"Concierge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the lodgers had to bear the consequences. Not one of them would have been trusted with a dollar's worth of goods in any of the neighboring shops. No one, however, stood, rightly or wrongly, in as bad repute as the doorkeeper, or concierge, who lived in a little hole near the great double entrance-door, and watched over the safety of the whole house. Master Chevassat and his wife were severely "cut" by their colleagues of adjoining houses; and the most atrocious ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... adds his scene in the farce: "La Plessis said to Rahuel (he was the concierge) yesterday that she had been gratified at dinner to find that Madame had turned the child out of her seat and put herself in the place of honour. And Rahuel, in his Breton way: 'Nay, Miss, there's no ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... one's self just beyond the heart of Paris is almost incredible. Down such a street, in a great garden, lay the institution to which our two Frenchmen were assigned. We had a hard time finding it in the night and rain, but at length, discovering the concierge's bell, we sent a vigorous peal clanging through the darkness. Oiler lifted the canvas flap of the ambulance to see ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... pretty, a square white building, with very few trees near it, the lawn and one or two flower-beds not particularly well kept. The grounds ran straight down to the Villers-Cotterets forest, where M. M. has good shooting. The gates were open, the concierge said the ladies were there. (They didn't have to be summoned by a bell. That is one of the habits of this part of the country. There is almost always a large bell at the stable or "communs," and when visitors arrive and the family are out in the grounds, not too far off, ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... years later the falsification of some depositions was punished with the same severity, and in 1545 a corrupt chancellor was fined 100,000 livres, degraded, and imprisoned for five years. The chief executive officer of the Parlement, known as the Concierge, appointed the bailiffs of the court and had extensive local jurisdiction over dishonest merchants and craftsmen, whose goods he could burn. His official residence, known as the Conciergerie, subsequently ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... representations of mythological scenes. They were four magnificent museum pieces, a feeble reminder of the ancient splendors of the house. Neither did these belong to him. They had shared the fate of the tapestries, and were here awaiting a purchaser. Febrer was merely the concierge of his own house. The Italian and Spanish paintings hanging on the walls of two adjoining rooms, the handsomely carved antique furniture, its silk upholstery now threadbare and torn, also belonged to his creditors—in fact, whatever there had ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... have taken my letters, they belong to me! I wish to have them! It disgusts me to think that they are left lying about your rooms. Do you think it funny that your orderly should read them to his country-woman? That your concierge should know all about them? I declare men like you have not a scrap of tact, of ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... wandered aimlessly up and down, and about midnight I started off for home; I was very calm and very tired. My concierge[9] opened the door at once, which was quite unusual for him, and I thought that another lodger had no doubt just ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Civique came in with the announcement that the chancellor and clerks of the German Legation, who were locked up there, were in dire distress; that a baby had been born the day before to the wife of the concierge, and that all sorts of troubles had come upon them. Leval, who had announced that his heart was infinitely hardened against all Germans, was almost overcome by the news of a suffering baby and ran like a lamp-lighter to get around there and help out. When we arrived, however, ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... and she stood intently listening for Veronique's step, wishing that her companions would hold their peace; but the adventure amused them, and they discussed whether it were a blunder of the CONCIERGE, or a piece of prudery of Madame la Comtesse, or, after all, a precaution. The palace so full of strange people, who could say what might happen? And there was a talk of a conspiracy of the Huguenots. At any rate, every one was too much frightened to go to sleep, and, some sitting on ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... very short time in the service of Madame Bonaparte when I made the acquaintance of Charvet, the concierge of Malmaison, and in connection with this estimable man became each day more and more intimate, till at last he gave me one of his daughters in marriage. I was eager to learn from him all that he could tell me concerning Madame Bonaparte and the First Consul prior to my ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... to the conclusion that he was a Russian, though he had an early opportunity to find out. As he stood one day by the concierge's desk the stranger entered, paused, spoke a few words inaudible to Walker, and passed on. It was a simple matter to ask his name of the one man who knew every name in the hotel, and he was on the point of doing so. He had already begun: "Voulez vous bien me dire—?" when ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... after knowledge. "It was not extravagant when you consider that anything in Venice in the way of a habitable house is called a palace, and that there are no servants to be tipped; that your lights, candles all, cost you first price only, and not the profit of the landlord, plus that of the concierge, plus that of the maid, plus several other small but aggravatingly augmentative sums which make your hotel bills seem like highway robbery. No, living in a palace, on the whole, is cheaper than living in ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... asked for Mrs. O'Brien, but turned her into Jones at the danger point. The face of the concierge, as he said that she was at home, conveyed nothing, yet I could not resist adding, "Are ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Madame Boche, in her loud voice. Then, when the young woman had joined her at the very end on the left, the concierge, who was furiously rubbing a dirty sock, began to talk incessantly, without leaving off her work. "Put your things there, I've kept your place. Oh, I sha'n't be long over what I've got. Boche scarcely dirties ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... concierge should suspect foul play with these, Simp would be turned out of doors immediately and ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... inconspicuous hand bag, she gave Nathalie the key of the cabinet, and said nothing of the luggage waiting on the ground floor. She knew it would grieve George and Rose Winter to guess that she had come expecting to stay. Downstairs she spoke to the concierge, saying she would return with a cab to fetch the things away. She would go, she thought, to the railway station and inquire about trains for Ventimiglia. Then having settled the hour of departure, she would ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... portions of the design, visible where the wash has fallen away, seem to show that they once detached themselves from the gilded ground in colors, either blue, or red, or green. The multitude of these panels shows an evident intention to foil a search; but even if this could be doubted, the concierge of the chateau, while devoting the memory of Catherine to the execration of the humanity of our day, shows at the base of these panels and close to the floor a rather heavy foot-board, which can be lifted, and ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... who had inspired the thought went into the hotel, and was rather cross to the youthful concierge, because the ascenseur was not working. There were three flights of stairs to mount before she reached her room, and she was so anxious to open her bag to see what was inside, that she ran up very fast, so fast that she stepped on her dress and ripped out a long line of gathers. Her ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... round the parapet which protects the outer edge of the moat (it is all up hill, and the moat deepens and deepens), till I came to the entrance which faces the town, and which is as bare and strong as the rest. The concierge took me into the court; but there was nothing to see. The place is used as a magazine of ammunition, and the yard con- tains a multitude of ugly buildings. The only thing to do is to walk round the bastions for the view; but at the moment of my visit the weather was thick, and the ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... us direct from Madame Coutant's, where a triumvirate composed of the scissors-grinder, the woman-who-rents-chairs-in-St.-Gervais, the sacristan's wife, the concierge of the Girls' School, and the widow of an office boy in the City Hall, get their heads together and dispense ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... of justification for the asperity of the tones in which this reply is given forth the concierge of No. 21 proceeds to inform me that every one makes ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... quite correct in grammar and orthography, asking whether she should have the Hotel d'Aubepine prepared, and hire servants to receive him; but she never received a line in reply. She was very anxious to know whether the concierge had received any orders, and yet she could not bear to betray ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hiding with the widow of her father's old concierge. Any day they may search the house for aristocrats. They are seeking them everywhere. Then, not her life alone, but that of the old woman, her hostess, is sacrificed. The old woman knows this, and trembles with fear. Even if she is brave enough to be faithful, her fears would betray her, should ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... took down the address and the next day I came there with the concierge of the hotel where we were staying, and under his protection we went upstairs. My! it was a beastly place—and your poor father—for he was your father—was tossing about and raving, with burning cheeks and huge eyes, just like yours. Well! I had plenty of money just then, so with the help of ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... priest in the account we give here, "I was alarmed by this calm behaviour. I trembled when I heard her give orders to the concierge that the soup was to be made stronger than usual and that she was to have two cups before midnight. When dinner was over, she was given pen and ink, which she had already asked for, and told me that she had a letter to write before I took up my pen to put down what she wanted to dictate." ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... if he had offended me, I would make better use of his absence another time. When I left he accompanied me down stairs, and seeing me smile (for I could not help doing so when I found I was thought capable of such a thing), he went to the concierge and asked how long it was since I had come. The concierge must have calmed his fears, for since that time Pixis does not know how to praise my talent sufficiently to all his acquaintances. What do you think of this? I, a ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... a Guide, or an Instructor on the recommendation of the concierge, get some expert advice as to who is the best. The Secretary of the local Ski Club would advise or some good ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... to keep a load of wood in the cave and to-day the concierge had raised the temperature of the salon to sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit Alexina cleared a table and told the woman to set it for tea, then went upstairs to change her dress. As she had made her trip in one of the automobiles belonging to the oeuvre she had ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... the Conciergerie, and the Prefecture of Police, are now annexed to the Palais de Justice. The Conciergerie takes its name from the house of the concierge in the time of the royal residence here, who had a right to two chickens a day and to the cinders and ashes of the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... they were at home, for they had been out in the morning, and had got back again. Well, after that I went back and nearly knocked the door down. And that was no good; I didn't get a word. The concierge swore they were in, and they wouldn't so much as answer me. Now I call that too almighty hard, and I'd like to know what in thunder they ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... a thousand francs, soldier?' sez he in a quick whisper. 'You're on,' sez I; 'Show your dough.' 'Them Flies has went to get the Commissaire for to frisk me,' sez he. 