She was greatly surprised when she learned the history of the man she

loved. He had never mentioned a word of those things to her; and she

scolded him about it. His extraordinary adventures only increased her

tenderness for him, and for evenings together she made him relate all

that had befallen him. She trembled with fear lest the police should

discover him; but he reassured her, saying that the matter was now too

old for the police to trouble their heads about it. One evening he told

her of the woman on the Boulevard Montmartre, the woman in the pink

bonnet, whose blood had dyed his hands. He still frequently thought of

that poor creature. His anguish-stricken mind had often dwelt upon her

during the clear nights he had passed in Cayenne; and he had returned

to France with a wild dream of meeting her again on some footway in the

bright sunshine, even though he could still feel her corpse-like weight

across his legs. And yet, he thought, she might perhaps have recovered.

At times he received quite a shock while he was walking through the

streets, on fancying that he recognised her; and he followed pink

bonnets and shawl-draped shoulders with a wildly beating heart. When he

closed his eyes he could see her walking, and advancing towards him;

but she let her shawl slip down, showing the two red stains on her

chemisette; and then he saw that her face was pale as wax, and that her

eyes were blank, and her lips distorted by pain. For a long time he

suffered from not knowing her name, from being forced to look upon her

as a mere shadow, whose recollection filled him with sorrow. Whenever

any idea of woman crossed his mind it was always she that rose up

before him, as the one pure, tender wife. He often found himself

fancying that she might be looking for him on that boulevard where she

had fallen dead, and that if she had met him a few seconds sooner she

would have given him a life of joy. And he wished for no other wife;

none other existed for him. When he spoke of her, his voice trembled to

such a degree that La Normande, her wits quickened by her love, guessed

his secret, and felt jealous.

“Oh, it’s really much better that you shouldn’t see her again,” she

said maliciously. “She can’t look particularly nice by this time.”

Florent turned pale with horror at the vision which these words evoked.

His love was rotting in her grave. He could not forgive La Normande’s

savage cruelty, which henceforth made him see the grinning jaws and

hollow eyes of a skeleton within that lovely pink bonnet. Whenever the

fish-girl tried to joke with him on the subject he turned quite angry,

and silenced her with almost coarse language.

That, however, which especially surprised the beautiful Norman in these

revelations was the discovery that she had been quite mistaken in

supposing that she was enticing a lover away from handsome Lisa. This

so diminished her feeling of triumph, that for a week or so her love

for Florent abated. She consoled herself, however, with the story of

the inheritance, no longer calling Lisa a strait-laced prude, but a

thief who kept back her brother-in-law’s money, and assumed

sanctimonious airs to deceive people. Every evening, while Muche took

his writing lesson, the conversation turned upon old Gradelle’s

treasure.

“Did anyone ever hear of such an idea?” the fish-girl would exclaim,

with a laugh. “Did the old man want to salt his money, since he put it

in a salting-tub? Eighty-five thousand francs! That’s a nice sum of

money! And, besides, the Quenus, no doubt, lied about it—there was

perhaps two or three times as much. Ah, if I were in your place, I

shouldn’t lose any time about claiming my share; indeed I shouldn’t.”

“I’ve no need of anything,” was Florent’s invariable answer. “I

shouldn’t know what to do with the money if I had it.”

“Oh, you’re no man!” cried La Normande, losing all control over

herself. “It’s pitiful! Can’t you see that the Quenus are laughing at

you? That great fat thing passes all her husband’s old clothes over to

you. I’m not saying this to hurt your feelings, but everybody makes

remarks about it. Why, the whole neighbourhood has seen the greasy pair

of trousers, which you’re now wearing, on your brother’s legs for three

years and more! If I were in your place I’d throw their dirty rags in

their faces, and insist upon my rights. Your share comes to forty-two

thousand five hundred francs, doesn’t it? Well, I shouldn’t go out of

the place till I’d got forty-two thousand five hundred francs.”

It was useless for Florent to explain to her that his sister-in-law had

offered to pay him his share, that she was taking care of it for him,

and that it was he himself who had refused to receive it. He entered

into the most minute particulars, seeking to convince her of the

Quenus’ honesty, but she sarcastically replied: “Oh, yes, I dare say! I

know all about their honesty. That fat thing folds it up every morning

and puts it away in her wardrobe for fear it should get soiled. Really,

I quite pity you, my poor friend. It’s easy to gull you, for you can’t

see any further than a child of five. One of these days she’ll simply

put your money in her pocket, and you’ll never look on it again. Shall

I go, now, and claim your share for you, just to see what she says?

There’d be some fine fun, I can tell you! I’d either have the money, or

I’d break everything in the house—I swear I would!”

“No, no, it’s no business of yours,” Florent replied, quite alarmed.

“I’ll see about it; I may possibly be wanting some money soon.”

At this La Normande assumed an air of doubt, shrugged her shoulders,

and told him that he was really too chicken-hearted. Her one great aim

now was to embroil him with the Quenu-Gradelles, and she employed every

means she could think of to effect her purpose, both anger and banter,

as well as affectionate tenderness. She also cherished another design.

When she had succeeded in marrying Florent, she would go and administer

a sound cuffing to beautiful Lisa, if the latter did not yield up the

money. As she lay awake in her bed at night she pictured every detail

of the scene. She saw herself sitting down in the middle of the pork

shop in the busiest part of the day, and making a terrible fuss. She

brooded over this idea to such an extent, it obtained such a hold upon

her, that she would have been willing to marry Florent simply in order

to be able to go and demand old Gradelle’s forty-two thousand five

hundred francs.

Old Madame Mehudin, exasperated by La Normande’s dismissal of Monsieur

Lebigre, proclaimed everywhere that her daughter was mad, and that the

“long spindle-shanks” must have administered some insidious drug to

her. When she learned the Cayenne story, her anger was terrible. She

called Florent a convict and murderer, and said it was no wonder that

his villainy had kept him lank and flat. Her versions of Florent’s

biography were the most horrible of all that were circulated in the

neighbourhood. At home she kept a moderately quiet tongue in her head,

and restricted herself to muttered indignation, and a show of locking

up the drawer where the silver was kept whenever Florent arrived. One

day, however, after a quarrel with her elder daughter, she exclaimed:

“Things can’t go on much longer like this! It is that vile man who is

setting you against me. Take care that you don’t try me too far, or

I’ll go and denounce him to the police. I will, as true as I stand

here!”

“You’ll denounce him!” echoed La Normande, trembling violently, and

clenching her fists. “You’d better not! Ah, if you weren’t my mother——”

At this, Claire, who was a spectator of the quarrel, began to laugh,

with a nervous laughter that seemed to rasp her throat. For some time

past she had been gloomier and more erratic than ever, invariably

showing red eyes and a pale face.

“Well, what would you do?” she asked. “Would you give her a cuffing?

Perhaps you’d like to give me, your sister, one as well? I dare say it

will end in that. But I’ll clear the house of him. I’ll go to the

police to save mother the trouble.”

Then, as La Normande almost choked with the angry threats that rose to

her throat, the younger girl added: “I’ll spare you the exertion of

beating me. I’ll throw myself into the river as I come back over the

bridge.”

Big tears were streaming from her eyes; and she rushed off to her

bedroom, banging the doors violently behind her. Old Madame Mehudin

said nothing more about denouncing Florent. Muche, however, told La

Normande that he met his grandma talking with Monsieur Lebigre in every

corner of the neighbourhood.

The rivalry between the beautiful Norman and the beautiful Lisa now

assumed a less aggressive but more disturbing character. In the

afternoon, when the red-striped canvas awning was drawn down in front

of the pork shop, the fish-girl would remark that the big fat thing

felt afraid, and was concealing herself. She was also much exasperated

by the occasional lowering of the window-blind, on which was pictured a

hunting-breakfast in a forest glade, with ladies and gentlemen in

evening dress partaking of a red pasty, as big as themselves, on the

yellow grass.

Beautiful Lisa, however, was by no means afraid. As soon as the sun

began to sink she drew up the blind; and, as she sat knitting behind

her counter, she serenely scanned the market square, where numerous

urchins were poking about in the soil under the gratings which

protected the roots of the plane-trees, while porters smoked their

pipes on the benches along the footway, at either end of which was an

advertisement column covered with theatrical posters, alternately

green, yellow, red, and blue, like some harlequin’s costume. And while

pretending to watch the passing vehicles, Lisa would really be

scrutinising the beautiful Norman. She might occasionally be seen

bending forward, as though her eyes were following the Bastille and

Place Wagram omnibus to the Pointe Saint Eustache, where it always

stopped for a time. But this was only a manoeuvre to enable her to get

a better view of the fish-girl, who, as a set-off against the blind,

retorted by covering her head and fish with large sheets of brown

paper, on the pretext of warding off the rays of the setting sun. The

advantage at present was on Lisa’s side, for as the time for striking

the decisive blow approached she manifested the calmest serenity of

bearing, whereas her rival, in spite of all her efforts to attain the

same air of distinction, always lapsed into some piece of gross

vulgarity, which she afterwards regretted. La Normande’s ambition was

to look “like a lady.” Nothing irritated her more than to hear people

extolling the good manners of her rival. This weak point of hers had

not escaped old Madame Mehudin’s observation, and she now directed all

her attacks upon it.

