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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Fat and the Thin, by Émile Zola
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Fat and the Thin
+
+Author: Émile Zola
+
+Translator: Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
+
+Release Date: August 22, 2002 [eBook #5744]
+[Most recently updated: May 25, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Dagny, John Bickers and David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAT AND THE THIN ***
+
+
+
+
+The Fat and the Thin
+
+(LE VENTRE DE PARIS)
+
+by Émile Zola
+
+Translated, With An Introduction, By Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
+
+
+Contents
+
+ INTRODUCTION
+ CHAPTER I
+ CHAPTER II
+ CHAPTER III
+ CHAPTER IV
+ CHAPTER V
+ CHAPTER VI
+
+
+
+
+Let me have men about me that are fat: Sleek-headed men, and such as
+sleep o’ nights: Yond’ Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks
+too much: such men are dangerous. SHAKESPEARE: _Julius Caesar_, act i,
+sc. 2.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+“THE FAT AND THE THIN,” or, to use the French title, “Le Ventre de
+Paris,” is a story of life in and around those vast Central Markets
+which form a distinctive feature of modern Paris. Even the reader who
+has never crossed the Channel must have heard of the Parisian _Halles_,
+for much has been written about them, not only in English books on the
+French metropolis, but also in English newspapers, magazines, and
+reviews; so that few, I fancy, will commence the perusal of the present
+volume without having, at all events, some knowledge of its subject
+matter.
+
+The Paris markets form such a world of their own, and teem at certain
+hours of the day and night with such exuberance of life, that it was
+only natural they should attract the attention of a novelist like M.
+Zola, who, to use his own words, delights “in any subject in which vast
+masses of people can be shown in motion.” Mr. Sherard tells us[*] that
+the idea of “Le Ventre de Paris” first occurred to M. Zola in 1872,
+when he used continually to take his friend Paul Alexis for a ramble
+through the Halles. I have in my possession, however, an article
+written by M. Zola some five or six years before that time, and in this
+one can already detect the germ of the present work; just as the motif
+of another of M. Zola’s novels, “La Joie de Vivre,” can be traced to a
+short story written for a Russian review.
+
+[*] _Emile Zola: a Biographical and Critical Study_, by Robert
+Harborough Sherard, pp. 103, 104. London, Chatto & Windus, 1893.
+
+
+Similar instances are frequently to be found in the writings of English
+as well as French novelists, and are, of course, easily explained. A
+young man unknown to fame, and unable to procure the publication of a
+long novel, often contents himself with embodying some particular idea
+in a short sketch or story, which finds its way into one or another
+periodical, where it lies buried and forgotten by everybody—excepting
+its author. Time goes by, however, the writer achieves some measure of
+success, and one day it occurs to him to elaborate and perfect that old
+idea of his, only a faint _apercu_ of which, for lack of opportunity,
+he had been able to give in the past. With a little research, no doubt,
+an interesting essay might be written on these literary resuscitations;
+but if one except certain novelists who are so deficient in ideas that
+they continue writing and rewriting the same story throughout their
+lives, it will, I think, be generally found that the revivals in
+question are due to some such reason as that given above.
+
+It should be mentioned that the article of M. Zola’s young days to
+which I have referred is not one on market life in particular, but one
+on violets. It contains, however, a vigorous, if brief, picture of the
+Halles in the small hours of the morning, and is instinct with that
+realistic descriptive power of which M. Zola has since given so many
+proofs. We hear the rumbling and clattering of the market carts, we see
+the piles of red meat, the baskets of silvery fish, the mountains of
+vegetables, green and white; in a few paragraphs the whole market world
+passes in kaleidoscopic fashion before our eyes by the pale, dancing
+light of the gas lamps and the lanterns. Several years after the paper
+I speak of was published, when M. Zola began to issue “Le Ventre de
+Paris,” M. Tournachon, better known as Nadar, the aeronaut and
+photographer, rushed into print to proclaim that the realistic novelist
+had simply pilfered his ideas from an account of the Halles which he
+(Tournachon) had but lately written. M. Zola, as is so often his wont,
+scorned to reply to this charge of plagiarism; but, had he chosen, he
+could have promptly settled the matter by producing his own forgotten
+article.
+
+At the risk of passing for a literary ghoul, I propose to exhume some
+portion of the paper in question, as, so far as translation can avail,
+it will show how M. Zola wrote and what he thought in 1867. After the
+description of the markets to which I have alluded, there comes the
+following passage:—
+
+I was gazing at the preparations for the great daily orgy of Paris when
+I espied a throng of people bustling suspiciously in a corner. A few
+lanterns threw a yellow light upon this crowd. Children, women, and men
+with outstretched hands were fumbling in dark piles which extended
+along the footway. I thought that those piles must be remnants of meat
+sold for a trifling price, and that all those wretched people were
+rushing upon them to feed. I drew near, and discovered my mistake. The
+heaps were not heaps of meat, but heaps of violets. All the flowery
+poesy of the streets of Paris lay there, on that muddy pavement, amidst
+mountains of food. The gardeners of the suburbs had brought their
+sweet-scented harvests to the markets and were disposing of them to the
+hawkers. From the rough fingers of their peasant growers the violets
+were passing to the dirty hands of those who would cry them in the
+streets. At winter time it is between four and six o’clock in the
+morning that the flowers of Paris are thus sold at the Halles. Whilst
+the city sleeps and its butchers are getting all ready for its daily
+attack of indigestion, a trade in poetry is plied in dark, dank
+corners. When the sun rises the bright red meat will be displayed in
+trim, carefully dressed joints, and the violets, mounted on bits of
+osier, will gleam softly within their elegant collars of green leaves.
+But when they arrive, in the dark night, the bullocks, already ripped
+open, discharge black blood, and the trodden flowers lie prone upon the
+footways. . . . I noticed just in front of me one large bunch which had
+slipped off a neighbouring mound and was almost bathing in the gutter.
+I picked it up. Underneath, it was soiled with mud; the greasy, fetid
+sewer water had left black stains upon the flowers. And then, gazing at
+these exquisite daughters of our gardens and our woods, astray amidst
+all the filth of the city, I began to ponder. On what woman’s bosom
+would those wretched flowerets open and bloom? Some hawker would dip
+them in a pail of water, and of all the bitter odours of the Paris mud
+they would retain but a slight pungency, which would remain mingled
+with their own sweet perfume. The water would remove their stains, they
+would pale somewhat, and become a joy both for the smell and for the
+sight. Nevertheless, in the depths of each corolla there would still
+remain some particle of mud suggestive of impurity. And I asked myself
+how much love and passion was represented by all those heaps of flowers
+shivering in the bleak wind. To how many loving ones, and how many
+indifferent ones, and how many egotistical ones, would all those
+thousands and thousands of violets go! In a few hours’ time they would
+be scattered to the four corners of Paris, and for a paltry copper the
+passers-by would purchase a glimpse and a whiff of springtide in the
+muddy streets.
+
+Imperfect as the rendering may be, I think that the above passage will
+show that M. Zola was already possessed of a large amount of his
+acknowledged realistic power at the early date I have mentioned. I
+should also have liked to quote a rather amusing story of a priggish
+Philistine who ate violets with oil and vinegar, strongly peppered, but
+considerations of space forbid; so I will pass to another passage,
+which is of more interest and importance. Both French and English
+critics have often contended that although M. Zola is a married man, he
+knows very little of women, as there has virtually never been any
+_feminine romance_ in his life. There are those who are aware of the
+contrary, but whose tongues are stayed by considerations of delicacy
+and respect. Still, as the passage I am now about to reproduce is
+signed and acknowledged as fact by M. Zola himself, I see no harm in
+slightly raising the veil from a long-past episode in the master’s
+life:—
+
+The light was rising, and as I stood there before that footway
+transformed into a bed of flowers my strange night-fancies gave place
+to recollections at once sweet and sad. I thought of my last excursion
+to Fontenay-aux-Roses, with the loved one, the good fairy of my
+twentieth year. Springtime was budding into birth, the tender foliage
+gleamed in the pale April sunshine. The little pathway skirting the
+hill was bordered by large fields of violets. As one passed along, a
+strong perfume seemed to penetrate one and make one languid. _She_ was
+leaning on my arm, faint with love from the sweet odour of the flowers.
+A whiteness hovered over the country-side, little insects buzzed in the
+sunshine, deep silence fell from the heavens, and so low was the sound
+of our kisses that not a bird in all the hedges showed sign of fear. At
+a turn of the path we perceived some old bent women, who with dry,
+withered hands were hurriedly gathering violets and throwing them into
+large baskets. She who was with me glanced longingly at the flowers,
+and I called one of the women. “You want some violets?” said she. “How
+much? A pound?”
+
+God of Heaven! She sold her flowers by the pound! We fled in deep
+distress. It seemed as though the country-side had been transformed
+into a huge grocer’s shop. . . . Then we ascended to the woods of
+Verrieres, and there, in the grass, under the soft, fresh foliage, we
+found some tiny violets which seemed to be dreadfully afraid, and
+contrived to hide themselves with all sorts of artful ruses. During two
+long hours I scoured the grass and peered into every nook, and as soon
+as ever I found a fresh violet I carried it to her. She bought it of
+me, and the price that I exacted was a kiss. . . . And I thought of all
+those things, of all that happiness, amidst the hubbub of the markets
+of Paris, before those poor dead flowers whose graveyard the footway
+had become. I remembered my good fairy, who is now dead and gone, and
+the little bouquet of dry violets which I still preserve in a drawer.
+When I returned home I counted their withered stems: there were twenty
+of them, and over my lips there passed the gentle warmth of my loved
+one’s twenty kisses.
+
+And now from violets I must, with a brutality akin to that which M.
+Zola himself displays in some of his transitions, pass to very
+different things, for some time back a well-known English poet and
+essayist wrote of the present work that it was redolent of pork,
+onions, and cheese. To one of his sensitive temperament, with a muse
+strictly nourished on sugar and water, such gross edibles as pork and
+cheese and onions were peculiarly offensive. That humble plant the
+onion, employed to flavour wellnigh every savoury dish, can assuredly
+need no defence; in most European countries, too, cheese has long been
+known as the poor man’s friend; whilst as for pork, apart from all
+other considerations, I can claim for it a distinct place in English
+literature. A greater essayist by far than the critic to whom I am
+referring, a certain Mr. Charles Lamb, of the India House, has left us
+an immortal page on the origin of roast pig and crackling. And, when
+everything is considered, I should much like to know why novels should
+be confined to the aspirations of the soul, and why they should not
+also treat of the requirements of our physical nature? From the days of
+antiquity we have all known what befell the members when, guided by the
+brain, they were foolish enough to revolt against the stomach. The
+latter plays a considerable part not only in each individual organism,
+but also in the life of the world. Over and over again—I could adduce a
+score of historical examples—it has thwarted the mightiest designs of
+the human mind. We mortals are much addicted to talking of our minds
+and our souls and treating our bodies as mere dross. But I hold—it is a
+personal opinion—that in the vast majority of cases the former are
+largely governed by the last. I conceive, therefore, that a novel which
+takes our daily sustenance as one of its themes has the best of all
+_raisons d’être_. A foreign writer of far more consequence and ability
+than myself—Signor Edmondo de Amicis—has proclaimed the present book to
+be “one of the most original and happiest inventions of French genius,”
+and I am strongly inclined to share his opinion.
+
+It should be observed that the work does not merely treat of the
+provisioning of a great city. That provisioning is its _scenario_; but
+it also embraces a powerful allegory, the prose song of “the eternal
+battle between the lean of this world and the fat—a battle in which, as
+the author shows, the latter always come off successful. It is, too, in
+its way an allegory of the triumph of the fat bourgeois, who lives well
+and beds softly, over the gaunt and Ishmael artist—an allegory which M.
+Zola has more than once introduced into his pages, another notable
+instance thereof being found in ‘Germinal,’ with the fat, well-fed
+Gregoires on the one hand, and the starving Maheus on the other.”
+
+From this quotation from Mr. Sherard’s pages it will be gathered that
+M. Zola had a distinct social aim in writing this book. Wellnigh the
+whole social question may, indeed, be summed up in the words “food and
+comfort”; and in a series of novels like “Les Rougon-Macquart,” dealing
+firstly with different conditions and grades of society, and, secondly,
+with the influence which the Second Empire exercised on France, the
+present volume necessarily had its place marked out from the very
+first.
+
+Mr. Sherard has told us of all the labour which M. Zola expended on the
+preparation of the work, of his multitudinous visits to the Paris
+markets, his patient investigation of their organism, and his keen
+artistic interest in their manifold phases of life. And bred as I was
+in Paris, a partaker as I have been of her exultations and her woes
+they have always had for me a strong attraction. My memory goes back to
+the earlier years of their existence, and I can well remember many of
+the old surroundings which have now disappeared. I can recollect the
+last vestiges of the antique _piliers_, built by Francis I, facing the
+Rue de la Tonnellerie. Paul Niquet’s, with its “bowel-twisting brandy”
+and its crew of drunken ragpickers, was certainly before my time; but I
+can readily recall Baratte’s and Bordier’s and all the folly and
+prodigality which raged there; I knew, too, several of the noted
+thieves’ haunts which took the place of Niquet’s, and which one was
+careful never to enter without due precaution. And then, when the
+German armies were beleaguering Paris, and two millions of people were
+shut off from the world, I often strolled to the Halles to view their
+strangely altered aspect. The fish pavilion, of which M. Zola has so
+much to say, was bare and deserted. The railway drays, laden with the
+comestible treasures of the ocean, no longer thundered through the
+covered ways. At the most one found an auction going on in one or
+another corner, and a few Seine eels or gudgeons fetching wellnigh
+their weight in gold. Then, in the butter and cheese pavilions, one
+could only procure some nauseous melted fat, while in the meat
+department horse and mule and donkey took the place of beef and veal
+and mutton. Mule and donkey were very scarce, and commanded high
+prices, but both were of better flavour than horse; mule, indeed, being
+quite a delicacy. I also well remember a stall at which dog was sold,
+and, hunger knowing no law, I once purchased, cooked, and ate a couple
+of canine cutlets which cost me two francs apiece. The flesh was pinky
+and very tender, yet I would not willingly make such a repast again.
+However, peace and plenty at last came round once more, the Halles
+regained their old-time aspect, and in the years which followed I more
+than once saw the dawn rise slowly over the mounds of cabbages,
+carrots, leeks, and pumpkins, even as M. Zola describes in the
+following pages. He has, I think, depicted with remarkable accuracy and
+artistic skill the many varying effects of colour that are produced as
+the climbing sun casts its early beams on the giant larder and its
+masses of food—effects of colour which, to quote a famous saying of the
+first Napoleon, show that “the markets of Paris are the Louvre of the
+people” in more senses than one.
+
+The reader will bear in mind that the period dealt with by the author
+in this work is that of 1857-60, when the new Halles Centrales were yet
+young, and indeed not altogether complete. Still, although many old
+landmarks have long since been swept away, the picture of life in all
+essential particulars remained the same. Prior to 1860 the limits of
+Paris were the so-called _boulevards exterieurs_, from which a girdle
+of suburbs, such as Montmartre, Belleville, Passy, and Montrouge,
+extended to the fortifications; and the population of the city was then
+only 1,400,000 souls. Some of the figures which will be found scattered
+through M. Zola’s work must therefore be taken as applying entirely to
+the past.
+
+Nowadays the amount of business transacted at the Halles has very
+largely increased, in spite of the multiplication of district markets.
+Paris seems to have an insatiable appetite, though, on the other hand,
+its cuisine is fast becoming all simplicity. To my thinking, few more
+remarkable changes have come over the Parisians of recent years than
+this change of diet. One by one great restaurants, formerly renowned
+for particular dishes and special wines, have been compelled through
+lack of custom to close their doors; and this has not been caused so
+much by inability to defray the cost of high feeding as by inability to
+indulge in it with impunity in a physical sense. In fact, Paris has
+become a city of impaired digestions, which nowadays seek the
+simplicity without the heaviness of the old English cuisine; and,
+should things continue in their present course, I fancy that Parisians
+anxious for high feeding will ultimately have to cross over to our side
+of the Channel.
+
+These remarks, I trust, will not be considered out of place in an
+introduction to a work which to no small extent treats of the appetite
+of Paris. The reader will find that the characters portrayed by M. Zola
+are all types of humble life, but I fail to see that their
+circumstances should render them any the less interesting. A faithful
+portrait of a shopkeeper, a workman, or a workgirl is artistically of
+far more value than all the imaginary sketches of impossible dukes and
+good and wicked baronets in which so many English novels abound.
+Several of M. Zola’s personages seem to me extremely lifelike—Gavard,
+indeed, is a _chef-d’oeuvre_ of portraiture: I have known many men like
+him; and no one who lived in Paris under the Empire can deny the
+accuracy with which the author has delineated his hero Florent, the
+dreamy and hapless revolutionary caught in the toils of others. In
+those days, too, there was many such a plot as M. Zola describes,
+instigated by agents like Logre and Lebigre, and allowed to mature till
+the eve of an election or some other important event which rendered its
+exposure desirable for the purpose of influencing public opinion. In
+fact, in all that relates to the so-called “conspiracy of the markets,”
+M. Zola, whilst changing time and place to suit the requirements of his
+story, has simply followed historical lines. As for the Quenus, who
+play such prominent parts in the narrative, the husband is a weakling
+with no soul above his stewpans, whilst his wife, the beautiful Lisa,
+in reality wears the breeches and rules the roast. The manner in which
+she cures Quenu of his political proclivities, though savouring of
+persuasiveness rather than violence, is worthy of the immortal Mrs.
+Caudle: Douglas Jerrold might have signed a certain lecture which she
+administers to her astounded helpmate. Of Pauline, the Quenus’
+daughter, we see but little in the story, but she becomes the heroine
+of another of M. Zola’s novels, “La Joie de Vivre,” and instead of
+inheriting the egotism of her parents, develops a passionate love and
+devotion for others. In a like way Claude Lantier, Florent’s artist
+friend and son of Gervaise of the “Assommoir,” figures more
+particularly in “L’Oeuvre,” which tells how his painful struggle for
+fame resulted in madness and suicide. With reference to the beautiful
+Norman and the other fishwives and gossips scattered through the
+present volume, and those genuine types of Parisian _gaminerie_, Muche,
+Marjolin, and Cadine, I may mention that I have frequently chastened
+their language in deference to English susceptibilities, so that the
+story, whilst retaining every essential feature, contains nothing to
+which exception can reasonably be taken.
+
+E. A. V.
+
+
+
+
+THE FAT AND THE THIN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Amidst the deep silence and solitude prevailing in the avenue several
+market gardeners’ carts were climbing the slope which led towards
+Paris, and the fronts of the houses, asleep behind the dim lines of
+elms on either side of the road, echoed back the rhythmical jolting of
+the wheels. At the Neuilly bridge a cart full of cabbages and another
+full of peas had joined the eight waggons of carrots and turnips coming
+down from Nanterre; and the horses, left to themselves, had continued
+plodding along with lowered heads, at a regular though lazy pace, which
+the ascent of the slope now slackened. The sleeping waggoners, wrapped
+in woollen cloaks, striped black and grey, and grasping the reins
+slackly in their closed hands, were stretched at full length on their
+stomachs atop of the piles of vegetables. Every now and then, a gas
+lamp, following some patch of gloom, would light up the hobnails of a
+boot, the blue sleeve of a blouse, or the peak of a cap peering out of
+the huge florescence of vegetables—red bouquets of carrots, white
+bouquets of turnips, and the overflowing greenery of peas and cabbages.
+
+And all along the road, and along the neighbouring roads, in front and
+behind, the distant rumbling of vehicles told of the presence of
+similar contingents of the great caravan which was travelling onward
+through the gloom and deep slumber of that matutinal hour, lulling the
+dark city to continued repose with its echoes of passing food.
+
+Madame Francois’s horse, Balthazar, an animal that was far too fat, led
+the van. He was plodding on, half asleep and wagging his ears, when
+suddenly, on reaching the Rue de Longchamp, he quivered with fear and
+came to a dead stop. The horses behind, thus unexpectedly checked, ran
+their heads against the backs of the carts in front of them, and the
+procession halted amidst a clattering of bolts and chains and the oaths
+of the awakened waggoners. Madame Francois, who sat in front of her
+vehicle, with her back to a board which kept her vegetables in
+position, looked down; but, in the dim light thrown to the left by a
+small square lantern, which illuminated little beyond one of
+Balthazar’s sheeny flanks, she could distinguish nothing.
+
+“Come, old woman, let’s get on!” cried one of the men, who had raised
+himself to a kneeling position amongst his turnips; “it’s only some
+drunken sot.”
+
+Madame Francois, however, had bent forward and on her right hand had
+caught sight of a black mass, lying almost under the horse’s hoofs, and
+blocking the road.
+
+“You wouldn’t have us drive over a man, would you?” said she, jumping
+to the ground.
+
+It was indeed a man lying at full length upon the road, with his arms
+stretched out and his face in the dust. He seemed to be remarkably
+tall, but as withered as a dry branch, and the wonder was that
+Balthazar had not broken him in half with a blow from his hoof. Madame
+Francois thought that he was dead; but on stooping and taking hold of
+one of his hands, she found that it was quite warm.
+
+“Poor fellow!” she murmured softly.
+
+The waggoners, however, were getting impatient.
+
+“Hurry up, there!” said the man kneeling amongst the turnips, in a
+hoarse voice. “He’s drunk till he can hold no more, the hog! Shove him
+into the gutter.”
+
+Meantime, the man on the road had opened his eyes. He looked at Madame
+Francois with a startled air, but did not move. She herself now thought
+that he must indeed be drunk.
+
+“You mustn’t stop here,” she said to him, “or you’ll get run over and
+killed. Where were you going?”
+
+“I don’t know,” replied the man in a faint voice.
+
+Then, with an effort and an anxious expression, he added: “I was going
+to Paris; I fell down, and don’t remember any more.”
+
+Madame Francois could now see him more distinctly, and he was truly a
+pitiable object, with his ragged black coat and trousers, through the
+rents in which you could espy his scraggy limbs. Underneath a black
+cloth cap, which was drawn low over his brows, as though he were afraid
+of being recognised, could be seen two large brown eyes, gleaming with
+peculiar softness in his otherwise stern and harassed countenance. It
+seemed to Madame Francois that he was in far too famished a condition
+to have got drunk.
+
+“And what part of Paris were you going to?” she continued.
+
+The man did not reply immediately. This questioning seemed to distress
+him. He appeared to be thinking the matter over, but at last said
+hesitatingly, “Over yonder, towards the markets.”
+
+He had now, with great difficulty, got to his feet again, and seemed
+anxious to resume his journey. But Madame Francois noticed that he
+tottered, and clung for support to one of the shafts of her waggon.
+
+“Are you tired?” she asked him.
+
+“Yes, very tired,” he replied.
+
+Then she suddenly assumed a grumpy tone, as though displeased, and,
+giving him a push, exclaimed: “Look sharp, then, and climb into my
+cart. You’ve made us lose a lot of time. I’m going to the markets, and
+I’ll turn you out there with my vegetables.”
+
+Then, as the man seemed inclined to refuse her offer, she pushed him up
+with her stout arms, and bundled him down upon the turnips and carrots.
+
+“Come, now, don’t give us any more trouble,” she cried angrily. “You
+are quite enough to provoke one, my good fellow. Don’t I tell you that
+I’m going to the markets? Sleep away up there. I’ll wake you when we
+arrive.”
+
+She herself then clambered into the cart again, and settled herself
+with her back against the board, grasping the reins of Balthazar, who
+started off drowsily, swaying his ears once more. The other waggons
+followed, and the procession resumed its lazy march through the
+darkness, whilst the rhythmical jolting of the wheels again awoke the
+echoes of the sleepy house fronts, and the waggoners, wrapped in their
+cloaks, dozed off afresh. The one who had called to Madame Francois
+growled out as he lay down: “As if we’d nothing better to do than pick
+up every drunken sot we come across! You’re a scorcher, old woman!”
+
+The waggons rumbled on, and the horses picked their own way, with
+drooping heads. The stranger whom Madame Francois had befriended was
+lying on his stomach, with his long legs lost amongst the turnips which
+filled the back part of the cart, whilst his face was buried amidst the
+spreading piles of carrot bunches. With weary, extended arms he
+clutched hold of his vegetable couch in fear of being thrown to the
+ground by one of the waggon’s jolts, and his eyes were fixed on the two
+long lines of gas lamps which stretched away in front of him till they
+mingled with a swarm of other lights in the distance atop of the slope.
+Far away on the horizon floated a spreading, whitish vapour, showing
+where Paris slept amidst the luminous haze of all those flamelets.
+
+“I come from Nanterre, and my name’s Madame Francois,” said the market
+gardener presently. “Since my poor man died I go to the markets every
+morning myself. It’s a hard life, as you may guess. And who are you?”
+
+“My name’s Florent, I come from a distance,” replied the stranger, with
+embarrassment. “Please excuse me, but I’m really so tired that it is
+painful to me to talk.”
+
+He was evidently unwilling to say anything more, and so Madame Francois
+relapsed into silence, and allowed the reins to fall loosely on the
+back of Balthazar, who went his way like an animal acquainted with
+every stone of the road.
+
+Meantime, with his eyes still fixed upon the far-spreading glare of
+Paris, Florent was pondering over the story which he had refused to
+communicate to Madame Francois. After making his escape from Cayenne,
+whither he had been transported for his participation in the resistance
+to Louis Napoleon’s Coup d’Etat, he had wandered about Dutch Guiana for
+a couple of years, burning to return to France, yet dreading the
+Imperial police. At last, however, he once more saw before him the
+beloved and mighty city which he had so keenly regretted and so
+ardently longed for. He would hide himself there, he told himself, and
+again lead the quiet, peaceable life that he had lived years ago. The
+police would never be any the wiser; and everyone would imagine,
+indeed, that he had died over yonder, across the sea. Then he thought
+of his arrival at Havre, where he had landed with only some fifteen
+francs tied up in a corner of his handkerchief. He had been able to pay
+for a seat in the coach as far as Rouen, but from that point he had
+been forced to continue his journey on foot, as he had scarcely thirty
+sous left of his little store. At Vernon his last copper had gone in
+bread. After that he had no clear recollection of anything. He fancied
+that he could remember having slept for several hours in a ditch, and
+having shown the papers with which he had provided himself to a
+gendarme; however, he had only a very confused idea of what had
+happened. He had left Vernon without any breakfast, seized every now
+and then with hopeless despair and raging pangs which had driven him to
+munch the leaves of the hedges as he tramped along. A prey to cramp and
+fright, his body bent, his sight dimmed, and his feet sore, he had
+continued his weary march, ever drawn onwards in a semi-unconscious
+state by a vision of Paris, which, far, far away, beyond the horizon,
+seemed to be summoning him and waiting for him.
+
+When he at length reached Courbevoie, the night was very dark. Paris,
+looking like a patch of star-sprent sky that had fallen upon the black
+earth, seemed to him to wear a forbidding aspect, as though angry at
+his return. Then he felt very faint, and his legs almost gave way
+beneath him as he descended the hill. As he crossed the Neuilly bridge
+he sustained himself by clinging to the parapet, and bent over and
+looked at the Seine rolling inky waves between its dense, massy banks.
+A red lamp on the water seemed to be watching him with a sanguineous
+eye. And then he had to climb the hill if he would reach Paris on its
+summit yonder. The hundreds of leagues which he had already travelled
+were as nothing to it. That bit of a road filled him with despair. He
+would never be able, he thought, to reach yonder light crowned summit.
+The spacious avenue lay before him with its silence and its darkness,
+its lines of tall trees and low houses, its broad grey footwalks,
+speckled with the shadows of overhanging branches, and parted
+occasionally by the gloomy gaps of side streets. The squat yellow
+flames of the gas lamps, standing erect at regular intervals, alone
+imparted a little life to the lonely wilderness. And Florent seemed to
+make no progress; the avenue appeared to grow ever longer and longer,
+to be carrying Paris away into the far depths of the night. At last he
+fancied that the gas lamps, with their single eyes, were running off on
+either hand, whisking the road away with them; and then, overcome by
+vertigo, he stumbled and fell on the roadway like a log.
+
+Now he was lying at ease on his couch of greenery, which seemed to him
+soft as a feather bed. He had slightly raised his head so as to keep
+his eyes on the luminous haze which was spreading above the dark roofs
+which he could divine on the horizon. He was nearing his goal, carried
+along towards it, with nothing to do but to yield to the leisurely
+jolts of the waggon; and, free from all further fatigue, he now only
+suffered from hunger. Hunger, indeed, had once more awoke within him
+with frightful and wellnigh intolerable pangs. His limbs seemed to have
+fallen asleep; he was only conscious of the existence of his stomach,
+horribly cramped and twisted as by a red-hot iron. The fresh odour of
+the vegetables, amongst which he was lying, affected him so keenly that
+he almost fainted away. He strained himself against that piled-up mass
+of food with all his remaining strength, in order to compress his
+stomach and silence its groans. And the nine other waggons behind him,
+with their mountains of cabbages and peas, their piles of artichokes,
+lettuces, celery, and leeks, seemed to him to be slowly overtaking him,
+as though to bury him whilst he was thus tortured by hunger beneath an
+avalanche of food. Presently the procession halted, and there was a
+sound of deep voices. They had reached the barriers, and the municipal
+customs officers were examining the waggons. A moment later Florent
+entered Paris, in a swoon, lying atop of the carrots, with clenched
+teeth.
+
+“Hallow! You up there!” Madame Francois called out sharply.
+
+And as the stranger made no attempt to move, she clambered up and shook
+him. Florent rose to a sitting posture. He had slept and no longer felt
+the pangs of hunger, but was dizzy and confused.
+
+“You’ll help me to unload, won’t you?” Madame Francois said to him, as
+she made him get down.
+
+He helped her. A stout man with a felt hat on his head and a badge in
+the top buttonhole of his coat was striking the ground with a stick and
+grumbling loudly:
+
+“Come, come, now, make haste! You must get on faster than that! Bring
+the waggon a little more forward. How many yards’ standing have you?
+Four, isn’t it?”
+
+Then he gave a ticket to Madame Francois, who took some coppers out of
+a little canvas bag and handed them to him; whereupon he went off to
+vent his impatience and tap the ground with his stick a little further
+away. Madame Francois took hold of Balthazar’s bridle and backed him so
+as to bring the wheels of the waggon close to the footway. Then, having
+marked out her four yards with some wisps of straw, after removing the
+back of the cart, she asked Florent to hand her the vegetables bunch by
+bunch. She arranged them sort by sort on her standing, setting them out
+artistically, the “tops” forming a band of greenery around each pile;
+and it was with remarkable rapidity that she completed her show, which,
+in the gloom of early morning, looked like some piece of symmetrically
+coloured tapestry. When Florent had handed her a huge bunch of parsley,
+which he had found at the bottom of the cart, she asked him for still
+another service.
+
+“It would be very kind of you,” said she, “if you would look after my
+goods while I put the horse and cart up. I’m only going a couple of
+yards, to the Golden Compasses, in the Rue Montorgueil.”
+
+Florent told her that she might make herself easy. He preferred to
+remain still, for his hunger had revived since he had begun to move
+about. He sat down and leaned against a heap of cabbages beside Madame
+Francois’s stock. He was all right there, he told himself, and would
+not go further afield, but wait. His head felt empty, and he had no
+very clear notion as to where he was. At the beginning of September it
+is quite dark in the early morning. Around him lighted lanterns were
+flitting or standing stationary in the depths of the gloom. He was
+sitting on one side of a broad street which he did not recognise; it
+stretched far away into the blackness of the night. He could make out
+nothing plainly, excepting the stock of which he had been left in
+charge. All around him along the market footways rose similar piles of
+goods. The middle of the roadway was blocked by huge grey tumbrels, and
+from one end of the street to the other a sound of heavy breathing
+passed, betokening the presence of horses which the eye could not
+distinguish.
+
+Shouts and calls, the noise of falling wood, or of iron chains slipping
+to the ground, the heavy thud of loads of vegetables discharged from
+the waggons, and the grating of wheels as the carts were backed against
+the footways, filled the yet sonorous awakening, whose near approach
+could be felt and heard in the throbbing gloom. Glancing over the pile
+of cabbages behind him. Florent caught sight of a man wrapped like a
+parcel in his cloak, and snoring away with his head upon some baskets
+of plums. Nearer to him, on his left, he could distinguish a lad, some
+ten years old, slumbering between two heaps of endive, with an angelic
+smile on his face. And as yet there seemed to be nothing on that
+pavement that was really awake except the lanterns waving from
+invisible arms, and flitting and skipping over the sleep of the
+vegetables and human beings spread out there in heaps pending the dawn.
+However, what surprised Florent was the sight of some huge pavilions on
+either side of the street, pavilions with lofty roofs that seemed to
+expand and soar out of sight amidst a swarm of gleams. In his weakened
+state of mind he fancied he beheld a series of enormous, symmetrically
+built palaces, light and airy as crystal, whose fronts sparkled with
+countless streaks of light filtering through endless Venetian shutters.
+Gleaming between the slender pillar shafts these narrow golden bars
+seemed like ladders of light mounting to the gloomy line of the lower
+roofs, and then soaring aloft till they reached the jumble of higher
+ones, thus describing the open framework of immense square halls, where
+in the yellow flare of the gas lights a multitude of vague, grey,
+slumbering things was gathered together.
+
+At last Florent turned his head to look about him, distressed at not
+knowing where he was, and filled with vague uneasiness by the sight of
+that huge and seemingly fragile vision. And now, as he raised his eyes,
+he caught sight of the luminous dial and the grey massive pile of Saint
+Eustache’s Church. At this he was much astonished. He was close to
+Saint Eustache, yet all was novel to him.
+
+However, Madame Francois had come back again, and was engaged in a
+heated discussion with a man who carried a sack over his shoulder and
+offered to buy her carrots for a sou a bunch.
+
+“Really, now, you are unreasonable, Lacaille!” said she. “You know
+quite well that you will sell them again to the Parisians at four and
+five sous the bunch. Don’t tell me that you won’t! You may have them
+for two sous the bunch, if you like.”
+
+Then, as the man went off, she continued: “Upon my word, I believe some
+people think that things grow of their own accord! Let him go and find
+carrots at a sou the bunch elsewhere, tipsy scoundrel that he is! He’ll
+come back again presently, you’ll see.”
+
+These last remarks were addressed to Florent. And, seating herself by
+his side, Madame Francois resumed: “If you’ve been a long time away
+from Paris, you perhaps don’t know the new markets. They haven’t been
+built for more than five years at the most. That pavilion you see there
+beside us is the flower and fruit market. The fish and poultry markets
+are farther away, and over there behind us come the vegetables and the
+butter and cheese. There are six pavilions on this side, and on the
+other side, across the road, there are four more, with the meat and the
+tripe stalls. It’s an enormous place, but it’s horribly cold in the
+winter. They talk about pulling down the houses near the corn market to
+make room for two more pavilions. But perhaps you know all this?”
+
+“No, indeed,” replied Florent; “I’ve been abroad. And what’s the name
+of that big street in front of us?”
+
+“Oh, that’s a new street. It’s called the Rue du Pont Neuf. It leads
+from the Seine through here to the Rue Montmartre and the Rue
+Montorgueil. You would soon have recognized where you were if it had
+been daylight.”
+
+Madame Francois paused and rose, for she saw a woman heading down to
+examine her turnips. “Ah, is that you, Mother Chantemesse?” she said in
+a friendly way.
+
+Florent meanwhile glanced towards the Rue Montorgueil. It was there
+that a body of police officers had arrested him on the night of
+December 4.[*] He had been walking along the Boulevard Montmartre at
+about two o’clock, quietly making his way through the crowd, and
+smiling at the number of soldiers that the Elysee had sent into the
+streets to awe the people, when the military suddenly began making a
+clean sweep of the thoroughfare, shooting folks down at close range
+during a quarter of an hour. Jostled and knocked to the ground, Florent
+fell at the corner of the Rue Vivienne and knew nothing further of what
+happened, for the panic-stricken crowd, in their wild terror of being
+shot, trampled over his body. Presently, hearing everything quiet, he
+made an attempt to rise; but across him there lay a young woman in a
+pink bonnet, whose shawl had slipped aside, allowing her chemisette,
+pleated in little tucks, to be seen. Two bullets had pierced the upper
+part of her bosom; and when Florent gently removed the poor creature to
+free his legs, two streamlets of blood oozed from her wounds on to his
+hands. Then he sprang up with a sudden bound, and rushed madly away,
+hatless and with his hands still wet with blood. Until evening he
+wandered about the streets, with his head swimming, ever seeing the
+young woman lying across his legs with her pale face, her blue staring
+eyes, her distorted lips, and her expression of astonishment at thus
+meeting death so suddenly. He was a shy, timid fellow. Albeit thirty
+years old he had never dared to stare women in the face; and now, for
+the rest of his life, he was to have that one fixed in his heart and
+memory. He felt as though he had lost some loved one of his own.
+
+[*] 1851. Two days after the Coup d’Etat.—Translator.
+
+
+In the evening, without knowing how he had got there, still dazed and
+horrified as he was by the terrible scenes of the afternoon, he had
+found himself at a wine shop in the Rue Montorgueil, where several men
+were drinking and talking of throwing up barricades. He went away with
+them, helped them to tear up a few paving-stones, and seated himself on
+the barricade, weary with his long wandering through the streets, and
+reflecting that he would fight when the soldiers came up. However, he
+had not even a knife with him, and was still bareheaded. Towards eleven
+o’clock he dozed off, and in his sleep could see the two holes in the
+dead woman’s white chemisette glaring at him like eyes reddened by
+tears and blood. When he awoke he found himself in the grasp of four
+police officers, who were pummelling him with their fists. The men who
+had built the barricade had fled. The police officers treated him with
+still greater violence, and indeed almost strangled him when they
+noticed that his hands were stained with blood. It was the blood of the
+young woman.
+
+Florent raised his eyes to the luminous dial of Saint Eustache with his
+mind so full of these recollections that he did not notice the position
+of the pointers. It was, however, nearly four o’clock. The markets were
+as yet wrapped in sleep. Madame Francois was still talking to old
+Madame Chantemesse, both standing and arguing about the price of
+turnips, and Florent now called to mind how narrowly he had escaped
+being shot over yonder by the wall of Saint Eustache. A detachment of
+gendarmes had just blown out the brains of five unhappy fellows caught
+at a barricade in the Rue Greneta. The five corpses were lying on the
+footway, at a spot where he thought he could now distinguish a heap of
+rosy radishes. He himself had escaped being shot merely because the
+policemen only carried swords. They took him to a neighbouring police
+station and gave the officer in charge a scrap of paper, on which were
+these words written in pencil: “Taken with blood-stained hands. Very
+dangerous.” Then he had been dragged from station to station till the
+morning came. The scrap of paper accompanied him wherever he went. He
+was manacled and guarded as though he were a raving madman. At the
+station in the Rue de la Lingerie some tipsy soldiers wanted to shoot
+him; and they had already lighted a lantern with that object when the
+order arrived for the prisoners to be taken to the depot of the
+Prefecture of Police. Two days afterwards he found himself in a
+casemate of the fort of Bicêtre. Ever since then he had been suffering
+from hunger. He had felt hungry in the casemate, and the pangs of
+hunger had never since left him. A hundred men were pent in the depths
+of that cellar-like dungeon, where, scarce able to breathe, they
+devoured the few mouthfuls of bread that were thrown to them, like so
+many captive wild beasts.
+
+When Florent was brought before an investigating magistrate, without
+anyone to defend him, and without any evidence being adduced, he was
+accused of belonging to a secret society; and when he swore that this
+was untrue, the magistrate produced the scrap of paper from amongst the
+documents before him: “Taken with blood-stained hands. Very dangerous.”
+That was quite sufficient. He was condemned to transportation. Six
+weeks afterwards, one January night, a gaoler awoke him and locked him
+up in a courtyard with more than four hundred other prisoners. An hour
+later this first detachment started for the pontoons and exile,
+handcuffed and guarded by a double file of gendarmes with loaded
+muskets. They crossed the Austerlitz bridge, followed the line of the
+boulevards, and so reached the terminus of the Western Railway line. It
+was a joyous carnival night. The windows of the restaurants on the
+boulevards glittered with lights. At the top of the Rue Vivienne, just
+at the spot where he ever saw the young woman lying dead—that unknown
+young woman whose image he always bore with him—he now beheld a large
+carriage in which a party of masked women, with bare shoulders and
+laughing voices, were venting their impatience at being detained, and
+expressing their horror of that endless procession of convicts. The
+whole of the way from Paris to Havre the prisoners never received a
+mouthful of bread or a drink of water. The officials had forgotten to
+give them their rations before starting, and it was not till thirty-six
+hours afterwards, when they had been stowed away in the hold of the
+frigate _Canada_, that they at last broke their fast.
+
+No, Florent had never again been free from hunger. He recalled all the
+past to mind, but could not recollect a single hour of satiety. He had
+become dry and withered; his stomach seemed to have shrunk; his skin
+clung to his bones. And now that he was back in Paris once more, he
+found it fat and sleek and flourishing, teeming with food in the midst
+of the darkness. He had returned to it on a couch of vegetables; he
+lingered in its midst encompassed by unknown masses of food which still
+and ever increased and disquieted him. Had that happy carnival night
+continued throughout those seven years, then? Once again he saw the
+glittering windows on the boulevards, the laughing women, the
+luxurious, greedy city which he had quitted on that far-away January
+night; and it seemed to him that everything had expanded and increased
+in harmony with those huge markets, whose gigantic breathing, still
+heavy from the indigestion of the previous day, he now began to hear.
+
+Old Mother Chantemesse had by this time made up her mind to buy a dozen
+bunches of turnips. She put them in her apron, which she held closely
+pressed to her person, thus making herself look yet more corpulent than
+she was; and for some time longer she lingered there, still gossiping
+in a drawling voice. When at last she went away, Madame Francois again
+sat down by the side of Florent.
+
+“Poor old Mother Chantemesse!” she said; “she must be at least
+seventy-two. I can remember her buying turnips of my father when I was
+a mere chit. And she hasn’t a relation in the world; no one but a young
+hussy whom she picked up I don’t know where and who does nothing but
+bring her trouble. Still, she manages to live, selling things by the
+ha’p’orth and clearing her couple of francs profit a day. For my own
+part, I’m sure that I could never spend my days on the foot-pavement in
+this horrid Paris! And she hasn’t even any relations here!”
+
+“You have some relations in Paris, I suppose?” she asked presently,
+seeing that Florent seemed disinclined to talk.
+
+Florent did not appear to hear her. A feeling of distrust came back to
+him. His head was teeming with old stories of the police, stories of
+spies prowling about at every street corner, and of women selling the
+secrets which they managed to worm out of the unhappy fellows they
+deluded. Madame Francois was sitting close beside him and certainly
+looked perfectly straightforward and honest, with her big calm face,
+above which was bound a black and yellow handkerchief. She seemed about
+five and thirty years of age, and was somewhat stoutly built, with a
+certain hardy beauty due to her life in the fresh air. A pair of black
+eyes, which beamed with kindly tenderness, softened the more masculine
+characteristics of her person. She certainly was inquisitive, but her
+curiosity was probably well meant.
+
+“I’ve a nephew in Paris,” she continued, without seeming at all
+offended by Florent’s silence. “He’s turned out badly though, and has
+enlisted. It’s a pleasant thing to have somewhere to go to and stay at,
+isn’t it? I dare say there’s a big surprise in store for your relations
+when they see you. But it’s always a pleasure to welcome one of one’s
+own people back again, isn’t it?”
+
+She kept her eyes fixed upon him while she spoke, doubtless
+compassionating his extreme scragginess; fancying, too, that there was
+a “gentleman” inside those old black rags, and so not daring to slip a
+piece of silver into his hand. At last, however, she timidly murmured:
+“All the same, if you should happen just at present to be in want of
+anything——”
+
+But Florent checked her with uneasy pride. He told her that he had
+everything he required, and had a place to go to. She seemed quite
+pleased to hear this, and, as though to tranquillise herself concerning
+him, repeated several times: “Well, well, in that case you’ve only got
+to wait till daylight.”
+
+A large bell at the corner of the fruit market, just over Florent’s
+head, now began to ring. The slow regular peals seemed to gradually
+dissipate the slumber that yet lingered all around. Carts were still
+arriving, and the shouts of the waggoners, the cracking of their whips,
+and the grinding of the paving-stones beneath the iron-bound wheels and
+the horses’ shoes sounded with an increasing din. The carts could now
+only advance by a series of spasmodic jolts, and stretched in a long
+line, one behind the other, till they were lost to sight in the distant
+darkness, whence a confused roar ascended.
+
+Unloading was in progress all along the Rue du Pont Neuf, the vehicles
+being drawn up close to the edge of the footways, while their teams
+stood motionless in close order as at a horse fair. Florent felt
+interested in one enormous tumbrel which was piled up with magnificent
+cabbages, and had only been backed to the kerb with the greatest
+difficulty. Its load towered above the lofty gas lamp whose bright
+light fell full upon the broad leaves which looked like pieces of dark
+green velvet, scalloped and goffered. A young peasant girl, some
+sixteen years old, in a blue linen jacket and cap, had climbed on to
+the tumbrel, where, buried in the cabbages to her shoulders, she took
+them one by one and threw them to somebody concealed in the shade
+below. Every now and then the girl would slip and vanish, overwhelmed
+by an avalanche of the vegetables, but her rosy nose soon reappeared
+amidst the teeming greenery, and she broke into a laugh while the
+cabbages again flew down between Florent and the gas lamp. He counted
+them mechanically as they fell. When the cart was emptied he felt
+worried.
+
+The piles of vegetables on the pavement now extended to the verge of
+the roadway. Between the heaps, the market gardeners left narrow paths
+to enable people to pass along. The whole of the wide footway was
+covered from end to end with dark mounds. As yet, in the sudden dancing
+gleams of light from the lanterns, you only just espied the luxuriant
+fulness of the bundles of artichokes, the delicate green of the
+lettuces, the rosy coral of the carrots, and dull ivory of the turnips.
+And these gleams of rich colour flitted along the heaps, according as
+the lanterns came and went. The footway was now becoming populated: a
+crowd of people had awakened, and was moving hither and thither amidst
+the vegetables, stopping at times, and chattering and shouting. In the
+distance a loud voice could be heard crying, “Endive! who’s got
+endive?” The gates of the pavilion devoted to the sale of ordinary
+vegetables had just been opened; and the retail dealers who had stalls
+there, with white caps on their heads, fichus knotted over their black
+jackets, and skirts pinned up to keep them from getting soiled, now
+began to secure their stock for the day, depositing their purchases in
+some huge porters’ baskets placed upon the ground. Between the roadway
+and the pavilion these baskets were to be seen coming and going on all
+sides, knocking against the crowded heads of the bystanders, who
+resented the pushing with coarse expressions, whilst all around was a
+clamour of voices growing hoarse by prolonged wrangling over a sou or
+two. Florent was astonished by the calmness of the female market
+gardeners, with bandanas and bronzed faces, displayed amidst all this
+garrulous bargaining of the markets.
+
+Behind him, on the footway of the Rue Rambuteau, fruit was being sold.
+Hampers and low baskets covered with canvas or straw stood there in
+long lines, a strong odour of over-ripe mirabelle plums was wafted
+hither and thither. At last a subdued and gentle voice, which he had
+heard for some time past, induced him to turn his head, and he saw a
+charming darksome little woman sitting on the ground and bargaining.
+
+“Come now, Marcel,” said she, “you’ll take a hundred sous, won’t you?”
+
+The man to whom she was speaking was closely wrapped in his cloak and
+made no reply; however, after a silence of five minutes or more, the
+young woman returned to the charge.
+
+“Come now, Marcel; a hundred sous for that basket there, and four
+francs for the other one; that’ll make nine francs altogether.”
+
+Then came another interval.
+
+“Well, tell me what you will take.”
+
+“Ten francs. You know that well enough already; I told you so before.
+But what have you done with your Jules this morning, La Sarriette?”
+
+The young woman began to laugh as she took a handful of small change
+out of her pocket.
+
+“Oh,” she replied, “Jules is still in bed. He says that men were not
+intended to work.”
+
+She paid for the two baskets, and carried them into the fruit pavilion,
+which had just been opened. The market buildings still retained their
+gloom-wrapped aspect of airy fragility, streaked with the thousand
+lines of light that gleamed from the venetian shutters. People were
+beginning to pass along the broad covered streets intersecting the
+pavilions, but the more distant buildings still remained deserted
+amidst the increasing buzz of life on the footways. By Saint Eustache
+the bakers and wine sellers were taking down their shutters, and the
+ruddy shops, with their gas lights flaring, showed like gaps of fire in
+the gloom in which the grey house-fronts were yet steeped. Florent
+noticed a baker’s shop on the left-hand side of the Rue Montorgueil,
+replete and golden with its last baking, and fancied he could scent the
+pleasant smell of the hot bread. It was now half past four.
+
+Madame Francois by this time had disposed of nearly all her stock. She
+had only a few bunches of carrots left when Lacaille once more made his
+appearance with his sack.
+
+“Well,” said he, “will you take a sou now?”
+
+“I knew I should see you again,” the good woman quietly answered.
+“You’d better take all I have left. There are seventeen bunches.”
+
+“That makes seventeen sous.”
+
+“No; thirty-four.”
+
+At last they agreed to fix the price at twenty-five sous. Madame
+Francois was anxious to be off.
+
+“He’d been keeping his eye upon me all the time,” she said to Florent,
+when Lacaille had gone off with the carrots in his sack. “That old
+rogue runs things down all over the markets, and he often waits till
+the last peal of the bell before spending four sous in purchase. Oh,
+these Paris folk! They’ll wrangle and argue for an hour to save half a
+sou, and then go off and empty their purses at the wine shop.”
+
+Whenever Madame Francois talked of Paris she always spoke in a tone of
+disdain, and referred to the city as though it were some ridiculous,
+contemptible, far-away place, in which she only condescended to set
+foot at nighttime.
+
+“There!” she continued, sitting down again, beside Florent, on some
+vegetables belonging to a neighbour, “I can get away now.”
+
+Florent bent his head. He had just committed a theft. When Lacaille
+went off he had caught sight of a carrot lying on the ground, and
+having picked it up he was holding it tightly in his right hand. Behind
+him were some bundles of celery and bunches of parsley were diffusing
+pungent odours which painfully affected him.
+
+“Well, I’m off now!” said Madame Francois.
+
+However, she felt interested in this stranger, and could divine that he
+was suffering there on that foot-pavement, from which he had never
+stirred. She made him fresh offers of assistance, but he again refused
+them, with a still more bitter show of pride. He even got up and
+remained standing to prove that he was quite strong again. Then, as
+Madame Francois turned her head away, he put the carrot to his mouth.
+But he had to remove it for a moment, in spite of the terrible longing
+which he felt to dig his teeth into it; for Madame Francois turned
+round again and looking him full in the face, began to question him
+with her good-natured womanly curiosity. Florent, to avoid speaking,
+merely answered by nods and shakes of the head. Then, slowly and
+gently, he began to eat the carrot.
+
+The worthy woman was at last on the point of going off, when a powerful
+voice exclaimed close beside her, “Good morning, Madame Francois.”
+
+The speaker was a slim young man, with big bones and a big head. His
+face was bearded, and he had a very delicate nose and narrow sparkling
+eyes. He wore on his head a rusty, battered, black felt hat, and was
+buttoned up in an immense overcoat, which had once been of a soft
+chestnut hue, but which rain had discoloured and streaked with long
+greenish stains. Somewhat bent, and quivering with a nervous
+restlessness which was doubtless habitual with him, he stood there in a
+pair of heavy laced shoes, and the shortness of his trousers allowed a
+glimpse of his coarse blue hose.
+
+“Good morning, Monsieur Claude,” the market gardener replied
+cheerfully. “I expected you, you know, last Monday, and, as you didn’t
+come, I’ve taken care of your canvas for you. I’ve hung it up on a nail
+in my room.”
+
+“You are really very kind, Madame Francois. I’ll go to finish that
+study of mine one of these days. I wasn’t able to go on Monday. Has
+your big plum tree still got all its leaves?”
+
+“Yes, indeed.”
+
+“I wanted to know, because I mean to put it in a corner of the picture.
+It will come in nicely by the side of the fowl house. I have been
+thinking about it all the week. What lovely vegetables are in the
+market this morning! I came down very early, expecting a fine sunrise
+effect upon all these heaps of cabbages.”
+
+With a wave of the arm he indicated the footway.
+
+“Well, well, I must be off now,” said Madame Francois. “Good-bye for
+the present. We shall meet again soon, I hope, Monsieur Claude.”
+
+However, as she turned to go, she introduced Florent to the young
+artist.
+
+“This gentleman, it seems, has just come from a distance,” said she.
+“He feels quite lost in your scampish Paris. I dare say you might be of
+service to him.”
+
+Then she at last took her departure, feeling pleased at having left the
+two men together. Claude looked at Florent with a feeling of interest.
+That tall, slight, wavy figure seemed to him original. Madame
+Francois’s hasty presentation was in his eyes quite sufficient, and he
+addressed Florent with the easy familiarity of a lounger accustomed to
+all sorts of chance encounters.
+
+“I’ll accompany you,” he said; “which way are you going?”
+
+Florent felt ill at ease; he was not wont to unbosom himself so
+readily. However, ever since his arrival in Paris, a question had been
+trembling on his lips, and now he ventured to ask it, with the evident
+fear of receiving an unfavourable reply.
+
+“Is the Rue Pirouette still in existence?”
+
+“Oh, yes,” answered the artist. “A very curious corner of old Paris is
+the Rue Pirouette. It twists and turns like a dancing girl, and the
+houses bulge out like pot-bellied gluttons. I’ve made an etching of it
+that isn’t half bad. I’ll show it to you when you come to see me. Is it
+to the Rue Pirouette that you want to go?”
+
+Florent, who felt easier and more cheerful now that he knew the street
+still existed, declared that he did not want to go there; in fact, he
+did not want to go anywhere in particular. All his distrust awoke into
+fresh life at Claude’s insistence.
+
+“Oh! never mind,” said the artist, “let’s go to the Rue Pirouette all
+the same. It has such a fine colour at night time. Come along; it’s
+only a couple of yards away.”
+
+Florent felt constrained to follow him, and the two men walked off,
+side by side, stepping over the hampers and vegetables like a couple of
+old friends. On the footway of the Rue Rambuteau there were some
+immense heaps of cauliflowers, symmetrically piled up like so many
+cannonballs. The soft-white flowers spread out like huge roses in the
+midst of their thick green leaves, and the piles had something of the
+appearance of bridal bouquets ranged in a row in colossal flower
+stands. Claude stopped in front of them, venting cries of admiration.
+
+Then, on turning into the Rue Pirouette, which was just opposite, he
+pointed out each house to his companion, and explained his views
+concerning it. There was only a single gas lamp, burning in a corner.
+The buildings, which had settled down and swollen, threw their
+pent-houses forward in such wise as to justify Claude’s allusion to
+pot-bellied gluttons, whilst their gables receded, and on either side
+they clung to their neighbours for support. Three or four, however,
+standing in gloomy recesses, appeared to be on the point of toppling
+forward. The solitary gas lamp illumined one which was snowy with a
+fresh coat of whitewash, suggesting some flabby broken-down old
+dowager, powdered and bedaubed in the hope of appearing young. Then the
+others stretched away into the darkness, bruised, dented, and cracked,
+greeny with the fall of water from their roofs, and displaying such an
+extraordinary variety of attitudes and tints that Claude could not
+refrain from laughing as he contemplated them.
+
+Florent, however, came to stand at the corner of the rue de Mondetour,
+in front of the last house but one on the left. Here the three floors,
+each with two shutterless windows, having little white curtains closely
+drawn, seemed wrapped in sleep; but, up above, a light could be seen
+flitting behind the curtains of a tiny gable casement. However, the
+sight of the shop beneath the pent-house seemed to fill Florent with
+the deepest emotion. It was kept by a dealer in cooked vegetables, and
+was just being opened. At its far end some metal pans were glittering,
+while on several earthen ones in the window there was a display of
+cooked spinach and endive, reduced to a paste and arranged in conical
+mounds from which customers were served with shovel-like carvers of
+white metal, only the handles of which were visible. This sight seemed
+to rivet Florent to the ground with surprise. He evidently could not
+recognize the place. He read the name of the shopkeeper, Godeboeuf,
+which was painted on a red sign board up above, and remained quite
+overcome by consternation. His arms dangling beside him, he began to
+examine the cooked spinach, with the despairing air of one on whom some
+supreme misfortune falls.
+
+However, the gable casement was now opened, and a little old woman
+leaned out of it, and looked first at the sky and then at the markets
+in the distance.
+
+“Ah, Mademoiselle Saget is an early riser,” exclaimed Claude, who had
+just raised his head. And, turning to his companion, he added: “I once
+had an aunt living in that house. It’s a regular hive of tittle-tattle!
+Ah, the Mehudins are stirring now, I see. There’s a light on the second
+floor.”
+
+Florent would have liked to question his companion, but the latter’s
+long discoloured overcoat give him a disquieting appearance. So without
+a word Florent followed him, whilst he went on talking about the
+Mehudins. These Mehudins were fish-girls, it seemed; the older one was
+a magnificent creature, while the younger one, who sold fresh-water
+fish, reminded Claude of one of Murillo’s virgins, whenever he saw her
+standing with her fair face amidst her carps and eels.
+
+From this Claude went on to remark with asperity that Murillo painted
+like an ignoramus. But all at once he stopped short in the middle of
+the street.
+
+“Come!” he exclaimed, “tell me where it is that you want to go.”
+
+“I don’t want to go anywhere just at present,” replied Florent in
+confusion. “Let’s go wherever you like.”
+
+Just as they were leaving the Rue Pirouette, some one called to Claude
+from a wine shop at the corner of the street. The young man went in,
+dragging Florent with him. The shutters had been taken down on one side
+only, and the gas was still burning in the sleepy atmosphere of the
+shop. A forgotten napkin and some cards that had been used in the
+previous evening’s play were still lying on the tables; and the fresh
+breeze that streamed in through the open doorway freshened the close,
+warm vinous air. The landlord, Monsieur Lebigre, was serving his
+customers. He wore a sleeved waistcoat, and his fat regular features,
+fringed by an untidy beard, were still pale with sleep. Standing in
+front of the counter, groups of men, with heavy, tired eyes, were
+drinking, coughing, and spitting, whilst trying to rouse themselves by
+the aid of white wine and brandy. Amongst them Florent recognised
+Lacaille, whose sack now overflowed with various sorts of vegetables.
+He was taking his third dram with a friend, who was telling him a long
+story about the purchase of a hamper of potatoes.[*] When he had
+emptied his glass, he went to chat with Monsieur Lebigre in a little
+glazed compartment at the end of the room, where the gas had not yet
+been lighted.
+
+[*] At the Paris central markets potatoes are sold by the hamper, not
+by the sack as in England.—Translator.
+
+
+“What will you take?” Claude asked of Florent.
+
+He had on entering grasped the hand of the person who had called out to
+him. This was a market porter,[*] a well-built young man of two and
+twenty at the most. His cheeks and chin were clean-shaven, but he wore
+a small moustache, and looked a sprightly, strapping fellow with his
+broad-brimmed hat covered with chalk, and his wool-worked neck-piece,
+the straps falling from which tightened his short blue blouse. Claude,
+who called him Alexandre, patted his arms, and asked him when they were
+going to Charentonneau again. Then they talked about a grand excursion
+they had made together in a boat on the Marne, when they had eaten a
+rabbit for supper in the evening.
+
+[*] _Fort_ is the French term, literally “a strong man,” as every
+market porter needs to be.—Translator.
+
+
+“Well, what will you take?” Claude again asked Florent.
+
+The latter looked at the counter in great embarrassment. At one end of
+it some stoneware pots, encircled with brass bands and containing punch
+and hot wine, were standing over the short blue flames of a gas stove.
+Florent at last confessed that a glass of something warm would be
+welcome. Monsieur Lebigre thereupon served them with three glasses of
+punch. In a basket near the pots were some smoking hot rolls which had
+only just arrived. However, as neither of the others took one, Florent
+likewise refrained, and drank his punch. He felt it slipping down into
+his empty stomach, like a steam of molten lead. It was Alexandre who
+paid for the “shout.”
+
+“He’s a fine fellow, that Alexandre!” said Claude, when he and Florent
+found themselves alone again on the footway of the Rue Rambuteau. “He’s
+a very amusing companion to take into the country. He’s fond of showing
+his strength. And then he’s so magnificently built! I have seen him
+stripped. Ah, if I could only get him to pose for me in the nude out in
+the open air! Well, we’ll go and take a turn through the markets now,
+if you like.”
+
+Florent followed, yielding entirely to his new friend’s guidance. A
+bright glow at the far end of the Rue Rambuteau announced the break of
+day. The far-spreading voice of the markets was become more sonorous,
+and every now and then the peals of a bell ringing in some distant
+pavilion mingled with the swelling, rising clamour. Claude and Florent
+entered one of the covered streets between the fish and poultry
+pavilions. Florent raised his eyes and looked at the lofty vault
+overhead, the inner timbers of which glistened amidst a black lacework
+of iron supports. As he turned into the great central thoroughfare he
+pictured himself in some strange town, with its various districts and
+suburbs, promenades and streets, squares and cross-roads, all suddenly
+placed under shelter on a rainy day by the whim of some gigantic power.
+The deep gloom brooding in the hollows of the roofs multiplied, as it
+were, the forest of pillars, and infinitely increased the number of the
+delicate ribs, railed galleries, and transparent shutters. And over the
+phantom city and far away into the depths of the shade, a teeming,
+flowering vegetation of luxuriant metal-work, with spindle-shaped stems
+and twining knotted branches, covered the vast expanse as with the
+foliage of some ancient forest. Several departments of the markets
+still slumbered behind their closed iron gates. The butter and poultry
+pavilions displayed rows of little trellised stalls and long alleys,
+which lines of gas lights showed to be deserted. The fish market,
+however, had just been opened, and women were flitting to and fro
+amongst the white slabs littered with shadowy hampers and cloths. Among
+the vegetables and fruit and flowers the noise and bustle were
+gradually increasing. The whole place was by degree waking up, from the
+popular quarter where the cabbages are piled at four o’clock in the
+morning, to the lazy and wealthy district which only hangs up its
+pullets and pheasants when the hands of the clock point to eight.
+
+The great covered alleys were now teeming with life. All along the
+footways on both sides of the road there were still many market
+gardeners, with other small growers from the environs of Paris, who
+displayed baskets containing their “gatherings” of the previous
+evening—bundles of vegetables and clusters of fruit. Whilst the crowd
+incessantly paced hither and thither, vehicles barred the road; and
+Florent, in order to pass them, had to press against some dingy sacks,
+like coal-sacks in appearance, and so numerous and heavy that the
+axle-trees of the vans bent beneath them. They were quite damp, and
+exhaled a fresh odour of seaweed. From a rent low down in the side of
+one of them a black stream of big mussels was trickling.
+
+Florent and Claude had now to pause at every step. The fish was
+arriving and one after another the drays of the railway companies drove
+up laden with wooden cages full of the hampers and baskets that had
+come by train from the sea coast. And to get out of the way of the fish
+drays, which became more and more numerous and disquieting, the artist
+and Florent rushed amongst the wheels of the drays laden with butter
+and eggs and cheese, huge yellow vehicles bearing coloured lanterns,
+and drawn by four horses. The market porters carried the cases of eggs,
+and baskets of cheese and butter, into the auction pavilion, where
+clerks were making entries in note books by the light of the gas.
+
+Claude was quite charmed with all this uproar, and forgot everything to
+gaze at some effect of light, some group of blouses, or the picturesque
+unloading of a cart. At last they extricated themselves from the crowd,
+and as they continued on their way along the main artery they presently
+found themselves amidst an exquisite perfume which seemed to be
+following them. They were in the cut-flower market. All over the
+footways, to the right and left, women were seated in front of large
+rectangular baskets full of bunches of roses, violets, dahlias, and
+marguerites. At times the clumps darkened and looked like splotches of
+blood, at others they brightened into silvery greys of the softest
+tones. A lighted candle, standing near one basket, set amidst the
+general blackness quite a melody of colour—the bright variegations of
+marguerites, the blood-red crimson of dahlias, the bluey purple of
+violets, and the warm flesh tints of roses. And nothing could have been
+sweeter or more suggestive of springtide than this soft breath of
+perfume encountered on the footway, on emerging from the sharp odours
+of the fish market and the pestilential smell of the butter and the
+cheese.
+
+Claude and Florent turned round and strolled about, loitering among the
+flowers. They halted with some curiosity before several women who were
+selling bunches of fern and bundles of vine-leaves, neatly tied up in
+packets of five and twenty. Then they turned down another covered
+alley, which was almost deserted, and where their footsteps echoed as
+though they had been walking through a church. Here they found a little
+cart, scarcely larger than a wheelbarrow, to which was harnessed a
+diminutive donkey, who, no doubt, felt bored, for at sight of them he
+began braying with such prolonged and sonorous force that the vast
+roofing of the markets fairly trembled. Then the horses began to neigh
+in reply, there was a sound of pawing and tramping, a distant uproar,
+which swelled, rolled along, then died away.
+
+Meantime, in the Rue Berger in front of them, Claude and Florent
+perceived a number of bare, frontless, salesmen’s shops, where, by the
+light of flaring gas jets, they could distinguish piles of hampers and
+fruit, enclosed by three dirty walls which were covered with addition
+sums in pencil. And the two wanderers were still standing there,
+contemplating this scene, when they noticed a well-dressed woman
+huddled up in a cab which looked quite lost and forlorn in the block of
+carts as it stealthily made its way onwards.
+
+“There’s Cinderella coming back without her slippers,” remarked Claude
+with a smile.
+
+They began chatting together as they went back towards the markets.
+Claude whistled as he strolled along with his hands in his pockets, and
+expatiated on his love for this mountain of food which rises every
+morning in the very centre of Paris. He prowled about the footways
+night after night, dreaming of colossal still-life subjects, paintings
+of an extraordinary character. He had even started on one, having his
+friend Marjolin and that jade Cadine to pose for him; but it was hard
+work to paint those confounded vegetables and fruit and fish and
+meat—they were all so beautiful! Florent listened to the artist’s
+enthusiastic talk with a void and hunger-aching stomach. It did not
+seem to occur to Claude that all those things were intended to be
+eaten. Their charm for him lay in their colour. Suddenly, however, he
+ceased speaking and, with a gesture that was habitual to him, tightened
+the long red sash which he wore under his green-stained coat.
+
+And then with a sly expression he resumed:
+
+“Besides, I breakfast here, through my eyes, at any rate, and that’s
+better than getting nothing at all. Sometimes, when I’ve forgotten to
+dine on the previous day, I treat myself to a perfect fit of
+indigestion in the morning by watching the carts arrive here laden with
+all sorts of good things. On such mornings as those I love my
+vegetables more than ever. Ah! the exasperating part, the rank
+injustice of it all, is that those rascally Philistines really eat
+these things!”
+
+Then he went on to tell Florent of a supper to which a friend had
+treated him at Baratte’s on a day of affluence. They had partaken of
+oysters, fish, and game. But Baratte’s had sadly fallen, and all the
+carnival life of the old Marché des Innocents was now buried. In place
+thereof they had those huge central markets, that colossus of ironwork,
+that new and wonderful town. Fools might say what they liked; it was
+the embodiment of the spirit of the times. Florent, however, could not
+at first make out whether he was condemning the picturesqueness of
+Baratte’s or its good cheer.
+
+But Claude next began to inveigh against romanticism. He preferred his
+piles of vegetables, he said, to the rags of the middle ages; and he
+ended by reproaching himself with guilty weakness in making an etching
+of the Rue Pirouette. All those grimy old places ought to be levelled
+to the ground, he declared, and modern houses ought to be built in
+their stead.
+
+“There!” he exclaimed, coming to a halt, “look at the corner of the
+footway yonder! Isn’t that a picture readymade, ever so much more human
+and natural than all their confounded consumptive daubs?”
+
+Along the covered way women were now selling hot soup and coffee. At
+one corner of the foot-pavement a large circle of customers clustered
+round a vendor of cabbage soup. The bright tin caldron, full of broth,
+was steaming over a little low stove, through the holes of which came
+the pale glow of the embers. From a napkin-lined basket the woman took
+some thin slices of bread and dropped them into yellow cups; then with
+a ladle she filled the cups with liquor. Around her were saleswomen
+neatly dressed, market gardeners in blouses, porters with coats soiled
+by the loads they had carried, poor ragged vagabonds—in fact, all the
+early hungry ones of the markets, eating, and scalding their mouths,
+and drawing back their chins to avoid soiling them with the drippings
+from their spoons. The delighted artist blinked, and sought a point of
+view so as to get a good ensemble of the picture. That cabbage soup,
+however, exhaled a very strong odour. Florent, for his part, turned his
+head away, distressed by the sight of the full cups which the customers
+emptied in silence, glancing around them the while like suspicious
+animals. As the woman began serving a fresh customer, Claude himself
+was affected by the odorous steam of the soup, which was wafted full in
+his face.
+
+He again tightened his sash, half amused and half annoyed. Then
+resuming his walk, and alluding to the punch paid for by Alexandre, he
+said to Florent in a low voice:
+
+“It’s very odd, but have you ever noticed that although a man can
+always find somebody to treat him to something to drink, he can never
+find a soul who will stand him anything to eat?”
+
+The dawn was now rising. The houses on the Boulevard de Sebastopol at
+the end of the Rue de la Cossonnerie were still black; but above the
+sharp line of their slate roofs a patch of pale blue sky, circumscribed
+by the arch-pieces of the covered way, showed like a gleaming
+half-moon. Claude, who had been bending over some grated openings on a
+level with the ground, through which a glimpse could be obtained of
+deep cellars where gas lights glimmered, now glanced up into the air
+between the lofty pillars, as though scanning the dark roofs which
+fringed the clear sky. Then he halted again, with his eyes fixed on one
+of the light iron ladders which connect the superposed market roofs and
+give access from one to the other. Florent asked him what he was
+seeking there.
+
+“I’m looking for that scamp of a Marjolin,” replied the artist. “He’s
+sure to be in some guttering up there, unless, indeed, he’s been
+spending the night in the poultry cellars. I want him to give me a
+sitting.”
+
+Then he went on to relate how a market saleswoman had found his friend
+Marjolin one morning in a pile of cabbages, and how Marjolin had grown
+up in all liberty on the surrounding footways. When an attempt had been
+made to send him to school he had fallen ill, and it had been necessary
+to bring him back to the markets. He knew every nook and corner of
+them, and loved them with a filial affection, leading the agile life of
+a squirrel in that forest of ironwork. He and Cadine, the hussy whom
+Mother Chantemesse had picked up one night in the old Market of the
+Innocents, made a pretty couple—he, a splendid foolish fellow, as
+glowing as a Rubens, with a ruddy down on his skin which attracted the
+sunlight; and she, slight and sly, with a comical phiz under her tangle
+of black curly hair.
+
+Whilst talking Claude quickened his steps, and soon brought his
+companion back to Saint Eustache again. Florent, whose legs were once
+more giving way, dropped upon a bench near the omnibus office. The
+morning air was freshening. At the far end of the Rue Rambuteau rosy
+gleams were streaking the milky sky, which higher up was slashed by
+broad grey rifts. Such was the sweet balsamic scent of this dawn, that
+Florent for a moment fancied himself in the open country, on the brow
+of a hill. But behind the bench Claude pointed out to him the many
+aromatic herbs and bulbs on sale. All along the footway skirting the
+tripe market there were, so to say, fields of thyme and lavender,
+garlic and shallots; and round the young plane-trees on the pavement
+the vendors had twined long branches of laurel, forming trophies of
+greenery. The strong scent of the laurel leaves prevailed over every
+other odour.
+
+At present the luminous dial of Saint Eustache was paling as a
+night-light does when surprised by the dawn. The gas jets in the wine
+shops in the neighbouring streets went out one by one, like stars
+extinguished by the brightness. And Florent gazed at the vast markets
+now gradually emerging from the gloom, from the dreamland in which he
+had beheld them, stretching out their ranges of open palaces.
+Greenish-grey in hue, they looked more solid now, and even more
+colossal with their prodigious masting of columns upholding an endless
+expanse of roofs. They rose up in geometrically shaped masses; and when
+all the inner lights had been extinguished and the square uniform
+buildings were steeped in the rising dawn, they seemed typical of some
+gigantic modern machine, some engine, some caldron for the supply of a
+whole people, some colossal belly, bolted and riveted, built up of wood
+and glass and iron, and endowed with all the elegance and power of some
+mechanical motive appliance working there with flaring furnaces, and
+wild, bewildering revolutions of wheels.
+
+Claude, however, had enthusiastically sprung on to the bench, and stood
+upon it. He compelled his companion to admire the effect of the dawn
+rising over the vegetables. There was a perfect sea of these extending
+between the two clusters of pavilions from Saint Eustache to the Rue
+des Halles. And in the two open spaces at either end the flood of
+greenery rose to even greater height, and quite submerged the
+pavements. The dawn appeared slowly, softly grey in hue, and spreading
+a light water-colour tint over everything. These surging piles akin to
+hurrying waves, this river of verdure rushing along the roadway like an
+autumn torrent, assumed delicate shadowy tints—tender violet,
+blush-rose, and greeny yellow, all the soft, light hues which at
+sunrise make the sky look like a canopy of shot silk. And by degrees,
+as the fires of dawn rose higher and higher at the far end of the Rue
+Rambuteau, the mass of vegetation grew brighter and brighter, emerging
+more and more distinctly from the bluey gloom that clung to the ground.
+Salad herbs, cabbage-lettuce, endive, and succory, with rich soil still
+clinging to their roots, exposed their swelling hearts; bundles of
+spinach, bundles of sorrel, clusters of artichokes, piles of peas and
+beans, mounds of cos-lettuce, tied round with straws, sounded every
+note in the whole gamut of greenery, from the sheeny lacquer-like green
+of the pods to the deep-toned green of the foliage; a continuous gamut
+with ascending and descending scales which died away in the variegated
+tones of the heads of celery and bundles of leeks. But the highest and
+most sonorous notes still came from the patches of bright carrots and
+snowy turnips, strewn in prodigious quantities all along the markets
+and lighting them up with the medley of their two colours.
+
+At the crossway in the Rue des Halles cabbages were piled up in
+mountains; there were white ones, hard and compact as metal balls,
+curly savoys, whose great leaves made them look like basins of green
+bronze, and red cabbages, which the dawn seemed to transform into
+superb masses of bloom with the hue of wine-lees, splotched with dark
+purple and carmine. At the other side of the markets, at the crossway
+near Saint Eustache, the end of the Rue Rambuteau was blocked by a
+barricade of orange-hued pumpkins, sprawling with swelling bellies in
+two superposed rows. And here and there gleamed the glistening ruddy
+brown of a hamper of onions, the blood-red crimson of a heap of
+tomatoes, the quiet yellow of a display of marrows, and the sombre
+violet of the fruit of the eggplant; while numerous fat black radishes
+still left patches of gloom amidst the quivering brilliance of the
+general awakening.
+
+Claude clapped his hands at the sight. He declared that those
+“blackguard vegetables” were wild, mad, sublime! He stoutly maintained
+that they were not yet dead, but, gathered in the previous evening,
+waited for the morning sun to bid him good-bye from the flag-stones of
+the market. He could observe their vitality, he declared, see their
+leaves stir and open as though their roots were yet firmly and warmly
+embedded in well-manured soil. And here, in the markets, he added, he
+heard the death-rattle of all the kitchen gardens of the environs of
+Paris.
+
+A crowd of white caps, loose black jackets, and blue blouses was
+swarming in the narrow paths between the various piles. The big baskets
+of the market porters passed along slowly, above the heads of the
+throng. Retail dealers, costermongers, and greengrocers were making
+their purchases in haste. Corporals and nuns clustered round the
+mountains of cabbages, and college cooks prowled about inquisitively,
+on the look-out for good bargains. The unloading was still going on;
+heavy tumbrels, discharging their contents as though these were so many
+paving-stones, added more and more waves to the sea of greenery which
+was now beating against the opposite footways. And from the far end of
+the Rue du Pont Neuf fresh rows of carts were still and ever arriving.
+
+“What a fine sight it is!” exclaimed Claude in an ecstasy of
+enthusiasm.
+
+Florent was suffering keenly. He fancied that all this was some
+supernatural temptation, and, unwilling to look at the markets any
+longer, turned towards Saint Eustache, a side view of which he obtained
+from the spot where he now stood. With its roses, and broad arched
+windows, its bell-turret, and roofs of slate, it looked as though
+painted in sepia against the blue of the sky. He fixed his eyes at last
+on the sombre depths of the Rue Montorgueil, where fragments of gaudy
+sign boards showed conspicuously, and on the corner of the Rue
+Montmartre, where there were balconies gleaming with letters of gold.
+And when he again glanced at the cross-roads, his gaze was solicited by
+other sign boards, on which such inscriptions as “Druggist and
+Chemist,” “Flour and Grain” appeared in big red and black capital
+letters upon faded backgrounds. Near these corners, houses with narrow
+windows were now awakening, setting amidst the newness and airiness of
+the Rue du Pont Neuf a few of the yellow ancient facades of olden
+Paris. Standing at the empty windows of the great drapery shop at the
+corner of the Rue Rambuteau a number of spruce-looking counter-jumpers
+in their shirt sleeves, with snowy-white wristbands and tight-fitting
+pantaloons, were “dressing” their goods. Farther away, in the windows
+of the severe looking, barrack-like Guillot establishment, biscuits in
+gilt wrappers and fancy cakes on glass stands were tastefully set out.
+All the shops were now open; and workmen in white blouses, with tools
+under their arms, were hurrying along the road.
+
+Claude had not yet got down from the bench. He was standing on tiptoe
+in order to see the farther down the streets. Suddenly, in the midst of
+the crowd which he overlooked, he caught sight of a fair head with long
+wavy locks, followed by a little black one covered with curly tumbled
+hair.
+
+“Hallo, Marjolin! Hallo, Cadine!” he shouted; and then, as his voice
+was drowned by the general uproar, he jumped to the ground and started
+off. But all at once, recollecting that he had left Florent behind him,
+he hastily came back. “I live at the end of the Impasse des
+Bourdonnais,” he said rapidly. “My name’s written in chalk on the door,
+Claude Lantier. Come and see the etching of the Rue Pirouette.”
+
+Then he vanished. He was quite ignorant of Florent’s name, and, after
+favouring him with his views on art, parted from him as he had met him,
+at the roadside.
+
+Florent was now alone, and at first this pleased him. Ever since Madame
+Francoise had picked him up in the Avenue de Neuilly he had been coming
+and going in a state of pain fraught somnolence which had quite
+prevented him from forming any definite ideas of his surroundings. Now
+at last he was at liberty to do what he liked, and he tried to shake
+himself free from that intolerable vision of teeming food by which he
+was pursued. But his head still felt empty and dizzy, and all that he
+could find within him was a kind of vague fear. The day was now growing
+quite bright, and he could be distinctly seen. He looked down at his
+wretched shabby coat and trousers. He buttoned the first, dusted the
+latter, and strove to make a bit of a toilet, fearing lest those black
+rags of his should proclaim aloud whence he had come. He was seated in
+the middle of the bench, by the side of some wandering vagabonds who
+had settled themselves there while waiting for the sunrise. The
+neighbourhood of the markets is a favourite spot with vagrants in the
+small hours of the morning. However, two constables, still in night
+uniform, with cloaks and _kepis_, paced up and down the footway side by
+side, their hands resting behind their backs; and every time they
+passed the bench they glanced at the game which they scented there.
+Florent felt sure that they recognised him, and were consulting
+together about arresting him. At this thought his anguish of mind
+became extreme. He felt a wild desire to get up and run away; but he
+did not dare to do so, and was quite at a loss as to how he might take
+himself off. The repeated glances of the constables, their cold,
+deliberate scrutiny caused him the keenest torture. At length he rose
+from the bench, making a great effort to restrain himself from rushing
+off as quickly as his long legs could carry him; and succeeded in
+walking quietly away, though his shoulders quivered in the fear he felt
+of suddenly feeling the rough hands of the constables clutching at his
+collar from behind.
+
+He had now only one thought, one desire, which was to get away from the
+markets as quickly as possible. He would wait and make his
+investigations later on, when the footways should be clear. The three
+streets which met here—the Rue Montmartre, Rue Montorgueil, and Rue
+Turbigo—filled him with uneasiness. They were blocked by vehicles of
+all kinds, and their footways were crowded with vegetables. Florent
+went straight along as far as the Rue Pierre Lescot, but there the
+cress and the potato markets seemed to him insuperable obstacles. So he
+resolved to take the Rue Rambuteau. On reaching the Boulevard de
+Sebastopol, however, he came across such a block of vans and carts and
+waggonettes that he turned back and proceeded along the Rue Saint
+Denis. Then he got amongst the vegetables once more. Retail dealers had
+just set up their stalls, formed of planks resting on tall hampers; and
+the deluge of cabbages and carrots and turnips began all over again.
+The markets were overflowing. Florent tried to make his escape from
+this pursuing flood which ever overtook him in his flight. He tried the
+Rue de la Cossonnerie, the Rue Berger, the Square des Innocents, the
+Rue de la Ferronnerie, and the Rue des Halles. And at last he came to a
+standstill, quite discouraged and scared at finding himself unable to
+escape from the infernal circle of vegetables, which now seemed to
+dance around him, twining clinging verdure about his legs.
+
+The everlasting stream of carts and horses stretched away as far as the
+Rue de Rivoli and the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville. Huge vans were
+carrying away supplies for all the greengrocers and fruiterers of an
+entire district; _chars-a-bancs_ were starting for the suburbs with
+straining, groaning sides. In the Rue de Pont Neuf Florent got
+completely bewildered. He stumbled upon a crowd of hand-carts, in which
+numerous costermongers were arranging their purchases. Amongst them he
+recognised Lacaille, who went off along the Rue Saint Honoré, pushing a
+barrow of carrots and cauliflowers before him. Florent followed him, in
+the hope that he would guide him out of the mob. The pavement was now
+quite slippery, although the weather was dry, and the litter of
+artichoke stalks, turnip tops, and leaves of all kinds made walking
+somewhat dangerous. Florent stumbled at almost every step. He lost
+sight of Lacaille in the Rue Vauvilliers, and on approaching the corn
+market he again found the streets barricaded with vehicles. Then he
+made no further attempt to struggle; he was once more in the clutch of
+the markets, and their stream of life bore him back. Slowly retracing
+his steps, he presently found himself by Saint Eustache again.
+
+He now heard the loud continuous rumbling of the waggons that were
+setting out from the markets. Paris was doling out the daily food of
+its two million inhabitants. These markets were like some huge central
+organ beating with giant force, and sending the blood of life through
+every vein of the city. The uproar was akin to that of colossal jaws—a
+mighty sound to which each phase of the provisioning contributed, from
+the whip-cracking of the larger retail dealers as they started off for
+the district markets to the dragging pit-a-pat of the old shoes worn by
+the poor women who hawked their lettuces in baskets from door to door.
+
+Florent turned into a covered way on the left, intersecting the group
+of four pavilions whose deep silent gloom he had remarked during the
+night. He hoped that he might there find a refuge, discover some corner
+in which he could hide himself. But these pavilions were now as busy,
+as lively as the others. Florent walked on to the end of the street.
+Drays were driving up at a quick trot, crowding the market with cages
+full of live poultry, and square hampers in which dead birds were
+stowed in deep layers. On the other side of the way were other drays
+from which porters were removing freshly killed calves, wrapped in
+canvas, and laid at full length in baskets, whence only the four
+bleeding stumps of their legs protruded. There were also whole sheep,
+and sides and quarters of beef. Butchers in long white aprons marked
+the meat with a stamp, carried it off, weighted it, and hung it up on
+hooks in the auction room. Florent, with his face close to the grating,
+stood gazing at the rows of hanging carcasses, at the ruddy sheep and
+oxen and paler calves, all streaked with yellow fat and sinews, and
+with bellies yawning open. Then he passed along the sidewalk where the
+tripe market was held, amidst the pallid calves’ feet and heads, the
+rolled tripe neatly packed in boxes, the brains delicately set out in
+flat baskets, the sanguineous livers, and purplish kidneys. He checked
+his steps in front of some long two-wheeled carts, covered with round
+awnings, and containing sides of pork hung on each side of the vehicle
+over a bed of straw. Seen from the back end, the interiors of the carts
+looked like recesses of some tabernacle, like some taper-lighted
+chapel, such was the glow of all the bare flesh they contained. And on
+the beds of straw were lines of tin cans, full of the blood that had
+trickled from the pigs. Thereupon Florent was attacked by a sort of
+rage. The insipid odour of the meat, the pungent smell of the tripe
+exasperated him. He made his way out of the covered road, preferring to
+return once more to the footwalk of the Rue de Pont Neuf.