'Go to 13 roo Quinze Octobre and give it to the concierge for Jose Quintana.' And he shoves the packet on me and a ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... devoted to office purposes. How people able to do otherwise are willing to sleep, eat, and live over a stable certainly seems, to us, very strange. At night these patios are guarded by closing large metal—studded doors, a concierge always sleeping near at hand either to admit any of the family or to resist the entrance of any unauthorized persons, very much after the practice which is common in France and ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... custodian, custos [Lat.], ranger, warder, jailer, gaoler, turnkey, castellan^, guard; watchdog, watchman; Charley; chokidar^, durwan^, hayward^; sentry, sentinel; watch and ward; concierge, coast guard, guarda costa [Sp.], game keeper. escort, bodyguard. protector, governor, duenna [Sp.]; guardian; governess &c (teacher) 540; nurse, nanny, babysitter, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... descended from a drosky before a long, gray, massive building, over the big doorway of which was a large escutcheon bearing the Russian arms emblazoned in gold, and on entering where a sentry stood on either side, a colossal concierge in livery of bright blue and gold came forward to meet me, ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... handsome apartment-house in the Avenue de Wagram. The unknown got out, gave the driver his fare, and rang the concierge's bell. The sleepy guardian opened the door, touched his gold-braided cap in recognition, and led the way to the small electric lift. The young woman entered and familiarly pushed the button. The apartment in which she lived was on the second ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... Mysteries brooded without as well as within the flat of Madame Foucault. Sophia saw a bodiless hand twitch at a curtain and vanish. She noticed a green bird in a tiny cage on a sill in the next house. A woman whom she took to be the concierge appeared in the courtyard, deposited a small plant in the track of a ray of sunshine that lighted a corner for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and disappeared again. Then she heard a piano— somewhere. That was all. The feeling that secret and strange lives were ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... fellow, I am talking truth. The curfew no longer rings at nine o'clock. Only last night my concierge Ravenouillet gave a party; and I think I made a great mistake in not accepting the indirect invitation he gave me to ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... near Orleans a property leased for six thousand francs a year. He owned, besides, the house I now live in, where we lived together; and I, fool, sot, imbecile, stupid animal that I was, used to pay the rent every three months to the concierge!" ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... said Giroudeau. "Florentine's mother is here. You see, I haven't the means to pay for one, so the worthy woman is really her own mother. She used to be a concierge, but she's not without intelligence. Call her Madame; she makes a ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... a card left for you by a decorated gentleman," explained the concierge. "He came in an elegant carriage, and said ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... past the loge of the concierge, and mounted in the languidly moving elevator to the appartement. Felix went at once to the piano and began playing something Sylvia did not recognize, something brilliantly colored, vivid, resonant, sonorous, perhaps Chabrier, she thought, remembering his remark on the avenue. Without ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... all yours!" cried Flique, when the question of ownership arose. "Mon Dieu, yes! There was such a case not a month ago, in the eighth arrondissement—a concierge of the avenue Hoche who made a contrary claim. But the courts decided against her. They are all yours, Madame ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... be traced. Sometimes a corner of Antwerp discovers itself; and generally, above a Corinthian portico, rises a Gothic spire. Just such a jumble may be viewed from the statue of Augustus, under which I remained till the Concierge came, who was to open the gates of the town-house, and ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... King, and commends him as being the most experienced and competent statesman of the times. According to the Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris, Robertet died "at the Palais (de Justice) in Paris, of which he was concierge," on November 29, 1527. Francis repeatedly visited him during his illness, and, on his death, ordered that his remains should lie in state, and be interred with great pomp and ceremony. Clement Marot's ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... content. "You know now. I enter upon the final stage. I had only one fear. Jean Coulois has settled that for me. I wonder whether they know. It seems peaceful enough. No! Look over there," he added, gripping his companion's arm. "Peter, the concierge, is whispering with the others. That is one of the managers there, out on the pavement, ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sharp, high cries. Then, suddenly, they stopped in the middle of a measure, and held out their aprons for money. A window on the ground floor opened and a very pretty woman leaned out. I have seen her many times. She is Polish, the daughter of a concierge, and now the mistress of a young Cossack, who is leaving shortly for the front. She has heavy, pale-yellow hair, wound around her head in thick braids, and she wears pearls, opaque like her skin. She beckoned the little girls into her room. They went eagerly. ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... mean it! Well, if this isn't luck! Pierce, I'll go back and sign up with the concierge immediately. Such neighbors as these would make the meanest studio desirable and, after all, these are pretty good rooms. We could hardly ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... for Heaven's sake, tell me how all this has happened? Our concierge saw you when you fell in the street ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... to be the finest street in the world; that it possesses a dining-room of gilded and painted repousse work so elaborate and wonderful that it surely must be intended to represent a tinsmith's dream of heaven; that its concierge is the most impressive human being on earth except Ludwig von Kampf (whom I have never seen); that its head waiter is sadder and more elderly and forgiving than any other head waiter; and that its hushed and cathedral atmosphere has been undisturbed through immemorial years. That is to be ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... square garden with a massive pump in the midst. A few pictures are shown in the Governors' room over the entrance, but greater interest attaches to the little domiciles for the pensioners of the Meerman trust. A friendly concierge with a wooden leg showed us one of these compact houses—a sitting-room with a bed-cupboard in one wall, and below it a little larder, like the cabin of a ship. At the back a tiny range, and above, a garret. One could be very comfortable in ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... later the concierge sent up to me an exquisite bouquet of violets and white camellias, with the