“I saw Madame Quenu standing at her door this evening,” she would say

sometimes. “It is quite amazing how well she wears. And she’s so

refined-looking, too; quite the lady, indeed. It’s the counter that

does it, I’m sure. A fine counter gives a woman such a respectable

look.”

In this remark there was a veiled allusion to Monsieur Lebigre’s

proposal. The beautiful Norman would make no reply; but for a moment or

two she would seem deep in thought. In her mind’s eye she saw herself

behind the counter of the wine shop at the other corner of the street,

forming a pendent, as it were, to beautiful Lisa. It was this that

first shook her love for Florent.

To tell the truth, it was now becoming a very difficult thing to defend

Florent. The whole neighbourhood was in arms against him; it seemed as

though everyone had an immediate interest in exterminating him. Some of

the market people swore that he had sold himself to the police; while

others asserted that he had been seen in the butter-cellar, attempting

to make holes in the wire grating, with the intention of tossing

lighted matches through them. There was a vast increase of slander, a

perfect flood of abuse, the source of which could not be exactly

determined. The fish pavilion was the last one to join in the revolt

against the inspector. The fish-wives liked Florent on account of his

gentleness, and for some time they defended him; but, influenced by the

stallkeepers of the butter and fruit pavilions, they at last gave way.

Then hostilities began afresh between these huge, swelling women and

the lean and lank inspector. He was lost in the whirl of the voluminous

petticoats and buxom bodices which surged furiously around his scraggy

shoulders. However, he understood nothing, but pursued his course

towards the realisation of his one haunting idea.

At every hour of the day, and in every corner of the market,

Mademoiselle Saget’s black bonnet was now to be seen in the midst of

this outburst of indignation. Her little pale face seemed to multiply.

She had sworn a terrible vengeance against the company which assembled

in Monsieur Lebigre’s little cabinet. She accused them of having

circulated the story that she lived on waste scraps of meat. The truth

was that old Gavard had told the others one evening that the “old

nanny-goat” who came to play the spy upon them gorged herself with the

filth which the Bonapartist clique tossed away. Clemence felt quite ill

on hearing this, and Robine hurriedly gulped down a draught of beer, as

though to wash his throat. In Gavard’s opinion, the scraps of meat left

on the Emperor’s plate were so much political ordure, the putrid

remnants of all the filth of the reign. Thenceforth the party at

Monsieur Lebigre’s looked on Mademoiselle Saget as a creature whom no

one could touch except with tongs. She was regarded as some unclean

animal that battened upon corruption. Clemence and Gavard circulated

the story so freely in the markets that the old maid found herself

seriously injured in her intercourse with the shopkeepers, who

unceremoniously bade her go off to the scrap-stalls when she came to

haggle and gossip at their establishments without the least intention

of buying anything. This cut her off from her sources of information;

and sometimes she was altogether ignorant of what was happening. She

shed tears of rage, and in one such moment of anger she bluntly said to

La Sarriette and Madame Lecœur: “You needn’t give me any more hints:

I’ll settle your Gavard’s hash for him now—that I will!”

The two women were rather startled, but refrained from all

protestation. The next day, however, Mademoiselle Saget had calmed

down, and again expressed much tender-hearted pity for that poor

Monsieur Gavard who was so badly advised, and was certainly hastening

to his ruin.

Gavard was undoubtedly compromising himself. Ever since the conspiracy

had begun to ripen he had carried the revolver, which caused Madame

Leonce so much alarm, in his pocket wherever he went. It was a big,

formidable-looking weapon, which he had bought of the principal

gunmaker in Paris. He exhibited it to all the women in the poultry

market, like a schoolboy who has got some prohibited novel hidden in

his desk. First he would allow the barrel to peer out of his pocket,

and call attention to it with a wink. Then he affected a mysterious

reticence, indulged in vague hints and insinuations—played, in short,

the part of a man who revelled in feigning fear. The possession of this

revolver gave him immense importance, placed him definitely amongst the

dangerous characters of Paris. Sometimes, when he was safe inside his

stall, he would consent to take it out of his pocket, and exhibit it to

two or three of the women. He made them stand before him so as to

conceal him with their petticoats, and then he brandished the weapon,

cocked the lock, caused the breech to revolve, and took aim at one of

the geese or turkeys that were hanging in the stall. He was immensely

delighted at the alarm manifested by the women; but eventually

reassured them by stating that the revolver was not loaded. However, he

carried a supply of cartridges about with him, in a case which he

opened with the most elaborate precautions. When he had allowed his

friends to feel the weight of the cartridges, he would again place both

weapon and ammunition in his pockets. And afterwards, crossing his arms

over his breast, he would chatter away jubilantly for hours.

“A man’s a man when he’s got a weapon like that,” he would say with a

swaggering air. “I don’t care a fig now for the gendarmes. A friend and

I went to try it last Sunday on the plain of Saint Denis. Of course,

you know, a man doesn’t tell everyone that he’s got a plaything of that

sort. But, ah! my dears, we fired at a tree, and hit it every time. Ah,

you’ll see, you’ll see. You’ll hear of Anatole one of these days, I can

tell you.”

He had bestowed the name of Anatole upon the revolver; and he carried

things so far that in a week’s time both weapon and cartridges were

known to all the women in the pavilion. His friendship for Florent

seemed to them suspicious; he was too sleek and rich to be visited with

the hatred that was manifested towards the inspector; still, he lost

the esteem of the shrewder heads amongst his acquaintances, and

succeeded in terrifying the timid ones. This delighted him immensely.

“It is very imprudent for a man to carry firearms about with him,” said

Mademoiselle Saget. “Monsieur Gavard’s revolver will end by playing him

a nasty trick.”

Gavard now showed the most jubilant bearing at Monsieur Lebigre’s.

Florent, since ceasing to take his meals with the Quenus, had come

almost to live in the little “cabinet.” He breakfasted, dined, and

constantly shut himself up there. In fact he had converted the place

almost into a sort of private room of his own, where he left his old

coats and books and papers lying about. Monsieur Lebigre had offered no

objection to these proceedings; indeed, he had even removed one of the

tables to make room for a cushioned bench, on which Florent could have

slept had he felt so inclined. When the inspector manifested any

scruples about taking advantage of Monsieur Lebigre’s kindness, the

latter told him to do as he pleased, saying that the whole house was at

his service. Logre also manifested great friendship for him, and even

constituted himself his lieutenant. He was constantly discussing

affairs with him, rendering an account of the steps he was supposed to

take, and furnishing the names of newly affiliated associates. Logre,

indeed, had now assumed the duties of organiser; on him rested the task

of bringing the various plotters together, forming the different

sections, and weaving each mesh of the gigantic net into which Paris

was to fall at a given signal. Florent meantime remained the leader,

the soul of the conspiracy.

However, much as the hunchback seemed to toil, he attained no

appreciable result. Although he had loudly asserted that in each

district of Paris he knew two or three groups of men as determined and

trustworthy as those who met at Monsieur Lebigre’s, he had never yet

given any precise information about them, but had merely mentioned a

name here and there, and recounted stories of endless alleged secret

expeditions, and the wonderful enthusiasm that the people manifested

for the cause. He made a great point of the hand-grasps he had

received. So-and-so, whom he thou’d and thee’d, had squeezed his

fingers and declared he would join them. At the Gros Caillou a big,

burly fellow, who would make a magnificent sectional leader, had almost

dislocated his arm in his enthusiasm; while in the Rue Popincourt a

whole group of working men had embraced him. He declared that at a

day’s notice a hundred thousand active supporters could be gathered

together. Each time that he made his appearance in the little room,

wearing an exhausted air, and dropping with apparent fatigue on the

bench, he launched into fresh variations of his usual reports, while

Florent duly took notes of what he said, and relied on him to realise

his many promises. And soon in Florent’s pockets the plot assumed life.

The notes were looked upon as realities, as indisputable facts, upon

which the entire plan of the rising was constructed. All that now

remained to be done was to wait for a favourable opportunity, and Logre

asserted with passionate gesticulations that the whole thing would go

on wheels.