+
+He was enduring perfect agony. The shiver of early morning came upon
+him; his teeth chattered, and he was afraid of falling to the ground
+and finding himself unable to rise again. He looked about, but could
+see no vacant place on any bench. Had he found one he would have
+dropped asleep there, even at the risk of being awakened by the police.
+Then, as giddiness nearly blinded him, he leaned for support against a
+tree, with his eyes closed and his ears ringing. The raw carrot, which
+he had swallowed almost without chewing, was torturing his stomach, and
+the glass of punch which he had drunk seemed to have intoxicated him.
+He was indeed intoxicated with misery, weariness, and hunger. Again he
+felt a burning fire in the pit of the stomach, to which he every now
+and then carried his hands, as though he were trying to stop up a hole
+through which all his life was oozing away. As he stood there he
+fancied that the foot-pavement rocked beneath him; and thinking that he
+might perhaps lessen his sufferings by walking, he went straight on
+through the vegetables again. He lost himself among them. He went along
+a narrow footway, turned down another, was forced to retrace his steps,
+bungled in doing so, and once more found himself amidst piles of
+greenery. Some heaps were so high that people seemed to be walking
+between walls of bundles and bunches. Only their heads slightly
+overtopped these ramparts, and passed along showing whitely or blackly
+according to the colour of their hats or caps; whilst the huge swinging
+baskets, carried aloft on a level with the greenery, looked like osier
+boats floating on a stagnant, mossy lake.
+
+Florent stumbled against a thousand obstacles—against porters taking up
+their burdens, and saleswomen disputing in rough tones. He slipped over
+the thick bed of waste leaves and stumps which covered the footway, and
+was almost suffocated by the powerful odour of crushed verdure. At last
+he halted in a sort of confused stupor, and surrendered to the pushing
+of some and the insults of others; and then he became a mere waif, a
+piece of wreckage tossed about on the surface of that surging sea.
+
+He was fast losing all self-respect, and would willingly have begged.
+The recollection of his foolish pride during the night exasperated him.
+If he had accepted Madame Francois’s charity, if he had not felt such
+idiotic fear of Claude, he would not now have been stranded there
+groaning in the midst of these cabbages. And he was especially angry
+with himself for not having questioned the artist when they were in the
+Rue Pirouette. Now, alas! he was alone and deserted, liable to die in
+the streets like a homeless dog.
+
+For the last time he raised his eyes and looked at the markets. At
+present they were glittering in the sun. A broad ray was pouring
+through the covered road from the far end, cleaving the massy pavilions
+with an arcade of light, whilst fiery beams rained down upon the far
+expanse of roofs. The huge iron framework grew less distinct, assumed a
+bluey hue, became nothing but a shadowy silhouette outlined against the
+flaming flare of the sunrise. But up above a pane of glass took fire,
+drops of light trickled down the broad sloping zinc plates to the
+gutterings; and then, below, a tumultuous city appeared amidst a haze
+of dancing golden dust. The general awakening had spread, from the
+first start of the market gardeners snoring in their cloaks, to the
+brisk rolling of the food-laden railway drays. And the whole city was
+opening its iron gates, the footways were humming, the pavilions
+roaring with life. Shouts and cries of all kinds rent the air; it was
+as though the strain, which Florent had heard gathering force in the
+gloom ever since four in the morning, had now attained its fullest
+volume. To the right and left, on all sides indeed, the sharp cries
+accompanying the auction sales sounded shrilly like flutes amidst the
+sonorous bass roar of the crowd. It was the fish, the butter, the
+poultry, and the meat being sold.
+
+The pealing of bells passed through the air, imparting a quiver to the
+buzzing of the opening markets. Around Florent the sun was setting the
+vegetables aflame. He no longer perceived any of those soft
+water-colour tints which had predominated in the pale light of early
+morning. The swelling hearts of the lettuces were now gleaming
+brightly, the scales of greenery showed forth with wondrous vigour, the
+carrots glowed blood-red, the turnips shone as if incandescent in the
+triumphant radiance of the sun.
+
+On Florent’s left some waggons were discharging fresh loads of
+cabbages. He turned his eyes, and away in the distance saw carts yet
+streaming out of the Rue Turbigo. The tide was still and ever rising.
+He had felt it about his ankles, then on a level with his stomach, and
+now it was threatening to drown him altogether. Blinded and submerged,
+his ears buzzing, his stomach overpowered by all that he had seen, he
+asked for mercy; and wild grief took possession of him at the thought
+of dying there of starvation in the very heart of glutted Paris, amidst
+the effulgent awakening of her markets. Big hot tears started from his
+eyes.
+
+Walking on, he had now reached one of the larger alleys. Two women, one
+short and old, the other tall and withered, passed him, talking
+together as they made their way towards the pavilions.
+
+“So you’ve come to do your marketing, Mademoiselle Saget?” said the
+tall withered woman.
+
+“Well, yes, Madame Lecœur, if you can give it such a name as marketing.
+I’m a lone woman, you know, and live on next to nothing. I should have
+liked a small cauliflower, but everything is so dear. How is butter
+selling to-day?”
+
+“At thirty-four sous. I have some which is first rate. Will you come
+and look at it?”
+
+“Well, I don’t know if I shall want any to-day; I’ve still a little
+lard left.”
+
+Making a supreme effort, Florent followed these two women. He
+recollected having heard Claude name the old one—Mademoiselle
+Saget—when they were in the Rue Pirouette; and he made up his mind to
+question her when she should have parted from her tall withered
+acquaintance.
+
+“And how’s your niece?” Mademoiselle Saget now asked.
+
+“Oh, La Sarriette does as she likes,” Madame Lecœur replied in a bitter
+tone. “She’s chosen to set up for herself and her affairs no longer
+concern me. When her lovers have beggared her, she needn’t come to me
+for any bread.”
+
+“And you were so good to her, too! She ought to do well this year;
+fruit is yielding big profits. And your brother-in-law, how is he?”
+
+“Oh, he——”
+
+Madame Lecœur bit her lips, and seemed disinclined to say anything
+more.
+
+“Still the same as ever, I suppose?” continued Mademoiselle Saget.
+“He’s a very worthy man. Still, I once heard it said that he spent his
+money in such a way that—”
+
+“But does anyone know how he spends his money?” interrupted Madame
+Lecœur, with much asperity. “He’s a miserly niggard, a scurvy fellow,
+that’s what I say! Do you know, mademoiselle, he’d see me die of
+starvation rather than lend me five francs! He knows quite well that
+there’s nothing to be made out of butter this season, any more than out
+of cheese and eggs; whereas he can sell as much poultry as ever he
+chooses. But not once, I assure you, not once has he offered to help
+me. I am too proud, as you know, to accept any assistance from him;
+still it would have pleased me to have had it offered.”
+
+“Ah, by the way, there he is, your brother-in-law!” suddenly exclaimed
+Mademoiselle Saget, lowering her voice.
+
+The two women turned and gazed at a man who was crossing the road to
+enter the covered way close by.
+
+“I’m in a hurry,” murmured Madame Lecœur. “I left my stall without
+anyone to look after it; and, besides, I don’t want to speak to him.”
+
+However, Florent also had mechanically turned round and glanced at the
+individual referred to. This was a short, squarely-built man, with a
+cheery look and grey, close-cut brush-like hair. Under each arm he was
+carrying a fat goose, whose head hung down and flapped against his
+legs. And then all at once Florent made a gesture of delight.
+Forgetting his fatigue, he ran after the man, and, overtaking him,
+tapped him on the shoulder.
+
+“Gavard!” he exclaimed.
+
+The other raised his head and stared with surprise at Florent’s tall
+black figure, which he did not at first recognise. Then all at once:
+“What! is it you?” he cried, as if overcome with amazement. “Is it
+really you?”
+
+He all but let his geese fall, and seemed unable to master his
+surprise. On catching sight, however, of his sister-in-law and
+Mademoiselle Saget, who were watching the meeting at a distance, he
+began to walk on again.
+
+“Come along; don’t let us stop here,” he said. “There are too many eyes
+and tongues about.”
+
+When they were in the covered way they began to chat. Florent related
+how he had gone to the Rue Pirouette, at which Gavard seemed much
+amused and laughed heartily. Then he told Florent that his brother
+Quenu had moved from that street and had reopened his pork shop close
+by, in the Rue Rambuteau, just in front of the markets. And afterwards
+he was again highly amused to hear that Florent had been wandering
+about all that morning with Claude Lantier, an odd kind of fish, who,
+strangely enough, said he, was Madame Quenu’s nephew. Thus chatting,
+Gavard was on the point of taking Florent straight to the pork shop,
+but, on hearing that he had returned to France with false papers, he
+suddenly assumed all sorts of solemn and mysterious airs, and insisted
+upon walking some fifteen paces in front of him, to avoid attracting
+attention. After passing through the poultry pavilion, where he hung
+his geese up in his stall, he began to cross the Rue Rambuteau, still
+followed by Florent; and then, halting in the middle of the road, he
+glanced significantly towards a large and well-appointed pork shop.
+
+The sun was obliquely enfilading the Rue Rambuteau, lighting up the
+fronts of the houses, in the midst of which the Rue Pirouette formed a
+dark gap. At the other end the great pile of Saint Eustache glittered
+brightly in the sunlight like some huge reliquary. And right through
+the crowd, from the distant crossway, an army of street-sweepers was
+advancing in file down the road, the brooms swishing rhythmically,
+while scavengers provided with forks pitched the collected refuse into
+tumbrels, which at intervals of a score of paces halted with a noise
+like the chattering of broken pots. However, all Florent’s attention
+was concentrated on the pork shop, open and radiant in the rising sun.
+
+It stood very near the corner of the Rue Pirouette and provided quite a
+feast for the eyes. Its aspect was bright and smiling, touches of
+brilliant colour showing conspicuously amidst all the snowy marble. The
+sign board, on which the name of QUENU-GRADELLE glittered in fat gilt
+letters encircled by leaves and branches painted on a soft-hued
+background, was protected by a sheet of glass. On two panels, one on
+each side of the shop-front, and both, like the board above, covered
+with glass, were paintings representing various chubby little cupids
+playing amidst boars’ heads, pork chops and strings of sausages; and
+these latter still-life subjects, embellished with scrolls and bows,
+had been painted in such soft tones that the uncooked pork which they
+represented had the pinkiness of raspberry jam. Within this pleasing
+framework arose the window display, arranged upon a bed of fine
+blue-paper shavings. Here and there fern-leaves, tastefully disposed,
+changed the plates which they encircled into bouquets fringed with
+foliage. There was a wealth of rich, luscious, melting things. Down
+below, quite close to the window, jars of preserved sausage-meat were
+interspersed with pots of mustard. Above these were some small, plump,
+boned hams. Golden with their dressings of toasted bread-crumbs, and
+adorned at the knuckles with green rosettes. Next came the larger
+dishes, some containing preserved Strasburg tongues, enclosed in
+bladders coloured a bright red and varnished, so that they looked quite
+sanguineous beside the pale sausages and trotters; then there were
+black-puddings coiled like harmless snakes, healthy looking
+chitterlings piled up two by two; Lyons sausages in little silver copes
+that made them look like choristers; hot pies, with little banner-like
+tickets stuck in them; big hams, and great glazed joints of veal and
+pork, whose jelly was as limpid as sugar-candy. In the rear were other
+dishes and earthen pans in which meat, minced and sliced, slumbered
+beneath lakes of melted fat. And betwixt the various plates and dishes,
+jars and bottle of sauce, cullis, stock and preserved truffles, pans of
+_foie gras_ and boxes of sardines and tunny-fish were strewn over the
+bed of paper shavings. A box of creamy cheeses, and one of edible
+snails, the apertures of whose shells were dressed with butter and
+parsley, had been placed carelessly at either corner. Finally, from a
+bar overhead strings of sausages and saveloys of various sizes hung
+down symmetrically like cords and tassels; while in the rear fragments
+of intestinal membranes showed like lacework, like some _guipure_ of
+white flesh. And on the highest tier in this sanctuary of gluttony,
+amidst the membranes and between two bouquets of purple gladioli, the
+window stand was crowned by a small square aquarium, ornamented with
+rock-work, and containing a couple of gold-fish, which were continually
+swimming round it.
+
+Florent’s whole body thrilled at the sight. Then he perceived a woman
+standing in the sunlight at the door of the shop. With her prosperous,
+happy look in the midst of all those inviting things she added to the
+cherry aspect of the place. She was a fine woman and quite blocked the
+doorway. Still, she was not over stout, but simply buxom, with the full
+ripeness of her thirty years. She had only just risen, yet her glossy
+hair was already brushed smooth and arranged in little flat bands over
+her temples, giving her an appearance of extreme neatness. She had the
+fine skin, the pinky-white complexion common to those whose life is
+spent in an atmosphere of raw meat and fat. There was a touch of
+gravity about her demeanour, her movements were calm and slow; what
+mirth or pleasure she felt she expressed by her eyes, her lips
+retaining all their seriousness. A collar of starched linen encircled
+her neck, white sleevelets reached to her elbows, and a white apron
+fell even over the tips of her shoes, so that you saw but little of her
+black cashmere dress, which clung tightly to her well-rounded shoulders
+and swelling bosom. The sun rays poured hotly upon all the whiteness
+she displayed. However, although her bluish-black hair, her rosy face,
+and bright sleeves and apron were steeped in the glow of light, she
+never once blinked, but enjoyed her morning bath of sunshine with
+blissful tranquillity, her soft eyes smiling the while at the flow and
+riot of the markets. She had the appearance of a very worthy woman.
+
+“That is your brother’s wife, your sister-in-law, Lisa,” Gavard said to
+Florent.
+
+He had saluted her with a slight inclination of the head. Then he
+darted along the house passage, continuing to take the most minute
+precautions, and unwilling to let Florent enter the premises through
+the shop, though there was no one there. It was evident that he felt
+great pleasure in dabbling in what he considered to be a compromising
+business.
+
+“Wait here,” he said, “while I go to see whether your brother is alone.
+You can come in when I clap my hands.”
+
+Thereupon he opened a door at the end of the passage. But as soon as
+Florent heard his brother’s voice behind it, he sprang inside at a
+bound. Quenu, who was much attached to him, threw his arms round his
+neck, and they kissed each other like children.
+
+“Ah! dash it all! Is it really you, my dear fellow?” stammered the pork
+butcher. “I never expected to see you again. I felt sure you were dead!
+Why, only yesterday I was saying to Lisa, ‘That poor fellow, Florent!’”
+
+However, he stopped short, and popping his head into the shop, called
+out, “Lisa! Lisa!” Then turning towards a little girl who had crept
+into a corner, he added, “Pauline, go and find your mother.”
+
+The little one did not stir, however. She was an extremely fine child,
+five years of age, with a plump chubby face, bearing a strong
+resemblance to that of the pork butcher’s wife. In her arms she was
+holding a huge yellow cat, which had cheerfully surrendered itself to
+her embrace, with its legs dangling downwards; and she now squeezed it
+tightly with her little arms, as if she were afraid that yonder
+shabby-looking gentleman might rob her of it.
+
+Lisa, however, leisurely made her appearance.
+
+“Here is my brother Florent!” exclaimed Quenu.
+
+Lisa addressed him as “Monsieur,” and gave him a kindly welcome. She
+scanned him quietly from head to foot, without evincing any
+disagreeable surprise. Merely a faint pout appeared for a moment on her
+lips. Then, standing by, she began to smile at her husband’s
+demonstrations of affection. Quenu, however, at last recovered his
+calmness, and noticing Florent’s fleshless, poverty-stricken
+appearance, exclaimed: “Ah, my poor fellow, you haven’t improved in
+your looks since you were over yonder. For my part, I’ve grown fat; but
+what would you have!”
+
+He had indeed grown fat, too fat for his thirty years. He seemed to be
+bursting through his shirt and apron, through all the snowy-white linen
+in which he was swathed like a huge doll. With advancing years his
+clean-shaven face had become elongated, assuming a faint resemblance to
+the snout of one of those pigs amidst whose flesh his hands worked and
+lived the whole day through. Florent scarcely recognised him. He had
+now seated himself, and his glance turned from his brother to handsome
+Lisa and little Pauline. They were all brimful of health, squarely
+built, sleek, in prime condition; and in their turn they looked at
+Florent with the uneasy astonishment which corpulent people feel at the
+sight of a scraggy person. The very cat, whose skin was distended by
+fat, dilated its yellow eyes and scrutinised him with an air of
+distrust.
+
+“You’ll wait till we have breakfast, won’t you?” asked Quenu. “We have
+it early, at ten o’clock.”
+
+A penetrating odour of cookery pervaded the place; and Florent looked
+back upon the terrible night which he had just spent, his arrival
+amongst the vegetables, his agony in the midst of the markets, the
+endless avalanches of food from which he had just escaped. And then in
+a low tone and with a gentle smile he responded:
+
+“No; I’m really very hungry, you see.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Florent had just begun to study law in Paris when his mother died. She
+lived at Le Vigan, in the department of the Gard, and had taken for her
+second husband one Quenu, a native of Yvetot in Normandy, whom some
+sub-prefect had transplanted to the south and then forgotten there. He
+had remained in employment at the sub-prefecture, finding the country
+charming, the wine good, and the women very amiable. Three years after
+his marriage he had been carried off by a bad attack of indigestion,
+leaving as sole legacy to his wife a sturdy boy who resembled him. It
+was only with very great difficulty that the widow could pay the
+college fees of Florent, her elder son, the issue of her first
+marriage. He was a very gentle youth, devoted to his studies, and
+constantly won the chief prizes at school. It was upon him that his
+mother lavished all her affection and based all her hopes. Perhaps, in
+bestowing so much love on this slim pale youth, she was giving evidence
+of her preference for her first husband, a tender-hearted, caressing
+Provençal, who had loved her devotedly. Quenu, whose good humour and
+amiability had at first attracted her, had perhaps displayed too much
+self-satisfaction, and shown too plainly that he looked upon himself as
+the main source of happiness. At all events she formed the opinion that
+her younger son—and in southern families younger sons are still often
+sacrificed—would never do any good; so she contented herself with
+sending him to a school kept by a neighbouring old maid, where the lad
+learned nothing but how to idle his time away. The two brothers grew up
+far apart from each other, as though they were strangers.
+
+When Florent arrived at Le Vigan his mother was already buried. She had
+insisted upon having her illness concealed from him till the very last
+moment, for fear of disturbing his studies. Thus he found little Quenu,
+who was then twelve years old, sitting and sobbing alone on a table in
+the middle of the kitchen. A furniture dealer, a neighbour, gave him
+particulars of his mother’s last hours. She had reached the end of her
+resources, had killed herself by the hard work which she had undertaken
+to earn sufficient money that her elder son might continue his legal
+studies. To her modest trade in ribbons, the profits of which were but
+small, she had been obliged to add other occupations, which kept her up
+very late at night. Her one idea of seeing Florent established as an
+advocate, holding a good position in the town, had gradually caused her
+to become hard and miserly, without pity for either herself or others.
+Little Quenu was allowed to wander about in ragged breeches, and in
+blouses from which the sleeves were falling away. He never dared to
+serve himself at table, but waited till he received his allowance of
+bread from his mother’s hands. She gave herself equally thin slices,
+and it was to the effects of this regimen that she had succumbed, in
+deep despair at having failed to accomplish her self-allotted task.
+
+This story made a most painful impression upon Florent’s tender nature,
+and his sobs wellnigh choked him. He took his little half brother in
+his arms, held him to his breast, and kissed him as though to restore
+to him the love of which he had unwittingly deprived him. Then he
+looked at the lad’s gaping shoes, torn sleeves, and dirty hands, at all
+the manifest signs of wretchedness and neglect. And he told him that he
+would take him away, and that they would both live happily together.
+The next day, when he began to inquire into affairs, he felt afraid
+that he would not be able to keep sufficient money to pay for the
+journey back to Paris. However, he was determined to leave Le Vigan at
+any cost. He was fortunately able to sell the little ribbon business,
+and this enabled him to discharge his mother’s debts, for despite her
+strictness in money matters she had gradually run up bills. Then, as
+there was nothing left, his mother’s neighbour, the furniture dealer,
+offered him five hundred francs for her chattels and stock of linen. It
+was a very good bargain for the dealer, but the young man thanked him
+with tears in his eyes. He bought his brother some new clothes, and
+took him away that same evening.
+
+On his return to Paris he gave up all thought of continuing to attend
+the Law School, and postponed every ambitious project. He obtained a
+few pupils, and established himself with little Quenu in the Rue Royer
+Collard, at the corner of the Rue Saint Jacques, in a big room which he
+furnished with two iron bedsteads, a wardrobe, a table, and four
+chairs. He now had a child to look after, and this assumed paternity
+was very pleasing to him. During the earlier days he attempted to give
+the lad some lessons when he returned home in the evening, but Quenu
+was an unwilling pupil. He was dull of understanding, and refused to
+learn, bursting into tears and regretfully recalling the time when his
+mother had allowed him to run wild in the streets. Florent thereupon
+stopped his lessons in despair, and to console the lad promised him a
+holiday of indefinite length. As an excuse for his own weakness he
+repeated that he had not brought his brother to Paris to distress him.
+To see him grow up in happiness became his chief desire. He quite
+worshipped the boy, was charmed with his merry laughter, and felt
+infinite joy in seeing him about him, healthy and vigorous, and without
+a care. Florent for his part remained very slim and lean in his
+threadbare coat, and his face began to turn yellow amidst all the
+drudgery and worry of teaching; but Quenu grew up plump and merry, a
+little dense, indeed, and scarce able to read or write, but endowed
+with high spirits which nothing could ruffle, and which filled the big
+gloomy room in the Rue Royer Collard with gaiety.
+
+Years, meantime, passed by. Florent, who had inherited all his mother’s
+spirit of devotion, kept Quenu at home as though he were a big, idle
+girl. He did not even suffer him to perform any petty domestic duties,
+but always went to buy the provisions himself, and attended to the
+cooking and other necessary matters. This kept him, he said, from
+indulging in his own bad thoughts. He was given to gloominess, and
+fancied that he was disposed to evil. When he returned home in the
+evening, splashed with mud, and his head bowed by the annoyances to
+which other people’s children had subjected him, his heart melted
+beneath the embrace of the sturdy lad whom he found spinning his top on
+the tiled flooring of the big room. Quenu laughed at his brother’s
+clumsiness in making omelettes, and at the serious fashion in which he
+prepared the soup-beef and vegetables. When the lamp was extinguished,
+and Florent lay in bed, he sometimes gave way to feelings of sadness.
+He longed to resume his legal studies, and strove to map out his duties
+in such wise as to secure time to follow the programme of the faculty.
+He succeeded in doing this, and was then perfectly happy. But a slight
+attack of fever, which confined him to his room for a week, made such a
+hole in his purse, and caused him so much alarm, that he abandoned all
+idea of completing his studies. The boy was now getting a big fellow,
+and Florent took a post as teacher in a school in the Rue de
+l’Estrapade, at a salary of eighteen hundred francs per annum. This
+seemed like a fortune to him. By dint of economy he hoped to be able to
+amass a sum of money which would set Quenu going in the world. When the
+lad reached his eighteenth year Florent still treated him as though he
+were a daughter for whom a dowry must be provided.
+
+However, during his brother’s brief illness Quenu himself had made
+certain reflections. One morning he proclaimed his desire to work,
+saying that he was now old enough to earn his own living. Florent was
+deeply touched at this. Just opposite, on the other side of the street,
+lived a working watchmaker whom Quenu, through the curtainless window,
+could see leaning over a little table, manipulating all sorts of
+delicate things, and patiently gazing at them through a magnifying
+glass all day long. The lad was much attracted by the sight, and
+declared that he had a taste for watchmaking. At the end of a
+fortnight, however, he became restless, and began to cry like a child
+of ten, complaining that the work was too complicated, and that he
+would never be able to understand all the silly little things that
+enter into the construction of a watch.
+
+His next whim was to be a locksmith; but this calling he found too
+fatiguing. In a couple of years he tried more than ten different
+trades. Florent opined that he acted rightly, that it was wrong to take
+up a calling one did not like. However, Quenu’s fine eagerness to work
+for his living strained the resources of the little establishment very
+seriously. Since he had begun flitting from one workshop to another
+there had been a constant succession of fresh expenses; money had gone
+in new clothes, in meals taken away from home, and in the payment of
+footings among fellow workmen. Florent’s salary of eighteen hundred
+francs was no longer sufficient, and he was obliged to take a couple of
+pupils in the evenings. For eight years he had continued to wear the
+same old coat.
+
+However, the two brothers had made a friend. One side of the house in
+which they lived overlooked the Rue Saint Jacques, where there was a
+large poultry-roasting establishment[*] kept by a worthy man called
+Gavard, whose wife was dying from consumption amidst an atmosphere
+redolent of plump fowls. When Florent returned home too late to cook a
+scrap of meat, he was in the habit of laying out a dozen sous or so on
+a small portion of turkey or goose at this shop. Such days were feast
+days. Gavard in time grew interested in this tall, scraggy customer,
+learned his history, and invited Quenu into his shop. Before long the
+young fellow was constantly to be found there. As soon as his brother
+left the house he came downstairs and installed himself at the rear of
+the roasting shop, quite enraptured with the four huge spits which
+turned with a gentle sound in front of the tall bright flames.
+
+[*] These rotisseries, now all but extinct, were at one time a
+particular feature of the Parisian provision trade. I can myself
+recollect several akin to the one described by M. Zola. I suspect that
+they largely owed their origin to the form and dimensions of the
+ordinary Parisian kitchen stove, which did not enable people to roast
+poultry at home in a convenient way. In the old French cuisine,
+moreover, roast joints of meat were virtually unknown; roasting was
+almost entirely confined to chickens, geese, turkeys, pheasants, etc.;
+and among the middle classes people largely bought their poultry
+already cooked of the _rotisseur_, or else confided it to him for the
+purpose of roasting, in the same way as our poorer classes still send
+their joints to the baker’s. Roasting was also long looked upon in
+France as a very delicate art. Brillat-Savarin, in his famous
+_Physiologie du Gout_, lays down the dictum that “A man may become a
+cook, but is born a _rotisseur_.”—Translator.
+
+
+The broad copper bands of the fireplace glistened brightly, the poultry
+steamed, the fat bubbled melodiously in the dripping-pan, and the spits
+seemed to talk amongst themselves and to address kindly words to Quenu,
+who, with a long ladle, devoutly basted the golden breasts of the fat
+geese and turkeys. He would stay there for hours, quite crimson in the
+dancing glow of the flames, and laughing vaguely, with a somewhat
+stupid expression, at the birds roasting in front of him. Indeed, he
+did not awake from this kind of trance until the geese and turkeys were
+unspitted. They were placed on dishes, the spits emerged from their
+carcasses smoking hot, and a rich gravy flowed from either end and
+filled the shop with a penetrating odour. Then the lad, who, standing
+up, had eagerly followed every phase of the dishing, would clap his
+hands and begin to talk to the birds, telling them that they were very
+nice, and would be eaten up, and that the cats would have nothing but
+their bones. And he would give a start of delight whenever Gavard
+handed him a slice of bread, which he forthwith put into the
+dripping-pan that it might soak and toast there for half an hour.
+
+It was in this shop, no doubt, that Quenu’s love of cookery took its
+birth. Later on, when he had tried all sorts of crafts, he returned, as
+though driven by fate, to the spits and the poultry and the savoury
+gravy which induces one to lick one’s fingers. At first he was afraid
+of vexing his brother, who was a small eater and spoke of good fare
+with the disdain of a man who is ignorant of it; but afterwards, on
+seeing that Florent listened to him when he explained the preparation
+of some very elaborate dish, he confessed his desires and presently
+found a situation at a large restaurant. From that time forward the
+life of the two brothers was settled. They continued to live in the
+room in the Rue Royer Collard, whither they returned every evening; the
+one glowing and radiant from his hot fire, the other with the depressed
+countenance of a shabby, impecunious teacher. Florent still wore his
+old black coat, as he sat absorbed in correcting his pupils’ exercises;
+while Quenu, to put himself more at ease, donned his white apron, cap,
+and jacket, and, flitting about in front of the stove, amused himself
+by baking some dainty in the oven. Sometimes they smiled at seeing
+themselves thus attired, the one all in black, the other all in white.
+These different garbs, one bright and the other sombre, seemed to make
+the big room half gay and half mournful. Never, however, was there so
+much harmony in a household marked by such dissimilarity. Though the
+elder brother grew thinner and thinner, consumed by the ardent
+temperament which he had inherited from his Provençal father, and the
+younger one waxed fatter and fatter like a true son of Normandy, they
+loved each other in the brotherhood they derived from their mother—a
+mother who had been all devotion.
+
+They had a relation in Paris, a brother of their mother’s, one
+Gradelle, who was in business as a pork butcher in the Rue Pirouette,
+near the central markets. He was a fat, hard-hearted, miserly fellow,
+and received his nephews as though they were starving paupers the first
+time they paid him a visit. They seldom went to see him afterwards. On
+his nameday Quenu would take him a bunch of flowers, and receive a
+half-franc piece in return for it. Florent’s proud and sensitive nature
+suffered keenly when Gradelle scrutinised his shabby clothes with the
+anxious, suspicious glance of a miser apprehending a request for a
+dinner, or the loan of a five-franc piece. One day, however, it
+occurred to Florent in all artlessness to ask his uncle to change a
+hundred-franc note for him, and after this the pork butcher showed less
+alarm at sight of the lads, as he called them. Still, their friendship
+got no further than these infrequent visits.
+
+These years were like a long, sweet, sad dream to Florent. As they
+passed he tasted to the full all the bitter joys of self-sacrifice. At
+home, in the big room, life was all love and tenderness; but out in the
+world, amidst the humiliations inflicted on him by his pupils, and the
+rough jostling of the streets, he felt himself yielding to wicked
+thoughts. His slain ambitions embittered him. It was long before he
+could bring himself to bow to his fate, and accept with equanimity the
+painful lot of a poor, plain, commonplace man. At last, to guard
+against the temptations of wickedness, he plunged into ideal goodness,
+and sought refuge in a self-created sphere of absolute truth and
+justice. It was then that he became a republican, entering into the
+republican idea even as heart-broken girls enter a convent. And not
+finding a republic where sufficient peace and kindliness prevailed to
+lull his troubles to sleep, he created one for himself. He took no
+pleasure in books. All the blackened paper amidst which he lived spoke
+of evil-smelling class-rooms, of pellets of paper chewed by unruly
+schoolboys, of long, profitless hours of torture. Besides, books only
+suggested to him a spirit of mutiny and pride, whereas it was of peace
+and oblivion that he felt most need. To lull and soothe himself with
+the ideal imaginings, to dream that he was perfectly happy, and that
+all the world would likewise become so, to erect in his brain the
+republican city in which he would fain have lived, such now became his
+recreation, the task, again and again renewed, of all his leisure
+hours. He no longer read any books beyond those which his duties
+compelled him to peruse; he preferred to tramp along the Rue Saint
+Jacques as far as the outer boulevards, occasionally going yet a
+greater distance and returning by the Barriere d’Italie; and all along
+the road, with his eyes on the Quartier Mouffetard spread out at his
+feet, he would devise reforms of great moral and humanitarian scope,
+such as he thought would change that city of suffering into an abode of
+bliss. During the turmoil of February 1848, when Paris was stained with
+blood he became quite heartbroken, and rushed from one to another of
+the public clubs demanding that the blood which had been shed should
+find atonement in “the fraternal embrace of all republicans throughout
+the world.” He became one of those enthusiastic orators who preached
+revolution as a new religion, full of gentleness and salvation. The
+terrible days of December 1851, the days of the Coup d’Etat, were
+required to wean him from his doctrines of universal love. He was then
+without arms; allowed himself to be captured like a sheep, and was
+treated as though he were a wolf. He awoke from his sermon on universal
+brotherhood to find himself starving on the cold stones of a casemate
+at Bicêtre.
+
+Quenu, when two and twenty, was distressed with anguish when his
+brother did not return home. On the following day he went to seek his
+corpse at the cemetery of Montmartre, where the bodies of those shot
+down on the boulevards had been laid out in a line and covered with
+straw, from beneath which only their ghastly heads projected. However,
+Quenu’s courage failed him, he was blinded by his tears, and had to
+pass twice along the line of corpses before acquiring the certainty
+that Florent’s was not among them. At last, at the end of a long and
+wretched week, he learned at the Prefecture of Police that his brother
+was a prisoner. He was not allowed to see him, and when he pressed the
+matter the police threatened to arrest him also. Then he hastened off
+to his uncle Gradelle, whom he looked upon as a person of importance,
+hoping that he might be able to enlist his influence in Florent’s
+behalf. But Gradelle waxed wrathful, declared that Florent deserved his
+fate, that he ought to have known better than to have mixed himself up
+with those rascally republicans. And he even added that Florent was
+destined to turn out badly, that it was written on his face.
+
+Quenu wept copiously and remained there, almost choked by his sobs. His
+uncle, a little ashamed of his harshness, and feeling that he ought to
+do something for him, offered to receive him into his house. He wanted
+an assistant, and knew that his nephew was a good cook. Quenu was so
+much alarmed by the mere thought of going back to live alone in the big
+room in the Rue Royer Collard, that then and there he accepted
+Gradelle’s offer. That same night he slept in his uncle’s house, in a
+dark hole of a garret just under the room, where there was scarcely
+space for him to lie at full length. However, he was less wretched
+there than he would have been opposite his brother’s empty couch.
+
+He succeeded at length in obtaining permission to see Florent; but on
+his return from Bicêtre he was obliged to take to his bed. For nearly
+three weeks he lay fever-stricken, in a stupefied, comatose state.
+Gradelle meantime called down all sorts of maledictions on his
+republican nephew; and one morning, when he heard of Florent’s
+departure for Cayenne, he went upstairs, tapped Quenu on the hands,
+awoke him, and bluntly told him the news, thereby bringing about such a
+reaction that on the following day the young man was up and about
+again. His grief wore itself out, and his soft flabby flesh seemed to
+absorb his tears. A month later he laughed again, and then grew vexed
+and unhappy with himself for having been merry; but his natural
+light-heartedness soon gained the mastery, and he laughed afresh in
+unconscious happiness.
+
+He now learned his uncle’s business, from which he derived even more
+enjoyment than from cookery. Gradelle told him, however, that he must
+not neglect his pots and pans, that it was rare to find a pork butcher
+who was also a good cook, and that he had been lucky in serving in a
+restaurant before coming to the shop. Gradelle, moreover, made full use
+of his nephew’s acquirements, employed him to cook the dinners sent out
+to certain customers, and placed all the broiling, and the preparation
+of pork chops garnished with gherkins in his special charge. As the
+young man was of real service to him, he grew fond of him after his own
+fashion, and would nip his plump arms when he was in a good humour.
+Gradelle had sold the scanty furniture of the room in the Rue Royer
+Collard and retained possession of the proceeds—some forty francs or
+so—in order, said he, to prevent the foolish lad, Quenu, from making
+ducks and drakes of the cash. After a time, however, he allowed his
+nephew six francs a month a pocket-money.
+
+Quenu now became quite happy, in spite of the emptiness of his purse
+and the harshness with which he was occasionally treated. He liked to
+have life doled out to him; Florent had treated him too much like an
+indolent girl. Moreover, he had made a friend at his uncle’s. Gradelle,
+when his wife died, had been obliged to engage a girl to attend to the
+shop, and had taken care to choose a healthy and attractive one,
+knowing that a good-looking girl would set off his viands and help to
+tempt custom. Amongst his acquaintances was a widow, living in the Rue
+Cuvier, near the Jardin des Plantes, whose deceased husband had been
+postmaster at Plassans, the seat of a sub-prefecture in the south of
+France. This lady, who lived in a very modest fashion on a small
+annuity, had brought with her from Plassans a plump, pretty child, whom
+she treated as her own daughter. Lisa, as the young one was called,
+attended upon her with much placidity and serenity of disposition.
+Somewhat seriously inclined, she looked quite beautiful when she
+smiled. Indeed, her great charm came from the exquisite manner in which
+she allowed this infrequent smile of hers to escape her. Her eyes then
+became most caressing, and her habitual gravity imparted inestimable
+value to these sudden, seductive flashes. The old lady had often said
+that one of Lisa’s smiles would suffice to lure her to perdition.
+
+When the widow died she left all her savings, amounting to some ten
+thousand francs, to her adopted daughter. For a week Lisa lived alone
+in the Rue Cuvier; it was there that Gradelle came in search of her. He
+had become acquainted with her by often seeing her with her mistress
+when the latter called on him in the Rue Pirouette; and at the funeral
+she had struck him as having grown so handsome and sturdy that he had
+followed the hearse all the way to the cemetery, though he had not
+intended to do so. As the coffin was being lowered into the grave, he
+reflected what a splendid girl she would be for the counter of a pork
+butcher’s shop. He thought the matter over, and finally resolved to
+offer her thirty francs a month, with board and lodging. When he made
+this proposal, Lisa asked for twenty-four hours to consider it. Then
+she arrived one morning with a little bundle of clothes, and her ten
+thousand francs concealed in the bosom of her dress. A month later the
+whole place belonged to her; she enslaved Gradelle, Quenu, and even the
+smallest kitchen-boy. For his part, Quenu would have cut off his
+fingers to please her. When she happened to smile, he remained rooted
+to the floor, laughing with delight as he gazed at her.
+
+Lisa was the eldest daughter of the Macquarts of Plassans, and her
+father was still alive.[*] But she said that he was abroad, and never
+wrote to him. Sometimes she just dropped a hint that her mother, now
+deceased, had been a hard worker, and that she took after her. She
+worked, indeed, very assiduously. However, she sometimes added that the
+worthy woman had slaved herself to death in striving to support her
+family. Then she would speak of the respective duties of husband and
+wife in such a practical though modest fashion as to enchant Quenu. He
+assured her that he fully shared her ideas. These were that everyone,
+man or woman, ought to work for his or her living, that everyone was
+charged with the duty of achieving personal happiness, that great harm
+was done by encouraging habits of idleness, and that the presence of so
+much misery in the world was greatly due to sloth. This theory of hers
+was a sweeping condemnation of drunkenness, of all the legendary
+loafing ways of her father Macquart. But, though she did not know it,
+there was much of Macquart’s nature in herself. She was merely a
+steady, sensible Macquart with a logical desire for comfort, having
+grasped the truth of the proverb that as you make your bed so you lie
+on it. To sleep in blissful warmth there is no better plan than to
+prepare oneself a soft and downy couch; and to the preparation of such
+a couch she gave all her time and all her thoughts. When no more than
+six years old she had consented to remain quietly on her chair the
+whole day through on condition that she should be rewarded with a cake
+in the evening.
+
+[*] See M. Zola’s novel, _The Fortune of the Rougons_.—Translator
+
+
+At Gradelle’s establishment Lisa went on leading the calm, methodical
+life which her exquisite smiles illumined. She had not accepted the
+pork butcher’s offer at random. She reckoned upon finding a guardian in
+him; with the keen scent of those who are born lucky she perhaps
+foresaw that the gloomy shop in the Rue Pirouette would bring her the
+comfortable future she dreamed of—a life of healthy enjoyment, and work
+without fatigue, each hour of which would bring its own reward. She
+attended to her counter with the quiet earnestness with which she had
+waited upon the postmaster’s widow; and the cleanliness of her aprons
+soon became proverbial in the neighbourhood. Uncle Gradelle was so
+charmed with this pretty girl that sometimes, as he was stringing his
+sausages, he would say to Quenu: “Upon my word, if I weren’t turned
+sixty, I think I should be foolish enough to marry her. A wife like
+she’d make is worth her weight in gold to a shopkeeper, my lad.”
+
+Quenu himself was growing still fonder of her, though he laughed
+merrily one day when a neighbour accused him of being in love with
+Lisa. He was not worried with love-sickness. The two were very good
+friends, however. In the evening they went up to their bedrooms
+together. Lisa slept in a little chamber adjoining the dark hole which
+the young man occupied. She had made this room of hers quite bright by
+hanging it with muslin curtains. The pair would stand together for a
+moment on the landing, holding their candles in their hands, and
+chatting as they unlocked their doors. Then, as they closed them, they
+said in friendly tones:
+
+“Good night, Mademoiselle Lisa.”
+
+“Good night, Monsieur Quenu.”
+
+As Quenu undressed himself he listened to Lisa making her own
+preparations. The partition between the two rooms was very thin.
+“There, she is drawing her curtains now,” he would say to himself;
+“what can she be doing, I wonder, in front of her chest of drawers? Ah!
+she’s sitting down now and taking off her shoes. Now she’s blown her
+candle out. Well, good night. I must get to sleep”; and at times, when
+he heard her bed creak as she got into it, he would say to himself with
+a smile, “Dash it all! Mademoiselle Lisa is no feather.” This idea
+seemed to amuse him, and presently he would fall asleep thinking about
+the hams and salt pork that he had to prepare the next morning.
+
+This state of affairs went on for a year without causing Lisa a single
+blush or Quenu a moment’s embarrassment. When the girl came into the
+kitchen in the morning at the busiest moment of the day’s work, they
+grasped hands over the dishes of sausage-meat. Sometimes she helped
+him, holding the skins with her plump fingers while he filled them with
+meat and fat. Sometimes, too, with the tips of their tongues they just
+tasted the raw sausage-meat, to see if it was properly seasoned. She
+was able to give Quenu some useful hints, for she knew of many
+favourite southern recipes, with which he experimented with much
+success. He was often aware that she was standing behind his shoulder,
+prying into the pans. If he wanted a spoon or a dish, she would hand it
+to him. The heat of the fire would bring their blood to their skins;
+still, nothing in the world would have induced the young man to cease
+stirring the fatty _bouillis_ which were thickening over the fire while
+the girl stood gravely by him, discussing the amount of boiling that
+was necessary. In the afternoon, when the shop lacked customers, they
+quietly chatted together for hours at a time. Lisa sat behind the
+counter, leaning back, and knitting in an easy, regular fashion; while
+Quenu installed himself on a big oak block, dangling his legs and
+tapping his heels against the wood. They got on wonderfully well
+together, discussing all sorts of subjects, generally cookery, and then
+Uncle Gradelle and the neighbours. Lisa also amused the young man with
+stories, just as though he were a child. She knew some very pretty
+ones—some miraculous legends, full of lambs and little angels, which
+she narrated in a piping voice, with all her wonted seriousness. If a
+customer happened to come in, she saved herself the trouble of moving
+by asking Quenu to get the required pot of lard or box of snails. And
+at eleven o’clock they went slowly up to bed as on the previous night.
+As they closed their doors, they calmly repeated the words:
+
+“Good night, Mademoiselle Lisa.”
+
+“Good night, Monsieur Quenu.”
+
+One morning Uncle Gradelle was struck dead by apoplexy while preparing
+a galantine. He fell forward, with his face against the chopping-block.
+Lisa did not lose her self-possession. She remarked that the dead man
+could not be left lying in the middle of the kitchen, and had the body
+removed into a little back room where Gradelle had slept. Then she
+arranged with the assistants what should be said. It must be given out
+that the master had died in his bed; otherwise the whole district would
+be disgusted, and the shop would lose its customers. Quenu helped to
+carry the dead man away, feeling quite confused, and astonished at
+being unable to shed any tears. Presently, however, he and Lisa cried
+together. Quenu and his brother Florent were the sole heirs. The
+gossips of the neighbourhood credited old Gradelle with the possession
+of a considerable fortune. However, not a single crown could be
+discovered. Lisa seemed very restless and uneasy. Quenu noticed how
+pensive she became, how she kept on looking around her from morning
+till night, as though she had lost something. At last she decided to
+have a thorough cleaning of the premises, declaring that people were
+beginning to talk, that the story of the old man’s death had got about,
+and that it was necessary they should make a great show of cleanliness.
+One afternoon, after remaining in the cellar for a couple of hours,
+whither she herself had gone to wash the salting-tubs, she came up
+again, carrying something in her apron. Quenu was just then cutting up
+a pig’s fry. She waited till he had finished, talking awhile in an
+easy, indifferent fashion. But there was an unusual glitter in her
+eyes, and she smiled her most charming smile as she told him that she
+wanted to speak to him. She led the way upstairs with seeming
+difficulty, impeded by what she had in her apron, which was strained
+almost to bursting.
+
+By the time she reached the third floor she found herself short of
+breath, and for a moment was obliged to lean against the balustrade.
+Quenu, much astonished, followed her into her bedroom without saying a
+word. It was the first time she had ever invited him to enter it. She
+closed the door, and letting go the corners of her apron, which her
+stiffened fingers could no longer hold up, she allowed a stream of gold
+and silver coins to flow gently upon her bed. She had discovered Uncle
+Gradelle’s treasure at the bottom of a salting-tub. The heap of money
+made a deep impression in the softy downy bed.
+
+Lisa and Quenu evinced a quiet delight. They sat down on the edge of
+the bed, Lisa at the head and Quenu at the foot, on either side of the
+heap of coins, and they counted the money out upon the counterpane, so
+as to avoid making any noise. There were forty thousand francs in gold,
+and three thousand francs in silver, whilst in a tin box they found
+bank notes to the value of forty-two thousand francs. It took them two
+hours to count up the treasure. Quenu’s hands trembled slightly, and it
+was Lisa who did most of the work.
+
+They arranged the gold on the pillow in little heaps, leaving the
+silver in the hollow depression of the counterpane. When they had
+ascertained the total amount—eighty-five thousand francs, to them an
+enormous sum—they began to chat. And their conversation naturally
+turned upon their future, and they spoke of their marriage, although
+there had never been any previous mention of love between them. But
+this heap of money seemed to loosen their tongues. They had gradually
+seated themselves further back on the bed, leaning against the wall,
+beneath the white muslin curtains; and as they talked together, their
+hands, playing with the heap of silver between them, met, and remained
+linked amidst the pile of five-franc pieces. Twilight surprised them
+still sitting together. Then, for the first time, Lisa blushed at
+finding the young man by her side. For a few moments, indeed, although
+not a thought of evil had come to them, they felt much embarrassed.
+Then Lisa went to get her own ten thousand francs. Quenu wanted her to
+put them with his uncle’s savings. He mixed the two sums together,
+saying with a laugh that the money must be married also. Then it was
+agreed that Lisa should keep the hoard in her chest of drawers. When
+she had locked it up they both quietly went downstairs. They were now
+practically husband and wife.
+
+The wedding took place during the following month. The neighbours
+considered the match a very natural one, and in every way suitable.
+They had vaguely heard the story of the treasure, and Lisa’s honesty
+was the subject of endless eulogy. After all, said the gossips, she
+might well have kept the money herself, and not have spoken a word to
+Quenu about it; if she had spoken, it was out of pure honesty, for no
+one had seen her find the hoard. She well deserved, they added, that
+Quenu should make her his wife. That Quenu, by the way, was a lucky
+fellow; he wasn’t a beauty himself, yet he had secured a beautiful
+wife, who had disinterred a fortune for him. Some even went so far as
+to whisper that Lisa was a simpleton for having acted as she had done;
+but the young woman only smiled when people speaking to her vaguely
+alluded to all these things. She and her husband lived on as
+previously, in happy placidity and quiet affection. She still assisted
+him as before, their hands still met amidst the sausage-meat, she still
+glanced over his shoulder into the pots and pans, and still nothing but
+the great fire in the kitchen brought the blood to their cheeks.
+
+However, Lisa was a woman of practical common sense, and speedily saw
+the folly of allowing eighty-five thousand francs to lie idle in a
+chest of drawers. Quenu would have willingly stowed them away again at
+the bottom of the salting-tub until he had gained as much more, when
+they could have retired from business and have gone to live at
+Suresnes, a suburb to which both were partial. Lisa, however, had other
+ambitions. The Rue Pirouette did not accord with her ideas of
+cleanliness, her craving for fresh air, light, and healthy life. The
+shop where Uncle Gradelle had accumulated his fortune, sou by sou, was
+a long, dark place, one of those suspicious looking pork butchers’
+shops of the old quarters of the city, where the well-worn flagstones
+retain a strong odour of meat in spite of constant washings. Now the
+young woman longed for one of those bright modern shops, ornamented
+like a drawing-room, and fringing the footway of some broad street with
+windows of crystalline transparence. She was not actuated by any petty
+ambition to play the fine lady behind a stylish counter, but clearly
+realised that commerce in its latest development needed elegant
+surroundings. Quenu showed much alarm the first time his wife suggested
+that they ought to move and spend some of their money in decorating a
+new shop. However, Lisa only shrugged her shoulders and smiled at
+finding him so timorous.
+
+One evening, when night was falling and the shop had grown dark, Quenu
+and Lisa overheard a woman of the neighbourhood talking to a friend
+outside their door.
+
+“No, indeed! I’ve given up dealing with them,” said she. “I wouldn’t
+buy a bit of black-pudding from them now on any account. They had a
+dead man in their kitchen, you know.”
+
+Quenu wept with vexation. The story of Gradelle’s death in the kitchen
+was clearly getting about; and his nephew began to blush before his
+customers when he saw them sniffing his wares too closely. So, of his
+own accord, he spoke to his wife of her proposal to take a new shop.
+Lisa, without saying anything, had already been looking out for other
+premises, and had found some, admirably situated, only a few yards
+away, in the Rue Rambuteau. The immediate neighbourhood of the central
+markets, which were being opened just opposite, would triple their
+business, and make their shop known all over Paris.
+
+Quenu allowed himself to be drawn into a lavish expenditure of money;
+he laid out over thirty thousand francs in marble, glass, and gilding.
+Lisa spent hours with the workmen, giving her views about the slightest
+details. When she was at last installed behind the counter, customers
+arrived in a perfect procession, merely for the sake of examining the
+shop. The inside walls were lined from top to bottom with white marble.
+The ceiling was covered with a huge square mirror, framed by a broad
+gilded cornice, richly ornamented, whilst from the centre hung a
+crystal chandelier with four branches. And behind the counter, and on
+the left, and at the far end of the shop were other mirrors, fitted
+between the marble panels and looking like doors opening into an
+infinite series of brightly lighted halls, where all sorts of
+appetising edibles were displayed. The huge counter on the right hand
+was considered a very fine piece of work. At intervals along the front
+were lozenge-shaped panels of pinky marble. The flooring was of tiles,
+alternately white and pink, with a deep red fretting as border. The
+whole neighbourhood was proud of the shop, and no one again thought of
+referring to the kitchen in the Rue Pirouette, where a man had died.
+For quite a month women stopped short on the footway to look at Lisa
+between the saveloys and bladders in the window. Her white and pink
+flesh excited as much admiration as the marbles. She seemed to be the
+soul, the living light, the healthy, sturdy idol of the pork trade; and
+thenceforth one and all baptised her “Lisa the beauty.”
+
+To the right of the shop was the dining-room, a neat looking apartment
+containing a sideboard, a table, and several cane-seated chairs of
+light oak. The matting on the floor, the wallpaper of a soft yellow
+tint, the oil-cloth table-cover, coloured to imitate oak, gave the room
+a somewhat cold appearance, which was relieved only by the glitter of a
+brass hanging lamp, suspended from the ceiling, and spreading its big
+shade of transparent porcelain over the table. One of the dining-room
+doors opened into the huge square kitchen, at the end of which was a
+small paved courtyard, serving for the storage of lumber—tubs, barrels
+and pans, and all kinds of utensils not in use. To the left of the
+water-tap, alongside the gutter which carried off the greasy water,
+stood pots of faded flowers, removed from the shop window, and slowly
+dying.
+
+Business was excellent. Quenu, who had been much alarmed by the initial
+outlay, now regarded his wife with something like respect, and told his
+friends that she had “a wonderful head.” At the end of five years they
+had nearly eighty thousand francs invested in the State funds. Lisa
+would say that they were not ambitious, that they had no desire to pile
+up money too quickly, or else she would have enabled her husband to
+gain hundreds and thousands of francs by prompting him to embark in the
+wholesale pig trade. But they were still young, and had plenty of time
+before them; besides, they didn’t care about a rough, scrambling
+business, but preferred to work at their ease, and enjoy life, instead
+of wearing themselves out with endless anxieties.
+
+“For instance,” Lisa would add in her expansive moments, “I have, you
+know, a cousin in Paris. I never see him, as the two families have
+fallen out. He has taken the name of Saccard,[*] on account of certain
+matters which he wants to be forgotten. Well, this cousin of mine, I’m
+told, makes millions and millions of francs; but he gets no enjoyment
+out of life. He’s always in a state of feverish excitement, always
+rushing hither and thither, up to his neck in all sorts of worrying
+business. Well, it’s impossible, isn’t it, for such a man to eat his
+dinner peaceably in the evening? We, at any rate, can take our meals
+comfortably, and make sure of what we eat, and we are not harassed by
+worries as he is. The only reason why people should care for money is
+that money’s wanted for one to live. People like comfort; that’s
+natural. But as for making money simply for the sake of making it, and
+giving yourself far more trouble and anxiety to gain it than you can
+ever get pleasure from it when it’s gained, why, as for me, I’d rather
+sit still and cross my arms. And besides, I should like to see all
+those millions of my cousin’s. I can’t say that I altogether believe in
+them. I caught sight of him the other day in his carriage. He was quite
+yellow, and looked ever so sly. A man who’s making money doesn’t have
+that kind of expression. But it’s his business, and not mine. For our
+part, we prefer to make merely a hundred sous at a time, and to get a
+hundred sous’ worth of enjoyment out of them.”
+
+[*] See M. Zola’s novel, _Money_.
+
+
+The household was undoubtedly thriving. A daughter had been born to the
+young couple during their first year of wedlock, and all three of them
+looked blooming. The business went on prosperously, without any
+laborious fatigue, just as Lisa desired. She had carefully kept free of
+any possible source of trouble or anxiety, and the days went by in an
+atmosphere of peaceful, unctuous prosperity. Their home was a nook of
+sensible happiness—a comfortable manger, so to speak, where father,
+mother, and daughter could grow sleek and fat. It was only Quenu who
+occasionally felt sad, through thinking of his brother Florent. Up to
+the year 1856 he had received letters from him at long intervals. Then
+no more came, and he had learned from a newspaper that three convicts
+having attempted to escape from the Île du Diable, had been drowned
+before they were able to reach the mainland. He had made inquiries at
+the Prefecture of Police, but had not learnt anything definite; it
+seemed probable that his brother was dead. However, he did not lose all
+hope, though months passed without any tidings. Florent, in the
+meantime, was wandering about Dutch Guiana, and refrained from writing
+home as he was ever in hope of being able to return to France. Quenu at
+last began to mourn for him as one mourns for those whom one has been
+unable to bid farewell. Lisa had never known Florent, but she spoke
+very kindly whenever she saw her husband give way to his sorrow; and
+she evinced no impatience when for the hundredth time or so he began to
+relate stories of his early days, of his life in the big room in the
+Rue Royer Collard, the thirty-six trades which he had taken up one
+after another, and the dainties which he had cooked at the stove,
+dressed all in white, while Florent was dressed all in black. To such
+talk as this, indeed, she listened placidly, with a complacency which
+never wearied.
+
+It was into the midst of all this happiness, ripening after careful
+culture, that Florent dropped one September morning just as Lisa was
+taking her matutinal bath of sunshine, and Quenu, with his eyes still
+heavy with sleep, was lazily applying his fingers to the congealed fat
+left in the pans from the previous evening. Florent’s arrival caused a
+great commotion. Gavard advised them to conceal the “outlaw,” as he
+somewhat pompously called Florent. Lisa, who looked pale, and more
+serious than was her wont, at last took him to the fifth floor, where
+she gave him the room belonging to the girl who assisted her in the
+shop. Quenu had cut some slices of bread and ham, but Florent was
+scarcely able to eat. He was overcome by dizziness and nausea, and went
+to bed, where he remained for five days in a state of delirium, the
+outcome of an attack of brain-fever, which fortunately received
+energetic treatment. When he recovered consciousness he perceived Lisa
+sitting by his bedside, silently stirring some cooling drink in a cup.
+As he tried to thank her, she told him that he must keep perfectly
+quiet, and that they could talk together later on. At the end of
+another three days Florent was on his feet again. Then one morning
+Quenu went up to tell him that Lisa awaited them in her room on the
+first floor.
+
+Quenu and his wife there occupied a suite of three rooms and a
+dressing-room. You first passed through an antechamber, containing
+nothing but chairs, and then a small sitting-room, whose furniture,
+shrouded in white covers, slumbered in the gloom cast by the Venetian
+shutters, which were always kept closed so as to prevent the light blue
+of the upholstery from fading. Then came the bedroom, the only one of
+the three which was really used. It was very comfortably furnished in
+mahogany. The bed, bulky and drowsy of aspect in the depths of the damp
+alcove, was really wonderful, with its four mattresses, its four
+pillows, its layers of blankets, and its corpulent _édredon_. It was
+evidently a bed intended for slumber. A mirrored wardrobe, a washstand
+with drawers, a small central table with a worked cover, and several
+chairs whose seats were protected by squares of lace, gave the room an
+aspect of plain but substantial middle-class luxury. On the left-hand
+wall, on either side of the mantelpiece, which was ornamented with some
+landscape-painted vases mounted on bronze stands, and a gilt timepiece
+on which a figure of Gutenberg, also gilt, stood in an attitude of deep
+thought, hung portraits in oils of Quenu and Lisa, in ornate oval
+frames. Quenu had a smiling face, while Lisa wore an air of grave
+propriety; and both were dressed in black and depicted in flattering
+fashion, their features idealised, their skins wondrously smooth, their
+complexions soft and pinky. A carpet, in the Wilton style, with a
+complicated pattern of roses mingling with stars, concealed the
+flooring; while in front of the bed was a fluffy mat, made out of long
+pieces of curly wool, a work of patience at which Lisa herself had
+toiled while seated behind her counter. But the most striking object of
+all in the midst of this array of new furniture was a great square,
+thick-set secrétaire, which had been re-polished in vain, for the
+cracks and notches in the marble top and the scratches on the old
+mahogany front, quite black with age, still showed plainly. Lisa had
+desired to retain this piece of furniture, however, as Uncle Gradelle
+had used it for more than forty years. It would bring them good luck,
+she said. It’s metal fastenings were truly something terrible, it’s
+lock was like that of a prison gate, and it was so heavy that it could
+scarcely be moved.
+
+When Florent and Quenu entered the room they found Lisa seated at the
+lowered desk of the secrétaire, writing and putting down figures in a
+big, round, and very legible hand. She signed to them not to disturb
+her, and the two men sat down. Florent looked round the room, and
+notably at the two portraits, the bed and the timepiece, with an air of
+surprise.
+
+“There!” at last exclaimed Lisa, after having carefully verified a
+whole page of calculations. “Listen to me now; we have an account to
+render to you, my dear Florent.”
+
+It was the first time that she had so addressed him. However, taking up
+the page of figures, she continued: “Your Uncle Gradelle died without
+leaving a will. Consequently you and your brother are his sole heirs.
+We now have to hand your share over to you.”
+
+“But I do not ask you for anything!” exclaimed Florent, “I don’t wish
+for anything!”
+
+Quenu had apparently been in ignorance of his wife’s intentions. He
+turned rather pale and looked at her with an expression of displeasure.
+Of course, he certainly loved his brother dearly; but there was no
+occasion to hurl his uncle’s money at him in this way. There would have
+been plenty of time to go into the matter later on.
+
+“I know very well, my dear Florent,” continued Lisa, “that you did not
+come back with the intention of claiming from us what belongs to you;
+but business is business, you know, and we had better get things
+settled at once. Your uncle’s savings amounted to eighty-five thousand
+francs. I have therefore put down forty-two thousand five hundred to
+your credit. See!”
+
+She showed him the figures on the sheet of paper.
+
+“It is unfortunately not so easy to value the shop, plant,
+stock-in-trade, and goodwill. I have only been able to put down
+approximate amounts, but I don’t think I have underestimated anything.
+Well, the total valuation which I have made comes to fifteen thousand
+three hundred and ten francs; your half of which is seven thousand six
+hundred and fifty-five francs, so that your share amounts, in all, to
+fifty thousand one hundred and fifty-five francs. Please verify it for
+yourself, will you?”
+
+She had called out the figures in a clear, distinct voice, and she now
+handed the paper to Florent, who was obliged to take it.
+
+“But the old man’s business was certainly never worth fifteen thousand
+francs!” cried Quenu. “Why, I wouldn’t have given ten thousand for it!”
+
+He had ended by getting quite angry with his wife. Really, it was
+absurd to carry honesty to such a point as that! Had Florent said one
+word about the business? No, indeed, he had declared that he didn’t
+wish for anything.
+
+“The business was worth fifteen thousand three hundred and ten francs,”
+Lisa re-asserted, calmly. “You will agree with me, my dear Florent,
+that it is quite unnecessary to bring a lawyer into our affairs. It is
+for us to arrange the division between ourselves, since you have now
+turned up again. I naturally thought of this as soon as you arrived;
+and, while you were in bed with the fever, I did my best to draw up
+this little inventory. It contains, as you see, a fairly complete
+statement of everything. I have been through our old books, and have
+called up my memory to help me. Read it aloud, and I will give you any
+additional information you may want.”
+
+Florent ended by smiling. He was touched by this easy and, as it were,
+natural display of probity. Placing the sheet of figures on the young
+woman’s knee, he took hold of her hand and said, “I am very glad, my
+dear Lisa, to hear that you are prosperous, but I will not take your
+money. The heritage belongs to you and my brother, who took care of my
+uncle up to the last. I don’t require anything, and I don’t intend to
+hamper you in carrying on your business.”
+
+Lisa insisted, and even showed some vexation, while Quenu gnawed his
+thumbs in silence to restrain himself.
+
+“Ah!” resumed Florent with a laugh, “if Uncle Gradelle could hear you,
+I think he’d come back and take the money away again. I was never a
+favourite of his, you know.”
+
+“Well, no,” muttered Quenu, no longer able to keep still, “he certainly
+wasn’t over fond of you.”
+
+Lisa, however, still pressed the matter. She did not like to have money
+in her secrétaire that did not belong to her; it would worry her, said
+she; the thought of it would disturb her peace. Thereupon Florent,
+still in a joking way, proposed to invest his share in the business.
+Moreover, said he, he did not intend to refuse their help; he would, no
+doubt, be unable to find employment all at once; and then, too, he
+would need a complete outfit, for he was scarcely presentable.
+
+“Of course,” cried Quenu, “you will board and lodge with us, and we
+will buy you all that you want. That’s understood. You know very well
+that we are not likely to leave you in the streets, I hope!”
+
+He was quite moved now, and even felt a trifle ashamed of the alarm he
+had experienced at the thought of having to hand over a large amount of
+money all at once. He began to joke, and told his brother that he would
+undertake to fatten him. Florent gently shook his hand; while Lisa
+folded up the sheet of figures and put it away in a drawer of the
+secrétaire.
+
+“You are wrong,” she said by way of conclusion. “I have done what I was
+bound to do. Now it shall be as you wish. But, for my part, I should
+never have had a moment’s peace if I had not put things before you. Bad
+thoughts would quite upset me.”
+
+They then began to speak of another matter. It would be necessary to
+give some reason for Florent’s presence, and at the same time avoid
+exciting the suspicion of the police. He told them that in order to
+return to France he had availed himself of the papers of a poor fellow
+who had died in his arms at Surinam from yellow fever. By a singular
+coincidence this young fellow’s Christian name was Florent.
+
+Florent Laquerriere, to give him his name in full, had left but one
+relation in Paris, a female cousin, and had been informed of her death
+while in America. Nothing could therefore be easier than for Quenu’s
+half brother to pass himself off as the man who had died at Surinam.
+Lisa offered to take upon herself the part of the female cousin. They
+then agreed to relate that their cousin Florent had returned from
+abroad, where he had failed in his attempts to make a fortune, and that
+they, the Quenu-Gradelles, as they were called in the neighbourhood,
+had received him into their house until he could find suitable
+employment. When this was all settled, Quenu insisted upon his brother
+making a thorough inspection of the rooms, and would not spare him the
+examination of a single stool. Whilst they were in the bare looking
+chamber containing nothing but chairs, Lisa pushed open a door, and
+showing Florent a small dressing room, told him that the shop girl
+should sleep in it, so that he could retain the bedroom on the fifth
+floor.
+
+In the evening Florent was arrayed in new clothes from head to foot. He
+had insisted upon again having a black coat and black trousers, much
+against the advice of Quenu, upon whom black had a depressing effect.
+No further attempts were made to conceal his presence in the house, and
+Lisa told the story which had been planned to everyone who cared to
+hear it. Henceforth Florent spent almost all his time on the premises,
+lingering on a chair in the kitchen or leaning against the marble-work
+in the shop. At meal times Quenu plied him with food, and evinced
+considerable vexation when he proved such a small eater and left half
+the contents of his liberally filled plate untouched. Lisa had resumed
+her old life, evincing a kindly tolerance of her brother-in-law’s
+presence, even in the morning, when he somewhat interfered with the
+work. Then she would momentarily forget him, and on suddenly perceiving
+his black form in front of her give a slight start of surprise,
+followed, however, by one of her sweet smiles, lest he might feel at
+all hurt. This skinny man’s disinterestedness had impressed her, and
+she regarded him with a feeling akin to respect, mingled with vague
+fear. Florent had for his part only felt that there was great affection
+around him.
+
+When bedtime came he went upstairs, a little wearied by his lazy day,
+with the two young men whom Quenu employed as assistants, and who slept
+in attics adjoining his own. Leon, the apprentice, was barely fifteen
+years of age. He was a slight, gentle looking lad, addicted to stealing
+stray slices of ham and bits of sausages. These he would conceal under
+his pillow, eating them during the night without any bread. Several
+times at about one o’clock in the morning Florent almost fancied that
+Leon was giving a supper-party; for he heard low whispering followed by
+a sound of munching jaws and rustling paper. And then a rippling
+girlish laugh would break faintly on the deep silence of the sleeping
+house like the soft trilling of a flageolet.
+
+The other assistant, Auguste Landois, came from Troyes. Bloated with
+unhealthy fat, he had too large a head, and was already bald, although
+only twenty-eight years of age. As he went upstairs with Florent on the
+first evening, he told him his story in a confused, garrulous way. He
+had at first come to Paris merely for the purpose of perfecting himself
+in the business, intending to return to Troyes, where his cousin,
+Augustine Landois, was waiting for him, and there setting up for
+himself as a pork butcher. He and she had had the same godfather and
+bore virtually the same Christian name. However, he had grown
+ambitious; and now hoped to establish himself in business in Paris by
+the aid of the money left him by his mother, which he had deposited
+with a notary before leaving Champagne.
+
+Auguste had got so far in his narrative when the fifth floor was
+reached; however, he still detained Florent, in order to sound the
+praises of Madame Quenu, who had consented to send for Augustine
+Landois to replace an assistant who had turned out badly. He himself
+was now thoroughly acquainted with his part of the business, and his
+cousin was perfecting herself in shop management. In a year or eighteen
+months they would be married, and then they would set up on their own
+account in some populous corner of Paris, at Plaisance most likely.
+They were in no great hurry, he added, for the bacon trade was very bad
+that year. Then he proceeded to tell Florent that he and his cousin had
+been photographed together at the fair of St. Ouen, and he entered the
+attic to have another look at the photograph, which Augustine had left
+on the mantelpiece, in her desire that Madame Quenu’s cousin should
+have a pretty room. Auguste lingered there for a moment, looking quite
+livid in the dim yellow light of his candle, and casting his eyes
+around the little chamber which was still full of memorials of the
+young girl. Next, stepping up to the bed, he asked Florent if it was
+comfortable. His cousin slept below now, said he, and would be better
+there in the winter, for the attics were very cold. Then at last he
+went off, leaving Florent alone with the bed, and standing in front of
+the photograph. As shown on the latter Auguste looked like a sort of
+pale Quenu, and Augustine like an immature Lisa.
+
+Florent, although on friendly terms with the assistants, petted by his
+brother, and cordially treated by Lisa, presently began to feel very
+bored. He had tried, but without success, to obtain some pupils;
+moreover, he purposely avoided the students’ quarter for fear of being
+recognised. Lisa gently suggested to him that he had better try to
+obtain a situation in some commercial house, where he could take charge
+of the correspondence and keep the books. She returned to this subject
+again and again, and at last offered to find a berth for him herself.
+She was gradually becoming impatient at finding him so often in her
+way, idle, and not knowing what to do with himself. At first this
+impatience was merely due to the dislike she felt of people who do
+nothing but cross their arms and eat, and she had no thought of
+reproaching him for consuming her substance.
+
+“For my own part,” she would say to him, “I could never spend the whole
+day in dreamy lounging. You can’t have any appetite for your meals. You
+ought to tire yourself.”
+
+Gavard, also, was seeking a situation for Florent, but in a very
+extraordinary and most mysterious fashion. He would have liked to find
+some employment of a dramatic character, or in which there should be a
+touch of bitter irony, as was suitable for an outlaw. Gavard was a man
+who was always in opposition. He had just completed his fiftieth year,
+and he boasted that he had already passed judgment on four Governments.
+He still contemptuously shrugged his shoulders at the thought of
+Charles X, the priests and nobles and other attendant rabble, whom he
+had helped to sweep away. Louis Philippe, with his bourgeois following,
+had been an imbecile, and he could tell how the citizen-king had
+hoarded his coppers in a woollen stocking. As for the Republic of ‘48,
+that had been a mere farce, the working classes had deceived him;
+however, he no longer acknowledged that he had applauded the Coup
+d’Etat, for he now looked upon Napoleon III as his personal enemy, a
+scoundrel who shut himself up with Morny and others to indulge in
+gluttonous orgies. He was never weary of holding forth upon this
+subject. Lowering his voice a little, he would declare that women were
+brought to the Tuileries in closed carriages every evening, and that
+he, who was speaking, had one night heard the echoes of the orgies
+while crossing the Place du Carrousel. It was Gavard’s religion to make
+himself as disagreeable as possible to any existing Government. He
+would seek to spite it in all sorts of ways, and laugh in secret for
+several months at the pranks he played. To begin with, he voted for
+candidates who would worry the Ministers at the Corps Législatif. Then,
+if he could rob the revenue, or baffle the police, and bring about a
+row of some kind or other, he strove to give the affair as much of an
+insurrectionary character as possible. He told a great many lies, too;
+set himself up as being a very dangerous man; talked as though “the
+satellites of the Tuileries” were well acquainted with him and trembled
+at the sight of him; and asserted that one half of them must be
+guillotined, and the other half transported, the next time there was “a
+flare-up.” His violent political creed found food in boastful, bragging
+talk of this sort; he displayed all the partiality for a lark and a
+rumpus which prompts a Parisian shopkeeper to take down his shutters on
+a day of barricade-fighting to get a good view of the corpses of the
+slain. When Florent returned from Cayenne, Gavard opined that he had
+got hold of a splendid chance for some abominable trick, and bestowed
+much thought upon the question of how he might best vent his spleen on
+the Emperor and Ministers and everyone in office, down to the very
+lowest police constable.
+
+Gavard’s manners with Florent were altogether those of a man tasting
+some forbidden pleasure. He contemplated him with blinking eyes,
+lowered his voice even when making the most trifling remark, and
+grasped his hand with all sorts of masonic flummery. He had at last
+lighted upon something in the way of an adventure; he had a friend who
+was really compromised, and could, without falsehood speak of the
+dangers he incurred. He undoubtedly experienced a secret alarm at the
+sight of this man who had returned from transportation, and whose
+fleshlessness testified to the long sufferings he had endured; however,
+this touch of alarm was delightful, for it increased his notion of his
+own importance, and convinced him that he was really doing something
+wonderful in treating a dangerous character as a friend. Florent became
+a sort of sacred being in his eyes: he swore by him alone, and had
+recourse to his name whenever arguments failed him and he wanted to
+crush the Government once and for all.
+
+Gavard had lost his wife in the Rue Saint Jacques some months after the
+Coup d’Etat; however, he had kept on his roasting shop till 1856. At
+that time it was reported that he had made large sums of money by going
+into partnership with a neighbouring grocer who had obtained a contract
+for supplying dried vegetables to the Crimean expeditionary corps. The
+truth was, however, that, having sold his shop, he lived on his income
+for a year without doing anything. He himself did not care to talk
+about the real origin of his fortune, for to have revealed it would
+have prevented him from plainly expressing his opinion of the Crimean
+War, which he referred to as a mere adventurous expedition, “undertaken
+simply to consolidate the throne and to fill certain persons’ pockets.”
+At the end of a year he had grown utterly weary of life in his bachelor
+quarters. As he was in the habit of visiting the Quenu-Gradelles almost
+daily, he determined to take up his residence nearer to them, and came
+to live in the Rue de la Cossonnerie. The neighbouring markets, with
+their noisy uproar and endless chatter, quite fascinated him; and he
+decided to hire a stall in the poultry pavilion, just for the purpose
+of amusing himself and occupying his idle hours with all the gossip.
+Thenceforth he lived amidst ceaseless tittle-tattle, acquainted with
+every little scandal in the neighbourhood, his head buzzing with the
+incessant yelping around him. He blissfully tasted a thousand
+titillating delights, having at last found his true element, and
+bathing in it, with the voluptuous pleasure of a carp swimming in the
+sunshine. Florent would sometimes go to see him at his stall. The
+afternoons were still very warm. All along the narrow alleys sat women
+plucking poultry. Rays of light streamed in between the awnings, and in
+the warm atmosphere, in the golden dust of the sunbeams, feathers
+fluttered hither and thither like dancing snowflakes. A trail of
+coaxing calls and offers followed Florent as he passed along. “Can I
+sell you a fine duck, monsieur?” “I’ve some very fine fat chickens
+here, monsieur; come and see!” “Monsieur! monsieur, do just buy this
+pair of pigeons!” Deafened and embarrassed he freed himself from the
+women, who still went on plucking as they fought for possession of him;
+and the fine down flew about and wellnigh choked him, like hot smoke
+reeking with the strong odour of the poultry. At last, in the middle of
+the alley, near the water-taps, he found Gavard ranting away in his
+shirt-sleeves, in front of his stall, with his arms crossed over the
+bib of his blue apron. He reigned there, in a gracious, condescending
+way, over a group of ten or twelve women. He was the only male dealer
+in that part of the market. He was so fond of wagging his tongue that
+he had quarrelled with five or six girls whom he had successively
+engaged to attend to his stall, and had now made up his mind to sell
+his goods himself, naively explaining that the silly women spent the
+whole blessed day in gossiping, and that it was beyond his power to
+manage them. As someone, however, was still necessary to supply his
+place whenever he absented himself he took in Marjolin, who was
+prowling about, after attempting in turn all the petty market callings.
+
+Florent sometimes remained for an hour with Gavard, amazed by his
+ceaseless flow of chatter, and his calm serenity and assurance amid the
+crowd of petticoats. He would interrupt one woman, pick a quarrel with
+another ten stalls away, snatch a customer from a third, and make as
+much noise himself as his hundred and odd garrulous neighbours, whose
+incessant clamour kept the iron plates of the pavilion vibrating
+sonorously like so many gongs.
+
+The poultry dealer’s only relations were a sister-in-law and a niece.
+When his wife died, her eldest sister, Madame Lecœur, who had become a
+widow about a year previously, had mourned for her in an exaggerated
+fashion, and gone almost every evening to tender consolation to the
+bereaved husband. She had doubtless cherished the hope that she might
+win his affection and fill the yet warm place of the deceased. Gavard,
+however, abominated lean women; and would, indeed, only stroke such
+cats and dogs as were very fat; so that Madame Lecœur, who was long and
+withered, failed in her designs.
+
+With her feelings greatly hurt, furious at the ex-roaster’s five-franc
+pieces eluding her grasp, she nurtured great spite against him. He
+became the enemy to whom she devoted all her time. When she saw him set
+up in the markets only a few yards away from the pavilion where she
+herself sold butter and eggs and cheese, she accused him of doing so
+simply for the sake of annoying her and bringing her bad luck. From
+that moment she began to lament, and turned so yellow and melancholy
+that she indeed ended by losing her customers and getting into
+difficulties. She had for a long time kept with her the daughter of one
+of her sisters, a peasant woman who had sent her the child and then
+taken no further trouble about it.
+
+This child grew up in the markets. Her surname was Sarriet, and so she
+soon became generally known as La Sarriette. At sixteen years of age
+she had developed into such a charming sly-looking puss that gentlemen
+came to buy cheeses at her aunt’s stall simply for the purpose of
+ogling her. She did not care for the gentlemen, however; with her dark
+hair, pale face, and eyes glistening like live embers, her sympathies
+were with the lower ranks of the people. At last she chose as her lover
+a young man from Menilmontant who was employed by her aunt as a porter.
+At twenty she set up in business as a fruit dealer with the help of
+some funds procured no one knew how; and thenceforth Monsieur Jules, as
+her lover was called, displayed spotless hands, a clean blouse, and a
+velvet cap; and only came down to the market in the afternoon, in his
+slippers. They lived together on the third storey of a large house in
+the Rue Vauvilliers, on the ground floor of which was a disreputable
+café.
+
+Madame Lecœur’s acerbity of temper was brought to a pitch by what she
+called La Sarriette’s ingratitude, and she spoke of the girl in the
+most violent and abusive language. They broke off all intercourse, the
+aunt fairly exasperated, and the niece and Monsieur Jules concocting
+stories about the aunt, which the young man would repeat to the other
+dealers in the butter pavilion. Gavard found La Sarriette very
+entertaining, and treated her with great indulgence. Whenever they met
+he would good-naturedly pat her cheeks.
+
+One afternoon, whilst Florent was sitting in his brother’s shop, tired
+out with the fruitless pilgrimages he had made during the morning in
+search of work, Marjolin made his appearance there. This big lad, who
+had the massiveness and gentleness of a Fleming, was a protege of
+Lisa’s. She would say that there was no evil in him; that he was indeed
+a little bit stupid, but as strong as a horse, and particularly
+interesting from the fact that nobody knew anything of his parentage.
+It was she who had got Gavard to employ him.
+
+Lisa was sitting behind the counter, feeling annoyed by the sight of
+Florent’s muddy boots which were soiling the pink and white tiles of
+the flooring. Twice already had she risen to scatter sawdust about the
+shop. However, she smiled at Marjolin as he entered.
+
+“Monsieur Gavard,” began the young man, “has sent me to ask—”
+
+But all at once he stopped and glanced round; then in a lower voice he
+resumed: “He told me to wait till there was no one with you, and then
+to repeat these words, which he made me learn by heart: ‘Ask them if
+there is no danger, and if I can come and talk to them of the matter
+they know about.’”
+
+“Tell Monsieur Gavard that we are expecting him,” replied Lisa, who was
+quite accustomed to the poultry dealer’s mysterious ways.
+
+Marjolin, however, did not go away; but remained in ecstasy before the
+handsome mistress of the shop, contemplating her with an expression of
+fawning humility.
+
+Touched, as it were, by this mute adoration, Lisa spoke to him again.
+
+“Are you comfortable with Monsieur Gavard?” she asked. “He’s not an
+unkind man, and you ought to try to please him.”
+
+“Yes, Madame Lisa.”
+
+“But you don’t behave as you should, you know. Only yesterday I saw you
+clambering about the roofs of the market again; and, besides, you are
+constantly with a lot of disreputable lads and lasses. You ought to
+remember that you are a man now, and begin to think of the future.”
+
+“Yes, Madame Lisa.”
+
+However, Lisa had to get up to wait upon a lady who came in and wanted
+a pound of pork chops. She left the counter and went to the block at
+the far end of the shop. Here, with a long, slender knife, she cut
+three chops in a loin of pork; and then, raising a small cleaver with
+her strong hand, dealt three sharp blows which separated the chops from
+the loin. At each blow she dealt, her black merino dress rose slightly
+behind her, and the ribs of her stays showed beneath her tightly
+stretched bodice. She slowly took up the chops and weighed them with an
+air of gravity, her eyes gleaming and her lips tightly closed.
+
+When the lady had gone, and Lisa perceived Marjolin still full of
+delight at having seen her deal those three clean, forcible blows with
+the cleaver, she at once called out to him, “What! haven’t you gone
+yet?”
+
+He thereupon turned to go, but she detained him for a moment longer.
+
+“Now, don’t let me see you again with that hussy Cadine,” she said.
+“Oh, it’s no use to deny it! I saw you together this morning in the
+tripe market, watching men breaking the sheep’s heads. I can’t
+understand what attraction a good-looking young fellow like you can
+find in such a slipshod slattern as Cadine. Now then, go and tell
+Monsieur Gavard that he had better come at once, while there’s no one
+about.”
+
+Marjolin thereupon went off in confusion, without saying a word.
+
+Handsome Lisa remained standing behind her counter, with her head
+turned slightly in the direction of her markets, and Florent gazed at
+her in silence, surprised to see her looking so beautiful. He had never
+looked at her properly before; indeed, he did not know the right way to
+look at a woman. He now saw her rising above the viands on the counter.
+In front of her was an array of white china dishes, containing long
+Arles and Lyons sausages, slices of which had already been cut off,
+with tongues and pieces of boiled pork; then a pig’s head in a mass of
+jelly; an open pot of preserved sausage-meat, and a large box of
+sardines disclosing a pool of oil. On the right and left, upon wooden
+platters, were mounds of French and Italian brawn, a common French ham,
+of a pinky hue, and a Yorkshire ham, whose deep red lean showed beneath
+a broad band of fat. There were other dishes too, round ones and oval
+ones, containing spiced tongue, truffled galantine, and a boar’s head
+stuffed with pistachio nuts; while close to her, in reach of her hand,
+stood some yellow earthen pans containing larded veal, _paté de foie
+gras_, and hare-pie.
+
+As there were no signs of Gavard’s coming, she arranged some fore-end
+bacon upon a little marble shelf at the end of the counter, put the
+jars of lard and dripping back into their places, wiped the plates of
+each pair of scales, and saw to the fire of the heater, which was
+getting low. Then she turned her head again, and gazed in silence
+towards the markets. The smell of all the viands ascended around her,
+she was enveloped, as it were, by the aroma of truffles. She looked
+beautifully fresh that afternoon. The whiteness of all the dishes was
+supplemented by that of her sleevelets and apron, above which appeared
+her plump neck and rosy cheeks, which recalled the soft tones of the
+hams and the pallor of all the transparent fat.
+
+As Florent continued to gaze at her he began to feel intimidated,
+disquieted by her prim, sedate demeanour; and in lieu of openly looking
+at her he ended by glancing surreptitiously in the mirrors around the
+shop, in which her back and face and profile could be seen. The mirror
+on the ceiling, too, reflected the top of her head, with its tightly
+rolled chignon and the little bands lowered over her temples. There
+seemed, indeed, to be a perfect crowd of Lisas, with broad shoulders,
+powerful arms, and round, full bosoms. At last Florent checked his
+roving eyes, and let them rest on a particularly pleasing side view of
+the young woman as mirrored between two pieces of pork. From the hooks
+running along the whole line of mirrors and marbles hung sides of pork
+and bands of larding fat; and Lisa, with her massive neck, rounded
+hips, and swelling bosom seen in profile, looked like some waxwork
+queen in the midst of the dangling fat and meat. However, she bent
+forward and smiled in a friendly way at the two gold-fish which were
+ever and ever swimming round the aquarium in the window.
+
+Gavard entered the shop. With an air of great importance he went to
+fetch Quenu from the kitchen. Then he seated himself upon a small
+marble-topped table, while Florent remained on his chair and Lisa
+behind the counter; Quenu meantime leaning his back against a side of
+pork. And thereupon Gavard announced that he had at last found a
+situation for Florent. They would be vastly amused when they heard what
+it was, and the Government would be nicely caught.
+
+But all at once he stopped short, for a passing neighbour, Mademoiselle
+Saget, having seen such a large party gossiping together at the
+Quenu-Gradelles’, had opened the door and entered the shop. Carrying
+her everlasting black ribbonless straw hat, which appropriately cast a
+shadow over her prying white face, she saluted the men with a slight
+bow and Lisa with a sharp smile.
