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.