Florent was at last perfectly happy. His feet no longer seemed to tread

the ground; he was borne aloft by his burning desire to pass sentence

on all the wickedness he had seen committed. He had all the credulity

of a little child, all the confidence of a hero. If Logre had told him

that the Genius of Liberty perched on the Colonne de Juillet[*] would

have come down and set itself at their head, he would hardly have

expressed any surprise. In the evenings, at Monsieur Lebigre’s, he

showed great enthusiasm and spoke effusively of the approaching battle,

as though it were a festival to which all good and honest folks would

be invited. But although Gavard in his delight began to play with his

revolver, Charvet got more snappish than ever, and sniggered and

shrugged his shoulders. His rival’s assumption of the leadership

angered him extremely; indeed, quite disgusted him with politics. One

evening when, arriving early, he happened to find himself alone with

Logre and Lebigre, he frankly unbosomed himself.

[*] The column erected on the Place de la Bastille in memory of the

Revolution of July 1830, by which Charles X was dethroned.—Translator.

“Why,” said he, “that fellow Florent hasn’t an idea about politics, and

would have done far better to seek a berth as writing master in a

ladies’ school! It would be nothing short of a misfortune if he were to

succeed, for, with his visionary social sentimentalities, he would

crush us down beneath his confounded working men! It’s all that, you

know, which ruins the party. We don’t need any more tearful

sentimentalists, humanitarian poets, people who kiss and slobber over

each other for the merest scratch. But he won’t succeed! He’ll just get

locked up, and that will be the end of it.”

Logre and the wine dealer made no remark, but allowed Charvet to talk

on without interruption.

“And he’d have been locked up long ago,” he continued, “if he were

anything as dangerous as he fancies he is. The airs he puts on just

because he’s been to Cayenne are quite sickening. But I’m sure that the

police knew of his return the very first day he set foot in Paris, and

if they haven’t interfered with him it’s simply because they hold him

in contempt.”

At this Logre gave a slight start.

“They’ve been dogging me for the last fifteen years,” resumed the

Hébertist, with a touch of pride, “but you don’t hear me proclaiming it

from the house-tops. However, he won’t catch me taking part in his

riot. I’m not going to let myself be nabbed like a mere fool. I dare

say he’s already got half a dozen spies at his heels, who will take him

by the scruff of the neck whenever the authorities give the word.”

“Oh, dear, no! What an idea!” exclaimed Monsieur Lebigre, who usually

observed complete silence. He was rather pale, and looked at Logre, who

was gently rubbing his hump against the partition.

“That’s mere imagination,” murmured the hunchback.

“Very well; call it imagination, if you like,” replied the tutor; “but

I know how these things are arranged. At all events, I don’t mean to

let the ‘coppers’ nab me this time. You others, of course, will please

yourselves, but if you take my advice—and you especially, Monsieur

Lebigre—you’ll take care not to let your establishment be compromised,

or the authorities will close it.”

At this Logre could not restrain a smile. On several subsequent

occasions Charvet plied him and Lebigre with similar arguments, as

though he wished to detach them from Florent’s project by frightening

them; and he was much surprised at the calmness and confidence which

they both continued to manifest. For his own part, he still came pretty

regularly in the evening with Clemence. The tall brunette was no longer

a clerk at the fish auctions—Monsieur Manoury had discharged her.

“Those salesmen are all scoundrels!” Logre growled, when he heard of

her dismissal.

Thereupon Clemence, who, lolling back against the partition, was

rolling a cigarette between her long, slim fingers, replied in a sharp

voice: “Oh, it’s fair fighting! We don’t hold the same political views,

you know. That fellow Manoury, who’s making no end of money, would lick

the Emperor’s boots. For my part, if I were an auctioneer, I wouldn’t

keep him in my service for an hour.”

The truth was that she had been indulging in some clumsy pleasantry,

amusing herself one day by inscribing in the sale-book, alongside of

the dabs and skate and mackerel sold by auction, the names of some of

the best-known ladies and gentlemen of the Court. This bestowal of

piscine names upon high dignitaries, these entries of the sale of

duchesses and baronesses at thirty sous apiece, had caused Monsieur

Manoury much alarm. Gavard was still laughing over it.

“Well, never mind!” said he, patting Clemence’s arm; “you are every

inch a man, you are!”

Clemence had discovered a new method of mixing her grog. She began by

filling her glass with hot water; and after adding some sugar she

poured the rum drop by drop upon the slice of lemon floating on the

surface, in such wise that it did not mix with the water. Then she

lighted it and with a grave expression watched it blaze, slowly smoking

her cigarette while the flame of the alcohol cast a greenish tinge over

her face. “Grog,” however, was an expensive luxury in which she could

not afford to indulge after she had lost her place. Charvet told her,

with a strained laugh, that she was no longer a millionaire. She

supported herself by giving French lessons, at a very early hour in the

morning, to a young lady residing in the Rue de Miromesnil, who was

perfecting her education in secrecy, unknown even to her maid. And so

now Clemence merely ordered a glass of beer in the evenings, but this

she drank, it must be admitted, with the most philosophical composure.

The evenings in the little sanctum were now far less noisy than they

had been. Charvet would suddenly lapse into silence, pale with

suppressed rage, when the others deserted him to listen to his rival.

The thought that he had been the king of the place, had ruled the whole

party with despotic power before Florent’s appearance there, gnawed at

his heart, and he felt all the regretful pangs of a dethroned monarch.

If he still came to the meetings, it was only because he could not

resist the attraction of the little room where he had spent so many

happy hours in tyrannising over Gavard and Robine. In those days even

Logre’s hump had been his property, as well as Alexandre’s fleshy arms

and Lacaille’s gloomy face. He had done what he liked with them,

stuffed his opinions down their throats, belaboured their shoulders

with his sceptre. But now he endured much bitterness of spirit; and

ended by quite ceasing to speak, simply shrugging his shoulders and

whistling disdainfully, without condescending to combat the absurdities

vented in his presence. What exasperated him more than anything else

was the gradual way in which he had been ousted from his position of

predominance without being conscious of it. He could not see that

Florent was in any way his superior, and after hearing the latter speak

for hours, in his gentle and somewhat sad voice, he often remarked:

“Why, the fellow’s a parson! He only wants a cassock!”

The others, however, to all appearance eagerly absorbed whatever the

inspector said. When Charvet saw Florent’s clothes hanging from every

peg, he pretended not to know where he could put his hat so that it

would not be soiled. He swept away the papers that lay about the little

room, declaring that there was no longer any comfort for anyone in the

place since that “gentleman” had taken possession of it. He even

complained to the landlord, and asked if the room belonged to a single

customer or to the whole company. This invasion of his realm was indeed

the last straw. Men were brutes, and he conceived an unspeakable scorn

for humanity when he saw Logre and Monsieur Lebigre fixing their eyes

on Florent with rapt attention. Gavard with his revolver irritated him,

and Robine, who sat silent behind his glass of beer, seemed to him to

be the only sensible person in the company, and one who doubtless

judged people by their real value, and was not led away by mere words.

As for Alexandre and Lacaille, they confirmed him in his belief that

“the people” were mere fools, and would require at least ten years of

revolutionary dictatorship to learn how to conduct themselves.

Logre, however, declared that the sections would soon be completely

organised; and Florent began to assign the different parts that each

would have to play. One evening, after a final discussion in which he

again got worsted, Charvet rose up, took his hat, and exclaimed: “Well,

I’ll wish you all good night. You can get your skulls cracked if it

amuses you; but I would have you understand that I won’t take any part

in the business. I have never abetted anybody’s ambition.”

Clemence, who had also risen and was putting on her shawl, coldly

added: “The plan’s absurd.”

Then, as Robine sat watching their departure with a gentle glance,

Charvet asked him if he were not coming with them; but Robine, having

still some beer left in his glass, contented himself with shaking

hands. Charvet and Clemence never returned again; and Lacaille one day

informed the company that they now frequented a beer-house in the Rue

Serpente. He had seen them through the window, gesticulating with great

energy, in the midst of an attentive group of very young men.

Florent was never able to enlist Claude amongst his supporters. He had

once entertained the idea of gaining him over to his own political

views, of making a disciple of him, an assistant in his revolutionary

task; and in order to initiate him he had taken him one evening to

Monsieur Lebigre’s. Claude, however, spent the whole time in making a

sketch of Robine, in his hat and chestnut cloak, and with his beard

resting on the knob of his walking-stick.

“Really, you know,” he said to Florent, as they came away, “all that

you have been saying inside there doesn’t interest me in the least. It

may be very clever, but, for my own part, I see nothing in it. Still,

you’ve got a splendid fellow there, that blessed Robine. He’s as deep

as a well. I’ll come with you again some other time, but it won’t be

for politics. I shall make sketches of Logre and Gavard, so as to put

them with Robine in a picture which I was thinking about while you were

discussing the question of—what do you call it? eh? Oh, the question of

the two Chambers. Just fancy, now, a picture of Gavard and Logre and

Robine talking politics, entrenched behind their glasses of beer! It

would be the success of the Salon, my dear fellow, an overwhelming

success, a genuine modern picture!”