+
+She was an acquaintance of the family, and still lived in the house in
+the Rue Pirouette where she had resided for the last forty years,
+probably on a small private income; but of that she never spoke. She
+had, however, one day talked of Cherbourg, mentioning that she had been
+born there. Nothing further was ever known of her antecedents. All her
+conversation was about other people; she could tell the whole story of
+their daily lives, even to the number of things they sent to be washed
+each month; and she carried her prying curiosity concerning her
+neighbours’ affairs so far as to listen behind their doors and open
+their letters. Her tongue was feared from the Rue Saint Denis to the
+Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and from the Rue Saint Honoré to the Rue
+Mauconseil. All day long she went ferreting about with her empty bag,
+pretending that she was marketing, but in reality buying nothing, as
+her sole purpose was to retail scandal and gossip, and keep herself
+fully informed of every trifling incident that happened. Indeed, she
+had turned her brain into an encyclopaedia brimful of every possible
+particular concerning the people of the neighbourhood and their homes.
+
+Quenu had always accused her of having spread the story of his Uncle
+Gradelle’s death on the chopping-block, and had borne her a grudge ever
+since. She was extremely well posted in the history of Uncle Gradelle
+and the Quenus, and knew them, she would say, by heart. For the last
+fortnight, however, Florent’s arrival had greatly perplexed her, filled
+her, indeed, with a perfect fever of curiosity. She became quite ill
+when she discovered any unforeseen gap in her information. And yet she
+could have sworn that she had seen that tall lanky fellow somewhere or
+other before.
+
+She remained standing in front of the counter, examining the dishes one
+after another, and saying in a shrill voice:
+
+“I hardly know what to have. When the afternoon comes I feel quite
+famished for my dinner, and then, later on, I don’t seem able to fancy
+anything at all. Have you got a cutlet rolled in bread-crumbs left,
+Madame Quenu?”
+
+Without waiting for a reply, she removed one of the covers of the
+heater. It was that of the compartment reserved for the chitterlings,
+sausages, and black-puddings. However, the chafing-dish was quite cold,
+and there was nothing left but one stray forgotten sausage.
+
+“Look under the other cover, Mademoiselle Saget,” said Lisa. “I believe
+there’s a cutlet there.”
+
+“No, it doesn’t tempt me,” muttered the little old woman, poking her
+nose under the other cover, however, all the same. “I felt rather a
+fancy for one, but I’m afraid a cutlet would be rather too heavy in the
+evening. I’d rather have something, too, that I need not warm.”
+
+While speaking she had turned towards Florent and looked at him; then
+she looked at Gavard, who was beating a tattoo with his finger-tips on
+the marble table. She smiled at them, as though inviting them to
+continue their conversation.
+
+“Wouldn’t a little piece of salt pork suit you?” asked Lisa.
+
+“A piece of salt pork? Yes, that might do.”
+
+Thereupon she took up the fork with plated handle, which was lying at
+the edge of the dish, and began to turn all the pieces of pork about,
+prodding them, lightly tapping the bones to judge of their thickness,
+and minutely scrutinising the shreds of pinky meat. And as she turned
+them over she repeated, “No, no; it doesn’t tempt me.”
+
+“Well, then, have a sheep’s tongue, or a bit of brawn, or a slice of
+larded veal,” suggested Lisa patiently.
+
+Mademoiselle Saget, however, shook her head. She remained there for a
+few minutes longer, pulling dissatisfied faces over the different
+dishes; then, seeing that the others were determined to remain silent,
+and that she would not be able to learn anything, she took herself off.
+
+“No; I rather felt a fancy for a cutlet rolled in bread-crumbs,” she
+said as she left the shop, “but the one you have left is too fat. I
+must come another time.”
+
+Lisa bent forward to watch her through the sausage-skins hanging in the
+shop-front, and saw her cross the road and enter the fruit market.
+
+“The old she-goat!” growled Gavard.
+
+Then, as they were now alone again, he began to tell them of the
+situation he had found for Florent. A friend of his, he said, Monsieur
+Verlaque, one of the fish market inspectors, was so ill that he was
+obliged to take a rest; and that very morning the poor man had told him
+that he should be very glad to find a substitute who would keep his
+berth open for him in case he should recover.
+
+“Verlaque, you know, won’t last another six months,” added Gavard, “and
+Florent will keep the place. It’s a splendid idea, isn’t it? And it
+will be such a take-in for the police! The berth is under the
+Prefecture, you know. What glorious fun to see Florent getting paid by
+the police, eh?”
+
+He burst into a hearty laugh; the idea struck him as so extremely
+comical.
+
+“I won’t take the place,” Florent bluntly replied. “I’ve sworn I’ll
+never accept anything from the Empire, and I would rather die of
+starvation than serve under the Prefecture. It is quite out of the
+question, Gavard, quite so!”
+
+Gavard seemed somewhat put out on hearing this. Quenu had lowered his
+head, while Lisa, turning round, looked keenly at Florent, her neck
+swollen, her bosom straining her bodice almost to bursting point. She
+was just going to open her mouth when La Sarriette entered the shop,
+and there was another pause in the conversation.
+
+“Dear me!” exclaimed La Sarriette with her soft laugh, “I’d almost
+forgotten to get any bacon fat. Please, Madame Quenu, cut me a dozen
+thin strips—very thin ones, you know; I want them for larding larks.
+Jules has taken it into his head to eat some larks. Ah! how do you do,
+uncle?”
+
+She filled the whole shop with her dancing skirts and smiled brightly
+at everyone. Her face looked fresh and creamy, and on one side her hair
+was coming down, loosened by the wind which blew through the markets.
+Gavard grasped her hands, while she with merry impudence resumed: “I’ll
+bet that you were talking about me just as I came in. Tell me what you
+were saying, uncle.”
+
+However, Lisa now called to her, “Just look and tell me if this is thin
+enough.”
+
+She was cutting the strips of bacon fat with great care on a piece of
+board in front of her. Then as she wrapped them up she inquired, “Can I
+give you anything else?”
+
+“Well, yes,” replied La Sarriette; “since I’m about it, I think I’ll
+have a pound of lard. I’m awfully fond of fried potatoes; I can make a
+breakfast off a penn’orth of potatoes and a bunch of radishes. Yes,
+I’ll have a pound of lard, please, Madame Quenu.”
+
+Lisa placed a sheet of stout paper in the pan of the scales. Then she
+took the lard out of a jar under the shelves with a boxwood spatula,
+gently adding small quantities to the fatty heap, which began to melt
+and run slightly. When the plate of the scale fell, she took up the
+paper, folded it, and rapidly twisted the ends with her finger-tips.
+
+“That makes twenty-four sous,” she said; “the bacon is six sous—thirty
+sous altogether. There’s nothing else you want, is there?”
+
+“No,” said La Sarriette, “nothing.” She paid her money, still laughing
+and showing her teeth, and staring the men in the face. Her grey skirt
+was all awry, and her loosely fastened red neckerchief allowed a little
+of her white bosom to appear. Before she went away she stepped up to
+Gavard again, and pretending to threaten him exclaimed: “So you won’t
+tell me what you were talking about as I came in? I could see you
+laughing from the street. Oh, you sly fellow! Ah! I sha’n’t love you
+any longer!”
+
+Then she left the shop and ran across the road.
+
+“It was Mademoiselle Saget who sent her here,” remarked handsome Lisa
+drily.
+
+Then silence fell again for some moments. Gavard was dismayed at
+Florent’s reception of his proposal. Lisa was the first to speak. “It
+was wrong of you to refuse the post, Florent,” she said in the most
+friendly tones. “You know how difficult it is to find any employment,
+and you are not in a position to be over-exacting.”
+
+“I have my reasons,” Florent replied.
+
+Lisa shrugged her shoulders. “Come now,” said she, “you really can’t be
+serious, I’m sure. I can understand that you are not in love with the
+Government, but it would be too absurd to let your opinions prevent you
+from earning your living. And, besides, my dear fellow, the Emperor
+isn’t at all a bad sort of man. You don’t suppose, do you, that he knew
+you were eating mouldy bread and tainted meat? He can’t be everywhere,
+you know, and you can see for yourself that he hasn’t prevented us here
+from doing pretty well. You are not at all just; indeed you are not.”
+
+Gavard, however, was getting very fidgety. He could not bear to hear
+people speak well of the Emperor.
+
+“No, no, Madame Quenu,” he interrupted; “you are going too far. It is a
+scoundrelly system altogether.”
+
+“Oh, as for you,” exclaimed Lisa vivaciously, “you’ll never rest until
+you’ve got yourself plundered and knocked on the head as the result of
+all your wild talk. Don’t let us discuss politics; you would only make
+me angry. The question is Florent, isn’t it? Well, for my part, I say
+that he ought to accept this inspectorship. Don’t you think so too,
+Quenu?”
+
+Quenu, who had not yet said a word, was very much put out by his wife’s
+sudden appeal.
+
+“It’s a good berth,” he replied, without compromising himself.
+
+Then, amidst another interval of awkward silence, Florent resumed: “I
+beg you, let us drop the subject. My mind is quite made up. I shall
+wait.”
+
+“You will wait!” cried Lisa, losing patience.
+
+Two rosy fires had risen to her cheeks. As she stood there, erect, in
+her white apron, with rounded, swelling hips, it was with difficulty
+that she restrained herself from breaking out into bitter words.
+However, the entrance of another person into the shop arrested her
+anger. The new arrival was Madame Lecœur.
+
+“Can you let me have half a pound of mixed meats at fifty sous the
+pound?” she asked.
+
+She at first pretended not to notice her brother-in-law; but presently
+she just nodded her head to him, without speaking. Then she scrutinised
+the three men from head to foot, doubtless hoping to divine their
+secret by the manner in which they waited for her to go. She could see
+that she was putting them out, and the knowledge of this rendered her
+yet more sour and angular, as she stood there in her limp skirts, with
+her long, spider-like arms bent and her knotted fingers clasped beneath
+her apron. Then, as she coughed slightly, Gavard, whom the silence
+embarrassed, inquired if she had a cold.
+
+She curtly answered in the negative. Her tightly stretched skin was of
+a red-brick colour on those parts of her face where her bones
+protruded, and the dull fire burning in her eyes and scorching their
+lids testified to some liver complaint nurtured by the querulous
+jealousy of her disposition. She turned round again towards the
+counter, and watched each movement made by Lisa as she served her with
+the distrustful glance of one who is convinced that an attempt will be
+made to defraud her.
+
+“Don’t give me any saveloy,” she exclaimed; “I don’t like it.”
+
+Lisa had taken up a slender knife, and was cutting some thin slices of
+sausage. She next passed on to the smoked ham and the common ham,
+cutting delicate slices from each, and bending forward slightly as she
+did so, with her eyes ever fixed on the knife. Her plump rosy hands,
+flitting about the viands with light and gentle touches, seemed to have
+derived suppleness from contact with all the fat.
+
+“You would like some larded veal, wouldn’t you?” she asked, bringing a
+yellow pan towards her.
+
+Madame Lecœur seemed to be thinking the matter over at considerable
+length; however, she at last said that she would have some. Lisa had
+now begun to cut into the contents of the pans, from which she removed
+slices of larded veal and hare _paté_ on the tip of a broad-bladed
+knife. And she deposited each successive slice on the middle of a sheet
+of paper placed on the scales.
+
+“Aren’t you going to give me some of the boar’s head with pistachio
+nuts?” asked Madame Lecœur in her querulous voice.
+
+Lisa was obliged to add some of the boar’s head. But the butter dealer
+was getting exacting, and asked for two slices of galantine. She was
+very fond of it. Lisa, who was already irritated, played impatiently
+with the handles of the knives, and told her that the galantine was
+truffled, and that she could only include it in an “assortment” at
+three francs the pound. Madame Lecœur, however, continued to pry into
+the dishes, trying to find something else to ask for. When the
+“assortment” was weighed she made Lisa add some jelly and gherkins to
+it. The block of jelly, shaped like a Savoy cake, shook on its white
+china dish beneath the angry violence of Lisa’s hand; and as with her
+finger-tips she took a couple of gherkins from a jar behind the heater,
+she made the vinegar spurt over the sides.
+
+“Twenty-five sous, isn’t it?” Madame Lecœur leisurely inquired.
+
+She fully perceived Lisa’s covert irritation, and greatly enjoyed the
+sight of it, producing her money as slowly as possible, as though,
+indeed, her silver had got lost amongst the coppers in her pocket. And
+she glanced askance at Gavard, relishing the embarrassed silence which
+her presence was prolonging, and vowing that she would not go off,
+since they were hiding some trickery or other from her. However, Lisa
+at last put the parcel in her hands, and she was then obliged to make
+her departure. She went away without saying a word, but darting a
+searching glance all round the shop.
+
+“It was that Saget who sent her too!” burst out Lisa, as soon as the
+old woman was gone. “Is the old wretch going to send the whole market
+here to try to find out what we talk about? What a prying, malicious
+set they are! Did anyone ever hear before of crumbed cutlets and
+‘assortments’ being bought at five o’clock in the afternoon? But then
+they’d rack themselves with indigestion rather than not find out! Upon
+my word, though, if La Saget sends anyone else here, you’ll see the
+reception she’ll get. I would bundle her out of the shop, even if she
+were my own sister!”
+
+The three men remained silent in presence of this explosion of anger.
+Gavard had gone to lean over the brass rail of the window-front, where,
+seemingly lost in thought, he began playing with one of the cut-glass
+balusters detached from its wire fastening. Presently, however, he
+raised his head. “Well, for my part,” he said, “I looked upon it all as
+an excellent joke.”
+
+“Looked upon what as a joke?” asked Lisa, still quivering with
+indignation.
+
+“The inspectorship.”
+
+She raised her hands, gave a last glance at Florent, and then sat down
+upon the cushioned bench behind the counter and said nothing further.
+Gavard, however, began to explain his views at length; the drift of his
+argument being that it was the Government which would look foolish in
+the matter, since Florent would be taking its money.
+
+“My dear fellow,” he said complacently, “those scoundrels all but
+starved you to death, didn’t they? Well, you must make them feed you
+now. It’s a splendid idea; it caught my fancy at once!”
+
+Florent smiled, but still persisted in his refusal. Quenu, in the hope
+of pleasing his wife, did his best to find some good arguments. Lisa,
+however, appeared to pay no further attention to them. For the last
+moment or two she had been looking attentively in the direction of the
+markets. And all at once she sprang to her feet again, exclaiming, “Ah!
+it is La Normande that they are sending to play the spy on us now!
+Well, so much the worse for La Normande; she shall pay for the others!”
+
+A tall female pushed the shop door open. It was the handsome fish-girl,
+Louise Mehudin, generally known as La Normande. She was a bold-looking
+beauty, with a delicate white skin, and was almost as plump as Lisa,
+but there was more effrontery in her glance, and her bosom heaved with
+warmer life. She came into the shop with a light swinging step, her
+gold chain jingling on her apron, her bare hair arranged in the latest
+style, and a bow at her throat, a lace bow, which made her one of the
+most coquettish-looking queens of the markets. She brought a vague
+odour of fish with her, and a herring-scale showed like a tiny patch of
+mother-of-pearl near the little finger of one of her hands. She and
+Lisa having lived in the same house in the Rue Pirouette, were intimate
+friends, linked by a touch of rivalry which kept each of them busy with
+thoughts of the other. In the neighbourhood people spoke of “the
+beautiful Norman,” just as they spoke of “beautiful Lisa.” This brought
+them into opposition and comparison, and compelled each of them to do
+her utmost to sustain her reputation for beauty. Lisa from her counter
+could, by stooping a little, perceive the fish-girl amidst her salmon
+and turbot in the pavilion opposite; and each kept a watch on the
+other. Beautiful Lisa laced herself more tightly in her stays; and the
+beautiful Norman replied by placing additional rings on her fingers and
+additional bows on her shoulders. When they met they were very bland
+and unctuous and profuse in compliments; but all the while their eyes
+were furtively glancing from under their lowered lids, in the hope of
+discovering some flaw. They made a point of always dealing with each
+other, and professed great mutual affection.
+
+“I say,” said La Normande, with her smiling air, “it’s to-morrow
+evening that you make your black-puddings, isn’t it?”
+
+Lisa maintained a cold demeanour. She seldom showed any anger; but when
+she did it was tenacious, and slow to be appeased. “Yes,” she replied
+drily, with the tips of her lips.
+
+“I’m so fond of black-puddings, you know, when they come straight out
+of the pot,” resumed La Normande. “I’ll come and get some of you
+to-morrow.”
+
+She was conscious of her rival’s unfriendly greeting. However, she
+glanced at Florent, who seemed to interest her; and then, unwilling to
+go off without having the last word, she was imprudent enough to add:
+“I bought some black-pudding of you the day before yesterday, you know,
+and it wasn’t quite sweet.”
+
+“Not quite sweet!” repeated Lisa, very pale, and her lips quivering.
+
+She might, perhaps, have once more restrained herself, for fear of La
+Normande imagining that she was overcome by envious spite at the sight
+of the lace bow; but the girl, not content with playing the spy,
+proceeded to insult her, and that was beyond endurance. So, leaning
+forward, with her hands clenched on the counter, she exclaimed, in a
+somewhat hoarse voice: “I say! when you sold me that pair of soles last
+week, did I come and tell you, before everybody that they were
+stinking?”
+
+“Stinking! My soles stinking!” cried the fish dealer, flushing scarlet.
+
+For a moment they remained silent, choking with anger, but glaring
+fiercely at each other over the array of dishes. All their honeyed
+friendship had vanished; a word had sufficed to reveal what sharp teeth
+there were behind their smiling lips.
+
+“You’re a vulgar, low creature!” cried the beautiful Norman. “You’ll
+never catch me setting foot in here again, I can tell you!”
+
+“Get along with you, get along with you,” exclaimed beautiful Lisa. “I
+know quite well whom I’ve got to deal with!”
+
+The fish-girl went off, hurling behind her a coarse expression which
+left Lisa quivering. The whole scene had passed so quickly that the
+three men, overcome with amazement, had not had time to interfere. Lisa
+soon recovered herself, and was resuming the conversation, without
+making any allusion to what had just occurred, when the shop girl,
+Augustine, returned from an errand on which she had been sent. Lisa
+thereupon took Gavard aside, and after telling him to say nothing for
+the present to Monsieur Verlaque, promised that she would undertake to
+convince her brother-in-law in a couple of days’ time at the utmost.
+Quenu then returned to his kitchen, while Gavard took Florent off with
+him. And as they were just going into Monsieur Lebigre’s to drink a
+drop of vermouth together he called his attention to three women
+standing in the covered way between the fish and poultry pavilions.
+
+“They’re cackling together!” he said with an envious air.
+
+The markets were growing empty, and Mademoiselle Saget, Madame Lecœur,
+and La Sarriette alone lingered on the edge of the footway. The old
+maid was holding forth.
+
+“As I told you before, Madame Lecœur,” said she, “they’ve always got
+your brother-in-law in their shop. You saw him there yourself just now,
+didn’t you?”
+
+“Oh yes, indeed! He was sitting on a table, and seemed quite at home.”
+
+“Well, for my part,” interrupted La Sarriette, “I heard nothing wrong;
+and I can’t understand why you’re making such a fuss.”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget shrugged her shoulders. “Ah, you’re very innocent
+yet, my dear,” she said. “Can’t you see why the Quenus are always
+attracting Monsieur Gavard to their place? Well, I’ll wager that he’ll
+leave all he has to their little Pauline.”
+
+“You believe that, do you?” cried Madame Lecœur, white with rage. Then,
+in a mournful voice, as though she had just received some heavy blow,
+she continued: “I am alone in the world, and have no one to take my
+part; he is quite at liberty to do as he pleases. His niece sides with
+him too—you heard her just now. She has quite forgotten all that she
+cost me, and wouldn’t stir a hand to help me.”
+
+“Indeed, aunt,” exclaimed La Sarriette, “you are quite wrong there!
+It’s you who’ve never had anything but unkind words for me.”
+
+They became reconciled on the spot, and kissed one another. The niece
+promised that she would play no more pranks, and the aunt swore by all
+she held most sacred that she looked upon La Sarriette as her own
+daughter. Then Mademoiselle Saget advised them as to the steps they
+ought to take to prevent Gavard from squandering his money. And they
+all agreed that the Quenu-Gradelles were very disreputable folks, and
+required closely watching.
+
+“I don’t know what they’re up to just now,” said the old maid, “but
+there’s something suspicious going on, I’m sure. What’s your opinion,
+now, of that fellow Florent, that cousin of Madame Quenu’s?”
+
+The three women drew more closely together, and lowered their voices.
+
+“You remember,” said Madame Lecœur, “that we saw him one morning with
+his boots all split, and his clothes covered with dust, looking just
+like a thief who’s been up to some roguery. That fellow quite frightens
+me.”
+
+“Well, he’s certainly very thin,” said La Sarriette, “but he isn’t
+ugly.”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget was reflecting, and she expressed her thoughts
+aloud. “I’ve been trying to find out something about him for the last
+fortnight, but I can make nothing of it. Monsieur Gavard certainly
+knows him. I must have met him myself somewhere before, but I can’t
+remember where.”
+
+She was still ransacking her memory when La Normande swept up to them
+like a whirlwind. She had just left the pork shop.
+
+“That big booby Lisa has got nice manners, I must say!” she cried,
+delighted to be able to relieve herself. “Fancy her telling me that I
+sold nothing but stinking fish! But I gave her as good as she deserved,
+I can tell you! A nice den they keep, with their tainted pig meat which
+poisons all their customers!”
+
+“But what had you been saying to her?” asked the old maid, quite frisky
+with excitement, and delighted to hear that the two women had
+quarrelled.
+
+“I! I’d said just nothing at all—no, not that! I just went into the
+shop and told her very civilly that I’d buy some black-pudding
+to-morrow evening, and then she overwhelmed me with abuse. A dirty
+hypocrite she is, with her saint-like airs! But she’ll pay more dearly
+for this than she fancies!”
+
+The three women felt that La Normande was not telling them the truth,
+but this did not prevent them from taking her part with a rush of bad
+language. They turned towards the Rue Rambuteau with insulting mien,
+inventing all sorts of stories about the uncleanliness of the cookery
+at the Quenu’s shop, and making the most extraordinary accusations. If
+the Quenus had been detected selling human flesh the women could not
+have displayed more violent and threatening anger. The fish-girl was
+obliged to tell her story three times over.
+
+“And what did the cousin say?” asked Mademoiselle Saget, with wicked
+intent.
+
+“The cousin!” repeated La Normande, in a shrill voice. “Do you really
+believe that he’s a cousin? He’s some lover or other, I’ll wager, the
+great booby!”
+
+The three others protested against this. Lisa’s honourability was an
+article of faith in the neighbourhood.
+
+“Stuff and nonsense!” retorted La Normande. “You can never be sure
+about those smug, sleek hypocrites.”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget nodded her head as if to say that she was not very
+far from sharing La Normande’s opinion. And she softly added:
+“Especially as this cousin has sprung from no one knows where; for it’s
+a very doubtful sort of account that the Quenus give of him.”
+
+“Oh, he’s the fat woman’s sweetheart, I tell you!” reaffirmed the
+fish-girl; “some scamp or vagabond picked up in the streets. It’s easy
+enough to see it.”
+
+“She has given him a complete outfit,” remarked Madame Lecœur. “He must
+be costing her a pretty penny.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” muttered the old maid; “perhaps you are right. I must
+really get to know something about him.”
+
+Then they all promised to keep one another thoroughly informed of
+whatever might take place in the Quenu-Gradelle establishment. The
+butter dealer pretended that she wished to open her brother-in-law’s
+eyes as to the sort of places he frequented. However, La Normande’s
+anger had by this time toned down, and, a good sort of girl at heart,
+she went off, weary of having talked so much on the matter.
+
+“I’m sure that La Normande said something or other insolent,” remarked
+Madame Lecœur knowingly, when the fish-girl had left them. “It is just
+her way; and it scarcely becomes a creature like her to talk as she did
+of Lisa.”
+
+The three women looked at each other and smiled. Then, when Madame
+Lecœur also had gone off, La Sarriette remarked to Mademoiselle Saget:
+“It is foolish of my aunt to worry herself so much about all these
+affairs. It’s that which makes her so thin. Ah! she’d have willingly
+taken Gavard for a husband if she could only have got him. Yet she used
+to beat me if ever a young man looked my way.”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget smiled once more. And when she found herself alone,
+and went back towards the Rue Pirouette, she reflected that those three
+cackling hussies were not worth a rope to hang them. She was, indeed, a
+little afraid that she might have been seen with them, and the idea
+somewhat troubled her, for she realised that it would be bad policy to
+fall out with the Quenu-Gradelles, who, after all, were well-to-do
+folks and much esteemed. So she went a little out of her way on purpose
+to call at Taboureau the baker’s in the Rue Turbigo—the finest baker’s
+shop in the whole neighbourhood. Madame Taboureau was not only an
+intimate friend of Lisa’s, but an accepted authority on every subject.
+When it was remarked that “Madame Taboureau had said this,” or “Madame
+Taboureau had said that,” there was no more to be urged. So the old
+maid, calling at the baker’s under pretence of inquiring at what time
+the oven would be hot, as she wished to bring a dish of pears to be
+baked, took the opportunity to eulogise Lisa, and lavish praise upon
+the sweetness and excellence of her black-puddings. Then, well pleased
+at having prepared this moral alibi and delighted at having done what
+she could to fan the flames of a quarrel without involving herself in
+it, she briskly returned home, feeling much easier in her mind, but
+still striving to recall where she had previously seen Madame Quenu’s
+so-called cousin.
+
+That same evening, after dinner, Florent went out and strolled for some
+time in one of the covered ways of the markets. A fine mist was rising,
+and a grey sadness, which the gas lights studded as with yellow tears,
+hung over the deserted pavilions. For the first time Florent began to
+feel that he was in the way, and to recognise the unmannerly fashion in
+which he, thin and artless, had tumbled into this world of fat people;
+and he frankly admitted to himself that his presence was disturbing the
+whole neighbourhood, and that he was a source of discomfort to the
+Quenus—a spurious cousin of far too compromising appearance. These
+reflections made him very sad; not, indeed, that they had noticed the
+slightest harshness on the part of his brother or Lisa: it was their
+very kindness, rather, that was troubling him, and he accused himself
+of a lack of delicacy in quartering himself upon them. He was beginning
+to doubt the propriety of his conduct. The recollection of the
+conversation in the shop during the afternoon caused him a vague
+disquietude. The odour of the viands on Lisa’s counter seemed to
+penetrate him; he felt himself gliding into nerveless, satiated
+cowardice. Perhaps he had acted wrongly in refusing the inspectorship
+offered him. This reflection gave birth to a stormy struggle in his
+mind, and he was obliged to brace and shake himself before he could
+recover his wonted rigidity of principles. However, a moist breeze had
+risen, and was blowing along the covered way, and he regained some
+degree of calmness and resolution on being obliged to button up his
+coat. The wind seemingly swept from his clothes all the greasy odour of
+the pork shop, which had made him feel so languid.
+
+He was returning home when he met Claude Lantier. The artist, hidden in
+the folds of his greenish overcoat, spoke in a hollow voice full of
+suppressed anger. He was in a passion with painting, declared that it
+was a dog’s trade, and swore that he would not take up a brush again as
+long as he lived. That very afternoon he had thrust his foot through a
+study which he had been making of the head of that hussy Cadine.
+
+Claude was subject to these outbursts, the fruit of his inability to
+execute the lasting, living works which he dreamed of. And at such
+times life became an utter blank to him, and he wandered about the
+streets, wrapped in the gloomiest thoughts, and waiting for the morning
+as for a sort of resurrection. He used to say that he felt bright and
+cheerful in the morning, and horribly miserable in the evening.[*] Each
+of his days was a long effort ending in disappointment. Florent
+scarcely recognised in him the careless night wanderer of the markets.
+They had already met again at the pork shop, and Claude, who knew the
+fugitive’s story, had grasped his hand and told him that he was a
+sterling fellow. It was very seldom, however, that the artist went to
+the Quenus’.
+
+[*] Claude Lantier’s struggle for fame is fully described in M. Zola’s
+novel, _L’Oeuvre_ (“His Masterpiece”). —Translator.
+
+
+“Are you still at my aunt’s?” he asked. “I can’t imagine how you manage
+to exist amidst all that cookery. The places reeks with the smell of
+meat. When I’ve been there for an hour I feel as though I shouldn’t
+want anything to eat for another three days. I ought not to have gone
+there this morning; it was that which made me make a mess of my work.”
+
+Then, after he and Florent had taken a few steps in silence, he
+resumed:
+
+“Ah! the good people! They quite grieve me with their fine health. I
+had thought of painting their portraits, but I’ve never been able to
+succeed with such round faces, in which there is never a bone. Ah! You
+wouldn’t find my aunt Lisa kicking her foot through her pans! I was an
+idiot to have destroyed Cadine’s head! Now that I come to think of it,
+it wasn’t so very bad, perhaps, after all.”
+
+Then they began to talk about Aunt Lisa. Claude said that his mother[*]
+had not seen anything of her for a long time, and he hinted that the
+pork butcher’s wife was somewhat ashamed of her sister having married a
+common working man; moreover, she wasn’t at all fond of unfortunate
+folks. Speaking of himself, he told Florent that a benevolent gentleman
+had sent him to college, being very pleased with the donkeys and old
+women that he had managed to draw when only eight years old; but the
+good soul had died, leaving him an income of a thousand francs, which
+just saved him from perishing of hunger.
+
+[*] Gervaise, the heroine of the _Assommoir_.
+
+
+“All the same, I would rather have been a working man,” continued
+Claude. “Look at the carpenters, for instance. They are very happy
+folks, the carpenters. They have a table to make, say; well, they make
+it, and then go off to bed, happy at having finished the table, and
+perfectly satisfied with themselves. Now I, on the other hand, scarcely
+get any sleep at nights. All those confounded pictures which I can’t
+finish go flying about my brain. I never get anything finished and done
+with—never, never!”
+
+His voice almost broke into a sob. Then he attempted to laugh; and
+afterwards began to swear and pour forth coarse expressions, with the
+cold rage of one who, endowed with a delicate, sensitive mind, doubts
+his own powers, and dreams of wallowing in the mire. He ended by
+squatting down before one of the gratings which admit air into the
+cellars beneath the markets—cellars where the gas is continually kept
+burning. And in the depths below he pointed out Marjolin and Cadine
+tranquilly eating their supper, whilst seated on one of the stone
+blocks used for killing the poultry. The two young vagabonds had
+discovered a means of hiding themselves and making themselves at home
+in the cellars after the doors had been closed.
+
+“What a magnificent animal he is, eh!” exclaimed Claude, with envious
+admiration, speaking of Marjolin. “He and Cadine are happy, at all
+events! All they care for is eating and kissing. They haven’t a care in
+the world. Ah, you do quite right, after all, to remain at the pork
+shop; perhaps you’ll grow sleek and plump there.”
+
+Then he suddenly went off. Florent climbed up to his garret, disturbed
+by Claude’s nervous restlessness, which revived his own uncertainty. On
+the morrow, he avoided the pork shop all the morning, and went for a
+long walk on the quays. When he returned to lunch, however, he was
+struck by Lisa’s kindliness. Without any undue insistence she again
+spoke to him about the inspectorship, as of something which was well
+worth his consideration. As he listened to her, with a full plate in
+front of him, he was affected, in spite of himself, by the prim comfort
+of his surroundings. The matting beneath his feet seemed very soft; the
+gleams of the brass hanging lamp, the soft, yellow tint of the
+wallpaper, and the bright oak of the furniture filled him with
+appreciation of a life spent in comfort, which disturbed his notions of
+right and wrong. He still, however, had sufficient strength to persist
+in his refusal, and repeated his reasons; albeit conscious of the bad
+taste he was showing in thus ostentatiously parading his animosity and
+obstinacy in such a place. Lisa showed no signs of vexation; on the
+contrary, she smiled, and the sweetness of her smile embarrassed
+Florent far more than her suppressed irritation of the previous
+evening. At dinner the subject was not renewed; they talked solely of
+the great winter saltings, which would keep the whole staff of the
+establishment busily employed.
+
+The evenings were growing cold, and as soon as they had dined they
+retired into the kitchen, where it was very warm. The room was so
+large, too, that several people could sit comfortably at the square
+central table, without in any way impeding the work that was going on.
+Lighted by gas, the walls were coated with white and blue tiles to a
+height of some five or six feet from the floor. On the left was a great
+iron stove, in the three apertures of which were set three large round
+pots, their bottoms black with soot. At the end was a small range,
+which, fitted with an oven and a smoking-place, served for the
+broiling; and up above, over the skimming-spoons, ladles, and
+long-handled forks, were several numbered drawers, containing rasped
+bread, both fine and coarse, toasted crumbs, spices, cloves, nutmegs,
+and pepper. On the right, leaning heavily against the wall, was the
+chopping-block, a huge mass of oak, slashed and scored all over.
+Attached to it were several appliances, an injecting pump, a
+forcing-machine, and a mechanical mincer, which, with their wheels and
+cranks, imparted to the place an uncanny and mysterious aspect,
+suggesting some kitchen of the infernal regions.
+
+Then, all round the walls upon shelves, and even under the tables, were
+iron pots, earthenware pans, dishes, pails, various kinds of tin
+utensils, a perfect battery of deep copper saucepans, and swelling
+funnels, racks of knives and choppers, rows of larding-pins and
+needles—a perfect world of greasy things. In spite of the extreme
+cleanliness, grease was paramount; it oozed forth from between the blue
+and white tiles on the wall, glistened on the red tiles of the
+flooring, gave a greyish glitter to the stove, and polished the edges
+of the chopping-block with the transparent sheen of varnished oak. And,
+indeed, amidst the ever-rising steam, the continuous evaporation from
+the three big pots, in which pork was boiling and melting, there was
+not a single nail from ceiling to floor from which grease did not
+exude.
+
+The Quenu-Gradelles prepared nearly all their stock themselves. All
+that they procured from outside were the potted meats of celebrated
+firms, with jars of pickles and preserves, sardines, cheese, and edible
+snails. They consequently became very busy after September in filling
+the cellars which had been emptied during the summer. They continued
+working even after the shop had been closed for the night. Assisted by
+Auguste and Leon, Quenu would stuff sausages-skins, prepare hams, melt
+down lard, and salt the different sorts of bacon. There was a
+tremendous noise of cauldrons and cleavers, and the odour of cooking
+spread through the whole house. All this was quite independent of the
+daily business in fresh pork, _paté de fois gras_, hare patty,
+galantine, saveloys and black-puddings.
+
+That evening, at about eleven o’clock, Quenu, after placing a couple of
+pots on the fire in order to melt down some lard, began to prepare the
+black-puddings. Auguste assisted him. At one corner of the square table
+Lisa and Augustine sat mending linen, whilst opposite to them, on the
+other side, with his face turned towards the fireplace, was Florent.
+Leon was mincing some sausage-meat on the oak block in a slow,
+rhythmical fashion.
+
+Auguste first of all went out into the yard to fetch a couple of
+jug-like cans full of pigs’ blood. It was he who stuck the animals in
+the slaughter house. He himself would carry away the blood and interior
+portions of the pigs, leaving the men who scalded the carcasses to
+bring them home completely dressed in their carts. Quenu asserted that
+no assistant in all Paris was Auguste’ equal as a pig-sticker. The
+truth was that Auguste was a wonderfully keen judge of the quality of
+the blood; and the black-pudding proved good every time that he said
+such would be the case.
+
+“Well, will the black-pudding be good this time?” asked Lisa.
+
+August put down the two cans and slowly answered: “I believe so, Madame
+Quenu; yes, I believe so. I tell it at first by the way the blood
+flows. If it spurts out very gently when I pull out the knife, that’s a
+bad sign, and shows that the blood is poor.”
+
+“But doesn’t that depend on how far the knife has been stuck in?” asked
+Quenu.
+
+A smile came over Auguste’s pale face. “No,” he replied; “I always let
+four digits of the blade go in; that’s the right way to measure. But
+the best sign of all is when the blood runs out and I beat it with my
+hand when it pours into the pail; it ought to be of a good warmth, and
+creamy, without being too thick.”
+
+Augustine had put down her needle, and with her eyes raised was now
+gazing at Auguste. On her ruddy face, crowned by wiry chestnut hair,
+there was an expression of profound attention. Lisa and even little
+Pauline were also listening with deep interest.
+
+“Well, I beat it, and beat it, and beat it,” continued the young man,
+whisking his hand about as though he were whipping cream. “And then,
+when I take my hand out and look at it, it ought to be greased, as it
+were, by the blood and equally coated all over. And if that’s the case,
+anyone can say without fear of mistake that the black-puddings will be
+good.”
+
+He remained for a moment in an easy attitude, complacently holding his
+hand in the air. This hand, which spent so much of its time in pails of
+blood, had brightly gleaming nails, and looked very rosy above his
+white sleeve. Quenu had nodded his head in approbation, and an interval
+of silence followed. Leon was still mincing. Pauline, however, after
+remaining thoughtful for a little while, mounted upon Florent’s feet
+again, and in her clear voice exclaimed: “I say, cousin, tell me the
+story of the gentleman who was eaten by the wild beasts!”
+
+It was probably the mention of the pig’s blood which had aroused in the
+child’s mind the recollection of “the gentleman who had been eaten by
+the wild beasts.” Florent did not at first understand what she referred
+to, and asked her what gentleman she meant. Lisa began to smile.
+
+“She wants you to tell her,” she said, “the story of that unfortunate
+man—you know whom I mean—which you told to Gavard one evening. She must
+have heard you.”
+
+At this Florent grew very grave. The little girl got up, and taking the
+big cat in her arms, placed it on his knees, saying that Mouton also
+would like to hear the story. Mouton, however, leapt on to the table,
+where, with rounded back, he remained contemplating the tall, scraggy
+individual who for the last fortnight had apparently afforded him
+matter for deep reflection. Pauline meantime began to grow impatient,
+stamping her feet and insisting on hearing the story.
+
+“Oh, tell her what she wants,” said Lisa, as the child persisted and
+became quite unbearable; “she’ll leave us in peace then.”
+
+Florent remained silent for a moment longer, with his eyes turned
+towards the floor. Then slowly raising his head he let his gaze rest
+first on the two women who were plying their needles, and next on Quenu
+and Auguste, who were preparing the pot for the black-puddings. The gas
+was burning quietly, the stove diffused a gentle warmth, and all the
+grease of the kitchen glistened in an atmosphere of comfort such as
+attends good digestion
+
+Then, taking little Pauline upon his knee, and smiling a sad smile,
+Florent addressed himself to the child as follows[*]:—
+
+[*] Florent’s narrative is not romance, but is based on the statements
+of several of the innocent victims whom the third Napoleon transported
+to Cayenne when wading through blood to the power which he so
+misused.—Translator.
+
+
+“Once upon a time there was a poor man who was sent away, a long, long
+way off, right across the sea. On the ship which carried him were four
+hundred convicts, and he was thrown among them. He was forced to live
+for five weeks amidst all those scoundrels, dressed like them in coarse
+canvas, and feeding at their mess. Foul insects preyed on him, and
+terrible sweats robbed him of all his strength. The kitchen, the
+bakehouse, and the engine-room made the orlop deck so terribly hot that
+ten of the convicts died from it. In the daytime they were sent up in
+batches of fifty to get a little fresh air from the sea; and as the
+crew of the ship feared them, a couple of cannons were pointed at the
+little bit of deck where they took exercise. The poor fellow was very
+glad indeed when his turn to go up came. His terrible perspiration then
+abated somewhat; still, he could not eat, and felt very ill. During the
+night, when he was manacled again, and the rolling of the ship in the
+rough sea kept knocking him against his companions, he quite broke
+down, and began to cry, glad to be able to do so without being seen.”
+
+Pauline was listening with dilated eyes, and her little hands crossed
+primly in front of her.
+
+“But this isn’t the story of the gentleman who was eaten by the wild
+beasts,” she interrupted. “This is quite a different story; isn’t it
+now, cousin?”
+
+“Wait a bit, and you’ll see,” replied Florent gently. “I shall come to
+the gentleman presently. I’m telling you the whole story from the
+beginning.”
+
+“Oh, thank you,” murmured the child, with a delighted expression.
+However, she remained thoughtful, evidently struggling with some great
+difficulty to which she could find no explanation. At last she spoke.
+
+“But what had the poor man done,” she asked, “that he was sent away and
+put in the ship?”
+
+Lisa and Augustine smiled. They were quite charmed with the child’s
+intelligence; and Lisa, without giving the little one a direct reply,
+took advantage of the opportunity to teach her a lesson by telling her
+that naughty children were also sent away in boats like that.
+
+“Oh, then,” remarked Pauline judiciously, “perhaps it served my
+cousin’s poor man quite right if he cried all night long.”
+
+Lisa resumed her sewing, bending over her work. Quenu had not listened.
+He had been cutting some little rounds of onion over a pot placed on
+the fire; and almost at once the onions began to crackle, raising a
+clear shrill chirrup like that of grasshoppers basking in the heat.
+They gave out a pleasant odour too, and when Quenu plunged his great
+wooden spoon into the pot the chirruping became yet louder, and the
+whole kitchen was filled with the penetrating perfume of the onions.
+Auguste meantime was preparing some bacon fat in a dish, and Leon’s
+chopper fell faster and faster, and every now and then scraped the
+block so as to gather together the sausage-meat, now almost a paste.
+
+“When they got across the sea,” Florent continued, “they took the man
+to an island called the Devil’s Island,[*] where he found himself
+amongst others who had been carried away from their own country. They
+were all very unhappy. At first they were kept to hard labour, just
+like convicts. The gendarme who had charge of them counted them three
+times every day, so as to be sure that none were missing. Later on,
+they were left free to do as they liked, being merely locked up at
+night in a big wooden hut, where they slept in hammocks stretched
+between two bars. At the end of the year they went about barefooted, as
+their boots were quite worn out, and their clothes had become so ragged
+that their flesh showed through them. They had built themselves some
+huts with trunks of trees as a shelter against the sun, which is
+terribly hot in those parts; but these huts did not shield them against
+the mosquitoes, which covered them with pimples and swellings during
+the night. Many of them died, and the others turned quite yellow, so
+shrunken and wretched, with their long, unkempt beards, that one could
+not behold them without pity.”
+
+[*] The Île du Diable. This spot was selected as the place of detention
+of Captain Dreyfus, the French officer convicted in 1894 of having
+divulged important military documents to foreign powers.—Translator.
+
+
+“Auguste, give me the fat,” cried Quenu; and when the apprentice had
+handed him the dish he let the pieces of bacon-fat slide gently into
+the pot, and then stirred them with his spoon. A yet denser steam now
+rose from the fireplace.
+
+“What did they give them to eat?” asked little Pauline, who seemed
+deeply interested.
+
+“They gave them maggoty rice and foul meat,” answered Florent, whose
+voice grew lower as he spoke. “The rice could scarcely be eaten. When
+the meat was roasted and very well done it was just possible to swallow
+it; but if it was boiled, it smelt so dreadfully that the men had
+nausea and stomach ache.”
+
+“I’d rather have lived upon dry bread,” said the child, after thinking
+the matter carefully over.
+
+Leon, having finished the mincing, now placed the sausage-meat upon the
+square table in a dish. Mouton, who had remained seated with his eyes
+fixed upon Florent, as though filled with amazement by his story, was
+obliged to retreat a few steps, which he did with a very bad grace.
+Then he rolled himself up, with his nose close to the sausage-meat, and
+began to purr.
+
+Lisa was unable to conceal her disgust and amazement. That foul rice,
+that evil-smelling meat, seemed to her to be scarcely credible
+abominations, which disgraced those who had eaten them as much as it
+did those who had provided them; and her calm, handsome face and round
+neck quivered with vague fear of the man who had lived upon such horrid
+food.
+
+“No, indeed, it was not a land of delights,” Florent resumed,
+forgetting all about little Pauline, and fixing his dreamy eyes upon
+the steaming pot. “Every day brought fresh annoyances—perpetual
+grinding tyranny, the violation of every principle of justice, contempt
+for all human charity, which exasperated the prisoners, and slowly
+consumed them with a fever of sickly rancour. They lived like wild
+beasts, with the lash ceaselessly raised over their backs. Those
+torturers would have liked to kill the poor man—Oh, no; it can never be
+forgotten; it is impossible! Such sufferings will some day claim
+vengeance.”
+
+His voice had fallen, and the pieces of fat hissing merrily in the pot
+drowned it with the sound of their boiling. Lisa, however, heard him,
+and was frightened by the implacable expression which had suddenly come
+over his face; and, recollecting the gentle look which he habitually
+wore, she judged him to be a hypocrite.
+
+Florent’s hollow voice had brought Pauline’s interest and delight to
+the highest pitch, and she fidgeted with pleasure on his knee.
+
+“But the man?” she exclaimed. “Go on about the man!”
+
+Florent looked at her, and then appeared to remember, and smiled his
+sad smile again.
+
+“The man,” he continued, “was weary of remaining on the island, and had
+but one thought—that of making his escape by crossing the sea and
+reaching the mainland, whose white coast line could be seen on the
+horizon in clear weather. But it was no easy matter to escape. It was
+necessary that a raft should be built, and as several of the prisoners
+had already made their escape, all the trees on the island had been
+felled to prevent the others from obtaining timber. The island was,
+indeed, so bare and naked, so scorched by the blazing sun, that life in
+it had become yet more perilous and terrible. However, it occurred to
+the man and two of his companions to employ the timbers of which their
+huts were built; and one evening they put out to sea on some rotten
+beams, which they had fastened together with dry branches. The wind
+carried them towards the coast. Just as daylight was about to appear,
+the raft struck on a sandbank with such violence that the beams were
+severed from their lashings and carried out to sea. The three poor
+fellows were almost engulfed in the sand. Two of them sank in it to
+their waists, while the third disappeared up to his chin, and his
+companions were obliged to pull him out. At last they reached a rock,
+so small that there was scarcely room for them to sit down upon it.
+When the sun rose they could see the coast in front of them, a bar of
+grey cliffs stretching all along the horizon. Two, who knew how to
+swim, determined to reach those cliffs. They preferred to run the risk
+of being drowned at once to that of slowly starving on the rock. But
+they promised their companion that they would return for him when they
+had reached land and had been able to procure a boat.”
+
+“Ah, I know now!” cried little Pauline, clapping her hands with glee.
+“It’s the story of the gentleman who was eaten by the crabs!”
+
+“They succeeded in reaching the coast,” continued Florent, “but it was
+quite deserted; and it was only at the end of four days that they were
+able to get a boat. When they returned to the rock, they found their
+companion lying on his back, dead, and half-eaten by crabs, which were
+still swarming over what remained of his body.”[*]
+
+[*] In deference to the easily shocked feelings of the average English
+reader I have somewhat modified this passage. In the original M. Zola
+fully describes the awful appearance of the body.—Translator.
+
+
+A murmur of disgust escaped Lisa and Augustine, and a horrified grimace
+passed over the face of Leon, who was preparing the skins for the
+black-puddings. Quenu stopped in the midst of his work and looked at
+Auguste, who seemed to have turned faint. Only little Pauline was
+smiling. In imagination the others could picture those swarming,
+ravenous crabs crawling all over the kitchen, and mingling gruesome
+odours with the aroma of the bacon-fat and onions.
+
+“Give me the blood,” cried Quenu, who had not been following the story.
+
+Auguste came up to him with the two cans, from which he slowly poured
+the blood, while Quenu, as it fell, vigorously stirred the now
+thickening contents of the pot. When the cans were emptied, Quenu
+reached up to one of the drawers above the range, and took out some
+pinches of spice. Then he added a plentiful seasoning of pepper.
+
+“They left him there, didn’t they,” Lisa now asked of Florent, “and
+returned themselves in safety?”
+
+“As they were going back,” continued Florent, “the wind changed, and
+they were driven out into the open sea. A wave carried away one of
+their oars, and the water swept so furiously into the boat that their
+whole time was taken up in baling it out with their hands. They tossed
+about in this way in sight of the coast, carried away by squalls and
+then brought back again by the tide, without a mouthful of bread to
+eat, for their scanty stock of provisions had been consumed. This went
+on for three days.”
+
+“Three days!” cried Lisa in stupefaction; “three days without food!”
+
+“Yes, three days without food. When the east wind at last brought them
+to shore, one of them was so weak that he lay on the beach the whole
+day. In the evening he died. His companion had vainly attempted to get
+him to chew some leaves which he gathered from the trees.”
+
+At this point Augustine broke into a slight laugh. Then, ashamed at
+having done so and not wishing to be considered heartless, she
+stammered out in confusion: “Oh! I wasn’t laughing at that. It was
+Mouton. Do just look at Mouton, madame.”
+
+Then Lisa in her turn began to smile. Mouton, who had been lying all
+this time with his nose close to the dish of sausage-meat, had probably
+begun to feel distressed and disgusted by the presence of all this
+food, for he had risen and was rapidly scratching the table with his
+paws as though he wanted to bury the dish and its contents. At last,
+however, turning his back to it and lying down on his side, he
+stretched himself out, half closing his eyes and rubbing his head
+against the table with languid pleasure. Then they all began to
+compliment Mouton. He never stole anything, they said, and could be
+safely left with the meat. Pauline related that he licked her fingers
+and washed her face after dinner without trying to bite her.
+
+However, Lisa now came back to the question as to whether it were
+possible to live for three days without food. In her opinion it was
+not. “No,” she said, “I can’t believe it. No one ever goes three days
+without food. When people talk of a person dying of hunger, it is a
+mere expression. They always get something to eat, more or less. It is
+only the most abandoned wretches, people who are utterly lost——”
+
+She was doubtless going to add, “vagrant rogues,” but she stopped short
+and looked at Florent. The scornful pout of her lips and the expression
+of her bright eyes plainly signified that in her belief only villains
+made such prolonged fasts. It seemed to her that a man able to remain
+without food for three days must necessarily be a very dangerous
+character. For, indeed, honest folks never placed themselves in such a
+position.
+
+Florent was now almost stifling. In front of him the stove, into which
+Leon had just thrown several shovelfuls of coal, was snoring like a lay
+clerk asleep in the sun; and the heat was very great. Auguste, who had
+taken charge of the lard melting in the pots, was watching over it in a
+state of perspiration, and Quenu wiped his brow with his sleeve whilst
+waiting for the blood to mix. A drowsiness such as follows gross
+feeding, an atmosphere heavy with indigestion, pervaded the kitchen.
+
+“When the man had buried his comrade in the sand,” Florent continued
+slowly, “he walked off alone straight in front of him. Dutch Guiana, in
+which country he now was, is a land of forests intermingled with rivers
+and swamps. The man walked on for more than a week without coming
+across a single human dwelling-place. All around, death seemed to be
+lurking and lying in wait for him. Though his stomach was racked by
+hunger, he often did not dare to eat the bright-coloured fruits which
+hung from the trees; he was afraid to touch the glittering berries,
+fearing lest they should be poisonous. For whole days he did not see a
+patch of sky, but tramped on beneath a canopy of branches, amidst a
+greenish gloom that swarmed with horrible living creatures. Great birds
+flew over his head with a terrible flapping of wings and sudden strange
+calls resembling death groans; apes sprang, wild animals rushed through
+the thickets around him, bending the saplings and bringing down a rain
+of leaves, as though a gale were passing. But it was particularly the
+serpents that turned his blood cold when, stepping upon a matting of
+moving, withered leaves, he caught sight of their slim heads gliding
+amidst a horrid maze of roots. In certain nooks, nooks of dank shadow,
+swarming colonies of reptiles—some black, some yellow, some purple,
+some striped, some spotted, and some resembling withered reeds—suddenly
+awakened into life and wriggled away. At such times the man would stop
+and look about for a stone on which he might take refuge from the soft
+yielding ground into which his feet sank; and there he would remain for
+hours, terror-stricken on espying in some open space near by a boa,
+who, with tail coiled and head erect, swayed like the trunk of a big
+tree splotched with gold.
+
+“At night he used to sleep in the trees, alarmed by the slightest
+rustling of the branches, and fancying that he could hear endless
+swarms of serpents gliding through the gloom. He almost stifled beneath
+the interminable expanse of foliage. The gloomy shade reeked with
+close, oppressive heat, a clammy dankness and pestilential sweat,
+impregnated with the coarse aroma of scented wood and malodorous
+flowers.
+
+“And when at last, after a long weary tramp, the man made his way out
+of the forest and beheld the sky again, he found himself confronted by
+wide rivers which barred his way. He skirted their banks, keeping a
+watchful eye on the grey backs of the alligators and the masses of
+drifting vegetation, and then, when he came to a less
+suspicious-looking spot, he swam across. And beyond the rivers the
+forests began again. At other times there were vast prairie lands,
+leagues of thick vegetation, in which, at distant intervals, small
+lakes gleamed bluely. The man then made a wide detour, and sounded the
+ground beneath him before advancing, having but narrowly escaped from
+being swallowed up and buried beneath one of those smiling plains which
+he could hear cracking at each step he took. The giant grass, nourished
+by all the collected humus, concealed pestiferous marshes, depths of
+liquid mud; and amongst the expanses of verdure spread over the
+glaucous immensity to the very horizon there were only narrow stretches
+of firm ground with which the traveller must be acquainted if he would
+avoid disappearing for ever. One night the man sank down as far as his
+waist. At each effort he made to extricate himself the mud threatened
+to rise to his mouth. Then he remained quite still for nearly a couple
+of hours; and when the moon rose he was fortunately able to catch hold
+of a branch of a tree above his head. By the time he reached a human
+dwelling his hands and feet were bruised and bleeding, swollen with
+poisonous stings. He presented such a pitiable, famished appearance
+that those who saw him were afraid of him. They tossed him some food
+fifty yards away from the house, and the master of it kept guard over
+his door with a loaded gun.”
+
+Florent stopped, his voice choked by emotion, and his eyes gazing
+blankly before him. For some minutes he had seemed to be speaking to
+himself alone. Little Pauline, who had grown drowsy, was lying in his
+arms with her head thrown back, though striving to keep her wondering
+eyes open. And Quenu, for his part, appeared to be getting impatient.
+
+“Why, you stupid!” he shouted to Leon, “don’t you know how to hold a
+skin yet? What do you stand staring at me for? It’s the skin you should
+look at, not me! There, hold it like that, and don’t move again!”
+
+With his right hand Leon was raising a long string of sausage-skin, at
+one end of which a very wide funnel was inserted; while with his left
+hand he coiled the black-pudding round a metal bowl as fast as Quenu
+filled the funnel with big spoonfuls of the meat. The latter, black and
+steaming, flowed through the funnel, gradually inflating the skin,
+which fell down again, gorged to repletion and curving languidly. As
+Quenu had removed the pot from the range both he and Leon stood out
+prominently, he broad visaged, and the lad slender of profile, in the
+burning glow which cast over their pale faces and white garments a
+flood of rosy light.
+
+Lisa and Augustine watched the filling of the skin with great interest,
+Lisa especially; and she in her turn found fault with Leon because he
+nipped the skin too tightly with his fingers, which caused knots to
+form, she said. When the skin was quite full, Quenu let it slip gently
+into a pot of boiling water; and seemed quite easy in his mind again,
+for now nothing remained but to leave it to boil.
+
+“And the man—go on about the man!” murmured Pauline, opening her eyes,
+and surprised at no longer hearing the narrative.
+
+Florent rocked her on his knee, and resumed his story in a slow,
+murmuring voice, suggestive of that of a nurse singing an infant to
+sleep.
+
+“The man,” he said, “arrived at a large town. There he was at first
+taken for an escaped convict, and was kept in prison for several
+months. Then he was released, and turned his hand to all sorts of work.
+He kept accounts and taught children to read, and at one time he was
+even employed as a navvy in making an embankment. He was continually
+hoping to return to his own country. He had saved the necessary amount
+of money when he was attacked by yellow fever. Then, believing him to
+be dead, those about him divided his clothes amongst themselves; so
+that when he at last recovered he had not even a shirt left. He had to
+begin all over again. The man was very weak, and was afraid he might
+have to remain where he was. But at last he was able to get away, and
+he returned.”
+
+His voice had sunk lower and lower, and now died away altogether in a
+final quivering of his lips. The close of the story had lulled little
+Pauline to sleep, and she was now slumbering with her head on Florent’s
+shoulder. He held her with one arm, and still gently rocked her on his
+knee. No one seemed to pay any further attention to him, so he remained
+still and quiet where he was, holding the sleeping child.
+
+Now came the tug of war, as Quenu said. He had to remove the
+black-puddings from the pot. In order to avoid breaking them or getting
+them entangled, he coiled them round a thick wooden pin as he drew them
+out, and then carried them into the yard and hung them on screens,
+where they quickly dried. Leon helped him, holding up the drooping
+ends. And as these reeking festoons of black-pudding crossed the
+kitchen they left behind them a trail of odorous steam, which still
+further thickened the dense atmosphere.
+
+Auguste, on his side, after giving a hasty glance at the lard moulds,
+now took the covers off the two pots in which the fat was simmering,
+and each bursting bubble discharged an acrid vapour into the kitchen.
+The greasy haze had been gradually rising ever since the beginning of
+the evening, and now it shrouded the gas and pervaded the whole room,
+streaming everywhere, and veiling the ruddy whiteness of Quenu and his
+two assistants. Lisa and Augustine had risen from their seats; and all
+were panting as though they had eaten too much.
+
+Augustine carried the sleeping Pauline upstairs; and Quenu, who liked
+to fasten up the kitchen himself, gave Auguste and Leon leave to go to
+bed, saying that he would fetch the black-pudding himself. The younger
+apprentice stole off with a very red face, having managed to secrete
+under his shirt nearly a yard of the pudding, which must have almost
+scalded him. Then the Quenus and Florent remained alone, in silence.
+Lisa stood nibbling a little piece of the hot pudding, keeping her
+pretty lips well apart all the while, for fear of burning them, and
+gradually the black compound vanished in her rosy mouth.
+
+“Well,” said she, “La Normande was foolish in behaving so rudely; the
+black-pudding’s excellent to-day.”
+
+However, there was a knock at the passage door, and Gavard, who stayed
+at Monsieur Lebigre’s every evening until midnight, came in. He had
+called for a definite answer about the fish inspectorship.
+
+“You must understand,” he said, “that Monsieur Verlaque cannot wait any
+longer; he is too ill. So Florent must make up his mind. I have
+promised to give a positive answer early to-morrow.”
+
+“Well, Florent accepts,” Lisa quietly remarked, taking another nibble
+at some black-pudding.
+
+Florent, who had remained in his chair, overcome by a strange feeling
+of prostration, vainly endeavoured to rise and protest.
+
+“No, no, say nothing,” continued Lisa; “the matter is quite settled.
+You have suffered quite enough already, my dear Florent. What you have
+just been telling us is enough to make one shudder. It is time now for
+you to settle down. You belong to a respectable family, you received a
+good education, and it is really not fitting that you should go
+wandering about the highways like a vagrant. At your age childishness
+is no longer excusable. You have been foolish; well, all that will be
+forgotten and forgiven. You will take your place again among those of
+your own class—the class of respectable folks—and live in future like
+other people.”
+
+Florent listened in astonishment, quite unable to say a word. Lisa was,
+doubtless, right. She looked so healthy, so serene, that it was
+impossible to imagine that she desired anything but what was proper. It
+was he, with his fleshless body and dark, equivocal-looking
+countenance, who must be in the wrong, and indulging in unrighteous
+dreams. He could, indeed, no longer understand why he had hitherto
+resisted.
+
+Lisa, however, continued to talk to him with an abundant flow of words,
+as though he were a little boy found in fault and threatened with the
+police. She assumed, indeed, a most maternal manner, and plied him with
+the most convincing reasons. And at last, as a final argument, she
+said:
+
+“Do it for us, Florent. We occupy a fair position in the neighbourhood
+which obliges us to use a certain amount of circumspection; and, to
+tell you the truth, between ourselves, I’m afraid that people will
+begin to talk. This inspectorship will set everything right; you will
+be somebody; you will even be an honour to us.”
+
+Her manner had become caressingly persuasive, and Florent was
+penetrated by all the surrounding plenteousness, all the aroma filling
+the kitchen, where he fed, as it were, on the nourishment floating in
+the atmosphere. He sank into blissful meanness, born of all the copious
+feeding that went on in the sphere of plenty in which he had been
+living during the last fortnight. He felt, as it were, the titillation
+of forming fat which spread slowly all over his body. He experienced
+the languid beatitude of shopkeepers, whose chief concern is to fill
+their bellies. At this late hour of night, in the warm atmosphere of
+the kitchen, all his acerbity and determination melted away. That
+peaceable evening, with the odour of the black-pudding and the lard,
+and the sight of plump little Pauline slumbering on his knee, had so
+enervated him that he found himself wishing for a succession of such
+evenings—endless ones which would make him fat.
+
+However, it was the sight of Mouton that chiefly decided him. Mouton
+was sound asleep, with his stomach turned upwards, one of his paws
+resting on his nose, and his tail twisted over this side, as though to
+keep him warm; and he was slumbering with such an expression of feline
+happiness that Florent, as he gazed at him, murmured: “No, it would be
+too foolish! I accept the berth. Say that I accept it, Gavard.”
+
+Then Lisa finished eating her black-pudding, and wiped her fingers on
+the edge of her apron. And next she got her brother-in-law’s candle
+ready for him, while Gavard and Quenu congratulated him on his
+decision. It was always necessary for a man to settle down, said they;
+the breakneck freaks of politics did not provide one with food. And,
+meantime, Lisa, standing there with the lighted candle in her hand,
+looked at him with an expression of satisfaction resting on her
+handsome face, placid like that of some sacred cow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Three days later the necessary formalities were gone through, and
+without demur the police authorities at the Prefecture accepted Florent
+on Monsieur Verlaque’s recommendation as his substitute. Gavard, by the
+way, had made it a point to accompany them. When he again found himself
+alone with Florent he kept nudging his ribs with his elbow as they
+walked along together, and laughed, without saying anything, while
+winking his eyes in a jeering way. He seemed to find something very
+ridiculous in the appearance of the police officers whom they met on
+the Quai de l’Horloge, for, as he passed them, he slightly shrugged his
+shoulders and made the grimace of a man seeking to restrain himself
+from laughing in people’s faces.
+
+On the following morning Monsieur Verlaque began to initiate the new
+inspector into the duties of his office. It had been arranged that
+during the next few days he should make him acquainted with the
+turbulent sphere which he would have to supervise. Poor Verlaque, as
+Gavard called him was a pale little man, swathed in flannels,
+handkerchiefs, and mufflers. Constantly coughing, he made his way
+through the cool, moist atmosphere, and running waters of the fish
+market, on a pair of scraggy legs like those of a sickly child.
+
+When Florent made his appearance on the first morning, at seven
+o’clock, he felt quite distracted; his eyes were dazed, his head ached
+with all the noise and riot. Retail dealers were already prowling about
+the auction pavilion; clerks were arriving with their ledgers, and
+consigners’ agents, with leather bags slung over their shoulders, sat
+on overturned chairs by the salesmen’s desks, waiting to receive their
+cash. Fish was being unloaded and unpacked not only in the enclosure,
+but even on the footways. All along the latter were piles of small
+baskets, an endless arrival of cases and hampers, and sacks of mussels,
+from which streamlets of water trickled. The auctioneers’ assistants,
+all looking very busy, sprang over the heaps, tore away the straw at
+the tops of the baskets, emptied the latter, and tossed them aside.
+They then speedily transferred their contents in lots to huge
+wickerwork trays, arranging them with a turn of the hand so that they
+might show to the best advantage. And when the large tray-like baskets
+were all set out, Florent could almost fancy that a whole shoal of fish
+had got stranded there, still quivering with life, and gleaming with
+rosy nacre, scarlet coral, and milky pearl, all the soft, pale, sheeny
+hues of the ocean.
+
+The deep-lying forests of seaweed, in which the mysterious life of the
+ocean slumbers, seemed at one haul of the nets to have yielded up all
+they contained. There were cod, keeling, whiting, flounders, plaice,
+dabs, and other sorts of common fish of a dingy grey with whitish
+splotches; there were conger-eels, huge serpent-like creatures, with
+small black eyes and muddy, bluish skins, so slimy that they still
+seemed to be gliding along, yet alive. There were broad flat skate with
+pale undersides edged with a soft red, and superb backs bumpy with
+vertebrae, and marbled down to the tautly stretched ribs of their fins
+with splotches of cinnabar, intersected by streaks of the tint of
+Florentine bronze—a dark medley of colour suggestive of the hues of a
+toad or some poisonous flower. Then, too, there were hideous dog-fish,
+with round heads, widely-gaping mouths like those of Chinese idols, and
+short fins like bats’ wings; fit monsters to keep yelping guard over
+the treasures of the ocean grottoes. And next came the finer fish,
+displayed singly on the osier trays; salmon that gleamed like chased
+silver, every scale seemingly outlined by a graving-tool on a polished
+metal surface; mullet with larger scales and coarser markings; large
+turbot and huge brill with firm flesh white like curdled milk;
+tunny-fish, smooth and glossy, like bags of blackish leather; and
+rounded bass, with widely gaping mouths which a soul too large for the
+body seemed to have rent asunder as it forced its way out amidst the
+stupefaction of death. And on all sides there were sole, brown and
+grey, in pairs; sand-eels, slim and stiff, like shavings of pewter;
+herrings, slightly twisted, with bleeding gills showing on their
+silver-worked skins; fat dories tinged with just a suspicion of
+carmine; burnished mackerel with green-streaked backs, and sides
+gleaming with ever-changing iridescence; and rosy gurnets with white
+bellies, their head towards the centre of the baskets and their tails
+radiating all around, so that they simulated some strange florescence
+splotched with pearly white and brilliant vermilion. There were rock
+mullet, too, with delicious flesh, flushed with the pinky tinge
+peculiar to the Cyprinus family; boxes of whiting with opaline
+reflections; and baskets of smelts—neat little baskets, pretty as those
+used for strawberries, and exhaling a strong scent of violets. And
+meantime the tiny black eyes of the shrimps dotted as with beads of jet
+their soft-toned mass of pink and grey; and spiny crawfish and lobsters
+striped with black, all still alive, raised a grating sound as they
+tried to crawl along with their broken claws.
+
+Florent gave but indifferent attention to Monsieur Verlaque’s
+explanations. A flood of sunshine suddenly streamed through the lofty
+glass roof of the covered way, lighting up all these precious colours,
+toned and softened by the waves—the iridescent flesh-tints of the
+shell-fish, the opal of the whiting, the pearly nacre of the mackerel,
+the ruddy gold of the mullets, the plated skins of the herrings, and
+massive silver of the salmon. It was as though the jewel-cases of some
+sea-nymph had been emptied there—a mass of fantastical, undreamt-of
+ornaments, a streaming and heaping of necklaces, monstrous bracelets,
+gigantic brooches, barbaric gems and jewels, the use of which could not
+be divined. On the backs of the skate and the dog-fish you saw, as it
+were, big dull green and purple stones set in dark metal, while the
+slender forms of the sand-eels and the tails and fins of the smelts
+displayed all the delicacy of finely wrought silver-work.
+
+And meantime Florent’s face was fanned by a fresh breeze, a sharp, salt
+breeze redolent of the sea. It reminded him of the coasts of Guiana and
+his voyages. He half fancied that he was gazing at some bay left dry by
+the receding tide, with the seaweed steaming in the sun, the bare rocks
+drying, and the beach smelling strongly of the brine. All around him
+the fish in their perfect freshness exhaled a pleasant perfume, that
+slightly sharp, irritating perfume which depraves the appetite.
+
+Monsieur Verlaque coughed. The dampness was affecting him, and he
+wrapped his muffler more closely about his neck.
+
+“Now,” said he, “we will pass on to the fresh water fish.”
+
+This was in a pavilion beside the fruit market, the last one, indeed,
+in the direction of the Rue Rambuteau. On either side of the space
+reserved for the auctions were large circular stone basins, divided
+into separate compartments by iron gratings. Slender streams of water
+flowed from brass jets shaped like swan’s necks; and the compartments
+were filled with swarming colonies of crawfish, black-backed carp ever
+on the move, and mazy tangles of eels, incessantly knotting and
+unknotting themselves. Again was Monsieur Verlaque attacked by an
+obstinate fit of coughing. The moisture of the atmosphere was more
+insipid here than amongst the sea water fish: there was a riverside
+scent, as of sun-warmed water slumbering on a bed of sand.
+
+A great number of crawfishes had arrived from Germany that morning in
+cases and hampers, and the market was also crowded with river fish from
+Holland and England. Several men were unpacking shiny carp from the
+Rhine, lustrous with ruddy metallic hues, their scales resembling
+bronzed _cloisonne_ enamel; and others were busy with huge pike, the
+cruel iron-grey brigands of the waters, who ravenously protruded their
+savage jaws; or with magnificent dark-hued with verdigris. And amidst
+these suggestions of copper, iron, and bronze, the gudgeon and perch,
+the trout, the bleak, and the flat-fish taken in sweep-nets showed
+brightly white, the steel-blue tints of their backs gradually toning
+down to the soft transparency of their bellies. However, it was the fat
+snowy-white barbel that supplied the liveliest brightness in this
+gigantic collection of still life.
+
+Bags of young carp were being gently emptied into the basins. The fish
+spun round, then remained motionless for a moment, and at last shot
+away and disappeared. Little eels were turned out of their hampers in a
+mass, and fell to the bottom of the compartments like tangled knots of
+snakes; while the larger ones—those whose bodies were about as thick as
+a child’s arm—raised their heads and slipped of their own accord into
+the water with the supple motion of serpents gliding into the
+concealment of a thicket. And meantime the other fish, whose death
+agony had been lasting all the morning as they lay on the soiled osiers
+of the basket-trays, slowly expired amidst all the uproar of the
+auctions, opening their mouths as though to inhale the moisture of the
+air, with great silent gasps, renewed every few seconds.
+
+However, Monsieur Verlaque brought Florent back to the salt water fish.
+He took him all over the place and gave him the minutest particulars
+about everything. Round the nine salesmen’s desks ranged along three
+sides of the pavilion there was now a dense crowd of surging, swaying
+heads, above which appeared the clerks, perched upon high chairs and
+making entries in their ledgers.
+
+“Are all these clerks employed by the salesmen?” asked Florent.
+
+By way of reply Monsieur Verlaque made a detour along the outside
+footway, led him into the enclosure of one of the auctions, and then
+explained the working of the various departments of the big yellow
+office, which smelt strongly of fish and was stained all over by
+drippings and splashings from the hampers. In a little glazed
+compartment up above, the collector of the municipal dues took note of
+the prices realised by the different lots of fish. Lower down, seated
+upon high chairs and with their wrists resting upon little desks, were
+two female clerks, who kept account of the business on behalf of the
+salesmen. At each end of the stone table in front of the office was a
+crier who brought the basket-trays forward in turn, and in a bawling
+voice announced what each lot consisted of; while above him the female
+clerk, pen in hand, waited to register the price at which the lots were
+knocked down. And outside the enclosure, shut up in another little
+office of yellow wood, Monsieur Verlaque showed Florent the cashier, a
+fat old woman, who was ranging coppers and five-franc pieces in piles.
+
+“There is a double control, you see,” said Monsieur Verlaque; “the
+control of the Prefecture of the Seine and that of the Prefecture of
+Police. The latter, which licenses the salesmen, claims to have the
+right of supervision over them; and the municipality asserts its right
+to be represented at the transactions as they are subject to taxation.”
+
+He went on expatiating at length in his faint cold voice respecting the
+rival claims of the two Prefectures. Florent, however, was paying but
+little heed, his attention being concentrated on a female clerk sitting
+on one of the high chairs just in front of him. She was a tall, dark
+woman of thirty, with big black eyes and an easy calmness of manner,
+and she wrote with outstretched fingers like a girl who had been taught
+the regulation method of the art.
+
+However, Florent’s attention was diverted by the yelping of the crier,
+who was just offering a magnificent turbot for sale.
+
+“I’ve a bid of thirty francs! Thirty francs, now; thirty francs!”
+
+He repeated these words in all sorts of keys, running up and down a
+strange scale of notes full of sudden changes. Humpbacked and with his
+face twisted askew, and his hair rough and disorderly, he wore a great
+blue apron with a bib; and with flaming eyes and outstretched arms he
+cried vociferously: “Thirty-one! thirty-two! thirty-three! Thirty-three
+francs fifty centimes! thirty-three fifty!”
+
+Then he paused to take breath, turning the basket-tray and pushing it
+farther upon the table. The fish-wives bent forward and gently touched
+the turbot with their finger-tips. Then the crier began again with
+renewed energy, hurling his figures towards the buyers with a wave of
+the hand and catching the slightest indication of a fresh bid—the
+raising of a finger, a twist of the eyebrows, a pouting of the lips, a
+wink, and all with such rapidity and such a ceaseless jumble of words
+that Florent, utterly unable to follow him, felt quite disconcerted
+when, in a sing-song voice like that of a priest intoning the final
+words of a versicle, he chanted: “Forty-two! forty-two! The turbot goes
+for forty-two francs.”
+
+It was the beautiful Norman who had made the last bid. Florent
+recognised her as she stood in the line of fish-wives crowding against
+the iron rails which surrounded the enclosure. The morning was fresh
+and sharp, and there was a row of tippets above the display of big
+white aprons, covering the prominent bosoms and stomachs and sturdy
+shoulders. With high-set chignon set off with curls, and white and
+dainty skin, the beautiful Norman flaunted her lace bow amidst tangled
+shocks of hair covered with dirty kerchiefs, red noses eloquent of
+drink, sneering mouths, and battered faces suggestive of old pots. And
+she also recognised Madame Quenu’s cousin, and was so surprised to see
+him there that she began gossiping to her neighbours about him.
+
+The uproar of voices had become so great that Monsieur Verlaque
+renounced all further attempt to explain matters to Florent. On the
+footway close by, men were calling out the larger fish with prolonged
+shouts, which sounded as though they came from gigantic
+speaking-trumpets; and there was one individual who roared “Mussels!
+Mussels!” in such a hoarse, cracked, clamorous voice that the very
+roofs of the market shook. Some sacks of mussels were turned upside
+down, and their contents poured into hampers, while others were emptied
+with shovels. And there was a ceaseless procession of basket-trays
+containing skate, soles, mackerel, conger-eels, and salmon, carried
+backwards and forwards amidst the ever-increasing cackle and pushing of
+the fish-women as they crowded against the iron rails which creaked
+with their pressure. The humpbacked crier, now fairly on the job, waved
+his skinny arms in the air and protruded his jaws. Presently, seemingly
+lashed into a state of frenzy by the flood of figures that spurted from
+his lips, he sprang upon a stool, where, with his mouth twisted
+spasmodically and his hair streaming behind him, he could force nothing
+more than unintelligible hisses from his parched throat. And in the
+meantime, up above, the collector of municipal dues, a little old man,
+muffled in a collar of imitation astrachan, remained with nothing but
+his nose showing under his black velvet skullcap. And the tall,
+dark-complexioned female clerk, with eyes shining calmly in her face,
+which had been slightly reddened by the cold, sat on her high wooden
+chair, quietly writing, apparently unruffled by the continuous rattle
+which came from the hunchback below her.
+
+“That fellow Logre is wonderful,” muttered Monsieur Verlaque with a
+smile. “He is the best crier in the markets. I believe he could make
+people buy boot soles in the belief they were fish!”
+
+Then he and Florent went back into the pavilion. As they again passed
+the spot where the fresh water fish was being sold by auction, and
+where the bidding seemed much quieter, Monsieur Verlaque explained that
+French river fishing was in a bad way.[*] The crier here, a fair,
+sorry-looking fellow, who scarcely moved his arms, was disposing of
+some lots of eels and crawfish in a monotonous voice, while the
+assistants fished fresh supplies out of the stone basins with their
+short-handled nets.
+
+[*] M. Zola refers, of course, to the earlier years of the Second
+Empire. Under the present republican Government, which has largely
+fostered fish culture, matters have considerably improved.—Translator.
+
+
+However, the crowd round the salesmen’s desks was still increasing.
+Monsieur Verlaque played his part as Florent’s instructor in the most
+conscientious manner, clearing the way by means of his elbows, and
+guiding his successor through the busiest parts. The upper-class retail
+dealers were there, quietly waiting for some of the finer fish, or
+loading the porters with their purchases of turbot, tunny, and salmon.
+The street-hawkers who had clubbed together to buy lots of herrings and
+small flat-fish were dividing them on the pavement. There were also
+some people of the smaller middle class, from distant parts of the
+city, who had come down at four o’clock in the morning to buy a really
+fresh fish, and had ended by allowing some enormous lot, costing from
+forty to fifty francs, to be knocked down to them, with the result that
+they would be obliged to spend the whole day in getting their friends
+and acquaintances to take the surplus off their hands. Every now and
+then some violent pushing would force a gap through part of the crowd.
+A fish-wife, who had got tightly jammed, freed herself, shaking her
+fists and pouring out a torrent of abuse. Then a compact mass of people
+again collected, and Florent, almost suffocated, declared that he had
+seen quite enough, and understood all that was necessary.
+
+As Monsieur Verlaque was helping him to extricate himself from the
+crowd, they found themselves face to face with the handsome Norman. She
+remained stock-still in front of them, and with her queenly air
+inquired:
+
+“Well, is it quite settled? You are going to desert us, Monsieur
+Verlaque?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” replied the little man; “I am going to take a rest in the
+country, at Clamart. The smell of the fish is bad for me, it seems.
+Here, this is the gentleman who is going to take my place.”
+
+So speaking he turned round to introduce Florent to her. The handsome
+Norman almost choked; however, as Florent went off, he fancied he could
+hear her whisper to her neighbours, with a laugh: “Well, we shall have
+some fine fun now, see if we don’t!”
+
+The fish-wives had begun to set out their stalls. From all the taps at
+the corners of the marble slabs water was gushing freely; and there was
+a rustling sound all round, like the plashing of rain, a streaming of
+stiff jets of water hissing and spurting. And then, from the lower side
+of the sloping slabs, great drops fell with a softened murmur,
+splashing on the flagstones where a mass of tiny streams flowed along
+here and there, turning holes and depressions into miniature lakes, and
+afterwards gliding in a thousand rills down the slope towards the Rue
+Rambuteau. A moist haze ascended, a sort of rainy dust, bringing fresh
+whiffs of air to Florent’s face, whiffs of that salt, pungent sea
+breeze which he remembered so well; while in such fish as was already
+laid out he once more beheld the rosy nacres, gleaming corals, and
+milky pearls, all the rippling colour and glaucous pallidity of the
+ocean world.
+
+That first morning left him much in doubt; indeed, he regretted that he
+had yielded to Lisa’s insistence. Ever since his escape from the greasy
+drowsiness of the kitchen he had been accusing himself of base weakness
+with such violence that tears had almost risen in his eyes. But he did
+not dare to go back on his word. He was a little afraid of Lisa, and
+could see the curl of her lips and the look of mute reproach upon her
+handsome face. He felt that she was too serious a woman to be trifled
+with. However, Gavard happily inspired him with a consoling thought. On
+the evening of the day on which Monsieur Verlaque had conducted him
+through the auction sales, Gavard took him aside and told him, with a
+good deal of hesitation, that “the poor devil” was not at all well off.
+And after various remarks about the scoundrelly Government which ground
+the life out of its servants without allowing them even the means to
+die in comfort, he ended by hinting that it would be charitable on
+Florent’s part to surrender a part of his salary to the old inspector.
+Florent welcomed the suggestion with delight. It was only right, he
+considered, for he looked upon himself simply as Monsieur Verlaque’s
+temporary substitute; and besides, he himself really required nothing,
+as he boarded and lodged with his brother. Gavard added that he thought
+if Florent gave up fifty francs out of the hundred and fifty which he
+would receive monthly, the arrangement would be everything that could
+be desired; and, lowering his voice, he added that it would not be for
+long, for the poor fellow was consumptive to his very bones. Finally it
+was settled that Florent should see Monsieur Verlaque’s wife, and
+arrange matters with her, to avoid any possibility of hurting the old
+man’s feelings.
+
+The thought of this kindly action afforded Florent great relief, and he
+now accepted his duties with the object of doing good, thus continuing
+to play the part which he had been fulfilling all his life. However, he
+made the poultry dealer promise that he would not speak of the matter
+to anyone; and as Gavard also felt a vague fear of Lisa, he kept the
+secret, which was really very meritorious in him.
+
+And now the whole pork shop seemed happy. Handsome Lisa manifested the
+greatest friendliness towards her brother-in-law. She took care that he
+went to bed early, so as to be able to rise in good time; she kept his
+breakfast hot for him; and she no longer felt ashamed at being seen
+talking to him on the footway, now that he wore a laced cap. Quenu,
+quite delighted by all these good signs, sat down to table in the
+evening between his wife and brother with a lighter heart than ever.
+They often lingered over dinner till nine o’clock, leaving the shop in
+Augustine’s charge, and indulging in a leisurely digestion interspersed
+with gossip about the neighbourhood, and the dogmatic opinions of Lisa
+on political topics; Florent also had to relate how matters had gone in
+the fish market that day. He gradually grew less frigid, and began to
+taste the happiness of a well-regulated existence. There was a
+well-to-do comfort and trimness about the light yellowish dining room
+which had a softening influence upon him as soon as he crossed its
+threshold. Handsome Lisa’s kindly attentions wrapped him, as it were,
+in cotton-wool; and mutual esteem and concord reigned paramount.
+
+Gavard, however, considered the Quenu-Gradelles’ home to be too drowsy.
+He forgave Lisa her weakness for the Emperor, because, he said, one
+ought never to discuss politics with women, and beautiful Madame Quenu
+was, after all, a very worthy person, who managed her business
+admirably. Nevertheless, he much preferred to spend his evenings at
+Monsieur Lebigre’s, where he met a group of friends who shared his own
+opinions. Thus when Florent was appointed to the inspectorship of the
+fish market, Gavard began to lead him astray, taking him off for hours,
+and prompting him to lead a bachelor’s life now that he had obtained a
+berth.
+
+Monsieur Lebigre was the proprietor of a very fine establishment,
+fitted up in the modern luxurious style. Occupying the right-hand
+corner of the Rue Pirouette, and looking on to the Rue Rambuteau, it
+formed, with its four small Norwegian pines in green-painted tubs
+flanking the doorway, a worthy pendant to the big pork shop of the
+Quenu-Gradelles. Through the clear glass windows you could see the
+interior, which was decorated with festoons of foliage, vine branches,
+and grapes, painted on a soft green ground. The floor was tiled with
+large black and white squares. At the far end was the yawning cellar
+entrance, above which rose a spiral staircase hung with red drapery,
+and leading to the billiard-room on the first floor. The counter or
+“bar” on the right looked especially rich, and glittered like polished
+silver. Its zinc-work, hanging with a broad bulging border over the
+sub-structure of white and red marble, edged it with a rippling sheet
+of metal as if it were some high altar laden with embroidery. At one
+end, over a gas stove, stood porcelain pots, decorated with circles of
+brass, and containing punch and hot wine. At the other extremity was a
+tall and richly sculptured marble fountain, from which a fine stream of
+water, so steady and continuous that it looked as though it were
+motionless, flowed into a basin. In the centre, edged on three sides by
+the sloping zinc surface of the counter, was a second basin for rinsing
+and cooling purposes, where quart bottles of draught wine, partially
+empty, reared their greenish necks. Then on the counter, to the right
+and left of this central basin, were batches of glasses symmetrically
+arranged: little glasses for brandy, thick tumblers for draught wine,
+cup glasses for brandied fruits, glasses for absinthe, glass mugs for
+beer, and tall goblets, all turned upside down and reflecting the
+glitter of the counter. On the left, moreover, was a metal urn, serving
+as a receptacle for gratuities; whilst a similar one on the right
+bristled with a fan-like arrangement of coffee spoons.
+
+Monsieur Lebigre was generally to be found enthroned behind his counter
+upon a seat covered with buttoned crimson leather. Within easy reach of
+his hand were the liqueurs in cut-glass decanters protruding from the
+compartments of a stand. His round back rested against a huge mirror
+which completely filled the panel behind him; across it ran two glass
+shelves supporting an array of jars and bottles. Upon one of them the
+glass jars of preserved fruits, cherries, plums, and peaches, stood out
+darkly; while on the other, between symmetrically arranged packets of
+finger biscuits, were bright flasks of soft green and red and yellow
+glass, suggesting strange mysterious liqueurs, or floral extracts of
+exquisite limpidity. Standing on the glass shelf in the white glow of
+the mirror, these flasks, flashing as if on fire, seemed to be
+suspended in the air.