card of Rene Vergniaud and a folded note: "If Madame Fleming does not think it improper, will she be so kind as to give these ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... case then must, indeed, have ended miserably, as far as I was concerned, if I had not chanced upon a letter which the otherwise prudent Madame Jean had forgotten to destroy. Triomphe! It was a letter of instruction, and definitely it proved that she was no more than a kind of glorified concierge, and that the chief of the opium group ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... strictly to this sense, the modern languages are to the majority of Americans of little more practical value than are the Latin and Greek. We scarcely need them except when we travel abroad, and when we do that we find that the concierge and the waiter use English with surprising fluency. As for the sciences, those who expect to earn a living through a knowledge of them, seek, as a rule, that knowledge in a technical or professional school, ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... en' of Septembre. I go to the Chateau de St. Gre—great iron gates, long avenue of poplar,—big house all 'round a court, and Monsieur le Marquis is at Versailles. I borrow three louis from the concierge, and I go to Versailles to the hotel of Monsieur le Marquis. There is all dat trouble what you read about going on, and Monsieur le Marquis he not so glad to see me for dat risson. 'Mon cher Auguste,' he cry, 'you want to be of officier in gardes de corps? You are not afred?'" (Auguste stiffened.) ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the movements of those suspected of having been mixed up in certain criminal work. For when the reader reflects how easily criminals keep out of the reach of the police in St. Petersburg, Paris and Vienna, where every concierge, every porter, every storekeeper, every housekeeper, is required to report to the police at least once a week all the details of strangers with whom they may have come in contact, it should be no wonder ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... old," said the man, boldly; "besides, this is Paris, and I have been twenty years concierge to his Grace the Duke of Orleans. I and my wife have his secrets even as you, most noble Sire de Sille, possess those of my new master. You, or he either, by God's grace, will think twice before cutting my throat. Moreover, you will be good enough at this point to state your business ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... toward the end of the year, Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence was admitted by the concierge. She noted that only one clerk gave heed to her entry, and, it is to be presumed, the quiet perfection of ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... for some time after he had seen the two horses arrive at the door, wondering all the time why Copley did not come up, went down to the door to inquire what had become of him. The concierge informed him that Copley had gone away with another boy, out to the Corso. So Mr. William ordered the carriage, and he and his wife went ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott
... to an office building where he introduced him to a man he called "Leon"—actually Alfred Macon, concierge of a building which Metenier and others used as headquarters for their activities. Within a few moments the door of an adjacent room opened and Jean Adolphe Moreau de la Meuse, aristocrat and leading ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... evening, when they were alone, he walked up and down the large room and dictated for an hour. In the silent old house, his solemn voice, and another sweeter and fresher, awakened singular echoes. "Our author is composing," said the concierge with respect. ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... eyes she was in what appeared to be the lodge of a concierge. She was lying on a horsehair sofa. There was a sense of warmth and of security around her. No wonder that it still seemed like a dream. Before her stood a man, tall and straight, surely a being from another world—or so he ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Apparently they had given no names, no cards. But in truth there were cards, which had been mislaid, or in other words left upon the desk in the bureau, with the numbers of both our rooms scrawled on them in pencil. Nobody was there at the time, but when the concierge came back (he is a sort of unofficial understudy for the mobilized manager) he saw the cards and sent them upstairs. They were taken to Brian and the names read aloud to him. He supposed, from vague information supplied by the garcon ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... for the Labia, once so sumptuous, is now the home of a hundred poor families, and the daughter of the concierge whose duty it is to display the frescoes prefers play to work. For twenty minutes I waited in the gloomy, deserted hall while her father shuffles off in one direction and her mother in another, both calling "Emma!" ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... he, a poor little hunchbacked woman, very charitable and pious, rendered him many services, tended him in illness, and managed to assist him out of the pension of two lire a day which was all she possessed. She had learned from the concierge that the man was an unfrocked monk, and seeing how sad, humble, and grateful he was, she prayed night and morning to the Madonna and to all the Saints of Paradise, that they might intercede with Jesus on his behalf, that this man might be pardoned and brought ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... eyes to get rid of her image—and instantly she became ten times more visible, his feeling ten times stronger. He mounted to the hotel; there on the terrace was his tutor. And oddly enough, the sight of him at that moment was no more embarrassing than if it had been the hotel concierge. Stormer did not somehow seem to count; did not seem to want you to count him. Besides, he was so ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... against the dark sky behind us; rattled into the new light of the resuming boulevard; turned up a dark street, and came to a halt before a half-familiar shut door. You know how one wakes the sleepy concierge, how one takes one's candle, climbs up hundreds and hundreds of smooth stairs, following the slipshod footfalls of a half-awakened guide upward through Rembrandt's own shadows, and how one's final sleep is sweetened ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... house of the Albercas was dark, dusty and echoing like all deserted buildings. The only servant who remained was the concierge. His children were playing beside the steps as if they did not know that the lady of the house had returned. Upstairs the furniture was wrapped in gray covers, the chandeliers were veiled