Florent was grieved by the artist’s political scepticism; so he took

him up to his bedroom, and kept him on the narrow balcony in front of

the bluish mass of the markets, till two o’clock in the morning,

lecturing him, and telling him that he was no man to show himself so

indifferent to the happiness of his country.

“Well, you’re perhaps right,” replied Claude, shaking his head; “I’m an

egotist. I can’t even say that I paint for the good of my country; for,

in the first place, my sketches frighten everybody, and then, when I’m

busy painting, I think about nothing but the pleasure I take in it.

When I’m painting, it is as though I were tickling myself; it makes me

laugh all over my body. Well, I can’t help it, you know; it’s my nature

to be like that; and you can’t expect me to go and drown myself in

consequence. Besides, France can get on very well without me, as my

aunt Lisa says. And—may I be quite frank with you?—if I like you it’s

because you seem to me to follow politics just as I follow painting.

You titillate yourself, my good friend.”

Then, as Florent protested, he continued:

“Yes, yes; you are an artist in your own way; you dream of politics,

and I’ll wager you spend hours here at night gazing at the stars and

imagining they are the voting-papers of infinity. And then you

titillate yourself with your ideas of truth and justice; and this is so

evidently the case that those ideas of yours cause just as much alarm

to commonplace middle-class folks as my sketches do. Between ourselves,

now, do you imagine that if you were Robine I should take any pleasure

in your friendship? Ah, no, my friend, you are a great poet!”

Then he began to joke on the subject, saying that politics caused him

no trouble, and that he had got accustomed to hear people discussing

them in beer shops and studios. This led him to speak of a café in the

Rue Vauvilliers; the café on the ground-floor of the house where La

Sarriette lodged. This smoky place, with its torn, velvet-cushioned

seats, and marble table-tops discoloured by the drippings from

coffee-cups, was the chief resort of the young people of the markets.

Monsieur Jules reigned there over a company of porters, apprentices,

and gentlemen in white blouses and velvet caps. Two curling “Newgate

knockers” were glued against his temples; and to keep his neck white he

had it scraped with a razor every Saturday at a hair-dresser’s in the

Rue des Deux Ecus. At the café he gave the tone to his associates,

especially when he played billiards with studied airs and graces,

showing off his figure to the best advantage. After the game the

company would begin to chat. They were a very reactionary set, taking a

delight in the doings of “society.” For his part, Monsieur Jules read

the lighter boulevardian newspapers, and knew the performers at the

smaller theatres, talked familiarly of the celebrities of the day, and

could always tell whether the piece first performed the previous

evening had been a success or a failure. He had a weakness, however,

for politics. His ideal man was Morny, as he curtly called him. He read

the reports of the discussions of the Corps Législatif, and laughed

with glee over the slightest words that fell from Morny’s lips. Ah,

Morny was the man to sit upon your rascally republicans! And he would

assert that only the scum detested the Emperor, for his Majesty desired

that all respectable people should have a good time of it.

“I’ve been to the café occasionally,” Claude said to Florent. “The

young men there are vastly amusing, with their clay pipes and their

talk about the Court balls! To hear them chatter you might almost fancy

they were invited to the Tuileries. La Sarriette’s young man was making

great fun of Gavard the other evening. He called him uncle. When La

Sarriette came downstairs to look for him she was obliged to pay his

bill. It cost her six francs, for he had lost at billiards, and the

drinks they had played for were owing. And now, good night, my friend,

and pleasant dreams. If ever you become a Minister, I’ll give you some

hints on the beautifying of Paris.”

Florent was obliged to relinquish the hope of making a docile disciple

of Claude. This was a source of grief to him, for, blinded though he

was by his fanatical ardour, he at last grew conscious of the

ever-increasing hostility which surrounded him. Even at the Mehudins’

he now met with a colder reception: the old woman would laugh slyly;

Muche no longer obeyed him, and the beautiful Norman cast glances of

hasty impatience at him, unable as she was to overcome his coldness. At

the Quenus’, too, he had lost Auguste’s friendship. The assistant no

longer came to see him in his room on the way to bed, being greatly

alarmed by the reports which he heard concerning this man with whom he

had previously shut himself up till midnight. Augustine had made her

lover swear that he would never again be guilty of such imprudence;

however, it was Lisa who turned the young man into Florent’s determined

enemy by begging him and Augustine to defer their marriage till her

cousin should vacate the little bedroom at the top of the house, as she

did not want to give that poky dressing-room on the first floor to the

new shop girl whom she would have to engage. From that time forward

Auguste was anxious that the “convict” should be arrested. He had found

such a pork shop as he had long dreamed of, not at Plaisance certainly,

but at Montrouge, a little farther away. And now trade had much

improved, and Augustine, with her silly, overgrown girl’s laugh, said

that she was quite ready. So every night, whenever some slight noise

awoke him, August was thrilled with delight as he imagined that the

police were at last arresting Florent.

Nothing was said at the Quenu-Gradelles’ about all the rumours which

circulated. There was a tacit understanding amongst the staff of the

pork shop to keep silent respecting them in the presence of Quenu. The

latter, somewhat saddened by the falling-out between his brother and

his wife, sought consolation in stringing his sausages and salting his

pork. Sometimes he would come and stand on his door-step, with his red

face glowing brightly above his white apron, which his increasing

corpulence stretched quite taut, and never did he suspect all the

gossip which his appearance set on foot in the markets. Some of the

women pitied him, and thought that he was losing flesh, though he was,

indeed, stouter than ever; while others, on the contrary, reproached

him for not having grown thin with shame at having such a brother as

Florent. He, however, like one of those betrayed husbands who are

always the last to know what has befallen them, continued in happy

ignorance, displaying a light-heartedness which was quite affecting. He

would stop some neighbour’s wife on the footway to ask her if she found

his brawn or truffled boar’s head to her liking, and she would at once

assume a sympathetic expression, and speak in a condoling way, as

though all the pork on his premises had got jaundice.

“What do they all mean by looking at me with such a funereal air?” he

asked Lisa one day. “Do you think I’m looking ill?”

Lisa, well aware that he was terribly afraid of illness, and groaned

and made a dreadful disturbance if he suffered the slightest ailment,

reassured him on this point, telling him that he was as blooming as a

rose. The fine pork shop, however, was becoming gloomy; the mirrors

seemed to pale, the marbles grew frigidly white, and the cooked meats

on the counter stagnated in yellow fat or lakes of cloudy jelly. One

day, even, Claude came into the shop to tell his aunt that the display

in the window looked quite “in the dumps.” This was really the truth.

The Strasburg tongues on their beds of blue paper-shavings had a

melancholy whiteness of hue, like the tongues of invalids; and the

whilom chubby hams seemed to be wasting away beneath their mournful

green top-knots. Inside the shop, too, when customers asked for a

black-pudding or ten sous’ worth of bacon, or half a pound of lard,

they spoke in subdued, sorrowful voices, as though they were in the

bed-chamber of a dying man. There were always two or three lachrymose

women in front of the chilled heating-pan. Beautiful Lisa meantime

discharged the duties of chief mourner with silent dignity. Her white

apron fell more primly than ever over her black dress. Her hands,

scrupulously clean and closely girded at the wrists by long white

sleevelets, her face with its becoming air of sadness, plainly told all

the neighbourhood, all the inquisitive gossips who streamed into the

shop from morning to night, that they, the Quenu-Gradelles, were

suffering from unmerited misfortune, but that she knew the cause of it,

and would triumph over it at last. And sometimes she stooped to look at

the two gold-fish, who also seemed ill at ease as they swam languidly

around the aquarium in the window, and her glance seemed to promise

them better days in the future.

Beautiful Lisa now only allowed herself one indulgence. She fearlessly

patted Marjolin’s satiny chin. The young man had just come out of the

hospital. His skull had healed, and he looked as fat and merry as ever;

but even the little intelligence he had possessed had left him, he was

now quite an idiot. The gash in his skull must have reached his brain,

for he had become a mere animal. The mind of a child of five dwelt in

his sturdy frame. He laughed and stammered, he could no longer

pronounce his words properly, and he was as submissively obedient as a

sheep. Cadine took entire possession of him again; surprised, at first,

at the alteration in him, and then quite delighted at having this big

fellow to do exactly as she liked with. He was her doll, her toy, her

slave in all respects but one: she could not prevent him from going off

to Madame Quenu’s every now and then. She thumped him, but he did not

seem to feel her blows; as soon as she had slung her basket round her

neck, and set off to sell her violets in the Rue du Pont Neuf and the

Rue de Turbigo, he went to prowl about in front of the pork shop.