+
+To give his premises the appearance of a café, Monsieur Lebigre had
+placed two small tables of bronzed iron and four chairs against the
+wall, in front of the counter. A chandelier with five lights and
+frosted globes hung down from the ceiling. On the left was a round gilt
+timepiece, above a _tourniquet_[*] fixed to the wall. Then at the far
+end came the private “cabinet,” a corner of the shop shut off by a
+partition glazed with frosted glass of a small square pattern. In the
+daytime this little room received a dim light from a window that looked
+on to the Rue Pirouette; and in the evening, a gas jet burnt over the
+two tables painted to resemble marble. It was there that Gavard and his
+political friends met each evening after dinner. They looked upon
+themselves as being quite at home there, and had prevailed on the
+landlord to reserve the place for them. When Monsieur Lebigre had
+closed the door of the glazed partition, they knew themselves to be so
+safely screened from intrusion that they spoke quite unreservedly of
+the great “sweep out” which they were fond of discussing. No
+unprivileged customer would have dared to enter.
+
+[*] This is a kind of dial turning on a pivot, and usually enclosed in
+a brass frame, from which radiate a few small handles or spokes. Round
+the face of the dial—usually of paper—are various numerals, and between
+the face and its glass covering is a small marble or wooden ball. The
+appliance is used in lieu of dice or coins when two or more customers
+are “tossing” for drinks. Each in turn sends the dial spinning round,
+and wins or loses according to the numeral against which the ball rests
+when the dial stops. As I can find no English name for the appliance, I
+have thought it best to describe it.—Translator.
+
+
+On the first day that Gavard took Florent off he gave him some
+particulars of Monsieur Lebigre. He was a good fellow, he said, who
+sometimes came to drink his coffee with them; and, as he had said one
+day that he had fought in ‘48, no one felt the least constraint in his
+presence. He spoke but little, and seemed rather thick-headed. As the
+gentlemen passed him on their way to the private room they grasped his
+hand in silence across the glasses and bottles. By his side on the
+crimson leather seat behind the counter there was generally a fair
+little woman, whom he had engaged as counter assistant in addition to
+the white-aproned waiter who attended to the tables and the
+billiard-room. The young woman’s name was Rose, and she seemed a very
+gentle and submissive being. Gavard, with a wink of his eye, told
+Florent that he fancied Lebigre had a weakness for her. It was she, by
+the way, who waited upon the friends in the private room, coming and
+going, with her happy, humble air, amidst the stormiest political
+discussions.
+
+Upon the day on which the poultry dealer took Florent to Lebigre’s to
+present him to his friends, the only person whom the pair found in the
+little room when they entered it was a man of some fifty years of age,
+of a mild and thoughtful appearance. He wore a rather shabby-looking
+hat and a long chestnut-coloured overcoat, and sat, with his chin
+resting on the ivory knob of a thick cane, in front of a glass mug full
+of beer. His mouth was so completely concealed by a vigorous growth of
+beard that his face had a dumb, lipless appearance.
+
+“How are you, Robine?” exclaimed Gavard.
+
+Robine silently thrust out his hand, without making any reply, though
+his eyes softened into a slight smile of welcome. Then he let his chin
+drop on to the knob of his cane again, and looked at Florent over his
+beer. Florent had made Gavard swear to keep his story a secret for fear
+of some dangerous indiscretion; and he was not displeased to observe a
+touch of distrust in the discreet demeanour of the gentleman with the
+heavy beard. However, he was really mistaken in this, for Robine never
+talked more than he did now. He was always the first to arrive, just as
+the clock struck eight; and he always sat in the same corner, never
+letting go his hold of his cane, and never taking off either his hat or
+his overcoat. No one had ever seen him without his hat upon his head.
+He remained there listening to the talk of the others till midnight,
+taking four hours to empty his mug of beer, and gazing successively at
+the different speakers as though he heard them with his eyes. When
+Florent afterwards questioned Gavard about Robine, the poultry dealer
+spoke of the latter as though he held him in high esteem. Robine, he
+asserted, was an extremely clever and able man, and, though he was
+unable to say exactly where he had given proof of his hostility to the
+established order of things, he declared that he was one of the most
+dreaded of the Government’s opponents. He lived in the Rue Saint Denis,
+in rooms to which no one as a rule could gain admission. The poultry
+dealer, however, asserted that he himself had once been in them. The
+wax floors, he said, were protected by strips of green linen; and there
+were covers over the furniture, and an alabaster timepiece with
+columns. He had caught a glimpse of the back of a lady, who was just
+disappearing through one doorway as he was entering by another, and had
+taken her to be Madame Robine. She appeared to be an old lady of very
+genteel appearance, with her hair arranged in corkscrew curls; but of
+this he could not be quite certain. No one knew why they had taken up
+their abode amidst all the uproar of a business neighbourhood; for the
+husband did nothing at all, spending his days no one knew how and
+living on no one knew what, though he made his appearance every evening
+as though he were tired but delighted with some excursion into the
+highest regions of politics.
+
+“Well, have you read the speech from the throne?” asked Gavard, taking
+up a newspaper that was lying on the table.
+
+Robine shrugged his shoulders. Just at that moment, however, the door
+of the glazed partition clattered noisily, and a hunchback made his
+appearance. Florent at once recognised the deformed crier of the fish
+market, though his hands were now washed and he was neatly dressed,
+with his neck encircled by a great red muffler, one end of which hung
+down over his hump like the skirt of a Venetian cloak.
+
+“Ah, here’s Logre!” exclaimed the poultry dealer. “Now we shall hear
+what he thinks about the speech from the throne.”
+
+Logre, however, was apparently furious. To begin with he almost broke
+the pegs off in hanging up his hat and muffler. Then he threw himself
+violently into a chair, and brought his fist down on the table, while
+tossing away the newspaper.
+
+“Do you think I read their fearful lies?” he cried.
+
+Then he gave vent to the anger raging within him. “Did ever anyone
+hear,” he cried, “of masters making such fools of their people? For two
+whole hours I’ve been waiting for my pay! There were ten of us in the
+office kicking our heels there. Then at last Monsieur Manoury arrived
+in a cab. Where he had come from I don’t know, and don’t care, but I’m
+quite sure it wasn’t any respectable place. Those salesmen are all a
+parcel of thieves and libertines! And then, too, the hog actually gave
+me all my money in small change!”
+
+Robine expressed his sympathy with Logre by the slight movement of his
+eyelids. But suddenly the hunchback bethought him of a victim upon whom
+to pour out his wrath. “Rose! Rose!” he cried, stretching his head out
+of the little room.
+
+The young woman quickly responded to the call, trembling all over.
+
+“Well,” shouted Logre, “what do you stand staring at me like that for?
+Much good that’ll do! You saw me come in, didn’t you? Why haven’t you
+brought me my glass of black coffee, then?”
+
+Gavard ordered two similar glasses, and Rose made all haste to bring
+what was required, while Logre glared sternly at the glasses and little
+sugar trays as if studying them. When he had taken a drink he seemed to
+grow somewhat calmer.
+
+“But it’s Charvet who must be getting bored,” he said presently. “He is
+waiting outside on the pavement for Clemence.”
+
+Charvet, however, now made his appearance, followed by Clemence. He was
+a tall, scraggy young man, carefully shaved, with a skinny nose and
+thin lips. He lived in the Rue Vavin, behind the Luxembourg, and called
+himself a professor. In politics he was a disciple of Hébert.[*] He
+wore his hair very long, and the collar and lapels of his threadbare
+frock-coat were broadly turned back. Affecting the manner and speech of
+a member of the National Convention, he would pour out such a flood of
+bitter words and make such a haughty display of pedantic learning that
+he generally crushed his adversaries. Gavard was afraid of him, though
+he would not confess it; still, in Charvet’s absence he would say that
+he really went too far. Robine, for his part, expressed approval of
+everything with his eyes. Logre sometimes opposed Charvet on the
+question of salaries; but the other was really the autocrat of the
+coterie, having the greatest fund of information and the most
+overbearing manner. For more than ten years he and Clemence had lived
+together as man and wife, in accordance with a previously arranged
+contract, the terms of which were strictly observed by both parties to
+it. Florent looked at the young woman with some little surprise, but at
+last he recollected where he had previously seen her. This was at the
+fish auction. She was, indeed, none other than the tall dark female
+clerk whom he had observed writing with outstretched fingers, after the
+manner of one who had been carefully instructed in the art of holding a
+pen.
+
+[*] Hébert, as the reader will remember, was the furious demagogue with
+the foul tongue and poisoned pen who edited the _Père Duchesne_ at the
+time of the first French Revolution. We had a revival of his politics
+and his journal in Paris during the Commune of 1871.—Translator.
+
+
+Rose made her appearance at the heels of the two newcomers. Without
+saying a word she placed a mug of beer before Charvet and a tray before
+Clemence, who in a leisurely way began to compound a glass of “grog,”
+pouring some hot water over a slice of lemon, which she crushed with
+her spoon, and glancing carefully at the decanter as she poured out
+some rum, so as not to add more of it than a small liqueur glass could
+contain.
+
+Gavard now presented Florent to the company, but more especially to
+Charvet. He introduced them to one another as professors, and very able
+men, who would be sure to get on well together. But it was probable
+that he had already been guilty of some indiscretion, for all the men
+at once shook hands with a tight and somewhat masonic squeeze of each
+other’s fingers. Charvet, for his part, showed himself almost amiable;
+and whether he and the others knew anything of Florent’s antecedents,
+they at all events indulged in no embarrassing allusions.
+
+“Did Manoury pay you in small change?” Logre asked Clemence.
+
+She answered affirmatively, and produced a roll of francs and another
+of two-franc pieces, and unwrapped them. Charvet watched her, and his
+eyes followed the rolls as she replaced them in her pocket, after
+counting their contents and satisfying herself that they were correct.
+
+“We have our accounts to settle,” he said in a low voice.
+
+“Yes, we’ll settle up to-night,” the young woman replied. “But we are
+about even, I should think. I’ve breakfasted with you four times,
+haven’t I? But I lent you a hundred sous last week, you know.”
+
+Florent, surprised at hearing this, discreetly turned his head away.
+Then Clemence slipped the last roll of silver into her pocket, drank a
+little of her grog, and, leaning against the glazed partition, quietly
+settled herself down to listen to the men talking politics. Gavard had
+taken up the newspaper again, and, in tones which he strove to render
+comic, was reading out some passages of the speech from the throne
+which had been delivered that morning at the opening of the Chambers.
+Charvet made fine sport of the official phraseology; there was not a
+single line of it which he did not tear to pieces. One sentence
+afforded especial amusement to them all. It was this: “We are
+confident, gentlemen, that, leaning on your lights[*] and the
+conservative sentiments of the country, we shall succeed in increasing
+the national prosperity day by day.”
+
+[*] In the sense of illumination of mind. It has been necessary to give
+a literal translation of this phrase to enable the reader to realise
+the point of subsequent witticisms in which Clemence and Gavard
+indulge. —Translator.
+
+
+Logre rose up and repeated this sentence, and by speaking through his
+nose succeeded fairly well in mimicking the Emperor’s drawling voice.
+
+“It’s lovely, that prosperity of his; why, everyone’s dying of hunger!”
+said Charvet.
+
+“Trade is shocking,” asserted Gavard.
+
+“And what in the name of goodness is the meaning of anybody ‘leaning on
+lights’?” continued Clemence, who prided herself upon literary culture.
+
+Robine himself even allowed a faint laugh to escape from the depths of
+his beard. The discussion began to grow warm. The party fell foul of
+the Corps Législatif, and spoke of it with great severity. Logre did
+not cease ranting, and Florent found him the same as when he cried the
+fish at the auctions—protruding his jaws and hurling his words forward
+with a wave of the arm, whilst retaining the crouching attitude of a
+snarling dog. Indeed, he talked politics in just the same furious
+manner as he offered a tray full of soles for sale.
+
+Charvet, on the other hand, became quieter and colder amidst the smoke
+of the pipes and the fumes of the gas which were now filling the little
+den; and his voice assumed a dry incisive tone, sharp like a guillotine
+blade, while Robine gently wagged his head without once removing his
+chin from the ivory knob of his cane. However, some remark of Gavard’s
+led the conversation to the subject of women.
+
+“Woman,” declared Charvet drily, “is the equal of man; and, that being
+so, she ought not to inconvenience him in the management of his life.
+Marriage is a partnership, in which everything should be halved. Isn’t
+that so, Clemence?”
+
+“Clearly so,” replied the young woman, leaning back with her head
+against the wall and gazing into the air.
+
+However, Florent now saw Lacaille, the costermonger, and Alexandre, the
+porter, Claude Lantier’s friend, come into the little room. In the past
+these two had long remained at the other table in the sanctum; they did
+not belong to the same class as the others. By the help of politics,
+however, their chairs had drawn nearer, and they had ended by forming
+part of the circle. Charvet, in whose eyes they represented “the
+people,” did his best to indoctrinate them with his advanced political
+theories, while Gavard played the part of the shopkeeper free from all
+social prejudices by clinking glasses with them. Alexandre was a
+cheerful, good-humoured giant, with the manner of a big merry lad.
+Lacaille, on the other hand, was embittered; his hair was already
+grizzling; and, bent and wearied by his ceaseless perambulations
+through the streets of Paris, he would at times glance loweringly at
+the placid figure of Robine, and his sound boots and heavy coat.
+
+That evening both Lacaille and Alexandre called for a liqueur glass of
+brandy, and then the conversation was renewed with increased warmth and
+excitement, the party being now quite complete. A little later, while
+the door of the cabinet was left ajar, Florent caught sight of
+Mademoiselle Saget standing in front of the counter. She had taken a
+bottle from under her apron, and was watching Rose as the latter poured
+into it a large measureful of black-currant syrup and a smaller one of
+brandy. Then the bottle disappeared under the apron again, and
+Mademoiselle Saget, with her hands out of sight, remained talking in
+the bright glow of the counter, face to face with the big mirror, in
+which the flasks and bottles of liqueurs were reflected like rows of
+Venetian lanterns. In the evening all the metal and glass of the
+establishment helped to illuminate it with wonderful brilliancy. The
+old maid, standing there in her black skirts, looked almost like some
+big strange insect amidst all the crude brightness. Florent noticed
+that she was trying to inveigle Rose into a conversation, and shrewdly
+suspected that she had caught sight of him through the half open
+doorway. Since he had been on duty at the markets he had met her at
+almost every step, loitering in one or another of the covered ways, and
+generally in the company of Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette. He had
+noticed also that the three women stealthily examined him, and seemed
+lost in amazement at seeing him installed in the position of inspector.
+That evening, however, Rose was no doubt loath to enter into
+conversation with the old maid, for the latter at last turned round,
+apparently with the intention of approaching Monsieur Lebigre, who was
+playing piquet with a customer at one of the bronzed tables. Creeping
+quietly along, Mademoiselle Saget had at last managed to install
+herself beside the partition of the cabinet, when she was observed by
+Gavard, who detested her.
+
+“Shut the door, Florent!” he cried unceremoniously. “We can’t even be
+by ourselves, it seems!”
+
+When midnight came and Lacaille went away he exchanged a few whispered
+words with Monsieur Lebigre, and as the latter shook hands with him he
+slipped four five-franc pieces into his palm, without anyone noticing
+it. “That’ll make twenty-two francs that you’ll have to pay to-morrow,
+remember,” he whispered in his ear. “The person who lends the money
+won’t do it for less in future. Don’t forget, too, that you owe three
+days’ truck hire. You must pay everything off.”
+
+Then Monsieur Lebigre wished the friends good night. He was very sleepy
+and should sleep well, he said, with a yawn which revealed his big
+teeth, while Rose gazed at him with an air of submissive humility.
+However, he gave her a push, and told her to go and turn out the gas in
+the little room.
+
+On reaching the pavement, Gavard stumbled and nearly fell. And being in
+a humorous vein, he thereupon exclaimed: “Confound it all! At any rate,
+I don’t seem to be leaning on anybody’s lights.”
+
+This remark seemed to amuse the others, and the party broke up. A
+little later Florent returned to Lebigre’s, and indeed he became quite
+attached to the “cabinet,” finding a seductive charm in Robine’s
+contemplative silence, Logre’s fiery outbursts, and Charvet’s cool
+venom. When he went home, he did not at once retire to bed. He had
+grown very fond of his attic, that girlish bedroom, where Augustine had
+left scraps of ribbons, souvenirs, and other feminine trifles lying
+about. There still remained some hair-pins on the mantelpiece, with
+gilt cardboard boxes of buttons and lozenges, cutout pictures, and
+empty pomade pots that retained an odour of jasmine. Then there were
+some reels of thread, needles, and a missal lying by the side of a
+soiled Dream-book in the drawer of the rickety deal table. A white
+summer dress with yellow spots hung forgotten from a nail; while upon
+the board which served as a toilet-table a big stain behind the
+water-jug showed where a bottle of bandoline had been overturned. The
+little chamber, with its narrow iron bed, its two rush-bottomed chairs,
+and its faded grey wallpaper, was instinct with innocent simplicity.
+The plain white curtains, the childishness suggested by the cardboard
+boxes and the Dream-book, and the clumsy coquetry which had stained the
+walls, all charmed Florent and brought him back to dreams of youth. He
+would have preferred not to have known that plain, wiry-haired
+Augustine, but to have been able to imagine that he was occupying the
+room of a sister, some bright sweet girl of whose budding womanhood
+every trifle around him spoke.
+
+Yet another pleasure which he took was to lean out of the garret window
+at nighttime. In front of it was a narrow ledge of roof, enclosed by an
+iron railing, and forming a sort of balcony, on which Augustine had
+grown a pomegranate in a box. Since the nights had turned cold, Florent
+had brought the pomegranate indoors and kept it by the foot of his bed
+till morning. He would linger for a few minutes by the open window,
+inhaling deep draughts of the sharp fresh air which was wafted up from
+the Seine, over the housetops of the Rue de Rivoli. Below him the roofs
+of the markets spread confusedly in a grey expanse, like slumbering
+lakes on whose surface the furtive reflection of a pane of glass
+gleamed every now and then like a silvery ripple. Farther away the
+roofs of the meat and poultry pavilions lay in deeper gloom, and became
+mere masses of shadow barring the horizon. Florent delighted in the
+great stretch of open sky in front of him, in that spreading expanse of
+the markets which amidst all the narrow city streets brought him a dim
+vision of some strip of sea coast, of the still grey waters of a bay
+scarce quivering from the roll of the distant billows. He used to lose
+himself in dreams as he stood there; each night he conjured up the
+vision of some fresh coast line. To return in mind to the eight years
+of despair which he had spent away from France rendered him both very
+sad and very happy. Then at last, shivering all over, he would close
+the window. Often, as he stood in front of the fireplace taking off his
+collar, the photograph of Auguste and Augustine would fill him with
+disquietude. They seemed to be watching him as they stood there, hand
+in hand, smiling faintly.
+
+Florent’s first few weeks at the fish market were very painful to him.
+The Mehudins treated him with open hostility, which infected the whole
+market with a spirit of opposition. The beautiful Norman intended to
+revenge herself on the handsome Lisa, and the latter’s cousin seemed a
+victim ready to hand.
+
+The Mehudins came from Rouen. Louise’s mother still related how she had
+first arrived in Paris with a basket of eels. She had ever afterwards
+remained in the fish trade. She had married a man employed in the
+Octroi service, who had died leaving her with two little girls. It was
+she who by her full figure and glowing freshness had won for herself in
+earlier days the nickname of “the beautiful Norman,” which her eldest
+daughter had inherited. Now five and sixty years of age, Madame Mehudin
+had become flabby and shapeless, and the damp air of the fish market
+had rendered her voice rough and hoarse, and given a bluish tinge to
+her skin. Sedentary life had made her extremely bulky, and her head was
+thrown backwards by the exuberance of her bosom. She had never been
+willing to renounce the fashions of her younger days, but still wore
+the flowered gown, the yellow kerchief, and turban-like head-gear of
+the classic fish-wife, besides retaining the latter’s loud voice and
+rapidity of gesture as she stood with her hands on her hips, shouting
+out the whole abusive vocabulary of her calling.
+
+She looked back regretfully to the old Marché des Innocents, which the
+new central markets had supplanted. She would talk of the ancient
+rights of the market “ladies,” and mingle stories of fisticuffs
+exchanged with the police with reminiscences of the visits she had paid
+the Court in the time of Charles X and Louis Philippe, dressed in silk,
+and carrying a bouquet of flowers in her hand. Old Mother Mehudin, as
+she was now generally called, had for a long time been the
+banner-bearer of the Sisterhood of the Virgin at St. Leu. She would
+relate that in the processions in the church there she had worn a dress
+and cap of tulle trimmed with satin ribbons, whilst holding aloft in
+her puffy fingers the gilded staff of the richly-fringed silk standard
+on which the figure of the Holy Mother was embroidered.
+
+According to the gossip of the neighbourhood, the old woman had made a
+fairly substantial fortune, though the only signs of it were the
+massive gold ornaments with which she loaded her neck and arms and
+bosom on important occasions. Her two daughters got on badly together
+as they grew up. The younger one, Claire, an idle, fair-complexioned
+girl, complained of the ill-treatment which she received from her
+sister Louise, protesting, in her languid voice, that she could never
+submit to be the other’s servant. As they would certainly have ended by
+coming to blows, their mother separated them. She gave her stall in the
+fish market to Louise, while Claire, whom the smell of the skate and
+the herrings affected in the lungs, installed herself among the fresh
+water fish. And from that time the old mother, although she pretended
+to have retired from business altogether, would flit from one stall to
+the other, still interfering in the selling of the fish, and causing
+her daughters continual annoyance by the foul insolence with which she
+would at times speak to customers.
+
+Claire was a fantastical creature, very gentle in her manner, and yet
+continually at loggerheads with others. People said that she invariably
+followed her own whimsical inclinations. In spite of her dreamy,
+girlish face she was imbued with a nature of silent firmness, a spirit
+of independence which prompted her to live apart; she never took things
+as other people did, but would one day evince perfect fairness, and the
+next day arrant injustice. She would sometimes throw the market into
+confusion by suddenly increasing or lowering the prices at her stall,
+without anyone being able to guess her reason for doing so. She herself
+would refuse to explain her motive. By the time she reached her
+thirtieth year, her delicate physique and fine skin, which the water of
+the tanks seemed to keep continually fresh and soft, her small,
+faintly-marked face and lissome limbs would probably become heavy,
+coarse, and flabby, till she would look like some faded saint that had
+stepped from a stained-glass window into the degrading sphere of the
+markets. At twenty-two, however, Claire, in the midst of her carp and
+eels, was, to use Claude Lantier’s expression, a Murillo. A Murillo,
+that is, whose hair was often in disorder, who wore heavy shoes and
+clumsily cut dresses, which left her without any figure. But she was
+free from all coquetry, and she assumed an air of scornful contempt
+when Louise, displaying her bows and ribbons, chaffed her about her
+clumsily knotted neckerchiefs. Moreover, she was virtuous; it was said
+that the son of a rich shopkeeper in the neighbourhood had gone abroad
+in despair at having failed to induce her to listen to his suit.
+
+Louise, the beautiful Norman, was of a different nature. She had been
+engaged to be married to a clerk in the corn market; but a sack of
+flour falling upon the young man had broken his back and killed him.
+Not very long afterwards Louise had given birth to a boy. In the
+Mehudins’ circle of acquaintance she was looked upon as a widow; and
+the old fish-wife in conversation would occasionally refer to the time
+when her son-in-law was alive.
+
+The Mehudins were a power in the markets. When Monsieur Verlaque had
+finished instructing Florent in his new duties, he advised him to
+conciliate certain of the stall-holders, if he wished his life to be
+endurable; and he even carried his sympathy so far as to put him in
+possession of the little secrets of the office, such as the various
+little breaches of rule that it was necessary to wink at, and those at
+which he would have to feign stern displeasure; and also the
+circumstances under which he might accept a small present. A market
+inspector is at once a constable and a magistrate; he has to maintain
+proper order and cleanliness, and settle in a conciliatory spirit all
+disputes between buyers and sellers. Florent, who was of a weak
+disposition put on an artificial sternness when he was obliged to
+exercise his authority, and generally over-acted his part. Moreover,
+his gloomy, pariah-like face and bitterness of spirit, the result of
+long suffering, were against him.
+
+The beautiful Norman’s idea was to involve him in some quarrel or
+other. She had sworn that he would not keep his berth a fortnight.
+“That fat Lisa’s much mistaken,” said she one morning on meeting Madame
+Lecœur, “if she thinks that she’s going to put people over us. We don’t
+want such ugly wretches here. That sweetheart of hers is a perfect
+fright!”
+
+After the auctions, when Florent commenced his round of inspection,
+strolling slowly through the dripping alleys, he could plainly see the
+beautiful Norman watching him with an impudent smile on her face. Her
+stall, which was in the second row on the left, near the fresh water
+fish department faced the Rue Rambuteau. She would turn round, however,
+and never take her eyes off her victim whilst making fun of him with
+her neighbours. And when he passed in front of her, slowly examining
+the slabs, she feigned hilarious merriment, slapped her fish with her
+hand, and turned her jets of water on at full stream, flooding the
+pathway. Nevertheless Florent remained perfectly calm.
+
+At last, one morning as was bound to happen, war broke out. As Florent
+reached La Normande’s stall that day an unbearable stench assailed his
+nostrils. On the marble slab, in addition to part of a magnificent
+salmon, showing its soft roseate flesh, there lay some turbots of
+creamy whiteness, a few conger-eels pierced with black pins to mark
+their divisions, several pairs of soles, and some bass and red
+mullet—in fact, quite a display of fresh fish. But in the midst of it,
+amongst all these fish whose eyes still gleamed and whose gills were of
+a bright crimson, there lay a huge skate of a ruddy tinge, splotched
+with dark stains—superb, indeed, with all its strange colourings.
+Unfortunately, it was rotten; its tail was falling off and the ribs of
+its fins were breaking through the skin.
+
+“You must throw that skate away,” said Florent as he came up.
+
+The beautiful Norman broke into a slight laugh. Florent raised his eyes
+and saw her standing before him, with her back against the bronze lamp
+post which lighted the stalls in her division. She had mounted upon a
+box to keep her feet out of the damp, and appeared very tall as he
+glanced at her. She looked also handsomer than usual, with her hair
+arranged in little curls, her sly face slightly bent, her lips
+compressed, and her hands showing somewhat too rosily against her big
+white apron. Florent had never before seen her decked with so much
+jewellery. She had long pendants in her ears, a chain round her neck, a
+brooch in her dress body, and quite a collection of rings on two
+fingers of her left hand and one of her right.
+
+As she still continued to look slyly at Florent, without making any
+reply, the latter continued: “Do you hear? You must remove that skate.”
+
+He had not yet noticed the presence of old Madame Mehudin, who sat all
+of a heap on a chair in a corner. She now got up, however, and, with
+her fists resting on the marble slap, insolently exclaimed: “Dear me!
+And why is she to throw her skate away? You won’t pay her for it, I’ll
+bet!”
+
+Florent immediately understood the position. The women at the other
+stalls began to titter, and he felt that he was surrounded by covert
+rebellion, which a word might cause to blaze forth. He therefore
+restrained himself, and in person drew the refuse-pail from under the
+stall and dropped the skate into it. Old Madame Mehudin had already
+stuck her hands on her hips, while the beautiful Norman, who had not
+spoken a word, burst into another malicious laugh as Florent strode
+sternly away amidst a chorus of jeers, which he pretended not to hear.
+
+Each day now some new trick was played upon him, and he was obliged to
+walk through the market alleys as warily as though he were in a hostile
+country. He was splashed with water from the sponges employed to
+cleanse the slabs; he stumbled and almost fell over slippery refuse
+intentionally spread in his way; and even the porters contrived to run
+their baskets against the nape of his neck. One day, moreover, when two
+of the fish-wives were quarrelling, and he hastened up to prevent them
+coming to blows, he was obliged to duck in order to escape being
+slapped on either cheek by a shower of little dabs which passed over
+his head. There was a general outburst of laughter on this occasion,
+and Florent always believed that the two fish-wives were in league with
+the Mehudins. However, his old-time experiences as a teacher had
+endowed him with angelic patience, and he was able to maintain a
+magisterial coolness of manner even when anger was hotly rising within
+him, and his whole being quivered with a sense of humiliation. Still,
+the young scamps of the Rue de l’Estrapade had never manifested the
+savagery of these fish-wives, the cruel tenacity of these huge females,
+whose massive figures heaved and shook with a giant-like joy whenever
+he fell into any trap. They stared him out of countenance with their
+red faces; and in the coarse tones of their voices and the impudent
+gesture of their hands he could read volumes of filthy abuse levelled
+at himself. Gavard would have been quite in his element amidst all
+these petticoats, and would have freely cuffed them all round; but
+Florent, who had always been afraid of women, gradually felt
+overwhelmed as by a sort of nightmare in which giant women, buxom
+beyond all imagination, danced threateningly around him, shouting at
+him in hoarse voices and brandishing bare arms, as massive as any
+prize-fighter’s.
+
+Amongst this hoard of females, however, Florent had one friend. Claire
+unhesitatingly declared that the new inspector was a very good fellow.
+When he passed in front of her, pursued by the coarse abuse of the
+others, she gave him a pleasant smile, sitting nonchalantly behind her
+stall, with unruly errant locks of pale hair straying over her neck and
+her brow, and the bodice of her dress pinned all askew. He also often
+saw her dipping her hands into her tanks, transferring the fish from
+one compartment to another, and amusing herself by turning on the brass
+taps, shaped like little dolphins with open mouths, from which the
+water poured in streamlets. Amidst the rustling sound of the water she
+had some of the quivering grace of a girl who has just been bathing and
+has hurriedly slipped on her clothes.
+
+One morning she was particularly amiable. She called the inspector to
+her to show him a huge eel which had been the wonder of the market when
+exhibited at the auction. She opened the grating, which she had
+previously closed over the basin in whose depths the eel seemed to be
+lying sound asleep.
+
+“Wait a moment,” she said, “and I’ll show it to you.”
+
+Then she gently slipped her bare arm into the water; it was not a very
+plump arm, and its veins showed softly blue beneath its satiny skin. As
+soon as the eel felt her touch, it rapidly twisted round, and seemed to
+fill the narrow trough with its glistening greenish coils. And directly
+it had settled down to rest again Claire once more stirred it with her
+fingertips.
+
+“It is an enormous creature,” Florent felt bound to say. “I have rarely
+seen such a fine one.”
+
+Claire thereupon confessed to him that she had at first been frightened
+of eels; but now she had learned how to tighten her grip so that they
+could not slip away. From another compartment she took a smaller one,
+which began to wriggle both with head and tail, as she held it about
+the middle in her closed fist. This made her laugh. She let it go, then
+seized another and another, scouring the basin and stirring up the
+whole heap of snaky-looking creatures with her slim fingers.
+
+Afterwards she began to speak of the slackness of trade. The hawkers on
+the foot-pavement of the covered way did the regular saleswomen a great
+deal of injury, she said. Meantime her bare arm, which she had not
+wiped, was glistening and dripping with water. Big drops trickled from
+each finger.
+
+“Oh,” she exclaimed suddenly, “I must show you my carp, too!”
+
+She now removed another grating, and, using both hands, lifted out a
+large carp, which began to flap its tail and gasp. It was too big to be
+held conveniently, so she sought another one. This was smaller, and she
+could hold it with one hand, but the latter was forced slightly open by
+the panting of the sides each time that the fish gasped. To amuse
+herself it occurred to Claire to pop the tip of her thumb into the
+carp’s mouth whilst it was dilated. “It won’t bite,” said she with her
+gentle laugh; “it’s not spiteful. No more are the crawfishes; I’m not
+the least afraid of them.”
+
+She plunged her arm into the water again, and from a compartment full
+of a confused crawling mass brought up a crawfish that had caught her
+little finger in its claws. She gave the creature a shake, but it no
+doubt gripped her too tightly, for she turned very red, and snapped off
+its claw with a quick, angry gesture, though still continuing to smile.
+
+“By the way,” she continued quickly, to conceal her emotion, “I
+wouldn’t trust myself with a pike; he’d cut off my fingers like a
+knife.”
+
+She thereupon showed him some big pike arranged in order of size upon
+clean scoured shelves, beside some bronze-hued tench and little heaps
+of gudgeon. Her hands were now quite slimy with handling the carp, and
+as she stood there in the dampness rising from the tanks, she held them
+outstretched over the dripping fish on the stall. She seemed enveloped
+by an odour of spawn, that heavy scent which rises from among the reeds
+and water-lilies when the fish, languid in the sunlight, discharge
+their eggs. Then she wiped her hands on her apron, still smiling the
+placid smile of a girl who knew nothing of passion in that quivering
+atmosphere of the frigid loves of the river.
+
+The kindliness which Claire showed to Florent was but a slight
+consolation to him. By stopping to talk to the girl he only drew upon
+himself still coarser jeers from the other stallkeepers. Claire
+shrugged her shoulders, and said that her mother was an old jade, and
+her sister a worthless creature. The injustice of the market folk
+towards the new inspector filled her with indignation. The war between
+them, however, grew more bitter every day. Florent had serious thoughts
+of resigning his post; indeed, he would not have retained it for
+another twenty-four hours if he had not been afraid that Lisa might
+imagine him to be a coward. He was frightened of what she might say and
+what she might think. She was naturally well aware of the contest which
+was going on between the fish-wives and their inspector; for the whole
+echoing market resounded with it, and the entire neighbourhood
+discussed each fresh incident with endless comments.
+
+“Ah, well,” Lisa would often say in the evening, after dinner, “I’d
+soon bring them to reason if I had anything to do with them! Why, they
+are a lot of dirty jades that I wouldn’t touch with the tip of my
+finger! That Normande is the lowest of the low! I’d soon crush her,
+that I would! You should really use your authority, Florent. You are
+wrong to behave as you do. Put your foot down, and they’ll all come to
+their senses very quickly, you’ll see.”
+
+A terrible climax was presently reached. One morning the servant of
+Madame Taboureau, the baker, came to the market to buy a brill; and the
+beautiful Norman, having noticed her lingering near her stall for
+several minutes, began to make overtures to her in a coaxing way: “Come
+and see me; I’ll suit you,” she said. “Would you like a pair of soles,
+or a fine turbot?”
+
+Then as the servant at last came up, and sniffed at a brill with that
+dissatisfied pout which buyers assume in the hope of getting what they
+want at a lower price, La Normande continued:
+
+“Just feel the weight of that, now,” and so saying she laid the brill,
+wrapped in a sheet of thick yellow paper, on the woman’s open palm.
+
+The servant, a mournful little woman from Auvergne, felt the weight of
+the brill, and examined its gills, still pouting, and saying not a
+word.
+
+“And how much do you want for it?” she asked presently, in a reluctant
+tone.
+
+“Fifteen francs,” replied La Normande.
+
+At this the servant hastily laid the brill on the stall again, and
+seemed anxious to hurry away, but the other detained her. “Wait a
+moment,” said she. “What do you offer?”
+
+“No, no, I can’t take it. It is much too dear.”
+
+“Come, now, make me an offer.”
+
+“Well, will you take eight francs?”
+
+Old Madame Mehudin, who was there, suddenly seemed to wake up, and
+broke out into a contemptuous laugh. Did people think that she and her
+daughter stole the fish they sold? “Eight francs for a brill that
+size!” she exclaimed. “You’ll be wanting one for nothing next, to use
+as a cooling plaster!”
+
+Meantime La Normande turned her head away, as though greatly offended.
+However, the servant came back twice and offered nine francs; and
+finally she increased her bid to ten.
+
+“All right, come on, give me your money!” cried the fish-girl, seeing
+that the woman was now really going away.
+
+The servant took her stand in front of the stall and entered into a
+friendly gossip with old Madame Mehudin. Madame Taboureau, she said,
+was so exacting! She had got some people coming to dinner that evening,
+some cousins from Blois a notary and his wife. Madame Taboureau’s
+family, she added, was a very respectable one, and she herself,
+although only a baker, had received an excellent education.
+
+“You’ll clean it nicely for me, won’t you?” added the woman, pausing in
+her chatter.
+
+With a jerk of her finger La Normande had removed the fish’s entrails
+and tossed them into a pail. Then she slipped a corner of her apron
+under its gills to wipe away a few grains of sand. “There, my dear,”
+she said, putting the fish into the servant’s basket, “you’ll come back
+to thank me.”
+
+Certainly the servant did come back a quarter of an hour afterwards,
+but it was with a flushed, red face. She had been crying, and her
+little body was trembling all over with anger. Tossing the brill on to
+the marble slab, she pointed to a broad gash in its belly that reached
+the bone. Then a flood of broken words burst from her throat, which was
+still contracted by sobbing: “Madame Taboureau won’t have it. She says
+she couldn’t put it on her table. She told me, too, that I was an
+idiot, and let myself be cheated by anyone. You can see for yourself
+that the fish is spoilt. I never thought of turning it round; I quite
+trusted you. Give me my ten francs back.”
+
+“You should look at what you buy,” the handsome Norman calmly observed.
+
+And then, as the servant was just raising her voice again, old Madame
+Mehudin got up. “Just you shut up!” she cried. “We’re not going to take
+back a fish that’s been knocking about in other people’s houses. How do
+we know that you didn’t let it fall and damage it yourself?”
+
+“I! I damage it!” The little servant was choking with indignation. “Ah!
+you’re a couple of thieves!” she cried, sobbing bitterly. “Yes, a
+couple of thieves! Madame Taboureau herself told me so!”
+
+Matters then became uproarious. Boiling over with rage and brandishing
+their fists, both mother and daughter fairly exploded; while the poor
+little servant, quite bewildered by their voices, the one hoarse and
+the other shrill, which belaboured her with insults as though they were
+battledores and she a shuttlecock, sobbed on more bitterly than ever.
+
+“Be off with you! Your Madame Taboureau would like to be half as fresh
+as that fish is! She’d like us to sew it up for her, no doubt!”
+
+“A whole fish for ten francs! What’ll she want next!”
+
+Then came coarse words and foul accusations. Had the servant been the
+most worthless of her sex she could not have been more bitterly
+upbraided.
+
+Florent, whom the market keeper had gone to fetch, made his appearance
+when the quarrel was at its hottest. The whole pavilion seemed to be in
+a state of insurrection. The fish-wives, who manifest the keenest
+jealousy of each other when the sale of a penny herring is in question,
+display a united front when a quarrel arises with a buyer. They sang
+the popular old ditty, “The baker’s wife has heaps of crowns, which
+cost her precious little”; they stamped their feet, and goaded the
+Mehudins as though the latter were dogs which they were urging on to
+bite and devour. And there were even some, having stalls at the other
+end of the alley, who rushed up wildly, as though they meant to spring
+at the chignon of the poor little woman, she meantime being quite
+submerged by the flood of insulting abuse poured upon her.
+
+“Return mademoiselle her ten francs,” said Florent sternly, when he had
+learned what had taken place.
+
+But old Madame Mehudin had her blood up. “As for you, my little man,”
+quoth she, “go to blazes! Here, that’s how I’ll return the ten francs!”
+
+As she spoke, she flung the brill with all her force at the head of
+Madame Taboureau’s servant, who received it full in the face. The blood
+spurted from her nose, and the brill, after adhering for a moment to
+her cheeks, fell to the ground and burst with a flop like that of a wet
+clout. This brutal act threw Florent into a fury. The beautiful Norman
+felt frightened and recoiled, as he cried out: “I suspend you for a
+week, and I will have your licence withdrawn. You hear me?”
+
+Then, as the other fish-wives were still jeering behind him, he turned
+round with such a threatening air that they quailed like wild beasts
+mastered by the tamer, and tried to assume an expression of innocence.
+When the Mehudins had returned the ten francs, Florent peremptorily
+ordered them to cease selling at once. The old woman was choking with
+rage, while the daughter kept silent, but turned very white. She, the
+beautiful Norman, to be driven out of her stall!
+
+Claire said in her quiet voice that it served her mother and sister
+right, a remark which nearly resulted in the two girls tearing each
+other’s hair out that evening when they returned home to the Rue
+Pirouette. However, when the Mehudins came back to the market at the
+week’s end, they remained very quiet, reserved, and curt of speech,
+though full of a cold-blooded wrath. Moreover, they found the pavilion
+quite calm and restored to order again. From that day forward the
+beautiful Norman must have harboured the thought of some terrible
+vengeance. She felt that she really had Lisa to thank for what had
+happened. She had met her, the day after the battle, carrying her head
+so high, that she had sworn she would make her pay dearly for her
+glance of triumph. She held interminable confabulations with Madame
+Saget, Madame Lecœur, and La Sarriette, in quiet corners of the market;
+however, all their chatter about the shameless conduct which they
+slanderously ascribed to Lisa and her cousin, and about the hairs which
+they declared were found in Quenu’s chitterlings, brought La Normande
+little consolation. She was trying to think of some very malicious plan
+of vengeance, which would strike her rival to the heart.
+
+Her child was growing up in the fish market in all freedom and neglect.
+When but three years old the youngster had been brought there, and day
+by day remained squatting on some rag amidst the fish. He would fall
+asleep beside the big tunnies as though he were one of them, and awake
+among the mackerel and whiting. The little rascal smelt of fish as
+strongly as though he were some big fish’s offspring. For a long time
+his favourite pastime, whenever his mother’s back was turned, was to
+build walls and houses of herrings; and he would also play at soldiers
+on the marble slab, arranging the red gurnets in confronting lines,
+pushing them against each other, and battering their heads, while
+imitating the sound of drum and trumpet with his lips; after which he
+would throw them all into a heap again, and exclaim that they were
+dead. When he grew older he would prowl about his aunt Claire’s stall
+to get hold of the bladders of the carp and pike which she gutted. He
+placed them on the ground and made them burst, an amusement which
+afforded him vast delight. When he was seven he rushed about the
+alleys, crawled under the stalls, ferreted amongst the zinc bound fish
+boxes, and became the spoiled pet of all the women. Whenever they
+showed him something fresh which pleased him, he would clasp his hands
+and exclaim in ecstasy, “Oh, isn’t it stunning!” _Muche_ was the exact
+word which he used; _muche_ being the equivalent of “stunning” in the
+lingo of the markets; and he used the expression so often that it clung
+to him as a nickname. He became known all over the place as “Muche.” It
+was Muche here, there and everywhere; no one called him anything else.
+He was to be met with in every nook; in out-of-the-way corners of the
+offices in the auction pavilion; among the piles of oyster baskets, and
+betwixt the buckets where the refuse was thrown. With a pinky fairness
+of skin, he was like a young barbel frisking and gliding about in deep
+water. He was as fond of running, streaming water as any young fry. He
+was ever dabbling in the pools in the alleys. He wetted himself with
+the drippings from the tables, and when no one was looking often slyly
+turned on the taps, rejoicing in the bursting gush of water. But it was
+especially beside the fountains near the cellar steps that his mother
+went to seek him in the evening, and she would bring him thence with
+his hands quite blue, and his shoes, and even his pockets, full of
+water.
+
+At seven years old Muche was as pretty as an angel, and as coarse in
+his manners as any carter. He had curly chestnut hair, beautiful eyes,
+and an innocent-looking mouth which gave vent to language that even a
+gendarme would have hesitated to use. Brought up amidst all the
+ribaldry and profanity of the markets, he had the whole vocabulary of
+the place on the tip of his tongue. With his hands on his hips he often
+mimicked Grandmother Mehudin in her anger, and at these times the
+coarsest and vilest expressions would stream from his lips in a voice
+of crystalline purity that might have belonged to some little chorister
+chanting the _Ave Maria_. He would even try to assume a hoarse
+roughness of tone, seek to degrade and taint that exquisite freshness
+of childhood which made him resemble a _bambino_ on the Madonna’s
+knees. The fish-wives laughed at him till they cried; and he,
+encouraged, could scarcely say a couple of words without rapping out an
+oath. But in spite of all this he still remained charming,
+understanding nothing of the dirt amidst which he lived, kept in
+vigorous health by the fresh breezes and sharp odours of the fish
+market, and reciting his vocabulary of coarse indecencies with as pure
+a face as though he were saying his prayers.
+
+The winter was approaching, and Muche seemed very sensitive to the
+cold. As soon as the chilly weather set in he manifested a strong
+predilection for the inspector’s office. This was situated in the
+left-hand corner of the pavilion, on the side of the Rue Rambuteau. The
+furniture consisted of a table, a stack of drawers, an easy-chair, two
+other chairs, and a stove. It was this stove which attracted Muche.
+Florent quite worshipped children, and when he saw the little fellow,
+with his dripping legs, gazing wistfully through the window, he made
+him come inside. His first conversation with the lad caused him
+profound amazement. Muche sat down in front of the stove, and in his
+quiet voice exclaimed: “I’ll just toast my toes, do you see? It’s d——d
+cold this morning.” Then he broke into a rippling laugh, and added:
+“Aunt Claire looks awfully blue this morning. Is it true, sir, that you
+are sweet on her?”
+
+Amazed though he was, Florent felt quite interested in the odd little
+fellow. The handsome Norman retained her surly bearing, but allowed her
+son to frequent the inspector’s office without a word of objection.
+Florent consequently concluded that he had the mother’s permission to
+receive the boy, and every afternoon he asked him in; by degrees
+forming the idea of turning him into a steady, respectable young
+fellow. He could almost fancy that his brother Quenu had grown little
+again, and that they were both in the big room in the Rue Royer-Collard
+once more. The life which his self-sacrificing nature pictured to him
+as perfect happiness was a life spent with some young being who would
+never grow up, whom he could go on teaching for ever, and in whose
+innocence he might still love his fellow man. On the third day of his
+acquaintance with Muche he brought an alphabet to the office, and the
+lad delighted him by the intelligence he manifested. He learned his
+letters with all the sharp precocity which marks the Parisian street
+arab, and derived great amusement from the woodcuts illustrating the
+alphabet.
+
+He found opportunities, too, for plenty of fine fun in the little
+office, where the stove still remained the chief attraction and a
+source of endless enjoyment. At first he cooked potatoes and chestnuts
+at it, but presently these seemed insipid, and he thereupon stole some
+gudgeons from his aunt Claire, roasted them one by one, suspended from
+a string in front of the glowing fire, and then devoured them with
+gusto, though he had no bread. One day he even brought a carp with him;
+but it was impossible to roast it sufficiently, and it made such a
+smell in the office that both window and door had to be thrown open.
+Sometimes, when the odour of all these culinary operations became too
+strong, Florent would throw the fish into the street, but as a rule he
+only laughed. By the end of a couple of months Muche was able to read
+fairly well, and his copy-books did him credit.
+
+Meantime, every evening the lad wearied his mother with his talk about
+his good friend Florent. His good friend Florent had drawn him pictures
+of trees and of men in huts, said he. His good friend Florent waved his
+arm and said that men would be far better if they all knew how to read.
+And at last La Normande heard so much about Florent that she seemed to
+be almost intimate with this man against whom she harboured so much
+rancour. One day she shut Muche up at home to prevent him from going to
+the inspector’s, but he cried so bitterly that she gave him his liberty
+again on the following morning. There was very little determination
+about her, in spite of her broad shoulders and bold looks. When the lad
+told her how nice and warm he had been in the office, and came back to
+her with his clothes quite dry, she felt a sort of vague gratitude, a
+pleasure in knowing that he had found a shelter-place where he could
+sit with his feet in front of a fire. Later on, she was quite touched
+when he read her some words from a scrap of soiled newspaper wrapped
+round a slice of conger-eel. By degrees, indeed, she began to think,
+though without admitting it, that Florent could not really be a bad
+sort of fellow. She felt respect for his knowledge, mingled with an
+increasing curiosity to see more of him and learn something of his
+life. Then, all at once, she found an excuse for gratifying this
+inquisitiveness. She would use it as a means of vengeance. It would be
+fine fun to make friends with Florent and embroil him with that great
+fat Lisa.
+
+“Does your good friend Florent ever speak to you about me?” she asked
+Muche one morning as she was dressing him.
+
+“Oh, no,” replied the boy. “We enjoy ourselves.”
+
+“Well, you can tell him that I’ve quite forgiven him, and that I’m much
+obliged to him for having taught you to read.”
+
+Thenceforward the child was entrusted with some message every day. He
+went backwards and forwards from his mother to the inspector, and from
+the inspector to his mother, charged with kindly words and questions
+and answers, which he repeated mechanically without knowing their
+meaning. He might, indeed, have been safely trusted with the most
+compromising communications. However, the beautiful Norman felt afraid
+of appearing timid, and so one day she herself went to the inspector’s
+office and sat down on the second chair, while Muche was having his
+writing lesson. She proved very suave and complimentary, and Florent
+was by far the more embarrassed of the two. They only spoke of the lad;
+and when Florent expressed a fear that he might not be able to continue
+the lessons in the office, La Normande invited him to come to their
+home in the evening. She spoke also of payment; but at this he blushed,
+and said that he certainly would not come if any mention were made of
+money. Thereupon the young woman determined in her own mind that she
+would recompense him with presents of choice fish.
+
+Peace was thus made between them; the beautiful Norman even took
+Florent under her protection. Apart from this, however, the whole
+market was becoming reconciled to the new inspector, the fish-wives
+arriving at the conclusion that he was really a better fellow than
+Monsieur Verlaque, notwithstanding his strange eyes. It was only old
+Madame Mehudin who still shrugged her shoulders, full of rancour as she
+was against the “long lanky-guts,” as she contemptuously called him.
+And then, too, a strange thing happened. One morning, when Florent
+stopped with a smile before Claire’s tanks, the girl dropped an eel
+which she was holding and angrily turned her back upon him, her cheeks
+quite swollen and reddened by temper. The inspector was so much
+astonished that he spoke to La Normande about it.
+
+“Oh, never mind her,” said the young woman; “she’s cracked. She makes a
+point of always differing from everybody else. She only behaved like
+that to annoy me.”
+
+La Normande was now triumphant—she strutted about her stall, and became
+more coquettish than ever, arranging her hair in the most elaborate
+manner. Meeting the handsome Lisa one day she returned her look of
+scorn, and even burst out laughing in her face. The certainty she felt
+of driving the mistress of the pork shop to despair by winning her
+cousin from her endowed her with a gay, sonorous laugh, which rolled up
+from her chest and rippled her white plump neck. She now had the whim
+of dressing Muche very showily in a little Highland costume and velvet
+bonnet. The lad had never previously worn anything but a tattered
+blouse. It unfortunately happened, however, that just about this time
+he again became very fond of the water. The ice had melted and the
+weather was mild, so he gave his Scotch jacket a bath, turning the
+fountain tap on at full flow and letting the water pour down his arm
+from his elbow to his hand. He called this “playing at gutters.” Then a
+little later, when his mother came up and caught him, she found him
+with two other young scamps watching a couple of little fishes swimming
+about in his velvet cap, which he had filled with water.
+
+For nearly eight months Florent lived in the markets, feeling continual
+drowsiness. After his seven years of suffering he had lighted upon such
+calm quietude, such unbroken regularity of life, that he was scarcely
+conscious of existing. He gave himself up to this jog-trot peacefulness
+with a dazed sort of feeling, continually experiencing surprise at
+finding himself each morning in the same armchair in the little office.
+This office with its bare hut-like appearance had a charm for him. He
+here found a quiet and secluded refuge amidst that ceaseless roar of
+the markets which made him dream of some surging sea spreading around
+him, and isolating him from the world. Gradually, however, a vague
+nervousness began to prey upon him; he became discontented, accused
+himself of faults which he could not define, and began to rebel against
+the emptiness which he experienced more and more acutely in mind and
+body. Then, too, the evil smells of the fish market brought him nausea.
+By degrees he became unhinged, his vague boredom developing into
+restless, nervous excitement.
+
+All his days were precisely alike, spent among the same sounds and the
+same odours. In the mornings the noisy buzzing of the auction sales
+resounded in his ears like a distant echo of bells; and sometimes, when
+there was a delay in the arrival of the fish, the auctions continued
+till very late. Upon these occasions he remained in the pavilion till
+noon, disturbed at every moment by quarrels and disputes, which he
+endeavoured to settle with scrupulous justice. Hours elapsed before he
+could get free of some miserable matter or other which was exciting the
+market. He paced up and down amidst the crush and uproar of the sales,
+slowly perambulating the alleys and occasionally stopping in front of
+the stalls which fringed the Rue Rambuteau, and where lay rosy heaps of
+prawns and baskets of boiled lobsters with tails tied backwards, while
+live ones were gradually dying as they sprawled over the marble slabs.
+And then he would watch gentlemen in silk hats and black gloves
+bargaining with the fish-wives, and finally going off with boiled
+lobsters wrapped in paper in the pockets of their frock-coats.[*]
+Farther away, at the temporary stalls, where the commoner sorts of fish
+were sold, he would recognise the bareheaded women of the
+neighbourhood, who always came at the same hour to make their
+purchases.
+
+[*] The little fish-basket for the use of customers, so familiar in
+London, is not known in Paris.—Translator.
+
+
+At times he took an interest in some well-dressed lady trailing her
+lace petticoats over the damp stones, and escorted by a servant in a
+white apron; and he would follow her at a little distance on noticing
+how the fish-wives shrugged their shoulders at sight of her air of
+disgust. The medley of hampers and baskets and bags, the crowd of
+skirts flitting along the damp alleys, occupied his attention until
+lunchtime. He took a delight in the dripping water and the fresh breeze
+as he passed from the acrid smell of the shell-fish to the pungent
+odour of the salted fish. It was always with the latter that he brought
+his official round of inspection to a close. The cases of red herrings,
+the Nantes sardines on their layers of leaves, and the rolled cod,
+exposed for sale under the eyes of stout, faded fish-wives, brought him
+thoughts of a voyage necessitating a vast supply of salted provisions.
+
+In the afternoon the markets became quieter, grew drowsy; and Florent
+then shut himself up in his office, made out his reports, and enjoyed
+the happiest hours of his day. If he happened to go out and cross the
+fish market, he found it almost deserted. There was no longer the
+crushing and pushing and uproar of ten o’clock in the morning. The
+fish-wives, seated behind their stalls, leant back knitting, while a
+few belated purchasers prowled about casting sidelong glances at the
+remaining fish, with the thoughtful eyes and compressed lips of women
+closely calculating the price of their dinner. At last the twilight
+fell, there was a noise of boxes being moved, and the fish was laid for
+the night on beds of ice; and then, after witnessing the closing of the
+gates, Florent went off, seemingly carrying the fish market along with
+him in his clothes and his beard and his hair.
+
+For the first few months this penetrating odour caused him no great
+discomfort. The winter was a severe one, the frosts converted the
+alleys into slippery mirrors, and the fountains and marble slabs were
+fringed with a lacework of ice. In the mornings it was necessary to
+place little braziers underneath the taps before a drop of water could
+be drawn. The frozen fish had twisted tails; and, dull of hue and hard
+to the touch like unpolished metal, gave out a ringing sound akin to
+that of pale cast-iron when it snaps. Until February the pavilion
+presented a most mournful appearance: it was deserted, and wrapped in a
+bristling shroud of ice. But with March came a thaw, with mild weather
+and fogs and rain. Then the fish became soft again, and unpleasant
+odours mingled with the smell of mud wafted from the neighbouring
+streets. These odours were as yet vague, tempered by the moisture which
+clung to the ground. But in the blazing June afternoons a reeking
+stench arose, and the atmosphere became heavy with a pestilential haze.
+The upper windows were then opened, and huge blinds of grey canvas were
+drawn beneath the burning sky. Nevertheless, a fiery rain seemed to be
+pouring down, heating the market as though it were a big stove, and
+there was not a breath of air to waft away the noxious emanations from
+the fish. A visible steam went up from the stalls.
+
+The masses of food amongst which Florent lived now began to cause him
+the greatest discomfort. The disgust with which the pork shop had
+filled him came back in a still more intolerable fashion. He almost
+sickened as he passed these masses of fish, which, despite all the
+water lavished upon them, turned bad under a sudden whiff of hot air.
+Even when he shut himself up in his office his discomfort continued,
+for the abominable odour forced its way through the chinks in the
+woodwork of the window and door. When the sky was grey and leaden, the
+little room remained quite dark; and then the day was like a long
+twilight in the depths of some fetid march. He was often attacked by
+fits of nervous excitement, and felt a craving desire to walk; and he
+would then descend into the cellars by the broad staircase opening in
+the middle of the pavilion. In the pent-up air down below, in the dim
+light of the occasional gas jets, he once more found the refreshing
+coolness diffused by pure cold water. He would stand in front of the
+big tank where the reserve stock of live fish was kept, and listen to
+the ceaseless murmur of the four streamlets of water falling from the
+four corners of the central urn, and then spreading into a broad stream
+and gliding beneath the locked gratings of the basins with a gentle and
+continuous flow. This subterranean spring, this stream murmuring in the
+gloom, had a tranquillising effect upon him. Of an evening, too, he
+delighted in the fine sunsets which threw the delicate lacework of the
+market buildings blackly against the red glow of the heavens. The
+dancing dust of the last sun rays streamed through every opening,
+through every chink of the Venetian shutters, and the whole was like
+some luminous transparency on which the slender shafts of the columns,
+the elegant curves of the girders, and the geometrical tracery of the
+roofs were minutely outlined. Florent feasted his eyes on this mighty
+diagram washed in with Indian ink on phosphorescent vellum, and his
+mind reverted to his old fancy of a colossal machine with wheels and
+levers and beams espied in the crimson glow of the fires blazing
+beneath its boilers. At each consecutive hour of the day the changing
+play of the light—from the bluish haze of early morning and the black
+shadows of noon to the flaring of the sinking sun and the paling of its
+fires in the ashy grey of the twilight—revealed the markets under a new
+aspect; but on the flaming evenings, when the foul smells arose and
+forced their way across the broad yellow beams like hot puffs of steam,
+Florent again experienced discomfort, and his dream changed, and he
+imagined himself in some gigantic knacker’s boiling-house where the fat
+of a whole people was being melted down.
+
+The coarseness of the market people, whose words and gestures seemed to
+be infected with the evil smell of the place, also made him suffer. He
+was very tolerant, and showed no mock modesty; still, these impudent
+women often embarrassed him. Madame Francois, whom he had again met,
+was the only one with whom he felt at ease. She showed such pleasure on
+learning he had found a berth and was quite comfortable and out of
+worry, as she put it, that he was quite touched. The laughter of Lisa,
+the handsome Norman, and the others disquieted him; but of Madame
+Francois he would willingly have made a confidante. She never laughed
+mockingly at him; when she did laugh, it was like a woman rejoicing at
+another’s happiness. She was a brave, plucky creature, too; hers was a
+hard business in winter, during the frosts, and the rainy weather was
+still more trying. On some mornings Florent saw her arrive in a pouring
+deluge which had been slowly, coldly falling ever since the previous
+night. Between Nanterre and Paris the wheels of her cart had sunk up to
+the axles in mud, and Balthazar was caked with mire to his belly. His
+mistress would pity him and sympathise with him as she wiped him down
+with some old aprons.
+
+“The poor creatures are very sensitive,” said she; “a mere nothing
+gives them a cold. Ah, my poor old Balthazar! I really thought that we
+had tumbled into the Seine as we crossed the Neuilly bridge, the rain
+came down in such a deluge!”
+
+While Balthazar was housed in the inn stable his mistress remained in
+the pouring rain to sell her vegetables. The footway was transformed
+into a lake of liquid mud. The cabbages, carrots, and turnips were
+pelted by the grey water, quite drowned by the muddy torrent that
+rushed along the pavement. There was no longer any of that glorious
+greenery so apparent on bright mornings. The market gardeners, cowering
+in their heavy cloaks beneath the downpour, swore at the municipality
+which, after due inquiry, had declared that rain was in no way
+injurious to vegetables, and that there was accordingly no necessity to
+erect any shelters.
+
+Those rainy mornings greatly worried Florent, who thought about Madame
+Francois. He always managed to slip away and get a word with her. But
+he never found her at all low-spirited. She shook herself like a
+poodle, saying that she was quite used to such weather, and was not
+made of sugar, to melt away beneath a few drops of rain. However, he
+made her seek refuge for a few minutes in one of the covered ways, and
+frequently even took her to Monsieur Lebigre’s, where they had some hot
+wine together. While she with her peaceful face beamed on him in all
+friendliness, he felt quite delighted with the healthy odour of the
+fields which she brought into the midst of the foul market atmosphere.
+She exhaled a scent of earth, hay, fresh air, and open skies.
+
+“You must come to Nanterre, my lad,” she said to him, “and look at my
+kitchen garden. I have put borders of thyme everywhere. How bad your
+villainous Paris does smell!”
+
+Then she went off, dripping. Florent, on his side, felt quite
+re-invigorated when he parted from her. He tried, too the effect of
+work upon the nervous depression from which he suffered. He was a man
+of a very methodical temperament, and sometimes carried out his plans
+for the allotment of his time with a strictness that bordered on mania.
+He shut himself up two evenings a week in order to write an exhaustive
+work on Cayenne. His modest bedroom was excellently adapted, he
+thought, to calm his mind and incline him to work. He lighted his fire,
+saw that the pomegranate at the foot of the bed was looking all right,
+and then seated himself at the little table, and remained working till
+midnight. He had pushed the missal and Dream-book back in the drawer,
+which was now filling with notes, memoranda, manuscripts of all kinds.
+The work on Cayenne made but slow progress, however, as it was
+constantly being interrupted by other projects, plans for enormous
+undertakings which he sketched out in a few words. He successively
+drafted an outline of a complete reform of the administrative system of
+the markets, a scheme for transforming the city dues, levied on produce
+as it entered Paris, into taxes levied upon the sales, a new system of
+victualling the poorer neighbourhoods, and, lastly, a somewhat vague
+socialist enactment for the storing in common warehouses of all the
+provisions brought to the markets, and the ensuring of a minimum daily
+supply to each household in Paris. As he sat there, with his head bent
+over his table, and his mind absorbed in thoughts of all these weighty
+matters, his gloomy figure cast a great black shadow on the soft
+peacefulness of the garret. Sometimes a chaffinch which he had picked
+up one snowy day in the market would mistake the lamplight for the day,
+and break the silence, which only the scratching of Florent’s pen on
+his paper disturbed, by a cry.
+
+Florent was fated to revert to politics. He had suffered too much
+through them not to make them the dearest occupation of his life. Under
+other conditions he might have become a good provincial schoolmaster,
+happy in the peaceful life of some little town. But he had been treated
+as though he were a wolf, and felt as though he had been marked out by
+exile for some great combative task. His nervous discomfort was the
+outcome of his long reveries at Cayenne, the brooding bitterness he had
+felt at his unmerited sufferings, and the vows he had secretly sworn to
+avenge humanity and justice—the former scourged with a whip, and the
+latter trodden under foot. Those colossal markets and their teeming
+odoriferous masses of food had hastened the crisis. To Florent they
+appeared symbolical of some glutted, digesting beast, of Paris,
+wallowing in its fat and silently upholding the Empire. He seemed to be
+encircled by swelling forms and sleek, fat faces, which ever and ever
+protested against his own martyrlike scragginess and sallow,
+discontented visage. To him the markets were like the stomach of the
+shopkeeping classes, the stomach of all the folks of average rectitude
+puffing itself out, rejoicing, glistening in the sunshine, and
+declaring that everything was for the best, since peaceable people had
+never before grown so beautifully fat. As these thoughts passed through
+his mind Florent clenched his fists, and felt ready for a struggle,
+more irritated now by the thought of his exile than he had been when he
+first returned to France. Hatred resumed entire possession of him. He
+often let his pen drop and became absorbed in dreams. The dying fire
+cast a bright glow upon his face; the lamp burned smokily, and the
+chaffinch fell asleep again on one leg, with its head tucked under its
+wing.
+
+Sometimes Auguste, on coming upstairs at eleven o’clock and seeing the
+light shining under the door, would knock, before going to bed. Florent
+admitted him with some impatience. The assistant sat down in front of
+the fire, speaking but little, and never saying why he had come. His
+eyes would all the time remain fixed upon the photograph of himself and
+Augustine in their Sunday finery. Florent came to the conclusion that
+the young man took a pleasure in visiting the room for the simple
+reason that it had been occupied by his sweetheart; and one evening he
+asked him with a smile if he had guessed rightly.
+
+“Well, perhaps it is so,” replied Auguste, very much surprised at the
+discovery which he himself now made of the reasons which actuated him.
+“I’d really never thought of that before. I came to see you without
+knowing why. But if I were to tell Augustine, how she’d laugh!”
+
+Whenever he showed himself at all loquacious, his one eternal theme was
+the pork shop which he was going to set up with Augustine at Plaisance.
+He seemed so perfectly assured of arranging his life in accordance with
+his desires, that Florent grew to feel a sort of respect for him,
+mingled with irritation. After all, the young fellow was very resolute
+and energetic, in spite of his seeming stupidity. He made straight for
+the goal he had in view, and would doubtless reach it in perfect
+assurance and happiness. On the evenings of these visits from the
+apprentice, Florent could not settle down to work again; he went off to
+bed in a discontented mood, and did not recover his equilibrium till
+the thought passed through his mind, “Why, that Auguste is a perfect
+animal!”
+
+Every month he went to Clamart to see Monsieur Verlaque. These visits
+were almost a delight to him. The poor man still lingered on, to the
+great astonishment of Gavard, who had not expected him to last for more
+than six months. Every time that Florent went to see him Verlaque would
+declare that he was feeling better, and was most anxious to resume his
+work again. But the days glided by, and he had serious relapses.
+Florent would sit by his bedside, chat about the fish market, and do
+what he could to enliven him. He deposited on the pedestal table the
+fifty francs which he surrendered to him each month; and the old
+inspector, though the payment had been agreed upon, invariably
+protested, and seemed disinclined to take the money. Then they would
+begin to speak of something else, and the coins remained lying on the
+table. When Florent went away, Madame Verlaque always accompanied him
+to the street door. She was a gentle little woman, of a very tearful
+disposition. Her one topic of conversation was the expense necessitated
+by her husband’s illness, the costliness of chicken broth, butcher’s
+meat, Bordeaux wine, medicine, and doctors’ fees. Her doleful
+conversation greatly embarrassed Florent, and on the first few
+occasions he did not understand the drift of it. But at last, as the
+poor woman seemed always in a state of tears, and kept saying how happy
+and comfortable they had been when they had enjoyed the full salary of
+eighteen hundred francs a year, he timidly offered to make her a
+private allowance, to be kept secret from her husband. This offer,
+however, she declined, inconsistently declaring that the fifty francs
+were sufficient. But in the course of the month she frequently wrote to
+Florent, calling him their saviour. Her handwriting was small and fine,
+yet she would contrive to fill three pages of letter paper with humble,
+flowing sentences entreating the loan of ten francs; and this she at
+last did so regularly that wellnigh the whole of Florent’s hundred and
+fifty francs found its way to the Verlaques. The husband was probably
+unaware of it; however, the wife gratefully kissed Florent’s hands.
+This charity afforded him the greatest pleasure, and he concealed it as
+though it were some forbidden selfish indulgence.
+
+“That rascal Verlaque is making a fool of you,” Gavard would sometimes
+say. “He’s coddling himself up finely now that you are doing the work
+and paying him an income.”
+
+At last one day Florent replied:
+
+“Oh, we’ve arranged matters together. I’m only to give him twenty-five
+francs a month in future.”
+
+As a matter of fact, Florent had but little need of money. The Quenus
+continued to provide him with board and lodging; and the few francs
+which he kept by him sufficed to pay for the refreshment he took in the
+evening at Monsieur Lebigre’s. His life had gradually assumed all the
+regularity of clockwork. He worked in his bedroom, continued to teach
+little Muche twice a week from eight to nine o’clock, devoted an
+evening to Lisa, to avoid offending her, and spent the rest of his
+spare time in the little “cabinet” with Gavard and his friends.
+
+When he went to the Mehudins’ there was a touch of tutorial stiffness
+in his gentle demeanour. He was pleased with the old house in the Rue
+Pirouette. On the ground floor he passed through the faint odours
+pervading the premises of the purveyor of cooked vegetables. Big pans
+of boiled spinach and sorrel stood cooling in the little backyard. Then
+he ascended the winding staircase, greasy and dark, with worn and
+bulging steps which sloped in a disquieting manner. The Mehudins
+occupied the whole of the second floor. Even when they had attained to
+comfortable circumstances the old mother had always declined to move
+into fresh quarters, despite all the supplications of her daughters,
+who dreamt of living in a new house in a fine broad street. But on this
+point the old woman was not to be moved; she had lived there, she said,
+and meant to die there. She contented herself, moreover, with a dark
+little closet, leaving the largest rooms to Claire and La Normande. The
+later, with the authority of the elder born, had taken possession of
+the room that overlooked the street; it was the best and largest of the
+suite. Claire was so much annoyed at her sister’s action in the matter
+that she refused to occupy the adjoining room, whose window overlooked
+the yard, and obstinately insisted on sleeping on the other side of the
+landing, in a sort of garret, which she did not even have whitewashed.
+However, she had her own key, and so was independent; directly anything
+happened to displease her she locked herself up in her own quarters.
+
+As a rule, when Florent arrived the Mehudins were just finishing their
+dinner. Muche sprang to his neck, and for a moment the young man
+remained seated with the lad chattering between his legs. Then, when
+the oilcloth cover had been wiped, the lesson began on a corner of the
+table. The beautiful Norman gave Florent a cordial welcome. She
+generally began to knit or mend some linen, and would draw her chair up
+to the table and work by the light of the same lamp as the others; and
+she frequently put down her needle to listen to the lesson, which
+filled her with surprise. She soon began to feel warm esteem for this
+man who seemed so clever, who, in speaking to the little one, showed
+himself as gentle as a woman, and manifested angelic patience in again
+and again repeating the same instructions. She no longer considered him
+at all plain, but even felt somewhat jealous of beautiful Lisa. And
+then she drew her chair still nearer, and gazed at Florent with an
+embarrassing smile.
+
+“But you are jogging my elbow, mother, and I can’t write,” Muche
+exclaimed angrily. “There! see what a blot you’ve made me make! Get
+further away, do!”
+
+La Normande now gradually began to say a good many unpleasant things
+about beautiful Lisa. She pretended that the latter concealed her real
+age, that she laced her stays so tightly that she nearly suffocated
+herself, and that if she came down of a morning looking so trim and
+neat, without a single hair out of place, it must be because she looked
+perfectly hideous when in dishabille. Then La Normande would raise her
+arm a little, and say that there was no need for her to wear any stays
+to cramp and deform her figure. At these times the lessons would be
+interrupted, and Muche gazed with interest at his mother as she raised
+her arms. Florent listened to her, and even laughed, thinking to
+himself that women were very odd creatures. The rivalry between the
+beautiful Norman and beautiful Lisa amused him.
+
+Muche, however, managed to finish his page of writing. Florent, who was
+a good penman, set him copies in large hand and round hand on slips of
+paper. The words he chose were very long and took up the whole line,
+and he evinced a marked partiality for such expressions as
+“tyrannically,” “liberticide,” “unconstitutional,” and “revolutionary.”
+At times also he made the boy copy such sentences as these: “The day of
+justice will surely come”; “The suffering of the just man is the
+condemnation of the oppressor”; “When the hour strikes, the guilty
+shall fall.” In preparing these copy slips he was, indeed, influenced
+by the ideas which haunted his brain; he would for the time become
+quite oblivious of Muche, the beautiful Norman, and all his
+surroundings. The lad would have copied Rousseau’s “Contrat Social” had
+he been told to do so; and thus, drawing each letter in turn, he filled
+page after page with lines of “tyrannically” and “unconstitutional.”
+
+As long as the tutor remained there, old Madame Mehudin kept fidgeting
+round the table, muttering to herself. She still harboured terrible
+rancour against Florent; and asserted that it was folly to make the lad
+work in that way at a time when children should be in bed. She would
+certainly have turned that “spindle-shanks” out of the house, if the
+beautiful Norman, after a stormy scene, had not bluntly told her that
+she would go to live elsewhere if she were not allowed to receive whom
+she chose. However, the pair began quarrelling again on the subject
+every evening.
+
+“You may say what you like,” exclaimed the old woman; “but he’s got
+treacherous eyes. And, besides, I’m always suspicious of those skinny
+people. A skinny man’s capable of anything. I’ve never come across a
+decent one yet. That one’s as flat as a board. And he’s got such an
+ugly face, too! Though I’m sixty-five and more, I’d precious soon send
+him about his business if he came a-courting of me!”
+
+She said this because she had a shrewd idea of how matters were likely
+to turn out. And then she went on to speak in laudatory terms of
+Monsieur Lebigre, who, indeed, paid the greatest attention to the
+beautiful Norman. Apart from the handsome dowry which he imagined she
+would bring with her, he considered that she would be a magnificent
+acquisition to his counter. The old woman never missed an opportunity
+to sound his praises; there was no lankiness, at any rate, about him,
+said she; he was stout and strong, with a pair of calves which would
+have done honour even to one of the Emperor’s footmen.
+
+However, La Normande shrugged her shoulders and snappishly replied:
+“What do I care whether he’s stout or not? I don’t want him or anybody.
+And besides, I shall do as I please.”
+
+Then, if the old woman became too pointed in her remarks, the other
+added: “It’s no business of yours, and besides, it isn’t true. Hold
+your tongue and don’t worry me.” And thereupon she would go off into
+her room, banging the door behind her. Florent, however, had a yet more
+bitter enemy than Madame Mehudin in the house. As soon as ever he
+arrived there, Claire would get up without a word, take a candle, and
+go off to her own room on the other side of the landing; and she could
+be heard locking her door in a burst of sullen anger. One evening when
+her sister asked the tutor to dinner, she prepared her own food on the
+landing, and ate it in her bedroom; and now and again she secluded
+herself so closely that nothing was seen of her for a week at a time.
+She usually retained her appearance of soft lissomness, but
+periodically had a fit of iron rigidity, when her eyes blazed from
+under her pale tawny locks like those of a distrustful wild animal. Old
+Mother Mehudin, fancying that she might relieve herself in her company,
+only made her furious by speaking to her of Florent; and thereupon the
+old woman, in her exasperation, told everyone that she would have gone
+off and left her daughters to themselves had she not been afraid of
+their devouring each other if they remained alone together.
+
+As Florent went away one evening, he passed in front of Claire’s door,
+which was standing wide open. He saw the girl look at him, and turn
+very red. Her hostile demeanour annoyed him; and it was only the
+timidity which he felt in the presence of women that restrained him
+from seeking an explanation of her conduct. On this particular evening
+he would certainly have addressed her if he had not detected
+Mademoiselle Saget’s pale face peering over the balustrade of the upper
+landing. So he went his way, but had not taken a dozen steps before
+Claire’s door was closed behind him with such violence as to shake the
+whole staircase. It was after this that Mademoiselle Saget, eager to
+propagate slander, went about repeating everywhere that Madame Quenu’s
+cousin was “carrying on” most dreadfully with both the Mehudin girls.
+
+Florent, however, gave very little thought to these two handsome young
+women. His usual manner towards them was that of a man who has but
+little success with the sex. Certainly he had come to entertain a
+feeling of genuine friendship for La Normande, who really displayed a
+very good heart when her impetuous temper did not run away with her.
+But he never went any further than this. Moreover, the queenly
+proportions of her robust figure filled him with a kind of alarm; and
+of an evening, whenever she drew her chair up to the lamp and bent
+forward as though to look at Muche’s copy-book, he drew in his own
+sharp bony elbows and shrunken shoulders as if realising what a pitiful
+specimen of humanity he was by the side of that buxom, hardy creature
+so full of the life of ripe womanhood. Moreover, there was another
+reason why he recoiled from her. The smells of the markets distressed
+him; on finishing his duties of an evening he would have liked to
+escape from the fishy odour amidst which his days were spent; but,
+alas! beautiful though La Normande was, this odour seemed to adhere to
+her silky skin. She had tried every sort of aromatic oil, and bathed
+freely; but as soon as the freshening influence of the bath was over
+her blood again impregnated her skin with the faint odour of salmon,
+the musky perfume of smelts, and the pungent scent of herrings and
+skate. Her skirts, too, as she moved about, exhaled these fishy smells,
+and she walked as though amidst an atmosphere redolent of slimy
+seaweed. With her tall, goddess-like figure, her purity of form, and
+transparency of complexion she resembled some lovely antique marble
+that had rolled about in the depths of the sea and had been brought to
+land in some fisherman’s net.
+
+Mademoiselle Saget, however, swore by all her gods that Florent was the
+young woman’s lover. According to her account, indeed, he courted both
+the sisters. She had quarrelled with the beautiful Norman about a
+ten-sou dab; and ever since this falling-out she had manifested warm
+friendship for handsome Lisa. By this means she hoped the sooner to
+arrive at a solution of what she called the Quenus’ mystery. Florent
+still continued to elude her curiosity, and she told her friends that
+she felt like a body without a soul, though she was careful not to
+reveal what was troubling her so grievously. A young girl infatuated
+with a hopeless passion could not have been in more distress than this
+terrible old woman at finding herself unable to solve the mystery of
+the Quenus’ cousin. She was constantly playing the spy on Florent,
+following him about, and watching him, in a burning rage at her failure
+to satisfy her rampant curiosity. Now that he had begun to visit the
+Mehudins she was for ever haunting the stairs and landings. She soon
+discovered that handsome Lisa was much annoyed at Florent visiting
+“those women,” and accordingly she called at the pork shop every
+morning with a budget of information. She went in shrivelled and shrunk
+by the frosty air, and, resting her hands on the heating-pan to warm
+them, remained in front of the counter buying nothing, but repeating in
+her shrill voice: “He was with them again yesterday; he seems to live
+there now. I heard La Normande call him ‘my dear’ on the staircase.”
+
+She indulged like this in all sorts of lies in order to remain in the
+shop and continue warming her hands for a little longer. On the morning
+after the evening when she had heard Claire close her door behind
+Florent, she spun out her story for a good half hour, inventing all
+sorts of mendacious and abominable particulars.
+
+Lisa, who had assumed a look of contemptuous scorn, said but little,
+simply encouraging Mademoiselle Saget’s gossip by her silence. At last,
+however, she interrupted her. “No, no,” she said; “I can’t really
+listen to all that. Is it possible that there can be such women?”
+
+Thereupon Mademoiselle Saget told Lisa that unfortunately all women
+were not so well conducted as herself. And then she pretended to find
+all sorts of excuses for Florent: it wasn’t his fault; he was no doubt
+a bachelor; these women had very likely inveigled him in their snares.
+In this way she hinted questions without openly asking them. But Lisa
+preserved silence with respect to her cousin, merely shrugging her
+shoulders and compressing her lips. When Mademoiselle Saget at last
+went away, the mistress of the shop glanced with disgust at the cover
+of the heating-pan, the glistening metal of which had been tarnished by
+the impression of the old woman’s little hands.
+
+“Augustine,” she cried, “bring a duster, and wipe the cover of the
+heating-pan. It’s quite filthy!”
+
+The rivalry between the beautiful Lisa and the beautiful Norman now
+became formidable. The beautiful Norman flattered herself that she had
+carried a lover off from her enemy; and the beautiful Lisa was
+indignant with the hussy who, by luring the sly cousin to her home,
+would surely end by compromising them all. The natural temperament of
+each woman manifested itself in the hostilities which ensued. The one
+remained calm and scornful, like a lady who holds up her skirts to keep
+them from being soiled by the mud; while the other, much less subject
+to shame, displayed insolent gaiety and swaggered along the footways
+with the airs of a duellist seeking a cause of quarrel. Each of their
+skirmishes would be the talk of the fish market for the whole day. When
+the beautiful Norman saw the beautiful Lisa standing at the door of her
+shop, she would go out of her way in order to pass her, and brush
+against her with her apron; and then the angry glances of the two
+rivals crossed like rapiers, with the rapid flash and thrust of pointed
+steel. When the beautiful Lisa, on the other hand, went to the fish
+market, she assumed an expression of disgust on approaching the
+beautiful Norman’s stall. And then she proceeded to purchase some big
+fish—a turbot or a salmon—of a neighbouring dealer, spreading her money
+out on the marble slab as she did so, for she had noticed that this
+seemed to have a painful effect upon the “hussy,” who ceased laughing
+at the sight. To hear the two rivals speak, anyone would have supposed
+that the fish and pork they sold were quite unfit for food. However,
+their principal engagements took place when the beautiful Norman was
+seated at her stall and the beautiful Lisa at her counter, and they
+glowered blackly at each other across the Rue Rambuteau. They sat in
+state in their big white aprons, decked out with showy toilets and
+jewels, and the battle between them would commence early in the
+morning.
+
+“Hallo, the fat woman’s got up!” the beautiful Norman would exclaim.
+“She ties herself up as tightly as her sausages! Ah, she’s got
+Saturday’s collar on again, and she’s still wearing that poplin dress!”
+
+At the same moment, on the opposite side of the street, beautiful Lisa
+was saying to her shop girl: “Just look at that creature staring at us
+over yonder, Augustine! She’s getting quite deformed by the life she
+leads. Do you see her earrings? She’s wearing those big drops of hers,
+isn’t she? It makes one feel ashamed to see a girl like that with
+brilliants.”
+
+All complaisance, Augustine echoed her mistress’s words.
+
+When either of them was able to display a new ornament it was like
+scoring a victory—the other one almost choked with spleen. Every day
+they would scrutinise and count each other’s customers, and manifest
+the greatest annoyance if they thought that the “big thing over the
+way” was doing the better business. Then they spied out what each had
+for lunch. Each knew what the other ate, and even watched to see how
+she digested it. In the afternoon, while the one sat amidst her cooked
+meats and the other amidst her fish, they posed and gave themselves
+airs, as though they were queens of beauty. It was then that the
+victory of the day was decided. The beautiful Norman embroidered,
+selecting the most delicate and difficult work, and this aroused Lisa’s
+exasperation.
+
+“Ah!” she said, speaking of her rival, “she had far better mend her
+boy’s stockings. He’s running about quite barefooted. Just look at that
+fine lady, with her red hands stinking of fish!”
+
+For her part, Lisa usually knitted.
+
+“She’s still at that same sock,” La Normande would say, as she watched
+her. “She eats so much that she goes to sleep over her work. I pity her
+poor husband if he’s waiting for those socks to keep his feet warm!”
+
+They would sit glowering at each other with this implacable hostility
+until evening, taking note of every customer, and displaying such keen
+eyesight that they detected the smallest details of each other’s dress
+and person when other women declared that they could see nothing at
+such a distance. Mademoiselle Saget expressed the highest admiration
+for Madame Quenu’s wonderful sight when she one day detected a scratch
+on the fish-girl’s left cheek. With eyes like those, said the old maid,
+one might even see through a door. However, the victory often remained
+undecided when night fell; sometimes one or other of the rivals was
+temporarily crushed, but she took her revenge on the morrow. Several
+people of the neighbourhood actually laid wagers on these contests,
+some backing the beautiful Lisa and others the beautiful Norman.
+
+At last they ended by forbidding their children to speak to one
+another. Pauline and Muche had formerly been good friends,
+notwithstanding the girl’s stiff petticoats and lady-like demeanour,
+and the lad’s tattered appearance, coarse language, and rough manners.
+They had at times played together at horses on the broad footway in
+front of the fish market, Pauline always being the horse and Muche the
+driver. One day, however, when the boy came in all simplicity to seek
+his playmate, Lisa turned him out of the house, declaring that he was a
+dirty little street arab.
+
+“One can’t tell what may happen with children who have been so
+shockingly brought up,” she observed.
+
+“Yes, indeed; you are quite right,” replied Mademoiselle Saget, who
+happened to be present.
+
+When Muche, who was barely seven years old, came in tears to his mother
+to tell her of what had happened, La Normande broke out into a terrible
+passion. At the first moment she felt a strong inclination to rush over
+to the Quenu-Gradelles’ and smash everything in their shop. But
+eventually she contented herself with giving Muche a whipping.
+
+“If ever I catch you going there again,” she cried, boiling over with
+anger, “you’ll get it hot from me, I can tell you!”
+
+Florent, however, was the real victim of the two women. It was he, in
+truth, who had set them by the ears, and it was on his account that
+they were fighting each other. Ever since he had appeared upon the
+scene things had been going from bad to worse. He compromised and
+disturbed and embittered all these people, who had previously lived in
+such sleek peace and harmony. The beautiful Norman felt inclined to
+claw him when he lingered too long with the Quenus, and it was chiefly
+from an impulse of hostile rivalry that she desired to win him to
+herself. The beautiful Lisa, on her side, maintained a cold judicial
+bearing, and although extremely annoyed, forced herself to silence
+whenever she saw Florent leaving the pork shop to go to the Rue
+Pirouette.
