the holes in the suspenders could be seen.The posture of the woman when she was sitting was also very irregular, showing a kind of rough and coquettish, just one glance, anyone can know that this is definitely a woman of that kind of profession.

"Oh, a guest is here!"

The woman sitting across from Sologne drinking cheap black tea and cane wine giggled when she saw Alred and Louis coming up the stairs.

When the woman laughed, the clothes on her chest looked like they were about to fall off. Louis only glanced at her and quickly looked away, looking at Sologne Grostedt: This is a very tall man with a strong body. The body, short brown hair, gray eyes, wearing a handy old shirt, the sleeves rolled up, a bookkeeping quill behind the ear.The strange thing is that this person is not very old, his appearance is not handsome, and his temperament is not decent, but he just gives people a feeling of "he can handle everything". If you only look at his temperament, it is unimaginable He was actually about the same age as Allred.

"Mary, long time no see!" Alred greeted the woman quite casually, and when Louis was surprised that the woman was also called Mary, he said to Sologne: "Sologne, this is my favor." My friend Louis du Farentin, he came to Paris from Magon a few days ago, and I took him with him."

Sologne Grostedt looked at Louis, then reached out to shake hands with Louis, and greeted very briefly: "Hello, Mr. Du Farentin, I am Sologne Grostedt, Your friend's college classmate."

"Good day, Mr. Grostedt."

Sologne Grostedt was a head taller than Alred. When he shook hands with Louis, because of the height gap, Louis felt a subtle sense of being oppressed. It felt like an ordinary person facing each other. It is like a giant in a giant country.

"Louis...is that the Louis in gold louis worth twenty francs each?" Probably unwilling to be ignored, the woman with the same name as Mary at No. 79 Rue St. Georges interjected in a seductive tone, perhaps Because of drinking, her face was flushed abnormally, and she looked at Louis and giggled: "This child is so beautiful, so attractive...give me a gold louis, fifty francs is the best, Twenty francs is fine, I can sleep with this Louis, and I will ensure that his other Louis will also be served comfortably."

"...!"

Louis stared at this Mary dumbfounded, and couldn't believe what kind of explicit words he had just heard. He looked at Sologne standing in front of him, then at Alred, and then walked towards Alred silently. He took a step over there and put a little distance between himself and this woman.

"Mary, you're drunk again." Faced with such obscene words from Mary on Moore Street, Alred was quite calm: "You should drink less wine and save some money to buy bread."

"Who said I was drunk, how could this kind of bad wine mixed with water make me drunk!" Mary said, raising her head and hiccupping: "Why, am I not worthy to sleep with your Louis d'Or? In the past two years, I was also... the top card of the Opera House! It costs 100 million francs every year! If it was still at that time, I would not even talk to you if you gave me a thousand gold coins!"

Alred muttered in a low voice: "That's more than two years, it was almost ten years ago."

The words were spoken very quietly, but Sologne still glanced at Louis, then shook his head at Alred, so Alred stopped talking.

"Why did you come here suddenly?" Sologne asked, "I remember that your coachman doesn't like to come here. Is there any good news worth making a special trip for you?"

"Ah, of course that's good news." Alred said, waving to Joseph, and Joseph, who had been standing quietly by the stairs, immediately stepped forward and extended the invitation to the Bourgogne mansion in an envelope. Send the letter to Sologne.

"Is this from the Viscountess?" Sologne glanced at the seal of the House of Bourgogne on the sealing wax clay of the envelope, opened the seal, took out the exquisite invitation letter and opened it for a glance.

Then he thought for a while.

"This invitation letter should be worth a lot of money. I think it can sell for at least two hundred francs." He said.

"...Wait, is this an invitation letter from Madam?"