“Come in!” Lisa cried to him.

She generally gave him some gherkins, of which he was extremely fond;

and he ate them, laughing in a childish way, whilst he stood in front

of the counter. The sight of the handsome mistress of the shop filled

him with rapture; he often clapped his hands with joy and began to jump

about and vent little cries of pleasure, like a child delighted at

something shown to it. On the first few occasions when he came to see

her after leaving the hospital Lisa had feared that he might remember

what had happened.

“Does your head still hurt you?” she asked him.

But he swayed about and burst into a merry laugh as he answered no; and

then Lisa gently inquired: “You had a fall, hadn’t you?”

“Yes, a fall, fall, fall,” he sang, in a happy voice, tapping his skull

the while.

Then, as though he were in a sort of ecstasy, he continued in lingering

notes, as he gazed at Lisa, “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!” This

quite touched Madame Quenu. She had prevailed upon Gavard to keep him

in his service. It was on the occasions when he so humbly vented his

admiration that she caressed his chin, and told him that he was a good

lad. He smiled with childish satisfaction, at times closing his eyes

like some domestic pet fondled by its mistress; and Lisa thought to

herself that she was making him some compensation for the blow with

which she had felled him in the cellar of the poultry market.

However, the Quenus’ establishment still remained under a cloud.

Florent sometimes ventured to show himself, and shook hands with his

brother, while Lisa observed a frigid silence. He even dined with them

sometimes on Sundays, at long intervals, and Quenu then made great

efforts at gaiety, but could not succeed in imparting any cheerfulness

to the meal. He ate badly, and ended by feeling altogether put out. One

evening, after one of these icy family gatherings, he said to his wife

with tears in his eyes:

“What can be the matter with me? Is it true that I’m not ill? Don’t you

really see anything wrong in my appearance? I feel just as though I’d

got a heavy weight somewhere inside me. And I’m so sad and depressed,

too, without in the least knowing why. What can it be, do you think?”

“Oh, a little attack of indigestion, I dare say,” replied Lisa.

“No, no; it’s been going on too long for that; I feel quite crushed

down. Yet the business is going on all right; I’ve no great worries,

and I am leading just the same steady life as ever. But you, too, my

dear, don’t look well; you seem melancholy. If there isn’t a change for

the better soon, I shall send for the doctor.”

Lisa looked at him with a grave expression.

“There’s no need of a doctor,” she said, “things will soon be all right

again. There’s something unhealthy in the atmosphere just now. All the

neighbourhood is unwell.” Then, as if yielding to an impulse of anxious

affection, she added: “Don’t worry yourself, my dear. I can’t have you

falling ill; that would be the crowning blow.”

As a rule she sent him back to the kitchen, knowing that the noise of

the choppers, the tuneful simmering of the fat, and the bubbling of the

pans had a cheering effect upon him. In this way, too, she kept him at

a distance from the indiscreet chatter of Mademoiselle Saget, who now

spent whole mornings in the shop. The old maid seemed bent on arousing

Lisa’s alarm, and thus driving her to some extreme step. She began by

trying to obtain her confidence.

“What a lot of mischievous folks there are about!” she exclaimed;

“folks who would be much better employed in minding their own business.

If you only knew, my dear Madame Quenu—but no, really, I should never

dare to repeat such things to you.”

And, as Madame Quenu replied that she was quite indifferent to gossip,

and that it had no effect upon her, the old maid whispered into her ear

across the counter: “Well, people say, you know, that Monsieur Florent

isn’t your cousin at all.”

Then she gradually allowed Lisa to see that she knew the whole story;

by way of proving that she had her quite at her mercy. When Lisa

confessed the truth, equally as a matter of diplomacy, in order that

she might have the assistance of some one who would keep her well

posted in all the gossip of the neighbourhood, the old maid swore that

for her own part she would be as mute as a fish, and deny the truth of

the reports about Florent, even if she were to be led to the stake for

it. And afterwards this drama brought her intense enjoyment; every

morning she came to the shop with some fresh piece of disturbing news.

“You must be careful,” she whispered one day; “I have just heard two

women in the tripe market talking about you know what. I can’t

interrupt people and tell them they are lying, you know. It would look

so strange. But the story’s got about, and it’s spreading farther every

day. It can’t be stopped now, I fear; the truth will have to come out.”

A few days later she returned to the assault in all earnest. She made

her appearance looking quite scared, and waited impatiently till there

was no one in the shop, when she burst out in her sibilant voice:

“Do you know what people are saying now? Well, they say that all those

men who meet at Monsieur Lebigre’s have got guns, and are going to

break out again as they did in ‘48. It’s quite distressing to see such

a worthy man as Monsieur Gavard—rich, too, and so respectable—leaguing

himself with such scoundrels! I was very anxious to let you know, on

account of your brother-in-law.”

“Oh, it’s mere nonsense, I’m sure; it can’t be serious,” rejoined Lisa,

just to incite the old maid to tell her more.

“Not serious, indeed! Why, when one passes along the Rue Pirouette in

the evening one can hear them screaming out in the most dreadful way.

Oh! they make no mystery of it all. You know yourself how they tried to

corrupt your husband. And the cartridges which I have seen them making

from my own window, are they mere nonsense? Well, well, I’m only

telling you this for your own good.”

“Oh! I’m sure of that, and I’m very much obliged to you,” replied Lisa;

“but people do invent such stories, you know.”

“Ah, but this is no invention, unfortunately. The whole neighbourhood

is talking of it. It is said, too, that if the police discover the

matter there will be a great many people compromised—Monsieur Gavard,

for instance.”

Madame Quenu shrugged her shoulders as though to say that Monsieur

Gavard was an old fool, and that it would do him good to be locked up.

“Well, I merely mention Monsieur Gavard as I might mention any of the

others, your brother-in-law, for instance,” resumed the old maid with a

wily glance. “Your brother-in-law is the leader, it seems. That’s very

annoying for you, and I’m very sorry indeed; for if the police were to

make a descent here they might march Monsieur Quenu off as well. Two

brothers, you know, they’re like two fingers of the same hand.”

Beautiful Lisa protested against this, but she turned very pale, for

Mademoiselle Saget’s last thrust had touched a vulnerable point. From

that day forward the old maid was ever bringing her stories of innocent

people who had been thrown into prison for extending hospitality to

criminal scoundrels. In the evening, when La Saget went to get her

black-currant syrup at the wine dealer’s, she prepared her budget for

the next morning. Rose was but little given to gossiping, and the old

main reckoned chiefly on her own eyes and ears. She had been struck by

Monsieur Lebigre’s extremely kind and obliging manner towards Florent,

his eagerness to keep him at his establishment, all the polite

civilities, for which the little money which the other spent in the

house could never recoup him. And this conduct of Monsieur Lebigre’s

surprised her the more as she was aware of the position in which the

two men stood in respect to the beautiful Norman.

“It looks as though Lebigre were fattening him up for sale,” she

reflected. “Whom can he want to sell him to, I wonder?”

One evening when she was in the bar she saw Logre fling himself on the

bench in the sanctum, and heard him speak of his perambulations through

the faubourgs, with the remark that he was dead beat. She cast a hasty

glance at his feet, and saw that there was not a speck of dust on his

boots. Then she smiled quietly, and went off with her black-currant

syrup, her lips closely compressed.

She used to complete her budget of information on getting back to her

window. It was very high up, commanding a view of all the neighbouring

houses, and proved a source of endless enjoyment to her. She was

constantly installed at it, as though it were an observatory from which

she kept watch upon everything that went on in the neighbourhood. She

was quite familiar with all the rooms opposite her, both on the right

and the left, even to the smallest details of their furniture. She

could have described, without the least omission, the habits of their

tenants, have related if the latter’s homes were happy or the contrary,

have told when and how they washed themselves, what they had for

dinner, and who it was that came to see them. Then she obtained a side

view of the markets, and not a woman could walk along the Rue Rambuteau

without being seen by her; and she could have correctly stated whence

the woman had come and whither she was going, what she had got in her

basket, and, in short, every detail about her, her husband, her

clothes, her children, and her means. “That’s Madame Loret, over there;

she’s giving her son a fine education; that’s Madame Hutin, a poor

little woman who’s dreadfully neglected by her husband; that’s

Mademoiselle Cecile, the butcher’s daughter, a girl that no one will

marry because she’s scrofulous.” In this way she could have continued

jerking out biographical scraps for days together, deriving

extraordinary amusement from the most trivial, uninteresting incidents.