+
+Still, there was now much less cordiality than formerly round the
+Quenus’ dinner-table in the evening. The clean, prim dining-room seemed
+to have assumed an aspect of chilling severity. Florent divined a
+reproach, a sort of condemnation in the bright oak, the polished lamp,
+and the new matting. He scarcely dared to eat for fear of letting
+crumbs fall on the floor or soiling his plate. There was a guileless
+simplicity about him which prevented him from seeing how the land
+really lay. He still praised Lisa’s affectionate kindliness on all
+sides; and outwardly, indeed, she did continue to treat him with all
+gentleness.
+
+“It is very strange,” she said to him one day with a smile, as though
+she were joking; “although you don’t eat at all badly now, you don’t
+get fatter. Your food doesn’t seem to do you any good.”
+
+At this Quenu laughed aloud, and tapping his brother’s stomach,
+protested that the whole contents of the pork shop might pass through
+it without depositing a layer of fat as thick as a two-sou piece.
+However, Lisa’s insistence on this particular subject was instinct with
+that same suspicious dislike for fleshless men which Madame Mehudin
+manifested more outspokenly; and behind it all there was likewise a
+veiled allusion to the disorderly life which she imagined Florent was
+leading. She never, however, spoke a word to him about La Normande.
+Quenu had attempted a joke on the subject one evening, but Lisa had
+received it so icily that the good man had not ventured to refer to the
+matter again. They would remain seated at table for a few moments after
+dessert, and Florent, who had noticed his sister-in-law’s vexation if
+ever he went off too soon, tried to find something to talk about. On
+these occasions Lisa would be near him, and certainly he did not suffer
+in her presence from that fishy smell which assailed him when he was in
+the company of La Normande. The mistress of the pork shop, on the
+contrary, exhaled an odour of fat and rich meats. Moreover, not a
+thrill of life stirred her tight-fitting bodice; she was all
+massiveness and all sedateness. Gavard once said to Florent in
+confidence that Madame Quenu was no doubt handsome, but that for his
+part he did not admire such armour-plated women.
+
+Lisa avoided talking to Quenu of Florent. She habitually prided herself
+on her patience, and considered, too, that it would not be proper to
+cause any unpleasantness between the brothers, unless some peremptory
+reason for her interference should arise. As she said, she could put up
+with a good deal, but, of course, she must not be tried too far. She
+had now reached the period of courteous tolerance, wearing an
+expressionless face, affecting perfect indifference and strict
+politeness, and carefully avoiding everything which might seem to hint
+that Florent was boarding and lodging with them without their receiving
+the slightest payment from him. Not, indeed, that she would have
+accepted any payment from him, she was above all that; still he might,
+at any rate, she thought, have lunched away from the house.
+
+“We never seem to be alone now,” she remarked to Quenu one day. “If
+there is anything we want to say to one another we have to wait till we
+go upstairs at night.”
+
+And then, one night when they were in bed, she said to him: “Your
+brother earns a hundred and fifty francs a month, doesn’t he? Well,
+it’s strange he can’t put a trifle by to buy himself some more linen.
+I’ve been obliged to give him three more of your old shirts.”
+
+“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” Quenu replied. “Florent’s not hard to
+please; and we must let him keep his money for himself.”
+
+“Oh, yes, of course,” said Lisa, without pressing the matter further.
+“I didn’t mention it for that reason. Whether he spends his money well
+or ill, it isn’t our business.”
+
+In her own mind she felt quite sure that he wasted his salary at the
+Mehudins’.
+
+Only on one occasion did she break through her habitual calmness of
+demeanour, the quiet reserve which was the result of both natural
+temperament and preconceived design. The beautiful Norman had made
+Florent a present of a magnificent salmon. Feeling very much
+embarrassed with the fish, and not daring to refuse it, he brought it
+to Lisa.
+
+“You can make a pasty of it,” he said ingenuously.
+
+Lisa looked at him sternly with whitening lips. Then, striving to
+restrain her anger, she exclaimed: “Do you think that we are short of
+food? Thank God, we’ve got quite enough to eat here! Take it back!”
+
+“Well, at any rate, cook it for me,” replied Florent, amazed by her
+anger; “I’ll eat it myself.”
+
+At this she burst out furiously.
+
+“The house isn’t an inn! Tell those who gave you the fish to cook it
+for you! I won’t have my pans tainted and infected! Take it back again!
+Do you hear?”
+
+If he had not gone away with it, she would certainly have seized it and
+hurled it into the street. Florent took it to Monsieur Lebigre’s, where
+Rose was ordered to make a pasty of it; and one evening the pasty was
+eaten in the little “cabinet,” Gavard, who was present, “standing” some
+oysters for the occasion. Florent now gradually came more and more
+frequently to Monsieur Lebigre’s, till at last he was constantly to be
+met in the little private room. He there found an atmosphere of heated
+excitement in which his political feverishness could pulsate freely. At
+times, now, when he shut himself up in his garret to work, the quiet
+simplicity of the little room irritated him, his theoretical search for
+liberty proved quite insufficient, and it became necessary that he
+should go downstairs, sally out, and seek satisfaction in the trenchant
+axioms of Charvet and the wild outbursts of Logre. During the first few
+evenings the clamour and chatter had made him feel ill at ease; he was
+then quite conscious of their utter emptiness, but he felt a need of
+drowning his thoughts, of goading himself on to some extreme resolution
+which might calm his mental disquietude. The atmosphere of the little
+room, reeking with the odour of spirits and warm with tobacco smoke,
+intoxicated him and filled him with peculiar beatitude, prompting a
+kind of self-surrender which made him willing to acquiesce in the
+wildest ideas. He grew attached to those he met there, and looked for
+them and awaited their coming with a pleasure which increased with
+habit. Robine’s mild, bearded countenance, Clemence’s serious profile,
+Charvet’s fleshless pallor, Logre’s hump, Gavard, Alexandre, and
+Lacaille, all entered into his life, and assumed a larger and larger
+place in it. He took quite a sensual enjoyment in these meetings. When
+his fingers closed round the brass knob on the door of the little
+cabinet it seemed to be animated with life, to warm him, and turn of
+its own accord. Had he grasped the supple wrist of a woman he could not
+have felt a more thrilling emotion.
+
+To tell the truth, very serious things took place in that little room.
+One evening, Logre, after indulging in wilder outbursts than usual,
+banged his fist upon the table, declaring that if they were men they
+would make a clean sweep of the Government. And he added that it was
+necessary they should come to an understanding without further delay,
+if they desired to be fully prepared when the time for action arrived.
+Then they all bent their heads together, discussed the matter in lower
+tones, and decided to form a little “group,” which should be ready for
+whatever might happen. From that day forward Gavard flattered himself
+that he was a member of a secret society, and was engaged in a
+conspiracy. The little circle received no new members, but Logre
+promised to put it into communication with other associations with
+which he was acquainted; and then, as soon as they held all Paris in
+their grasp, they would rise and make the Tuileries’ people dance. A
+series of endless discussions, renewed during several months, then
+began—discussions on questions of organisation, on questions of ways
+and means, on questions of strategy, and of the form of the future
+Government. As soon as Rose had brought Clemence’s grog, Charvet’s and
+Robine’s beer, the coffee for Logre, Gavard, and Florent, and the
+liqueur glasses of brandy for Lacaille and Alexandre, the door of the
+cabinet was carefully fastened, and the debate began.
+
+Charvet and Florent were naturally those whose utterances were listened
+to with the greatest attention. Gavard had not been able to keep his
+tongue from wagging, but had gradually related the whole story of
+Cayenne; and Florent found himself surrounded by a halo of martyrdom.
+His words were received as though they were the expression of
+indisputable dogmas. One evening, however, the poultry dealer, vexed at
+hearing his friend, who happened to be absent, attacked, exclaimed:
+“Don’t say anything against Florent; he’s been to Cayenne!”
+
+Charvet was rather annoyed by the advantage which this circumstance
+gave to Florent. “Cayenne, Cayenne,” he muttered between his teeth.
+“Ah, well, they were not so badly off there, after all.”
+
+Then he attempted to prove that exile was a mere nothing, and that real
+suffering consisted in remaining in one’s oppressed country, gagged in
+presence of triumphant despotism. And besides, he urged, it wasn’t his
+fault that he hadn’t been arrested on the Second of December. Next,
+however, he hinted that those who had allowed themselves to be captured
+were imbeciles. His secret jealousy made him a systematic opponent of
+Florent; and the general discussions always ended in a duel between
+these two, who, while their companions listened in silence, would speak
+against one another for hours at a time, without either of them
+allowing that he was beaten.
+
+One of the favourite subjects of discussion was that of the
+reorganisation of the country which would have to be effected on the
+morrow of their victory.
+
+“We are the conquerors, are we not?” began Gavard.
+
+And, triumph being taken for granted, everyone offered his opinion.
+There were two rival parties. Charvet, who was a disciple of Hébert,
+was supported by Logre and Robine; while Florent, who was always
+absorbed in humanitarian dreams, and called himself a Socialist, was
+backed by Alexandre and Lacaille. As for Gavard, he felt no repugnance
+for violent action; but, as he was often twitted about his fortune with
+no end of sarcastic witticisms which annoyed him, he declared himself a
+Communist.
+
+“We must make a clean sweep of everything,” Charvet would curtly say,
+as though he were delivering a blow with a cleaver. “The trunk is
+rotten, and it must come down.”
+
+“Yes! yes!” cried Logre, standing up that he might look taller, and
+making the partition shake with the excited motion of his hump.
+“Everything will be levelled to the ground; take my word for it. After
+that we shall see what to do.”
+
+Robine signified approval by wagging his beard. His silence seemed
+instinct with delight whenever violent revolutionary propositions were
+made. His eyes assumed a soft ecstatic expression at the mention of the
+guillotine. He half closed them, as though he could see the machine,
+and was filled with pleasant emotion at the sight; and next he would
+gently rub his chin against the knob of his stick, with a subdued purr
+of satisfaction.
+
+“All the same,” said Florent, in whose voice a vague touch of sadness
+lingered, “if you cut down the tree it will be necessary to preserve
+some seed. For my part, I think that the tree ought to be preserved, so
+that we may graft new life on it. The political revolution, you know,
+has already taken place; to-day we have got to think of the labourer,
+the working man. Our movement must be altogether a social one. I defy
+you to reject the claims of the people. They are weary of waiting, and
+are determined to have their share of happiness.”
+
+These words aroused Alexandre’s enthusiasm. With a beaming, radiant
+face he declared that this was true, that the people were weary of
+waiting.
+
+“And we will have our share,” added Lacaille, with a more menacing
+expression. “All the revolutions that have taken place have been for
+the good of the middle classes. We’ve had quite enough of that sort of
+thing, and the next one shall be for our benefit.”
+
+From this moment disagreement set in. Gavard offered to make a division
+of his property, but Logre declined, asserting that he cared nothing
+for money. Then Charvet gradually overcame the tumult, till at last he
+alone was heard speaking.
+
+“The selfishness of the different classes does more than anything else
+to uphold tyranny,” said he. “It is wrong of the people to display
+egotism. If they assist us they shall have their share. But why should
+I fight for the working man if the working man won’t fight for me?
+Moreover, that is not the question at present. Ten years of
+revolutionary dictatorship will be necessary to accustom a nation like
+France to the fitting enjoyment of liberty.”
+
+“All the more so as the working man is not ripe for it, and requires to
+be directed,” said Clemence bluntly.
+
+She but seldom spoke. This tall, serious looking girl, alone among so
+many men, listened to all the political chatter with a learnedly
+critical air. She leaned back against the partition, and every now and
+then sipped her grog whilst gazing at the speakers with frowning brows
+or inflated nostrils, thus silently signifying her approval or
+disapproval, and making it quite clear that she held decided opinions
+upon the most complicated matters. At times she would roll a cigarette,
+and puff slender whiffs of smoke from the corners of her mouth, whilst
+lending increased attention to what was being debated. It was as though
+she were presiding over the discussion, and would award the prize to
+the victor when it was finished. She certainly considered that it
+became her, as a woman, to display some reserve in her opinions, and to
+remain calm whilst the men grew more and more excited. Now and then,
+however, in the heat of the debate, she would let a word or a phrase
+escape her and “clench the matter” even for Charvet himself, as Gavard
+said. In her heart she believed herself the superior of all these
+fellows. The only one of them for whom she felt any respect was Robine,
+and she would thoughtfully contemplate his silent bearing.
+
+Neither Florent nor any of the others paid any special attention to
+Clemence. They treated her just as though she were a man, shaking hands
+with her so roughly as almost to dislocate her arms. One evening
+Florent witnessed the periodical settlement of accounts between her and
+Charvet. She had just received her pay, and Charvet wanted to borrow
+ten francs from her; but she first of all insisted that they must
+reckon up how matters stood between them. They lived together in a
+voluntary partnership, each having complete control of his or her
+earnings, and strictly paying his or her expenses. By so doing, said
+they, they were under no obligations to one another, but retained
+entire freedom. Rent, food, washing, and amusements, were all noted
+down and added up. That evening, when the accounts had been verified,
+Clemence proved to Charvet that he already owed her five francs. Then
+she handed him the other ten which he wished to borrow, and exclaimed:
+“Recollect that you now owe me fifteen. I shall expect you to repay me
+on the fifth, when you get paid for teaching little Lehudier.”
+
+When Rose was summoned to receive payment for the “drinks,” each
+produced the few coppers required to discharge his or her liability.
+Charvet laughingly called Clemence an aristocrat because she drank
+grog. She wanted to humiliate him, said he, and make him feel that he
+earned less than she did, which, as it happened, was the fact. Beneath
+his laugh, however, there was a feeling of bitterness that the girl
+should be better circumstanced than himself, for, in spite of his
+theory of the equality of the sexes, this lowered him.
+
+Although the discussions in the little room had virtually no result,
+they served to exercise the speakers’ lungs. A tremendous hubbub
+proceeded from the sanctum, and the panes of frosted glass vibrated
+like drum-skins. Sometimes the uproar became so great that Rose, while
+languidly serving some blouse-wearing customer in the shop, would turn
+her head uneasily.
+
+“Why, they’re surely fighting together in there,” the customer would
+say, as he put his glass down on the zinc-covered counter, and wiped
+his mouth with the back of his hand.
+
+“Oh, there’s no fear of that,” Monsieur Lebigre tranquilly replied.
+“It’s only some gentlemen talking together.”
+
+Monsieur Lebigre, indeed, although very strict with his other
+customers, allowed the politicians to shout as loudly as they pleased,
+and never made the least remark on the subject. He would sit for hours
+together on the bench behind the counter, with his big head lolling
+drowsily against the mirror, whilst he watched Rose uncorking the
+bottles and giving a wipe here and there with her duster. And in spite
+of the somniferous effects of the wine fumes and the warm streaming
+gaslight, he would keep his ears open to the sounds proceeding from the
+little room. At times, when the voices grew noisier than usual, he got
+up from his seat and went to lean against the partition; and
+occasionally he even pushed the door open, and went inside and sat down
+there for a few minutes, giving Gavard a friendly slap on the thigh.
+And then he would nod approval of everything that was said. The poultry
+dealer asserted that although friend Lebigre hadn’t the stuff of an
+orator in him, they might safely reckon on him when the “shindy” came.
+
+One morning, however, at the markets, when a tremendous row broke out
+between Rose and one of the fish-wives, through the former accidentally
+knocking over a basket of herrings, Florent heard Rose’s employer
+spoken of as a “dirty spy” in the pay of the police. And after he had
+succeeded in restoring peace, all sorts of stories about Monsieur
+Lebigre were poured into his ears. Yes, the wine seller was in the pay
+of the police, the fish-wives said; all the neighbourhood knew it.
+Before Mademoiselle Saget had begun to deal with him she had once met
+him entering the Prefecture to make his report. It was asserted, too,
+that he was a money-monger, a usurer, and lent petty sums by the day to
+costermongers, and let out barrows to them, exacting a scandalous rate
+of interest in return. Florent was greatly disturbed by all this, and
+felt it his duty to repeat it that evening to his fellow politicians.
+The latter, however, only shrugged their shoulders, and laughed at his
+uneasiness.
+
+“Poor Florent!” Charvet exclaimed sarcastically; “he imagines the whole
+police force is on his track, just because he happens to have been sent
+to Cayenne!”
+
+Gavard gave his word of honour that Lebigre was perfectly staunch and
+true, while Logre, for his part, manifested extreme irritation. He
+fumed and declared that it would be quite impossible for them to get on
+if everyone was to be accused of being a police spy; for his own part,
+he would rather stay at home, and have nothing more to do with
+politics. Why, hadn’t people even dared to say that he, Logre himself,
+who had fought in ‘48 and ‘51, and had twice narrowly escaped
+transportation, was a spy as well? As he shouted this out, he thrust
+his jaws forward, and glared at the others as though he would have
+liked to ram the conviction that he had nothing to do with the police
+down their throats. At the sight of his furious glances his companions
+made gestures of protestation. However, Lacaille, on hearing Monsieur
+Lebigre accused of usury, silently lowered his head.
+
+The incident was forgotten in the discussions which ensued. Since Logre
+had suggested a conspiracy, Monsieur Lebigre had grasped the hands of
+the frequenters of the little room with more vigor than ever. Their
+custom, to tell the truth, was of but small value to him, for they
+never ordered more than one “drink” apiece. They drained the last drops
+just as they rose to leave, having been careful to allow a little to
+remain in their glasses, even during their most heated arguments. In
+this wise the one “shout” lasted throughout the evening. They shivered
+as they turned out into the cold dampness of the night, and for a
+moment or two remained standing on the footway with dazzled eyes and
+buzzing ears, as though surprised by the dark silence of the street.
+Rose, meanwhile, fastened the shutters behind them. Then, quite
+exhausted, at a loss for another word they shook hands, separated, and
+went their different ways, still mentally continuing the discussion of
+the evening, and regretting that they could not ram their particular
+theories down each other’s throats. Robine walked away, with his bent
+back bobbing up and down, in the direction of the Rue Rambuteau; whilst
+Charvet and Clemence went off through the markets on their return to
+the Luxembourg quarter, their heels sounding on the flag-stones in
+military fashion, whilst they still discussed some question of politics
+or philosophy, walking along side by side, but never arm-in-arm.
+
+The conspiracy ripened very slowly. At the commencement of the summer
+the plotters had got no further than agreeing that it was necessary a
+stroke should be attempted. Florent, who had at first looked upon the
+whole business with a kind of distrust, had now, however, come to
+believe in the possibility of a revolutionary movement. He took up the
+matter seriously; making notes, and preparing plans in writing, while
+the others still did nothing but talk. For his part, he began to
+concentrate his whole life in the one persistent idea which made his
+brain throb night after night; and this to such a degree that he at
+last took his brother Quenu with him to Monsieur Lebigre’s, as though
+such a course were quite natural. Certainly he had no thought of doing
+anything improper. He still looked upon Quenu as in some degree his
+pupil, and may even have considered it his duty to start him on the
+proper path. Quenu was an absolute novice in politics, but after
+spending five or six evenings in the little room he found himself quite
+in accord with the others. When Lisa was not present he manifested much
+docility, a sort of respect for his brother’s opinions. But the
+greatest charm of the affair for him was really the mild dissipation of
+leaving his shop and shutting himself up in the little room where the
+others shouted so loudly, and where Clemence’s presence, in his
+opinion, gave a tinge of rakishness and romance to the proceedings. He
+now made all haste with his chitterlings in order that he might get
+away as early as possible, anxious to lose not a single word of the
+discussions, which seemed to him to be very brilliant, though he was
+not always able to follow them. The beautiful Lisa did not fail to
+notice his hurry to be gone, but as yet she refrained from saying
+anything. When Florent took him off, she simply went to the door-step,
+and watched them enter Monsieur Lebigre’s, her face paling somewhat,
+and a severe expression coming into her eyes.
+
+One evening, as Mademoiselle Saget was peering out of her garret
+casement, she recognised Quenu’s shadow on the frosted glass of the
+“cabinet” window facing the Rue Pirouette. She had found her casement
+an excellent post of observation, as it overlooked that milky
+transparency, on which the gaslight threw silhouettes of the
+politicians, with noses suddenly appearing and disappearing, gaping
+jaws abruptly springing into sight and then vanishing, and huge arms,
+apparently destitute of bodies, waving hither and thither. This
+extraordinary jumble of detached limbs, these silent but frantic
+profiles, bore witness to the heated discussions that went on in the
+little room, and kept the old maid peering from behind her muslin
+curtains until the transparency turned black. She shrewdly suspected
+some “bit of trickery,” as she phrased it. By continual watching she
+had come to recognise the different shadows by their hands and hair and
+clothes. As she gazed upon the chaos of clenched fists, angry heads,
+and swaying shoulders, which seemed to have become detached from their
+trunks and to roll about one atop of the other, she would exclaim
+unhesitatingly, “Ah, there’s that big booby of a cousin; there’s that
+miserly old Gavard; and there’s the hunchback; and there’s that maypole
+of a Clemence!” Then, when the action of the shadow-play became more
+pronounced, and they all seemed to have lost control over themselves,
+she felt an irresistible impulse to go downstairs to try to find out
+what was happening. Thus she now made a point of buying her
+black-currant syrup at nights, pretending that she felt out-of-sorts in
+the morning, and was obliged to take a sip as soon as ever she was out
+of bed. On the evening when she noticed Quenu’s massive head shadowed
+on the transparency in close proximity to Charvet’s fist, she made her
+appearance at Monsieur Lebigre’s in a breathless condition. To gain
+more time, she made Rose rinse out her little bottle for her; however,
+she was about to return to her room when she heard the pork butcher
+exclaim with a sort of childish candour:
+
+“No, indeed, we’ll stand for it no longer! We’ll make a clean sweep of
+all those humbugging Deputies and Ministers! Yes, we’ll send the whole
+lot packing.”
+
+Eight o’clock had scarcely struck on the following morning when
+Mademoiselle Saget was already at the pork shop. She found Madame
+Lecœur and La Sarriette there, dipping their noses into the
+heating-pan, and buying hot sausages for breakfast. As the old maid had
+managed to draw them into her quarrel with La Normande with respect to
+the ten-sou dab, they had at once made friends again with Lisa, and
+they now had nothing but contempt for the handsome fish-girl, and
+assailed her and her sister as good-for-nothing hussies, whose only aim
+was to fleece men of their money. This opinion had been inspired by the
+assertions of Mademoiselle Saget, who had declared to Madame Lecœur
+that Florent had induced one of the two girls to coquette with Gavard,
+and that the four of them had indulged in the wildest dissipation at
+Barratte’s—of course, at the poultry dealer’s expense. From the effects
+of this impudent story Madame Lecœur had not yet recovered; she wore a
+doleful appearance, and her eyes were quite yellow with spleen.
+
+That morning, however, it was for Madame Quenu that the old maid had a
+shock in store. She looked round the counter, and then in her most
+gentle voice remarked:
+
+“I saw Monsieur Quenu last night. They seem to enjoy themselves
+immensely in that little room at Lebigre’s, if one may judge from the
+noise they make.”
+
+Lisa had turned her head towards the street, listening very
+attentively, but apparently unwilling to show it. The old maid paused,
+hoping that one of the others would question her; and then, in a lower
+tone, she added: “They had a woman with them. Oh, I don’t mean Monsieur
+Quenu, of course! I didn’t say that; I don’t know—”
+
+“It must be Clemence,” interrupted La Sarriette; “a big scraggy
+creature who gives herself all sorts of airs just because she went to
+boarding school. She lives with a threadbare usher. I’ve seen them
+together; they always look as though they were taking each other off to
+the police station.”
+
+“Oh, yes; I know,” replied the old maid, who, indeed, knew everything
+about Charvet and Clemence, and whose only purpose was to alarm Lisa.
+
+The mistress of the pork shop, however, never flinched. She seemed to
+be absorbed in watching something of great interest in the market
+yonder. Accordingly the old maid had recourse to stronger measures. “I
+think,” said she, addressing herself to Madame Lecœur, “that you ought
+to advise your brother-in-law to be careful. Last night they were
+shouting out the most shocking things in that little room. Men really
+seem to lose their heads over politics. If anyone had heard them, it
+might have been a very serious matter for them.”
+
+“Oh! Gavard will go his own way,” sighed Madame Lecœur. “It only wanted
+this to fill my cup. I shall die of anxiety, I am sure, if he ever gets
+arrested.”
+
+As she spoke, a gleam shot from her dim eyes. La Sarriette, however,
+laughed and wagged her little face, bright with the freshness of the
+morning air.
+
+“You should hear what Jules says of those who speak against the
+Empire,” she remarked. “They ought all to be thrown into the Seine, he
+told me; for it seems there isn’t a single respectable person amongst
+them.”
+
+“Oh! there’s no harm done, of course, so long as only people like
+myself hear their foolish talk,” resumed Mademoiselle Saget. “I’d
+rather cut my hand off, you know, than make mischief. Last night now,
+for instance, Monsieur Quenu was saying——”
+
+She again paused. Lisa had started slightly.
+
+“Monsieur Quenu was saying that the Ministers and Deputies and all who
+are in power ought to be shot.”
+
+At this Lisa turned sharply, her face quite white and her hands
+clenched beneath her apron.
+
+“Quenu said that?” she curtly asked.
+
+“Yes, indeed, and several other similar things that I can’t recollect
+now. I heard him myself. But don’t distress yourself like that, Madame
+Quenu. You know very well that I sha’n’t breathe a word. I’m quite old
+enough to know what might harm a man if it came out. Oh, no; it will go
+no further.”
+
+Lisa had recovered her equanimity. She took a pride in the happy
+peacefulness of her home; she would not acknowledge that there had ever
+been the slightest difference between herself and her husband. And so
+now she shrugged her shoulders and said with a smile: “Oh, it’s all a
+pack of foolish nonsense.”
+
+When the three others were in the street together they agreed that
+handsome Lisa had pulled a very doleful face; and they were unanimously
+of opinion that the mysterious goings-on of the cousin, the Mehudins,
+Gavard, and the Quenus would end in trouble. Madame Lecœur inquired
+what was done to the people who got arrested “for politics,” but on
+this point Mademoiselle Saget could not enlighten her; she only knew
+that they were never seen again—no, never. And this induced La
+Sarriette to suggest that perhaps they were thrown into the Seine, as
+Jules had said they ought to be.
+
+Lisa avoided all reference to the subject at breakfast and dinner that
+day; and even in the evening, when Florent and Quenu went off together
+to Monsieur Lebigre’s, there was no unwonted severity in her glance. On
+that particular evening, however, the question of framing a
+constitution for the future came under discussion, and it was one
+o’clock in the morning before the politicians could tear themselves
+away from the little room. The shutters had already been fastened, and
+they were obliged to leave by a small door, passing out one at a time
+with bent backs. Quenu returned home with an uneasy conscience. He
+opened the three or four doors on his way to bed as gently as possible,
+walking on tip-toe and stretching out his hands as he passed through
+the sitting-room, to avoid a collision with any of the furniture. The
+whole house seemed to be asleep. When he reached the bedroom, he was
+annoyed to find that Lisa had not extinguished the candle, which was
+burning with a tall, mournful flame in the midst of the deep silence.
+As Quenu took off his shoes, and put them down in a corner, the
+time-piece struck half past one with such a clear, ringing sound that
+he turned in alarm, almost frightened to move, and gazing with an
+expression of angry reproach at the shining gilded Gutenberg standing
+there, with his finger on a book. Lisa’s head was buried in her pillow,
+and Quenu could only see her back; but he divined that she was merely
+feigning sleep, and her conduct in turning her back upon him was so
+instinct with reproach that he felt sorely ill at ease. At last he
+slipped beneath the bed-clothes, blew out the candle, and lay perfectly
+still. He could have sworn that his wife was awake, though she did not
+speak to him; and presently he fell asleep, feeling intensely
+miserable, and lacking the courage to say good night.
+
+He slept till late, and when he awoke he found himself sprawling in the
+middle of the bed with the eider-down quilt up to his chin, whilst Lisa
+sat in front of the secrétaire, arranging some papers. His slumber had
+been so heavy that he had not heard her rise. However, he now took
+courage, and spoke to her from the depths of the alcove: “Why didn’t
+you wake me? What are you doing there?”
+
+“I’m sorting the papers in these drawers,” she replied in her usual
+tone of voice.
+
+Quenu felt relieved. But Lisa added: “One never knows what may happen.
+If the police were to come—”
+
+“What! the police?”
+
+“Yes, indeed, the police; for you’re mixing yourself up with politics
+now.”
+
+At this Quenu sat up in bed, quite dazed and confounded by such a
+violent and unexpected attack.
+
+“I mix myself up with politics! I mix myself up with politics!” he
+repeated. “It’s no concern of the police. I’ve nothing to do with any
+compromising matters.”
+
+“No,” replied Lisa, shrugging her shoulders; “you merely talk about
+shooting everybody.”
+
+“I! I!”
+
+“Yes. And you bawl it out in a public-house! Mademoiselle Saget heard
+you. All the neighbourhood knows by this time that you are a Red
+Republican!”
+
+Quenu fell back in bed again. He was not perfectly awake as yet. Lisa’s
+words resounded in his ears as though he already heard the heavy tramp
+of gendarmes at the bedroom door. He looked at her as she sat there,
+with her hair already arranged, her figure tightly imprisoned in her
+stays, her whole appearance the same as it was on any other morning;
+and he felt more astonished than ever that she should be so neat and
+prim under such extraordinary circumstances.
+
+“I leave you absolutely free, you know,” she continued, as she went on
+arranging the papers. “I don’t want to wear the breeches, as the saying
+goes. You are the master, and you are at liberty to endanger your
+position, compromise our credit, and ruin our business.”
+
+Then, as Quenu tried to protest, she silenced him with a gesture. “No,
+no; don’t say anything,” she continued. “This is no quarrel, and I am
+not even asking an explanation from you. But if you had consulted me,
+and we had talked the matter over together, I might have intervened.
+Ah! it’s a great mistake to imagine that women understand nothing about
+politics. Shall I tell you what my politics are?”
+
+She had risen from her seat whilst speaking, and was now walking to and
+fro between the bed and the window, wiping as she went some specks of
+dust from the bright mahogany of the mirrored wardrobe and the
+dressing-table.
+
+“My politics are the politics of honest folks,” said she. “I’m grateful
+to the Government when business is prosperous, when I can eat my meals
+in peace and comfort, and can sleep at nights without being awakened by
+the firing of guns. There were pretty times in ‘48, were there not? You
+remember our uncle Gradelle, the worthy man, showing us his books for
+that year? He lost more than six thousand francs. Now that we have got
+the Empire, however, everything prospers. We sell our goods readily
+enough. You can’t deny it. Well, then, what is it that you want? How
+will you be better off when you have shot everybody?”
+
+She took her stand in front of the little night-table, crossed her arms
+over her breast, and fixed her eyes upon Quenu, who had shuffled
+himself beneath the bed-clothes, almost out of sight. He attempted to
+explain what it was that his friends wanted, but he got quite confused
+in his endeavours to summarise Florent’s and Charvet’s political and
+social systems; and could only talk about the disregard shown to
+principles, the accession of the democracy to power, and the
+regeneration of society, in such a strange tangled way that Lisa
+shrugged her shoulders, quite unable to understand him. At last,
+however, he extricated himself from his difficulties by declaring that
+the Empire was the reign of licentiousness, swindling finance, and
+highway robbery. And, recalling an expression of Logre’s he added: “We
+are the prey of a band of adventurers, who are pillaging, violating,
+and assassinating France. We’ll have no more of them.”
+
+Lisa, however, still shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“Well, and is that all you have got to say?” she asked with perfect
+coolness. “What has all that got to do with me? Even supposing it were
+true, what then? Have I ever advised you to practise dishonest courses?
+Have I ever prompted you to dishonour your acceptances, or cheat your
+customers, or pile up money by fraudulent practices? Really, you’ll end
+by making me quite angry! We are honest folks, and we don’t pillage or
+assassinate anybody. That’s quite sufficient. What other folks do is no
+concern of ours. If they choose to be rogues it’s their affair.”
+
+She looked quite majestic and triumphant; and again pacing the room,
+drawing herself up to her full height, she resumed: “A pretty notion it
+is that people are to let their business go to rack and ruin just to
+please those who are penniless. For my part, I’m in favour of making
+hay while the sun shines, and supporting a Government which promotes
+trade. If it does do dishonourable things, I prefer to know nothing
+about them. I know that I myself commit none, and that no one in the
+neighbourhood can point a finger at me. It’s only fools who go tilting
+at windmills. At the time of the last elections, you remember, Gavard
+said that the Emperor’s candidate had been bankrupt, and was mixed up
+in all sorts of scandalous matters. Well, perhaps that was true, I
+don’t deny it; but all the same, you acted wisely in voting for him,
+for all that was not in question; you were not asked to lend the man
+any money or to transact any business with him, but merely to show the
+Government that you were pleased with the prosperity of the pork
+trade.”
+
+At this moment Quenu called to mind a sentence of Charvet’s, asserting
+that “the bloated bourgeois, the sleek shopkeepers, who backed up that
+Government of universal gormandising, ought to be hurled into the
+sewers before all others, for it was owing to them and their gluttonous
+egotism that tyranny had succeeded in mastering and preying upon the
+nation.” He was trying to complete this piece of eloquence when Lisa,
+carried off by her indignation, cut him short.
+
+“Don’t talk such stuff! My conscience doesn’t reproach me with
+anything. I don’t owe a copper to anybody; I’m not mixed up in any
+dishonest business; I buy and sell good sound stuff; and I charge no
+more than others do. What you say may perhaps apply to people like our
+cousins, the Saccards. They pretend to be even ignorant that I am in
+Paris; but I am prouder than they are, and I don’t care a rap for their
+millions. It’s said that Saccard speculates in condemned buildings, and
+cheats and robs everybody. I’m not surprised to hear it, for he was
+always that way inclined. He loves money just for the sake of wallowing
+in it, and then tossing it out of his windows, like the imbecile he is.
+I can understand people attacking men of his stamp, who pile up
+excessive fortunes. For my part, if you care to know it, I have but a
+bad opinion of Saccard. But we—we who live so quietly and peaceably,
+who will need at least fifteen years to put by sufficient money to make
+ourselves comfortably independent, we who have no reason to meddle in
+politics, and whose only aim is to bring up our daughter respectably,
+and to see that our business prospers—why you must be joking to talk
+such stuff about us. We are honest folks!”
+
+She came and sat down on the edge of the bed. Quenu was already much
+shaken in his opinions.
+
+“Listen to me, now,” she resumed in a more serious voice. “You surely
+don’t want to see your own shop pillaged, your cellar emptied, and your
+money taken from you? If these men who meet at Monsieur Lebigre’s
+should prove triumphant, do you think that you would then lie as
+comfortably in your bed as you do now? And on going down into the
+kitchen, do you imagine that you would set about making your galantines
+as peacefully as you will presently? No, no, indeed! So why do you talk
+about overthrowing a Government which protects you, and enables you to
+put money by? You have a wife and a daughter, and your first duty is
+towards them. You would be in fault if you imperilled their happiness.
+It is only those who have neither home nor hearth, who have nothing to
+lose, who want to be shooting people. Surely you don’t want to pull the
+chestnuts out of the fire for _them_! So stay quietly at home, you
+foolish fellow, sleep comfortably, eat well, make money, keep an easy
+conscience, and leave France to free herself of the Empire if the
+Empire annoys her. France can get on very well without _you_.”
+
+She laughed her bright melodious laugh as she finished; and Quenu was
+now altogether convinced. Yes, she was right, after all; and she looked
+so charming, he thought, as she sat there on the edge of the bed, so
+trim, although it was so early, so bright, and so fresh in the dazzling
+whiteness of her linen. As he listened to her his eyes fell on their
+portraits hanging on either side of the fireplace. Yes, they were
+certainly honest folks; they had such a respectable, well-to-do air in
+their black clothes and their gilded frames! The bedroom, too, looked
+as though it belonged to people of some account in the world. The lace
+squares seemed to give a dignified appearance to the chairs; and the
+carpet, the curtains, and the vases decorated with painted
+landscapes—all spoke of their exertions to get on in the world and
+their taste for comfort. Thereupon he plunged yet further beneath the
+eider-down quilt, which kept him in a state of pleasant warmth. He
+began to feel that he had risked losing all these things at Monsieur
+Lebigre’s—his huge bed, his cosy room, and his business, on which his
+thoughts now dwelt with tender remorse. And from Lisa, from the
+furniture, from all his cosy surroundings, he derived a sense of
+comfort which thrilled him with a delightful, overpowering charm.
+
+“You foolish fellow!” said his wife, seeing that he was now quite
+conquered. “A pretty business it was that you’d embarked upon; but
+you’d have had to reckon with Pauline and me, I can tell you! And now
+don’t bother your head any more about the Government. To begin with,
+all Governments are alike, and if we didn’t have this one, we should
+have another. A Government is necessary. But the one thing is to be
+able to live on, to spend one’s savings in peace and comfort when one
+grows old, and to know that one has gained one’s means honestly.”
+
+Quenu nodded his head in acquiescence, and tried to commence a
+justification of his conduct.
+
+“It was Gavard—,” he began.
+
+But Lisa’s face again assumed a serious expression, and she interrupted
+him sharply.
+
+“No, it was not Gavard. I know very well who it was; and it would be a
+great deal better if he would look after his own safety before
+compromising that of others.”
+
+“Is it Florent you mean?” Quenu timidly inquired after a pause.
+
+Lisa did not immediately reply. She got up and went back to the
+secrétaire, as if trying to restrain herself.
+
+“Yes, it is Florent,” she said presently, in incisive tones. “You know
+how patient I am. I would bear almost anything rather than come between
+you and your brother. The tie of relationship is a sacred thing. But
+the cup is filled to overflowing now. Since your brother came here
+things have been constantly getting worse and worse. But now, I won’t
+say anything more; it is better that I shouldn’t.”
+
+There was another pause. Then, as her husband gazed up at the ceiling
+with an air of embarrassment, she continued, with increased violence:
+
+“Really, he seems to ignore all that we have done for him. We have put
+ourselves to great inconvenience for his sake; we have given him
+Augustine’s bedroom, and the poor girl sleeps without a murmur in a
+stuffy little closet where she can scarcely breathe. We board and lodge
+him and give him every attention—but no, he takes it all quite as a
+matter of course. He is earning money, but what he does with it nobody
+knows; or, rather, one knows only too well.”
+
+“But there’s his share of the inheritance, you know,” Quenu ventured to
+say, pained at hearing his brother attacked.
+
+Lisa suddenly stiffened herself as though she were stunned, and her
+anger vanished.
+
+“Yes, you are right; there is his share of the inheritance. Here is the
+statement of it, in this drawer. But he refused to take it; you
+remember, you were present, and heard him. That only proves that he is
+a brainless, worthless fellow. If he had had an idea in his head, he
+would have made something out of that money by now. For my own part, I
+should be very glad to get rid of it; it would be a relief to us. I
+have told him so twice, but he won’t listen to me. You ought to
+persuade him to take it. Talk to him about it, will you?”
+
+Quenu growled something in reply; and Lisa refrained from pressing the
+point further, being of opinion that she had done all that could be
+expected of her.
+
+“He is not like other men,” she resumed. “He’s not a comfortable sort
+of person to have in the house. I shouldn’t have said this if we hadn’t
+got talking on the subject. I don’t busy myself about his conduct,
+though it’s setting the whole neighbourhood gossiping about us. Let him
+eat and sleep here, and put us about, if he likes; we can get over
+that; but what I won’t tolerate is that he should involve us in his
+politics. If he tries to lead you off again, or compromises us in the
+least degree, I shall turn him out of the house without the least
+hesitation. I warn you, and now you understand!”
+
+Florent was doomed. Lisa was making a great effort to restrain herself,
+to prevent the animosity which had long been rankling in her heart from
+flowing forth. But Florent and his ways jarred against her every
+instinct; he wounded her, frightened her, and made her quite miserable.
+
+“A man who has made such a discreditable career,” she murmured, “who
+has never been able to get a roof of his own over his head! I can very
+well understand his partiality for bullets! He can go and stand in
+their way if he chooses; but let him leave honest folks to their
+families! And then, he isn’t pleasant to have about one! He reeks of
+fish in the evening at dinner! It prevents me from eating. He himself
+never lets a mouthful go past him, though it’s little better he seems
+to be for it all! He can’t even grow decently stout, the wretched
+fellow, to such a degree do his bad instincts prey on him!”
+
+She had stepped up to the window whilst speaking, and now saw Florent
+crossing the Rue Rambuteau on his way to the fish market. There was a
+very large arrival of fish that morning; the tray-like baskets were
+covered with rippling silver, and the auction rooms roared with the
+hubbub of their sales. Lisa kept her eyes on the bony shoulders of her
+brother-in-law as he made his way into the pungent smells of the
+market, stooping beneath the sickening sensation which they brought
+him; and the glance with which she followed his steps was that of a
+woman bent on combat and resolved to be victorious.
+
+When she turned round again, Quenu was getting up. As he sat on the
+edge of the bed in his night-shirt, still warm from the pleasant heat
+of the eider-down quilt and with his feet resting on the soft fluffy
+rug below him, he looked quite pale, quite distressed at the
+misunderstanding between his wife and his brother. Lisa, however, gave
+him one of her sweetest smiles, and he felt deeply touched when she
+handed him his socks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Marjolin had been found in a heap of cabbages at the Market of the
+Innocents. He was sleeping under the shelter of a large white-hearted
+one, a broad leaf of which concealed his rosy childish face It was
+never known what poverty-stricken mother had laid him there. When he
+was found he was already a fine little fellow of two or three years of
+age, very plump and merry, but so backward and dense that he could
+scarcely stammer a few words, and only seemed able to smile. When one
+of the vegetable saleswomen found him lying under the big white cabbage
+she raised such a loud cry of surprise that her neighbours rushed up to
+see what was the matter, while the youngster, still in petticoats, and
+wrapped in a scrap of old blanket, held out his arms towards her. He
+could not tell who his mother was, but opened his eyes in wide
+astonishment as he squeezed against the shoulder of a stout tripe
+dealer who eventually took him up. The whole market busied itself about
+him throughout the day. He soon recovered confidence, ate slices of
+bread and butter, and smiled at all the women. The stout tripe dealer
+kept him for a time, then a neighbour took him; and a month later a
+third woman gave him shelter. When they asked him where his mother was,
+he waved his little hand with a pretty gesture which embraced all the
+women present. He became the adopted child of the place, always
+clinging to the skirts of one or another of the women, and always
+finding a corner of a bed and a share of a meal somewhere. Somehow,
+too, he managed to find clothes, and he even had a copper or two at the
+bottom of his ragged pockets. It was a buxom, ruddy girl dealing in
+medicinal herbs who gave him the name of Marjolin,[*] though no one
+knew why.
+
+[*] Literally “Marjoram.”
+
+
+When Marjolin was nearly four years of age, old Mother Chantemesse also
+happened to find a child, a little girl, lying on the footway of the
+Rue Saint Denis, near the corner of the market. Judging by the little
+one’s size, she seemed to be a couple of years old, but she could
+already chatter like a magpie, murdering her words in an incessant
+childish babble. Old Mother Chantemesse after a time gathered that her
+name was Cadine, and that on the previous evening her mother had left
+her sitting on a doorstep, with instructions to wait till she returned.
+The child had fallen asleep there, and did not cry. She related that
+she was beaten at home; and she gladly followed Mother Chantemesse,
+seemingly quite enchanted with that huge square, where there were so
+many people and such piles of vegetables. Mother Chantemesse, a retail
+dealer by trade, was a crusty but very worthy woman, approaching her
+sixtieth year. She was extremely fond of children, and had lost three
+boys of her own when they were mere babies. She came to the opinion
+that the chit she had found “was far too wide awake to kick the
+bucket,” and so she adopted her.
+
+One evening, however, as she was going off home with her right hand
+clasping Cadine’s, Marjolin came up and unceremoniously caught hold of
+her left hand.
+
+“Nay, my lad,” said the old woman, stopping, “the place is filled. Have
+you left your big Therese, then? What a fickle little gadabout you
+are!”
+
+The boy gazed at her with his smiling eyes, without letting go of her
+hand. He looked so pretty with his curly hair that she could not resist
+him. “Well, come along, then, you little scamp,” said she; “I’ll put
+you to bed as well.”
+
+Thus she made her appearance in the Rue au Lard, where she lived, with
+a child clinging to either hand. Marjolin made himself quite at home
+there. When the two children proved too noisy the old woman cuffed
+them, delighted to shout and worry herself, and wash the youngsters,
+and pack them away beneath the blankets. She had fixed them up a little
+bed in an old costermonger’s barrow, the wheels and shafts of which had
+disappeared. It was like a big cradle, a trifle hard, but retaining a
+strong scent of the vegetables which it had long kept fresh and cool
+beneath a covering of damp cloths. And there, when four years old,
+Cadine and Marjolin slept locked in each other’s arms.
+
+They grew up together, and were always to be seen with their arms about
+one another’s waist. At night time old Mother Chantemesse heard them
+prattling softly. Cadine’s clear treble went chattering on for hours
+together, while Marjolin listened with occasional expressions of
+astonishment vented in a deeper tone. The girl was a mischievous young
+creature, and concocted all sorts of stories to frighten her companion;
+telling him, for instance, that she had one night seen a man, dressed
+all in white, looking at them and putting out a great red tongue, at
+the foot of the bed. Marjolin quite perspired with terror, and
+anxiously asked for further particulars; but the girl would then begin
+to jeer at him, and end by calling him a big donkey. At other times
+they were not so peaceably disposed, but kicked each other beneath the
+blankets. Cadine would pull up her legs, and try to restrain her
+laughter as Marjolin missed his aim, and sent his feet banging against
+the wall. When this happened, old Madame Chantemesse was obliged to get
+up to put the bed-clothes straight again; and, by way of sending the
+children to sleep, she would administer a box on the ear to both of
+them. For a long time their bed was a sort of playground. They carried
+their toys into it, and munched stolen carrots and turnips as they lay
+side by side. Every morning their adopted mother was amazed at the
+strange things she found in the bed—pebbles, leaves, apple cores, and
+dolls made out of scraps of rags. When the very cold weather came, she
+went off to her work, leaving them sleeping there, Cadine’s black mop
+mingling with Marjolin’s sunny curls, and their mouths so near together
+that they looked as though they were keeping each other warm with their
+breath.
+
+The room in the Rue au Lard was a big, dilapidated garret, with a
+single window, the panes of which were dimmed by the rain. The children
+would play at hide-and-seek in the tall walnut wardrobe and underneath
+Mother Chantemesse’s colossal bed. There were also two or three tables
+in the room, and they crawled under these on all fours. They found the
+place a very charming playground, on account of the dim light and the
+vegetables scattered about in the dark corners. The street itself, too,
+narrow and very quiet, with a broad arcade opening into the Rue de la
+Lingerie, provided them with plenty of entertainment. The door of the
+house was by the side of the arcade; it was a low door and could only
+be opened half way owing to the near proximity of the greasy corkscrew
+staircase. The house, which had a projecting pent roof and a bulging
+front, dark with damp, and displaying greenish drain-sinks near the
+windows of each floor, also served as a big toy for the young couple.
+They spent their mornings below in throwing stones up into the
+drain-sinks, and the stones thereupon fell down the pipes with a very
+merry clatter. In thus amusing themselves, however, they managed to
+break a couple of windows, and filled the drains with stones, so that
+Mother Chantemesse, who had lived in the house for three and forty
+years, narrowly escaped being turned out of it.
+
+Cadine and Marjolin then directed their attention to the vans and drays
+and tumbrels which were drawn up in the quiet street. They clambered on
+to the wheels, swung from the dangling chains, and larked about amongst
+the piles of boxes and hampers. Here also were the back premises of the
+commission agents of the Rue de la Poterie—huge, gloomy warehouses,
+each day filled and emptied afresh, and affording a constant succession
+of delightful hiding-places, where the youngsters buried themselves
+amidst the scent of dried fruits, oranges, and fresh apples. When they
+got tired of playing in his way, they went off to join old Madame
+Chantemesse at the Market of the Innocents. They arrived there
+arm-in-arm, laughing gaily as they crossed the streets with never the
+slightest fear of being run over by the endless vehicles. They knew the
+pavement well, and plunged their little legs knee-deep in the vegetable
+refuse without ever slipping. They jeered merrily at any porter in
+heavy boots who, in stepping over an artichoke stem, fell sprawling
+full-length upon the ground. They were the rosy-cheeked familiar
+spirits of those greasy streets. They were to be seen everywhere.
+
+On rainy days they walked gravely beneath the shelter of a ragged old
+umbrella, with which Mother Chantemesse had protected her
+stock-in-trade for twenty years, and sticking it up in a corner of the
+market they called it their house. On sunny days they romped to such a
+degree that when evening came they were almost too tired to move. They
+bathed their feet in the fountains, dammed up the gutters, or hid
+themselves beneath piles of vegetables, and remained there prattling to
+each other just as they did in bed at night. People passing some huge
+mountain of cos or cabbage lettuces often heard a muffled sound of
+chatter coming from it. And when the green-stuff was removed, the two
+children would be discovered lying side by side on their couch of
+verdure, their eyes glistening uneasily like those of birds discovered
+in the depth of a thicket. As time went on, Cadine could not get along
+without Marjolin, and Marjolin began to cry when he lost sight of
+Cadine. If they happened to get separated, they sought one another
+behind the petticoats of every stallkeeper in the markets, amongst the
+boxes and under the cabbages. If was, indeed, chiefly under the
+cabbages that they grew up and learned to love each other.
+
+Marjolin was nearly eight years old, and Cadine six, when old Madame
+Chantemesse began to reproach them for their idleness. She told them
+that she would interest them in her business, and pay them a sou a day
+to assist her in paring her vegetables. During the first few days the
+children displayed eager zeal; they squatted down on either side of the
+big flat basket with little knives in their hands, and worked away
+energetically. Mother Chantemesse made a specialty of pared vegetables;
+on her stall, covered with a strip of damp black lining, were little
+lots of potatoes, turnips, carrots, and white onions, arranged in
+pyramids of four—three at the base and one at the apex, all quite ready
+to be popped into the pans of dilatory housewives. She also had bundles
+duly stringed in readiness for the soup-pot—four leeks, three carrots,
+a parsnip, two turnips, and a couple of springs of celery. Then there
+were finely cut vegetables for julienne soup laid out on squares of
+paper, cabbages cut into quarters, and little heaps of tomatoes and
+slices of pumpkin which gleamed like red stars and golden crescents
+amidst the pale hues of the other vegetables. Cadine evinced much more
+dexterity than Marjolin, although she was younger. The peelings of the
+potatoes she pared were so thin that you could see through them; she
+tied up the bundles for the soup-pot so artistically that they looked
+like bouquets; and she had a way of making the little heaps she set up,
+though they contained but three carrots or turnips, look like very big
+ones. The passers-by would stop and smile when she called out in her
+shrill childish voice: “Madame! madame! come and try me! Each little
+pile for two sous.”
+
+She had her regular customers, and her little piles and bundles were
+widely known. Old Mother Chantemesse, seated between the two children,
+would indulge in a silent laugh which made her bosom rise almost to her
+chin, at seeing them working away so seriously. She paid them their
+daily sous most faithfully. But they soon began to weary of the little
+heaps and bundles; they were growing up, and began to dream of some
+more lucrative business. Marjolin remained very childish for his years,
+and this irritated Cadine. He had no more brains than a cabbage, she
+often said. And it was, indeed, quite useless for her to devise any
+plan for him to make money; he never earned any. He could not even do
+an errand satisfactorily. The girl, on the other hand, was very shrewd.
+When but eight years old she obtained employment from one of those
+women who sit on a bench in the neighbourhood of the markets provided
+with a basket of lemons, and employ a troop of children to go about
+selling them. Carrying the lemons in her hands and offering them at two
+for three sous, Cadine thrust them under every woman’s nose, and ran
+after every passer-by. Her hands empty, she hastened back for a fresh
+supply. She was paid two sous for every dozen lemons that she sold, and
+on good days she could earn some five or six sous. During the following
+year she hawked caps at nine sous apiece, which proved a more
+profitable business; only she had to keep a sharp look-out, as street
+trading of this kind is forbidden unless one be licensed. However, she
+scented a policeman at a distance of a hundred yards; and the caps
+forthwith disappeared under her skirts, whilst she began to munch an
+apple with an air of guileless innocence. Then she took to selling
+pastry, cakes, cherry-tarts, gingerbread, and thick yellow maize
+biscuits on wicker trays. Marjolin, however, ate up nearly the whole of
+her stock-in-trade. At last, when she was eleven years old, she
+succeeded in realising a grand idea which had long been worrying her.
+In a couple of months she put by four francs, bought a small
+_hotte_,[*] and then set up as a dealer in birds’ food.
+
+[*] A basket carried on the back.—Translator.
+
+
+It was a big affair. She got up early in the morning and purchased her
+stock of groundsel, millet, and bird-cake from the wholesale dealers.
+Then she set out on her day’s work, crossing the river, and
+perambulating the Latin Quarter from the Rue Saint Jacques to the Rue
+Dauphine, and even to the Luxembourg. Marjolin used to accompany her,
+but she would not let him carry the basket. He was only fit to call
+out, she said; and so, in his thick, drawling voice, he would raise the
+cry, “Chickweed for the little birds!”
+
+Then Cadine herself, with her flute-like voice, would start on a
+strange scale of notes ending in a clear, protracted alto, “Chickweed
+for the little birds!”
+
+They each took one side of the road, and looked up in the air as they
+walked along. In those days Marjolin wore a big scarlet waistcoat which
+hung down to his knees; it had belonged to the defunct Monsieur
+Chantemesse, who had been a cab-driver. Cadine for her part wore a
+white and blue check gown, made out of an old tartan of Madame
+Chantemesse’s. All the canaries in the garrets of the Latin Quarter
+knew them; and, as they passed along, repeating their cry, each echoing
+the other’s voice, every cage poured out a song.
+
+Cadine sold water-cress, too. “Two sous a bunch! Two sous a bunch!” And
+Marjolin went into the shops to offer it for sale. “Fine water-cress!
+Health for the body! Fine fresh water-cress!”
+
+However, the new central markets had just been erected, and the girl
+would stand gazing in ecstacy at the avenue of flower stalls which runs
+through the fruit pavilion. Here on either hand, from end to end, big
+clumps of flowers bloom as in the borders of a garden walk. It is a
+perfect harvest, sweet with perfume, a double hedge of blossoms,
+between which the girls of the neighbourhood love to walk, smiling the
+while, though almost stifled by the heavy perfume. And on the top tiers
+of the stalls are artificial flowers, with paper leaves, in which
+dewdrops are simulated by drops of gum; and memorial wreaths of black
+and white beads rippling with bluish reflections. Cadine’s rosy
+nostrils would dilate with feline sensuality; she would linger as long
+as possible in that sweet freshness, and carry as much of the perfume
+away with her as she could. When her hair bobbed under Marjolin’s nose
+he would remark that it smelt of pinks. She said that she had given
+over using pomatum; that is was quite sufficient for her to stroll
+through the flower walk in order to scent her hair. Next she began to
+intrigue and scheme with such success that she was engaged by one of
+the stallkeepers. And then Marjolin declared that she smelt sweet from
+head to foot. She lived in the midst of roses, lilacs, wall-flowers,
+and lilies of the valley; and Marjolin would playfully smell at her
+skirts, feign a momentary hesitation, and then exclaim, “Ah, that’s
+lily of the valley!” Next he would sniff at her waist and bodice: “Ah,
+that’s wall-flowers!” And at her sleeves and wrists: “Ah, that’s
+lilac!” And at her neck, and her cheeks and lips: “Ah, but that’s
+roses!” he would cry. Cadine used to laugh at him, and call him a
+“silly stupid,” and tell him to get away, because he was tickling her
+with the tip of his nose. As she spoke her breath smelt of jasmine. She
+was verily a bouquet, full of warmth and life.
+
+She now got up at four o’clock every morning to assist her mistress in
+her purchases. Each day they bought armfuls of flowers from the
+suburban florists, with bundles of moss, and bundles of fern fronds,
+and periwinkle leaves to garnish the bouquets. Cadine would gaze with
+amazement at the diamonds and Valenciennes worn by the daughters of the
+great gardeners of Montreuil, who came to the markets amidst their
+roses.
+
+On the saints’ days of popular observance, such as Saint Mary’s, Saint
+Peter’s, and Saint Joseph’s days, the sale of flowers began at two
+o’clock. More than a hundred thousand francs’ worth of cut flowers
+would be sold on the footways, and some of the retail dealers would
+make as much as two hundred francs in a few hours. On days like those
+only Cadine’s curly locks peered over the mounds of pansies,
+mignonette, and marguerites. She was quite drowned and lost in the
+flood of flowers. Then she would spend all her time in mounting
+bouquets on bits of rush. In a few weeks she acquired considerable
+skillfulness in her business, and manifested no little originality. Her
+bouquets did not always please everybody, however. Sometimes they made
+one smile, sometimes they alarmed the eyes. Red predominated in them,
+mottled with violent tints of blue, yellow, and violet of a barbaric
+charm. On the mornings when she pinched Marjolin, and teased him till
+she made him cry, she made up fierce-looking bouquets, suggestive of
+her own bad temper, bouquets with strong rough scents and glaring
+irritating colours. On other days, however, when she was softened by
+some thrill of joy or sorrow, her bouquets would assume a tone of
+silvery grey, very soft and subdued, and delicately perfumed.
+
+Then, too, she would set roses, as sanguineous as open hearts, in lakes
+of snow-white pinks; arrange bunches of tawny iris that shot up in
+tufts of flame from foliage that seemed scared by the brilliance of the
+flowers; work elaborate designs, as complicated as those of Smyrna
+rugs, adding flower to flower, as on a canvas; and prepare rippling
+fanlike bouquets spreading out with all the delicacy of lace. Here was
+a cluster of flowers of delicious purity, there a fat nosegay, whatever
+one might dream of for the hand of a marchioness or a fish-wife; all
+the charming quaint fancies, in short, which the brain of a
+sharp-witted child of twelve, budding into womanhood, could devise.
+
+There were only two flowers for which Cadine retained respect; white
+lilac, which by the bundle of eight or ten sprays cost from fifteen to
+twenty francs in the winter time; and camellias, which were still more
+costly, and arrived in boxes of a dozen, lying on beds of moss, and
+covered with cotton wool. She handled these as delicately as though
+they were jewels, holding her breath for fear of dimming their lustre,
+and fastening their short stems to springs of cane with the tenderest
+care. She spoke of them with serious reverence. She told Marjolin one
+day that a speckless white camellia was a very rare and exceptionally
+lovely thing, and, as she was making him admire one, he exclaimed:
+“Yes; it’s pretty; but I prefer your neck, you know. It’s much more
+soft and transparent than the camellia, and there are some little blue
+and pink veins just like the pencillings on a flower.” Then, drawing
+near and sniffing, he murmured: “Ah! you smell of orange blossom
+to-day.”
+
+Cadine was self-willed, and did not get on well in the position of a
+servant, so she ended by setting up in business on her own account. As
+she was only thirteen at the time, and could not hope for a big trade
+and a stall in the flower avenue, she took to selling one-sou bunches
+of violets pricked into a bed of moss in an osier tray which she
+carried hanging from her neck. All day long she wandered about the
+markets and their precincts with her little bit of hanging garden. She
+loved this continual stroll, which relieved the numbness of her limbs
+after long hours spent, with bent knees, on a low chair, making
+bouquets. She fastened her violets together with marvellous deftness as
+she walked along. She counted out six or eight flowers, according to
+the season, doubled a sprig of cane in half, added a leaf, twisted some
+damp thread round the whole, and broke off the thread with her strong
+young teeth. The little bunches seemed to spring spontaneously from the
+layer of moss, so rapidly did she stick them into it.
+
+Along the footways, amidst the jostling of the street traffic, her
+nimble fingers were ever flowering though she gave them not a glance,
+but boldly scanned the shops and passers-by. Sometimes she would rest
+in a doorway for a moment; and alongside the gutters, greasy with
+kitchen slops, she sat, as it were a patch of springtime, a suggestion
+of green woods, and purple blossoms. Her flowers still betokened her
+frame of mind, her fits of bad temper and her thrills of tenderness.
+Sometimes they bristled and glowered with anger amidst their crumpled
+leaves; at other times they spoke only of love and peacefulness as they
+smiled in their prim collars. As Cadine passed along, she left a sweet
+perfume behind her; Marjolin followed her devoutly. From head to foot
+she now exhaled but one scent, and the lad repeated that she was
+herself a violet, a great big violet.
+
+“Do you remember the day when we went to Romainville together?” he
+would say; “Romainville, where there are so many violets. The scent was
+just the same. Oh! don’t change again—you smell too sweetly.”
+
+And she did not change again. This was her last trade. Still, she often
+neglected her osier tray to go rambling about the neighbourhood. The
+building of the central markets—as yet incomplete—provided both
+children with endless opportunities for amusement. They made their way
+into the midst of the work-yards through some gap or other between the
+planks; they descended into the foundations, and climbed up to the
+cast-iron pillars. Every nook, every piece of the framework witnessed
+their games and quarrels; the pavilions grew up under the touch of
+their little hands. From all this arose the affection which they felt
+for the great markets, and which the latter seemed to return. They were
+on familiar terms with that gigantic pile, old friends as they were,
+who had seen each pin and bolt put into place. They felt no fear of the
+huge monster; but slapped it with their childish hands, treated it like
+a good friend, a chum whose presence brought no constraint. And the
+markets seemed to smile at these two light-hearted children, whose love
+was the song, the idyll of their immensity.
+
+Cadine alone now slept at Mother Chantemesse’s. The old woman had
+packed Marjolin off to a neighbour’s. This made the two children very
+unhappy. Still, they contrived to spend much of their time together. In
+the daytime they would hide themselves away in the warehouses of the
+Rue au Lard, behind piles of apples and cases of oranges; and in the
+evening they would dive into the cellars beneath the poultry market,
+and secret themselves among the huge hampers of feathers which stood
+near the blocks where the poultry was killed. They were quite alone
+there, amidst the strong smell of the poultry, and with never a sound
+but the sudden crowing of some rooster to break upon their babble and
+their laughter. The feathers amidst which they found themselves were of
+all sorts—turkey’s feathers, long and black; goose quills, white and
+flexible; the downy plumage of ducks, soft like cotton wool; and the
+ruddy and mottled feathers of fowls, which at the faintest breath flew
+up in a cloud like a swarm of flies buzzing in the sun. And then in
+wintertime there was the purple plumage of the pheasants, the ashen
+grey of the larks, the splotched silk of the partridges, quails, and
+thrushes. And all these feathers freshly plucked were still warm and
+odoriferous, seemingly endowed with life. The spot was as cosy as a
+nest; at times a quiver as of flapping wings sped by, and Marjolin and
+Cadine, nestling amidst all the plumage, often imagined that they were
+being carried aloft by one of those huge birds with outspread pinions
+that one hears of in the fairy tales.
+
+As time went on their childish affection took the inevitable turn.
+Veritable offsprings of Nature, knowing naught of social conventions
+and restraints, they loved one another in all innocence and
+guilelessness. They mated even as the birds of the air mate, even as
+youth and maid mated in primeval times, because such is Nature’s law.
+At sixteen Cadine was a dusky town gipsy, greedy and sensual, whilst
+Marjolin, now eighteen, was a tall, strapping fellow, as handsome a
+youth as could be met, but still with his mental faculties quite
+undeveloped. He had lived, indeed, a mere animal life, which had
+strengthened his frame, but left his intellect in a rudimentary state.
+
+When old Madame Chantemesse realised the turn that things were taking
+she wrathfully upbraided Cadine and struck out vigorously at her with
+her broom. But the hussy only laughed and dodged the blows, and then
+hied off to her lover. And gradually the markets became their home,
+their manger, their aviary, where they lived and loved amidst the meat,
+the butter, the vegetables, and the feathers.
+
+They discovered another little paradise in the pavilion where butter,
+eggs, and cheese were sold wholesale. Enormous walls of empty baskets
+were here piled up every morning, and amidst these Cadine and Marjolin
+burrowed and hollowed out a dark lair for themselves. A mere partition
+of osier-work separated them from the market crowd, whose loud voices
+rang out all around them. They often shook with laughter when people,
+without the least suspicion of their presence, stopped to talk together
+a few yards away from them. On these occasions they would contrive
+peepholes, and spy through them, and when cherries were in season
+Cadine tossed the stones in the faces of all the old women who passed
+along—a pastime which amused them the more as the startled old crones
+could never make out whence the hail of cherry-stones had come. They
+also prowled about the depths of the cellars, knowing every gloomy
+corner of them, and contriving to get through the most carefully locked
+gates. One of their favourite amusements was to visit the track of the
+subterranean railway, which had been laid under the markets, and which
+those who planned the latter had intended to connect with the different
+goods’ stations of Paris. Sections of this railway were laid beneath
+each of the covered ways, between the cellars of each pavilion; the
+work, indeed, was in such an advanced state that turn-tables had been
+put into position at all the points of intersection, and were in
+readiness for use. After much examination, Cadine and Marjolin had at
+last succeeded in discovering a loose plank in the hoarding which
+enclosed the track, and they had managed to convert it into a door, by
+which they could easily gain access to the line. There they were quite
+shut off from the world, though they could hear the continuous rumbling
+of the street traffic over their heads.
+
+The line stretched through deserted vaults, here and there illumined by
+a glimmer of light filtering through iron gratings, while in certain
+dark corners gas jets were burning. And Cadine and Marjolin rambled
+about as in the secret recesses of some castle of their own, secure
+from all interruption, and rejoicing in the buzzy silence, the murky
+glimmer, and subterranean secrecy, which imparted a touch of melodrama
+to their experiences. All sorts of smells were wafted through the
+hoarding from the neighbouring cellars; the musty smell of vegetables,
+the pungency of fish, the overpowering stench of cheese, and the warm
+reek of poultry.
+
+At other times, on clear nights and fine dawns, they would climb on to
+the roofs, ascending thither by the steep staircases of the turrets at
+the angles of the pavilions. Up above they found fields of leads,
+endless promenades and squares, a stretch of undulating country which
+belonged to them. They rambled round the square roofs of the pavilions,
+followed the course of the long roofs of the covered ways, climbed and
+descended the slopes, and lost themselves in endless perambulations of
+discovery. And when they grew tired of the lower levels they ascended
+still higher, venturing up the iron ladders, on which Cadine’s skirts
+flapped like flags. Then they ran along the second tier of roofs
+beneath the open heavens. There was nothing save the stars above them.
+All sorts of sounds rose up from the echoing markets, a clattering and
+rumbling, a vague roar as of a distant tempest heard at nighttime. At
+that height the morning breeze swept away the evil smells, the foul
+breath of the awaking markets. They would kiss one another on the edge
+of the gutterings like sparrows frisking on the house-tops. The rising
+fires of the sun illumined their faces with a ruddy glow. Cadine
+laughed with pleasure at being so high up in the air, and her neck
+shone with iridescent tints like a dove’s; while Marjolin bent down to
+look at the street still wrapped in gloom, with his hands clutching
+hold of the leads like the feet of a wood-pigeon. When they descended
+to earth again, joyful from their excursion in the fresh air, they
+would remark to one another that they were coming back from the
+country.
+
+It was in the tripe market that they had made the acquaintance of
+Claude Lantier. They went there every day, impelled thereto by an
+animal taste for blood, the cruel instinct of urchins who find
+amusement in the sight of severed heads. A ruddy stream flowed along
+the gutters round the pavilion; they dipped the tips of their shoes in
+it, and dammed it up with leaves, so as to form large pools of blood.
+They took a strong interest in the arrival of the loads of offal in
+carts which always smelt offensively, despite all the drenchings of
+water they got; they watched the unloading of the bundles of sheep’s
+trotters, which were piled up on the ground like filthy paving-stones,
+of the huge stiffened tongues, bleeding at their torn roots, and of the
+massive bell-shaped bullocks’ hearts. But the spectacle which, above
+all others, made them quiver with delight was that of the big dripping
+hampers, full of sheep’s heads, with greasy horns and black muzzles,
+and strips of woolly skin dangling from bleeding flesh. The sight of
+these conjured up in their minds the idea of some guillotine casting
+into the baskets the heads of countless victims.
+
+They followed the baskets into the depths of the cellar, watching them
+glide down the rails laid over the steps, and listening to the rasping
+noise which the casters of these osier waggons made in their descent.
+Down below there was a scene of exquisite horror. They entered into a
+charnel-house atmosphere, and walked along through murky puddles,
+amidst which every now and then purple eyes seem to be glistening. At
+times the soles of their boots stuck to the ground, at others they
+splashed through the horrible mire, anxious and yet delighted. The gas
+jets burned low, like blinking, bloodshot eyes. Near the water-taps, in
+the pale light falling through the gratings, they came upon the blocks;
+and there they remained in rapture watching the tripe men, who, in
+aprons stiffened by gory splashings, broke the sheep’s heads one after
+another with a blow of their mallets. They lingered there for hours,
+waiting till all the baskets were empty, fascinated by the crackling of
+the bones, unable to tear themselves away till all was over. Sometimes
+an attendant passed behind them, cleansing the cellar with a hose;
+floods of water rushed out with a sluice-like roar, but although the
+violence of the discharge actually ate away the surface of the
+flagstones, it was powerless to remove the ruddy stains and stench of
+blood.
+
+Cadine and Marjolin were sure of meeting Claude between four and five
+in the afternoon at the wholesale auction of the bullocks’ lights. He
+was always there amidst the tripe dealers’ carts backed up against the
+kerb-stones and the blue-bloused, white-aproned men who jostled him and
+deafened his ears by their loud bids. But he never felt their elbows;
+he stood in a sort of ecstatic trance before the huge hanging lights,
+and often told Cadine and Marjolin that there was no finer sight to be
+seen. The lights were of a soft rosy hue, gradually deepening and
+turning at the lower edges to a rich carmine; and Claude compared them
+to watered satin, finding no other term to describe the soft silkiness
+of those flowing lengths of flesh which drooped in broad folds like
+ballet dancers’ skirts. He thought, too, of gauze and lace allowing a
+glimpse of pinky skin; and when a ray of sunshine fell upon the lights
+and girdled them with gold an expression of languorous rapture came
+into his eyes, and he felt happier than if he had been privileged to
+contemplate the Greek goddesses in their sovereign nudity, or the
+chatelaines of romance in their brocaded robes.
+
+The artist became a great friend of the two young scapegraces. He loved
+beautiful animals, and such undoubtedly they were. For a long time he
+dreamt of a colossal picture which should represent the loves of Cadine
+and Marjolin in the central markets, amidst the vegetables, the fish,
+and the meat. He would have depicted them seated on some couch of food,
+their arms circling each other’s waists, and their lips exchanging an
+idyllic kiss. In this conception he saw a manifesto proclaiming the
+positivism of art—modern art, experimental and materialistic. And it
+seemed to him also that it would be a smart satire on the school which
+wishes every painting to embody an “idea,” a slap for the old
+traditions and all they represented. But during a couple of years he
+began study after study without succeeding in giving the particular
+“note” he desired. In this way he spoilt fifteen canvases. His failure
+filled him with rancour; however, he continued to associate with his
+two models from a sort of hopeless love for his abortive picture. When
+he met them prowling about in the afternoon, he often scoured the
+neighbourhood with them, strolling around with his hands in his
+pockets, and deeply interested in the life of the streets.
+
+They all three trudged along together, dragging their heels over the
+footways and monopolising their whole breadth so as to force others to
+step down into the road. With their noses in the air they sniffed in
+the odours of Paris, and could have recognised every corner blindfold
+by the spirituous emanations of the wine shops, the hot puffs that came
+from the bakehouses and confectioners’, and the musty odours wafted
+from the fruiterers’. They would make the circuit of the whole
+district. They delighted in passing through the rotunda of the corn
+market, that huge massive stone cage where sacks of flour were piled up
+on every side, and where their footsteps echoed in the silence of the
+resonant roof. They were fond, too, of the little narrow streets in the
+neighbourhood, which had become as deserted, as black, and as mournful
+as though they formed part of an abandoned city. These were the Rue
+Babille, the Rue Sauval, the Rue des Deux Ecus, and the Rue de Viarmes,
+this last pallid from its proximity to the millers’ stores, and at four
+o’clock lively by reason of the corn exchange held there. It was
+generally at this point that they started on their round. They made
+their way slowly along the Rue Vauvilliers, glancing as they went at
+the windows of the low eating-houses, and thus reaching the miserably
+narrow Rue des Prouvaires, where Claude blinked his eyes as he saw one
+of the covered ways of the market, at the far end of which, framed
+round by this huge iron nave, appeared a side entrance of St. Eustache
+with its rose and its tiers of arched windows. And then, with an air of
+defiance, he would remark that all the middle ages and the Renaissance
+put together were less mighty than the central markets. Afterwards, as
+they paced the broad new streets, the Rue du Pont Neuf and the Rue des
+Halles, he explained modern life with its wide footways, its lofty
+houses, and its luxurious shops, to the two urchins. He predicted, too,
+the advent of new and truly original art, whose approach he could
+divine, and despair filled him that its revelation should seemingly be
+beyond his own powers.
+
+Cadine and Marjolin, however, preferred the provincial quietness of the
+Rue des Bourdonnais, where one can play at marbles without fear of
+being run over. The girl perked her head affectedly as she passed the
+wholesale glove and hosiery stores, at each door of which bareheaded
+assistants, with their pens stuck in their ears, stood watching her
+with a weary gaze. And she and her lover had yet a stronger preference
+for such bits of olden Paris as still existed: the Rue de la Poterie
+and the Rue de la Lingerie, with their butter and egg and cheese
+dealers; the Rue de la Ferronerie and the Rue de l’Aiguillerie (the
+beautiful streets of far-away times), with their dark narrow shops; and
+especially the Rue Courtalon, a dank, dirty by-way running from the
+Place Sainte Opportune to the Rue Saint Denis, and intersected by
+foul-smelling alleys where they had romped in their younger days. In
+the Rue Saint Denis they entered into the land of dainties; and they
+smiled upon the dried apples, the “Spanishwood,” the prunes, and the
+sugar-candy in the windows of the grocers and druggists. Their
+ramblings always set them dreaming of a feast of good things, and
+inspired them with a desire to glut themselves on the contents of the
+windows. To them the district seemed like some huge table, always laid
+with an everlasting dessert into which they longed to plunge their
+fingers.
+
+They devoted but a moment to visiting the other blocks of tumble-down
+old houses, the Rue Pirouette, the Rue de Mondetour, the Rue de la
+Petite Truanderie, and the Rue de la Grande Truanderie, for they took
+little interest in the shops of the dealers in edible snails, cooked
+vegetables, tripe, and drink. In the Rue de la Grand Truanderie,
+however, there was a soap factory, an oasis of sweetness in the midst
+of all the foul odours, and Marjolin was fond of standing outside it
+till some one happened to enter or come out, so that the perfume which
+swept through the doorway might blow full in his face. Then with all
+speed they returned to the Rue Pierre Lescot and the Rue Rambuteau.
+Cadine was extremely fond of salted provisions; she stood in admiration
+before the bundles of red-herrings, the barrels of anchovies and
+capers, and the little casks of gherkins and olives, standing on end
+with wooden spoons inside them. The smell of the vinegar titillated her
+throat; the pungent odour of the rolled cod, smoked salmon, bacon and
+ham, and the sharp acidity of the baskets of lemons, made her mouth
+water longingly. She was also fond of feasting her eyes on the boxes of
+sardines piled up in metallic columns amidst the cases and sacks. In
+the Rue Montorgueil and the Rue Montmartre were other tempting-looking
+groceries and restaurants, from whose basements appetising odours were
+wafted, with glorious shows of game and poultry, and
+preserved-provision shops, which last displayed beside their doors open
+kegs overflowing with yellow sour-krout suggestive of old lacework.
+Then they lingered in the Rue Coquillière, inhaling the odour of
+truffles from the premises of a notable dealer in comestibles, which
+threw so strong a perfume into the street that Cadine and Marjolin
+closed their eyes and imagined they were swallowing all kinds of
+delicious things. These perfumes, however, distressed Claude. They made
+him realise the emptiness of his stomach, he said; and, leaving the
+“two animals” to feast on the odour of the truffles—the most
+penetrating odour to be found in all the neighbourhood—he went off
+again to the corn market by way of the Rue Oblin, studying on his road
+the old women who sold green-stuff in the doorways and the displays of
+cheap pottery spread out on the foot-pavements.
+
+Such were their rambles in common; but when Cadine set out alone with
+her bunches of violets she often went farther afield, making it a point
+to visit certain shops for which she had a particular partiality. She
+had an especial weakness for the Taboureau bakery establishment, one of
+the windows of which was exclusively devoted to pastry. She would
+follow the Rue Turbigo and retrace her steps a dozen times in order to
+pass again and again before the almond cakes, the _savarins_, the St.
+Honoré tarts, the fruit tarts, and the various dishes containing
+bunlike _babas_ redolent of rum, eclairs combining the finger biscuit
+with chocolate, and _choux a la crème_, little rounds of pastry
+overflowing with whipped white of egg. The glass jars full of dry
+biscuits, macaroons, and _madeleines_ also made her mouth water; and
+the bright shop with its big mirrors, its marble slabs, its gilding,
+its bread-bins of ornamental ironwork, and its second window in which
+long glistening loaves were displayed slantwise, with one end resting
+on a crystal shelf whilst above they were upheld by a brass rod, was so
+warm and odoriferous of baked dough that her features expanded with
+pleasure when, yielding to temptation, she went in to buy a _brioche_
+for two sous.
+
+Another shop, one in front of the Square des Innocents, also filled her
+with gluttonous inquisitiveness, a fever of longing desire. This shop
+made a specialty of forcemeat pasties. In addition to the ordinary ones
+there were pasties of pike and pasties of truffled _foie gras_; and the
+girl would gaze yearningly at them, saying to herself that she would
+really have to eat one some day.
+
+Cadine also had her moments of vanity and coquetry. When these fits
+were on her, she bought herself in imagination some of the magnificent
+dresses displayed in the windows of the “Fabriques de France” which
+made the Pointe Saint Eustache gaudy with their pieces of bright stuff
+hanging from the first floor to the footway and flapping in the breeze.
+Somewhat incommoded by the flat basket hanging before her, amidst the
+crowd of market women in dirty aprons gazing at future Sunday dresses,
+the girl would feel the woollens, flannels, and cottons to test the
+texture and suppleness of the material; and she would promise herself a
+gown of bright-coloured flannelling, flowered print, or scarlet poplin.
+Sometimes even from amongst the pieces draped and set off to advantage
+by the window-dressers she would choose some soft sky-blue or
+apple-green silk, and dream of wearing it with pink ribbons. In the
+evenings she would dazzle herself with the displays in the windows of
+the big jewellers in the Rue Montmartre. That terrible street deafened
+her with its ceaseless flow of vehicles, and the streaming crowd never
+ceased to jostle her; still she did not stir, but remained feasting her
+eyes on the blazing splendour set out in the light of the reflecting
+lamps which hung outside the windows. On one side all was white with
+the bright glitter of silver: watches in rows, chains hanging, spoons
+and forks laid crossways, cups, snuff-boxes, napkin-rings, and combs
+arranged on shelves. The silver thimbles, dotting a porcelain stand
+covered with a glass shade, had an especial attraction for her. Then on
+the other side the windows glistened with the tawny glow of gold. A
+cascade of long pendant chains descended from above, rippling with
+ruddy gleams; small ladies’ watches, with the backs of their cases
+displayed, sparkled like fallen stars; wedding rings clustered round
+slender rods; bracelets, broaches, and other costly ornaments glittered
+on the black velvet linings of their cases; jewelled rings set their
+stands aglow with blue, green, yellow, and violet flamelets; while on
+every tier of the shelves superposed rows of earrings and crosses and
+lockets hung against the crystal like the rich fringes of altar-cloths.
+The glow of this gold illumined the street half way across with a
+sun-like radiance. And Cadine, as she gazed at it, almost fancied that
+she was in presence of something holy, or on the threshold of the
+Emperor’s treasure chamber. She would for a long time scrutinise all
+this show of gaudy jewellery, adapted to the taste of the fish-wives,
+and carefully read the large figures on the tickets affixed to each
+article; and eventually she would select for herself a pair of
+earrings—pear-shaped drops of imitation coral hanging from golden
+roses.
+
+One morning Claude caught her standing in ecstasy before a
+hair-dresser’s window in the Rue Saint Honoré. She was gazing at the
+display of hair with an expression of intense envy. High up in the
+window was a streaming cascade of long manes, soft wisps, loose
+tresses, frizzy falls, undulating comb-curls, a perfect cataract of
+silky and bristling hair, real and artificial, now in coils of a
+flaming red, now in thick black crops, now in pale golden locks, and
+even in snowy white ones for the coquette of sixty. In cardboard boxes
+down below were cleverly arranged fringes, curling side-ringlets, and
+carefully combed chignons glossy with pomade. And amidst this
+framework, in a sort of shrine beneath the ravelled ends of the hanging
+locks, there revolved the bust of a woman, arrayed in a wrapper of
+cherry-coloured satin fastened between the breasts with a brass brooch.
+The figure wore a lofty bridal coiffure picked out with sprigs of
+orange blossom, and smiled with a dollish smile. Its eyes were pale
+blue; its eyebrows were very stiff and of exaggerated length; and its
+waxen cheeks and shoulders bore evident traces of the heat and smoke of
+the gas. Cadine waited till the revolving figure again displayed its
+smiling face, and as its profile showed more distinctly and it slowly
+went round from left to right she felt perfectly happy. Claude,
+however, was indignant, and, shaking Cadine, he asked her what she was
+doing in front of “that abomination, that corpse-like hussy picked up
+at the Morgue!” He flew into a temper with the “dummy’s” cadaverous
+face and shoulders, that disfigurement of the beautiful, and remarked
+that artists painted nothing but that unreal type of woman nowadays.
+Cadine, however, remained unconvinced by his oratory, and considered
+the lady extremely beautiful. Then, resisting the attempts of the
+artist to drag her away by the arm, and scratching her black mop in
+vexation, she pointed to an enormous ruddy tail, severed from the
+quarters of some vigorous mare, and told him she would have liked to
+have a crop of hair like that.
+
+During the long rambles when Claude, Cadine, and Marjolin prowled about
+the neighbourhood of the markets, they saw the iron ribs of the giant
+building at the end of every street. Wherever they turned they caught
+sudden glimpses of it; the horizon was always bounded by it; merely the
+aspect under which it was seen varied. Claude was perpetually turning
+round, and particularly in the Rue Montmartre, after passing the
+church. From that point the markets, seen obliquely in the distance,
+filled him with enthusiasm. A huge arcade, a giant, gaping gateway, was
+open before him; then came the crowding pavilions with their lower and
+upper roofs, their countless Venetian shutters and endless blinds, a
+vision, as it were, of superposed houses and palaces; a Babylon of
+metal of Hindoo delicacy of workmanship, intersected by hanging
+terraces, aerial galleries, and flying bridges poised over space. The
+trio always returned to this city round which they strolled, unable to
+stray more than a hundred yards away. They came back to it during the
+hot afternoons when the Venetian shutters were closed and the blinds
+lowered. In the covered ways all seemed to be asleep, the ashy greyness
+was streaked by yellow bars of sunlight falling through the high
+windows. Only a subdued murmur broke the silence; the steps of a few
+hurrying passers-by resounded on the footways; whilst the badge-wearing
+porters sat in rows on the stone ledges at the corners of the
+pavilions, taking off their boots and nursing their aching feet. The
+quietude was that of a colossus at rest, interrupted at times by some
+cock-crow rising from the cellars below.
+
+Claude, Cadine, and Marjolin then often went to see the empty hampers
+piled upon the drays, which came to fetch them every afternoon so that
+they might be sent back to the consignors. There were mountains of
+them, labelled with black letters and figures, in front of the
+salesmen’s warehouses in the Rue Berger. The porters arranged them
+symmetrically, tier by tier, on the vehicles. When the pile rose,
+however, to the height of a first floor, the porter who stood below
+balancing the next batch of hampers had to make a spring in order to
+toss them up to his mate, who was perched aloft with arms extended.