with cheese-cloth, ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... not observed by De Chaulieu till he was lifting his foot to place it on the top stair: the sudden shock caused him to miss the step, and, without uttering a sound, he fell back, and never stopped till he reached the stones at the bottom. The screams of Natalie brought the concierge from below and the maids from above, and an attempt was made to raise the unfortunate man from the ground; but with cries of anguish ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... the castle of Tetefoulques a grand but gloomy and dilapidated pile. All the gates were closed, and there reigned over the whole place an air of almost savage loneliness and desertion. I had understood that its only inhabitant were the concierge, or warder, and a kind of hermit who had charge of the chapel. After ringing for some time at the gate, I at length succeeded in bringing forth the warder, who bowed with reverence to my pilgrim's garb. I begged him to conduct me to the chapel, that being the end of my pilgrimage. We found the ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... wall, running at right angles with the house, blocked my way. I had half a mind to go back and hammer at the door, but I reflected that major-generals don't pay visits to deserted chateaux at night without a reasonable errand. I should look a fool in the eyes of some old concierge. The daylight was almost gone, and I didn't wish to go groping about the house with ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... great Parisian domicile, multifarious as its inhabitants might be, the concierge under the archway would be cognizant of all their incomings and issuings forth. But except in rare cases, the general entrance and main staircase of a Roman house are left as free as the street, of which they form a sort of by-lane. The sculptor, therefore, could hope to ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of Chauvin's studio was a romantic-looking man wearing a very dirty smock, a man who looked like an illustration for La Vie de Boheme, so that a stranger must have mistaken him for a celebrated artist although he actually combined the duties of a concierge with those of a charwoman. He displayed no surprise when Flamby came in, wild-haired, arrayed in ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... parleying nervously with the concierge, he arrived at the second-floor of No. 3, Rue de Bruxelles, he heard violent high sounds of altercation through the door at which he was about to ring, and then the door opened, and a young woman, flushed and weeping, was sped out on to the landing, Cosette ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... occasion you do not forget. The Park merges into the forest; you go by winding ways till you reach the trim Dutch garden, moat-encircled, in the centre of which stands the prim old-fashioned villa, which, to the simple Dutchman, appears a palace. The concierge, an old soldier, bows low to you and introduces you to his wife—a stately, white-haired dame, who talks most languages a little, so far as relates to all things within and appertaining to this tiny palace of the wood. To things without, beyond the wood, her powers of conversation do not ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... whether it was late in April or early in May that Nina left us. But one day towards the middle of October, coming home from the restaurant where I had lunched, I found in my letter box, in the concierge's room, two half sheets of paper, folded, with the corners turned down, and my name superscribed in pencil. The handwriting startled me a little—and yet, no, it was impossible. Then I hastened to unfold, and read, and of course it was ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... we got up early, as a car from the Adler Garage had been ordered at 9.30, but it did not come. The employees of the hotel were cool in their behaviour. The concierge, of whom one usually expects servility, proved surly, the waiter calmly insolent. The delay seemed interminable, so Kitty and I sat down and wrote letters, but we found it was of no use to post them, as none were going out ...
— An Account of Our Arresting Experiences • Conway Evans
... with their backs to the horses. Ludivine, the cook, brought a bundle of rugs, which were thrown over their knees, and two baskets, which were pushed under their legs; then she climbed up beside old Simon and enveloped herself in a great rug, which covered her entirely. The concierge and his wife came to shut the gate and wish them good-bye, and after some parting instructions about the baggage, which was to follow in a cart, the ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... planet and there was nothing more to be studied,—the psychological portrait was supposedly painted— Madame George got rid of him. The dark stories of maternal jealousy, of Chopin's preference for Solange, the visit to Chopin of the concierge's wife to complain of her mistress' behavior with her husband, all these rakings I leave to others. It was a triste affair and I do not doubt in the least that it undermined Chopin's feeble health. Why not! Animals die of broken hearts, and this emotional ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... better than the panaceas of the Codex, though I can't say the effects are either lasting or sure. But, it serves, like anything else. And now I must run along. The clock is striking ten and your concierge is coming to put out the hall light. See you again very soon, ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... railroad station at Kinklepois, to see Monsieur J. (he had aged ten years over night) where he was under guard with several others, including Monsieur le Vicaire of A. and Monsieur l'Abbe of K. We sat around the table in the Concierge's tiny dining room and listened to some amusing anecdotes told by the Vicar, while the gentle old Abbot sent out to the vicarage for a bottle of his good old Burgundy. To be sure, no one was much in ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... architectural mixture of the ancient and modern, considered apart, though it properly enough is usually considered with the Palais de Justice, was formerly the dwelling or guardhouse of the Concierge of the Palais de la Cite. His post was not merely that of the keeper of the gates; he was a personage at court and was as autocratic as his more plebeian contemporaries of to-day, for the Paris concierge, as we, who have for years lived under ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... stimulus of excitement which Maurice's presence had supplied, died out, and she began to be conscious of a horrible depression and sense of vacancy. She went up with a step that grew more tired and languid at every movement, till she reached the door where Claudine was having a little gossip with the concierge. ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... The concierge had appeared, hugging an overflowing armful of postal matter. In another minute there was hardly standing room in the little hall. My ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... making one visit, she gave the coachman the address of the apartments on Chaussee-d'Antin, where she had lived long, happy years with Sulpice, sweet and peaceful under the clear light of the lamp. She entered this deserted apartment, now as cold as a tomb, and had the shutters opened by the concierge in order that she might see the sunlight penetrate the room and set all the motes dancing in its cheerful rays. She shut herself in and remained there happy, consoled; sitting in the armchair formerly occupied by Sulpice, she pictured him at the table at which he ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Chantal she sprang out, snatched her key from the concierge, and ran up the stairs. But when she reached the point on that top passage where their ways diverged, she stopped and ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... incessant doling out of cash, he did not have recourse to the checkbook. In one of his salons the Nabob kept a commode, an ugly little piece of furniture representing the savings of some concierge; it was the first article Jansoulet bought when he was in a position to renounce furnished apartments, and he had kept it ever since like a gambler's fetish; its three drawers always contained two hundred thousand francs in current funds. He resorted to that never-failing supply on the days of his ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... see on the ceiling of her room the reflection of the fire which had been lighted on the hearth. An old man's face showed itself several times at the window, and appeared to watch and listen to the noises of the quay. It was her husband,—her second father. The concierge held the door open, and stepped out from time to time, to watch and listen likewise. Now and then a pale and rapid gleam of light from the street lamp, which swung backwards and forwards with the gusty wind of December, shot athwart ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... boy, a Huguenot could—enter no public school; as a youth, no career was open to him; he could become neither mercer nor concierge, neither apothecary nor physician, neither lawyer nor consul. As a man, he had no sacred house, of prayer; no registrar would inscribe his marriage or the birth of his children; hourly his liberty and his conscience ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... an hour after I had parted with Miss Hermione, I had made an attempt to see her and Mrs. Leare, without any success. Not even bribery would induce the concierge to let me in. His orders were peremptory: "Pas un ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... latter gave me the first idea of mine; but, presumption apart, mine is a thousand times prettier. I gave my Lord Herbert's compliments to the statue of his friend the Constable; and, waiting some time for the concierge, I called out, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... would be most unwise to take her out of the care of Dr. Charters and trust her to the tender mercies of foreign leeches. Morris agreed that it might be risky, and mentioned that in a letter which he had received from the concierge at Beaulieu a few days before, that functionary said that the place was overrun ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... the lights go out, and the great windows with diminutive panes become dark. And if, after midnight, some belated citizen passes on his way home, he quickens his step, feeling lonely and uneasy, and apprehensive of the reproaches of his concierge, who is likely to ask him whence he may be coming at so ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... to convert it into a museum for the reception of antiquities that can be collected of the ancient Gauls. After the overthrow of the Roman yoke, the Palais des Thermes was inhabited by the earliest kings of France. To view these ruins the stranger must apply to the concierge, No. 68, Rue de la Harpe, directly opposite, and a trifle should be given ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... the portal opened mysteriously at touch of the unseen concierge, and we entered. A conference with Monsieur le Directeur, kindly, voluble, tactfully complimentary regarding our halting French, followed. The interview over, we crossed the courtyard our hearts beating quickly. At the top of a little flight of worn stone steps was ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... Tricotrin, "we shall move the beds! And, when the concierge nods, perhaps we can borrow the palm from the portals. With a palm and an amiable photographer, an air of splendour is easily arrived at. I should like a screen—we will raise one from a studio in the rue Ravignan. Mon Dieu! with a palm and a screen ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... alliance—that surest rock of enduring peace—has been rent asunder, through the timorous hesitation of English ministers, and the hardly disguised Bourbon sympathies of English society. We are not welcome now in Paris, as we were when I followed in the wake of the prying Cockaynes. My old concierge is very cold in his greeting, and carries my valise to my rooms sulkily. Jerome, my particular waiter at the Grand Cafe, no longer deigns to discuss the news of the day with me. Good Monsieur Giraudet, who could suggest the happiest little menus, when I went to his ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... delicacy, took the forlorn and fragile wisp of misery to her capacious bosom. She made her free of the cabbages and charcoal. She provided her, at a risible charge, with succulent meals. She told her tales of her father and mother, of her neighbours, of the domestic differences between the concierge and his wife (soothing idyll for an Ariadne!), of the dirty thief of a brigadier of gendarmes, of her bodily ailments—her body was so large that they were many; of the picturesque death, through apoplexy, of the late M. Bidoux; the brave woman, in short, gave her of her heart's best. ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... petite chose a vous dire, Madame. Je viens d'apprendre que le concierge d'un de vos terres est mort; on pourrait y mettre un de vos gens, et j'ai songe a Dubois, que je remplacerai ici par un ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... was again very happy, and fond of (nearly) everybody, from the splendid head master and his handsome son, Monsieur Merovee, down to Antoine and Francisque, the men-servants, and Pere Jaurion, the concierge, and his wife, who sold croquets and pains d'epices and "blom-boudingues," and sucre-d'orge and nougat and pate de guimauve; also pralines, dragees, and gray sandy cakes of chocolate a penny apiece; and gave one unlimited credit; and never dunned one, unless bribed to ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... found it deserted. In the office a man was hastily making a package of some books and papers and did not respond or even look up when spoken to. At the concierge's desk a big, whiskered man sat staring straight ahead of him with a look of abject ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... the beginning he had the sympathy of the whole population here with him, to speak generally, and exclusively of particular parties. All our tradespeople, for instance, milkman, breadman, wine merchant, and the rest, yes, even the shrewd old washerwoman, and the concierge, and our little lively servant were in a glow of sympathy and admiration. 'Mais, c'est le vrai neveu de son oncle! il est admirable! enfin la patrie sera sauvee.' The bourgeoisie has now accepted the situation, it is admitted on all hands. 'Scandalous adhesion!' ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... when Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau; Louis Philippe left Palermo, attended only by one servant, and made his way to Paris and the home of his family, the Palais Royal. He hurried into the house, and in spite of the opposition of the concierge, who took him for a madman, he rushed to the staircase; but before he ascended it he fell upon his knees, and bursting into tears, kissed the ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... send a letter? We have all been writing to you for the last six months, but no answer—none. Had you written one word I would have saved all. The poor concierge was in despair; she said the proprietaire would wait if you had only said when you were coming back, or if you only had let us know what you wished to be done. Three quarters rent was due, and no news could be obtained of you, so an auction had to be called. ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... flowers she had picked, and prepared to return to the chateau. To arrange various combinations of color in vases was her peculiar joy—and her flower decorations were her special care. She was just entering the great towered gate of Heronac where resided the concierge, when she heard the whir of a motor approaching in the distance, and she hurriedly slipped inside old Berthe's parlor. She disliked dust and strangers, who, fortunately, very seldom came upon this ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... sways, she feels the terror of being thrown out again, and she screams aloud. The cab halts before the door of her home. She dismounts hastily, hurries with light steps through the house door, unseen by the concierge, runs up the stairs, opens her apartment door very gently, aind slips unseen into her own room. She undresses hastily, hiding the mud-stained clothes in her cupboard. To-morrow, when they are dry, she can clean them herself. ...
— The Dead Are Silent - 1907 • Arthur Schnitzler
... loge which had replaced Jaurion's den, a nice old concierge came out and asked if we desired anything. We told him how once we had been at school on that very spot, and were trying to make out the old trees that had served as bases in "la balle au camp," and that if we really desired anything just then ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... though it had had between sixty and seventy years to do it in,— came out of the Barrack Cabaret, of which she was the keeper, with some large keys in her hands, and marshalled us the way that we should go. How she told us, on the way, that she was a Government Officer (concierge du palais a apostolique), and had been, for I don't know how many years; and how she had shown these dungeons to princes; and how she was the best of dungeon demonstrators; and how she had resided in the palace from an infant,—had been born there, if I recollect right,—I needn't relate. ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... balcony after dinner and hold on to each other and he tells her all about the work of the day. Below there is a woman who sews nothing but black dresses, and who does that all day and all night by the light of a lamp. And below the concierge stands all day in a lace cap and black gown and blue, and looks up the street and down the street like the woman in front of Hockley's. BUT on the floor opposite mine there is a beautiful lady in a ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... this month Vendemaire I received a line from Mr. Beresford in which he tells me I shall be in liberty in two or three days, and that he has this from good authority. On the 12th I received a note from Mr. Labonadaire, written at the Bureau of the Concierge, in which he tells me of the interest you take in procuring my liberation, and that after the steps that had been already taken that I ought to write to the Convention to demand my liberty purely and simply as a citizen of the United States of America. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... over a cafe table that Cronshaw with his keen intellect and his passion for beauty could ally himself to such a creature. But he seemed to revel in the coarseness of her language and would often report some phrase which reeked of the gutter. He referred to her ironically as la fille de mon concierge. Cronshaw was very poor. He earned a bare subsistence by writing on the exhibitions of pictures for one or two English papers, and he did a certain amount of translating. He had been on the staff of an English paper in Paris, ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... way, thit way," he said to himself. For there was another gate to the Villa, leading out to the upper road. But this gate was guarded by a lodge, and the "concierge," as they called the lodge-keeper, came out to open it for every one who went in and out. And "p'raps," thought Baby, "the concierge mightn't have let him through, 'cos, of course, her didn't know why him was ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth
... relate it to himself and Susy: it was as though Susy's personality were a medium through which events still took on a transfiguring colour. He found the "domicile" that very day: a tawdrily furnished rez-de-chaussee, obviously destined to far different uses. And as he sat there, after the concierge had discreetly withdrawn with the first quarter's payment in her pocket, and stared about him at the vulgar plushy place, he burst out laughing at what it was about to figure in the eyes of the law: a Home, and a Home desecrated by his own act! The Home in which he and Susy ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... utterance of this brief sentence had betrayed to my practiced ear a peculiar accent—an accent which, strange to say, bore a likeness to that of our friends downstairs, and which caused me to stop a moment at the lodge of the concierge, and ask her a question ...