However, as soon as eight o’clock struck, she only had eyes for the

frosted “cabinet” window on which appeared the black shadows of the

coterie of politicians. She discovered the secession of Charvet and

Clemence by missing their bony silhouettes from the milky transparency.

Not an incident occurred in that room but she sooner or later learnt it

by some sudden motion of those silent arms and heads. She acquired

great skill in interpretation, and could divine the meaning of

protruding noses, spreading fingers, gaping mouths, and shrugging

shoulders; and in this way she followed the progress of the conspiracy

step by step, in such wise that she could have told day by day how

matters stood. One evening the terrible outcome of it all was revealed

to her. She saw the shadow of Gavard’s revolver, a huge silhouette with

pointed muzzle showing very blackly against the glimmering window. It

kept appearing and disappearing so rapidly that it seemed as though the

room was full of revolvers. Those were the firearms of which

Mademoiselle Saget had spoken to Madame Quenu. On another evening she

was much puzzled by the sight of endless lengths of some material or

other, and came to the conclusion that the men must be manufacturing

cartridges. The next morning, however, she made her appearance in the

wine shop by eleven o’clock, on the pretext of asking Rose if she could

let her have a candle, and, glancing furtively into the little sanctum,

she espied a heap of red material lying on the table. This greatly

alarmed her, and her next budget of news was one of decisive gravity.

“I don’t want to alarm you, Madame Quenu,” she said, “but matters are

really looking very serious. Upon my word, I’m quite alarmed. You must

on no account repeat what I am going to confide to you. They would

murder me if they knew I had told you.”

Then, when Lisa had sworn to say nothing that might compromise her, she

told her about the red material.

“I can’t think what it can be. There was a great heap of it. It looked

just like rags soaked in blood. Logre, the hunchback, you know, put one

of the pieces over his shoulder. He looked like a headsman. You may be

sure this is some fresh trickery or other.”

Lisa made no reply, but seemed deep in thought whilst with lowered

eyes, she handled a fork and mechanically arranged some piece of salt

pork on a dish.

“If I were you,” resumed Mademoiselle Saget softly, “I shouldn’t be

easy in mind; I should want to know the meaning of it all. Why

shouldn’t you go upstairs and examine your brother-in-law’s bedroom?”

At this Lisa gave a slight start, let the fork drop, and glanced

uneasily at the old maid, believing that she had discovered her

intentions. But the other continued: “You would certainly be justified

in doing so. There’s no knowing into what danger your brother-in-law

may lead you, if you don’t put a check on him. They were talking about

you yesterday at Madame Taboureau’s. Ah! you have a most devoted friend

in her. Madame Taboureau said that you were much too easy-going, and

that if she were you she would have put an end to all this long ago.”

“Madame Taboureau said that?” murmured Lisa thoughtfully.

“Yes, indeed she did; and Madame Taboureau is a woman whose advice is

worth listening to. Try to find out the meaning of all those red bands;

and if you do, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”

Lisa, however, was no longer listening to her. She was gazing

abstractedly at the edible snails and Gervais cheeses between the

festoons of sausages in the window. She seemed absorbed in a mental

conflict, which brought two little furrows to her brow. The old maid,

however, poked her nose over the dishes on the counter.

“Ah, some slices of saveloy!” she muttered, as though she were speaking

to herself. “They’ll get very dry cut up like that. And that

black-pudding’s broken, I see—a fork’s been stuck into it, I expect. It

might be taken away—it’s soiling the dish.”

Lisa, still absent-minded, gave her the black-pudding and slices of

saveloy. “You may take them,” she said, “if you would care for them.”

The black bag swallowed them up. Mademoiselle Saget was so accustomed

to receiving presents that she had actually ceased to return thanks for

them. Every morning she carried away all the scraps of the pork shop.

And now she went off with the intention of obtaining her dessert from

La Sarriette and Madame Lecœur, by gossiping to them about Gavard.

When Lisa was alone again she installed herself on the bench, behind

the counter, as though she thought she would be able to come to a

sounder decision if she were comfortably seated. For the last week she

had been very anxious. Florent had asked Quenu for five hundred francs

one evening, in the easy, matter-of-course way of a man who had money

lying to his credit at the pork shop. Quenu referred him to his wife.

This was distasteful to Florent, who felt somewhat uneasy on applying

to beautiful Lisa. But she immediately went up to her bedroom, brought

the money down and gave it to him, without saying a word, or making the

least inquiry as to what he intended to do with it. She merely remarked

that she had made a note of the payment on the paper containing the

particulars of Florent’s share of the inheritance. Three days later he

took a thousand francs.

“It was scarcely worth while trying to make himself out so

disinterested,” Lisa said to Quenu that night, as they went to bed. “I

did quite right, you see, in keeping the account. By the way, I haven’t

noted down the thousand francs I gave him to-day.”

She sat down at the secrétaire, and glanced over the page of figures.

Then she added: “I did well to leave a blank space. I’ll put down what

I pay him on the margin. You’ll see, now, he’ll fritter it all away by

degrees. That’s what I’ve been expecting for a long time past.”

Quenu said nothing, but went to bed feeling very much put out. Every

time that his wife opened the secrétaire the drawer gave out a mournful

creak which pierced his heart. He even thought of remonstrating with

his brother, and trying to prevent him from ruining himself with the

Mehudins; but when the time came, he did not dare to do it. Two days

later Florent asked for another fifteen hundred francs. Logre had said

one evening that things would ripen much faster if they could only get

some money. The next day he was enchanted to find these words of his,

uttered quite at random, result in the receipt of a little pile of

gold, which he promptly pocketed, sniggering as he did so, and his

hunch fairly shaking with delight. From that time forward money was

constantly being needed: one section wished to hire a room where they

could meet, while another was compelled to provide for various needy

patriots. Then there were arms and ammunition to be purchased, men to

be enlisted, and private police expenses. Florent would have paid for

anything. He had bethought himself of Uncle Gradelle’s treasure, and

recalled La Normande’s advice. So he made repeated calls upon Lisa’s

secrétaire, being merely kept in check by the vague fear with which his

sister-in-law’s grave face inspired him. Never, thought he, could he

have spent his money in a holier cause. Logre now manifested the

greatest enthusiasm, and wore the most wonderful rose-coloured

neckerchiefs and the shiniest of varnished boots, the sight of which

made Lacaille glower blackly.

“That makes three thousand francs in seven days,” Lisa remarked to

Quenu. “What do you think of that? A pretty state of affairs, isn’t it?

If he goes on at this rate his fifty thousand francs will last him

barely four months. And yet it took old Gradelle forty years to put his

fortune together!”

“It’s all your own fault!” cried Quenu. “There was no occasion for you

to say anything to him about the money.”

Lisa gave her husband a severe glance. “It is his own,” she said; “and

he is entitled to take it all. It’s not the giving him the money that

vexes me, but the knowledge that he must make a bad use of it. I tell

you again, as I have been telling you for a long time past, all this

must come to an end.”

“Do whatever you like; I won’t prevent you,” at last exclaimed the pork

butcher, who was tortured by his cupidity.

He still loved his brother; but the thought of fifty thousand francs

squandered in four months was agony to him. As for his wife, after all

Mademoiselle Saget’s chattering she guessed what became of the money.

The old maid having ventured to refer to the inheritance, Lisa had

taken advantage of the opportunity to let the neighbourhood know that

Florent was drawing his share, and spending it after his own fashion.

It was on the following day that the story of the strips of red

material impelled Lisa to take definite action. For a few moments she

remained struggling with herself whilst gazing at the depressed

appearance of the shop. The sides of pork hung all around in a sullen

fashion, and Mouton, seated beside a bowl of fat, displayed the ruffled

coat and dim eyes of a cat who no longer digests his meals in peace.

Thereupon Lisa called to Augustine and told her to attend to the

counter, and she herself went up to Florent’s room.

When she entered it, she received quite a shock. The bed, hitherto so

spotless, was quite ensanguined by a bundle of long red scarves

dangling down to the floor. On the mantelpiece, between the gilt

cardboard boxes and the old pomatum-pots, were several red armlets and

clusters of red cockades, looking like pools of blood. And hanging from

every nail and peg against the faded grey wallpaper were pieces of

bunting, square flags—yellow, blue, green, and black—in which Lisa

recognised the distinguishing banners of the twenty sections. The

childish simplicity of the room seemed quite scared by all this

revolutionary decoration. The aspect of guileless stupidity which the

shop girl had left behind her, the white innocence of the curtains and

furniture, now glared as with the reflection of a fire; while the

photograph of Auguste and Augustine looked white with terror. Lisa

walked round the room, examining the flags, the armlets, and the

scarves, without touching any of them, as though she feared that the

dreadful things might burn her. She was reflecting that she had not

been mistaken, that it was indeed on these and similar things that

Florent’s money had been spent. And to her this seemed an utter

abomination, an incredibility which set her whole being surging with

indignation. To think that her money, that money which had been so

honestly earned, was being squandered to organise and defray the

expenses of an insurrection!