+Claude, who delighted in feats of strength and dexterity, would stand
+for hours watching the flight of these masses of osier, and would burst
+into a hearty laugh whenever too vigorous a toss sent them flying over
+the pile into the roadway beyond. He was fond, too, of the footways of
+the Rue Rambuteau and the Rue du Pont Neuf, near the fruit market,
+where the retail dealers congregated. The sight of the vegetables
+displayed in the open air, on trestle-tables covered with damp black
+rags, was full of charm for him. At four in the afternoon the whole of
+this nook of greenery was aglow with sunshine; and Claude wandered
+between the stalls, inspecting the bright-coloured heads of the
+saleswomen with keen artistic relish. The younger ones, with their hair
+in nets, had already lost all freshness of complexion through the rough
+life they led; while the older ones were bent and shrivelled, with
+wrinkled, flaring faces showing under the yellow kerchiefs bound round
+their heads. Cadine and Marjolin refused to accompany him hither, as
+they could perceive old Mother Chantemesse shaking her fist at them, in
+her anger at seeing them prowling about together. He joined them again,
+however, on the opposite footway, where he found a splendid subject for
+a picture in the stallkeepers squatting under their huge umbrellas of
+faded red, blue, and violet, which, mounted upon poles, filled the
+whole market-side with bumps, and showed conspicuously against the
+fiery glow of the sinking sun, whose rays faded amidst the carrots and
+the turnips. One tattered harridan, a century old, was sheltering three
+spare-looking lettuces beneath an umbrella of pink silk, shockingly
+split and stained.
+
+Cadine and Marjolin had struck up an acquaintance with Leon, Quenu’s
+apprentice, one day when he was taking a pie to a house in the
+neighbourhood. They saw him cautiously raise the lid of his pan in a
+secluded corner of the Rue de Mondetour, and delicately take out a ball
+of forcemeat. They smiled at the sight, which gave them a very high
+opinion of Leon. And the idea came to Cadine that she might at last
+satisfy one of her most ardent longings. Indeed, the very next time
+that she met the lad with his basket she made herself very agreeable,
+and induced him to offer her a forcemeat ball. But, although she
+laughed and licked her fingers, she experienced some disappointment.
+The forcemeat did not prove nearly so nice as she had anticipated. On
+the other hand, the lad, with his sly, greedy phiz and his white
+garments, which made him look like a girl going to her first communion,
+somewhat took her fancy.
+
+She invited him to a monster lunch which she gave amongst the hampers
+in the auction room at the butter market. The three of them—herself,
+Marjolin, and Leon—completely secluded themselves from the world within
+four walls of osier. The feast was laid out on a large flat basket.
+There were pears, nuts, cream-cheese, shrimps, fried potatoes, and
+radishes. The cheese came from a fruiterer’s in the Rue de la
+Cossonnerie, and was a present; and a “frier” of the Rue de la Grande
+Truanderie had given Cadine credit for two sous’ worth of potatoes. The
+rest of the feast, the pears, the nuts, the shrimps, and the radishes,
+had been pilfered from different parts of the market. It was a
+delicious treat; and Leon, desirous of returning the hospitality, gave
+a supper in his bedroom at one o’clock in the morning. The bill of fare
+included cold black-pudding, slices of polony, a piece of salt pork,
+some gherkins, and some goose-fat. The Quenu-Gradelles’ shop had
+provided everything. And matters did not stop there. Dainty suppers
+alternated with delicate luncheons, and invitation upon invitation.
+Three times a week there were banquets, either amidst the hampers or in
+Leon’s garret, where Florent, on the nights when he lay awake, could
+hear a stifled sound of munching and rippling laughter until day began
+to break.
+
+The loves of Cadine and Marjolin now took another turn. The youth
+played the gallant, and just as another might entertain his
+_innamorata_ at a champagne supper _en tête à tête_ in a private room,
+he led Cadine into some quiet corner of the market cellars to munch
+apples or sprigs of celery. One day he stole a red-herring, which they
+devoured with immense enjoyment on the roof of the fish market beside
+the guttering. There was not a single shady nook in the whole place
+where they did not indulge in secret feasts. The district, with its
+rows of open shops full of fruit and cakes and preserves, was no longer
+a closed paradise, in front of which they prowled with greedy, covetous
+appetites. As they passed the shops they now extended their hands and
+pilfered a prune, a few cherries, or a bit of cod. They also
+provisioned themselves at the markets, keeping a sharp look-out as they
+made their way between the stalls, picking up everything that fell, and
+often assisting the fall by a push of their shoulders.
+
+In spite, however, of all the marauding, some terrible scores had to be
+run up with the “frier” of the Rue de la Grand Truanderie. This
+“frier,” whose shanty leaned against a tumble-down house, and was
+propped up by heavy joists, green with moss, made a display of boiled
+mussels lying in large earthenware bowls filled to the brim with clear
+water; of dishes of little yellow dabs stiffened by too thick a coating
+of paste; of squares of tripe simmering in a pan; and of grilled
+herrings, black and charred, and so hard that if you tapped them they
+sounded like wood. On certain weeks Cadine owed the frier as much as
+twenty sous, a crushing debt, which required the sale of an
+incalculable number of bunches of violets, for she could count upon no
+assistance from Marjolin. Moreover, she was bound to return Leon’s
+hospitalities; and she even felt some little shame at never being able
+to offer him a scrap of meat. He himself had now taken to purloining
+entire hams. As a rule, he stowed everything away under his shirt; and
+at night when he reached his bedroom he drew from his bosom hunks of
+polony, slices of _paté de foie gras_, and bundles of pork rind. They
+had to do without bread, and there was nothing to drink; but no matter.
+One night Marjolin saw Leon kiss Cadine between two mouthfuls; however,
+he only laughed. He could have smashed the little fellow with a blow
+from his fist, but he felt no jealousy in respect of Cadine. He treated
+her simply as a comrade with whom he had chummed for years.
+
+Claude never participated in these feasts. Having caught Cadine one day
+stealing a beet-root from a little hamper lined with hay, he had pulled
+her ears and given her a sound rating. These thieving propensities made
+her perfect as a ne’er-do-well. However, in spite of himself, he could
+not help feeling a sort of admiration for these sensual, pilfering,
+greedy creatures, who preyed upon everything that lay about, feasting
+off the crumbs that fell from the giant’s table.
+
+At last Marjolin nominally took service under Gavard, happy in having
+nothing to do except to listen to his master’s flow of talk, while
+Cadine still continued to sell violets, quite accustomed by this time
+to old Mother Chantemesse’s scoldings. They were still the same
+children as ever, giving way to their instincts and appetites without
+the slightest shame—they were the growth of the slimy pavements of the
+market district, where, even in fine weather, the mud remains black and
+sticky. However, as Cadine walked along the footways, mechanically
+twisting her bunches of violets, she was sometimes disturbed by
+disquieting reveries; and Marjolin, too, suffered from an uneasiness
+which he could not explain. He would occasionally leave the girl and
+miss some ramble or feast in order to go and gaze at Madame Quenu
+through the windows of her pork shop. She was so handsome and plump and
+round that it did him good to look at her. As he stood gazing at her,
+he felt full and satisfied, as though he had just eaten or drunk
+something extremely nice. And when he went off, a sort of hunger and
+thirst to see her again suddenly came upon him. This had been going on
+for a couple of months. At first he had looked at her with the
+respectful glance which he bestowed upon the shop-fronts of the grocers
+and provision dealers; but subsequently, when he and Cadine had taken
+to general pilfering, he began to regard her smooth cheeks much as he
+regarded the barrels of olives and boxes of dried apples.
+
+For some time past Marjolin had seen handsome Lisa every day, in the
+morning. She would pass Gavard’s stall, and stop for a moment or two to
+chat with the poultry dealer. She now did her marketing herself, so
+that she might be cheated as little as possible, she said. The truth,
+however, was that she wished to make Gavard speak out. In the pork shop
+he was always distrustful, but at his stall he chatted and talked with
+the utmost freedom. Now, Lisa had made up her mind to ascertain from
+him exactly what took place in the little room at Monsieur Lebigre’s;
+for she had no great confidence in her secret police office,
+Mademoiselle Saget. In a short time she learnt from the incorrigible
+chatterbox a lot of vague details which very much alarmed her. Two days
+after her explanation with Quenu she returned home from the market
+looking very pale. She beckoned to her husband to follow her into the
+dining-room, and having carefully closed the door she said to him: “Is
+your brother determined to send us to the scaffold, then? Why did you
+conceal from me what you knew?”
+
+Quenu declared that he knew nothing. He even swore a great oath that he
+had not returned to Monsieur Lebigre’s, and would never go there again.
+
+“You will do well not to do so,” replied Lisa, shrugging her shoulders,
+“unless you want to get yourself into a serious scrape. Florent is up
+to some evil trick, I’m certain of it! I have just learned quite
+sufficient to show me where he is going. He’s going back to Cayenne, do
+you hear?”
+
+Then, after a pause, she continued in calmer ones: “Oh, the unhappy
+man! He had everything here that he could wish for. He might have
+redeemed his character; he had nothing but good examples before him.
+But no, it is in his blood! He will come to a violent end with his
+politics! I insist upon there being an end to all this! You hear me,
+Quenu? I gave you due warning long ago!”
+
+She spoke the last words very incisively. Quenu bent his head, as if
+awaiting sentence.
+
+“To begin with,” continued Lisa, “he shall cease to take his meals
+here. It will be quite sufficient if we give him a bed. He is earning
+money; let him feed himself.”
+
+Quenu seemed on the point of protesting, but his wife silenced him by
+adding energetically:
+
+“Make your choice between him and me. If he remains here, I swear to
+you that I will go away, and take my daughter with me. Do you want me
+to tell you the whole truth about him? He is a man capable of anything;
+he has come here to bring discord into our household. But I will set
+things right, you may depend on it. You have your choice between him
+and me; you hear me?”
+
+Then, leaving her husband in silent consternation, she returned to the
+shop, where she served a customer with her usual affable smile. The
+fact was that, having artfully inveigled Gavard into a political
+discussion, the poultry dealer had told her that she would soon see how
+the land lay, that they were going to make a clean sweep of everything,
+and that two determined men like her brother-in-law and himself would
+suffice to set the fire blazing. This was the evil trick of which she
+had spoken to Quenu, some conspiracy to which Gavard was always making
+mysterious allusions with a sniggering grin from which he seemingly
+desired a great deal to be inferred. And in imagination Lisa already
+saw the gendarmes invading the pork shop, gagging herself, her husband,
+and Pauline, and casting them into some underground dungeon.
+
+In the evening, at dinner, she evinced an icy frigidity. She made no
+offers to serve Florent, but several times remarked: “It’s very strange
+what an amount of bread we’ve got through lately.”
+
+Florent at last understood. He felt that he was being treated like a
+poor relation who is gradually turned out of doors. For the last two
+months Lisa had dressed him in Quenu’s old trousers and coats; and, as
+he was as thin as his brother was fat, these ragged garments had a most
+extraordinary appearance upon him. She also turned her oldest linen
+over to him: pocket-handkerchiefs which had been darned a score of
+times, ragged towels, sheets which were only fit to be cut up into
+dusters and dish-cloths, and worn-out shirts, distended by Quenu’s
+corpulent figure, and so short that they would have served Florent as
+under-vests. Moreover, he no longer found around him the same
+good-natured kindliness as in the earlier days. The whole household
+seemed to shrug its shoulders after the example set by handsome Lisa.
+Auguste and Augustine turned their backs upon him, and little Pauline,
+with the cruel frankness of childhood, let fall some bitter remarks
+about the stains on his coat and the holes in his shirt. However,
+during the last days he suffered most at table. He scarcely dared to
+eat, as he saw the mother and daughter fix their gaze upon him whenever
+he cut himself a piece of bread. Quenu meantime peered into his plate,
+to avoid having to take any part in what went on.
+
+That which most tortured Florent was his inability to invent a reason
+for leaving the house. During a week he kept on revolving in his mind a
+sentence expressing his resolve to take his meals elsewhere, but could
+not bring himself to utter it. Indeed, this man of tender nature lived
+in such a world of illusions that he feared he might hurt his brother
+and sister-in-law by ceasing to lunch and dine with them. It had taken
+him over two months to detect Lisa’s latent hostility; and even now he
+was sometimes inclined to think that he must be mistaken, and that she
+was in reality kindly disposed towards him. Unselfishness with him
+extended to forgetfulness of his requirements; it was no longer a
+virtue, but utter indifference to self, an absolute obliteration of
+personality. Even when he recognised that he was being gradually turned
+out of the house, his mind never for a moment dwelt upon his share in
+old Gradelle’s fortune, or upon the accounts which Lisa had offered
+him. He had already planned out his expenditure for the future;
+reckoning that with what Madame Verlaque still allowed him to retain of
+his salary, and the thirty francs a month which a pupil, obtained
+through La Normande, paid him he would be able to spend eighteen sous
+on his breakfast and twenty-six sous on his dinner. This, he thought,
+would be ample. And so, at last, taking as his excuse the lessons which
+he was giving his new pupil, he emboldened himself one morning to
+pretend that it would be impossible for him in future to come to the
+house at mealtimes. He blushed as he gave utterance to this laboriously
+constructed lie, which had given him so much trouble, and continued
+apologetically:
+
+“You mustn’t be offended; the boy only has those hours free. I can
+easily get something to eat, you know; and I will come and have a chat
+with you in the evenings.”
+
+Beautiful Lisa maintained her icy reserve, and this increased Florent’s
+feeling of trouble. In order to have no cause for self-reproach she had
+been unwilling to send him about his business, preferring to wait till
+he should weary of the situation and go of his own accord. Now he was
+going, and it was a good riddance; and she studiously refrained from
+all show of kindliness for fear it might induce him to remain. Quenu,
+however, showed some signs of emotion, and exclaimed: “Don’t think of
+putting yourself about; take your meals elsewhere by all means, if it
+is more convenient. It isn’t we who are turning you way; you’ll at all
+events dine with us sometimes on Sundays, eh?”
+
+Florent hurried off. His heart was very heavy. When he had gone, the
+beautiful Lisa did not venture to reproach her husband for his weakness
+in giving that invitation for Sundays. She had conquered, and again
+breathed freely amongst the light oak of her dining-room, where she
+would have liked to burn some sugar to drive away the odour of perverse
+leanness which seemed to linger about. Moreover, she continued to
+remain on the defensive; and at the end of another week she felt more
+alarmed than ever. She only occasionally saw Florent in the evenings,
+and began to have all sorts of dreadful thoughts, imagining that her
+brother-in-law was constructing some infernal machine upstairs in
+Augustine’s bedroom, or else making signals which would result in
+barricades covering the whole neighbourhood. Gavard, who had become
+gloomy, merely nodded or shook his head when she spoke to him, and left
+his stall for days together in Marjolin’s charge. The beautiful Lisa,
+however, determined that she would get to the bottom of affairs. She
+knew that Florent had obtained a day’s leave, and intended to spend it
+with Claude Lantier, at Madame Francois’s, at Nanterre. As he would
+start in the morning, and remain away till night, she conceived the
+idea of inviting Gavard to dinner. He would be sure to talk freely, at
+table, she thought. But throughout the morning she was unable to meet
+the poultry dealer, and so in the afternoon she went back again to the
+markets.
+
+Marjolin was in the stall alone. He used to drowse there for hours,
+recouping himself from the fatigue of his long rambles. He generally
+sat upon one chair with his legs resting upon another, and his head
+leaning against a little dresser. In the wintertime he took a keen
+delight in lolling there and contemplating the display of game; the
+bucks hanging head downwards, with their fore-legs broken and twisted
+round their necks; the larks festooning the stall like garlands; the
+big ruddy hares, the mottled partridges, the water-fowl of a
+bronze-grey hue, the Russian black cocks and hazel hens, which arrived
+in a packing of oat straw and charcoal;[*] and the pheasants, the
+magnificent pheasants, with their scarlet hoods, their stomachers of
+green satin, their mantles of embossed gold, and their flaming tails,
+that trailed like trains of court robes. All this show of plumage
+reminded Marjolin of his rambles in the cellars with Cadine amongst the
+hampers of feathers.
+
+[*] The baskets in which these are sent to Paris are identical with
+those which in many provinces of Russia serve the _moujiks_ as cradles
+for their infants.—Translator.
+
+
+That afternoon the beautiful Lisa found Marjolin in the midst of the
+poultry. It was warm, and whiffs of hot air passed along the narrow
+alleys of the pavilion. She was obliged to stoop before she could see
+him stretched out inside the stall, below the bare flesh of the birds.
+From the hooked bar up above hung fat geese, the hooks sticking in the
+bleeding wounds of their long stiffened necks, while their huge bodies
+bulged out, glowing ruddily beneath their fine down, and, with their
+snowy tails and wings, suggesting nudity encompassed by fine linen. And
+also hanging from the bar, with ears thrown back and feet parted as
+though they were bent on some vigorous leap, were grey rabbits whose
+turned-up tails gleamed whitely, whilst their heads, with sharp teeth
+and dim eyes, laughed with the grin of death. On the counter of the
+stall plucked fowls showed their strained fleshy breasts; pigeons,
+crowded on osier trays, displayed the soft bare skin of innocents;
+ducks, with skin of rougher texture, exhibited their webbed feet; and
+three magnificent turkeys, speckled with blue dots, like freshly-shaven
+chins, slumbered on their backs amidst the black fans of their expanded
+tails. On plates near by were giblets, livers, gizzards, necks, feet,
+and wings; while an oval dish contained a skinned and gutted rabbit,
+with its four legs wide apart, its head bleeding, and is kidneys
+showing through its gashed belly. A streamlet of dark blood, after
+trickling along its back to its tail, had fallen drop by drop, staining
+the whiteness of the dish. Marjolin had not even taken the trouble to
+wipe the block, near which the rabbit’s feet were still lying. He
+reclined there with his eyes half closed, encompassed by other piles of
+dead poultry which crowded the shelves of the stall, poultry in paper
+wrappers like bouquets, rows upon rows of protuberant breasts and bent
+legs showing confusedly. And amidst all this mass of food, the young
+fellow’s big, fair figure, the flesh of his cheeks, hands, and powerful
+neck covered with ruddy down seemed as soft as that of the magnificent
+turkeys, and as plump as the breasts of the fat geese.
+
+When he caught sight of Lisa, he at once sprang up, blushing at having
+been caught sprawling in this way. He always seemed very nervous and
+ill at ease in Madame Quenu’s presence; and when she asked him if
+Monsieur Gavard was there, he stammered out: “No, I don’t think so. He
+was here a little while ago, but he want away again.”
+
+Lisa looked at him, smiling; she had a great liking for him. But
+feeling something warm brush against her hand, which was hanging by her
+side, she raised a little shriek. Some live rabbits were thrusting
+their noses out of a box under the counter of the stall, and sniffing
+at her skirts.
+
+“Oh,” she exclaimed with a laugh, “it’s your rabbits that are tickling
+me.”
+
+Then she stooped and attempted to stroke a white rabbit, which darted
+in alarm into a corner of the box.
+
+“Will Monsieur Gavard be back soon, do you think?” she asked, as she
+again rose erect.
+
+Marjolin once more replied that he did not know; then in a hesitating
+way he continued: “He’s very likely gone down into the cellars. He told
+me, I think, that he was going there.”
+
+“Well, I think I’ll wait for him, then,” replied Lisa. “Could you let
+him know that I am here? or I might go down to him, perhaps. Yes,
+that’s a good idea; I’ve been intending to go and have a look at the
+cellars for these last five years. You’ll take me down, won’t you, and
+explain things to me?”
+
+Marjolin blushed crimson, and, hurrying out of the stall, walked on in
+front of her, leaving the poultry to look after itself. “Of course I
+will,” said he. “I’ll do anything you wish, Madame Lisa.”
+
+When they got down below, the beautiful Lisa felt quite suffocated by
+the dank atmosphere of the cellar. She stood at the bottom step, and
+raised her eyes to look at the vaulted roofing of red and white bricks
+arching slightly between the iron ribs upheld by small columns. What
+made her hesitate more than the gloominess of the place was a warm,
+penetrating odour, the exhalations of large numbers of living
+creatures, which irritated her nostrils and throat.
+
+“What a nasty smell!” she exclaimed. “It must be very unhealthy down
+here.”
+
+“It never does me any harm,” replied Marjolin in astonishment. “There’s
+nothing unpleasant about the smell when you’ve got accustomed to it;
+and it’s very warm and cosy down here in the wintertime.”
+
+As Lisa followed him, however, she declared that the strong scent of
+the poultry quite turned her stomach, and that she would certainly not
+be able to eat a fowl for the next two months. All around her, the
+storerooms, the small cabins where the stallkeepers keep their live
+stock, formed regular streets, intersecting each other at right angles.
+There were only a few scattered gas lights, and the little alleys
+seemed wrapped in sleep like the lanes of a village where the
+inhabitants have all gone to bed. Marjolin made Lisa feel the
+close-meshed wiring, stretched on a framework of cast iron; and as she
+made her way along one of the streets she amused herself by reading the
+names of the different tenants, which were inscribed on blue labels.
+
+“Monsieur Gavard’s place is quite at the far end,” said the young man,
+still walking on.
+
+They turned to the left, and found themselves in a sort of blind alley,
+a dark, gloomy spot where not a ray of light penetrated. Gavard was not
+there.
+
+“Oh, it makes no difference,” said Marjolin. “I can show you our birds
+just the same. I have a key of the storeroom.”
+
+Lisa followed him into the darkness.
+
+“You don’t suppose that I can see your birds in this black oven, do
+you?” she asked, laughing.
+
+Marjolin did not reply at once; but presently he stammered out that
+there was always a candle in the storeroom. He was fumbling about the
+lock, and seemed quite unable to find the keyhole. As Lisa came up to
+help him, she felt a hot breath on her neck; and when the young man had
+at last succeeded in opening the door and lighted the candle, she saw
+that he was trembling.
+
+“You silly fellow!” she exclaimed, “to get yourself into such a state
+just because a door won’t open! Why, you’re no better than a girl, in
+spite of your big fists!”
+
+She stepped inside the storeroom. Gavard had rented two compartments,
+which he had thrown into one by removing the partition between them. In
+the dirt on the floor wallowed the larger birds—the geese, turkeys, and
+ducks—while up above, on tiers of shelves, were boxes with barred
+fronts containing fowls and rabbits. The grating of the storeroom was
+so coated with dust and cobwebs that it looked as though covered with
+grey blinds. The woodwork down below was rotting, and covered with
+filth. Lisa, however, not wishing to vex Marjolin, refrained from any
+further expression of disgust. She pushed her fingers between the bars
+of the boxes, and began to lament the fate of the unhappy fowls, which
+were so closely huddled together and could not even stand upright. Then
+she stroked a duck with a broken leg which was squatting in a corner,
+and the young man told her that it would be killed that very evening,
+for fear lest it should die during the night.
+
+“But what do they do for food?” asked Lisa.
+
+Thereupon he explained to her that poultry would not eat in the dark,
+and that it was necessary to light a candle and wait there till they
+had finished their meal.
+
+“It amuses me to watch them,” he continued; “I often stay here with a
+light for hours altogether. You should see how they peck away; and when
+I hide the flame of the candle with my hand they all stand stock-still
+with their necks in the air, just as though the sun had set. It is
+against the rules to leave a lighted candle here and go away. One of
+the dealers, old Mother Palette—you know her, don’t you?—nearly burned
+the whole place down the other day. A fowl must have knocked the candle
+over into the straw while she was away.”
+
+“A pretty thing, isn’t it,” said Lisa, “for fowls to insist upon having
+the chandeliers lighted up every time they take a meal?”
+
+This idea made her laugh. Then she came out of the storeroom, wiping
+her feet, and holding up her skirts to keep them from the filth.
+Marjolin blew out the candle and locked the door. Lisa felt rather
+nervous at finding herself in the dark again with this big young
+fellow, and so she hastened on in front.
+
+“I’m glad I came, all the same,” she presently said, as he joined her.
+“There is a great deal more under these markets than I ever imagined.
+But I must make haste now and get home again. They’ll wonder what has
+become of me at the shop. If Monsieur Gavard comes back, tell him that
+I want to speak to him immediately.”
+
+“I expect he’s in the killing-room,” said Marjolin. “We’ll go and see,
+if you like.”
+
+Lisa made no reply. She felt oppressed by the close atmosphere which
+warmed her face. She was quite flushed, and her bodice, generally so
+still and lifeless, began to heave. Moreover, the sound of Marjolin’s
+hurrying steps behind her filled her with an uneasy feeling. At last
+she stepped aside, and let him go on in front. The lanes of this
+underground village were still fast asleep. Lisa noticed that her
+companion was taking the longest way. When they came out in front of
+the railway track he told her that he had wished to show it to her; and
+they stood for a moment or two looking through the chinks in the
+hoarding of heavy beams. Then Marjolin proposed to take her on to the
+line; but she refused, saying that it was not worth while, as she could
+see things well enough where she was.
+
+As they returned to the poultry cellars they found old Madame Palette
+in front of her storeroom, removing the cords of a large square hamper,
+in which a furious fluttering of wings and scraping of feet could be
+heard. As she unfastened the last knot the lid suddenly flew open, as
+though shot up by a spring, and some big geese thrust out their heads
+and necks. Then, in wild alarm, they sprang from their prison and
+rushed away, craning their necks, and filling the dark cellars with a
+frightful noise of hissing and clattering of beaks. Lisa could not help
+laughing, in spite of the lamentations of the old woman, who swore like
+a carter as she caught hold of two of the absconding birds and dragged
+them back by the neck. Marjolin, meantime, set off in pursuit of a
+third. They could hear him running along the narrow alleys, hunting for
+the runaway, and delighting in the chase. Then, far off in the
+distance, they heard the sounds of a struggle, and presently Marjolin
+came back again, bringing the goose with him. Mother Palette, a
+sallow-faced old woman, took it in her arms and clasped it for a moment
+to her bosom, in the classic attitude of Leda.
+
+“Well, well, I’m sure I don’t know what I should have done if you
+hadn’t been here,” said she. “The other day I had a regular fight with
+one of the brutes; but I had my knife with me, and I cut its throat.”
+
+Marjolin was quite out of breath. When they reached the stone blocks
+where the poultry were killed, and where the gas burnt more brightly,
+Lisa could see that he was perspiring, and had bold, glistening eyes.
+She thought he looked very handsome like that, with his broad
+shoulders, big flushed face, and fair curly hair, and she looked at him
+so complacently, with that air of admiration which women feel they may
+safely express for quite young lads, that he relapsed into timid
+bashfulness again.
+
+“Well, Monsieur Gavard isn’t here, you see,” she said. “You’ve only
+made me waste my time.”
+
+Marjolin, however, began rapidly explaining the killing of the poultry
+to her. Five huge stone slabs stretched out in the direction of the Rue
+Rambuteau under the yellow light of the gas jets. A woman was killing
+fowls at one end; and this led him to tell Lisa that the birds were
+plucked almost before they were dead, the operation thus being much
+easier. Then he wanted her to feel the feathers which were lying in
+heaps on the stone slabs; and told her that they were sorted and sold
+for as much as nine sous the pound, according to their quality. To
+satisfy him, she was also obliged to plunge her hand into the big
+hampers full of down. Then he turned the water-taps, of which there was
+one by every pillar. There was no end to the particulars he gave. The
+blood, he said, streamed along the stone blocks, and collected into
+pools on the paved floor, which attendants sluiced with water every two
+hours, removing the more recent stains with coarse brushes.
+
+When Lisa stooped over the drain which carries away the swillings,
+Marjolin found a fresh text for talk. On rainy days, said he, the water
+sometimes rose through this orifice and flooded the place. It had once
+risen a foot high; and they had been obliged to transport all the
+poultry to the other end of the cellar, which is on a higher level. He
+laughed as he recalled the wild flutter of the terrified creatures.
+However, he had now finished, and it seemed as though there remained
+nothing else for him to show, when all at once he bethought himself of
+the ventilator. Thereupon he took Lisa off to the far end of the
+cellar, and told her to look up; and inside one of the turrets at the
+corner angles of the pavilion she observed a sort of escape-pipe, by
+which the foul atmosphere of the storerooms ascended into space.
+
+Here, in this corner, reeking with abominable odours, Marjolin’s
+nostrils quivered, and his breath came and went violently. His long
+stroll with Lisa in these cellars, full of warm animal perfumes, had
+gradually intoxicated him.
+
+She had again turned towards him. “Well,” said she, “it was very kind
+of you to show me all this, and when you come to the shop I will give
+you something.”
+
+Whilst speaking she took hold of his soft chin, as she often did,
+without recognising that he was no longer a child; and perhaps she
+allowed her hand to linger there a little longer than was her wont. At
+all events, Marjolin, usually so bashful, was thrilled by the caress,
+and all at once he impetuously sprang forward, clasped Lisa by the
+shoulders, and pressed his lips to her soft cheeks. She raised no cry,
+but turned very pale at this sudden attack, which showed her how
+imprudent she had been. And then, freeing herself from the embrace, she
+raised her arm, as she had seen men do in slaughter houses, clenched
+her comely fist, and knocked Marjolin down with a single blow, planted
+straight between his eyes; and as he fell his head came into collision
+with one of the stone slabs, and was split open. Just at that moment
+the hoarse and prolonged crowing of a cock sounded through the gloom.
+
+Handsome Lisa, however, remained perfectly cool. Her lips were tightly
+compressed, and her bosom had recovered its wonted immobility. Up above
+she could hear the heavy rumbling of the markets, and through the
+vent-holes alongside the Rue Rambuteau the noise of the street traffic
+made its way into the oppressive silence of the cellar. Lisa reflected
+that her own strong arm had saved her; and then, fearing lest some one
+should come and find her there, she hastened off, without giving a
+glance at Marjolin. As she climbed the steps, after passing through the
+grated entrance of the cellars, the daylight brought her great relief.
+
+She returned to the shop, quite calm, and only looking a little pale.
+
+“You’ve been a long time,” Quenu said to her.
+
+“I can’t find Gavard. I have looked for him everywhere,” she quietly
+replied. “We shall have to eat our leg of mutton without him.”
+
+Then she filled the lard pot, which she noticed was empty; and cut some
+pork chops for her friend Madame Taboureau, who had sent her little
+servant for them. The blows which she dealt with her cleaver reminded
+her of Marjolin. She felt that she had nothing to reproach herself
+with. She had acted like an honest woman. She was not going to disturb
+her peace of mind; she was too happy to do anything to compromise
+herself. However, she glanced at Quenu, whose neck was coarse and
+ruddy, and whose shaven chin looked as rough as knotted wood; whereas
+Marjolin’s chin and neck resembled rosy satin. But then she must not
+think of him any more, for he was no longer a child. She regretted it,
+and could not help thinking that children grew up much too quickly.
+
+A slight flush came back to her cheeks, and Quenu considered that she
+looked wonderfully blooming. He came and sat down beside her at the
+counter for a moment or two. “You ought to go out oftener,” said he;
+“it does you good. We’ll go to the theatre together one of these
+nights, if you like; to the Gaité, eh? Madame Taboureau has been to see
+the piece they are playing there, and she declares it’s splendid.”
+
+Lisa smiled, and said they would see about it, and then once more she
+took herself off. Quenu thought that it was too good of her to take so
+much trouble in running about after that brute Gavard. In point of
+fact, however, she had simply gone upstairs to Florent’s bedroom, the
+key of which was hanging from a nail in the kitchen. She hoped to find
+out something or other by an inspection of this room, since the poultry
+dealer had failed her. She went slowly round it, examining the bed, the
+mantelpiece, and every corner. The window with the little balcony was
+open, and the budding pomegranate was steeped in the golden beams of
+the setting sun. The room looked to her as though Augustine had never
+left it—had slept there only the night before. There seemed to be
+nothing masculine about the place. She was quite surprised, for she had
+expected to find some suspicious-looking chests, and coffers with
+strong locks. She went to feel Augustine’s summer gown, which was still
+hanging against the wall. Then she sat down at the table, and began to
+read an unfinished page of manuscript, in which the word “revolution”
+occurred twice. This alarmed her, and she opened the drawer, which she
+saw was full of papers. But her sense of honour awoke within her in
+presence of the secret which the rickety deal table so badly guarded.
+She remained bending over the papers, trying to understand them without
+touching them, in a state of great emotion, when the shrill song of the
+chaffinch, on whose cage streamed a ray of sunshine, made her start.
+She closed the drawer. It was a base thing that she had contemplated,
+she thought.
+
+Then, as she lingered by the window, reflecting that she ought to go
+and ask counsel of Abbé Roustan, who was a very sensible man, she saw a
+crowd of people round a stretcher in the market square below. The night
+was falling, still she distinctly recognised Cadine weeping in the
+midst of the crowd; while Florent and Claude, whose boots were white
+with dust, stood together talking earnestly at the edge of the footway.
+She hurried downstairs again, surprised to see them back so soon, and
+scarcely had she reached her counter when Mademoiselle Saget entered
+the shop.
+
+“They have found that scamp of a Marjolin in the cellar, with his head
+split open,” exclaimed the old maid. “Won’t you come to see him, Madame
+Quenu?”
+
+Lisa crossed the road to look at him. The young fellow was lying on his
+back on the stretcher, looking very pale. His eyes were closed, and a
+stiff wisp of his fair hair was clotted with blood. The bystanders,
+however, declared that there was no serious harm done, and, besides,
+the scamp had only himself to blame, for he was always playing all
+sorts of wild pranks in the cellars. It was generally supposed that he
+had been trying to jump over one of the stone blocks—one of his
+favourite amusements—and had fallen with his head against the slab.
+
+“I dare say that hussy there gave him a shove,” remarked Mademoiselle
+Saget, pointing to Cadine, who was weeping. “They are always larking
+together.”
+
+Meantime the fresh air had restored Marjolin to consciousness, and he
+opened his eyes in wide astonishment. He looked round at everybody, and
+then, observing Lisa bending over him, he gently smiled at her with an
+expression of mingled humility and affection. He seemed to have
+forgotten all that had happened. Lisa, feeling relieved, said that he
+ought to be taken to the hospital at once, and promised to go and see
+him there, and take him some oranges and biscuits. However, Marjolin’s
+head had fallen back, and when the stretcher was carried away Cadine
+followed it, with her flat basket slung round her neck, and her hot
+tears rolling down upon the bunches of violets in their mossy bed. She
+certainly had no thoughts for the flowers that she was thus scalding
+with her bitter grief.
+
+As Lisa went back to her shop, she heard Claude say, as he shook hands
+with Florent and parted from him: “Ah! the confounded young scamp! He’s
+quite spoiled my day for me! Still, we had a very enjoyable time,
+didn’t we?”
+
+Claude and Florent had returned both worried and happy, bringing with
+them the pleasant freshness of the country air. Madame Francois had
+disposed of all her vegetables that morning before daylight; and they
+had all three gone to the Golden Compasses, in the Rue Montorgueil, to
+get the cart. Here, in the middle of Paris, they found a foretaste of
+the country. Behind the Restaurant Philippe, with its frontage of gilt
+woodwork rising to the first floor, there was a yard like that of a
+farm, dirty, teeming with life, reeking with the odour of manure and
+straw. Bands of fowls were pecking at the soft ground. Sheds and
+staircases and galleries of greeny wood clung to the old houses around,
+and at the far end, in a shanty of big beams, was Balthazar, harnessed
+to the cart, and eating the oats in his nosebag. He went down the Rue
+Montorgueil at a slow trot, seemingly well pleased to return to
+Nanterre so soon. However, he was not going home without a load. Madame
+Francois had a contract with the company which undertook the scavenging
+of the markets, and twice a week she carried off with her a load of
+leaves, forked up from the mass of refuse which littered the square. It
+made excellent manure. In a few minutes the cart was filled to
+overflowing. Claude and Florent stretched themselves out on the deep
+bed of greenery; Madame Francois grasped her reins, and Balthazar went
+off at his slow, steady pace, his head somewhat bent by reason of there
+being so many passengers to pull along.
+
+This excursion had been talked of for a long time past. Madame Francois
+laughed cheerily. She was partial to the two men, and promised them an
+_omelette au lard_ as had never been eaten, said she, in “that
+villainous Paris.” Florent and Claude revelled in the thought of this
+day of lounging idleness which as yet had scarcely begun to dawn.
+Nanterre seemed to be some distant paradise into which they would
+presently enter.
+
+“Are you quite comfortable?” Madame Francois asked as the cart turned
+into the Rue du Pont Neuf.
+
+Claude declared that their couch was as soft as a bridal bed. Lying on
+their backs, with their hands crossed under their heads, both men were
+looking up at the pale sky from which the stars were vanishing. All
+along the Rue de Rivoli they kept unbroken silence, waiting till they
+should have got clear of the houses, and listening to the worthy woman
+as she chattered to Balthazar: “Take your time, old man,” she said to
+him in kindly tones. “We’re in no hurry; we shall be sure to get there
+at last.”
+
+On reaching the Champs Elysees, when the artist saw nothing but
+tree-tops on either side of him, and the great green mass of the
+Tuileries gardens in the distance, he woke up, as it were, and began to
+talk. When the cart had passed the end of the Rue du Roule he had
+caught a glimpse of the side entrance of Saint Eustache under the giant
+roofing of one of the market covered-ways. He was constantly referring
+to this view of the church, and tried to give it a symbolical meaning.
+
+“It’s an odd mixture,” he said, “that bit of church framed round by an
+avenue of cast iron. The one will kill the other; the iron will slay
+the stone, and the time is not very far off. Do you believe in chance,
+Florent? For my part, I don’t think that it was any mere chance of
+position that set a rose-window of Saint Eustache right in the middle
+of the central markets. No; there’s a whole manifesto in it. It is
+modern art, realism, naturalism—whatever you like to call it—that has
+grown up and dominates ancient art. Don’t you agree with me?”
+
+Then, as Florent still kept silence, Claude continued: “Besides, that
+church is a piece of bastard architecture, made up of the dying gasp of
+the middle ages, and the first stammering of the Renaissance. Have you
+noticed what sort of churches are built nowadays? They resemble all
+kinds of things—libraries, observatories, pigeon-cotes, barracks; and
+surely no one can imagine that the Deity dwells in such places. The
+pious old builders are all dead and gone; and it would be better to
+cease erecting those hideous carcasses of stone, in which we have no
+belief to enshrine. Since the beginning of the century there has only
+been one large original pile of buildings erected in Paris—a pile in
+accordance with modern developments—and that’s the central markets. You
+hear me, Florent? Ah! they are a fine bit of building, though they but
+faintly indicate what we shall see in the twentieth century! And so,
+you see, Saint Eustache is done for! It stands there with its
+rose-windows, deserted by worshippers, while the markets spread out by
+its side and teem with noisy life. Yes! that’s how I understand it all,
+my friend.”
+
+“Ah! Monsieur Claude,” said Madame Francois, laughing, “the woman who
+cut your tongue-string certainly earned her money. Look at Balthazar
+laying his ears back to listen to you. Come, come, get along,
+Balthazar!”
+
+The cart was slowly making its way up the incline. At this early hour
+of the morning the avenue, with its double lines of iron chairs on
+either pathway, and its lawns, dotted with flowerbeds and clumps of
+shrubbery, stretching away under the blue shadows of the trees, was
+quite deserted; however, at the Rond-Point a lady and gentleman on
+horseback passed the cart at a gentle trot. Florent, who had made
+himself a pillow with a bundle of cabbage-leaves, was still gazing at
+the sky, in which a far-stretching rosy glow was appearing. Every now
+and then he would close his eyes, the better to enjoy the fresh breeze
+of the morning as it fanned his face. He was so happy to escape from
+the markets, and travel on through the pure air, that he remained
+speechless, and did not even listen to what was being said around him.
+
+“And then, too, what fine jokers are those fellows who imprison art in
+a toy-box!” resumed Claude, after a pause. “They are always repeating
+the same idiotic words: ‘You can’t create art out of science,’ says
+one; ‘Mechanical appliances kill poetry,’ says another; and a pack of
+fools wail over the fate of the flowers, as though anybody wished the
+flowers any harm! I’m sick of all such twaddle; I should like to answer
+all that snivelling with some work of open defiance. I should take a
+pleasure in shocking those good people. Shall I tell you what was the
+finest thing I ever produced since I first began to work, and the one
+which I recall with the greatest pleasure? It’s quite a story. When I
+was at my Aunt Lisa’s on Christmas Eve last year that idiot of an
+Auguste, the assistant, was setting out the shop-window. Well, he quite
+irritated me by the weak, spiritless way in which he arranged the
+display; and at last I requested him to take himself off, saying that I
+would group the things myself in a proper manner. You see, I had plenty
+of bright colours to work with—the red of the tongues, the yellow of
+the hams, the blue of the paper shavings, the rosy pink of the things
+that had been cut into, the green of the sprigs of heath, and the black
+of the black-puddings—ah! a magnificent black, which I have never
+managed to produce on my palette. And naturally, the _crepine_, the
+small sausages, the chitterlings, and the crumbed trotters provided me
+with delicate greys and browns. I produced a perfect work of art. I
+took the dishes, the plates, the pans, and the jars, and arranged the
+different colours; and I devised a wonderful picture of still life,
+with subtle scales of tints leading up to brilliant flashes of colour.
+The red tongues seemed to thrust themselves out like greedy flames, and
+the black-puddings, surrounded by pale sausages, suggested a dark night
+fraught with terrible indigestion. I had produced, you see, a picture
+symbolical of the gluttony of Christmas Eve, when people meet and
+sup—the midnight feasting, the ravenous gorging of stomachs void and
+faint after all the singing of hymns.[*] At the top of everything a
+huge turkey exhibited its white breast, marbled blackly by the truffles
+showing through its skin. It was something barbaric and superb,
+suggesting a paunch amidst a halo of glory; but there was such a
+cutting, sarcastic touch about it all that people crowded to the
+window, alarmed by the fierce flare of the shop-front. When my aunt
+Lisa came back from the kitchen she was quite frightened, and thought
+I’d set the fat in the shop on fire; and she considered the appearance
+of the turkey so indelicate that she turned me out of the place while
+Auguste re-arranged the window after his own idiotic fashion. Such
+brutes will never understand the language of a red splotch by the side
+of a grey one. Ah, well! that was my masterpiece. I have never done
+anything better.”
+
+[*] An allusion to the “midnight mass” usually celebrated in Roman
+Catholic churches on Christmas Eve.—Translator.
+
+
+He relapsed into silence, smiling and dwelling with gratification on
+this reminiscence. The cart had now reached the Arc de Triomphe, and
+strong currents of air swept from the avenues across the expanse of
+open ground. Florent sat up, and inhaled with zest the first odours of
+grass wafted from the fortifications. He turned his back on Paris,
+anxious to behold the country in the distance. At the corner of the Rue
+de Longchamp, Madame Francois pointed out to him the spot where she had
+picked him up. This rendered him thoughtful, and he gazed at her as she
+sat there, so healthy-looking and serene, with her arms slightly
+extended so as to grasp the reins. She looked even handsomer than Lisa,
+with her neckerchief tied over her head, her robust glow of health, and
+her brusque, kindly air. When she gave a slight cluck with her tongue,
+Balthazar pricked up his ears and rattled down the road at a quicker
+pace.
+
+On arriving at Nanterre, the cart turned to the left into a narrow
+lane, skirted some blank walls, and finally came to a standstill at the
+end of a sort of blind alley. It was the end of the world, Madame
+Francois used to say. The load of vegetable leaves now had to be
+discharged. Claude and Florent would not hear of the journeyman
+gardener, who was planting lettuces, leaving his work, but armed
+themselves with pitchforks and proceeded to toss the leaves into the
+manure pit. This occupation afforded them much amusement. Claude had
+quite a liking for manure, since it symbolises the world and its life.
+The strippings and parings of the vegetables, the scourings of the
+markets, the refuse that fell from that colossal table, remained full
+of life, and returned to the spot where the vegetables had previously
+sprouted, to warm and nourish fresh generations of cabbages, turnips,
+and carrots. They rose again in fertile crops, and once more went to
+spread themselves out upon the market square. Paris rotted everything,
+and returned everything to the soil, which never wearied of repairing
+the ravages of death.
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed Claude, as he plied his fork for the last time, “here’s
+a cabbage-stalk that I’m sure I recognise. It has grown up at least
+half a score of times in that corner yonder by the apricot tree.”
+
+This remark made Florent laugh. But he soon became grave again, and
+strolled slowly through the kitchen garden, while Claude made a sketch
+of the stable, and Madame Francois got breakfast ready. The kitchen
+garden was a long strip of ground, divided in the middle by a narrow
+path; it rose slightly, and at the top end, on raising the head, you
+could perceive the low barracks of Mont Valerien. Green hedges
+separated it from other plots of land, and these lofty walls of
+hawthorn fringed the horizon with a curtain of greenery in such wise
+that of all the surrounding country Mont Valerien alone seemed to rise
+inquisitively on tip-toe in order to peer into Madame Francois’s close.
+Great peacefulness came from the countryside which could not be seen.
+Along the kitchen garden, between the four hedges, the May sun shone
+with a languid heat, a silence disturbed only by the buzzing of
+insects, a somnolence suggestive of painless parturition. Every now and
+then a faint cracking sound, a soft sigh, made one fancy that one could
+hear the vegetables sprout into being. The patches of spinach and
+sorrel, the borders of radishes, carrots, and turnips, the beds of
+potatoes and cabbages, spread out in even regularity, displaying their
+dark leaf-mould between their tufts of greenery. Farther away, the
+trenched lettuces, onions, leeks, and celery, planted by line in long
+straight rows, looked like soldiers on parade; while the peas and beans
+were beginning to twine their slender tendrils round a forest of
+sticks, which, when June came, they would transform into a thick and
+verdant wood. There was not a weed to be seen. The garden resembled two
+parallel strips of carpet of a geometrical pattern of green on a
+reddish ground, which were carefully swept every morning. Borders of
+thyme grew like greyish fringe along each side of the pathway.
+
+Florent paced backwards and forwards amidst the perfume of the thyme,
+which the sun was warming. He felt profoundly happy in the peacefulness
+and cleanliness of the garden. For nearly a year past he had only seen
+vegetables bruised and crushed by the jolting of the market-carts;
+vegetables torn up on the previous evening, and still bleeding. He
+rejoiced to find them at home, in peace in the dark mould, and sound in
+every part. The cabbages had a bulky, prosperous appearance; the
+carrots looked bright and gay; and the lettuces lounged in line with an
+air of careless indolence. And as he looked at them all, the markets
+which he had left behind him that morning seemed to him like a vast
+mortuary, an abode of death, where only corpses could be found, a
+charnel-house reeking with foul smells and putrefaction. He slackened
+his steps, and rested in that kitchen garden, as after a long
+perambulation amidst deafening noises and repulsive odours. The uproar
+and the sickening humidity of the fish market had departed from him;
+and he felt as though he were being born anew in the pure fresh air.
+Claude was right, he thought. The markets were a sphere of death. The
+soil was the life, the eternal cradle, the health of the world.
+
+“The omelet’s ready!” suddenly cried Madame Francois.
+
+When they were all three seated round the table in the kitchen, with
+the door thrown open to the sunshine, they ate their breakfast with
+such light-hearted gaiety that Madame Francois looked at Florent in
+amazement, repeating between each mouthful: “You’re quite altered.
+You’re ten years younger. It is that villainous Paris which makes you
+seem so gloomy. You’ve got a little sunshine in your eyes now. Ah!
+those big towns do one’s health no good, you ought to come and live
+here.”
+
+Claude laughed, and retorted that Paris was a glorious place. He stuck
+up for it and all that belonged to it, even to its gutters; though at
+the same time retaining a keen affection for the country.
+
+In the afternoon Madame Francois and Florent found themselves alone at
+the end of the garden, in a corner planted with a few fruit trees.
+Seated on the ground, they talked somewhat seriously together. The good
+woman advised Florent with an affectionate and quite maternal kindness.
+She asked him endless questions about his life, and his intentions for
+the future, and begged him to remember that he might always count upon
+her, if ever he thought that she could in the slightest degree
+contribute to his happiness. Florent was deeply touched. No woman had
+ever spoken to him in that way before. Madame Francois seemed to him
+like some healthy, robust plant that had grown up with the vegetables
+in the leaf-mould of the garden; while the Lisas, the Normans, and
+other pretty women of the markets appeared to him like flesh of
+doubtful freshness decked out for exhibition. He here enjoyed several
+hours of perfect well-being, delivered from all that reek of food which
+sickened him in the markets, and reviving to new life amidst the
+fertile atmosphere of the country, like that cabbage stalk which Claude
+declared he had seen sprout up more than half a score of times.
+
+The two men took leave of Madame Francois at about five o’clock. They
+had decided to walk back to Paris; and the market gardener accompanied
+them into the lane. As she bade good-bye to Florent, she kept his hand
+in her own for a moment, and said gently: “If ever anything happens to
+trouble you, remember to come to me.”
+
+For a quarter of an hour Florent walked on without speaking, already
+getting gloomy again, and reflecting that he was leaving health behind
+him. The road to Courbevoie was white with dust. However, both men were
+fond of long walks and the ringing of stout boots on the hard ground.
+Little clouds of dust rose up behind their heels at every step, while
+the rays of the sinking sun darted obliquely over the avenue,
+lengthening their shadows in such wise that their heads reached the
+other side of the road, and journeyed along the opposite footway.
+
+Claude, swinging his arms, and taking long, regular strides,
+complacently watched these two shadows, whilst enjoying the rhythmical
+cadence of his steps, which he accentuated by a motion of his
+shoulders. Presently, however, as though just awaking from a dream, he
+exclaimed: “Do you know the ‘Battle of the Fat and the Thin’?”
+
+Florent, surprised by the question, replied in the negative; and
+thereupon Claude waxed enthusiastic, talking of that series of prints
+in very eulogical fashion. He mentioned certain incidents: the Fat, so
+swollen that they almost burst, preparing their evening debauch, while
+the Thin, bent double by fasting, looked in from the street with the
+appearance of envious laths; and then, again, the Fat, with hanging
+cheeks, driving off one of the Thin, who had been audacious enough to
+introduce himself into their midst in lowly humility, and who looked
+like a ninepin amongst a population of balls.
+
+In these designs Claude detected the entire drama of human life, and he
+ended by classifying men into Fat and Thin, two hostile groups, one of
+which devours the other, and grows fat and sleek and enjoys itself.
+
+“Cain,” said he, “was certainly one of the Fat, and Abel one of the
+Thin. Ever since that first murder, there have been rampant appetites
+which have drained the life-blood of small eaters. It’s a continual
+preying of the stronger upon the weaker; each swallowing his neighbour,
+and then getting swallowed in his turn. Beware of the Fat, my friend.”
+
+He relapsed into silence for a moment, still watching their two
+shadows, which the setting sun elongated more than ever. Then he
+murmured: “You see, we belong to the Thin—you and I. Those who are no
+more corpulent than we are don’t take up much room in the sunlight,
+eh?”
+
+Florent glanced at the two shadows, and smiled. But Claude waxed angry,
+and exclaimed: “You make a mistake if you think it is a laughing
+matter. For my own part, I greatly suffer from being one of the Thin.
+If I were one of the Fat, I could paint at my ease; I should have a
+fine studio, and sell my pictures for their weight in gold. But,
+instead of that, I’m one of the Thin; and I have to grind my life out
+in producing things which simply make the Fat ones shrug their
+shoulders. I shall die of it all in the end, I’m sure of it, with my
+skin clinging to my bones, and so flattened that they will be able to
+bury me between two leaves of a book. And you, too, you are one of the
+Thin, a wonderful one; the very king of Thin, in fact! Do you remember
+your quarrel with the fish-wives? It was magnificent; all those
+colossal bosoms flying at your scraggy breast! Oh! they were simply
+acting from natural instinct; they were pursuing one of the Thin just
+as cats pursue a mouse. The Fat, you know, have an instinctive hatred
+of the Thin, to such an extent that they must needs drive the latter
+from their sight, either by means of their teeth or their feet. And
+that is why, if I were in your place, I should take my precautions. The
+Quenus belong to the Fat, and so do the Mehudins; indeed, you have none
+but Fat ones around you. I should feel uneasy under such
+circumstances.”
+
+“And what about Gavard, and Mademoiselle Saget, and your friend
+Marjolin?” asked Florent, still smiling.
+
+“Oh, if you like, I will classify all our acquaintances for you,”
+replied Claude. “I’ve had their heads in a portfolio in my studio for a
+long time past, with memoranda of the order to which they belong.
+Gavard is one of the Fat, but of the kind which pretends to belong to
+the Thin. The variety is by no means uncommon. Mademoiselle Saget and
+Madame Lecœur belong to the Thin, but to a variety which is much to be
+feared—the Thin ones whom envy drives to despair, and who are capable
+of anything in their craving to fatten themselves. My friend Marjolin,
+little Cadine, and La Sarriette are three Fat ones, still innocent,
+however, and having nothing but the guileless hunger of youth. I may
+remark that the Fat, so long as they’ve not grown old, are charming
+creatures. Monsieur Lebigre is one of the Fat—don’t you think so? As
+for your political friends, Charvet, Clemence, Logre, and Lacaille,
+they mostly belong to the Thin. I only except that big animal
+Alexandre, and that prodigy Robine, who has caused me a vast amount of
+annoyance.”
+
+The artist continued to talk in this strain from the Pont de Neuilly to
+the Arc de Triomphe. He returned to some of those whom he had already
+mentioned, and completed their portraits with a few characteristic
+touches. Logre, he said, was one of the Thin whose belly had been
+placed between his shoulders. Beautiful Lisa was all stomach, and the
+beautiful Norman all bosom. Mademoiselle Saget, in her earlier life,
+must have certainly lost some opportunity to fatten herself, for she
+detested the Fat, while, at the same time, she despised the Thin. As
+for Gavard, he was compromising his position as one of the Fat, and
+would end by becoming as flat as a bug.
+
+“And what about Madame Francois?” Florent asked.
+
+Claude seemed much embarrassed by this question. He cast about for an
+answer, and at last stammered:
+
+“Madame Francois, Madame Francois—well, no, I really don’t know; I
+never thought about classifying her. But she’s a dear good soul, and
+that’s quite sufficient. She’s neither one of the Fat nor one of the
+Thin!”
+
+They both laughed. They were now in front of the Arc de Triomphe. The
+sun, over by the hills of Suresnes, was so low on the horizon that
+their colossal shadows streaked the whiteness of the great structure
+even above the huge groups of statuary, like strokes made with a piece
+of charcoal. This increased Claude’s merriment, he waved his arms and
+bent his body; and then, as he started on his way again, he said; “Did
+you notice—just as the sun set our two heads shot up to the sky!”
+
+But Florent no longer smiled. Paris was grasping him again, that Paris
+which now frightened him so much, after having cost him so many tears
+at Cayenne. When he reached the markets night was falling, and there
+was a suffocating smell. He bent his head as he once more returned to
+the nightmare of endless food, whilst preserving the sweet yet sad
+recollection of that day of bright health odorous with the perfume of
+thyme.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+At about four o’clock on the afternoon of the following day Lisa betook
+herself to Saint Eustache. For the short walk across the square she had
+arrayed herself very seriously in a black silk gown and thick woollen
+shawl. The handsome Norman, who, from her stall in the fish market,
+watched her till she vanished into the church porch, was quite amazed.
+
+“Hallo! So the fat thing’s gone in for priests now, has she?” she
+exclaimed, with a sneer. “Well, a little holy water may do her good!”
+
+She was mistaken in her surmises, however, for Lisa was not a devotee.
+She did not observe the ordinances of the Church, but said that she did
+her best to lead an honest life, and that this was all that was
+necessary. At the same time, however, she disliked to hear religion
+spoken ill of, and often silenced Gavard, who delighted in scandalous
+stories of priests and their doings. Talk of that sort seemed to her
+altogether improper. Everyone, in her opinion, should be allowed to
+believe as they pleased, and every scruple should be respected.
+Besides, the majority of the clergy were most estimable men. She knew
+Abbé Roustan, of Saint Eustache—a distinguished priest, a man of shrewd
+sense, and one, she thought, whose friendship might be safely relied
+upon. And she would wind up by explaining that religion was absolutely
+necessary for the people; she looked upon it as a sort of police force
+that helped to maintain order, and without which no government would be
+possible. When Gavard went too far on this subject and asserted that
+the priests ought to be turned into the streets and have their shops
+shut up, Lisa, shrugged her shoulders and replied: “A great deal of
+good that would do! Why, before a month was over the people would be
+murdering one another in the streets, and you would be compelled to
+invent another God. That was just what happened in ‘93. You know very
+well that I’m not given to mixing with the priests, but for all that I
+say that they are necessary, as we couldn’t do without them.”
+
+And so when Lisa happened to enter a church she always manifested the
+utmost decorum. She had bought a handsome missal, which she never
+opened, for use when she was invited to a funeral or a wedding. She
+knelt and rose at the proper times, and made a point of conducting
+herself with all propriety. She assumed, indeed, what she considered a
+sort of official demeanour, such as all well-to-do folks, tradespeople,
+and house-owners ought to observe with regard to religion.
+
+As she entered Saint Eustache that afternoon she let the double doors,
+covered with green baize, faded and worn by the frequent touch of pious
+hands, close gently behind her. Then she dipped her fingers in the holy
+water and crossed herself in the correct fashion. And afterwards, with
+hushed footsteps, she made her way to the chapel of Saint Agnes, where
+two kneeling women with their faces buried in their hands were waiting,
+whilst the blue skirts of a third protruded from the confessional. Lisa
+seemed rather put out by the sight of these women, and, addressing a
+verger who happened to pass along, wearing a black skullcap and
+dragging his feet over the slabs, she inquired: “Is this Monsieur
+l’Abbé Roustan’s day for hearing confessions?”
+
+The verger replied that his reverence had only two more penitents
+waiting, and that they would not detain him long, so that if Lisa would
+take a chair her turn would speedily come. She thanked him, without
+telling him that she had not come to confess; and, making up her mind
+to wait, she began to pace the church, going as far as the chief
+entrance, whence she gazed at the lofty, severe, bare nave stretching
+between the brightly coloured aisles. Raising her head a little, she
+examined the high altar, which she considered too plain, having no
+taste for the cold grandeur of stonework, but preferring the gilding
+and gaudy colouring of the side chapels. Those on the side of the Rue
+du Jour looked greyish in the light which filtered through their dusty
+windows, but on the side of the markets the sunset was lighting up the
+stained glass with lovely tints, limpid greens and yellows in
+particular, which reminded Lisa of the bottle of liqueurs in front of
+Monsieur Lebigre’s mirror. She came back by this side, which seemed to
+be warmed by the glow of light, and took a passing interest in the
+reliquaries, altar ornaments, and paintings steeped in prismatic
+reflections. The church was empty, quivering with the silence that fell
+from its vaulted roofing. Here and there a woman’s dress showed like a
+dark splotch amidst the vague yellow of the chairs; and a low buzzing
+came from the closed confessionals. As Lisa again passed the chapel of
+Saint Agnes she saw the blue dress still kneeling at Abbé Roustan’s
+feet.
+
+“Why, if I’d wanted to confess I could have said everything in ten
+seconds,” she thought, proud of her irreproachable integrity.
+
+Then she went on to the end of the church. Behind the high altar, in
+the gloom of a double row of pillars, is the chapel of the Blessed
+Virgin, damp and dark and silent. The dim stained windows only show the
+flowing crimson and violet robes of saints, which blaze like flames of
+mystic love in the solemn, silent adoration of the darkness. It is a
+weird, mysterious spot, like some crepuscular nook of paradise solely
+illumined by the gleaming stars of two tapers. The four brass lamps
+hanging from the roof remain unlighted, and are but faintly seen; on
+espying them you think of the golden censers which the angels swing
+before the throne of Mary. And kneeling on the chairs between the
+pillars there are always women surrendering themselves languorously to
+the dim spot’s voluptuous charm.
+
+Lisa stood and gazed tranquilly around her. She did not feel the least
+emotion, but considered that it was a mistake not to light the lamps.
+Their brightness would have given the place a more cheerful look. The
+gloom even struck her as savouring of impropriety. Her face was warmed
+by the flames of some candles burning in a candelabrum by her side, and
+an old woman armed with a big knife was scraping off the wax which had
+trickled down and congealed into pale tears. And amidst the quivering
+silence, the mute ecstasy of adoration prevailing in the chapel, Lisa
+would distinctly hear the rumbling of the vehicles turning out of the
+Rue Montmartre, behind the scarlet and purple saints on the windows,
+whilst in the distance the markets roared without a moment’s pause.
+
+Just as Lisa was leaving the chapel, she saw the younger of the
+Mehudins, Claire, the dealer in fresh water fish, come in. The girl
+lighted a taper at the candelabrum, and then went to kneel behind a
+pillar, her knees pressed upon the hard stones, and her face so pale
+beneath her loose fair hair that she seemed a corpse. And believing
+herself to be securely screened from observation, she gave way to
+violent emotion, and wept hot tears with a passionate outpouring of
+prayer which bent her like a rushing wind. Lisa looked on in amazement,
+for the Mehudins were not known to be particularly pious; indeed,
+Claire was accustomed to speak of religion and priests in such terms as
+to horrify one.
+
+“What’s the meaning of this, I wonder?” pondered Lisa, as she again
+made her way to the chapel of Saint Agnes. “The hussy must have been
+poisoning some one or other.”
+
+Abbé Roustan was at last coming out of his confessional. He was a
+handsome man, of some forty years of age, with a smiling, kindly air.
+When he recognised Madame Quenu he grasped her hand, called her “dear
+lady,” and conducted her to the vestry, where, taking off his surplice,
+he told her that he would be entirely at her service in a moment. They
+returned, the priest in his cassock, bareheaded, and Lisa strutting
+along in her shawl, and paced up and down in front of the side-chapels
+adjacent to the Rue du Jour. They conversed together in low tones. The
+sunlight was departing from the stained windows, the church was growing
+dark, and the retreating footsteps of the last worshippers sounded but
+faintly over the flagstones.
+
+Lisa explained her doubts and scruples to Abbé Roustan. There had never
+been any question of religion between them; she never confessed, but
+merely consulted him in cases of difficulty, because he was shrewd and
+discreet, and she preferred him, as she sometimes said, to shady
+business men redolent of the galleys. The abbe, on his side, manifested
+inexhaustible complaisance. He looked up points of law for her in the
+Code, pointed out profitable investments, resolved her moral
+difficulties with great tact, recommended tradespeople to her,
+invariably having an answer ready however diverse and complicated her
+requirements might be. And he supplied all this help in a natural
+matter-of-fact way, without ever introducing the Deity into his talk,
+or seeking to obtain any advantage either for himself or the cause of
+religion. A word of thanks and a smile sufficed him. He seemed glad to
+have an opportunity of obliging the handsome Madame Quenu, of whom his
+housekeeper often spoke to him in terms of praise, as of a woman who
+was highly respected in the neighbourhood.
+
+Their consultation that afternoon was of a peculiarly delicate nature.
+Lisa was anxious to know what steps she might legitimately take, as a
+woman of honour, with respect to her brother-in-law. Had she a right to
+keep a watch upon him, and to do what she could to prevent him from
+compromising her husband, her daughter, and herself? And then how far
+might she go in circumstances of pressing danger? She did not bluntly
+put these questions to the abbe, but asked them with such skilful
+circumlocutions that he was able to discuss the matter without entering
+into personalities. He brought forward arguments on both sides of the
+question, but the conclusion he came to was that a person of integrity
+was entitled, indeed bound, to prevent evil, and was justified in using
+whatever means might be necessary to ensure the triumph of that which
+was right and proper.
+
+“That is my opinion, dear lady,” he said in conclusion. “The question
+of means is always a very grave one. It is a snare in which souls of
+average virtue often become entangled. But I know your scrupulous
+conscience. Deliberate carefully over each step you think of taking,
+and if it contains nothing repugnant to you, go on boldly. Pure natures
+have the marvelous gift of purifying all that they touch.”
+
+Then, changing his tone of voice, he continued: “Pray give my kind
+regards to Monsieur Quenu. I’ll come in to kiss my dear little Pauline
+some time when I’m passing. And now good-bye, dear lady; remember that
+I’m always at your service.”
+
+Thereupon he returned to the vestry. Lisa, on her way out, was curious
+to see if Claire was still praying, but the girl had gone back to her
+eels and carp; and in front of the Lady-chapel, which was already
+shrouded in darkness, there was now but a litter of chairs overturned
+by the ardent vehemence of the woman who had knelt there.
+
+When the handsome Lisa again crossed the square, La Normande, who had
+been watching for her exit from the church, recognised her in the
+twilight by the rotundity of her skirts.
+
+“Good gracious!” she exclaimed, “she’s been more than an hour in there!
+When the priests set about cleansing her of her sins, the choir-boys
+have to form in line to pass the buckets of filth and empty them in the
+street!”
+
+The next morning Lisa went straight up to Florent’s bedroom and settled
+herself there with perfect equanimity. She felt certain that she would
+not be disturbed, and, moreover, she had made up her mind to tell a
+falsehood and say that she had come to see if the linen was clean,
+should Florent by any chance return. Whilst in the shop, however, she
+had observed him busily engaged in the fish market. Seating herself in
+front of the little table, she pulled out the drawer, placed it upon
+her knees, and began to examine its contents, taking the greatest care
+to restore them to their original positions.
+
+First of all she came upon the opening chapters of the work on Cayenne;
+then upon the drafts of Florent’s various plans and projects, his
+schemes for converting the Octroi duties into taxes upon sales, for
+reforming the administrative system of the markets, and all the others.
+These pages of small writing, which she set herself to read, bored her
+extremely, and she was about to restore the drawer to its place,
+feeling convinced that Florent concealed the proofs of his wicked
+designs elsewhere, and already contemplating a searching visitation of
+his mattress, when she discovered a photograph of La Normande in an
+envelope. The impression was rather dark. La Normande was standing up
+with her right arm resting on a broken column. Decked out with all her
+jewels, and attired in a new silk dress, the fish-girl was smiling
+impudently, and Lisa, at the sight, forgot all about her
+brother-in-law, her fears, and the purpose for which she had come into
+the room. She became quite absorbed in her examination of the portrait,
+as often happens when one woman scrutinises the photograph of another
+at her ease, without fear of being seen. Never before had she so
+favourable an opportunity to study her rival. She scrutinised her hair,
+her nose, her mouth; held the photograph at a distance, and then
+brought it closer again. And, finally, with compressed lips, she read
+on the back of it, in a big, ugly scrawl: “Louise, to her friend,
+Florent.” This quite scandalised her; to her mind it was a confession,
+and she felt a strong impulse to take possession of the photograph, and
+keep it as a weapon against her enemy. However, she slowly replaced it
+in the envelope on coming to the conclusion that this course would be
+wrong, and reflecting that she would always know where to find it
+should she want it again.
+
+Then, as she again began turning over the loose sheets of paper, it
+occurred to her to look at the back end of the drawer, where Florent
+had relegated Augustine’s needles and thread; and there, between the
+missal and the Dream-book, she discovered what she sought, some
+extremely compromising memoranda, simply screened from observation by a
+wrapper of grey paper.
+
+That idea of an insurrection, of the overthrow of the Empire by means
+of an armed rising, which Logre had one evening propounded at Monsieur
+Lebigre’s, had slowly ripened in Florent’s feverish brain. He soon grew
+to see a duty, a mission in it. Therein undoubtedly lay the task to
+which his escape from Cayenne and his return to Paris predestined him.
+Believing in a call to avenge his leanness upon the city which wallowed
+in food while the upholders of right and equity were racked by hunger
+in exile, he took upon himself the duties of a justiciary, and dreamt
+of rising up, even in the midst of those markets, to sweep away the
+reign of gluttony and drunkenness. In a sensitive nature like his, this
+idea quickly took root. Everything about him assumed exaggerated
+proportions, the wildest fancies possessed him. He imagined that the
+markets had been conscious of his arrival, and had seized hold of him
+that they might enervate him and poison him with their stenches. Then,
+too, Lisa wanted to cast a spell over him, and for two or three days at
+a time he would avoid her, as though she were some dissolving agency
+which would destroy all his power of will should he approach too
+closely. However, these paroxysms of puerile fear, these wild surgings
+of his rebellious brain, always ended in thrills of the gentlest
+tenderness, with yearnings to love and be loved, which he concealed
+with a boyish shame.
+
+It was more especially in the evening that his mind became blurred by
+all his wild imaginings. Depressed by his day’s work, but shunning
+sleep from a covert fear—the fear of the annihilation it brought with
+it—he would remain later than ever at Monsieur Lebigre’s, or at the
+Mehudins’; and on his return home he still refrained from going to bed,
+and sat up writing and preparing for the great insurrection. By slow
+degrees he devised a complete system of organisation. He divided Paris
+into twenty sections, one for each arrondissement. Each section would
+have a chief, a sort of general, under whose orders there were to be
+twenty lieutenants commanding twenty companies of affiliated
+associates. Every week, among the chiefs, there would be a
+consultation, which was to be held in a different place each time; and,
+the better to ensure secrecy and discretion, the associates would only
+come in contact with their respective lieutenants, these alone
+communicating with the chiefs of the sections. It also occurred to
+Florent that it would be as well that the companies should believe
+themselves charged with imaginary missions, as a means of putting the
+police upon a wrong scent.
+
+As for the employment of the insurrectionary forces, that would be all
+simplicity. It would, of course, be necessary to wait till the
+companies were quite complete, and then advantage would be taken of the
+first public commotion. They would doubtless only have a certain number
+of guns used for sporting purposes in their possession, so they would
+commence by seizing the police stations and guard-houses, disarming the
+soldiers of the line; resorting to violence as little as possible, and
+inviting the men to make common cause with the people. Afterwards they
+would march upon the Corps Législatif, and thence to the Hôtel de
+Ville. This plan, to which Florent returned night after night, as
+though it were some dramatic scenario which relieved his over-excited
+nervous system, was as yet simply jotted down on scraps of paper, full
+of erasures, which showed how the writer had felt his way, and revealed
+each successive phase of his scientific yet puerile conception. When
+Lisa had glanced through the notes, without understanding some of them,
+she remained there trembling with fear; afraid to touch them further
+lest they should explode in her hands like live shells.
+
+A last memorandum frightened her more than any of the others. It was a
+half sheet of paper on which Florent had sketched the distinguishing
+insignia which the chiefs and the lieutenants were to wear. By the side
+of these were rough drawings of the standards which the different
+companies were to carry; and notes in pencil even described what
+colours the banners should assume. The chiefs were to wear red scarves,
+and the lieutenants red armlets.
+
+To Lisa this seemed like an immediate realisation of the rising; she
+saw all the men with their red badges marching past the pork shop,
+firing bullets into her mirrors and marble, and carrying off sausages
+and chitterlings from the window. The infamous projects of her
+brother-in-law were surely directed against herself—against her own
+happiness. She closed the drawer and looked round the room, reflecting
+that it was she herself who had provided this man with a home—that he
+slept between her sheets and used her furniture. And she was especially
+exasperated at his keeping his abominable infernal machine in that
+little deal table which she herself had used at Uncle Gradelle’s before
+her marriage—a perfectly innocent, rickety little table.
+
+For a while she stood thinking what she should do. In the first place,
+it was useless to say anything to Quenu. For a moment it occurred to
+her to provoke an explanation with Florent, but she dismissed that
+idea, fearing lest he would only go and perpetrate his crime elsewhere,
+and maliciously make a point of compromising them. Then gradually
+growing somewhat calmer, she came to the conclusion that her best plan
+would be to keep a careful watch over her brother-in-law. It would be
+time enough to take further steps at the first sign of danger. She
+already had quite sufficient evidence to send him back to the galleys.
+
+On returning to the shop again, she found Augustine in a state of great
+excitement. Little Pauline had disappeared more than half an hour
+before, and to Lisa’s anxious questions the young woman could only
+reply: “I don’t know where she can have got to, madame. She was on the
+pavement there with a little boy. I was watching them, and then I had
+to cut some ham for a gentleman, and I never saw them again.”
+
+“I’ll wager it was Muche!” cried Lisa. “Ah, the young scoundrel!”
+
+It was, indeed, Muche who had enticed Pauline away. The little girl,
+who was wearing a new blue-striped frock that day for the first time,
+had been anxious to exhibit it, and had accordingly taken her stand
+outside the shop, manifesting great propriety of bearing, and
+compressing her lips with the grave expression of a little woman of six
+who is afraid of soiling her clothes. Her short and stiffly-starched
+petticoats stood out like the skirts of a ballet girl, allowing a full
+view of her tightly stretched white stockings and little sky-blue
+boots. Her pinafore, which hung low about her neck, was finished off at
+the shoulders with an edging of embroidery, below which appeared her
+pretty little arms, bare and rosy. She had small turquoise rings in her
+ears, a cross at her neck, a blue velvet ribbon in her well-brushed
+hair; and she displayed all her mother’s plumpness and softness—the
+gracefulness, indeed, of a new doll.
+
+Muche had caught sight of her from the market, where he was amusing
+himself by dropping little dead fishes into the gutter, following them
+along the kerb as the water carried them away, and declaring that they
+were swimming. However, the sight of Pauline standing in front of the
+shop and looking so smart and pretty made him cross over to her,
+capless as he was, with his blouse ragged, his trousers slipping down,
+and his whole appearance suggestive of a seven-year-old street-arab.
+His mother had certainly forbidden him to play any more with “that fat
+booby of a girl who was stuffed by her parents till she almost burst”;
+so he stood hesitating for a moment, but at last came up to Pauline,
+and wanted to feel her pretty striped frock. The little girl, who had
+at first felt flattered, then put on a prim air and stepped back,
+exclaiming in a tone of displeasure: “Leave me alone. Mother says I’m
+not to have anything to do with you.”
+
+This brought a laugh to the lips of Muche, who was a wily, enterprising
+young scamp.
+
+“What a little flat you are!” he retorted. “What does it matter what
+your mother says? Let’s go and play at shoving each other, eh?”
+
+He doubtless nourished some wicked idea of dirtying the neat little
+girl; but she, on seeing him prepare to give her a push in the back,
+retreated as though about to return inside the shop. Muche thereupon
+adopted a flattering tone like a born cajoler.
+
+“You silly! I didn’t mean it,” said he. “How nice you look like that!
+Is that little cross your mother’s?”
+
+Pauline perked herself up, and replied that it was her own, whereupon
+Muche gently led her to the corner of the Rue Pirouette, touching her
+skirts the while and expressing his astonishment at their wonderful
+stiffness. All this pleased the little girl immensely. She had been
+very much vexed at not receiving any notice while she was exhibiting
+herself outside the shop. However, in spite of all Muche’s
+blandishments, she still refused to leave the footway.
+
+“You stupid fatty!” thereupon exclaimed the youngster, relapsing into
+coarseness. “I’ll squat you down in the gutter if you don’t look out,
+Miss Fine-airs!”
+
+The girl was dreadfully alarmed. Muche had caught hold of her by the
+hand; but, recognising his mistake in policy, he again put on a
+wheedling air, and began to fumble in his pocket.
+
+“I’ve got a sou,” said he.
+
+The sight of the coin had a soothing effect upon Pauline. The boy held
+up the sou with the tips of his fingers, and the temptation to follow
+it proved so great that the girl at last stepped down into the roadway.
+Muche’s diplomacy was eminently successful.
+
+“What do you like best?” he asked.
+
+Pauline gave no immediate answer. She could not make up her mind; there
+were so many things that she liked. Muche, however, ran over a whole
+list of dainties—liquorice, molasses, gum-balls, and powdered sugar.
+The powdered sugar made the girl ponder. One dipped one’s fingers into
+it and sucked them; it was very nice. For a while she gravely
+considered the matter. Then, at last making up her mind, she said:
+
+“No, I like the mixed screws the best.”
+
+Muche thereupon took hold of her arm, and she unresistingly allowed him
+to lead her away. They crossed the Rue Rambuteau, followed the broad
+footway skirting the markets, and went as far as a grocer’s shop in the
+Rue de la Cossonnerie which was celebrated for its mixed screws. These
+mixed screws are small screws of paper in which grocers put up all
+sorts of damaged odds and ends, broken sugar-plums, fragments of
+crystallised chestnuts—all the doubtful residuum of their jars of
+sweets. Muche showed himself very gallant, allowed Pauline to choose
+the screw—a blue one—paid his sou, and did not attempt to dispossess
+her of the sweets. Outside, on the footway, she emptied the
+miscellaneous collection of scraps into both pockets of her pinafore;
+and they were such little pockets that they were quite filled. Then in
+delight she began to munch the fragments one by one, wetting her
+fingers to catch the fine sugary dust, with such effect that she melted
+the scraps of sweets, and the pockets of her pinafore soon showed two
+brownish stains. Muche laughed slily to himself. He had his arm about
+the girl’s waist, and rumpled her frock at his ease whilst leading her
+round the corner of the Rue Pierre Lescot, in the direction of the
+Place des Innocents.
+
+“You’ll come and play now, won’t you?” he asked. “That’s nice what
+you’ve got in your pockets, ain’t it? You see that I didn’t want to do
+you any harm, you big silly!”
+
+Thereupon he plunged his own fingers into her pockets, and they entered
+the square together. To this spot, no doubt, he had all along intended
+to lure his victim. He did the honours of the square as though it were
+his own private property, and indeed it was a favourite haunt of his,
+where he often larked about for whole afternoons. Pauline had never
+before strayed so far from home, and would have wept like an abducted
+damsel had it not been that her pockets were full of sweets. The
+fountain in the middle of the flowered lawn was sending sheets of water
+down its tiers of basins, whilst, between the pilasters above, Jean
+Goujon’s nymphs, looking very white beside the dingy grey stonework,
+inclined their urns and displayed their nude graces in the grimy air of
+the Saint Denis quarter. The two children walked round the fountain,
+watching the water fall into the basins, and taking an interest in the
+grass, with thoughts, no doubt, of crossing the central lawn, or
+gliding into the clumps of holly and rhododendrons that bordered the
+railings of the square. Little Muche, however, who had now effectually
+rumpled the back of the pretty frock, said with his sly smile:
+
+“Let’s play at throwing sand at each other, eh?”
+
+Pauline had no will of her own left; and they began to throw the sand
+at each other, keeping their eyes closed meanwhile. The sand made its
+way in at the neck of the girl’s low bodice, and trickled down into her
+stockings and boots. Muche was delighted to see the white pinafore
+become quite yellow. But he doubtless considered that it was still far
+too clean.
+
+“Let’s go and plant trees, shall we?” he exclaimed suddenly. “I know
+how to make such pretty gardens.”
+
+“Really, gardens!” murmured Pauline full of admiration.
+
+Then, as the keeper of the square happened to be absent, Muche told her
+to make some holes in one of the borders; and dropping on her knees in
+the middle of the soft mould, and leaning forward till she lay at full
+length on her stomach, she dug her pretty little arms into the ground.
+He, meantime, began to hunt for scraps of wood, and broke off branches.
+These were the garden-trees which he planted in the holes that Pauline
+made. He invariably complained, however, that the holes were not deep
+enough, and rated the girl as though she were an idle workman and he an
+indignant master. When she at last got up, she was black from head to
+foot. Her hair was full of mould, her face was smeared with it, she
+looked such a sight with her arms as black as a coalheaver’s that Muche
+clapped his hands with glee, and exclaimed: “Now we must water the
+trees. They won’t grow, you know, if we don’t water them.”
+
+That was the finishing stroke. They went outside the square, scooped
+the gutter-water up in the palms of their hands, and then ran back to
+pour it over the bits of wood. On the way, Pauline, who was so fat that
+she couldn’t run properly, let the water trickle between her fingers on
+to her frock, so that by the time of her sixth journey she looked as if
+she had been rolled in the gutter. Muche chuckled with delight on
+beholding her dreadful condition. He made her sit down beside him under
+a rhododendron near the garden they had made, and told her that the
+trees were already beginning to grow. He had taken hold of her hand and
+called her his little wife.
+
+“You’re not sorry now that you came, are you,” he asked, “instead of
+mooning about on the pavement, where there was nothing to do? I know
+all sorts of fun we can have in the streets; you must come with me
+again. You will, won’t you? But you mustn’t say anything to your
+mother, mind. If you say a word to her, I’ll pull your hair the next
+time I come past your shop.”
+
+Pauline consented to everything; and then, as a last attention, Muche
+filled both pockets of her pinafore with mould. However, all the sweets
+were finished, and the girl began to get uneasy, and ceased playing.
+Muche thereupon started pinching her, and she burst into tears, sobbing
+that she wanted to go away. But at this the lad only grinned, and
+played the bully, threatening that he would not take her home at all.
+Then she grew terribly alarmed, and sobbed and gasped like a maiden in
+the power of a libertine. Muche would certainly have ended by punching
+her in order to stop her row, had not a shrill voice, the voice of
+Mademoiselle Saget, exclaimed, close by: “Why, I declare it’s Pauline!
+Leave her alone, you wicked young scoundrel!”
+
+Then the old maid took the girl by the hand, with endless expressions
+of amazement at the pitiful condition of her clothes. Muche showed no
+alarm, but followed them, chuckling to himself, and declaring that it
+was Pauline who had wanted to come with him, and had tumbled down.
+
+Mademoiselle Saget was a regular frequenter of the Square des
+Innocents. Every afternoon she would spend a good hour there to keep
+herself well posted in the gossip of the common people. On either side
+there is a long crescent of benches placed end to end; and on these the
+poor folks who stifle in the hovels of the neighbouring narrow streets
+assemble in crowds. There are withered, chilly-looking old women in
+tumbled caps, and young ones in loose jackets and carelessly fastened
+skirts, with bare heads and tired, faded faces, eloquent of the
+wretchedness of their lives. There are some men also: tidy old buffers,
+porters in greasy jackets, and equivocal-looking individuals in black
+silk hats, while the foot-path is overrun by a swarm of youngsters
+dragging toy carts without wheels about, filling pails with sand, and
+screaming and fighting; a dreadful crew, with ragged clothes and dirty
+noses, teeming in the sunshine like vermin.
+
+Mademoiselle Saget was so slight and thin that she always managed to
+insinuate herself into a place on one of the benches. She listened to
+what was being said, and started a conversation with her neighbour,
+some sallow-faced workingman’s wife, who sat mending linen, from time
+to time producing handkerchiefs and stockings riddled with holes from a
+little basket patched up with string. Moreover, Mademoiselle Saget had
+plenty of acquaintances here. Amidst the excruciating squalling of the
+children, and the ceaseless rumble of the traffic in the Rue Saint
+Denis, she took part in no end of gossip, everlasting tales about the
+tradesmen of the neighbourhood, the grocers, the butchers, and the
+bakers, enough, indeed, to fill the columns of a local paper, and the
+whole envenomed by refusals of credit and covert envy, such as is
+always harboured by the poor. From these wretched creatures she also
+obtained the most disgusting revelations, the gossip of low
+lodging-houses and doorkeepers’ black-holes, all the filthy scandal of
+the neighbourhood, which tickled her inquisitive appetite like hot
+spice.
+
+As she sat with her face turned towards the markets, she had
+immediately in front of her the square and its three blocks of houses,
+into the windows of which her eyes tried to pry. She seemed to
+gradually rise and traverse the successive floors right up to the
+garret skylights. She stared at the curtains; based an entire drama on
+the appearance of a head between two shutters; and, by simply gazing at
+the facades, ended by knowing the history of all the dwellers in these
+houses. The Baratte Restaurant, with its wine shop, its gilt
+wrought-iron _marquise_, forming a sort of terrace whence peeped the
+foliage of a few plants in flower-pots, and its four low storeys, all
+painted and decorated, had an especial interest for her. She gazed at
+its yellow columns standing out against a background of tender blue, at
+the whole of its imitation temple-front daubed on the facade of a
+decrepit, tumble-down house, crowned at the summit by a parapet of
+painted zinc. Behind the red-striped window-blinds she espied visions
+of nice little lunches, delicate suppers, and uproarious, unlimited
+orgies. And she did not hesitate to invent lies about the place. It was
+there, she declared, that Florent came to gorge with those two hussies,
+the Mehudins, on whom he lavished his money.
+
+However, Pauline cried yet louder than before when the old maid took
+hold of her hand. Mademoiselle Saget at first led her towards the gate
+of the square; but before she got there she seemed to change her mind;
+for she sat down at the end of a bench and tried to pacify the child.
+
+“Come, now, give over crying, or the policeman will lock you up,” she
+said to Pauline. “I’ll take you home safely. You know me, don’t you?
+I’m a good friend. Come, come, let me see how prettily you can smile.”
+
+The child, however, was choking with sobs and wanted to go away.
+Mademoiselle Saget thereupon quietly allowed her to continue weeping,
+reserving further remarks till she should have finished. The poor
+little creature was shivering all over; her petticoats and stockings
+were wet through, and as she wiped her tears away with her dirty hands
+she plastered the whole of her face with earth to the very tips of her
+ears. When at last she became a little calmer the old maid resumed in a
+caressing tone: “Your mamma isn’t unkind, is she? She’s very fond of
+you, isn’t she?”
+
+“Oh, yes, indeed,” replied Pauline, still sobbing.
+
+“And your papa, he’s good to you, too, isn’t he? He doesn’t flog you,
+or quarrel with your mother, does he? What do they talk about when they
+go to bed?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know. I’m asleep then.”
+
+“Do they talk about your cousin Florent?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget thereupon assumed a severe expression, and got up as
+if about to go away.
+
+“I’m afraid you are a little story-teller,” she said. “Don’t you know
+that it’s very wicked to tell stories? I shall go away and leave you,
+if you tell me lies, and then Muche will come back and pinch you.”
+
+Pauline began to cry again at the threat of being abandoned. “Be quiet,
+be quiet, you wicked little imp!” cried the old maid shaking her.
+“There, there, now, I won’t go away. I’ll buy you a stick of
+barley-sugar; yes, a stick of barley-sugar! So you don’t love your
+cousin Florent, eh?”
+
+“No, mamma says he isn’t good.”
+
+“Ah, then, so you see your mother does say something.”
+
+“One night when I was in bed with Mouton—I sleep with Mouton sometimes,
+you know—I heard her say to father, ‘Your brother has only escaped from
+the galleys to take us all back with him there.’”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget gave vent to a faint cry, and sprang to her feet,
+quivering all over. A ray of light had just broken upon her. Then
+without a word she caught hold of Pauline’s hand and made her run till
+they reached the pork shop, her lips meanwhile compressed by an inward
+smile, and her eyes glistening with keen delight. At the corner of the
+Rue Pirouette, Muche, who had so far followed them, amused at seeing
+the girl running along in her muddy stockings, prudently disappeared.
+
+Lisa was now in a state of terrible alarm; and when she saw her
+daughter so bedraggled and limp, her consternation was such that she
+turned the child round and round, without even thinking of beating her.
+
+“She has been with little Muche,” said the old maid, in her malicious
+voice. “I took her away at once, and I’ve brought her home. I found
+them together in the square. I don’t know what they’ve been up to; but
+that young vagabond is capable of anything.”
+
+Lisa could not find a word to say; and she did not know where to take
+hold of her daughter, so great was her disgust at the sight of the
+child’s muddy boots, soiled stockings, torn skirts, and filthy face and
+hands. The blue velvet ribbon, the earrings, and the necklet were all
+concealed beneath a crust of mud. But what put the finishing touch to
+Lisa’s exasperation was the discovery of the two pockets filled with
+mould. She stooped and emptied them, regardless of the pink and white
+flooring of the shop. And as she dragged Pauline away, she could only
+gasp: “Come along, you filthy thing!”
+
+Quite enlivened by this scene, Mademoiselle Saget now hurriedly made
+her way across the Rue Rambuteau. Her little feet scarcely touched the
+ground; her joy seemed to carry her along like a breeze which fanned
+her with a caressing touch. She had at last found out what she had so
+much wanted to know! For nearly a year she had been consumed by
+curiosity, and now at a single stroke she had gained complete power
+over Florent! This was unhoped-for contentment, positive salvation, for
+she felt that Florent would have brought her to the tomb had she failed
+much longer in satisfying her curiosity about him. At present she was
+complete mistress of the whole neighbourhood of the markets. There was
+no longer any gap in her information. She could have narrated the
+secret history of every street, shop by shop. And thus, as she entered
+the fruit market, she fairly gasped with delight, in a perfect
+transport of pleasure.
+
+“Hallo, Mademoiselle Saget,” cried La Sarriette from her stall, “what
+are you smiling to yourself like that about? Have you won the grand
+prize in the lottery?”
+
+“No, no. Ah, my dear, if you only knew!”
+
+Standing there amidst her fruit, La Sarriette, in her picturesque
+disarray, looked charming. Frizzy hair fell over her brow like vine
+branches. Her bare arms and neck, indeed all the rosy flesh she showed,
+bloomed with the freshness of peach and cherry. She had playfully hung
+some cherries on her ears, black cherries which dangled against her
+cheeks when she stooped, shaking with merry laughter. She was eating
+currants, and her merriment arose from the way in which she was
+smearing her face with them. Her lips were bright red, glistening with
+the juice of the fruit, as though they had been painted and perfumed
+with some seraglio face-paint. A perfume of plum exhaled from her gown,
+while from the kerchief carelessly fastened across her breast came an
+odour of strawberries.
+
+Fruits of all kinds were piled around her in her narrow stall. On the
+shelves at the back were rows of melons, so-called “cantaloups”
+swarming with wart-like knots, “maraichers” whose skin was covered with
+grey lace-like netting, and “culs-de-singe” displaying smooth bare
+bumps. In front was an array of choice fruits, carefully arranged in
+baskets, and showing like smooth round cheeks seeking to hide
+themselves, or glimpses of sweet childish faces, half veiled by leaves.
+Especially was this the case with the peaches, the blushing peaches of
+Montreuil, with skin as delicate and clear as that of northern maidens,
+and the yellow, sun-burnt peaches from the south, brown like the
+damsels of Provence. The apricots, on their beds of moss, gleamed with
+the hue of amber or with that sunset glow which so warmly colours the
+necks of brunettes at the nape, just under the little wavy curls which
+fall below the chignon. The cherries, ranged one by one, resembled the
+short lips of smiling Chinese girls; the Montmorencies suggested the
+dumpy mouths of buxom women; the English ones were longer and
+graver-looking; the common black ones seemed as though they had been
+bruised and crushed by kisses; while the white-hearts, with their
+patches of rose and white, appeared to smile with mingled merriment and
+vexation. Then piles of apples and pears, built up with architectural
+symmetry, often in pyramids, displayed the ruddy glow of budding
+breasts and the gleaming sheen of shoulders, quite a show of nudity,
+lurking modestly behind a screen of fern-leaves. There were all sorts
+of varieties—little red ones so tiny that they seemed to be yet in the
+cradle, shapeless “rambours” for baking, “calvilles” in light yellow
+gowns, sanguineous-looking “Canadas,” blotched “chataignier” apples,
+fair freckled rennets and dusky russets. Then came the pears—the
+“blanquettes,” the “British queens,” the “Beurres,” the “messirejeans,”
+and the “duchesses”—some dumpy, some long and tapering, some with
+slender necks, and others with thick-set shoulders, their green and
+yellow bellies picked out at times with a splotch of carmine. By the
+side of these the transparent plums resembled tender, chlorotic
+virgins; the greengages and the Orleans plums paled as with modest
+innocence, while the mirabelles lay like golden beads of a rosary
+forgotten in a box amongst sticks of vanilla. And the strawberries
+exhaled a sweet perfume—a perfume of youth—especially those little ones
+which are gathered in the woods, and which are far more aromatic than
+the large ones grown in gardens, for these breathe an insipid odour
+suggestive of the watering-pot. Raspberries added their fragrance to
+the pure scent. The currants—red, white, and black—smiled with a
+knowing air; whilst the heavy clusters of grapes, laden with
+intoxication, lay languorously at the edges of their wicker baskets,
+over the sides of which dangled some of the berries, scorched by the
+hot caresses of the voluptuous sun.
+
+It was there that La Sarriette lived in an orchard, as it were, in an
+atmosphere of sweet, intoxicating scents. The cheaper fruits—the
+cherries, plums, and strawberries—were piled up in front of her in
+paper-lined baskets, and the juice coming from their bruised ripeness
+stained the stall-front, and steamed, with a strong perfume, in the
+heat. She would feel quite giddy on those blazing July afternoons when
+the melons enveloped her with a powerful, vaporous odour of musk; and
+then with her loosened kerchief, fresh as she was with the springtide
+of life, she brought sudden temptation to all who saw her. It was
+she—it was her arms and necks which gave that semblance of amorous
+vitality to her fruit. On the stall next to her an old woman, a hideous
+old drunkard, displayed nothing but wrinkled apples, pears as flabby as
+herself, and cadaverous apricots of a witch-like sallowness. La
+Sarriette’s stall, however, spoke of love and passion. The cherries
+looked like the red kisses of her bright lips; the silky peaches were
+not more delicate than her neck; to the plums she seemed to have lent
+the skin from her brow and chin; while some of her own crimson blood
+coursed through the veins of the currants. All the scents of the avenue
+of flowers behind her stall were but insipid beside the aroma of
+vitality which exhaled from her open baskets and falling kerchief.
+
+That day she was quite intoxicated by the scent of a large arrival of
+mirabelle plums, which filled the market. She could plainly see that
+Mademoiselle Saget had learnt some great piece of news, and she wished
+to make her talk. But the old maid stamped impatiently whilst she
+repeated: “No, no; I’ve no time. I’m in a great hurry to see Madame
+Lecœur. I’ve just learnt something and no mistake. You can come with
+me, if you like.”
+
+As a matter of fact, she had simply gone through the fruit market for
+the purpose of enticing La Sarriette to go with her. The girl could not
+refuse temptation. Monsieur Jules, clean-shaven and as fresh as a
+cherub, was seated there, swaying to and fro on his chair.
+
+“Just look after the stall for a minute, will you?” La Sarriette said
+to him. “I’ll be back directly.”
+
+Jules, however, got up and called after her, in a thick voice: “Not I;
+no fear! I’m off! I’m not going to wait an hour for you, as I did the
+other day. And, besides, those cursed plums of yours quite make my head
+ache.”
+
+Then he calmly strolled off, with his hands in his pockets, and the
+stall was left to look after itself. Mademoiselle Saget went so fast
+that La Sarriette had to run. In the butter pavilion a neighbour of
+Madame Lecœur’s told them that she was below in the cellar; and so,
+whilst La Sarriette went down to find her, the old maid installed
+herself amidst the cheeses.
+
+The cellar under the butter market is a very gloomy spot. The rows of
+storerooms are protected by a very fine wire meshing, as a safeguard
+against fire; and the gas jets, which are very few and far between,
+glimmer like yellow splotches destitute of radiance in the heavy,
+malordorous atmosphere beneath the low vault. Madame Lecœur, however,
+was at work on her butter at one of the tables placed parallel with the
+Rue Berger, and here a pale light filtered through the vent-holes. The
+tables, which are continually sluiced with a flood of water from the
+taps, are as white as though they were quite new. With her back turned
+to the pump in the rear, Madame Lecœur was kneading her butter in a
+kind of oak box. She took some of different sorts which lay beside her,
+and mixed the varieties together, correcting one by another, just as is
+done in the blending of wines. Bent almost double, and showing sharp,
+bony shoulders, and arms bared to the elbows, as scraggy and knotted as
+pea-rods, she dug her fists into the greasy paste in front of her,
+which was assuming a whitish and chalky appearance. It was trying work,
+and she heaved a sigh at each fresh effort.
+
+“Mademoiselle Saget wants to speak to you, aunt,” said La Sarriette.
+
+Madame Lecœur stopped her work, and pulled her cap over her hair with
+her greasy fingers, seemingly quite careless of staining it. “I’ve
+nearly finished. Ask her to wait a moment,” she said.
+
+“She’s got something very particular to tell you,” continued La
+Sarriette.
+
+“I won’t be more than a minute, my dear.”
+
+Then she again plunged her arms into the butter, which buried them up
+to the elbows. Previously softened in warm water, it covered Madame
+Lecœur’s parchment-like skin as with an oily film, and threw the big
+purple veins that streaked her flesh into strong relief. La Sarriette
+was quite disgusted by the sight of those hideous arms working so
+frantically amidst the melting mass. However, she could recall the time
+when her own pretty little hands had manipulated the butter for whole
+afternoons at a time. It had even been a sort of almond-paste to her, a
+cosmetic which had kept her skin white and her nails delicately pink;
+and even now her slender fingers retained the suppleness it had endowed
+them with.
+
+“I don’t think that butter of yours will be very good, aunt,” she
+continued, after a pause. “Some of the sorts seem much too strong.”
+
+“I’m quite aware of that,” replied Madame Lecœur, between a couple of
+groans. “But what can I do? I must use everything up. There are some
+folks who insist upon having butter cheap, and so cheap butter must be
+made for them. Oh! it’s always quite good enough for those who buy it.”
+
+La Sarriette reflected that she would hardly care to eat butter which
+had been worked by her aunt’s arms. Then she glanced at a little jar
+full of a sort of reddish dye. “Your colouring is too pale,” she said.
+
+This colouring-matter—“raucourt,” as the Parisians call it is used to
+give the butter a fine yellow tint. The butter women imagine that its
+composition is known only to themselves, and keep it very secret.
+However, it is merely made from anotta;[*] though a composition of
+carrots and marigold is at times substituted for it.
+
+[*] Anotta, which is obtained from the pulp surrounding the seeds of
+the _Bixa Orellana_, is used for a good many purposes besides the
+colouring of butter and cheese. It frequently enters into the
+composition of chocolate, and is employed to dye nankeen. Police court
+proceedings have also shown that it is well known to the London
+milkmen, who are in the habit of adding water to their merchandise.
+—Translator.
+
+
+“Come, do be quick!” La Sarriette now exclaimed, for she was getting
+impatient, and was, moreover, no longer accustomed to the malodorous
+atmosphere of the cellar. “Mademoiselle Saget will be going. I fancy
+she’s got something very important to tell you abut my uncle Gavard.”
+
+On hearing this, Madame Lecœur abruptly ceased working. She at once
+abandoned both butter and dye, and did not even wait to wipe her arms.
+With a slight tap of her hand she settled her cap on her head again,
+and made her way up the steps, at her niece’s heels, anxiously
+repeating: “Do you really think that she’ll have gone away?”
+
+She was reassured, however, on catching sight of Mademoiselle Saget
+amidst the cheeses. The old maid had taken good care not to go away
+before Madame Lecœur’s arrival. The three women seated themselves at
+the far end of the stall, crowding closely together, and their faces
+almost touching one another. Mademoiselle Saget remained silent for two
+long minutes, and then, seeing that the others were burning with
+curiosity, she began, in her shrill voice: “You know that Florent!
+Well, I can tell you now where he comes from.”
+
+For another moment she kept them in suspense; and then, in a deep,
+melodramatic voice, she said: “He comes from the galleys!”
+
+The cheeses were reeking around the three women. On the two shelves at
+the far end of the stall were huge masses of butter: Brittany butters
+overflowing from baskets; Normandy butters, wrapped in canvas, and
+resembling models of stomachs over which some sculptor had thrown damp
+cloths to keep them from drying; while other great blocks had been cut
+into, fashioned into perpendicular rocky masses full of crevasses and
+valleys, and resembling fallen mountain crests gilded by the pale sun
+of an autumn evening.
+
+Beneath the stall show-table, formed of a slab of red marble veined
+with grey, baskets of eggs gleamed with a chalky whiteness; while on
+layers of straw in boxes were Bondons, placed end to end, and Gournays,
+arranged like medals, forming darker patches tinted with green. But it
+was upon the table that the cheeses appeared in greatest profusion.
+Here, by the side of the pound-rolls of butter lying on white-beet
+leaves, spread a gigantic Cantal cheese, cloven here and there as by an
+axe; then came a golden-hued Cheshire, and next a Gruyere, resembling a
+wheel fallen from some barbarian chariot; whilst farther on were some
+Dutch cheeses, suggesting decapitated heads suffused with dry blood,
+and having all that hardness of skulls which in France has gained them
+the name of “death’s heads.” Amidst the heavy exhalations of these, a
+Parmesan set a spicy aroma. Then there came three Brie cheeses
+displayed on round platters, and looking like melancholy extinct moons.
+Two of them, very dry, were at the full; the third, in its second
+quarter, was melting away in a white cream, which had spread into a
+pool and flowed over the little wooden barriers with which an attempt
+had been made to arrest its course. Next came some Port Saluts, similar
+to antique discs, with exergues bearing their makers’ names in print. A
+Romantour, in its tin-foil wrapper, suggested a bar of nougat or some
+sweet cheese astray amidst all these pungent, fermenting curds. The
+Roqueforts under their glass covers also had a princely air, their fat
+faces marbled with blue and yellow, as though they were suffering from
+some unpleasant malady such as attacks the wealthy gluttons who eat too
+many truffles. And on a dish by the side of these, the hard grey goats’
+milk cheeses, about the size of a child’s fist, resembled the pebbles
+which the billy-goats send rolling down the stony paths as they clamber
+along ahead of their flocks. Next came the strong smelling cheeses: the
+Mont d’Ors, of a bright yellow hue, and exhaling a comparatively mild
+odour; the Troyes, very thick, and bruised at the edges, and of a far
+more pungent smell, recalling the dampness of a cellar; the Camemberts,
+suggestive of high game; the square Neufchatels, Limbourgs, Marolles,
+and Pont l’Eveques, each adding its own particular sharp scent to the
+malodorous bouquet, till it became perfectly pestilential; the
+Livarots, ruddy in hue, and as irritating to the throat as sulphur
+fumes; and, lastly, stronger than all the others, the Olivets, wrapped
+in walnut leaves, like the carrion which peasants cover with branches
+as it lies rotting in the hedgerow under the blazing sun.
+
+The heat of the afternoon had softened the cheeses; the patches of
+mould on their crusts were melting, and glistening with tints of ruddy
+bronze and verdigris. Beneath their cover of leaves, the skins of the
+Olivets seemed to be heaving as with the slow, deep respiration of a
+sleeping man. A Livarot was swarming with life; and in a fragile box
+behind the scales a Gerome flavoured with aniseed diffused such a
+pestilential smell that all around it the very flies had fallen
+lifeless on the gray-veined slap of ruddy marble.
+
+This Gerome was almost immediately under Mademoiselle Saget’s nose; so
+she drew back, and leaned her head against the big sheets of white and
+yellow paper which were hanging in a corner.
+
+“Yes,” she repeated, with an expression of disgust, “he comes from the
+galleys! Ah, those Quenu-Gradelles have no reason to put on so many
+airs!”
+
+Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette, however, had burst into exclamations of
+astonishment: “It wasn’t possible, surely! What had he done to be sent
+to the galleys? Could anyone, now, have ever suspected that Madame
+Quenu, whose virtue was the pride of the whole neighbourhood, would
+choose a convict for a lover?”
+
+“Ah, but you don’t understand at all!” cried the old maid impatiently.
+“Just listen, now, while I explain things. I was quite certain that I
+had seen that great lanky fellow somewhere before.”
+
+Then she proceeded to tell them Florent’s story. She had recalled to
+mind a vague report which had circulated of a nephew of old Gradelle
+being transported to Cayenne for murdering six gendarmes at a
+barricade. She had even seen this nephew on one occasion in the Rue
+Pirouette. The pretended cousin was undoubtedly the same man. Then she
+began to bemoan her waning powers. Her memory was quite going, she
+said; she would soon be unable to remember anything. And she bewailed
+her perishing memory as bitterly as any learned man might bewail the
+loss of his notes representing the work of a life-time, on seeing them
+swept away by a gust of wind.
+
+“Six gendarmes!” murmured La Sarriette, admiringly; “he must have a
+very heavy fist!”
+
+“And he’s made away with plenty of others, as well,” added Mademoiselle
+Saget. “I shouldn’t advise you to meet him at night!”
+
+“What a villain!” stammered out Madame Lecœur, quite terrified.
+
+The slanting beams of the sinking sun were now enfilading the pavilion,
+and the odour of the cheeses became stronger than ever. That of the
+Marolles seemed to predominate, borne hither and thither in powerful
+whiffs. Then, however, the wind appeared to change, and suddenly the
+emanations of the Limbourgs were wafted towards the three women,
+pungent and bitter, like the last gasps of a dying man.
+
+“But in that case,” resumed Madame Lecœur, “he must be fat Lisa’s
+brother-in-law. And we thought that he was her lover!”
+
+The women exchanged glances. This aspect of the case took them by
+surprise. They were loth to give up their first theory. However, La
+Sarriette, turning to Mademoiselle Saget, remarked: “That must have
+been all wrong. Besides, you yourself say that he’s always running
+after the two Mehudin girls.”
+
+“Certainly he is,” exclaimed Mademoiselle Saget sharply, fancying that
+her word was doubted. “He dangles about them every evening. But, after
+all, it’s no concern of ours, is it? We are virtuous women, and what he
+does makes no difference to us, the horrid scoundrel!”
+
+“No, certainly not,” agreed the other two. “He’s a consummate villain.”
+
+The affair was becoming tragical. Of course beautiful Lisa was now out
+of the question, but for this they found ample consolation in
+prophesying that Florent would bring about some frightful catastrophe.
+It was quite clear, they said, that he had got some base design in his
+head. When people like him escaped from gaol it was only to burn
+everything down; and if he had come to the markets it must assuredly be
+for some abominable purpose. Then they began to indulge in the wildest
+suppositions. The two dealers declared that they would put additional
+padlocks to the doors of their storerooms; and La Sarriette called to
+mind that a basket of peaches had been stolen from her during the
+previous week. Mademoiselle Saget, however, quite frightened the two
+others by informing them that that was not the way in which the Reds
+behaved; they despised such trifles as baskets of peaches; their plan
+was to band themselves together in companies of two or three hundred,
+kill everybody they came across, and then plunder and pillage at their
+ease. That was “politics,” she said, with the superior air of one who
+knew what she was talking about. Madame Lecœur felt quite ill. She
+already saw Florent and his accomplices hiding in the cellars, and
+rushing out during the night to set the markets in flames and sack
+Paris.
+
+“Ah! by the way,” suddenly exclaimed the old maid, “now I think of it,
+there’s all that money of old Gradelle’s! Dear me, dear me, those
+Quenus can’t be at all at their ease!”
+
+She now looked quite gay again. The conversation took a fresh turn, and
+the others fell foul of the Quenus when Mademoiselle Saget had told
+them the history of the treasure discovered in the salting-tub, with
+every particular of which she was acquainted. She was even able to
+inform them of the exact amount of the money found—eighty-five thousand
+francs—though neither Lisa nor Quenu was aware of having revealed this
+to a living soul. However, it was clear that the Quenus had not given
+the great lanky fellow his share. He was too shabbily dressed for that.
+Perhaps he had never even heard of the discovery of the treasure.
+Plainly enough, they were all thieves in his family. Then the three
+women bent their heads together and spoke in lower tones. They were
+unanimously of opinion that it might perhaps be dangerous to attack the
+beautiful Lisa, but it was decidedly necessary that they should settle
+the Red Republican’s hash, so that he might no longer prey upon the
+purse of poor Monsieur Gavard.
+
+At the mention of Gavard there came a pause. The gossips looked at each
+other with a circumspect air. And then, as they drew breath, they
+inhaled the odour of the Camemberts, whose gamy scent had overpowered
+the less penetrating emanations of the Marolles and the Limbourgs, and
+spread around with remarkable power. Every now and then, however, a
+slight whiff, a flutelike note, came from the Parmesan, while the Bries
+contributed a soft, musty scent, the gentle, insipid sound, as it were,
+of damp tambourines. Next followed an overpowering refrain from the
+Livarots, and afterwards the Gerome, flavoured with aniseed, kept up
+the symphony with a high prolonged note, like that of a vocalist during
+a pause in the accompaniment.
+
+“I have seen Madame Leonce,” Mademoiselle Saget at last continued, with
+a significant expression.
+
+At this the two others became extremely attentive. Madame Leonce was
+the doorkeeper of the house where Gavard lived in the Rue de la
+Cossonnerie. It was an old house standing back, with its ground floor
+occupied by an importer of oranges and lemons, who had had the frontage
+coloured blue as high as the first floor. Madame Leonce acted as
+Gavard’s housekeeper, kept the keys of his cupboards and closets, and
+brought him up tisane when he happened to catch cold. She was a
+severe-looking woman, between fifty and sixty years of age, and spoke
+slowly, but at endless length. Mademoiselle Saget, who went to drink
+coffee with her every Wednesday evening, had cultivated her friendship
+more closely than ever since the poultry dealer had gone to lodge in
+the house. They would talk about the worthy man for hours at a time.
+They both professed the greatest affection for him, and a keen desire
+to ensure his comfort and happiness.
+
+“Yes, I have seen Madame Leonce,” repeated the old maid. “We had a cup
+of coffee together last night. She was greatly worried. It seems that
+Monsieur Gavard never comes home now before one o’clock in the morning.
+Last Sunday she took him up some broth, as she thought he looked quite
+ill.”
+
+“Oh, she knows very well what she’s about,” exclaimed Madame Lecœur,
+whom these attentions to Gavard somewhat alarmed.
+
+Mademoiselle Saget felt bound to defend her friend. “Oh, really, you
+are quite mistaken,” said she. “Madame Leonce is much above her
+position; she is quite a lady. If she wanted to enrich herself at
+Monsieur Gavard’s expense, she might easily have done so long ago. It
+seems that he leaves everything lying about in the most careless
+fashion. It’s about that, indeed, that I want to speak to you. But
+you’ll not repeat anything I say, will you? I am telling it you in
+strict confidence.”
+
+Both the others swore that they would never breathe a word of what they
+might hear; and they craned out their necks with eager curiosity,
+whilst the old maid solemnly resumed: “Well, then, Monsieur Gavard has
+been behaving very strangely of late. He has been buying firearms—a
+great big pistol—one of those which revolve, you know. Madame Leonce
+says that things are awful, for this pistol is always lying about on
+the table or the mantelpiece; and she daren’t dust anywhere near it.
+But that isn’t all. His money—”
+
+“His money!” echoed Madame Lecœur, with blazing cheeks.
+
+“Well, he’s disposed of all his stocks and shares. He’s sold
+everything, and keeps a great heap of gold in a cupboard.”
+
+“A heap of gold!” exclaimed La Sarriette in ecstasy.
+
+“Yes, a great heap of gold. It covers a whole shelf, and is quite
+dazzling. Madame Leonce told me that one morning Gavard opened the
+cupboard in her presence, and that the money quite blinded her, it
+shone so.”
+
+There was another pause. The eyes of the three women were blinking as
+though the dazzling pile of gold was before them. Presently La
+Sarriette began to laugh.
+
+“What a jolly time I would have with Jules if my uncle would give that
+money to me!” said she.
+
+Madame Lecœur, however, seemed quite overwhelmed by this revelation,
+crushed beneath the weight of the gold which she could not banish from
+her sight. Covetous envy thrilled her. But at last, raising her skinny
+arms and shrivelled hands, her finger-nails still stuffed with butter,
+she stammered in a voice full of bitter distress: “Oh, I mustn’t think
+of it! It’s too dreadful!”
+
+“Well, it would all be yours, you know, if anything were to happen to
+Monsieur Gavard,” retorted Mademoiselle Saget. “If I were in your
+place, I would look after my interests. That revolver means nothing
+good, you may depend upon it. Monsieur Gavard has got into the hands of
+evil counsellors; and I’m afraid it will all end badly.”
+
+Then the conversation again turned upon Florent. The three women
+assailed him more violently than ever. And afterwards, with perfect
+composure, they began to discuss what would be the result of all these
+dark goings-on so far as he and Gavard were concerned; certainly it
+would be no pleasant one if there was any gossiping. And thereupon they
+swore that they themselves would never repeat a word of what they knew;
+not, however, because that scoundrel Florent merited any consideration,
+but because it was necessary, at all costs, to save that worthy
+Monsieur Gavard from being compromised. Then they rose from their
+seats, and Mademoiselle Saget was burning as if to go away when the
+butter dealer asked her: “All the same, in case of accident, do you
+think that Madame Leonce can be trusted? I dare say she has the key of
+the cupboard.”
+
+“Well, that’s more than I can tell you,” replied the old maid. “I
+believe she’s a very honest woman; but, after all, there’s no telling.
+There are circumstances, you know, which tempt the best of people.
+Anyhow, I’ve warned you both; and you must do what you think proper.”
+
+As the three women stood there, taking leave of each other, the odour
+of the cheeses seemed to become more pestilential than ever. It was a
+cacophony of smells, ranging from the heavily oppressive odour of the
+Dutch cheeses and the Gruyeres to the alkaline pungency of the Olivets.
+From the Cantal, the Cheshire, and the goats’ milk cheeses there seemed
+to come a deep breath like the sound of a bassoon, amidst which the
+sharp, sudden whiffs of the Neufchatels, the Troyes, and the Mont d’Ors
+contributed short, detached notes. And then the different odours
+appeared to mingle one with another, the reek of the Limbourgs, the
+Port Saluts, the Geromes, the Marolles, the Livarots, and the Pont
+l’Eveques uniting in one general, overpowering stench sufficient to
+provoke asphyxia. And yet it almost seemed as though it were not the
+cheeses but the vile words of Madame Lecœur and Mademoiselle Saget that
+diffused this awful odour.
+
+“I’m very much obliged to you, indeed I am,” said the butter dealer.
+“If ever I get rich, you shall not find yourself forgotten.”
+
+The old maid still lingered in the stall. Taking up a Bondon, she
+turned it round, and put it down on the slab again. Then she asked its
+price.
+
+“To me!” she added, with a smile.
+
+“Oh, nothing to you,” replied Madame Lecœur. “I’ll make you a present
+of it.” And again she exclaimed: “Ah, if I were only rich!”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget thereupon told her that some day or other she would
+be rich. The Bondon had already disappeared within the old maid’s bag.
+And now the butter dealer returned to the cellar, while Mademoiselle
+Saget escorted La Sarriette back to her stall. On reaching it they
+talked for a moment or two about Monsieur Jules. The fruits around them
+diffused a fresh scent of summer.
+
+“It smells much nicer here than at your aunt’s,” said the old maid. “I
+felt quite ill a little time ago. I can’t think how she manages to
+exist there. But here it’s very sweet and pleasant. It makes you look
+quite rosy, my dear.”
+
+La Sarriette began to laugh, for she was fond of compliments. Then she
+served a lady with a pound of mirabelle plums, telling her that they
+were as sweet as sugar.
+
+“I should like to buy some of those mirabelles too,” murmured
+Mademoiselle Saget, when the lady had gone away; “only I want so few. A
+lone woman, you know.”
+
+“Take a handful of them,” exclaimed the pretty brunette. “That won’t
+ruin me. Send Jules back to me if you see him, will you? You’ll most
+likely find him smoking his cigar on the first bench to the right as
+you turn out of the covered way.”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget distended her fingers as widely as possible in order
+to take a handful of mirabelles, which joined the Bondon in the bag.
+Then she pretended to leave the market, but in reality made a detour by
+one of the covered ways, thinking, as she walked slowly along, that the
+mirabelles and Bondon would not make a very substantial dinner. When
+she was unable, during her afternoon perambulations, to wheedle
+stallkeepers into filling her bag for her, she was reduced to dining
+off the merest scraps. So she now slyly made her way back to the butter
+pavilions, where, on the side of the Rue Berger, at the back of the
+offices of the oyster salesmen, there were some stalls at which cooked
+meat was sold. Every morning little closed box-like carts, lined with
+zinc and furnished with ventilators, drew up in front of the larger
+Parisian kitchens and carried away the leavings of the restaurants, the
+embassies, and State Ministries. These leavings were conveyed to the
+market cellars and there sorted. By nine o’clock plates of food were
+displayed for sale at prices ranging from three to five sous, their
+contents comprising slices of meat, scraps of game, heads and tails of
+fishes, bits of galantine, stray vegetables, and, by way of dessert,
+cakes scarcely cut into, and other confectionery. Poor starving
+wretches, scantily-paid clerks, and women shivering with fever were to
+be seen crowding around, and the street lads occasionally amused
+themselves by hooting the pale-faced individuals, known to be misers,
+who only made their purchases after slyly glancing about them to see
+that they were not observed.[*] Mademoiselle Saget wriggled her way to
+a stall, the keeper of which boasted that the scraps she sold came
+exclusively from the Tuileries. One day, indeed, she had induced the
+old maid to buy a slice of leg of mutton by informing that it had come
+from the plate of the Emperor himself; and this slice of mutton, eaten
+with no little pride, had been a soothing consolation to Mademoiselle
+Saget’s vanity. The wariness of her approach to the stall was,
+moreover, solely caused by her desire to keep well with the
+neighbouring shop people, whose premises she was eternally haunting
+without ever buying anything. Her usual tactics were to quarrel with
+them as soon as she had managed to learn their histories, when she
+would bestow her patronage upon a fresh set, desert it in due course,
+and then gradually make friends again with those with whom she had
+quarrelled. In this way she made the complete circuit of the market
+neighbourhood, ferreting about in every shop and stall. Anyone would
+have imagined that she consumed an enormous amount of provisions,
+whereas, in point of fact, she lived solely upon presents and the few
+scraps which she was compelled to buy when people were not in the
+giving vein.
+
+[*] The dealers in these scraps are called _bijoutiers_, or jewellers,
+whilst the scraps themselves are known as _harlequins_, the idea being
+that they are of all colours and shapes when mingled together, thus
+suggesting harlequin’s variegated attire.—Translator.
+
+
+On that particular evening there was only a tall old man standing in
+front of the stall. He was sniffing at a plate containing a mixture of
+meat and fish. Mademoiselle Saget, in her turn, began to sniff at a
+plate of cold fried fish. The price of it was three sous, but, by dint
+of bargaining, she got it for two. The cold fish then vanished into the
+bag. Other customers now arrived, and with a uniform impulse lowered
+their noses over the plates. The smell of the stall was very
+disgusting, suggestive alike of greasy dishes and a dirty sink.[*]
+
+[*] Particulars of the strange and repulsive trade in harlequins, which
+even nowadays is not extinct, will be found in Privat d’Anglemont’s
+well-known book _Paris Anecdote_, written at the very period with which
+M. Zola deals in the present work. My father, Henry Vizetelly, also
+gave some account of it in his _Glances Back through Seventy Years_, in
+a chapter describing the odd ways in which certain Parisians contrive
+to get a living.—Translator.
+
+
+“Come and see me to-morrow,” the stallkeeper called out to the old
+maid, “and I’ll put something nice on one side for you. There’s going
+to be a grand dinner at the Tuileries to-night.”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget was just promising to come, when, happening to turn
+round, she discovered Gavard looking at her and listening to what she
+was saying. She turned very red, and, contracting her skinny shoulders,
+hurried away, affecting not to recognise him. Gavard, however, followed
+her for a few yards, shrugging his shoulders and muttering to himself
+that he was no longer surprised at the old shrew’s malice, now he knew
+that “she poisoned herself with the filth carted away from the
+Tuileries.”
+
+On the very next morning vague rumours began to circulate in the
+markets. Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette were in their own fashion
+keeping the oaths of silence they had taken. For her own part,
+Mademoiselle Saget warily held her tongue, leaving the two others to
+circulate the story of Florent’s antecedents. At first only a few
+meagre details were hawked about in low tones; then various versions of
+the facts got into circulation, incidents were exaggerated, and
+gradually quite a legend was constructed, in which Florent played the
+part of a perfect bogey man. He had killed ten gendarmes at the
+barricade in the Rue Greneta, said some; he had returned to France on a
+pirate ship whose crew scoured the seas to murder everyone they came
+across, said others; whilst a third set declared that ever since his
+arrival he had been observed prowling about at nighttime with
+suspicious-looking characters, of whom he was undoubtedly the leader.
+Soon the imaginative market women indulged in the highest flights of
+fancy, revelled in the most melodramatic ideas. There was talk of a
+band of smugglers plying their nefarious calling in the very heart of
+Paris, and of a vast central association formed for systematically
+robbing the stalls in the markets. Much pity was expressed for the
+Quenu-Gradelles, mingled with malicious allusions to their uncle’s
+fortune. That fortune was an endless subject of discussion. The general
+opinion was that Florent had returned to claim his share of the
+treasure; however, as no good reason was forthcoming to explain why the
+division had not taken place already, it was asserted that Florent was
+waiting for some opportunity which might enable him to pocket the whole
+amount. The Quenu-Gradelles would certainly be found murdered some
+morning, it was said; and a rumour spread that dreadful quarrels
+already took place every night between the two brothers and beautiful
+Lisa.
+
+When these stories reached the ears of the beautiful Norman, she
+shrugged her shoulders and burst out laughing.
+
+“Get away with you!” she cried, “you don’t know him. Why, the dear
+fellow’s as gentle as a lamb.”
+
+She had recently refused the hand of Monsieur Lebigre, who had at last
+ventured upon a formal proposal. For two months past he had given the
+Mehudins a bottle of some liqueur every Sunday. It was Rose who brought
+it, and she was always charged with a compliment for La Normande, some
+pretty speech which she faithfully repeated, without appearing in the
+slightest degree embarrassed by the peculiar commission. When Monsieur
+Lebigre was rejected, he did not pine, but to show that he took no
+offence and was still hopeful, he sent Rose on the following Sunday
+with two bottles of champagne and a large bunch of flowers. She gave
+them into the handsome fish-girl’s own hands, repeating, as she did so,
+the wine dealer’s prose madrigal:
+
+“Monsieur Lebigre begs you to drink this to his health, which has been
+greatly shaken by you know what. He hopes that you will one day be
+willing to cure him, by being for him as pretty and as sweet as these
+flowers.”
+
+La Normande was much amused by the servant’s delighted air. She kissed
+her as she spoke to her of her master, and asked her if he wore braces,
+and snored at nights. Then she made her take the champagne and flowers
+back with her. “Tell Monsieur Lebigre,” said she, “that he’s not to
+send you here again. It quite vexes me to see you coming here so
+meekly, with your bottles under your arms.”
+
+“Oh, he wishes me to come,” replied Rose, as she went away. “It is
+wrong of you to distress him. He is a very handsome man.”
+
+La Normande, however, was quite conquered by Florent’s affectionate
+nature. She continued to follow Muche’s lessons of an evening in the
+lamplight, indulging the while in a dream of marrying this man who was
+so kind to children. She would still keep her fish stall, while he
+would doubtless rise to a position of importance in the administrative
+staff of the markets. This dream of hers, however, was scarcely
+furthered by the tutor’s respectful bearing towards her. He bowed to
+her, and kept himself at a distance, when she have liked to laugh with
+him, and love him as she knew how to love. But it was just this covert
+resistance on Florent’s part which continually brought her back to the
+dream of marrying him. She realised that he lived in a loftier sphere
+than her own; and by becoming his wife she imagined that her vanity
+would reap no little satisfaction.
+
+She was greatly surprised when she learned the history of the man she
+loved. He had never mentioned a word of those things to her; and she
+scolded him about it. His extraordinary adventures only increased her
+tenderness for him, and for evenings together she made him relate all
+that had befallen him. She trembled with fear lest the police should
+discover him; but he reassured her, saying that the matter was now too
+old for the police to trouble their heads about it. One evening he told
+her of the woman on the Boulevard Montmartre, the woman in the pink
+bonnet, whose blood had dyed his hands. He still frequently thought of
+that poor creature. His anguish-stricken mind had often dwelt upon her
+during the clear nights he had passed in Cayenne; and he had returned
+to France with a wild dream of meeting her again on some footway in the
+bright sunshine, even though he could still feel her corpse-like weight
+across his legs. And yet, he thought, she might perhaps have recovered.
+At times he received quite a shock while he was walking through the
+streets, on fancying that he recognised her; and he followed pink
+bonnets and shawl-draped shoulders with a wildly beating heart. When he
+closed his eyes he could see her walking, and advancing towards him;
+but she let her shawl slip down, showing the two red stains on her
+chemisette; and then he saw that her face was pale as wax, and that her
+eyes were blank, and her lips distorted by pain. For a long time he
+suffered from not knowing her name, from being forced to look upon her
+as a mere shadow, whose recollection filled him with sorrow. Whenever
+any idea of woman crossed his mind it was always she that rose up
+before him, as the one pure, tender wife. He often found himself
+fancying that she might be looking for him on that boulevard where she
+had fallen dead, and that if she had met him a few seconds sooner she
+would have given him a life of joy. And he wished for no other wife;
+none other existed for him. When he spoke of her, his voice trembled to
+such a degree that La Normande, her wits quickened by her love, guessed
+his secret, and felt jealous.
+
+“Oh, it’s really much better that you shouldn’t see her again,” she
+said maliciously. “She can’t look particularly nice by this time.”
+
+Florent turned pale with horror at the vision which these words evoked.
+His love was rotting in her grave. He could not forgive La Normande’s
+savage cruelty, which henceforth made him see the grinning jaws and
+hollow eyes of a skeleton within that lovely pink bonnet. Whenever the
+fish-girl tried to joke with him on the subject he turned quite angry,
+and silenced her with almost coarse language.
+
+That, however, which especially surprised the beautiful Norman in these
+revelations was the discovery that she had been quite mistaken in
+supposing that she was enticing a lover away from handsome Lisa. This
+so diminished her feeling of triumph, that for a week or so her love
+for Florent abated. She consoled herself, however, with the story of
+the inheritance, no longer calling Lisa a strait-laced prude, but a
+thief who kept back her brother-in-law’s money, and assumed
+sanctimonious airs to deceive people. Every evening, while Muche took
+his writing lesson, the conversation turned upon old Gradelle’s
+treasure.
+
+“Did anyone ever hear of such an idea?” the fish-girl would exclaim,
+with a laugh. “Did the old man want to salt his money, since he put it
+in a salting-tub? Eighty-five thousand francs! That’s a nice sum of
+money! And, besides, the Quenus, no doubt, lied about it—there was
+perhaps two or three times as much. Ah, if I were in your place, I
+shouldn’t lose any time about claiming my share; indeed I shouldn’t.”
+
+“I’ve no need of anything,” was Florent’s invariable answer. “I
+shouldn’t know what to do with the money if I had it.”
+
+“Oh, you’re no man!” cried La Normande, losing all control over
+herself. “It’s pitiful! Can’t you see that the Quenus are laughing at
+you? That great fat thing passes all her husband’s old clothes over to
+you. I’m not saying this to hurt your feelings, but everybody makes
+remarks about it. Why, the whole neighbourhood has seen the greasy pair
+of trousers, which you’re now wearing, on your brother’s legs for three
+years and more! If I were in your place I’d throw their dirty rags in
+their faces, and insist upon my rights. Your share comes to forty-two
+thousand five hundred francs, doesn’t it? Well, I shouldn’t go out of
+the place till I’d got forty-two thousand five hundred francs.”
+
+It was useless for Florent to explain to her that his sister-in-law had
+offered to pay him his share, that she was taking care of it for him,
+and that it was he himself who had refused to receive it. He entered
+into the most minute particulars, seeking to convince her of the
+Quenus’ honesty, but she sarcastically replied: “Oh, yes, I dare say! I
+know all about their honesty. That fat thing folds it up every morning
+and puts it away in her wardrobe for fear it should get soiled. Really,
+I quite pity you, my poor friend. It’s easy to gull you, for you can’t
+see any further than a child of five. One of these days she’ll simply
+put your money in her pocket, and you’ll never look on it again. Shall
+I go, now, and claim your share for you, just to see what she says?
+There’d be some fine fun, I can tell you! I’d either have the money, or
+I’d break everything in the house—I swear I would!”
+
+“No, no, it’s no business of yours,” Florent replied, quite alarmed.
+“I’ll see about it; I may possibly be wanting some money soon.”
+
+At this La Normande assumed an air of doubt, shrugged her shoulders,
+and told him that he was really too chicken-hearted. Her one great aim
+now was to embroil him with the Quenu-Gradelles, and she employed every
+means she could think of to effect her purpose, both anger and banter,
+as well as affectionate tenderness. She also cherished another design.
+When she had succeeded in marrying Florent, she would go and administer
+a sound cuffing to beautiful Lisa, if the latter did not yield up the
+money. As she lay awake in her bed at night she pictured every detail
+of the scene. She saw herself sitting down in the middle of the pork
+shop in the busiest part of the day, and making a terrible fuss. She
+brooded over this idea to such an extent, it obtained such a hold upon
+her, that she would have been willing to marry Florent simply in order
+to be able to go and demand old Gradelle’s forty-two thousand five
+hundred francs.
+
+Old Madame Mehudin, exasperated by La Normande’s dismissal of Monsieur
+Lebigre, proclaimed everywhere that her daughter was mad, and that the
+“long spindle-shanks” must have administered some insidious drug to
+her. When she learned the Cayenne story, her anger was terrible. She
+called Florent a convict and murderer, and said it was no wonder that
+his villainy had kept him lank and flat. Her versions of Florent’s
+biography were the most horrible of all that were circulated in the
+neighbourhood. At home she kept a moderately quiet tongue in her head,
+and restricted herself to muttered indignation, and a show of locking
+up the drawer where the silver was kept whenever Florent arrived. One
+day, however, after a quarrel with her elder daughter, she exclaimed:
+
+“Things can’t go on much longer like this! It is that vile man who is
+setting you against me. Take care that you don’t try me too far, or
+I’ll go and denounce him to the police. I will, as true as I stand
+here!”
+
+“You’ll denounce him!” echoed La Normande, trembling violently, and
+clenching her fists. “You’d better not! Ah, if you weren’t my mother——”
+
+At this, Claire, who was a spectator of the quarrel, began to laugh,
+with a nervous laughter that seemed to rasp her throat. For some time
+past she had been gloomier and more erratic than ever, invariably
+showing red eyes and a pale face.
+
+“Well, what would you do?” she asked. “Would you give her a cuffing?
+Perhaps you’d like to give me, your sister, one as well? I dare say it
+will end in that. But I’ll clear the house of him. I’ll go to the
+police to save mother the trouble.”
+
+Then, as La Normande almost choked with the angry threats that rose to
+her throat, the younger girl added: “I’ll spare you the exertion of
+beating me. I’ll throw myself into the river as I come back over the
+bridge.”
+
+Big tears were streaming from her eyes; and she rushed off to her
+bedroom, banging the doors violently behind her. Old Madame Mehudin
+said nothing more about denouncing Florent. Muche, however, told La
+Normande that he met his grandma talking with Monsieur Lebigre in every
+corner of the neighbourhood.
+
+The rivalry between the beautiful Norman and the beautiful Lisa now
+assumed a less aggressive but more disturbing character. In the
+afternoon, when the red-striped canvas awning was drawn down in front
+of the pork shop, the fish-girl would remark that the big fat thing
+felt afraid, and was concealing herself. She was also much exasperated
+by the occasional lowering of the window-blind, on which was pictured a
+hunting-breakfast in a forest glade, with ladies and gentlemen in
+evening dress partaking of a red pasty, as big as themselves, on the
+yellow grass.
+
+Beautiful Lisa, however, was by no means afraid. As soon as the sun
+began to sink she drew up the blind; and, as she sat knitting behind
+her counter, she serenely scanned the market square, where numerous
+urchins were poking about in the soil under the gratings which
+protected the roots of the plane-trees, while porters smoked their
+pipes on the benches along the footway, at either end of which was an
+advertisement column covered with theatrical posters, alternately
+green, yellow, red, and blue, like some harlequin’s costume. And while
+pretending to watch the passing vehicles, Lisa would really be
+scrutinising the beautiful Norman. She might occasionally be seen
+bending forward, as though her eyes were following the Bastille and
+Place Wagram omnibus to the Pointe Saint Eustache, where it always
+stopped for a time. But this was only a manoeuvre to enable her to get
+a better view of the fish-girl, who, as a set-off against the blind,
+retorted by covering her head and fish with large sheets of brown
+paper, on the pretext of warding off the rays of the setting sun. The
+advantage at present was on Lisa’s side, for as the time for striking
+the decisive blow approached she manifested the calmest serenity of
+bearing, whereas her rival, in spite of all her efforts to attain the
+same air of distinction, always lapsed into some piece of gross
+vulgarity, which she afterwards regretted. La Normande’s ambition was
+to look “like a lady.” Nothing irritated her more than to hear people
+extolling the good manners of her rival. This weak point of hers had
+not escaped old Madame Mehudin’s observation, and she now directed all
+her attacks upon it.
+
+“I saw Madame Quenu standing at her door this evening,” she would say
+sometimes. “It is quite amazing how well she wears. And she’s so
+refined-looking, too; quite the lady, indeed. It’s the counter that
+does it, I’m sure. A fine counter gives a woman such a respectable
+look.”
+
+In this remark there was a veiled allusion to Monsieur Lebigre’s
+proposal. The beautiful Norman would make no reply; but for a moment or
+two she would seem deep in thought. In her mind’s eye she saw herself
+behind the counter of the wine shop at the other corner of the street,
+forming a pendent, as it were, to beautiful Lisa. It was this that
+first shook her love for Florent.
+
+To tell the truth, it was now becoming a very difficult thing to defend
+Florent. The whole neighbourhood was in arms against him; it seemed as
+though everyone had an immediate interest in exterminating him. Some of
+the market people swore that he had sold himself to the police; while
+others asserted that he had been seen in the butter-cellar, attempting
+to make holes in the wire grating, with the intention of tossing
+lighted matches through them. There was a vast increase of slander, a
+perfect flood of abuse, the source of which could not be exactly
+determined. The fish pavilion was the last one to join in the revolt
+against the inspector. The fish-wives liked Florent on account of his
+gentleness, and for some time they defended him; but, influenced by the
+stallkeepers of the butter and fruit pavilions, they at last gave way.
+Then hostilities began afresh between these huge, swelling women and
+the lean and lank inspector. He was lost in the whirl of the voluminous
+petticoats and buxom bodices which surged furiously around his scraggy
+shoulders. However, he understood nothing, but pursued his course
+towards the realisation of his one haunting idea.
+
+At every hour of the day, and in every corner of the market,
+Mademoiselle Saget’s black bonnet was now to be seen in the midst of
+this outburst of indignation. Her little pale face seemed to multiply.
+She had sworn a terrible vengeance against the company which assembled
+in Monsieur Lebigre’s little cabinet. She accused them of having
+circulated the story that she lived on waste scraps of meat. The truth
+was that old Gavard had told the others one evening that the “old
+nanny-goat” who came to play the spy upon them gorged herself with the
+filth which the Bonapartist clique tossed away. Clemence felt quite ill
+on hearing this, and Robine hurriedly gulped down a draught of beer, as
+though to wash his throat. In Gavard’s opinion, the scraps of meat left
+on the Emperor’s plate were so much political ordure, the putrid
+remnants of all the filth of the reign. Thenceforth the party at
+Monsieur Lebigre’s looked on Mademoiselle Saget as a creature whom no
+one could touch except with tongs. She was regarded as some unclean
+animal that battened upon corruption. Clemence and Gavard circulated
+the story so freely in the markets that the old maid found herself
+seriously injured in her intercourse with the shopkeepers, who
+unceremoniously bade her go off to the scrap-stalls when she came to
+haggle and gossip at their establishments without the least intention
+of buying anything. This cut her off from her sources of information;
+and sometimes she was altogether ignorant of what was happening. She
+shed tears of rage, and in one such moment of anger she bluntly said to
+La Sarriette and Madame Lecœur: “You needn’t give me any more hints:
+I’ll settle your Gavard’s hash for him now—that I will!”
+
+The two women were rather startled, but refrained from all
+protestation. The next day, however, Mademoiselle Saget had calmed
+down, and again expressed much tender-hearted pity for that poor
+Monsieur Gavard who was so badly advised, and was certainly hastening
+to his ruin.
+
+Gavard was undoubtedly compromising himself. Ever since the conspiracy
+had begun to ripen he had carried the revolver, which caused Madame
+Leonce so much alarm, in his pocket wherever he went. It was a big,
+formidable-looking weapon, which he had bought of the principal
+gunmaker in Paris. He exhibited it to all the women in the poultry
+market, like a schoolboy who has got some prohibited novel hidden in
+his desk. First he would allow the barrel to peer out of his pocket,
+and call attention to it with a wink. Then he affected a mysterious
+reticence, indulged in vague hints and insinuations—played, in short,
+the part of a man who revelled in feigning fear. The possession of this
+revolver gave him immense importance, placed him definitely amongst the
+dangerous characters of Paris. Sometimes, when he was safe inside his
+stall, he would consent to take it out of his pocket, and exhibit it to
+two or three of the women. He made them stand before him so as to
+conceal him with their petticoats, and then he brandished the weapon,
+cocked the lock, caused the breech to revolve, and took aim at one of
+the geese or turkeys that were hanging in the stall. He was immensely
+delighted at the alarm manifested by the women; but eventually
+reassured them by stating that the revolver was not loaded. However, he
+carried a supply of cartridges about with him, in a case which he
+opened with the most elaborate precautions. When he had allowed his
+friends to feel the weight of the cartridges, he would again place both
+weapon and ammunition in his pockets. And afterwards, crossing his arms
+over his breast, he would chatter away jubilantly for hours.
+
+“A man’s a man when he’s got a weapon like that,” he would say with a
+swaggering air. “I don’t care a fig now for the gendarmes. A friend and
+I went to try it last Sunday on the plain of Saint Denis. Of course,
+you know, a man doesn’t tell everyone that he’s got a plaything of that
+sort. But, ah! my dears, we fired at a tree, and hit it every time. Ah,
+you’ll see, you’ll see. You’ll hear of Anatole one of these days, I can
+tell you.”
+
+He had bestowed the name of Anatole upon the revolver; and he carried
+things so far that in a week’s time both weapon and cartridges were
+known to all the women in the pavilion. His friendship for Florent
+seemed to them suspicious; he was too sleek and rich to be visited with
+the hatred that was manifested towards the inspector; still, he lost
+the esteem of the shrewder heads amongst his acquaintances, and
+succeeded in terrifying the timid ones. This delighted him immensely.
+
+“It is very imprudent for a man to carry firearms about with him,” said
+Mademoiselle Saget. “Monsieur Gavard’s revolver will end by playing him
+a nasty trick.”
+
+Gavard now showed the most jubilant bearing at Monsieur Lebigre’s.
+Florent, since ceasing to take his meals with the Quenus, had come
+almost to live in the little “cabinet.” He breakfasted, dined, and
+constantly shut himself up there. In fact he had converted the place
+almost into a sort of private room of his own, where he left his old
+coats and books and papers lying about. Monsieur Lebigre had offered no
+objection to these proceedings; indeed, he had even removed one of the
+tables to make room for a cushioned bench, on which Florent could have
+slept had he felt so inclined. When the inspector manifested any
+scruples about taking advantage of Monsieur Lebigre’s kindness, the
+latter told him to do as he pleased, saying that the whole house was at
+his service. Logre also manifested great friendship for him, and even
+constituted himself his lieutenant. He was constantly discussing
+affairs with him, rendering an account of the steps he was supposed to
+take, and furnishing the names of newly affiliated associates. Logre,
+indeed, had now assumed the duties of organiser; on him rested the task
+of bringing the various plotters together, forming the different
+sections, and weaving each mesh of the gigantic net into which Paris
+was to fall at a given signal. Florent meantime remained the leader,
+the soul of the conspiracy.
+
+However, much as the hunchback seemed to toil, he attained no
+appreciable result. Although he had loudly asserted that in each
+district of Paris he knew two or three groups of men as determined and
+trustworthy as those who met at Monsieur Lebigre’s, he had never yet
+given any precise information about them, but had merely mentioned a
+name here and there, and recounted stories of endless alleged secret
+expeditions, and the wonderful enthusiasm that the people manifested
+for the cause. He made a great point of the hand-grasps he had
+received. So-and-so, whom he thou’d and thee’d, had squeezed his
+fingers and declared he would join them. At the Gros Caillou a big,
+burly fellow, who would make a magnificent sectional leader, had almost
+dislocated his arm in his enthusiasm; while in the Rue Popincourt a
+whole group of working men had embraced him. He declared that at a
+day’s notice a hundred thousand active supporters could be gathered
+together. Each time that he made his appearance in the little room,
+wearing an exhausted air, and dropping with apparent fatigue on the
+bench, he launched into fresh variations of his usual reports, while
+Florent duly took notes of what he said, and relied on him to realise
+his many promises. And soon in Florent’s pockets the plot assumed life.
+The notes were looked upon as realities, as indisputable facts, upon
+which the entire plan of the rising was constructed. All that now
+remained to be done was to wait for a favourable opportunity, and Logre
+asserted with passionate gesticulations that the whole thing would go
+on wheels.
+
+Florent was at last perfectly happy. His feet no longer seemed to tread
+the ground; he was borne aloft by his burning desire to pass sentence
+on all the wickedness he had seen committed. He had all the credulity
+of a little child, all the confidence of a hero. If Logre had told him
+that the Genius of Liberty perched on the Colonne de Juillet[*] would
+have come down and set itself at their head, he would hardly have
+expressed any surprise. In the evenings, at Monsieur Lebigre’s, he
+showed great enthusiasm and spoke effusively of the approaching battle,
+as though it were a festival to which all good and honest folks would
+be invited. But although Gavard in his delight began to play with his
+revolver, Charvet got more snappish than ever, and sniggered and
+shrugged his shoulders. His rival’s assumption of the leadership
+angered him extremely; indeed, quite disgusted him with politics. One
+evening when, arriving early, he happened to find himself alone with
+Logre and Lebigre, he frankly unbosomed himself.
+
+[*] The column erected on the Place de la Bastille in memory of the
+Revolution of July 1830, by which Charles X was dethroned.—Translator.
+
+
+“Why,” said he, “that fellow Florent hasn’t an idea about politics, and
+would have done far better to seek a berth as writing master in a
+ladies’ school! It would be nothing short of a misfortune if he were to
+succeed, for, with his visionary social sentimentalities, he would
+crush us down beneath his confounded working men! It’s all that, you
+know, which ruins the party. We don’t need any more tearful
+sentimentalists, humanitarian poets, people who kiss and slobber over
+each other for the merest scratch. But he won’t succeed! He’ll just get
+locked up, and that will be the end of it.”
+
+Logre and the wine dealer made no remark, but allowed Charvet to talk
+on without interruption.
+
+“And he’d have been locked up long ago,” he continued, “if he were
+anything as dangerous as he fancies he is. The airs he puts on just
+because he’s been to Cayenne are quite sickening. But I’m sure that the
+police knew of his return the very first day he set foot in Paris, and
+if they haven’t interfered with him it’s simply because they hold him
+in contempt.”
+
+At this Logre gave a slight start.
+
+“They’ve been dogging me for the last fifteen years,” resumed the
+Hébertist, with a touch of pride, “but you don’t hear me proclaiming it
+from the house-tops. However, he won’t catch me taking part in his
+riot. I’m not going to let myself be nabbed like a mere fool. I dare
+say he’s already got half a dozen spies at his heels, who will take him
+by the scruff of the neck whenever the authorities give the word.”
+
+“Oh, dear, no! What an idea!” exclaimed Monsieur Lebigre, who usually
+observed complete silence. He was rather pale, and looked at Logre, who
+was gently rubbing his hump against the partition.
+
+“That’s mere imagination,” murmured the hunchback.
+
+“Very well; call it imagination, if you like,” replied the tutor; “but
+I know how these things are arranged. At all events, I don’t mean to
+let the ‘coppers’ nab me this time. You others, of course, will please
+yourselves, but if you take my advice—and you especially, Monsieur
+Lebigre—you’ll take care not to let your establishment be compromised,
+or the authorities will close it.”
+
+At this Logre could not restrain a smile. On several subsequent
+occasions Charvet plied him and Lebigre with similar arguments, as
+though he wished to detach them from Florent’s project by frightening
+them; and he was much surprised at the calmness and confidence which
+they both continued to manifest. For his own part, he still came pretty
+regularly in the evening with Clemence. The tall brunette was no longer
+a clerk at the fish auctions—Monsieur Manoury had discharged her.
+
+“Those salesmen are all scoundrels!” Logre growled, when he heard of
+her dismissal.
+
+Thereupon Clemence, who, lolling back against the partition, was
+rolling a cigarette between her long, slim fingers, replied in a sharp
+voice: “Oh, it’s fair fighting! We don’t hold the same political views,
+you know. That fellow Manoury, who’s making no end of money, would lick
+the Emperor’s boots. For my part, if I were an auctioneer, I wouldn’t
+keep him in my service for an hour.”
+
+The truth was that she had been indulging in some clumsy pleasantry,
+amusing herself one day by inscribing in the sale-book, alongside of
+the dabs and skate and mackerel sold by auction, the names of some of
+the best-known ladies and gentlemen of the Court. This bestowal of
+piscine names upon high dignitaries, these entries of the sale of
+duchesses and baronesses at thirty sous apiece, had caused Monsieur
+Manoury much alarm. Gavard was still laughing over it.
+
+“Well, never mind!” said he, patting Clemence’s arm; “you are every
+inch a man, you are!”
+
+Clemence had discovered a new method of mixing her grog. She began by
+filling her glass with hot water; and after adding some sugar she
+poured the rum drop by drop upon the slice of lemon floating on the
+surface, in such wise that it did not mix with the water. Then she
+lighted it and with a grave expression watched it blaze, slowly smoking
+her cigarette while the flame of the alcohol cast a greenish tinge over
+her face. “Grog,” however, was an expensive luxury in which she could
+not afford to indulge after she had lost her place. Charvet told her,
+with a strained laugh, that she was no longer a millionaire. She
+supported herself by giving French lessons, at a very early hour in the
+morning, to a young lady residing in the Rue de Miromesnil, who was
+perfecting her education in secrecy, unknown even to her maid. And so
+now Clemence merely ordered a glass of beer in the evenings, but this
+she drank, it must be admitted, with the most philosophical composure.
+
+The evenings in the little sanctum were now far less noisy than they
+had been. Charvet would suddenly lapse into silence, pale with
+suppressed rage, when the others deserted him to listen to his rival.
+The thought that he had been the king of the place, had ruled the whole
+party with despotic power before Florent’s appearance there, gnawed at
+his heart, and he felt all the regretful pangs of a dethroned monarch.
+If he still came to the meetings, it was only because he could not
+resist the attraction of the little room where he had spent so many
+happy hours in tyrannising over Gavard and Robine. In those days even
+Logre’s hump had been his property, as well as Alexandre’s fleshy arms
+and Lacaille’s gloomy face. He had done what he liked with them,
+stuffed his opinions down their throats, belaboured their shoulders
+with his sceptre. But now he endured much bitterness of spirit; and
+ended by quite ceasing to speak, simply shrugging his shoulders and
+whistling disdainfully, without condescending to combat the absurdities
+vented in his presence. What exasperated him more than anything else
+was the gradual way in which he had been ousted from his position of
+predominance without being conscious of it. He could not see that
+Florent was in any way his superior, and after hearing the latter speak
+for hours, in his gentle and somewhat sad voice, he often remarked:
+“Why, the fellow’s a parson! He only wants a cassock!”
+
+The others, however, to all appearance eagerly absorbed whatever the
+inspector said. When Charvet saw Florent’s clothes hanging from every
+peg, he pretended not to know where he could put his hat so that it
+would not be soiled. He swept away the papers that lay about the little
+room, declaring that there was no longer any comfort for anyone in the
+place since that “gentleman” had taken possession of it. He even
+complained to the landlord, and asked if the room belonged to a single
+customer or to the whole company. This invasion of his realm was indeed
+the last straw. Men were brutes, and he conceived an unspeakable scorn
+for humanity when he saw Logre and Monsieur Lebigre fixing their eyes
+on Florent with rapt attention. Gavard with his revolver irritated him,
+and Robine, who sat silent behind his glass of beer, seemed to him to
+be the only sensible person in the company, and one who doubtless
+judged people by their real value, and was not led away by mere words.
+As for Alexandre and Lacaille, they confirmed him in his belief that
+“the people” were mere fools, and would require at least ten years of
+revolutionary dictatorship to learn how to conduct themselves.
+
+Logre, however, declared that the sections would soon be completely
+organised; and Florent began to assign the different parts that each
+would have to play. One evening, after a final discussion in which he
+again got worsted, Charvet rose up, took his hat, and exclaimed: “Well,
+I’ll wish you all good night. You can get your skulls cracked if it
+amuses you; but I would have you understand that I won’t take any part
+in the business. I have never abetted anybody’s ambition.”
+
+Clemence, who had also risen and was putting on her shawl, coldly
+added: “The plan’s absurd.”
+
+Then, as Robine sat watching their departure with a gentle glance,
+Charvet asked him if he were not coming with them; but Robine, having
+still some beer left in his glass, contented himself with shaking
+hands. Charvet and Clemence never returned again; and Lacaille one day
+informed the company that they now frequented a beer-house in the Rue
+Serpente. He had seen them through the window, gesticulating with great
+energy, in the midst of an attentive group of very young men.
+
+Florent was never able to enlist Claude amongst his supporters. He had
+once entertained the idea of gaining him over to his own political
+views, of making a disciple of him, an assistant in his revolutionary
+task; and in order to initiate him he had taken him one evening to
+Monsieur Lebigre’s. Claude, however, spent the whole time in making a
+sketch of Robine, in his hat and chestnut cloak, and with his beard
+resting on the knob of his walking-stick.
+
+“Really, you know,” he said to Florent, as they came away, “all that
+you have been saying inside there doesn’t interest me in the least. It
+may be very clever, but, for my own part, I see nothing in it. Still,
+you’ve got a splendid fellow there, that blessed Robine. He’s as deep
+as a well. I’ll come with you again some other time, but it won’t be
+for politics. I shall make sketches of Logre and Gavard, so as to put
+them with Robine in a picture which I was thinking about while you were
+discussing the question of—what do you call it? eh? Oh, the question of
+the two Chambers. Just fancy, now, a picture of Gavard and Logre and
+Robine talking politics, entrenched behind their glasses of beer! It
+would be the success of the Salon, my dear fellow, an overwhelming
+success, a genuine modern picture!”
+
+Florent was grieved by the artist’s political scepticism; so he took
+him up to his bedroom, and kept him on the narrow balcony in front of
+the bluish mass of the markets, till two o’clock in the morning,
+lecturing him, and telling him that he was no man to show himself so
+indifferent to the happiness of his country.
+
+“Well, you’re perhaps right,” replied Claude, shaking his head; “I’m an
+egotist. I can’t even say that I paint for the good of my country; for,
+in the first place, my sketches frighten everybody, and then, when I’m
+busy painting, I think about nothing but the pleasure I take in it.
+When I’m painting, it is as though I were tickling myself; it makes me
+laugh all over my body. Well, I can’t help it, you know; it’s my nature
+to be like that; and you can’t expect me to go and drown myself in
+consequence. Besides, France can get on very well without me, as my
+aunt Lisa says. And—may I be quite frank with you?—if I like you it’s
+because you seem to me to follow politics just as I follow painting.
+You titillate yourself, my good friend.”
+
+Then, as Florent protested, he continued:
+
+“Yes, yes; you are an artist in your own way; you dream of politics,
+and I’ll wager you spend hours here at night gazing at the stars and
+imagining they are the voting-papers of infinity. And then you
+titillate yourself with your ideas of truth and justice; and this is so
+evidently the case that those ideas of yours cause just as much alarm
+to commonplace middle-class folks as my sketches do. Between ourselves,
+now, do you imagine that if you were Robine I should take any pleasure
+in your friendship? Ah, no, my friend, you are a great poet!”
+
+Then he began to joke on the subject, saying that politics caused him
+no trouble, and that he had got accustomed to hear people discussing
+them in beer shops and studios. This led him to speak of a café in the
+Rue Vauvilliers; the café on the ground-floor of the house where La
+Sarriette lodged. This smoky place, with its torn, velvet-cushioned
+seats, and marble table-tops discoloured by the drippings from
+coffee-cups, was the chief resort of the young people of the markets.
+Monsieur Jules reigned there over a company of porters, apprentices,
+and gentlemen in white blouses and velvet caps. Two curling “Newgate
+knockers” were glued against his temples; and to keep his neck white he
+had it scraped with a razor every Saturday at a hair-dresser’s in the
+Rue des Deux Ecus. At the café he gave the tone to his associates,
+especially when he played billiards with studied airs and graces,
+showing off his figure to the best advantage. After the game the
+company would begin to chat. They were a very reactionary set, taking a
+delight in the doings of “society.” For his part, Monsieur Jules read
+the lighter boulevardian newspapers, and knew the performers at the
+smaller theatres, talked familiarly of the celebrities of the day, and
+could always tell whether the piece first performed the previous
+evening had been a success or a failure. He had a weakness, however,
+for politics. His ideal man was Morny, as he curtly called him. He read
+the reports of the discussions of the Corps Législatif, and laughed
+with glee over the slightest words that fell from Morny’s lips. Ah,
+Morny was the man to sit upon your rascally republicans! And he would
+assert that only the scum detested the Emperor, for his Majesty desired
+that all respectable people should have a good time of it.
+
+“I’ve been to the café occasionally,” Claude said to Florent. “The
+young men there are vastly amusing, with their clay pipes and their
+talk about the Court balls! To hear them chatter you might almost fancy
+they were invited to the Tuileries. La Sarriette’s young man was making
+great fun of Gavard the other evening. He called him uncle. When La
+Sarriette came downstairs to look for him she was obliged to pay his
+bill. It cost her six francs, for he had lost at billiards, and the
+drinks they had played for were owing. And now, good night, my friend,
+and pleasant dreams. If ever you become a Minister, I’ll give you some
+hints on the beautifying of Paris.”
+
+Florent was obliged to relinquish the hope of making a docile disciple
+of Claude. This was a source of grief to him, for, blinded though he
+was by his fanatical ardour, he at last grew conscious of the
+ever-increasing hostility which surrounded him. Even at the Mehudins’
+he now met with a colder reception: the old woman would laugh slyly;
+Muche no longer obeyed him, and the beautiful Norman cast glances of
+hasty impatience at him, unable as she was to overcome his coldness. At
+the Quenus’, too, he had lost Auguste’s friendship. The assistant no
+longer came to see him in his room on the way to bed, being greatly
+alarmed by the reports which he heard concerning this man with whom he
+had previously shut himself up till midnight. Augustine had made her
+lover swear that he would never again be guilty of such imprudence;
+however, it was Lisa who turned the young man into Florent’s determined
+enemy by begging him and Augustine to defer their marriage till her
+cousin should vacate the little bedroom at the top of the house, as she
+did not want to give that poky dressing-room on the first floor to the
+new shop girl whom she would have to engage. From that time forward
+Auguste was anxious that the “convict” should be arrested. He had found
+such a pork shop as he had long dreamed of, not at Plaisance certainly,
+but at Montrouge, a little farther away. And now trade had much
+improved, and Augustine, with her silly, overgrown girl’s laugh, said
+that she was quite ready. So every night, whenever some slight noise
+awoke him, August was thrilled with delight as he imagined that the
+police were at last arresting Florent.
+
+Nothing was said at the Quenu-Gradelles’ about all the rumours which
+circulated. There was a tacit understanding amongst the staff of the
+pork shop to keep silent respecting them in the presence of Quenu. The
+latter, somewhat saddened by the falling-out between his brother and
+his wife, sought consolation in stringing his sausages and salting his
+pork. Sometimes he would come and stand on his door-step, with his red
+face glowing brightly above his white apron, which his increasing
+corpulence stretched quite taut, and never did he suspect all the
+gossip which his appearance set on foot in the markets. Some of the
+women pitied him, and thought that he was losing flesh, though he was,
+indeed, stouter than ever; while others, on the contrary, reproached
+him for not having grown thin with shame at having such a brother as
+Florent. He, however, like one of those betrayed husbands who are
+always the last to know what has befallen them, continued in happy
+ignorance, displaying a light-heartedness which was quite affecting. He
+would stop some neighbour’s wife on the footway to ask her if she found
+his brawn or truffled boar’s head to her liking, and she would at once
+assume a sympathetic expression, and speak in a condoling way, as
+though all the pork on his premises had got jaundice.
+
+“What do they all mean by looking at me with such a funereal air?” he
+asked Lisa one day. “Do you think I’m looking ill?”
+
+Lisa, well aware that he was terribly afraid of illness, and groaned
+and made a dreadful disturbance if he suffered the slightest ailment,
+reassured him on this point, telling him that he was as blooming as a
+rose. The fine pork shop, however, was becoming gloomy; the mirrors
+seemed to pale, the marbles grew frigidly white, and the cooked meats
+on the counter stagnated in yellow fat or lakes of cloudy jelly. One
+day, even, Claude came into the shop to tell his aunt that the display
+in the window looked quite “in the dumps.” This was really the truth.
+The Strasburg tongues on their beds of blue paper-shavings had a
+melancholy whiteness of hue, like the tongues of invalids; and the
+whilom chubby hams seemed to be wasting away beneath their mournful
+green top-knots. Inside the shop, too, when customers asked for a
+black-pudding or ten sous’ worth of bacon, or half a pound of lard,
+they spoke in subdued, sorrowful voices, as though they were in the
+bed-chamber of a dying man. There were always two or three lachrymose
+women in front of the chilled heating-pan. Beautiful Lisa meantime
+discharged the duties of chief mourner with silent dignity. Her white
+apron fell more primly than ever over her black dress. Her hands,
+scrupulously clean and closely girded at the wrists by long white
+sleevelets, her face with its becoming air of sadness, plainly told all
+the neighbourhood, all the inquisitive gossips who streamed into the
+shop from morning to night, that they, the Quenu-Gradelles, were
+suffering from unmerited misfortune, but that she knew the cause of it,
+and would triumph over it at last. And sometimes she stooped to look at
+the two gold-fish, who also seemed ill at ease as they swam languidly
+around the aquarium in the window, and her glance seemed to promise
+them better days in the future.
+
+Beautiful Lisa now only allowed herself one indulgence. She fearlessly
+patted Marjolin’s satiny chin. The young man had just come out of the
+hospital. His skull had healed, and he looked as fat and merry as ever;
+but even the little intelligence he had possessed had left him, he was
+now quite an idiot. The gash in his skull must have reached his brain,
+for he had become a mere animal. The mind of a child of five dwelt in
+his sturdy frame. He laughed and stammered, he could no longer
+pronounce his words properly, and he was as submissively obedient as a
+sheep. Cadine took entire possession of him again; surprised, at first,
+at the alteration in him, and then quite delighted at having this big
+fellow to do exactly as she liked with. He was her doll, her toy, her
+slave in all respects but one: she could not prevent him from going off
+to Madame Quenu’s every now and then. She thumped him, but he did not
+seem to feel her blows; as soon as she had slung her basket round her
+neck, and set off to sell her violets in the Rue du Pont Neuf and the
+Rue de Turbigo, he went to prowl about in front of the pork shop.
+
+“Come in!” Lisa cried to him.
+
+She generally gave him some gherkins, of which he was extremely fond;
+and he ate them, laughing in a childish way, whilst he stood in front
+of the counter. The sight of the handsome mistress of the shop filled
+him with rapture; he often clapped his hands with joy and began to jump
+about and vent little cries of pleasure, like a child delighted at
+something shown to it. On the first few occasions when he came to see
+her after leaving the hospital Lisa had feared that he might remember
+what had happened.
+
+“Does your head still hurt you?” she asked him.
+
+But he swayed about and burst into a merry laugh as he answered no; and
+then Lisa gently inquired: “You had a fall, hadn’t you?”
+
+“Yes, a fall, fall, fall,” he sang, in a happy voice, tapping his skull
+the while.
+
+Then, as though he were in a sort of ecstasy, he continued in lingering
+notes, as he gazed at Lisa, “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!” This
+quite touched Madame Quenu. She had prevailed upon Gavard to keep him
+in his service. It was on the occasions when he so humbly vented his
+admiration that she caressed his chin, and told him that he was a good
+lad. He smiled with childish satisfaction, at times closing his eyes
+like some domestic pet fondled by its mistress; and Lisa thought to
+herself that she was making him some compensation for the blow with
+which she had felled him in the cellar of the poultry market.
+
+However, the Quenus’ establishment still remained under a cloud.
+Florent sometimes ventured to show himself, and shook hands with his
+brother, while Lisa observed a frigid silence. He even dined with them
+sometimes on Sundays, at long intervals, and Quenu then made great
+efforts at gaiety, but could not succeed in imparting any cheerfulness
+to the meal. He ate badly, and ended by feeling altogether put out. One
+evening, after one of these icy family gatherings, he said to his wife
+with tears in his eyes:
+
+“What can be the matter with me? Is it true that I’m not ill? Don’t you
+really see anything wrong in my appearance? I feel just as though I’d
+got a heavy weight somewhere inside me. And I’m so sad and depressed,
+too, without in the least knowing why. What can it be, do you think?”
+
+“Oh, a little attack of indigestion, I dare say,” replied Lisa.
+
+“No, no; it’s been going on too long for that; I feel quite crushed
+down. Yet the business is going on all right; I’ve no great worries,
+and I am leading just the same steady life as ever. But you, too, my
+dear, don’t look well; you seem melancholy. If there isn’t a change for
+the better soon, I shall send for the doctor.”
+
+Lisa looked at him with a grave expression.
+
+“There’s no need of a doctor,” she said, “things will soon be all right
+again. There’s something unhealthy in the atmosphere just now. All the
+neighbourhood is unwell.” Then, as if yielding to an impulse of anxious
+affection, she added: “Don’t worry yourself, my dear. I can’t have you
+falling ill; that would be the crowning blow.”
+
+As a rule she sent him back to the kitchen, knowing that the noise of
+the choppers, the tuneful simmering of the fat, and the bubbling of the
+pans had a cheering effect upon him. In this way, too, she kept him at
+a distance from the indiscreet chatter of Mademoiselle Saget, who now
+spent whole mornings in the shop. The old maid seemed bent on arousing
+Lisa’s alarm, and thus driving her to some extreme step. She began by
+trying to obtain her confidence.
+
+“What a lot of mischievous folks there are about!” she exclaimed;
+“folks who would be much better employed in minding their own business.
+If you only knew, my dear Madame Quenu—but no, really, I should never
+dare to repeat such things to you.”
+
+And, as Madame Quenu replied that she was quite indifferent to gossip,
+and that it had no effect upon her, the old maid whispered into her ear
+across the counter: “Well, people say, you know, that Monsieur Florent
+isn’t your cousin at all.”
+
+Then she gradually allowed Lisa to see that she knew the whole story;
+by way of proving that she had her quite at her mercy. When Lisa
+confessed the truth, equally as a matter of diplomacy, in order that
+she might have the assistance of some one who would keep her well
+posted in all the gossip of the neighbourhood, the old maid swore that
+for her own part she would be as mute as a fish, and deny the truth of
+the reports about Florent, even if she were to be led to the stake for
+it. And afterwards this drama brought her intense enjoyment; every
+morning she came to the shop with some fresh piece of disturbing news.
+
+“You must be careful,” she whispered one day; “I have just heard two
+women in the tripe market talking about you know what. I can’t
+interrupt people and tell them they are lying, you know. It would look
+so strange. But the story’s got about, and it’s spreading farther every
+day. It can’t be stopped now, I fear; the truth will have to come out.”
+
+A few days later she returned to the assault in all earnest. She made
+her appearance looking quite scared, and waited impatiently till there
+was no one in the shop, when she burst out in her sibilant voice:
+
+“Do you know what people are saying now? Well, they say that all those
+men who meet at Monsieur Lebigre’s have got guns, and are going to
+break out again as they did in ‘48. It’s quite distressing to see such
+a worthy man as Monsieur Gavard—rich, too, and so respectable—leaguing
+himself with such scoundrels! I was very anxious to let you know, on
+account of your brother-in-law.”
+
+“Oh, it’s mere nonsense, I’m sure; it can’t be serious,” rejoined Lisa,
+just to incite the old maid to tell her more.
+
+“Not serious, indeed! Why, when one passes along the Rue Pirouette in
+the evening one can hear them screaming out in the most dreadful way.
+Oh! they make no mystery of it all. You know yourself how they tried to
+corrupt your husband. And the cartridges which I have seen them making
+from my own window, are they mere nonsense? Well, well, I’m only
+telling you this for your own good.”
+
+“Oh! I’m sure of that, and I’m very much obliged to you,” replied Lisa;
+“but people do invent such stories, you know.”
+
+“Ah, but this is no invention, unfortunately. The whole neighbourhood
+is talking of it. It is said, too, that if the police discover the
+matter there will be a great many people compromised—Monsieur Gavard,
+for instance.”
+
+Madame Quenu shrugged her shoulders as though to say that Monsieur
+Gavard was an old fool, and that it would do him good to be locked up.
+
+“Well, I merely mention Monsieur Gavard as I might mention any of the
+others, your brother-in-law, for instance,” resumed the old maid with a
+wily glance. “Your brother-in-law is the leader, it seems. That’s very
+annoying for you, and I’m very sorry indeed; for if the police were to
+make a descent here they might march Monsieur Quenu off as well. Two
+brothers, you know, they’re like two fingers of the same hand.”
+
+Beautiful Lisa protested against this, but she turned very pale, for
+Mademoiselle Saget’s last thrust had touched a vulnerable point. From
+that day forward the old maid was ever bringing her stories of innocent
+people who had been thrown into prison for extending hospitality to
+criminal scoundrels. In the evening, when La Saget went to get her
+black-currant syrup at the wine dealer’s, she prepared her budget for
+the next morning. Rose was but little given to gossiping, and the old
+main reckoned chiefly on her own eyes and ears. She had been struck by
+Monsieur Lebigre’s extremely kind and obliging manner towards Florent,
+his eagerness to keep him at his establishment, all the polite
+civilities, for which the little money which the other spent in the
+house could never recoup him. And this conduct of Monsieur Lebigre’s
+surprised her the more as she was aware of the position in which the
+two men stood in respect to the beautiful Norman.
+
+“It looks as though Lebigre were fattening him up for sale,” she
+reflected. “Whom can he want to sell him to, I wonder?”
+
+One evening when she was in the bar she saw Logre fling himself on the
+bench in the sanctum, and heard him speak of his perambulations through
+the faubourgs, with the remark that he was dead beat. She cast a hasty
+glance at his feet, and saw that there was not a speck of dust on his
+boots. Then she smiled quietly, and went off with her black-currant
+syrup, her lips closely compressed.
+
+She used to complete her budget of information on getting back to her
+window. It was very high up, commanding a view of all the neighbouring
+houses, and proved a source of endless enjoyment to her. She was
+constantly installed at it, as though it were an observatory from which
+she kept watch upon everything that went on in the neighbourhood. She
+was quite familiar with all the rooms opposite her, both on the right
+and the left, even to the smallest details of their furniture. She
+could have described, without the least omission, the habits of their
+tenants, have related if the latter’s homes were happy or the contrary,
+have told when and how they washed themselves, what they had for
+dinner, and who it was that came to see them. Then she obtained a side
+view of the markets, and not a woman could walk along the Rue Rambuteau
+without being seen by her; and she could have correctly stated whence
+the woman had come and whither she was going, what she had got in her
+basket, and, in short, every detail about her, her husband, her
+clothes, her children, and her means. “That’s Madame Loret, over there;
+she’s giving her son a fine education; that’s Madame Hutin, a poor
+little woman who’s dreadfully neglected by her husband; that’s
+Mademoiselle Cecile, the butcher’s daughter, a girl that no one will
+marry because she’s scrofulous.” In this way she could have continued
+jerking out biographical scraps for days together, deriving
+extraordinary amusement from the most trivial, uninteresting incidents.
+However, as soon as eight o’clock struck, she only had eyes for the
+frosted “cabinet” window on which appeared the black shadows of the
+coterie of politicians. She discovered the secession of Charvet and
+Clemence by missing their bony silhouettes from the milky transparency.
+Not an incident occurred in that room but she sooner or later learnt it
+by some sudden motion of those silent arms and heads. She acquired
+great skill in interpretation, and could divine the meaning of
+protruding noses, spreading fingers, gaping mouths, and shrugging
+shoulders; and in this way she followed the progress of the conspiracy
+step by step, in such wise that she could have told day by day how
+matters stood. One evening the terrible outcome of it all was revealed
+to her. She saw the shadow of Gavard’s revolver, a huge silhouette with
+pointed muzzle showing very blackly against the glimmering window. It
+kept appearing and disappearing so rapidly that it seemed as though the
+room was full of revolvers. Those were the firearms of which
+Mademoiselle Saget had spoken to Madame Quenu. On another evening she
+was much puzzled by the sight of endless lengths of some material or
+other, and came to the conclusion that the men must be manufacturing
+cartridges. The next morning, however, she made her appearance in the
+wine shop by eleven o’clock, on the pretext of asking Rose if she could
+let her have a candle, and, glancing furtively into the little sanctum,
+she espied a heap of red material lying on the table. This greatly
+alarmed her, and her next budget of news was one of decisive gravity.
+
+“I don’t want to alarm you, Madame Quenu,” she said, “but matters are
+really looking very serious. Upon my word, I’m quite alarmed. You must
+on no account repeat what I am going to confide to you. They would
+murder me if they knew I had told you.”
+
+Then, when Lisa had sworn to say nothing that might compromise her, she
+told her about the red material.
+
+“I can’t think what it can be. There was a great heap of it. It looked
+just like rags soaked in blood. Logre, the hunchback, you know, put one
+of the pieces over his shoulder. He looked like a headsman. You may be
+sure this is some fresh trickery or other.”
+
+Lisa made no reply, but seemed deep in thought whilst with lowered
+eyes, she handled a fork and mechanically arranged some piece of salt
+pork on a dish.
+
+“If I were you,” resumed Mademoiselle Saget softly, “I shouldn’t be
+easy in mind; I should want to know the meaning of it all. Why
+shouldn’t you go upstairs and examine your brother-in-law’s bedroom?”
+
+At this Lisa gave a slight start, let the fork drop, and glanced
+uneasily at the old maid, believing that she had discovered her
+intentions. But the other continued: “You would certainly be justified
+in doing so. There’s no knowing into what danger your brother-in-law
+may lead you, if you don’t put a check on him. They were talking about
+you yesterday at Madame Taboureau’s. Ah! you have a most devoted friend
+in her. Madame Taboureau said that you were much too easy-going, and
+that if she were you she would have put an end to all this long ago.”
+
+“Madame Taboureau said that?” murmured Lisa thoughtfully.
+
+“Yes, indeed she did; and Madame Taboureau is a woman whose advice is
+worth listening to. Try to find out the meaning of all those red bands;
+and if you do, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”
+
+Lisa, however, was no longer listening to her. She was gazing
+abstractedly at the edible snails and Gervais cheeses between the
+festoons of sausages in the window. She seemed absorbed in a mental
+conflict, which brought two little furrows to her brow. The old maid,
+however, poked her nose over the dishes on the counter.
+
+“Ah, some slices of saveloy!” she muttered, as though she were speaking
+to herself. “They’ll get very dry cut up like that. And that
+black-pudding’s broken, I see—a fork’s been stuck into it, I expect. It
+might be taken away—it’s soiling the dish.”
+
+Lisa, still absent-minded, gave her the black-pudding and slices of
+saveloy. “You may take them,” she said, “if you would care for them.”
+
+The black bag swallowed them up. Mademoiselle Saget was so accustomed
+to receiving presents that she had actually ceased to return thanks for
+them. Every morning she carried away all the scraps of the pork shop.
+And now she went off with the intention of obtaining her dessert from
+La Sarriette and Madame Lecœur, by gossiping to them about Gavard.
+
+When Lisa was alone again she installed herself on the bench, behind
+the counter, as though she thought she would be able to come to a
+sounder decision if she were comfortably seated. For the last week she
+had been very anxious. Florent had asked Quenu for five hundred francs
+one evening, in the easy, matter-of-course way of a man who had money
+lying to his credit at the pork shop. Quenu referred him to his wife.
+This was distasteful to Florent, who felt somewhat uneasy on applying
+to beautiful Lisa. But she immediately went up to her bedroom, brought
+the money down and gave it to him, without saying a word, or making the
+least inquiry as to what he intended to do with it. She merely remarked
+that she had made a note of the payment on the paper containing the
+particulars of Florent’s share of the inheritance. Three days later he
+took a thousand francs.
+
+“It was scarcely worth while trying to make himself out so
+disinterested,” Lisa said to Quenu that night, as they went to bed. “I
+did quite right, you see, in keeping the account. By the way, I haven’t
+noted down the thousand francs I gave him to-day.”
+
+She sat down at the secrétaire, and glanced over the page of figures.
+Then she added: “I did well to leave a blank space. I’ll put down what
+I pay him on the margin. You’ll see, now, he’ll fritter it all away by
+degrees. That’s what I’ve been expecting for a long time past.”
+
+Quenu said nothing, but went to bed feeling very much put out. Every
+time that his wife opened the secrétaire the drawer gave out a mournful
+creak which pierced his heart. He even thought of remonstrating with
+his brother, and trying to prevent him from ruining himself with the
+Mehudins; but when the time came, he did not dare to do it. Two days
+later Florent asked for another fifteen hundred francs. Logre had said
+one evening that things would ripen much faster if they could only get
+some money. The next day he was enchanted to find these words of his,
+uttered quite at random, result in the receipt of a little pile of
+gold, which he promptly pocketed, sniggering as he did so, and his
+hunch fairly shaking with delight. From that time forward money was
+constantly being needed: one section wished to hire a room where they
+could meet, while another was compelled to provide for various needy
+patriots. Then there were arms and ammunition to be purchased, men to
+be enlisted, and private police expenses. Florent would have paid for
+anything. He had bethought himself of Uncle Gradelle’s treasure, and
+recalled La Normande’s advice. So he made repeated calls upon Lisa’s
+secrétaire, being merely kept in check by the vague fear with which his
+sister-in-law’s grave face inspired him. Never, thought he, could he
+have spent his money in a holier cause. Logre now manifested the
+greatest enthusiasm, and wore the most wonderful rose-coloured
+neckerchiefs and the shiniest of varnished boots, the sight of which
+made Lacaille glower blackly.
+
+“That makes three thousand francs in seven days,” Lisa remarked to
+Quenu. “What do you think of that? A pretty state of affairs, isn’t it?
+If he goes on at this rate his fifty thousand francs will last him
+barely four months. And yet it took old Gradelle forty years to put his
+fortune together!”
+
+“It’s all your own fault!” cried Quenu. “There was no occasion for you
+to say anything to him about the money.”
+
+Lisa gave her husband a severe glance. “It is his own,” she said; “and
+he is entitled to take it all. It’s not the giving him the money that
+vexes me, but the knowledge that he must make a bad use of it. I tell
+you again, as I have been telling you for a long time past, all this
+must come to an end.”
+
+“Do whatever you like; I won’t prevent you,” at last exclaimed the pork
+butcher, who was tortured by his cupidity.
+
+He still loved his brother; but the thought of fifty thousand francs
+squandered in four months was agony to him. As for his wife, after all
+Mademoiselle Saget’s chattering she guessed what became of the money.
+The old maid having ventured to refer to the inheritance, Lisa had
+taken advantage of the opportunity to let the neighbourhood know that
+Florent was drawing his share, and spending it after his own fashion.
+
+It was on the following day that the story of the strips of red
+material impelled Lisa to take definite action. For a few moments she
+remained struggling with herself whilst gazing at the depressed
+appearance of the shop. The sides of pork hung all around in a sullen
+fashion, and Mouton, seated beside a bowl of fat, displayed the ruffled
+coat and dim eyes of a cat who no longer digests his meals in peace.
+Thereupon Lisa called to Augustine and told her to attend to the
+counter, and she herself went up to Florent’s room.
+
+When she entered it, she received quite a shock. The bed, hitherto so
+spotless, was quite ensanguined by a bundle of long red scarves
+dangling down to the floor. On the mantelpiece, between the gilt
+cardboard boxes and the old pomatum-pots, were several red armlets and
+clusters of red cockades, looking like pools of blood. And hanging from
+every nail and peg against the faded grey wallpaper were pieces of
+bunting, square flags—yellow, blue, green, and black—in which Lisa
+recognised the distinguishing banners of the twenty sections. The
+childish simplicity of the room seemed quite scared by all this
+revolutionary decoration. The aspect of guileless stupidity which the
+shop girl had left behind her, the white innocence of the curtains and
+furniture, now glared as with the reflection of a fire; while the
+photograph of Auguste and Augustine looked white with terror. Lisa
+walked round the room, examining the flags, the armlets, and the
+scarves, without touching any of them, as though she feared that the
+dreadful things might burn her. She was reflecting that she had not
+been mistaken, that it was indeed on these and similar things that
+Florent’s money had been spent. And to her this seemed an utter
+abomination, an incredibility which set her whole being surging with
+indignation. To think that her money, that money which had been so
+honestly earned, was being squandered to organise and defray the
+expenses of an insurrection!
+
+She stood there, gazing at the expanded blossoms of the pomegranate on
+the balcony—blossoms which seemed to her like an additional supply of
+crimson cockades—and listening to the sharp notes of the chaffinch,
+which resembled the echo of a distant fusillade. And then it struck her
+that the insurrection might break out the next day, or perhaps that
+very evening. She fancied she could see the banners streaming in the
+air and the scarves advancing in line, while a sudden roll of drums
+broke on her ear. Then she hastily went downstairs again, without even
+glancing at the papers which were lying on the table. She stopped on
+the first floor, went into her own room, and dressed herself.
+
+In this critical emergency Lisa arranged her hair with scrupulous care
+and perfect calmness. She was quite resolute; not a quiver of
+hesitation disturbed her; but a sterner expression than usual had come
+into her eyes. As she fastened her black silk dress, straining the
+waistband with all the strength of her fingers, she recalled Abbé
+Roustan’s words; and she questioned herself, and her conscience
+answered that she was going to fulfil a duty. By the time she drew her
+broidered shawl round her broad shoulders, she felt that she was about
+to perform a deed of high morality. She put on a pair of dark mauve
+gloves, secured a thick veil to her bonnet; and before leaving the room
+she double-locked the secrétaire, with a hopeful expression on her face
+which seemed to say that that much worried piece of furniture would at
+last be able to sleep in peace again.
+
+Quenu was exhibiting his white paunch at the shop door when his wife
+came down. He was surprised to see her going out in full dress at ten
+o’clock in the morning. “Hallo! Where are you off to?” he asked.
+
+She pretended that she was going out with Madame Taboureau, and added
+that she would call at the Gaité Theatre to buy some tickets. Quenu
+hurried after her to tell her to secure some front seats, so that they
+might be able to see well. Then, as he returned to the shop, Lisa made
+her way to the cab-stand opposite St. Eustache, got into a cab, pulled
+down the blinds, and told the driver to go to the Gaité Theatre. She
+felt afraid of being followed. When she had booked two seats, however,
+she directed the cabman to drive her to the Palais de Justice. There,
+in front of the gate, she discharged him, and then quietly made her way
+through the halls and corridors to the Prefecture of Police.
+
+She soon lost herself in a noisy crowd of police officers and gentlemen
+in long frock-coats, but at last gave a man half a franc to guide her
+to the Prefect’s rooms. She found, however, that the Prefect only
+received such persons as came with letters of audience; and she was
+shown into a small apartment, furnished after the style of a
+boarding-house parlour. A fat, bald-headed official, dressed in black
+from head to foot, received her there with sullen coldness. What was
+her business? he inquired. Thereupon she raised her veil, gave her
+name, and told her story, clearly and distinctly, without a pause. The
+bald man listened with a weary air.
+
+“You are this man’s sister-in-law, are you not?” he inquired, when she
+had finished.
+
+“Yes,” Lisa candidly replied. “We are honest, straight-forward people,
+and I am anxious that my husband should not be compromised.”
+
+The official shrugged his shoulders, as though to say that the whole
+affair was a great nuisance.
+
+“Do you know,” he said impatiently, “that I have been pestered with
+this business for more than a year past? Denunciation after
+denunciation has been sent to me, and I am being continually goaded and
+pressed to take action. You will understand that if I haven’t done so
+as yet, it is because I prefer to wait. We have good reasons for our
+conduct in the matter. Stay, now, here are the papers relating to it.
+I’ll let you see them.”
+
+He laid before her an immense collection of papers in a blue wrapper.
+Lisa turned them over. They were like detached chapters of the story
+she had just been relating. The commissaires of police at Havre, Rouen,
+and Vernon notified Florent’s arrival within their respective
+jurisdictions. Then came a report which announced that he had taken up
+his residence with the Quenu-Gradelles. Next followed his appointment
+at the markets, an account of his mode of life, the spending of his
+evenings at Monsieur Lebigre’s; not a detail was deficient. Lisa, quite
+astounded as she was, noticed that the reports were in duplicate, so
+that they must have emanated from two different sources. And at last
+she came upon a pile of letters, anonymous letters of every shape, and
+in every description of handwriting. They brought her amazement to a
+climax. In one letter she recognised the villainous hand of
+Mademoiselle Saget, denouncing the people who met in the little sanctum
+at Lebigre’s. On a large piece of greasy paper she identified the heavy
+pot-hooks of Madame Lecœur; and there was also a sheet of cream-laid
+note-paper, ornamented with a yellow pansy, and covered with the
+scrawls of La Sarriette and Monsieur Jules. These two letters warned
+the Government to beware of Gavard. Farther on Lisa recognised the
+coarse style of old Madame Mehudin, who in four pages of almost
+indecipherable scribble repeated all the wild stories about Florent
+that circulated in the markets. However, what startled her more than
+anything else was the discovery of a bill-head of her own
+establishment, with the inscription _Quenu-Gradelle, Pork Butcher_, on
+its face, whilst on the back of it Auguste had penned a denunciation of
+the man whom he looked upon as an obstacle to his marriage.
+
+The official had acted upon a secret idea in placing these papers
+before her. “You don’t recognise any of these handwritings, do you?” he
+asked.
+
+“No,” she stammered, rising from her seat, quite oppressed by what she
+had just learned; and she hastily pulled down her veil again to conceal
+the blush of confusion which was rising to her cheeks. Her silk dress
+rustled, and her dark gloves disappeared beneath her heavy shawl.
+
+“You see, madame,” said the bald man with a faint smile, “your
+information comes a little late. But I promise you that your visit
+shall not be forgotten. And tell your husband not to stir. It is
+possible that something may happen soon that——”
+
+He did not complete his sentence, but, half rising from his armchair,
+made a slight bow to Lisa. It was a dismissal, and she took her leave.
+In the ante-room she caught sight of Logre and Monsieur Lebigre, who
+hastily turned their faces away; but she was more disturbed than they
+were. She went her way through the halls and along the corridors,
+feeling as if she were in the clutches of this system of police which,
+it now seemed to her, saw and knew everything. At last she came out
+upon the Place Dauphine. When she reached the Quai de l’Horloge she
+slackened her steps, and felt refreshed by the cool breeze blowing from
+the Seine.
+
+She now had a keen perception of the utter uselessness of what she had
+done. Her husband was in no danger whatever; and this thought, whilst
+relieving her, left her a somewhat remorseful feeling. She was
+exasperated with Auguste and the women who had put her in such a
+ridiculous position. She walked on yet more slowly, watching the Seine
+as it flowed past. Barges, black with coal-dust, were floating down the
+greenish water; and all along the bank anglers were casting their
+lines. After all, it was not she who had betrayed Florent. This
+reflection suddenly occurred to her and astonished her. Would she have
+been guilty of a wicked action, then, if she had been his betrayer? She
+was quite perplexed; surprised at the possibility of her conscience
+having deceived her. Those anonymous letters seemed extremely base. She
+herself had gone openly to the authorities, given her name, and saved
+innocent people from being compromised. Then at the sudden thought of
+old Gradelle’s fortune she again examined herself, and felt ready to
+throw the money into the river if such a course should be necessary to
+remove the blight which had fallen on the pork shop. No, she was not
+avaricious, she was sure she wasn’t; it was no thought of money that
+had prompted her in what she had just done. As she crossed the Pont au
+Change she grew quite calm again, recovering all her superb equanimity.
+On the whole, it was much better, she felt, that others should have
+anticipated her at the Prefecture. She would not have to deceive Quenu,
+and she would sleep with an easier conscience.
+
+“Have you booked the seats?” Quenu asked her when she returned home.
+
+He wanted to see the tickets, and made Lisa explain to him the exact
+position the seats occupied in the dress-circle. Lisa had imagined that
+the police would make a descent upon the house immediately after
+receiving her information, and her proposal to go to the theatre had
+only been a wily scheme for getting Quenu out of the way while the
+officers were arresting Florent. She had contemplated taking him for an
+outing in the afternoon—one of those little jaunts which they
+occasionally allowed themselves. They would then drive in an open cab
+to the Bois de Boulogne, dine at a restaurant, and amuse themselves for
+an hour or two at some café concern. But there was no need to go out
+now, she thought; so she spent the rest of the day behind her counter,
+with a rosy glow on her face, and seeming brighter and gayer, as though
+she were recovering from some indisposition.
+
+“You see, I told you it was fresh air you wanted!” exclaimed Quenu.
+“Your walk this morning has brightened you up wonderfully!”
+
+“No, indeed,” she said after a pause, again assuming her look of
+severity; “the streets of Paris are not at all healthy places.”
+
+In the evening they went to the Gaité to see the performance of “La
+Grâce de Dieu.” Quenu, in a frock-coat and drab gloves, with his hair
+carefully pomatumed and combed, was occupied most of the time in
+hunting for the names of the performers in the programme. Lisa looked
+superb in her low dress as she rested her hands in their tight-fitting
+white gloves on the crimson velvet balustrade. They were both of them
+deeply affected by the misfortunes of Marie. The commander, they
+thought, was certainly a desperate villain; while Pierrot made them
+laugh from the first moment of his appearance on the stage. But at last
+Madame Quenu cried. The departure of the child, the prayer in the
+maiden’s chamber, the return of the poor mad creature, moistened her
+eyes with gentle tears, which she brushed away with her handkerchief.
+
+However, the pleasure which the evening afforded her turned into a
+feeling of triumph when she caught sight of La Normande and her mother
+sitting in the upper gallery. She thereupon puffed herself out more
+than ever, sent Quenu off to the refreshment bar for a box of caramels,
+and began to play with her fan, a mother-of-pearl fan, elaborately
+gilt. The fish-girl was quite crushed; and bent her head down to listen
+to her mother, who was whispering to her. When the performance was over
+and beautiful Lisa and the beautiful Norman met in the vestibule they
+exchanged a vague smile.
+
+Florent had dined early at Monsieur Lebigre’s that day. He was
+expecting Logre, who had promised to introduce to him a retired
+sergeant, a capable man, with whom they were to discuss the plan of
+attack upon the Palais Bourbon and the Hôtel de Ville. The night closed
+in, and the fine rain, which had begun to fall in the afternoon,
+shrouded the vast markets in a leaden gloom. They loomed darkly against
+the copper-tinted sky, while wisps of murky cloud skimmed by almost on
+a level with the roofs, looking as though they were caught and torn by
+the points of the lightning-conductors. Florent felt depressed by the
+sight of the muddy streets, and the streaming yellowish rain which
+seemed to sweep the twilight away and extinguish it in the mire. He
+watched the crowds of people who had taken refuge on the foot-pavements
+of the covered ways, the umbrellas flitting past in the downpour, and
+the cabs that dashed with increased clatter and speed along the
+wellnigh deserted roads. Presently there was a rift in the clouds; and
+a red glow arose in the west. Then a whole army of street-sweepers came
+into sight at the end of the Rue Montmartre, driving a lake of liquid
+mud before them with their brooms.
+
+Logre did not turn up with the sergeant; Gavard had gone to dine with
+some friends at Batignolles, and so Florent was reduced to spending the
+evening alone with Robine. He had all the talking to himself, and ended
+by feeling very low-spirited. His companion merely wagged his beard,
+and stretched out his hand every quarter of an hour to raise his glass
+of beer to his lips. At last Florent grew so bored that he went off to
+bed. Robine, however, though left to himself, still lingered there,
+contemplating his glass with an expression of deep thought. Rose and
+the waiter, who had hoped to shut up early, as the coterie of
+politicians was absent, had to wait a long half hour before he at last
+made up his mind to leave.
+
+When Florent got to his room, he felt afraid to go to bed. He was
+suffering from one of those nervous attacks which sometimes plunged him
+into horrible nightmares until dawn. On the previous day he had been to
+Clamart to attend the funeral of Monsieur Verlaque, who had died after
+terrible sufferings; and he still felt sad at the recollection of the
+narrow coffin which he had seen lowered into the earth. Nor could he
+banish from his mind the image of Madame Verlaque, who, with a tearful
+voice, though there was not a tear in her eyes, kept following him and
+speaking to him about the coffin, which was not paid for, and of the
+cost of the funeral, which she was quite at a loss about, as she had
+not a copper in the place, for the druggist, on hearing of her
+husband’s death on the previous day, had insisted upon his bill being
+paid. So Florent had been obliged to advance the money for the coffin
+and other funeral expenses, and had even given the gratuities to the
+mutes. Just as he was going away, Madame Verlaque looked at him with
+such a heartbroken expression that he left her twenty francs.
+
+And now Monsieur Verlaque’s death worried him very much. It affected
+his situation in the markets. He might lose his berth, or perhaps be
+formally appointed inspector. In either case he foresaw vexatious
+complications which might arouse the suspicions of the police. He would
+have been delighted if the insurrection could have broken out the very
+next day, so that he might at once have tossed the laced cap of his
+inspectorship into the streets. With his mind full of harassing
+thoughts like these, he stepped out upon the balcony, as though
+soliciting of the warm night some whiff of air to cool his fevered
+brow. The rain had laid the wind, and a stormy heat still reigned
+beneath the deep blue, cloudless heavens. The markets, washed by the
+downpour, spread out below him, similar in hue to the sky, and, like
+the sky, studded with the yellow stars of their gas lamps.
+
+Leaning on the iron balustrade, Florent recollected that sooner or
+later he would certainly be punished for having accepted the
+inspectorship. It seemed to lie like a stain on his life. He had become
+an official of the Prefecture, forswearing himself, serving the Empire
+in spite of all the oaths he had taken in his exile. His anxiety to
+please Lisa, the charitable purpose to which he had devoted the salary
+he received, the just and scrupulous manner in which he had always
+struggled to carry out his duties, no longer seemed to him valid
+excuses for his base abandonment of principle. If he had suffered in
+the midst of all that sleek fatness, he had deserved to suffer. And
+before him arose a vision of the evil year which he had just spent, his
+persecution by the fish-wives, the sickening sensations he had felt on
+close, damp days, the continuous indigestion which had afflicted his
+delicate stomach, and the latent hostility which was gathering strength
+against him. All these things he now accepted as chastisement. That
+dull rumbling of hostility and spite, the cause of which he could not
+divine, must forebode some coming catastrophe before whose approach he
+already stooped, with the shame of one who knows there is a
+transgression that he must expiate. Then he felt furious with himself
+as he thought of the popular rising he was preparing; and reflected
+that he was no longer unsullied enough to achieve success.
+
+In how many dreams he had indulged in that lofty little room, with his
+eyes wandering over the spreading roofs of the market pavilions! They
+usually appeared to him like grey seas that spoke to him of far-off
+countries. On moonless nights they would darken and turn into stagnant
+lakes of black and pestilential water. But on bright nights they became
+shimmering fountains of light, the moonbeams streaming over both tiers
+like water, gliding along the huge plates of zinc, and flowing over the
+edges of the vast superposed basins. Then frosty weather seemed to turn
+these roofs into rigid ice, like the Norwegian bays over which skaters
+skim; while the warm June nights lulled them into deep sleep. One
+December night, on opening his window, he had seen them white with
+snow, so lustrously white that they lighted up the coppery sky.
+Unsullied by a single footstep, they then stretched out like the lonely
+plains of the Far North, where never a sledge intrudes. Their silence
+was beautiful, their soft peacefulness suggestive of innocence.
+
+And at each fresh aspect of the ever-changing panorama before him,
+Florent yielded to dreams which were now sweet, now full of bitter
+pain. The snow calmed him; the vast sheet of whiteness seemed to him
+like a veil of purity thrown over the filth of the markets. The bright,
+clear nights, the shimmering moonbeams, carried him away into the
+fairy-land of story-books. It was only the dark, black nights, the
+burning nights of June, when he beheld, as it were, a miasmatic marsh,
+the stagnant water of a dead and accursed sea, that filled him with
+gloom and grief; and then ever the same dreadful visions haunted his
+brain.
+
+The markets were always there. He could never open the window and rest
+his elbows on the balustrade without having them before him, filling
+the horizon. He left the pavilions in the evening only to behold their
+endless roofs as he went to bed. They shut him off from the rest of
+Paris, ceaselessly intruded their huge bulk upon him, entered into
+every hour of his life. That night again horrible fancies came to him,
+fancies aggravated by the vague forebodings of evil which distressed
+him. The rain of the afternoon had filled the markets with malodorous
+dampness, and as they wallowed there in the centre of the city, like
+some drunken man lying, after his last bottle, under the table, they
+cast all their foul breath into his face. He seemed to see a thick
+vapour rising up from each pavilion. In the distance the meat and tripe
+markets reeked with the sickening steam of blood; nearer in, the
+vegetable and fruit pavilions diffused the odour of pungent cabbages,
+rotten apples, and decaying leaves; the butter and cheese exhaled a
+poisonous stench; from the fish market came a sharp, fresh gust; while
+from the ventilator in the tower of the poultry pavilion just below
+him, he could see a warm steam issuing, a fetid current rising in coils
+like the sooty smoke from a factory chimney. And all these exhalations
+coalesced above the roofs, drifted towards the neighbouring houses, and
+spread themselves out in a heavy cloud which stretched over the whole
+of Paris. It was as though the markets were bursting within their tight
+belt of iron, were beating the slumber of the gorged city with the
+stertorous fumes of their midnight indigestion.
+
+However, on the footway down below Florent presently heard a sound of
+voices, the laughter of happy folks. Then the door of the passage was
+closed noisily. It was Quenu and Lisa coming home from the theatre.
+Stupefied and intoxicated, as it were, by the atmosphere he was
+breathing, Florent thereupon left the balcony, his nerves still
+painfully excited by the thought of the tempest which he could feel
+gathering round his head. The source of his misery was yonder, in those
+markets, heated by the day’s excesses. He closed the window with
+violence, and left them wallowing in the darkness, naked and perspiring
+beneath the stars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+A week later, Florent thought that he would at last be able to proceed
+to action. A sufficiently serious outburst of public dissatisfaction
+furnished an opportunity for launching his insurrectionary forces upon
+Paris. The Corps Législatif, whose members had lately shown great
+variance of opinion respecting certain grants to the Imperial family,
+was now discussing a bill for the imposition of a very unpopular tax,
+at which the lower orders had already begun to growl. The Ministry,
+fearing a defeat, was straining every nerve. It was probable, thought
+Florent, that no better pretext for a rising would for a long time
+present itself.
+
+One morning, at daybreak, he went to reconnoitre the neighbourhood of
+the Palais Bourbon. He forgot all about his duties as inspector, and
+lingered there, studying the approaches of the palace, till eight
+o’clock, without ever thinking that his absence would revolutionise the
+fish market. He perambulated all the surrounding streets, the Rue de
+Lille, the Rue de l’Université, the Rue de Bourgogne, the Rue Saint
+Dominique, and even extended his examination to the Esplanade des
+Invalides, stopping at certain crossways, and measuring distances as he
+walked along. Then, on coming back to the Quai d’Orsay, he sat down on
+the parapet, and determined that the attack should be made
+simultaneously from all sides. The contingents from the Gros-Caillou
+district should arrive by way of the Champ de Mars; the sections from
+the north of Paris should come down by the Madeleine; while those from
+the west and the south would follow the quays, or make their way in
+small detachments through the then narrow streets of the Faubourg Saint
+Germain. However, the other side of the river, the Champs Elysees, with
+their open avenues, caused him some uneasiness; for he foresaw that
+cannon would be stationed there to sweep the quays. He thereupon
+modified several details of his plan, and marked down in a
+memorandum-book the different positions which the several sections
+should occupy during the combat. The chief attack, he concluded, must
+certainly be made from the Rue de Bourgogne and the Rue de
+l’Université, while a diversion might be effected on the side of the
+river.
+
+Whilst he thus pondered over his plans the eight o’clock sun, warming
+the nape of his neck, shone gaily on the broad footways, and gilded the
+columns of the great structure in front of him. In imagination he
+already saw the contemplated battle; clusters of men clinging round
+those columns, the gates burst open, the peristyle invaded; and then
+scraggy arms suddenly appearing high aloft and planting a banner there.
+
+At last he slowly went his way homewards again with his gaze fixed upon
+the ground. But all at once a cooing sound made him look up, and he saw
+that he was passing through the garden of the Tuileries. A number of
+wood-pigeons, bridling their necks, were strutting over a lawn near by.
+Florent leant for a moment against the tub of an orange-tree, and
+looked at the grass and the pigeons steeped in sunshine. Right ahead
+under the chestnut-trees all was black. The garden was wrapped in a
+warm silence, broken only by the distant rumbling which came from
+behind the railings of the Rue de Rivoli. The scent of all the greenery
+affected Florent, reminding him of Madame Francois. However, a little
+girl ran past, trundling a hoop, and alarmed the pigeons. They flew
+off, and settled in a row on the arm of a marble statue of an antique
+wrestler standing in the middle of the lawn, and once more, but with
+less vivacity, they began to coo and bridle their necks.
+
+As Florent was returning to the markets by way of the Rue Vauvilliers,
+he heard Claude Lantier calling to him. The artist was going down into
+the basement of the poultry pavilion. “Come with me!” he cried. “I’m
+looking for that brute Marjolin.”
+
+Florent followed, glad to forget his thoughts and to defer his return
+to the fish market for a little longer. Claude told him that his friend
+Marjolin now had nothing further to wish for: he had become an utter
+animal. Claude entertained an idea of making him pose on all-fours in
+future. Whenever he lost his temper over some disappointing sketch he
+came to spend whole hours in the idiot’s company, never speaking, but
+striving to catch his expression when he laughed.
+
+“He’ll be feeding his pigeons, I dare say,” he said; “but unfortunately
+I don’t know whereabouts Monsieur Gavard’s storeroom is.”
+
+They groped about the cellar. In the middle of it some water was
+trickling from a couple of taps in the dim gloom. The storerooms here
+are reserved for pigeons exclusively, and all along the trellising they
+heard faint cooings, like the hushed notes of birds nestling under the
+leaves when daylight is departing. Claude began to laugh as he heard
+it.
+
+“It sounds as though all the lovers in Paris were embracing each other
+inside here, doesn’t it?” he exclaimed to his companion.
+
+However, they could not find a single storeroom open, and were
+beginning to think that Marjolin could not be in the cellar, when a
+sound of loud, smacking kisses made them suddenly halt before a door
+which stood slightly ajar. Claude pulled it open and beheld Marjolin,
+whom Cadine was kissing, whilst he, a mere dummy, offered his face
+without feeling the slightest thrill at the touch of her lips.
+
+“Oh, so this is your little game, is it?” said Claude with a laugh.
+
+“Oh,” replied Cadine, quite unabashed, “he likes being kissed, because
+he feels afraid now in the dim light. You do feel frightened, don’t
+you?”
+
+Like the idiot he was, Marjolin stroked his face with his hands as
+though trying to find the kisses which the girl had just printed there.
+And he was beginning to stammer out that he was afraid, when Cadine
+continued: “And, besides, I came to help him; I’ve been feeding the
+pigeons.”
+
+Florent looked at the poor creatures. All along the shelves were rows
+of lidless boxes, in which pigeons, showing their motley plumage,
+crowded closely on their stiffened legs. Every now and then a tremor
+ran along the moving mass; and then the birds settled down again, and
+nothing was heard but their confused, subdued notes. Cadine had a
+saucepan near her; she filled her mouth with the water and tares which
+it contained, and then, taking up the pigeons one by one, shot the food
+down their throats with amazing rapidity. The poor creatures struggled
+and nearly choked, and finally fell down in the boxes with swimming
+eyes, intoxicated, as it were, by all the food which they were thus
+forced to swallow.[*]
+
+[*] This is the customary mode of fattening pigeons at the Paris
+markets. The work is usually done by men who make a specialty of it,
+and are called _gaveurs_.—Translator.
+
+
+“Poor creatures!” exclaimed Claude.
+
+“Oh, so much the worse for them,” said Cadine, who had now finished.
+“They are much nicer eating when they’ve been well fed. In a couple of
+hours or so all those over yonder will be given a dose of salt water.
+That makes their flesh white and tender. Then two hours afterwards
+they’ll be killed. If you would like to see the killing, there are some
+here which are quite ready. Marjolin will settle their account for them
+in a jiffy.”
+
+Marjolin carried away a box containing some fifty pigeons, and Claude
+and Florent followed him. Squatting upon the ground near one of the
+water-taps, he placed the box by his side. Then he laid a framework of
+slender wooden bars on the top of a kind of zinc trough, and forthwith
+began to kill the pigeons. His knife flashed rapidly in his fingers, as
+he seized the birds by the wings, stunned them by a blow on the head
+from the knife-handle, and then thrust the point of the blade into
+their throats. They quivered for an instant, and ruffled their feathers
+as Marjolin laid them in a row, with their heads between the wooden
+bars above the zinc trough, into which their blood fell drop by drop.
+He repeated each different movement with the regularity of clockwork,
+the blows from the knife-handle falling with a monotonous tick-tack as
+he broke the birds’ skulls, and his hand working backwards and forwards
+like a pendulum as he took up the living pigeons on one side and laid
+them down dead on the other. Soon, moreover, he worked with increasing
+rapidity, gloating over the massacre with glistening eyes, squatting
+there like a huge delighted bull-dog enjoying the sight of slaughtered
+vermin. “Tick-tack! Tick-tack!” whilst his tongue clucked as an
+accompaniment to the rhythmical movements of his knife. The pigeons
+hung down like wisps of silken stuff.
+
+“Ah, you enjoy that, don’t you, you great stupid?” exclaimed Cadine.
+“How comical those pigeons look when they bury their heads in their
+shoulders to hide their necks! They’re horrid things, you know, and
+would give one nasty bites if they got the chance.” Then she laughed
+more loudly at Marjolin’s increasing, feverish haste; and added: “I’ve
+killed them sometimes myself, but I can’t get on as quickly as he does.
+One day he killed a hundred in ten minutes.”
+
+The wooden frame was nearly full; the blood could be heard falling into
+the zinc trough; and as Claude happened to turn round he saw Florent
+looking so pale that he hurriedly led him away. When they got
+above-ground again he made him sit down on a step.
+
+“Why, what’s the matter with you?” he exclaimed, tapping him on the
+shoulder. “You’re fainting away like a woman!”
+
+“It’s the smell of the cellar,” murmured Florent, feeling a little
+ashamed of himself.
+
+The truth was, however, that those pigeons, which were forced to
+swallow tares and salt water, and then had their skulls broken and
+their throats slit, had reminded him of the wood-pigeons of the
+Tuileries gardens, strutting over the green turf, with their satiny
+plumage flashing iridescently in the sunlight. He again heard them
+cooing on the arm of the marble wrestler amidst the hushed silence of
+the garden, while children trundled their hoops in the deep gloom of
+the chestnuts. And then, on seeing that big fair-haired animal
+massacring his boxful of birds, stunning them with the handle of his
+knife and driving its point into their throats, in the depths of that
+foul-smelling cellar, he had felt sick and faint, his legs had almost
+given way beneath him, while his eyelids quivered tremulously.
+
+“Well, you’d never do for a soldier!” Claude said to him when he
+recovered from his faintness. “Those who sent you to Cayenne must have
+been very simple-minded folks to fear such a man as you! Why, my good
+fellow, if ever you do put yourself at the head of a rising, you won’t
+dare to fire a shot. You’ll be too much afraid of killing somebody.”
+
+Florent got up without making any reply. He had become very gloomy, his
+face was furrowed by deep wrinkles; and he walked off, leaving Claude
+to go back to the cellar alone. As he made his way towards the fish
+market his thoughts returned to his plan of attack, to the levies of
+armed men who were to invade the Palais Bourbon. Cannon would roar from
+the Champs Elysees; the gates would be burst open; blood would stain
+the steps, and men’s brains would bespatter the pillars. A vision of
+the fight passed rapidly before him; and he beheld himself in the midst
+of it, deadly pale, and hiding his face in his hands, not daring to
+look around him.
+
+As he was crossing the Rue du Pont Neuf he fancied he espied Auguste’s
+pale face peering round the corner of the fruit pavilion. The assistant
+seemed to be watching for someone, and his eyes were starting from his
+head with an expression of intense excitement. Suddenly, however, he
+vanished and hastened back to the pork shop.
+
+“What’s the matter with him?” thought Florent. “Is he frightened of me,
+I wonder?”
+
+Some very serious occurrences had taken place that morning at the
+Quenu-Gradelles’. Soon after daybreak, Auguste, breathless with
+excitement, had awakened his mistress to tell her that the police had
+come to arrest Monsieur Florent. And he added, with stammering
+incoherence, that the latter had gone out, and that he must have done
+so with the intention of escaping. Lisa, careless of appearances, at
+once hurried up to her brother-in-law’s room in her dressing-wrapper,
+and took possession of La Normande’s photograph, after glancing round
+to see if there was anything lying about that might compromise herself
+and Quenu. As she was making her way downstairs again, she met the
+police agents on the first floor. The commissary requested her to
+accompany them to Florent’s room, where, after speaking to her for a
+moment in a low tone, he installed himself with his men, bidding her
+open the shop as usual so as to avoid giving the alarm to anyone. The
+trap was set.
+
+Lisa’s only worry in the matter was the terrible blow that the arrest
+would prove to poor Quenu. She was much afraid that if he learned that
+the police were in the house, he would spoil everything by his tears;
+so she made Auguste swear to observe the most rigid silence on the
+subject. Then she went back to her room, put on her stays, and
+concocted some story for the benefit of Quenu, who was still drowsy.
+Half an hour later she was standing at the door of the shop with all
+her usual neatness of appearance, her hair smooth and glossy, and her
+face glowing rosily. Auguste was quietly setting out the window. Quenu
+came for a moment on to the footway, yawning slightly, and ridding
+himself of all sleepiness in the fresh morning air. There was nothing
+to indicate the drama that was in preparation upstairs.
+
+The commissary himself, however, gave the alarm to the neighbourhood by
+paying a domiciliary visit to the Mehudins’ abode in the Rue Pirouette.
+He was in possession of the most precise information. In the anonymous
+letters which had been sent to the Prefecture, all sorts of statements
+were made respecting Florent’s alleged intrigue with the beautiful
+Norman. Perhaps, thought the commissary, he had now taken refuge with
+her; and so, accompanied by two of his men, he proceeded to knock at
+the door in the name of the law. The Mehudins had only just got up. The
+old woman opened the door in a fury; but suddenly calmed down and began
+to smile when she learned the business on hand. She seated herself and
+fastened her clothes, while declaring to the officers: “We are honest
+folks here, and have nothing to be afraid of. You can search wherever
+you like.”
+
+However, as La Normande delayed to open the door of her room, the
+commissary told his men to break it open. The young woman was scarcely
+clad when the others entered, and this unceremonious invasion, which
+she could not understand, fairly exasperated her. She flushed crimson
+from anger rather than from shame, and seemed as though she were about
+to fly at the officers. The commissary, at the sight, stepped forward
+to protect his men, repeating in his cold voice: “In the name of the
+law! In the name of the law!”
+
+Thereupon La Normande threw herself upon a chair, and burst into a wild
+fit of hysterical sobbing at finding herself so powerless. She was
+quite at a loss to understand what these men wanted with her. The
+commissary, however, had noticed how scantily she was clad, and taking
+a shawl from a peg, he flung it over her. Still she did not wrap it
+round her, but only sobbed the more bitterly as she watched the men
+roughly searching the apartment.
+
+“But what have I done?” she at last stammered out. “What are you
+looking for here?”
+
+Thereupon the commissary pronounced the name of Florent; and La
+Normande, catching sight of the old woman, who was standing at the
+door, cried out: “Oh, the wretch! This is her doing!” and she rushed at
+her mother.
+
+She would have struck her if she had reached her; but the police agents
+held her back, and forcibly wrapped her in the shawl. Meanwhile, she
+struggled violently, and exclaimed in a choking voice:
+
+“What do you take me for? That Florent has never been in this room, I
+tell you. There was nothing at all between us. People are always trying
+to injure me in the neighbourhood; but just let anyone come here and
+say anything before my face, and then you’ll see! You’ll lock me up
+afterwards, I dare say, but I don’t mind that! Florent, indeed! What a
+lie! What nonsense!”
+
+This flood of words seemed to calm her; and her anger now turned
+against Florent, who was the cause of all the trouble. Addressing the
+commissary, she sought to justify herself.
+
+“I did not know his real character, sir,” she said. “He had such a mild
+manner that he deceived us all. I was unwilling to believe all I heard,
+because I know people are so malicious. He only came here to give
+lessons to my little boy, and went away directly they were over. I gave
+him a meal here now and again, that’s true and sometimes made him a
+present of a fine fish. That’s all. But this will be a warning to me,
+and you won’t catch me showing the same kindness to anyone again.”
+
+“But hasn’t he given you any of his papers to take care of?” asked the
+commissary.
+
+“Oh no, indeed! I swear it. I’d give them up to you at once if he had.
+I’ve had quite enough of this, I can tell you! It’s no joke to see you
+tossing all my things about and ferreting everywhere in this way. Oh!
+you may look; there’s nothing.”
+
+The officers, who examined every article of furniture, now wished to
+enter the little closet where Muche slept. The child had been awakened
+by the noise, and for the last few moments he had been crying bitterly,
+as though he imagined that he was going to be murdered.
+
+“This is my boy’s room,” said La Normande, opening the door.
+
+Muche, quite naked, ran up and threw his arms round his mother’s neck.
+She pacified him, and laid him down in her own bed. The officers came
+out of the little room again almost immediately, and the commissary had
+just made up his mind to retire, when the child, still in tears,
+whispered in his mother’s ear: “They’ll take my copy-books. Don’t let
+them have my copy-books.”
+
+“Oh, yes; that’s true,” cried La Normande; “there are some copy-books.
+Wait a moment, gentlemen, and I’ll give them to you. I want you to see
+that I’m not hiding anything from you. Then, you’ll find some of his
+writing inside these. You’re quite at liberty to hang him as far as I’m
+concerned; you won’t find me trying to cut him down.”
+
+Thereupon she handed Muche’s books and the copies set by Florent to the
+commissary. But at this the boy sprang angrily out of bed, and began to
+scratch and bite his mother, who put him back again with a box on the
+ears. Then he began to bellow.
+
+In the midst of the uproar, Mademoiselle Saget appeared on the
+threshold, craning her neck forward. Finding all the doors open, she
+had come in to offer her services to old Madame Mehudin. She spied
+about and listened, and expressed extreme pity for these poor women,
+who had no one to defend them. The commissary, however, had begun to
+read the copies with a grave air. The frequent repetition of such words
+as “tyrannically,” “liberticide,” “unconstitutional,” and
+“revolutionary” made him frown; and on reading the sentence, “When the
+hour strikes, the guilty shall fall,” he tapped his fingers on the
+paper and said: “This is very serious, very serious indeed.”
+
+Thereupon he gave the books to one of his men, and went off. Claire,
+who had hitherto not shown herself, now opened her door, and watched
+the police officers go down the stairs. And afterwards she came into
+her sister’s bedroom, which she had not entered for a year.
+Mademoiselle Saget appeared to be on the best of terms with La
+Normande, and was hanging over her in a caressing way, bringing the
+shawl forward to cover her the better, and listening to her angry
+indignation with an expression of the deepest sympathy.
+
+“You wretched coward!” exclaimed Claire, planting herself in front of
+her sister.
+
+La Normande sprang up, quivering with anger, and let the shawl fall to
+the floor.
+
+“Ah, you’ve been playing the spy, have you?” she screamed. “Dare to
+repeat what you’ve just said!”
+
+“You wretched coward!” repeated Claire, in still more insulting tones
+than before.
+
+Thereupon La Normande struck Claire with all her force; and in return
+Claire, turning terribly pale, sprang upon her sister and dug her nails
+into her neck. They struggled together for a moment or two, tearing at
+each other’s hair and trying to choke one another. Claire, fragile
+though she was, pushed La Normande backward with such tremendous
+violence that they both fell against the wardrobe, smashing the mirror
+on its front. Muche was roaring, and old Madame Mehudin called to
+Mademoiselle Saget to come and help her separate the sisters. Claire,
+however, shook herself free.
+
+“Coward! Coward!” she cried; “I’ll go and tell the poor fellow that it
+is you who have betrayed him.”
+
+Her mother, however, blocked the doorway, and would not let her pass,
+while La Normande seized her from behind, and then, Mademoiselle Saget
+coming to the assistance of the other two, the three of them dragged
+Claire into her bedroom and locked the door upon her, in spite of all
+her frantic resistance. In her rage she tried to kick the door down,
+and smashed everything in the room. Soon afterwards, however, nothing
+could be heard except a furious scratching, the sound of metal scarping
+at the plaster. The girl was trying to loosen the door hinges with the
+points of her scissors.
+
+“She would have murdered me if she had had a knife,” said La Normande,
+looking about for her clothes, in order to dress herself. “She’ll be
+doing something dreadful, you’ll see, one of these days, with that
+jealousy of hers! We mustn’t let her get out on any account: she’d
+bring the whole neighbourhood down upon us!”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget went off in all haste. She reached the corner of the
+Rue Pirouette just as the commissary of police was re-entering the side
+passage of the Quenu-Gradelles’ house. She grasped the situation at
+once, and entered the shop with such glistening eyes that Lisa enjoined
+silence by a gesture which called her attention to the presence of
+Quenu, who was hanging up some pieces of salt pork. As soon as he had
+returned to the kitchen, the old maid in a low voice described the
+scenes that had just taken place at the Mehudins’. Lisa, as she bent
+over the counter, with her hand resting on a dish of larded veal,
+listened to her with the happy face of one who triumphs. Then, as a
+customer entered the shop, and asked for a couple of pig’s trotters,
+Lisa wrapped them up, and handed them over with a thoughtful air.
+
+“For my own part, I bear La Normande no ill-will,” she said to
+Mademoiselle Saget, when they were alone again. “I used to be very fond
+of her, and have always been sorry that other people made mischief
+between us. The proof that I’ve no animosity against her is here in
+this photograph, which I saved from falling into the hands of the
+police, and which I’m quite ready to give her back if she will come and
+ask me for it herself.”
+
+She took the photograph out of her pocket as she spoke. Mademoiselle
+Saget scrutinised it and sniggered as she read the inscription,
+“Louise, to her dear friend Florent.”
+
+“I’m not sure you’ll be acting wisely,” she said in her cutting voice.
+“You’d do better to keep it.”
+
+“No, no,” replied Lisa; “I’m anxious for all this silly nonsense to
+come to an end. To-day is the day of reconciliation. We’ve had enough
+unpleasantness, and the neighbourhood’s now going to be quiet and
+peaceful again.”
+
+“Well, well, shall I go and tell La Normande that you are expecting
+her?” asked the old maid.
+
+“Yes; I shall be very glad if you will.”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget then made her way back to the Rue Pirouette, and
+greatly frightened the fish-girl by telling her that she had just seen
+her photograph in Lisa’s pocket. She could not, however, at once
+prevail upon her to comply with her rival’s terms. La Normande
+propounded conditions of her own. She would go, but Madame Quenu must
+come to the door of the shop to receive her. Thus the old maid was
+obliged to make another couple of journeys between the two rivals
+before their meeting could be satisfactorily arranged. At last,
+however, to her great delight, she succeeded in negotiating the peace
+which was destined to cause so much talk and excitement. As she passed
+Claire’s door for the last time she still heard the sound of the
+scissors scraping away at the plaster.
+
+When she had at last carried a definite reply to Madame Quenu,
+Mademoiselle Saget hurried off to find Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette;
+and all three of them took up their position on the footway at the
+corner of the fish market, just in front of the pork shop. Here they
+would be certain to have a good view of every detail of the meeting.
+They felt extremely impatient, and while pretending to chat together
+kept an anxious look-out in the direction of the Rue Pirouette, along
+which La Normande must come. The news of the reconciliation was already
+travelling through the markets, and while some saleswomen stood up
+behind their stalls trying to get a view of what was taking place,
+others, still more inquisitive, actually left their places and took up
+a position in the covered way. Every eye in the markets was directed
+upon the pork shop; the whole neighbourhood was on the tip-toe of
+expectation.
+
+It was a very solemn affair. When La Normande at last turned the corner
+of the Rue Pirouette the excitement was so great that the women held
+their breath.
+
+“She has got her diamonds on,” murmured La Sarriette.
+
+“Just look how she stalks along,” added Madame Lecœur; “the stuck-up
+creature!”
+
+The beautiful Norman was, indeed, advancing with the mien of a queen
+who condescends to make peace. She had made a most careful toilet,
+frizzing her hair and turning up a corner of her apron to display her
+cashmere skirt. She had even put on a new and rich lace bow. Conscious
+that the whole market was staring at her, she assumed a still haughtier
+air as she approached the pork shop. When she reached the door she
+stopped.
+
+“Now it’s beautiful Lisa’s turn,” remarked Mademoiselle Saget. “Mind
+you pay attention.”
+
+Beautiful Lisa smilingly quitted her counter. She crossed the
+shop-floor at a leisurely pace, and came and offered her hand to the
+beautiful Norman. She also was smartly dressed, with her dazzling linen
+and scrupulous neatness. A murmur ran through the crowd of fish-wives,
+all their heads gathered close together, and animated chatter ensued.
+The two women had gone inside the shop, and the _crepines_ in the
+window prevented them from being clearly seen. However, they seemed to
+be conversing affectionately, addressing pretty compliments to one
+another.
+
+“See!” suddenly exclaimed Mademoiselle Saget, “the beautiful Norman’s
+buying something! What is it she’s buying? It’s a chitterling, I
+believe! Ah! Look! look! You didn’t see it, did you? Well, beautiful
+Lisa just gave her the photograph; she slipped it into her hand with
+the chitterling.”
+
+Fresh salutations were then seen to pass between the two women; and the
+beautiful Lisa, exceeding even the courtesies which had been agreed
+upon, accompanied the beautiful Norman to the footway. There they stood
+laughing together, exhibiting themselves to the neighbourhood like a
+couple of good friends. The markets were quite delighted; and the
+saleswomen returned to their stalls, declaring that everything had
+passed off extremely well.
+
+Mademoiselle Saget, however, detained Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette.
+The drama was not over yet. All three kept their eyes fixed on the
+house opposite with such keen curiosity that they seemed trying to
+penetrate the very walls. To pass the time away they once more began to
+talk of the beautiful Norman.
+
+“She’s without a lover now,” remarked Madame Lecœur.
+
+“Oh! she’s got Monsieur Lebigre,” replied La Sarriette, with a laugh.
+
+“But surely Monsieur Lebigre won’t have anything more to say to her.”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget shrugged her shoulders. “Ah, you don’t know him,”
+she said. “He won’t care a straw about all this business. He knows what
+he’s about, and La Normande is rich. They’ll come together in a couple
+of months, you’ll see. Old Madame Mehudin’s been scheming to bring
+about their marriage for a long time past.”
+
+“Well, anyway,” retorted the butter dealer, “the commissary found
+Florent at her lodgings.”
+
+“No, no, indeed; I’m sure I never told you that. The long
+spindle-shanks had gone way,” replied the old maid. She paused to take
+a breath; then resumed in an indignant tone, “What distressed me most
+was to hear of all the abominable things that the villain had taught
+little Muche. You’d really never believe it. There was a whole bundle
+of papers.”
+
+“What sort of abominable things?” asked La Sarriette with interest.
+
+“Oh, all kinds of filth. The commissary said there was quite sufficient
+there to hang him. The fellow’s a perfect monster! To go and demoralise
+a child! Why, it’s almost past believing! Little Muche is certainly a
+scamp, but that’s no reason why he should be given over to the ‘Reds,’
+is it?”
+
+“Certainly not,” assented the two others.
+
+“However, all these mysterious goings-on will come to an end now. You
+remember my telling you once that there was some strange goings-on at
+the Quenus’? Well, you see, I was right in my conclusions, wasn’t I?
+Thank God, however, the neighbourhood will now be able to breathe
+easily. It was high time strong steps were taken, for things had got to
+such a pitch that one actually felt afraid of being murdered in broad
+daylight. There was no pleasure in life. All the dreadful stories and
+reports one heard were enough to worry one to death. And it was all
+owing to that man, that dreadful Florent. Now beautiful Lisa and the
+beautiful Norman have sensibly made friends again. It was their duty to
+do so for the sake of the peace and quietness of us all. Everything
+will go on satisfactorily now, you’ll find. Ah! there’s poor Monsieur
+Quenu laughing yonder!”
+
+Quenu had again come on to the footway, and was joking with Madame
+Taboureau’s little servant. He seemed quite gay and skittish that
+morning. He took hold of the little servant’s hands, and squeezed her
+fingers so tightly, in the exuberance of his spirits, that he made her
+cry out. Lisa had the greatest trouble to get him to go back into the
+kitchen. She was impatiently pacing about the shop, fearing lest
+Florent should make his appearance; and she called to her husband to
+come away, dreading a meeting between him and his brother.
+
+“She’s getting quite vexed,” said Mademoiselle Saget. “Poor Monsieur
+Quenu, you see, knows nothing at all about what’s taking place. Just
+look at him there, laughing like a child! Madame Taboureau, you know,
+said that she should have nothing more to do with the Quenus if they
+persisted in bringing themselves into discredit by keeping that Florent
+with them.”
+
+“Well, now, I suppose, they will stick to the fortune,” remarked Madame
+Lecœur.
+
+“Oh, no, indeed, my dear. The other one has had his share already.”
+
+“Really? How do you know that?”
+
+“Oh, it’s clear enough, that is!” replied the old maid after a
+momentary hesitation, but without giving any proof of her assertions.
+“He’s had even more than his share. The Quenus will be several thousand
+francs out of pocket. Money flies, you know, when a man has such vices
+as he has. I dare say you don’t know that there was another woman mixed
+up in it all. Yes, indeed, old Madame Verlaque, the wife of the former
+inspector; you know the sallow-faced thing well enough.”
+
+The others protested that it surely wasn’t possible. Why, Madame
+Verlaque was positively hideous!
+
+“What! do you think me a liar?” cried Mademoiselle Saget, with angry
+indignation. “Why, her letters to him have been found, a whole pile of
+letters, in which she asks for money, ten and twenty francs at a time.
+There’s no doubt at all about it. I’m quite certain in my own mind that
+they killed the husband between them.”
+
+La Sarriette and Madame Lecœur were convinced; but they were beginning
+to get very impatient. They had been waiting on the footway for more
+than an hour, and feared that somebody might be robbing their stalls
+during their long absence. So Mademoiselle Saget began to give them
+some further interesting information to keep them from going off.
+Florent could not have taken to flight, said she; he was certain to
+return, and it would be very interesting to see him arrested. Then she
+went on to describe the trap that had been laid for him, while Madame
+Lecœur and La Sarriette continued scrutinising the house from top to
+bottom, keeping watch upon every opening, and at each moment expecting
+to see the hats of the detectives appear at one of the doors or
+windows.
+
+“Who would ever imagine, now, that the place was full of police?”
+observed the butter dealer.
+
+“Oh! they’re in the garret at the top,” said the old maid. “They’ve
+left the window open, you see, just as they found it. Look! I think I
+can see one of them hiding behind the pomegranate on the balcony.”
+
+The others excitedly craned out their necks, but could see nothing.
+
+“Ah, no, it’s only a shadow,” continued Mademoiselle Saget. “The little
+curtains even are perfectly still. The detectives must be sitting down
+in the room, and keeping quiet.”
+
+Just at that moment the women caught sight of Gavard coming out of the
+fish market with a thoughtful air. They looked at him with glistening
+eyes, without speaking. They had drawn close to one another, and stood
+there rigid in their drooping skirts. The poultry dealer came up to
+them.
+
+“Have you seen Florent go by?” he asked.
+
+They replied that they had not.
+
+“I want to speak to him at once,” continued Gavard. “He isn’t in the
+fish market. He must have gone up to his room. But you would have seen
+him, though, if he had.”
+
+The women had turned rather pale. They still kept looking at each other
+with a knowing expression, their lips twitching slightly every now and
+then. “We have only been here some five minutes, said Madame Lecœur
+unblushingly, as her brother-in-law still stood hesitating.
+
+“Well, then, I’ll go upstairs and see. I’ll risk the five flights,”
+rejoined Gavard with a laugh.
+
+La Sarriette stepped forward as though she wished to detain him, but
+her aunt took hold of her arm and drew her back.
+
+“Let him alone, you big simpleton!” she whispered. “It’s the best thing
+that can happen to him. It’ll teach him to treat us with respect in
+future.”
+
+“He won’t say again that I ate tainted meat,” muttered Mademoiselle
+Saget in a low tone.
+
+They said nothing more. La Sarriette was very red; but the two others
+still remained quite yellow. But they now averted their heads, feeling
+confused by each other’s looks, and at a loss what to do with their
+hands, which they buried beneath their aprons. Presently their eyes
+instinctively came back to the house, penetrating the walls, as it
+were, following Gavard in his progress up the stairs. When they
+imagined that he had entered Florent’s room they again exchanged
+furtive glances. La Sarriette laughed nervously. All at once they
+fancied they could see the window curtains moving, and this led them to
+believe that a struggle was taking place. But the house-front remained
+as tranquil as ever in the sunshine; and another quarter of an hour of
+unbroken quietness passed away, during which the three women’s nervous
+excitement became more and more intense. They were beginning to feel
+quite faint when a man hurriedly came out of the passage and ran off to
+get a cab. Five minutes later Gavard appeared, followed by two police
+officers. Lisa, who had stepped out on to the footway on observing the
+cab, hastily hurried back into the shop.
+
+Gavard was very pale. The police had searched him upstairs, and had
+discovered the revolver and cartridge case in his possession. Judging
+by the commissary’s stern expression on hearing his name, the poultry
+dealer deemed himself lost. This was a terrible ending to his plotting
+that had never entered into his calculations. The Tuileries would never
+forgive him! His legs gave way beneath him as though the firing party
+was already awaiting him outside. When he got into the street, however,
+his vanity lent him sufficient strength to walk erect; and he even
+managed to force a smile, as he knew the market people were looking at
+him. They should see him die bravely, he resolved.
+
+However, La Sarriette and Madame Lecœur rushed up to him and anxiously
+inquired what was the matter; and the butter dealer began to cry, while
+La Sarriette embraced her uncle, manifesting the deepest emotion. As
+Gavard held her clasped in his arms, he slipped a key into her hand,
+and whispered in her ear: “Take everything, and burn the papers.”
+
+Then he got into the cab with the same mien as he would have ascended
+the scaffold. As the vehicle disappeared round the corner of the Rue
+Pierre Lescot, Madame Lecœur observed La Sarriette trying to hide the
+key in her pocket.
+
+“It’s of no use you trying that little game on me, my dear,” she
+exclaimed, clenching her teeth; “I saw him slip it into your hand. As
+true as there’s a God in Heaven, I’ll go to the gaol and tell him
+everything, if you don’t treat me properly.”
+
+“Of course I shall treat you properly, aunt, dear,” replied La
+Sarriette, with an embarrassed smile.
+
+“Very well, then, let us go to his rooms at once. It’s of no use to
+give the police time to poke their dirty hands in the cupboards.”
+
+Mademoiselle Saget, who had been listening with gleaming eyes, followed
+them, running along in the rear as quickly as her short legs could
+carry her. She had no thought, now, of waiting for Florent. From the
+Rue Rambuteau to the Rue de la Cossonnerie she manifested the most
+humble obsequiousness, and volunteered to explain matters to Madame
+Leonce, the doorkeeper.
+
+“We’ll see, we’ll see,” the butter dealer curtly replied.
+
+However, on reaching the house a preliminary parley—as Mademoiselle
+Saget had opined—proved to be necessary. Madame Leonce refused to allow
+the women to go up to her tenant’s room. She put on an expression of
+severe austerity, and seemed greatly shocked by the sight of La
+Sarriette’s loosely fastened fichu. However, after the old maid had
+whispered a few words to her and she was shown the key, she gave way.
+When they got upstairs she surrendered the rooms and furniture to the
+others article by article, apparently as heartbroken as if she had been
+compelled to show a party of burglars the place where her own money was
+secreted.
+
+“There, take everything and have done with it!” she cried at last,
+throwing herself into an arm-chair.
+
+La Sarriette was already eagerly trying the key in the locks of
+different closets. Madame Lecœur, all suspicion, pressed her so closely
+that she exclaimed: “Really, aunt, you get in my way. Do leave my arms
+free, at any rate.”
+
+At last they succeeded in opening a wardrobe opposite the window,
+between the fireplace and the bed. And then all four women broke into
+exclamations. On the middle shelf lay some ten thousand francs in gold,
+methodically arranged in little piles. Gavard, who had prudently
+deposited the bulk of his fortune in the hands of a notary, had kept
+this sum by him for the purposes of the coming outbreak. He had been
+wont to say with great solemnity that his contribution to the
+revolution was quite ready. The fact was that he had sold out certain
+stock, and every night took an intense delight in contemplating those
+ten thousand francs, gloating over them, and finding something quite
+roysterous and insurrectional in their appearance. Sometimes when he
+was in bed he dreamed that a fight was going on in the wardrobe; he
+could hear guns being fired there, paving-stones being torn up and
+piled into barricades, and voices shouting in clamorous triumph; and he
+said to himself that it was his money fighting against the Government.
+
+La Sarriette, however, had stretched out her hands with a cry of
+delight.
+
+“Paws off, little one!” exclaimed Madame Lecœur in a hoarse voice.
+
+As she stood there in the reflection of the gold, she looked yellower
+than ever—her face discoloured by biliousness, her eyes glowing
+feverishly from the liver complaint which was secretly undermining her.
+Behind her Mademoiselle Saget on tip-toe was gazing ecstatically into
+the wardrobe, and Madame Leonce had now risen from her seat, and was
+growling sulkily.
+
+“My uncle said I was to take everything,” declared the girl.
+
+“And am I to have nothing, then; I who have done so much for him?”
+cried the doorkeeper.
+
+Madame Lecœur was almost choking with excitement. She pushed the others
+away, and clung hold of the wardrobe, screaming: “It all belongs to me!
+I am his nearest relative. You are a pack of thieves, you are! I’d
+rather throw it all out of the window than see you have it!”
+
+Then silence fell, and they all four stood glowering at each other. The
+kerchief that La Sarriette wore over her breast was now altogether
+unfastened, and she displayed her bosom heaving with warm life, her
+moist red lips, her rosy nostrils. Madame Lecœur grew still more sour
+as she saw how lovely the girl looked in the excitement of her longing
+desire.
+
+“Well,” she said in a lower tone, “we won’t fight about it. You are his
+niece, and I’ll divide the money with you. We will each take a pile in
+turn.”
+
+Thereupon they pushed the other two aside. The butter dealer took the
+first pile, which at once disappeared within her skirts. Then La
+Sarriette took a pile. They kept a close watch upon one another, ready
+to fight at the slightest attempt at cheating. Their fingers were
+thrust forward in turn, the hideous knotted fingers of the aunt and the
+white fingers of the niece, soft and supple as silk. Slowly they filled
+their pockets. When there was only one pile left, La Sarriette objected
+to her aunt taking it, as she had commenced; and she suddenly divided
+it between Mademoiselle Saget and Madame Leonce, who had watched them
+pocket the gold with feverish impatience.
+
+“Much obliged to you!” snarled the doorkeeper. “Fifty francs for having
+coddled him up with tisane and broth! The old deceiver told me he had
+no relatives!”
+
+Before locking the wardrobe up again, Madame Lecœur searched it
+thoroughly from top to bottom. It contained all the political works
+which were forbidden admission into the country, the pamphlets printed
+at Brussels, the scandalous histories of the Bonapartes, and the
+foreign caricatures ridiculing the Emperor. One of Gavard’s greatest
+delights was to shut himself up with a friend, and show him all these
+compromising things.
+
+“He told me that I was to burn all the papers,” said La Sarriette.
+
+“Oh, nonsense! we’ve no fire, and it would take up too long. The police
+will soon be here! We must get out of this!”
+
+They all four hastened off; but they had not reached the bottom of the
+stairs before the police met them, and made Madame Leonce return with
+them upstairs. The three others, making themselves as small as
+possible, hurriedly escaped into the street. They walked away in single
+file at a brisk pace; the aunt and niece considerably incommoded by the
+weight of their drooping pockets. Mademoiselle Saget had kept her fifty
+francs in her closed fist, and remained deep in thought, brooding over
+a plan for extracting something more from the heavy pockets in front of
+her.
+
+“Ah!” she exclaimed, as they reached the corner of the fish market,
+“we’ve got here at a lucky moment. There’s Florent yonder, just going
+to walk into the trap.”
+
+Florent, indeed, was just then returning to the markets after his
+prolonged perambulation. He went into his office to change his coat,
+and then set about his daily duties, seeing that the marble slabs were
+properly washed, and slowly strolling along the alleys. He fancied that
+the fish-wives looked at him in a somewhat strange manner; they
+chuckled too, and smiled significantly as he passed them. Some new
+vexation, he thought, was in store for him. For some time past those
+huge, terrible women had not allowed him a day’s peace. However, as he
+passed the Mehudins’ stall he was very much surprised to hear the old
+woman address him in a honeyed tone: “There’s just been a gentleman
+inquiring for you, Monsieur Florent; a middle-aged gentleman. He’s gone
+to wait for you in your room.”
+
+As the old fish-wife, who was squatting, all of a heap, on her chair,
+spoke these words, she felt such a delicious thrill of satisfied
+vengeance that her huge body fairly quivered. Florent, still doubtful,
+glanced at the beautiful Norman; but the young woman, now completely
+reconciled with her mother, turned on her tap and slapped her fish,
+pretending not to hear what was being said.
+
+“You are quite sure?” said Florent to Mother Mehudin.
+
+“Oh, yes, indeed. Isn’t that so, Louise?” said the old woman in a
+shriller voice.
+
+Florent concluded that it must be some one who wanted to see him about
+the great business, and he resolved to go up to his room. He was just
+about to leave the pavilion, when, happening to turn round, he observed
+the beautiful Norman watching him with a grave expression on her face.
+Then he passed in front of the three gossips.
+
+“Do you notice that there’s no one in the pork shop?” remarked
+Mademoiselle Saget. “Beautiful Lisa’s not the woman to compromise
+herself.”
+
+The shop was, indeed, quite empty. The front of the house was still
+bright with sunshine; the building looked like some honest, prosperous
+pile guilelessly warming itself in the morning rays. Up above, the
+pomegranate on the balcony was in full bloom. As Florent crossed the
+roadway he gave a friendly nod to Logre and Monsieur Lebigre, who
+appeared to be enjoying the fresh air on the doorstep of the latter’s
+establishment. They returned his greeting with a smile. Florent was
+then about to enter the side-passage, when he fancied he saw Auguste’s
+pale face hastily vanishing from its dark and narrow depths. Thereupon
+he turned back and glanced into the shop to make sure that the
+middle-aged gentleman was not waiting for him there. But he saw no one
+but Mouton, who sat on a block displaying his double chin and bristling
+whiskers, and gazed at him defiantly with his great yellow eyes. And
+when he had at last made up his mind to enter the passage, Lisa’s face
+appeared behind the little curtain of a glazed door at the back of the
+shop.
+
+A hush had fallen over the fish market. All the huge paunches and
+bosoms held their breath, waiting till Florent should disappear from
+sight. Then there was an uproarious outbreak; and the bosoms heaved
+wildly and the paunches nearly burst with malicious delight. The joke
+had succeeded. Nothing could be more comical. As old Mother Mehudin
+vented her merriment she shook and quivered like a wine-skin that is
+being emptied. Her story of the middle-aged gentleman went the round of
+the market, and the fish-wives found it extremely amusing. At last the
+long spindle-shanks was collared, and they would no longer always have
+his miserable face and gaol-bird’s expression before their eyes. They
+all wished him a pleasant journey, and trusted that they might get a
+handsome fellow for their next inspector. And in their delight they
+rushed about from one stall to another, and felt inclined to dance
+round their marble slabs like a lot of holiday-making schoolgirls. The
+beautiful Norman, however, watched this outbreak of joy in a rigid
+attitude, not daring to move for fear she should burst into tears; and
+she kept her hands pressed upon a big skate to cool her feverish
+excitement.
+
+“You see how those Mehudins turn their backs upon him now that he’s
+come to grief,” said Madame Lecœur.
+
+“Well, and they’re quite right too,” replied Mademoiselle Saget.
+“Besides, matters are settled now, my dear, and we’re to have no more
+disputes. You’ve every reason to be satisfied; leave the others to act
+as they please.”
+
+“It’s only the old woman who is laughing,” La Sarriette remarked; “La
+Normande looks anything but happy.”
+
+Meantime, upstairs in his bedroom, Florent allowed himself to be taken
+as unresistingly as a sheep. The police officers sprang roughly upon
+him, expecting, no doubt, that they would meet with a desperate
+resistance. He quietly begged them to leave go of him; and then sat
+down on a chair while they packed up his papers, and the red scarves,
+armlets, and banners. He did not seem at all surprised at this ending;
+indeed, it was something of a relief to him, though he would not
+frankly confess it. But he suffered acutely at thought of the bitter
+hatred which had sent him into that room; he recalled Auguste’s pale
+face and the sniggering looks of the fish-wives; he bethought himself
+of old Madame Mehudin’s words, La Normande’s silence, and the empty
+shop downstairs. The markets were leagued against him, he reflected;
+the whole neighbourhood had conspired to hand him over to the police.
+The mud of those greasy streets had risen up all around to overwhelm
+him!
+
+And amidst all the round faces which flitted before his mind’s eye
+there suddenly appeared that of Quenu, and a spasm of mortal agony
+contracted his heart.
+
+“Come, get along downstairs!” exclaimed one of the officers, roughly.
+
+Florent rose and proceeded to go downstairs. When he reached the second
+floor he asked to be allowed to return; he had forgotten something, he
+said. But the officers refused to let him go back, and began to hustle
+him forward. Then he besought them to let him return to his room again,
+and even offered them the money he had in his pocket. Two of them at
+last consented to return with him, threatening to blow his brains out
+should he attempt to play them any trick; and they drew their revolvers
+out of their pockets as they spoke. However, on reaching his room once
+more Florent simply went straight to the chaffinch’s cage, took the
+bird out of it, kissed it between its wings, and set it at liberty. He
+watched it fly away through the open window, into the sunshine, and
+alight, as though giddy, on the roof of the fish market. Then it flew
+off again and disappeared over the markets in the direction of the
+Square des Innocents. For a moment longer Florent remained face to face
+with the sky, the free and open sky; and he thought of the wood-pigeons
+cooing in the garden of the Tuileries, and of those other pigeons down
+in the market cellars with their throats slit by Marjolin’s knife. Then
+he felt quite broken, and turned and followed the officers, who were
+putting their revolvers back into their pockets as they shrugged their
+shoulders.
+
+On reaching the bottom of the stairs, Florent stopped before the door
+which led into the kitchen. The commissary, who was waiting for him
+there, seemed almost touched by his gentle submissiveness, and asked
+him: “Would you like to say good-bye to your brother?”
+
+For a moment Florent hesitated. He looked at the door. A tremendous
+noise of cleavers and pans came from the kitchen. Lisa, with the design
+of keeping her husband occupied, had persuaded him to make the
+black-puddings in the morning instead of in the evening, as was his
+wont. The onions were simmering on the fire, and over all the noisy
+uproar Florent could hear Quenu’s joyous voice exclaiming, “Ah, dash it
+all, the pudding will be excellent, that it will! Auguste, hand me the
+fat!”
+
+Florent thanked the commissary, but refused his offer. He was afraid to
+return any more into that warm kitchen, reeking with the odour of
+boiling onions, and so he went on past the door, happy in the thought
+that his brother knew nothing of what had happened to him, and
+hastening his steps as if to spare the establishment all further worry.
+However, on emerging into the open sunshine of the street he felt a
+touch of shame, and got into the cab with bent back and ashen face. He
+was conscious that the fish market was gazing at him in triumph; it
+seemed to him, indeed, as though the whole neighbourhood had gathered
+there to rejoice at his fall.
+
+“What a villainous expression he’s got!” said Mademoiselle Saget.
+
+“Yes, indeed, he looks just like a thief caught with his hand in
+somebody’s till,” added Madame Lecœur.
+
+“I once saw a man guillotined who looked exactly like he does,”
+asserted La Sarriette, showing her white teeth.
+
+They stepped forward, lengthened their necks, and tried to see into the
+cab. Just as it was starting, however, the old maid tugged sharply at
+the skirts of her companions, and pointed to Claire, who was coming
+round the corner of the Rue Pirouette, looking like a mad creature,
+with her hair loose and her nails bleeding. She had at last succeeded
+in opening her door. When she discovered that she was too late, and
+that Florent was being taken off, she darted after the cab, but checked
+herself almost immediately with a gesture of impotent rage, and shook
+her fists at the receding wheels. Then, with her face quite crimson
+beneath the fine plaster dust with which she was covered, she ran back
+again towards the Rue Pirouette.
+
+“Had he promised to marry her, eh?” exclaimed La Sarriette, laughing.
+“The silly fool must be quite cracked.”
+
+Little by little the neighbourhood calmed down, though throughout the
+day groups of people constantly assembled and discussed the events of
+the morning. The pork shop was the object of much inquisitive
+curiosity. Lisa avoided appearing there, and left the counter in charge
+of Augustine. In the afternoon she felt bound to tell Quenu of what had
+happened, for fear the news might cause him too great a shock should he
+hear it from some gossiping neighbour. She waited till she was alone
+with him in the kitchen, knowing that there he was always most
+cheerful, and would weep less than if he were anywhere else. Moreover,
+she communicated her tidings with all sorts of motherly precautions.
+Nevertheless, as soon as he knew the truth he fell on the
+chopping-block, and began to cry like a calf.
+
+“Now, now, my poor dear, don’t give way like that; you’ll make yourself
+quite ill,” exclaimed Lisa, taking him in her arms.
+
+His tears were inundating his white apron, the whole of his massive,
+torpid form quivered with grief. He seemed to be sinking, melting away.
+When he was at last able to speak, he stammered: “Oh, you don’t know
+how good he was to me when we lived together in the Rue Royer-Collard!
+He did everything. He swept the room and cooked the meals. He loved me
+as though I were his own child; and after his day’s work he used to
+come back splashed with mud, and so tired that he could scarcely move,
+while I stayed warm and comfortable in the house, and had nothing to do
+but eat. And now they’re going to shoot him!”
+
+At this Lisa protested, saying that he would certainly not be shot. But
+Quenu only shook his head.
+
+“I haven’t loved him half as much as I ought to have done,” he
+continued. “I can see that very well now. I had a wicked heart, and I
+hesitated about giving him his half of the money.”
+
+“Why, I offered it to him a dozen times and more!” Lisa interrupted.
+“I’m sure we’ve nothing to reproach ourselves with.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I know that you are everything that is good, and that you
+would have given him every copper. But I hesitated, I didn’t like to
+part with it; and now it will be a sorrow to me for the rest of my
+life. I shall always think that if I’d shared the fortune with him he
+wouldn’t have gone wrong a second time. Oh, yes; it’s my fault! It is I
+who have driven him to this.”
+
+Then Lisa, expostulating still more gently, assured him that he had
+nothing to blame himself for, and even expressed some pity for Florent.
+But he was really very culpable, she said, and if he had had more money
+he would probably have perpetrated greater follies. Gradually she gave
+her husband to understand that it was impossible matters could have had
+any other termination, and that now everything would go on much better.
+Quenu was still weeping, wiping his cheeks with his apron, trying to
+suppress his sobs to listen to her, and then breaking into a wilder fit
+of tears than before. His fingers had mechanically sought a heap of
+sausage-meat lying on the block, and he was digging holes in it, and
+roughly kneading it together.
+
+“And how unwell you were feeling, you know,” Lisa continued. “It was
+all because our life had got so shifted out of its usual course. I was
+very anxious, though I didn’t tell you so, at seeing you getting so
+low.”
+
+“Yes, wasn’t I?” he murmured, ceasing to sob for a moment.
+
+“And the business has been quite under a cloud this year. It was as
+though a spell had been cast on it. Come, now, don’t take on so; you’ll
+see that everything will look up again now. You must take care of
+yourself, you know, for my sake and your daughter’s. You have duties to
+us as well as to others, remember.”
+
+Quenu was now kneading the sausage-meat more gently. Another burst of
+emotion was thrilling him, but it was a softer emotion, which was
+already bringing a vague smile to his grief-stricken face. Lisa felt
+that she had convinced him, and she turned and called to Pauline, who
+was playing in the shop, and sat her on Quenu’s knee.
+
+“Tell your father, Pauline, that he ought not to give way like this.
+Ask him nicely not to go on distressing us so.”
+
+The child did as she was told, and their fat, sleek forms united in a
+general embrace. They all three looked at one another, already feeling
+cured of that twelve months’ depression from which they had but just
+emerged. Their big, round faces smiled, and Lisa softly repeated, “And
+after all, my dear, there are only we three, you know, only we three.”
+
+Two months later Florent was again sentenced to transportation. The
+affair caused a great stir. The newspapers published all possible
+details, and gave portraits of the accused, sketches of the banners and
+scarves, and plans of the places where the conspirators had met. For a
+fortnight nothing but the great plot of the central markets was talked
+of in Paris. The police kept on launching more and more alarming
+reports, and it was at last even declared that the whole of the
+Montmartre Quarter was undermined. The excitement in the Corps
+Législatif was so intense that the members of the Centre and the Right
+forgot their temporary disagreement over the Imperial Grant Bill, and
+became reconciled. And then by an overwhelming majority they voted the
+unpopular tax, of which even the lower classes, in the panic which was
+sweeping over the city, dared no longer complain.
+
+The trial lasted a week. Florent was very much surprised at the number
+of accomplices with which he found himself credited. Out of the twenty
+and more who were placed in the dock with him, he knew only some six or
+seven. After the sentence of the court had been read, he fancied he
+could see Robine’s innocent-looking hat and back going off quietly
+through the crowd. Logre was acquitted, as was also Lacaille; Alexandre
+was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for his child-like complicity
+in the conspiracy; while as for Gavard, he, like Florent, was condemned
+to transportation. This was a heavy blow, which quite crushed him
+amidst the final enjoyment that he derived from those lengthy
+proceedings in which he had managed to make himself so conspicuous. He
+was paying very dearly for the way in which he had vented the spirit of
+perpetual opposition peculiar to the Paris shopkeeping classes. Two big
+tears coursed down his scared face—the face of a white-haired child.
+
+And then one morning in August, amidst the busy awakening of the
+markets, Claude Lantier, sauntering about in the thick of the arriving
+vegetables, with his waist tightly girded by his red sash, came to
+grasp Madame Francois’s hand close by Saint Eustache. She was sitting
+on her carrots and turnips, and her long face looked very sad. The
+artist, too, was gloomy, notwithstanding the bright sun which was
+already softening the deep-green velvet of the mountains of cabbages.
+
+“Well, it’s all over now,” he said. “They are sending him back again.
+He’s already on his way to Brest, I believe.”
+
+Madame Francois made a gesture of mute grief. Then she gently waved her
+hand around, and murmured in a low voice; “Ah, it is all Paris’s doing,
+this villainous Paris!”
+
+“No, no, not quite that; but I know whose doing it is, the contemptible
+creatures!” exclaimed Claude, clenching his fists. “Do you know, Madame
+Francois, there was nothing too ridiculous for those fellows in the
+court to say! Why, they even went ferreting in a child’s copy-books!
+That great idiot of a Public Prosecutor made a tremendous fuss over
+them, and ranted about the respect due to children, and the wickedness
+of demagogical education! It makes me quite sick to think of it all!”
+
+A shudder of disgust shook him, and then, burying himself more deeply
+in his discoloured cloak, he resumed: “To think of it! A man who was as
+gentle as a girl! Why, I saw him turn quite faint at seeing a pigeon
+killed! I couldn’t help smiling with pity when I saw him between two
+gendarmes. Ah, well, we shall never see him again! He won’t come back
+this time.”
+
+“He ought to have listened to me,” said Madame Francois, after a pause,
+“and have come to live at Nanterre with my fowls and rabbits. I was
+very fond of him, you see, for I could tell that he was a good-hearted
+fellow. Ah, we might have been so happy together! It’s a sad pity.
+Well, we must bear it as best we can, Monsieur Claude. Come and see me
+one of these days. I’ll have an omelet ready for you.”
+
+Her eyes were dim with tears; but all at once she sprang up like a
+brave woman who bears her sorrows with fortitude.
+
+“Ah!” she exclaimed, “here’s old Mother Chantemesse coming to buy some
+turnips of me. The fat old lady’s as sprightly as ever!”
+
+Claude went off, and strolled about the footways. The dawn had risen in
+the white sheaf of light at the end of the Rue Rambuteau; and the sun,
+now level with the house-tops, was diffusing rosy rays which already
+fell in warm patches on the pavements. Claude was conscious of a gay
+awakening in the huge resonant markets—indeed, all over the
+neighbourhood—crowded with piles of food. It was like the joy that
+comes after cure, the mirth of folks who are at last relieved of a
+heavy weight which has been pulling them down. He saw La Sarriette
+displaying a gold chain and singing amidst her plums and strawberries,
+while she playfully pulled the moustaches of Monsieur Jules, who was
+arrayed in a velvet jacket. He also caught sight of Madame Lecœur and
+Mademoiselle Saget passing along one of the covered ways, and looking
+less sallow than usual—indeed, almost rosy—as they laughed like bosom
+friends over some amusing story. In the fish market, old Madame
+Mehudin, who had returned to her stall, was slapping her fish, abusing
+customers, and snubbing the new inspector, a presumptuous young man
+whom she had sworn to spank; while Claire, seemingly more languid and
+indolent than ever, extended her hands, blue from immersion in the
+water of her tanks, to gather together a great heap of edible snails,
+shimmering with silvery slime. In the tripe market Auguste and
+Augustine, with the foolish expression of newly-married people, had
+just been purchasing some pigs’ trotters, and were starting off in a
+trap for their pork shop at Montrouge. Then, as it was now eight
+o’clock and already quite warm, Claude, on again coming to the Rue
+Rambuteau, perceived Muche and Pauline playing at horses. Muche was
+crawling along on all-fours, while Pauline sat on his back, and clung
+to his hair to keep herself from falling. However, a moving shadow
+which fell from the eaves of the market roof made Claude look up; and
+he then espied Cadine and Marjolin aloft, kissing and warming
+themselves in the sunshine, parading their loves before the whole
+neighbourhood like a pair of light-hearted animals.
+
+Claude shook his fist at them. All this joyousness down below and on
+high exasperated him. He reviled the Fat; the Fat, he declared, had
+conquered the Thin. All around him he could see none but the Fat
+protruding their paunches, bursting with robust health, and greeting
+with delight another day of gorging and digestion. And a last blow was
+dealt to him by the spectacle which he perceived on either hand as he
+halted opposite the Rue Pirouette.
+
+On his right, the beautiful Norman, or the beautiful Madame Lebigre, as
+she was now called, stood at the door of her shop. Her husband had at
+length been granted the privilege of adding a State tobacco agency[*]
+to his wine shop, a long-cherished dream of his which he had finally
+been able to realise through the great services he had rendered to the
+authorities. And to Claude the beautiful Madame Lebigre looked superb,
+with her silk dress and her frizzed hair, quite ready to take her seat
+behind her counter, whither all the gentlemen in the neighbourhood
+flocked to buy their cigars and packets of tobacco. She had become
+quite distinguished, quite the lady. The shop behind her had been newly
+painted, with borders of twining vine-branches showing against a soft
+background; the zinc-plated wine-counter gleamed brightly, and in the
+tall mirror the flasks of liqueurs set brighter flashes of colour than
+ever. And the mistress of all these things stood smiling radiantly at
+the bright sunshine.
+
+[*] Most readers will remember that the tobacco trade is a State
+monopoly in France. The retail tobacconists are merely Government
+agents.—Translator.
+
+
+Then, on Claude’s left, the beautiful Lisa blocked up the doorway of
+her shop as she stood on the threshold. Never before had her linen
+shone with such dazzling whiteness; never had her serene face and rosy
+cheeks appeared in a more lustrous setting of glossy locks. She
+displayed the deep calmness of repletion, a massive tranquillity
+unruffled even by a smile. She was a picture of absolute quietude, of
+perfect felicity, not only cloudless but lifeless, the simple felicity
+of basking in the warm atmosphere. Her tightly stretched bodice seemed
+to be still digesting the happiness of yesterday; while her dimpled
+hands, hidden in the folds of her apron, did not even trouble to grasp
+at the happiness of to-day, certain as they were that it would come of
+itself. And the shop-window at her side seemed to display the same
+felicity. It had recovered from its former blight; the tongues lolled
+out, red and healthy; the hams had regained their old chubbiness of
+form; the festoons of sausages no longer wore that mournful air which
+had so greatly distressed Quenu. Hearty laughter, accompanied by a
+jubilant clattering of pans, sounded from the kitchen in the rear. The
+whole place again reeked with fat health. The flitches of bacon and the
+sides of pork that hung against the marble showed roundly like
+paunches, triumphant paunches, whilst Lisa, with her imposing breadth
+of shoulders and dignity of mien, bade the markets good morning with
+those big eyes of hers which so clearly bespoke a gross feeder.
+
+However, the two women bowed to each other. Beautiful Madame Lebigre
+and beautiful Madame Quenu exchanged a friendly salute.
+
+And then Claude, who had certainly forgotten to dine on the previous
+day, was thrilled with anger at seeing them standing there, looking so
+healthy and well-to-do with their buxom bosoms; and tightening his
+sash, he growled in a tone of irritation:
+
+“What blackguards respectable people are!”
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAT AND THE THIN ***
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