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.