She stood there, gazing at the expanded blossoms of the pomegranate on

the balcony—blossoms which seemed to her like an additional supply of

crimson cockades—and listening to the sharp notes of the chaffinch,

which resembled the echo of a distant fusillade. And then it struck her

that the insurrection might break out the next day, or perhaps that

very evening. She fancied she could see the banners streaming in the

air and the scarves advancing in line, while a sudden roll of drums

broke on her ear. Then she hastily went downstairs again, without even

glancing at the papers which were lying on the table. She stopped on

the first floor, went into her own room, and dressed herself.

In this critical emergency Lisa arranged her hair with scrupulous care

and perfect calmness. She was quite resolute; not a quiver of

hesitation disturbed her; but a sterner expression than usual had come

into her eyes. As she fastened her black silk dress, straining the

waistband with all the strength of her fingers, she recalled Abbé

Roustan’s words; and she questioned herself, and her conscience

answered that she was going to fulfil a duty. By the time she drew her

broidered shawl round her broad shoulders, she felt that she was about

to perform a deed of high morality. She put on a pair of dark mauve

gloves, secured a thick veil to her bonnet; and before leaving the room

she double-locked the secrétaire, with a hopeful expression on her face

which seemed to say that that much worried piece of furniture would at

last be able to sleep in peace again.

Quenu was exhibiting his white paunch at the shop door when his wife

came down. He was surprised to see her going out in full dress at ten

o’clock in the morning. “Hallo! Where are you off to?” he asked.

She pretended that she was going out with Madame Taboureau, and added

that she would call at the Gaité Theatre to buy some tickets. Quenu

hurried after her to tell her to secure some front seats, so that they

might be able to see well. Then, as he returned to the shop, Lisa made

her way to the cab-stand opposite St. Eustache, got into a cab, pulled

down the blinds, and told the driver to go to the Gaité Theatre. She

felt afraid of being followed. When she had booked two seats, however,

she directed the cabman to drive her to the Palais de Justice. There,

in front of the gate, she discharged him, and then quietly made her way

through the halls and corridors to the Prefecture of Police.

She soon lost herself in a noisy crowd of police officers and gentlemen

in long frock-coats, but at last gave a man half a franc to guide her

to the Prefect’s rooms. She found, however, that the Prefect only

received such persons as came with letters of audience; and she was

shown into a small apartment, furnished after the style of a

boarding-house parlour. A fat, bald-headed official, dressed in black

from head to foot, received her there with sullen coldness. What was

her business? he inquired. Thereupon she raised her veil, gave her

name, and told her story, clearly and distinctly, without a pause. The

bald man listened with a weary air.

“You are this man’s sister-in-law, are you not?” he inquired, when she

had finished.

“Yes,” Lisa candidly replied. “We are honest, straight-forward people,

and I am anxious that my husband should not be compromised.”

The official shrugged his shoulders, as though to say that the whole

affair was a great nuisance.

“Do you know,” he said impatiently, “that I have been pestered with

this business for more than a year past? Denunciation after

denunciation has been sent to me, and I am being continually goaded and

pressed to take action. You will understand that if I haven’t done so

as yet, it is because I prefer to wait. We have good reasons for our

conduct in the matter. Stay, now, here are the papers relating to it.

I’ll let you see them.”

He laid before her an immense collection of papers in a blue wrapper.

Lisa turned them over. They were like detached chapters of the story

she had just been relating. The commissaires of police at Havre, Rouen,

and Vernon notified Florent’s arrival within their respective

jurisdictions. Then came a report which announced that he had taken up

his residence with the Quenu-Gradelles. Next followed his appointment

at the markets, an account of his mode of life, the spending of his

evenings at Monsieur Lebigre’s; not a detail was deficient. Lisa, quite

astounded as she was, noticed that the reports were in duplicate, so

that they must have emanated from two different sources. And at last

she came upon a pile of letters, anonymous letters of every shape, and

in every description of handwriting. They brought her amazement to a

climax. In one letter she recognised the villainous hand of

Mademoiselle Saget, denouncing the people who met in the little sanctum

at Lebigre’s. On a large piece of greasy paper she identified the heavy

pot-hooks of Madame Lecœur; and there was also a sheet of cream-laid

note-paper, ornamented with a yellow pansy, and covered with the

scrawls of La Sarriette and Monsieur Jules. These two letters warned

the Government to beware of Gavard. Farther on Lisa recognised the

coarse style of old Madame Mehudin, who in four pages of almost

indecipherable scribble repeated all the wild stories about Florent

that circulated in the markets. However, what startled her more than

anything else was the discovery of a bill-head of her own

establishment, with the inscription _Quenu-Gradelle, Pork Butcher_, on

its face, whilst on the back of it Auguste had penned a denunciation of

the man whom he looked upon as an obstacle to his marriage.

The official had acted upon a secret idea in placing these papers

before her. “You don’t recognise any of these handwritings, do you?” he

asked.

“No,” she stammered, rising from her seat, quite oppressed by what she

had just learned; and she hastily pulled down her veil again to conceal

the blush of confusion which was rising to her cheeks. Her silk dress

rustled, and her dark gloves disappeared beneath her heavy shawl.

“You see, madame,” said the bald man with a faint smile, “your

information comes a little late. But I promise you that your visit

shall not be forgotten. And tell your husband not to stir. It is

possible that something may happen soon that——”

He did not complete his sentence, but, half rising from his armchair,

made a slight bow to Lisa. It was a dismissal, and she took her leave.

In the ante-room she caught sight of Logre and Monsieur Lebigre, who

hastily turned their faces away; but she was more disturbed than they

were. She went her way through the halls and along the corridors,

feeling as if she were in the clutches of this system of police which,

it now seemed to her, saw and knew everything. At last she came out

upon the Place Dauphine. When she reached the Quai de l’Horloge she

slackened her steps, and felt refreshed by the cool breeze blowing from

the Seine.

She now had a keen perception of the utter uselessness of what she had

done. Her husband was in no danger whatever; and this thought, whilst

relieving her, left her a somewhat remorseful feeling. She was

exasperated with Auguste and the women who had put her in such a

ridiculous position. She walked on yet more slowly, watching the Seine

as it flowed past. Barges, black with coal-dust, were floating down the

greenish water; and all along the bank anglers were casting their

lines. After all, it was not she who had betrayed Florent. This

reflection suddenly occurred to her and astonished her. Would she have

been guilty of a wicked action, then, if she had been his betrayer? She

was quite perplexed; surprised at the possibility of her conscience

having deceived her. Those anonymous letters seemed extremely base. She

herself had gone openly to the authorities, given her name, and saved

innocent people from being compromised. Then at the sudden thought of

old Gradelle’s fortune she again examined herself, and felt ready to

throw the money into the river if such a course should be necessary to

remove the blight which had fallen on the pork shop. No, she was not

avaricious, she was sure she wasn’t; it was no thought of money that

had prompted her in what she had just done. As she crossed the Pont au

Change she grew quite calm again, recovering all her superb equanimity.

On the whole, it was much better, she felt, that others should have

anticipated her at the Prefecture. She would not have to deceive Quenu,

and she would sleep with an easier conscience.

“Have you booked the seats?” Quenu asked her when she returned home.

He wanted to see the tickets, and made Lisa explain to him the exact

position the seats occupied in the dress-circle. Lisa had imagined that

the police would make a descent upon the house immediately after

receiving her information, and her proposal to go to the theatre had

only been a wily scheme for getting Quenu out of the way while the

officers were arresting Florent. She had contemplated taking him for an

outing in the afternoon—one of those little jaunts which they

occasionally allowed themselves. They would then drive in an open cab

to the Bois de Boulogne, dine at a restaurant, and amuse themselves for

an hour or two at some café concern. But there was no need to go out

now, she thought; so she spent the rest of the day behind her counter,

with a rosy glow on her face, and seeming brighter and gayer, as though

she were recovering from some indisposition.

“You see, I told you it was fresh air you wanted!” exclaimed Quenu.

“Your walk this morning has brightened you up wonderfully!”

“No, indeed,” she said after a pause, again assuming her look of

severity; “the streets of Paris are not at all healthy places.”

In the evening they went to the Gaité to see the performance of “La

Grâce de Dieu.” Quenu, in a frock-coat and drab gloves, with his hair

carefully pomatumed and combed, was occupied most of the time in

hunting for the names of the performers in the programme. Lisa looked

superb in her low dress as she rested her hands in their tight-fitting

white gloves on the crimson velvet balustrade. They were both of them

deeply affected by the misfortunes of Marie. The commander, they

thought, was certainly a desperate villain; while Pierrot made them

laugh from the first moment of his appearance on the stage. But at last

Madame Quenu cried. The departure of the child, the prayer in the

maiden’s chamber, the return of the poor mad creature, moistened her

eyes with gentle tears, which she brushed away with her handkerchief.

However, the pleasure which the evening afforded her turned into a

feeling of triumph when she caught sight of La Normande and her mother

sitting in the upper gallery. She thereupon puffed herself out more

than ever, sent Quenu off to the refreshment bar for a box of caramels,

and began to play with her fan, a mother-of-pearl fan, elaborately

gilt. The fish-girl was quite crushed; and bent her head down to listen

to her mother, who was whispering to her. When the performance was over

and beautiful Lisa and the beautiful Norman met in the vestibule they

exchanged a vague smile.

Florent had dined early at Monsieur Lebigre’s that day. He was

expecting Logre, who had promised to introduce to him a retired

sergeant, a capable man, with whom they were to discuss the plan of

attack upon the Palais Bourbon and the Hôtel de Ville. The night closed

in, and the fine rain, which had begun to fall in the afternoon,

shrouded the vast markets in a leaden gloom. They loomed darkly against

the copper-tinted sky, while wisps of murky cloud skimmed by almost on

a level with the roofs, looking as though they were caught and torn by

the points of the lightning-conductors. Florent felt depressed by the

sight of the muddy streets, and the streaming yellowish rain which

seemed to sweep the twilight away and extinguish it in the mire. He

watched the crowds of people who had taken refuge on the foot-pavements

of the covered ways, the umbrellas flitting past in the downpour, and

the cabs that dashed with increased clatter and speed along the

wellnigh deserted roads. Presently there was a rift in the clouds; and

a red glow arose in the west. Then a whole army of street-sweepers came

into sight at the end of the Rue Montmartre, driving a lake of liquid

mud before them with their brooms.

Logre did not turn up with the sergeant; Gavard had gone to dine with

some friends at Batignolles, and so Florent was reduced to spending the

evening alone with Robine. He had all the talking to himself, and ended

by feeling very low-spirited. His companion merely wagged his beard,

and stretched out his hand every quarter of an hour to raise his glass

of beer to his lips. At last Florent grew so bored that he went off to

bed. Robine, however, though left to himself, still lingered there,

contemplating his glass with an expression of deep thought. Rose and

the waiter, who had hoped to shut up early, as the coterie of

politicians was absent, had to wait a long half hour before he at last

made up his mind to leave.

When Florent got to his room, he felt afraid to go to bed. He was

suffering from one of those nervous attacks which sometimes plunged him

into horrible nightmares until dawn. On the previous day he had been to

Clamart to attend the funeral of Monsieur Verlaque, who had died after

terrible sufferings; and he still felt sad at the recollection of the

narrow coffin which he had seen lowered into the earth. Nor could he

banish from his mind the image of Madame Verlaque, who, with a tearful

voice, though there was not a tear in her eyes, kept following him and

speaking to him about the coffin, which was not paid for, and of the

cost of the funeral, which she was quite at a loss about, as she had

not a copper in the place, for the druggist, on hearing of her

husband’s death on the previous day, had insisted upon his bill being

paid. So Florent had been obliged to advance the money for the coffin

and other funeral expenses, and had even given the gratuities to the

mutes. Just as he was going away, Madame Verlaque looked at him with

such a heartbroken expression that he left her twenty francs.

And now Monsieur Verlaque’s death worried him very much. It affected

his situation in the markets. He might lose his berth, or perhaps be

formally appointed inspector. In either case he foresaw vexatious

complications which might arouse the suspicions of the police. He would

have been delighted if the insurrection could have broken out the very

next day, so that he might at once have tossed the laced cap of his

inspectorship into the streets. With his mind full of harassing

thoughts like these, he stepped out upon the balcony, as though

soliciting of the warm night some whiff of air to cool his fevered

brow. The rain had laid the wind, and a stormy heat still reigned

beneath the deep blue, cloudless heavens. The markets, washed by the

downpour, spread out below him, similar in hue to the sky, and, like

the sky, studded with the yellow stars of their gas lamps.

Leaning on the iron balustrade, Florent recollected that sooner or

later he would certainly be punished for having accepted the

inspectorship. It seemed to lie like a stain on his life. He had become

an official of the Prefecture, forswearing himself, serving the Empire

in spite of all the oaths he had taken in his exile. His anxiety to

please Lisa, the charitable purpose to which he had devoted the salary

he received, the just and scrupulous manner in which he had always

struggled to carry out his duties, no longer seemed to him valid

excuses for his base abandonment of principle. If he had suffered in

the midst of all that sleek fatness, he had deserved to suffer. And

before him arose a vision of the evil year which he had just spent, his

persecution by the fish-wives, the sickening sensations he had felt on

close, damp days, the continuous indigestion which had afflicted his

delicate stomach, and the latent hostility which was gathering strength

against him. All these things he now accepted as chastisement. That

dull rumbling of hostility and spite, the cause of which he could not

divine, must forebode some coming catastrophe before whose approach he

already stooped, with the shame of one who knows there is a

transgression that he must expiate. Then he felt furious with himself

as he thought of the popular rising he was preparing; and reflected

that he was no longer unsullied enough to achieve success.

In how many dreams he had indulged in that lofty little room, with his

eyes wandering over the spreading roofs of the market pavilions! They

usually appeared to him like grey seas that spoke to him of far-off

countries. On moonless nights they would darken and turn into stagnant

lakes of black and pestilential water. But on bright nights they became

shimmering fountains of light, the moonbeams streaming over both tiers

like water, gliding along the huge plates of zinc, and flowing over the

edges of the vast superposed basins. Then frosty weather seemed to turn

these roofs into rigid ice, like the Norwegian bays over which skaters

skim; while the warm June nights lulled them into deep sleep. One

December night, on opening his window, he had seen them white with

snow, so lustrously white that they lighted up the coppery sky.

Unsullied by a single footstep, they then stretched out like the lonely

plains of the Far North, where never a sledge intrudes. Their silence

was beautiful, their soft peacefulness suggestive of innocence.

And at each fresh aspect of the ever-changing panorama before him,

Florent yielded to dreams which were now sweet, now full of bitter

pain. The snow calmed him; the vast sheet of whiteness seemed to him

like a veil of purity thrown over the filth of the markets. The bright,

clear nights, the shimmering moonbeams, carried him away into the

fairy-land of story-books. It was only the dark, black nights, the

burning nights of June, when he beheld, as it were, a miasmatic marsh,

the stagnant water of a dead and accursed sea, that filled him with

gloom and grief; and then ever the same dreadful visions haunted his

brain.

The markets were always there. He could never open the window and rest

his elbows on the balustrade without having them before him, filling

the horizon. He left the pavilions in the evening only to behold their

endless roofs as he went to bed. They shut him off from the rest of

Paris, ceaselessly intruded their huge bulk upon him, entered into

every hour of his life. That night again horrible fancies came to him,

fancies aggravated by the vague forebodings of evil which distressed

him. The rain of the afternoon had filled the markets with malodorous

dampness, and as they wallowed there in the centre of the city, like

some drunken man lying, after his last bottle, under the table, they

cast all their foul breath into his face. He seemed to see a thick

vapour rising up from each pavilion. In the distance the meat and tripe

markets reeked with the sickening steam of blood; nearer in, the

vegetable and fruit pavilions diffused the odour of pungent cabbages,

rotten apples, and decaying leaves; the butter and cheese exhaled a

poisonous stench; from the fish market came a sharp, fresh gust; while

from the ventilator in the tower of the poultry pavilion just below

him, he could see a warm steam issuing, a fetid current rising in coils

like the sooty smoke from a factory chimney. And all these exhalations

coalesced above the roofs, drifted towards the neighbouring houses, and

spread themselves out in a heavy cloud which stretched over the whole

of Paris. It was as though the markets were bursting within their tight

belt of iron, were beating the slumber of the gorged city with the

stertorous fumes of their midnight indigestion.

However, on the footway down below Florent presently heard a sound of

voices, the laughter of happy folks. Then the door of the passage was

closed noisily. It was Quenu and Lisa coming home from the theatre.

Stupefied and intoxicated, as it were, by the atmosphere he was

breathing, Florent thereupon left the balcony, his nerves still

painfully excited by the thought of the tempest which he could feel

gathering round his head. The source of his misery was yonder, in those

markets, heated by the day’s excesses. He closed the window with

violence, and left them wallowing in the darkness, naked and perspiring

beneath the stars.