— Esmeralda • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... from which the paint had peeled in patches, were closed, but I rang the bell for the concierge; and after a delay of several minutes I heard a slight click which meant that the doors had opened for me. I passed into a dim lobby, to be challenged by a sleepy voice behind a half open window. The owner of ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... had not seen her new apartments, felt some curiosity about them, whilst De Chaulieu anticipated a triumph in exhibiting the elegant home he had prepared for her. With some alacrity, therefore, they stepped out of the carriage, the gates of the Hotel were thrown open, the concierge rang the bell which announced to the servants that their master and mistress had arrived, and whilst these domestics appeared above, holding lights over the balusters, Natalie, followed by her husband, ascended the stairs. But when they reached the landing-place ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... confident that on the morrow she could sell what jewelry she had with her for enough to support them pleasantly until she could make it right with the trust company and get hold of her lamp again. For this evening she borrowed five francs from the suspicious and unwilling concierge, and with the money Archie went forth to the corner and brought back a dubious mess of cold food and a bottle of poor wine, which they consumed in the dark studio, then went to sleep upon the divan in each other's arms like a couple of romance. ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... have had an apartment in Paris, and I know what the power of the concierge is. But if you think for one minute that I am going to submit to such impertinence here in America, you never were ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... hotel the station omnibus had arrived with a solitary guest. A steamer trunk and a couple of bags were being trundled in by the porter, while the concierge was helping a short, stocky man to the ground. He hurried into the hotel, signed the police slips, and asked for his room. He seemed to be afraid of the dark. He was gone when Carmichael went into ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... observatory was finally blinded, a wardrobe having been drawn in front of it upon the other side; and while Silas was still lamenting over this misfortune, which he attributed to the Britisher's malign suggestion, the concierge brought him up a letter in a female handwriting. It was conceived in French of no very rigorous orthography, bore no signature, and in the most encouraging terms invited the young American to be present ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a concierge in his notions of the proper hour for all good people to return to their homes. He did not approve of anything later than midnight. In those days we had a little society among friends, which we called 'The Four Candles,'—the light in our place of meeting being ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... kindness." Hereupon the old woman looked in front of her and saw a grand gateway with a door of sandal-wood over which a lamp hung by a silken cord[FN103] and a curtain was drawn across it and it had two benches of marble, the whole under the charge of a goodly concierge. Then quoth she, "From this house I will ask a drink for thee." So the two women went forward and stood before the door and the duenna advancing rapped a light rap with the ring, when behold, the entrance was ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... apartment, but which includes several rooms, comprising together a comfortable residence. Many similar apartments may be in the same building, but with them you need have no communication, and you are detached from them as fully as if each apartment was a separate house. The concierge, generally a woman, takes charge of your room, orders your breakfast if you require one, and keeps the key of your apartment when you are absent. It is a charming mode of living. You can dine or lunch when you will, and ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... has parted from the dealer in pictures a bon marche and works now with a painter of furniture pieces (those headpieces for doors and the like, now in fashion) who is also concierge of the Palace of the Luxembourg. Antony is actually lodged somewhere in that grand place, which contains the king's collection of the Italian pictures he would so willingly copy. Its gardens also are magnificent, with something, as ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... hit the nail on the head, smack," agreed Mrs. Nat as the door swung open and a glimpse of a wide, paved inner courtyard made an interesting background for the respectable, stout elderly woman who, like the concierge abroad, guarded the entrance. ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... Spectres, with an odor of embalmment about them, as if just out of their tombs. We were rising from table; the Spectres, however, were hungry ones: they needed supper; and what is more, beds, which were not ready. The Housekeeper (CONCIERGE), who had gone to bed, rose in great haste. Gaya [amiable gentleman, conceivable, not known], who had offered his apartment for pressing cases, was obliged to yield it in this emergency: he flitted with as much precipitation and displeasure as an army surprised in its camp; leaving a part ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... to show in the sky when the commissary, after disposing his men, rang and entered the lodge of the concierge. Terrified by this intrusion, the woman, all trembling, said that there was no tenant ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc |
