A week later, Florent thought that he would at last be able to proceed
to action. A sufficiently serious outburst of public dissatisfaction
furnished an opportunity for launching his insurrectionary forces upon
Paris. The Corps Législatif, whose members had lately shown great
variance of opinion respecting certain grants to the Imperial family,
was now discussing a bill for the imposition of a very unpopular tax,
at which the lower orders had already begun to growl. The Ministry,
fearing a defeat, was straining every nerve. It was probable, thought
Florent, that no better pretext for a rising would for a long time
present itself.
One morning, at daybreak, he went to reconnoitre the neighbourhood of
the Palais Bourbon. He forgot all about his duties as inspector, and
lingered there, studying the approaches of the palace, till eight
o’clock, without ever thinking that his absence would revolutionise the
fish market. He perambulated all the surrounding streets, the Rue de
Lille, the Rue de l’Université, the Rue de Bourgogne, the Rue Saint
Dominique, and even extended his examination to the Esplanade des
Invalides, stopping at certain crossways, and measuring distances as he
walked along. Then, on coming back to the Quai d’Orsay, he sat down on
the parapet, and determined that the attack should be made
simultaneously from all sides. The contingents from the Gros-Caillou
district should arrive by way of the Champ de Mars; the sections from
the north of Paris should come down by the Madeleine; while those from
the west and the south would follow the quays, or make their way in
small detachments through the then narrow streets of the Faubourg Saint
Germain. However, the other side of the river, the Champs Elysees, with
their open avenues, caused him some uneasiness; for he foresaw that
cannon would be stationed there to sweep the quays. He thereupon
modified several details of his plan, and marked down in a
memorandum-book the different positions which the several sections
should occupy during the combat. The chief attack, he concluded, must
certainly be made from the Rue de Bourgogne and the Rue de
l’Université, while a diversion might be effected on the side of the
river.
Whilst he thus pondered over his plans the eight o’clock sun, warming
the nape of his neck, shone gaily on the broad footways, and gilded the
columns of the great structure in front of him. In imagination he
already saw the contemplated battle; clusters of men clinging round
those columns, the gates burst open, the peristyle invaded; and then
scraggy arms suddenly appearing high aloft and planting a banner there.
At last he slowly went his way homewards again with his gaze fixed upon
the ground. But all at once a cooing sound made him look up, and he saw
that he was passing through the garden of the Tuileries. A number of
wood-pigeons, bridling their necks, were strutting over a lawn near by.
Florent leant for a moment against the tub of an orange-tree, and
looked at the grass and the pigeons steeped in sunshine. Right ahead
under the chestnut-trees all was black. The garden was wrapped in a
warm silence, broken only by the distant rumbling which came from
behind the railings of the Rue de Rivoli. The scent of all the greenery
affected Florent, reminding him of Madame Francois. However, a little
girl ran past, trundling a hoop, and alarmed the pigeons. They flew
off, and settled in a row on the arm of a marble statue of an antique
wrestler standing in the middle of the lawn, and once more, but with
less vivacity, they began to coo and bridle their necks.
As Florent was returning to the markets by way of the Rue Vauvilliers,
he heard Claude Lantier calling to him. The artist was going down into
the basement of the poultry pavilion. “Come with me!” he cried. “I’m
looking for that brute Marjolin.”
Florent followed, glad to forget his thoughts and to defer his return
to the fish market for a little longer. Claude told him that his friend
Marjolin now had nothing further to wish for: he had become an utter
animal. Claude entertained an idea of making him pose on all-fours in
future. Whenever he lost his temper over some disappointing sketch he
came to spend whole hours in the idiot’s company, never speaking, but
striving to catch his expression when he laughed.
“He’ll be feeding his pigeons, I dare say,” he said; “but unfortunately
I don’t know whereabouts Monsieur Gavard’s storeroom is.”
They groped about the cellar. In the middle of it some water was
trickling from a couple of taps in the dim gloom. The storerooms here
are reserved for pigeons exclusively, and all along the trellising they
heard faint cooings, like the hushed notes of birds nestling under the
leaves when daylight is departing. Claude began to laugh as he heard
it.
“It sounds as though all the lovers in Paris were embracing each other
inside here, doesn’t it?” he exclaimed to his companion.
However, they could not find a single storeroom open, and were
beginning to think that Marjolin could not be in the cellar, when a
sound of loud, smacking kisses made them suddenly halt before a door
which stood slightly ajar. Claude pulled it open and beheld Marjolin,
whom Cadine was kissing, whilst he, a mere dummy, offered his face
without feeling the slightest thrill at the touch of her lips.
“Oh, so this is your little game, is it?” said Claude with a laugh.
“Oh,” replied Cadine, quite unabashed, “he likes being kissed, because
he feels afraid now in the dim light. You do feel frightened, don’t
you?”
Like the idiot he was, Marjolin stroked his face with his hands as
though trying to find the kisses which the girl had just printed there.
And he was beginning to stammer out that he was afraid, when Cadine
continued: “And, besides, I came to help him; I’ve been feeding the
pigeons.”
Florent looked at the poor creatures. All along the shelves were rows
of lidless boxes, in which pigeons, showing their motley plumage,
crowded closely on their stiffened legs. Every now and then a tremor
ran along the moving mass; and then the birds settled down again, and
nothing was heard but their confused, subdued notes. Cadine had a
saucepan near her; she filled her mouth with the water and tares which
it contained, and then, taking up the pigeons one by one, shot the food
down their throats with amazing rapidity. The poor creatures struggled
and nearly choked, and finally fell down in the boxes with swimming
eyes, intoxicated, as it were, by all the food which they were thus
forced to swallow.[*]
[*] This is the customary mode of fattening pigeons at the Paris
markets. The work is usually done by men who make a specialty of it,
and are called _gaveurs_.—Translator.
“Poor creatures!” exclaimed Claude.
“Oh, so much the worse for them,” said Cadine, who had now finished.
“They are much nicer eating when they’ve been well fed. In a couple of
hours or so all those over yonder will be given a dose of salt water.
That makes their flesh white and tender. Then two hours afterwards
they’ll be killed. If you would like to see the killing, there are some
here which are quite ready. Marjolin will settle their account for them
in a jiffy.”
Marjolin carried away a box containing some fifty pigeons, and Claude
and Florent followed him. Squatting upon the ground near one of the
water-taps, he placed the box by his side. Then he laid a framework of
slender wooden bars on the top of a kind of zinc trough, and forthwith
began to kill the pigeons. His knife flashed rapidly in his fingers, as
he seized the birds by the wings, stunned them by a blow on the head
from the knife-handle, and then thrust the point of the blade into
their throats. They quivered for an instant, and ruffled their feathers
as Marjolin laid them in a row, with their heads between the wooden
bars above the zinc trough, into which their blood fell drop by drop.
He repeated each different movement with the regularity of clockwork,
the blows from the knife-handle falling with a monotonous tick-tack as
he broke the birds’ skulls, and his hand working backwards and forwards
like a pendulum as he took up the living pigeons on one side and laid
them down dead on the other. Soon, moreover, he worked with increasing
rapidity, gloating over the massacre with glistening eyes, squatting
there like a huge delighted bull-dog enjoying the sight of slaughtered
vermin. “Tick-tack! Tick-tack!” whilst his tongue clucked as an
accompaniment to the rhythmical movements of his knife. The pigeons
hung down like wisps of silken stuff.
“Ah, you enjoy that, don’t you, you great stupid?” exclaimed Cadine.
“How comical those pigeons look when they bury their heads in their
shoulders to hide their necks! They’re horrid things, you know, and
would give one nasty bites if they got the chance.” Then she laughed
more loudly at Marjolin’s increasing, feverish haste; and added: “I’ve
killed them sometimes myself, but I can’t get on as quickly as he does.
One day he killed a hundred in ten minutes.”
The wooden frame was nearly full; the blood could be heard falling into
the zinc trough; and as Claude happened to turn round he saw Florent
looking so pale that he hurriedly led him away. When they got
above-ground again he made him sit down on a step.
“Why, what’s the matter with you?” he exclaimed, tapping him on the
shoulder. “You’re fainting away like a woman!”
“It’s the smell of the cellar,” murmured Florent, feeling a little
ashamed of himself.
The truth was, however, that those pigeons, which were forced to
swallow tares and salt water, and then had their skulls broken and
their throats slit, had reminded him of the wood-pigeons of the
Tuileries gardens, strutting over the green turf, with their satiny
plumage flashing iridescently in the sunlight. He again heard them
cooing on the arm of the marble wrestler amidst the hushed silence of
the garden, while children trundled their hoops in the deep gloom of
the chestnuts. And then, on seeing that big fair-haired animal
massacring his boxful of birds, stunning them with the handle of his
knife and driving its point into their throats, in the depths of that
foul-smelling cellar, he had felt sick and faint, his legs had almost
given way beneath him, while his eyelids quivered tremulously.
“Well, you’d never do for a soldier!” Claude said to him when he
recovered from his faintness. “Those who sent you to Cayenne must have
been very simple-minded folks to fear such a man as you! Why, my good
fellow, if ever you do put yourself at the head of a rising, you won’t
dare to fire a shot. You’ll be too much afraid of killing somebody.”
Florent got up without making any reply. He had become very gloomy, his
face was furrowed by deep wrinkles; and he walked off, leaving Claude
to go back to the cellar alone. As he made his way towards the fish
market his thoughts returned to his plan of attack, to the levies of
armed men who were to invade the Palais Bourbon. Cannon would roar from
the Champs Elysees; the gates would be burst open; blood would stain
the steps, and men’s brains would bespatter the pillars. A vision of
the fight passed rapidly before him; and he beheld himself in the midst
of it, deadly pale, and hiding his face in his hands, not daring to
look around him.
As he was crossing the Rue du Pont Neuf he fancied he espied Auguste’s
pale face peering round the corner of the fruit pavilion. The assistant
seemed to be watching for someone, and his eyes were starting from his
head with an expression of intense excitement. Suddenly, however, he
vanished and hastened back to the pork shop.
“What’s the matter with him?” thought Florent. “Is he frightened of me,
I wonder?”
Some very serious occurrences had taken place that morning at the
Quenu-Gradelles’. Soon after daybreak, Auguste, breathless with
excitement, had awakened his mistress to tell her that the police had
come to arrest Monsieur Florent. And he added, with stammering
incoherence, that the latter had gone out, and that he must have done
so with the intention of escaping. Lisa, careless of appearances, at
once hurried up to her brother-in-law’s room in her dressing-wrapper,
and took possession of La Normande’s photograph, after glancing round
to see if there was anything lying about that might compromise herself
and Quenu. As she was making her way downstairs again, she met the
police agents on the first floor. The commissary requested her to
accompany them to Florent’s room, where, after speaking to her for a
moment in a low tone, he installed himself with his men, bidding her
open the shop as usual so as to avoid giving the alarm to anyone. The
trap was set.
Lisa’s only worry in the matter was the terrible blow that the arrest
would prove to poor Quenu. She was much afraid that if he learned that
the police were in the house, he would spoil everything by his tears;
so she made Auguste swear to observe the most rigid silence on the
subject. Then she went back to her room, put on her stays, and
concocted some story for the benefit of Quenu, who was still drowsy.
Half an hour later she was standing at the door of the shop with all
her usual neatness of appearance, her hair smooth and glossy, and her
face glowing rosily. Auguste was quietly setting out the window. Quenu
came for a moment on to the footway, yawning slightly, and ridding
himself of all sleepiness in the fresh morning air. There was nothing
to indicate the drama that was in preparation upstairs.
The commissary himself, however, gave the alarm to the neighbourhood by
paying a domiciliary visit to the Mehudins’ abode in the Rue Pirouette.
He was in possession of the most precise information. In the anonymous
letters which had been sent to the Prefecture, all sorts of statements
were made respecting Florent’s alleged intrigue with the beautiful
Norman. Perhaps, thought the commissary, he had now taken refuge with
her; and so, accompanied by two of his men, he proceeded to knock at
the door in the name of the law. The Mehudins had only just got up. The
old woman opened the door in a fury; but suddenly calmed down and began
to smile when she learned the business on hand. She seated herself and
fastened her clothes, while declaring to the officers: “We are honest
folks here, and have nothing to be afraid of. You can search wherever
you like.”
However, as La Normande delayed to open the door of her room, the
commissary told his men to break it open. The young woman was scarcely
clad when the others entered, and this unceremonious invasion, which
she could not understand, fairly exasperated her. She flushed crimson
from anger rather than from shame, and seemed as though she were about
to fly at the officers. The commissary, at the sight, stepped forward
to protect his men, repeating in his cold voice: “In the name of the
law! In the name of the law!”
Thereupon La Normande threw herself upon a chair, and burst into a wild
fit of hysterical sobbing at finding herself so powerless. She was
quite at a loss to understand what these men wanted with her. The
commissary, however, had noticed how scantily she was clad, and taking
a shawl from a peg, he flung it over her. Still she did not wrap it
round her, but only sobbed the more bitterly as she watched the men
roughly searching the apartment.
“But what have I done?” she at last stammered out. “What are you
looking for here?”
Thereupon the commissary pronounced the name of Florent; and La
Normande, catching sight of the old woman, who was standing at the
door, cried out: “Oh, the wretch! This is her doing!” and she rushed at
her mother.
She would have struck her if she had reached her; but the police agents
held her back, and forcibly wrapped her in the shawl. Meanwhile, she
struggled violently, and exclaimed in a choking voice:
“What do you take me for? That Florent has never been in this room, I
tell you. There was nothing at all between us. People are always trying
to injure me in the neighbourhood; but just let anyone come here and
say anything before my face, and then you’ll see! You’ll lock me up
afterwards, I dare say, but I don’t mind that! Florent, indeed! What a
lie! What nonsense!”
This flood of words seemed to calm her; and her anger now turned
against Florent, who was the cause of all the trouble. Addressing the
commissary, she sought to justify herself.
“I did not know his real character, sir,” she said. “He had such a mild
manner that he deceived us all. I was unwilling to believe all I heard,
because I know people are so malicious. He only came here to give
lessons to my little boy, and went away directly they were over. I gave
him a meal here now and again, that’s true and sometimes made him a
present of a fine fish. That’s all. But this will be a warning to me,
and you won’t catch me showing the same kindness to anyone again.”
“But hasn’t he given you any of his papers to take care of?” asked the
commissary.
“Oh no, indeed! I swear it. I’d give them up to you at once if he had.
I’ve had quite enough of this, I can tell you! It’s no joke to see you
tossing all my things about and ferreting everywhere in this way. Oh!
you may look; there’s nothing.”
The officers, who examined every article of furniture, now wished to
enter the little closet where Muche slept. The child had been awakened
by the noise, and for the last few moments he had been crying bitterly,
as though he imagined that he was going to be murdered.
“This is my boy’s room,” said La Normande, opening the door.
Muche, quite naked, ran up and threw his arms round his mother’s neck.
She pacified him, and laid him down in her own bed. The officers came
out of the little room again almost immediately, and the commissary had
just made up his mind to retire, when the child, still in tears,
whispered in his mother’s ear: “They’ll take my copy-books. Don’t let
them have my copy-books.”
“Oh, yes; that’s true,” cried La Normande; “there are some copy-books.
Wait a moment, gentlemen, and I’ll give them to you. I want you to see
that I’m not hiding anything from you. Then, you’ll find some of his
writing inside these. You’re quite at liberty to hang him as far as I’m
concerned; you won’t find me trying to cut him down.”
Thereupon she handed Muche’s books and the copies set by Florent to the
commissary. But at this the boy sprang angrily out of bed, and began to
scratch and bite his mother, who put him back again with a box on the
ears. Then he began to bellow.
In the midst of the uproar, Mademoiselle Saget appeared on the
threshold, craning her neck forward. Finding all the doors open, she
had come in to offer her services to old Madame Mehudin. She spied
about and listened, and expressed extreme pity for these poor women,
who had no one to defend them. The commissary, however, had begun to
read the copies with a grave air. The frequent repetition of such words
as “tyrannically,” “liberticide,” “unconstitutional,” and
“revolutionary” made him frown; and on reading the sentence, “When the
hour strikes, the guilty shall fall,” he tapped his fingers on the
paper and said: “This is very serious, very serious indeed.”
Thereupon he gave the books to one of his men, and went off. Claire,
who had hitherto not shown herself, now opened her door, and watched
the police officers go down the stairs. And afterwards she came into
her sister’s bedroom, which she had not entered for a year.
Mademoiselle Saget appeared to be on the best of terms with La
Normande, and was hanging over her in a caressing way, bringing the
shawl forward to cover her the better, and listening to her angry
indignation with an expression of the deepest sympathy.
“You wretched coward!” exclaimed Claire, planting herself in front of
her sister.
La Normande sprang up, quivering with anger, and let the shawl fall to
the floor.
“Ah, you’ve been playing the spy, have you?” she screamed. “Dare to
repeat what you’ve just said!”
“You wretched coward!” repeated Claire, in still more insulting tones
than before.
Thereupon La Normande struck Claire with all her force; and in return
Claire, turning terribly pale, sprang upon her sister and dug her nails
into her neck. They struggled together for a moment or two, tearing at
each other’s hair and trying to choke one another. Claire, fragile
though she was, pushed La Normande backward with such tremendous
violence that they both fell against the wardrobe, smashing the mirror
on its front. Muche was roaring, and old Madame Mehudin called to
Mademoiselle Saget to come and help her separate the sisters. Claire,
however, shook herself free.
“Coward! Coward!” she cried; “I’ll go and tell the poor fellow that it
is you who have betrayed him.”
Her mother, however, blocked the doorway, and would not let her pass,
while La Normande seized her from behind, and then, Mademoiselle Saget
coming to the assistance of the other two, the three of them dragged
Claire into her bedroom and locked the door upon her, in spite of all
her frantic resistance. In her rage she tried to kick the door down,
and smashed everything in the room. Soon afterwards, however, nothing
could be heard except a furious scratching, the sound of metal scarping
at the plaster. The girl was trying to loosen the door hinges with the
points of her scissors.
“She would have murdered me if she had had a knife,” said La Normande,
looking about for her clothes, in order to dress herself. “She’ll be
doing something dreadful, you’ll see, one of these days, with that
jealousy of hers! We mustn’t let her get out on any account: she’d
bring the whole neighbourhood down upon us!”
Mademoiselle Saget went off in all haste. She reached the corner of the
Rue Pirouette just as the commissary of police was re-entering the side
passage of the Quenu-Gradelles’ house. She grasped the situation at
once, and entered the shop with such glistening eyes that Lisa enjoined
silence by a gesture which called her attention to the presence of
Quenu, who was hanging up some pieces of salt pork. As soon as he had
returned to the kitchen, the old maid in a low voice described the
scenes that had just taken place at the Mehudins’. Lisa, as she bent
over the counter, with her hand resting on a dish of larded veal,
listened to her with the happy face of one who triumphs. Then, as a
customer entered the shop, and asked for a couple of pig’s trotters,
Lisa wrapped them up, and handed them over with a thoughtful air.
“For my own part, I bear La Normande no ill-will,” she said to
Mademoiselle Saget, when they were alone again. “I used to be very fond
of her, and have always been sorry that other people made mischief
between us. The proof that I’ve no animosity against her is here in
this photograph, which I saved from falling into the hands of the
police, and which I’m quite ready to give her back if she will come and
ask me for it herself.”
She took the photograph out of her pocket as she spoke. Mademoiselle
Saget scrutinised it and sniggered as she read the inscription,
“Louise, to her dear friend Florent.”
“I’m not sure you’ll be acting wisely,” she said in her cutting voice.
“You’d do better to keep it.”
“No, no,” replied Lisa; “I’m anxious for all this silly nonsense to
come to an end. To-day is the day of reconciliation. We’ve had enough
unpleasantness, and the neighbourhood’s now going to be quiet and
peaceful again.”
“Well, well, shall I go and tell La Normande that you are expecting
her?” asked the old maid.
“Yes; I shall be very glad if you will.”
Mademoiselle Saget then made her way back to the Rue Pirouette, and
greatly frightened the fish-girl by telling her that she had just seen
her photograph in Lisa’s pocket. She could not, however, at once
prevail upon her to comply with her rival’s terms. La Normande
propounded conditions of her own. She would go, but Madame Quenu must
come to the door of the shop to receive her. Thus the old maid was
obliged to make another couple of journeys between the two rivals
before their meeting could be satisfactorily arranged. At last,
however, to her great delight, she succeeded in negotiating the peace
which was destined to cause so much talk and excitement. As she passed
Claire’s door for the last time she still heard the sound of the
scissors scraping away at the plaster.
When she had at last carried a definite reply to Madame Quenu,
Mademoiselle Saget hurried off to find Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette;
and all three of them took up their position on the footway at the
corner of the fish market, just in front of the pork shop. Here they
would be certain to have a good view of every detail of the meeting.
They felt extremely impatient, and while pretending to chat together
kept an anxious look-out in the direction of the Rue Pirouette, along
which La Normande must come. The news of the reconciliation was already
travelling through the markets, and while some saleswomen stood up
behind their stalls trying to get a view of what was taking place,
others, still more inquisitive, actually left their places and took up
a position in the covered way. Every eye in the markets was directed
upon the pork shop; the whole neighbourhood was on the tip-toe of
expectation.
It was a very solemn affair. When La Normande at last turned the corner
of the Rue Pirouette the excitement was so great that the women held
their breath.
“She has got her diamonds on,” murmured La Sarriette.
“Just look how she stalks along,” added Madame Lecœur; “the stuck-up
creature!”
The beautiful Norman was, indeed, advancing with the mien of a queen
who condescends to make peace. She had made a most careful toilet,
frizzing her hair and turning up a corner of her apron to display her
cashmere skirt. She had even put on a new and rich lace bow. Conscious
that the whole market was staring at her, she assumed a still haughtier
air as she approached the pork shop. When she reached the door she
stopped.
“Now it’s beautiful Lisa’s turn,” remarked Mademoiselle Saget. “Mind
you pay attention.”
Beautiful Lisa smilingly quitted her counter. She crossed the
shop-floor at a leisurely pace, and came and offered her hand to the
beautiful Norman. She also was smartly dressed, with her dazzling linen
and scrupulous neatness. A murmur ran through the crowd of fish-wives,
all their heads gathered close together, and animated chatter ensued.
The two women had gone inside the shop, and the _crepines_ in the
window prevented them from being clearly seen. However, they seemed to
be conversing affectionately, addressing pretty compliments to one
another.
“See!” suddenly exclaimed Mademoiselle Saget, “the beautiful Norman’s
buying something! What is it she’s buying? It’s a chitterling, I
believe! Ah! Look! look! You didn’t see it, did you? Well, beautiful
Lisa just gave her the photograph; she slipped it into her hand with
the chitterling.”
Fresh salutations were then seen to pass between the two women; and the
beautiful Lisa, exceeding even the courtesies which had been agreed
upon, accompanied the beautiful Norman to the footway. There they stood
laughing together, exhibiting themselves to the neighbourhood like a
couple of good friends. The markets were quite delighted; and the
saleswomen returned to their stalls, declaring that everything had
passed off extremely well.
Mademoiselle Saget, however, detained Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette.
The drama was not over yet. All three kept their eyes fixed on the
house opposite with such keen curiosity that they seemed trying to
penetrate the very walls. To pass the time away they once more began to
talk of the beautiful Norman.
“She’s without a lover now,” remarked Madame Lecœur.
“Oh! she’s got Monsieur Lebigre,” replied La Sarriette, with a laugh.
“But surely Monsieur Lebigre won’t have anything more to say to her.”
Mademoiselle Saget shrugged her shoulders. “Ah, you don’t know him,”
she said. “He won’t care a straw about all this business. He knows what
he’s about, and La Normande is rich. They’ll come together in a couple
of months, you’ll see. Old Madame Mehudin’s been scheming to bring
about their marriage for a long time past.”
“Well, anyway,” retorted the butter dealer, “the commissary found
Florent at her lodgings.”
“No, no, indeed; I’m sure I never told you that. The long
spindle-shanks had gone way,” replied the old maid. She paused to take
a breath; then resumed in an indignant tone, “What distressed me most
was to hear of all the abominable things that the villain had taught
little Muche. You’d really never believe it. There was a whole bundle
of papers.”
“What sort of abominable things?” asked La Sarriette with interest.
“Oh, all kinds of filth. The commissary said there was quite sufficient
there to hang him. The fellow’s a perfect monster! To go and demoralise
a child! Why, it’s almost past believing! Little Muche is certainly a
scamp, but that’s no reason why he should be given over to the ‘Reds,’
is it?”
“Certainly not,” assented the two others.
“However, all these mysterious goings-on will come to an end now. You
remember my telling you once that there was some strange goings-on at
the Quenus’? Well, you see, I was right in my conclusions, wasn’t I?
Thank God, however, the neighbourhood will now be able to breathe
easily. It was high time strong steps were taken, for things had got to
such a pitch that one actually felt afraid of being murdered in broad
daylight. There was no pleasure in life. All the dreadful stories and
reports one heard were enough to worry one to death. And it was all
owing to that man, that dreadful Florent. Now beautiful Lisa and the
beautiful Norman have sensibly made friends again. It was their duty to
do so for the sake of the peace and quietness of us all. Everything
will go on satisfactorily now, you’ll find. Ah! there’s poor Monsieur
Quenu laughing yonder!”
Quenu had again come on to the footway, and was joking with Madame
Taboureau’s little servant. He seemed quite gay and skittish that
morning. He took hold of the little servant’s hands, and squeezed her
fingers so tightly, in the exuberance of his spirits, that he made her
cry out. Lisa had the greatest trouble to get him to go back into the
kitchen. She was impatiently pacing about the shop, fearing lest
Florent should make his appearance; and she called to her husband to
come away, dreading a meeting between him and his brother.
“She’s getting quite vexed,” said Mademoiselle Saget. “Poor Monsieur
Quenu, you see, knows nothing at all about what’s taking place. Just
look at him there, laughing like a child! Madame Taboureau, you know,
said that she should have nothing more to do with the Quenus if they
persisted in bringing themselves into discredit by keeping that Florent
with them.”
“Well, now, I suppose, they will stick to the fortune,” remarked Madame
Lecœur.
“Oh, no, indeed, my dear. The other one has had his share already.”
“Really? How do you know that?”
“Oh, it’s clear enough, that is!” replied the old maid after a
momentary hesitation, but without giving any proof of her assertions.
“He’s had even more than his share. The Quenus will be several thousand
francs out of pocket. Money flies, you know, when a man has such vices
as he has. I dare say you don’t know that there was another woman mixed
up in it all. Yes, indeed, old Madame Verlaque, the wife of the former
inspector; you know the sallow-faced thing well enough.”
The others protested that it surely wasn’t possible. Why, Madame
Verlaque was positively hideous!
“What! do you think me a liar?” cried Mademoiselle Saget, with angry
indignation. “Why, her letters to him have been found, a whole pile of
letters, in which she asks for money, ten and twenty francs at a time.
There’s no doubt at all about it. I’m quite certain in my own mind that
they killed the husband between them.”
La Sarriette and Madame Lecœur were convinced; but they were beginning
to get very impatient. They had been waiting on the footway for more
than an hour, and feared that somebody might be robbing their stalls
during their long absence. So Mademoiselle Saget began to give them
some further interesting information to keep them from going off.
Florent could not have taken to flight, said she; he was certain to
return, and it would be very interesting to see him arrested. Then she
went on to describe the trap that had been laid for him, while Madame
Lecœur and La Sarriette continued scrutinising the house from top to
bottom, keeping watch upon every opening, and at each moment expecting
to see the hats of the detectives appear at one of the doors or
windows.
“Who would ever imagine, now, that the place was full of police?”
observed the butter dealer.
“Oh! they’re in the garret at the top,” said the old maid. “They’ve
left the window open, you see, just as they found it. Look! I think I
can see one of them hiding behind the pomegranate on the balcony.”
The others excitedly craned out their necks, but could see nothing.
“Ah, no, it’s only a shadow,” continued Mademoiselle Saget. “The little
curtains even are perfectly still. The detectives must be sitting down
in the room, and keeping quiet.”
Just at that moment the women caught sight of Gavard coming out of the
fish market with a thoughtful air. They looked at him with glistening
eyes, without speaking. They had drawn close to one another, and stood
there rigid in their drooping skirts. The poultry dealer came up to
them.
“Have you seen Florent go by?” he asked.
They replied that they had not.
“I want to speak to him at once,” continued Gavard. “He isn’t in the
fish market. He must have gone up to his room. But you would have seen
him, though, if he had.”
The women had turned rather pale. They still kept looking at each other
with a knowing expression, their lips twitching slightly every now and
then. “We have only been here some five minutes, said Madame Lecœur
unblushingly, as her brother-in-law still stood hesitating.
“Well, then, I’ll go upstairs and see. I’ll risk the five flights,”
rejoined Gavard with a laugh.
La Sarriette stepped forward as though she wished to detain him, but
her aunt took hold of her arm and drew her back.
“Let him alone, you big simpleton!” she whispered. “It’s the best thing
that can happen to him. It’ll teach him to treat us with respect in
future.”
“He won’t say again that I ate tainted meat,” muttered Mademoiselle
Saget in a low tone.
They said nothing more. La Sarriette was very red; but the two others
still remained quite yellow. But they now averted their heads, feeling
confused by each other’s looks, and at a loss what to do with their
hands, which they buried beneath their aprons. Presently their eyes
instinctively came back to the house, penetrating the walls, as it
were, following Gavard in his progress up the stairs. When they
imagined that he had entered Florent’s room they again exchanged
furtive glances. La Sarriette laughed nervously. All at once they
fancied they could see the window curtains moving, and this led them to
believe that a struggle was taking place. But the house-front remained
as tranquil as ever in the sunshine; and another quarter of an hour of
unbroken quietness passed away, during which the three women’s nervous
excitement became more and more intense. They were beginning to feel
quite faint when a man hurriedly came out of the passage and ran off to
get a cab. Five minutes later Gavard appeared, followed by two police
officers. Lisa, who had stepped out on to the footway on observing the
cab, hastily hurried back into the shop.
Gavard was very pale. The police had searched him upstairs, and had
discovered the revolver and cartridge case in his possession. Judging
by the commissary’s stern expression on hearing his name, the poultry
dealer deemed himself lost. This was a terrible ending to his plotting
that had never entered into his calculations. The Tuileries would never
forgive him! His legs gave way beneath him as though the firing party
was already awaiting him outside. When he got into the street, however,
his vanity lent him sufficient strength to walk erect; and he even
managed to force a smile, as he knew the market people were looking at
him. They should see him die bravely, he resolved.
However, La Sarriette and Madame Lecœur rushed up to him and anxiously
inquired what was the matter; and the butter dealer began to cry, while
La Sarriette embraced her uncle, manifesting the deepest emotion. As
Gavard held her clasped in his arms, he slipped a key into her hand,
and whispered in her ear: “Take everything, and burn the papers.”
Then he got into the cab with the same mien as he would have ascended
the scaffold. As the vehicle disappeared round the corner of the Rue
Pierre Lescot, Madame Lecœur observed La Sarriette trying to hide the
key in her pocket.
“It’s of no use you trying that little game on me, my dear,” she
exclaimed, clenching her teeth; “I saw him slip it into your hand. As
true as there’s a God in Heaven, I’ll go to the gaol and tell him
everything, if you don’t treat me properly.”
“Of course I shall treat you properly, aunt, dear,” replied La
Sarriette, with an embarrassed smile.
“Very well, then, let us go to his rooms at once. It’s of no use to
give the police time to poke their dirty hands in the cupboards.”
Mademoiselle Saget, who had been listening with gleaming eyes, followed
them, running along in the rear as quickly as her short legs could
carry her. She had no thought, now, of waiting for Florent. From the
Rue Rambuteau to the Rue de la Cossonnerie she manifested the most
humble obsequiousness, and volunteered to explain matters to Madame
Leonce, the doorkeeper.
“We’ll see, we’ll see,” the butter dealer curtly replied.
However, on reaching the house a preliminary parley—as Mademoiselle
Saget had opined—proved to be necessary. Madame Leonce refused to allow
the women to go up to her tenant’s room. She put on an expression of
severe austerity, and seemed greatly shocked by the sight of La
Sarriette’s loosely fastened fichu. However, after the old maid had
whispered a few words to her and she was shown the key, she gave way.
When they got upstairs she surrendered the rooms and furniture to the
others article by article, apparently as heartbroken as if she had been
compelled to show a party of burglars the place where her own money was
secreted.
“There, take everything and have done with it!” she cried at last,
throwing herself into an arm-chair.
La Sarriette was already eagerly trying the key in the locks of
different closets. Madame Lecœur, all suspicion, pressed her so closely
that she exclaimed: “Really, aunt, you get in my way. Do leave my arms
free, at any rate.”
At last they succeeded in opening a wardrobe opposite the window,
between the fireplace and the bed. And then all four women broke into
exclamations. On the middle shelf lay some ten thousand francs in gold,
methodically arranged in little piles. Gavard, who had prudently
deposited the bulk of his fortune in the hands of a notary, had kept
this sum by him for the purposes of the coming outbreak. He had been
wont to say with great solemnity that his contribution to the
revolution was quite ready. The fact was that he had sold out certain
stock, and every night took an intense delight in contemplating those
ten thousand francs, gloating over them, and finding something quite
roysterous and insurrectional in their appearance. Sometimes when he
was in bed he dreamed that a fight was going on in the wardrobe; he
could hear guns being fired there, paving-stones being torn up and
piled into barricades, and voices shouting in clamorous triumph; and he
said to himself that it was his money fighting against the Government.
La Sarriette, however, had stretched out her hands with a cry of
delight.
“Paws off, little one!” exclaimed Madame Lecœur in a hoarse voice.
As she stood there in the reflection of the gold, she looked yellower
than ever—her face discoloured by biliousness, her eyes glowing
feverishly from the liver complaint which was secretly undermining her.
Behind her Mademoiselle Saget on tip-toe was gazing ecstatically into
the wardrobe, and Madame Leonce had now risen from her seat, and was
growling sulkily.
“My uncle said I was to take everything,” declared the girl.
“And am I to have nothing, then; I who have done so much for him?”
cried the doorkeeper.
Madame Lecœur was almost choking with excitement. She pushed the others
away, and clung hold of the wardrobe, screaming: “It all belongs to me!
I am his nearest relative. You are a pack of thieves, you are! I’d
rather throw it all out of the window than see you have it!”
Then silence fell, and they all four stood glowering at each other. The
kerchief that La Sarriette wore over her breast was now altogether
unfastened, and she displayed her bosom heaving with warm life, her
moist red lips, her rosy nostrils. Madame Lecœur grew still more sour
as she saw how lovely the girl looked in the excitement of her longing
desire.
“Well,” she said in a lower tone, “we won’t fight about it. You are his
niece, and I’ll divide the money with you. We will each take a pile in
turn.”
Thereupon they pushed the other two aside. The butter dealer took the
first pile, which at once disappeared within her skirts. Then La
Sarriette took a pile. They kept a close watch upon one another, ready
to fight at the slightest attempt at cheating. Their fingers were
thrust forward in turn, the hideous knotted fingers of the aunt and the
white fingers of the niece, soft and supple as silk. Slowly they filled
their pockets. When there was only one pile left, La Sarriette objected
to her aunt taking it, as she had commenced; and she suddenly divided
it between Mademoiselle Saget and Madame Leonce, who had watched them
pocket the gold with feverish impatience.
“Much obliged to you!” snarled the doorkeeper. “Fifty francs for having
coddled him up with tisane and broth! The old deceiver told me he had
no relatives!”
Before locking the wardrobe up again, Madame Lecœur searched it
thoroughly from top to bottom. It contained all the political works
which were forbidden admission into the country, the pamphlets printed
at Brussels, the scandalous histories of the Bonapartes, and the
foreign caricatures ridiculing the Emperor. One of Gavard’s greatest
delights was to shut himself up with a friend, and show him all these
compromising things.
“He told me that I was to burn all the papers,” said La Sarriette.
“Oh, nonsense! we’ve no fire, and it would take up too long. The police
will soon be here! We must get out of this!”
They all four hastened off; but they had not reached the bottom of the
stairs before the police met them, and made Madame Leonce return with
them upstairs. The three others, making themselves as small as
possible, hurriedly escaped into the street. They walked away in single
file at a brisk pace; the aunt and niece considerably incommoded by the
weight of their drooping pockets. Mademoiselle Saget had kept her fifty
francs in her closed fist, and remained deep in thought, brooding over
a plan for extracting something more from the heavy pockets in front of
her.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, as they reached the corner of the fish market,
“we’ve got here at a lucky moment. There’s Florent yonder, just going
to walk into the trap.”
Florent, indeed, was just then returning to the markets after his
prolonged perambulation. He went into his office to change his coat,
and then set about his daily duties, seeing that the marble slabs were
properly washed, and slowly strolling along the alleys. He fancied that
the fish-wives looked at him in a somewhat strange manner; they
chuckled too, and smiled significantly as he passed them. Some new
vexation, he thought, was in store for him. For some time past those
huge, terrible women had not allowed him a day’s peace. However, as he
passed the Mehudins’ stall he was very much surprised to hear the old
woman address him in a honeyed tone: “There’s just been a gentleman
inquiring for you, Monsieur Florent; a middle-aged gentleman. He’s gone
to wait for you in your room.”
As the old fish-wife, who was squatting, all of a heap, on her chair,
spoke these words, she felt such a delicious thrill of satisfied
vengeance that her huge body fairly quivered. Florent, still doubtful,
glanced at the beautiful Norman; but the young woman, now completely
reconciled with her mother, turned on her tap and slapped her fish,
pretending not to hear what was being said.
“You are quite sure?” said Florent to Mother Mehudin.
“Oh, yes, indeed. Isn’t that so, Louise?” said the old woman in a
shriller voice.
Florent concluded that it must be some one who wanted to see him about
the great business, and he resolved to go up to his room. He was just
about to leave the pavilion, when, happening to turn round, he observed
the beautiful Norman watching him with a grave expression on her face.
Then he passed in front of the three gossips.
“Do you notice that there’s no one in the pork shop?” remarked
Mademoiselle Saget. “Beautiful Lisa’s not the woman to compromise
herself.”
The shop was, indeed, quite empty. The front of the house was still
bright with sunshine; the building looked like some honest, prosperous
pile guilelessly warming itself in the morning rays. Up above, the
pomegranate on the balcony was in full bloom. As Florent crossed the
roadway he gave a friendly nod to Logre and Monsieur Lebigre, who
appeared to be enjoying the fresh air on the doorstep of the latter’s
establishment. They returned his greeting with a smile. Florent was
then about to enter the side-passage, when he fancied he saw Auguste’s
pale face hastily vanishing from its dark and narrow depths. Thereupon
he turned back and glanced into the shop to make sure that the
middle-aged gentleman was not waiting for him there. But he saw no one
but Mouton, who sat on a block displaying his double chin and bristling
whiskers, and gazed at him defiantly with his great yellow eyes. And
when he had at last made up his mind to enter the passage, Lisa’s face
appeared behind the little curtain of a glazed door at the back of the
shop.
A hush had fallen over the fish market. All the huge paunches and
bosoms held their breath, waiting till Florent should disappear from
sight. Then there was an uproarious outbreak; and the bosoms heaved
wildly and the paunches nearly burst with malicious delight. The joke
had succeeded. Nothing could be more comical. As old Mother Mehudin
vented her merriment she shook and quivered like a wine-skin that is
being emptied. Her story of the middle-aged gentleman went the round of
the market, and the fish-wives found it extremely amusing. At last the
long spindle-shanks was collared, and they would no longer always have
his miserable face and gaol-bird’s expression before their eyes. They
all wished him a pleasant journey, and trusted that they might get a
handsome fellow for their next inspector. And in their delight they
rushed about from one stall to another, and felt inclined to dance
round their marble slabs like a lot of holiday-making schoolgirls. The
beautiful Norman, however, watched this outbreak of joy in a rigid
attitude, not daring to move for fear she should burst into tears; and
she kept her hands pressed upon a big skate to cool her feverish
excitement.
“You see how those Mehudins turn their backs upon him now that he’s
come to grief,” said Madame Lecœur.
“Well, and they’re quite right too,” replied Mademoiselle Saget.
“Besides, matters are settled now, my dear, and we’re to have no more
disputes. You’ve every reason to be satisfied; leave the others to act
as they please.”
“It’s only the old woman who is laughing,” La Sarriette remarked; “La
Normande looks anything but happy.”
Meantime, upstairs in his bedroom, Florent allowed himself to be taken
as unresistingly as a sheep. The police officers sprang roughly upon
him, expecting, no doubt, that they would meet with a desperate
resistance. He quietly begged them to leave go of him; and then sat
down on a chair while they packed up his papers, and the red scarves,
armlets, and banners. He did not seem at all surprised at this ending;
indeed, it was something of a relief to him, though he would not
frankly confess it. But he suffered acutely at thought of the bitter
hatred which had sent him into that room; he recalled Auguste’s pale
face and the sniggering looks of the fish-wives; he bethought himself
of old Madame Mehudin’s words, La Normande’s silence, and the empty
shop downstairs. The markets were leagued against him, he reflected;
the whole neighbourhood had conspired to hand him over to the police.
The mud of those greasy streets had risen up all around to overwhelm
him!
And amidst all the round faces which flitted before his mind’s eye
there suddenly appeared that of Quenu, and a spasm of mortal agony
contracted his heart.
“Come, get along downstairs!” exclaimed one of the officers, roughly.
Florent rose and proceeded to go downstairs. When he reached the second
floor he asked to be allowed to return; he had forgotten something, he
said. But the officers refused to let him go back, and began to hustle
him forward. Then he besought them to let him return to his room again,
and even offered them the money he had in his pocket. Two of them at
last consented to return with him, threatening to blow his brains out
should he attempt to play them any trick; and they drew their revolvers
out of their pockets as they spoke. However, on reaching his room once
more Florent simply went straight to the chaffinch’s cage, took the
bird out of it, kissed it between its wings, and set it at liberty. He
watched it fly away through the open window, into the sunshine, and
alight, as though giddy, on the roof of the fish market. Then it flew
off again and disappeared over the markets in the direction of the
Square des Innocents. For a moment longer Florent remained face to face
with the sky, the free and open sky; and he thought of the wood-pigeons
cooing in the garden of the Tuileries, and of those other pigeons down
in the market cellars with their throats slit by Marjolin’s knife. Then
he felt quite broken, and turned and followed the officers, who were
putting their revolvers back into their pockets as they shrugged their
shoulders.
On reaching the bottom of the stairs, Florent stopped before the door
which led into the kitchen. The commissary, who was waiting for him
there, seemed almost touched by his gentle submissiveness, and asked
him: “Would you like to say good-bye to your brother?”
For a moment Florent hesitated. He looked at the door. A tremendous
noise of cleavers and pans came from the kitchen. Lisa, with the design
of keeping her husband occupied, had persuaded him to make the
black-puddings in the morning instead of in the evening, as was his
wont. The onions were simmering on the fire, and over all the noisy
uproar Florent could hear Quenu’s joyous voice exclaiming, “Ah, dash it
all, the pudding will be excellent, that it will! Auguste, hand me the
fat!”
Florent thanked the commissary, but refused his offer. He was afraid to
return any more into that warm kitchen, reeking with the odour of
boiling onions, and so he went on past the door, happy in the thought
that his brother knew nothing of what had happened to him, and
hastening his steps as if to spare the establishment all further worry.
However, on emerging into the open sunshine of the street he felt a
touch of shame, and got into the cab with bent back and ashen face. He
was conscious that the fish market was gazing at him in triumph; it
seemed to him, indeed, as though the whole neighbourhood had gathered
there to rejoice at his fall.
“What a villainous expression he’s got!” said Mademoiselle Saget.
“Yes, indeed, he looks just like a thief caught with his hand in
somebody’s till,” added Madame Lecœur.
“I once saw a man guillotined who looked exactly like he does,”
asserted La Sarriette, showing her white teeth.
They stepped forward, lengthened their necks, and tried to see into the
cab. Just as it was starting, however, the old maid tugged sharply at
the skirts of her companions, and pointed to Claire, who was coming
round the corner of the Rue Pirouette, looking like a mad creature,
with her hair loose and her nails bleeding. She had at last succeeded
in opening her door. When she discovered that she was too late, and
that Florent was being taken off, she darted after the cab, but checked
herself almost immediately with a gesture of impotent rage, and shook
her fists at the receding wheels. Then, with her face quite crimson
beneath the fine plaster dust with which she was covered, she ran back
again towards the Rue Pirouette.
“Had he promised to marry her, eh?” exclaimed La Sarriette, laughing.
“The silly fool must be quite cracked.”
Little by little the neighbourhood calmed down, though throughout the
day groups of people constantly assembled and discussed the events of
the morning. The pork shop was the object of much inquisitive
curiosity. Lisa avoided appearing there, and left the counter in charge
of Augustine. In the afternoon she felt bound to tell Quenu of what had
happened, for fear the news might cause him too great a shock should he
hear it from some gossiping neighbour. She waited till she was alone
with him in the kitchen, knowing that there he was always most
cheerful, and would weep less than if he were anywhere else. Moreover,
she communicated her tidings with all sorts of motherly precautions.
Nevertheless, as soon as he knew the truth he fell on the
chopping-block, and began to cry like a calf.
“Now, now, my poor dear, don’t give way like that; you’ll make yourself
quite ill,” exclaimed Lisa, taking him in her arms.
His tears were inundating his white apron, the whole of his massive,
torpid form quivered with grief. He seemed to be sinking, melting away.
When he was at last able to speak, he stammered: “Oh, you don’t know
how good he was to me when we lived together in the Rue Royer-Collard!
He did everything. He swept the room and cooked the meals. He loved me
as though I were his own child; and after his day’s work he used to
come back splashed with mud, and so tired that he could scarcely move,
while I stayed warm and comfortable in the house, and had nothing to do
but eat. And now they’re going to shoot him!”
At this Lisa protested, saying that he would certainly not be shot. But
Quenu only shook his head.
“I haven’t loved him half as much as I ought to have done,” he
continued. “I can see that very well now. I had a wicked heart, and I
hesitated about giving him his half of the money.”
“Why, I offered it to him a dozen times and more!” Lisa interrupted.
“I’m sure we’ve nothing to reproach ourselves with.”
“Oh, yes, I know that you are everything that is good, and that you
would have given him every copper. But I hesitated, I didn’t like to
part with it; and now it will be a sorrow to me for the rest of my
life. I shall always think that if I’d shared the fortune with him he
wouldn’t have gone wrong a second time. Oh, yes; it’s my fault! It is I
who have driven him to this.”
Then Lisa, expostulating still more gently, assured him that he had
nothing to blame himself for, and even expressed some pity for Florent.
But he was really very culpable, she said, and if he had had more money
he would probably have perpetrated greater follies. Gradually she gave
her husband to understand that it was impossible matters could have had
any other termination, and that now everything would go on much better.
Quenu was still weeping, wiping his cheeks with his apron, trying to
suppress his sobs to listen to her, and then breaking into a wilder fit
of tears than before. His fingers had mechanically sought a heap of
sausage-meat lying on the block, and he was digging holes in it, and
roughly kneading it together.
“And how unwell you were feeling, you know,” Lisa continued. “It was
all because our life had got so shifted out of its usual course. I was
very anxious, though I didn’t tell you so, at seeing you getting so
low.”
“Yes, wasn’t I?” he murmured, ceasing to sob for a moment.
“And the business has been quite under a cloud this year. It was as
though a spell had been cast on it. Come, now, don’t take on so; you’ll
see that everything will look up again now. You must take care of
yourself, you know, for my sake and your daughter’s. You have duties to
us as well as to others, remember.”
Quenu was now kneading the sausage-meat more gently. Another burst of
emotion was thrilling him, but it was a softer emotion, which was
already bringing a vague smile to his grief-stricken face. Lisa felt
that she had convinced him, and she turned and called to Pauline, who
was playing in the shop, and sat her on Quenu’s knee.
“Tell your father, Pauline, that he ought not to give way like this.
Ask him nicely not to go on distressing us so.”
The child did as she was told, and their fat, sleek forms united in a
general embrace. They all three looked at one another, already feeling
cured of that twelve months’ depression from which they had but just
emerged. Their big, round faces smiled, and Lisa softly repeated, “And
after all, my dear, there are only we three, you know, only we three.”
Two months later Florent was again sentenced to transportation. The
affair caused a great stir. The newspapers published all possible
details, and gave portraits of the accused, sketches of the banners and
scarves, and plans of the places where the conspirators had met. For a
fortnight nothing but the great plot of the central markets was talked
of in Paris. The police kept on launching more and more alarming
reports, and it was at last even declared that the whole of the
Montmartre Quarter was undermined. The excitement in the Corps
Législatif was so intense that the members of the Centre and the Right
forgot their temporary disagreement over the Imperial Grant Bill, and
became reconciled. And then by an overwhelming majority they voted the
unpopular tax, of which even the lower classes, in the panic which was
sweeping over the city, dared no longer complain.
The trial lasted a week. Florent was very much surprised at the number
of accomplices with which he found himself credited. Out of the twenty
and more who were placed in the dock with him, he knew only some six or
seven. After the sentence of the court had been read, he fancied he
could see Robine’s innocent-looking hat and back going off quietly
through the crowd. Logre was acquitted, as was also Lacaille; Alexandre
was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for his child-like complicity
in the conspiracy; while as for Gavard, he, like Florent, was condemned
to transportation. This was a heavy blow, which quite crushed him
amidst the final enjoyment that he derived from those lengthy
proceedings in which he had managed to make himself so conspicuous. He
was paying very dearly for the way in which he had vented the spirit of
perpetual opposition peculiar to the Paris shopkeeping classes. Two big
tears coursed down his scared face—the face of a white-haired child.
And then one morning in August, amidst the busy awakening of the
markets, Claude Lantier, sauntering about in the thick of the arriving
vegetables, with his waist tightly girded by his red sash, came to
grasp Madame Francois’s hand close by Saint Eustache. She was sitting
on her carrots and turnips, and her long face looked very sad. The
artist, too, was gloomy, notwithstanding the bright sun which was
already softening the deep-green velvet of the mountains of cabbages.
“Well, it’s all over now,” he said. “They are sending him back again.
He’s already on his way to Brest, I believe.”
Madame Francois made a gesture of mute grief. Then she gently waved her
hand around, and murmured in a low voice; “Ah, it is all Paris’s doing,
this villainous Paris!”
“No, no, not quite that; but I know whose doing it is, the contemptible
creatures!” exclaimed Claude, clenching his fists. “Do you know, Madame
Francois, there was nothing too ridiculous for those fellows in the
court to say! Why, they even went ferreting in a child’s copy-books!
That great idiot of a Public Prosecutor made a tremendous fuss over
them, and ranted about the respect due to children, and the wickedness
of demagogical education! It makes me quite sick to think of it all!”
A shudder of disgust shook him, and then, burying himself more deeply
in his discoloured cloak, he resumed: “To think of it! A man who was as
gentle as a girl! Why, I saw him turn quite faint at seeing a pigeon
killed! I couldn’t help smiling with pity when I saw him between two
gendarmes. Ah, well, we shall never see him again! He won’t come back
this time.”
“He ought to have listened to me,” said Madame Francois, after a pause,
“and have come to live at Nanterre with my fowls and rabbits. I was
very fond of him, you see, for I could tell that he was a good-hearted
fellow. Ah, we might have been so happy together! It’s a sad pity.
Well, we must bear it as best we can, Monsieur Claude. Come and see me
one of these days. I’ll have an omelet ready for you.”
Her eyes were dim with tears; but all at once she sprang up like a
brave woman who bears her sorrows with fortitude.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, “here’s old Mother Chantemesse coming to buy some
turnips of me. The fat old lady’s as sprightly as ever!”
Claude went off, and strolled about the footways. The dawn had risen in
the white sheaf of light at the end of the Rue Rambuteau; and the sun,
now level with the house-tops, was diffusing rosy rays which already
fell in warm patches on the pavements. Claude was conscious of a gay
awakening in the huge resonant markets—indeed, all over the
neighbourhood—crowded with piles of food. It was like the joy that
comes after cure, the mirth of folks who are at last relieved of a
heavy weight which has been pulling them down. He saw La Sarriette
displaying a gold chain and singing amidst her plums and strawberries,
while she playfully pulled the moustaches of Monsieur Jules, who was
arrayed in a velvet jacket. He also caught sight of Madame Lecœur and
Mademoiselle Saget passing along one of the covered ways, and looking
less sallow than usual—indeed, almost rosy—as they laughed like bosom
friends over some amusing story. In the fish market, old Madame
Mehudin, who had returned to her stall, was slapping her fish, abusing
customers, and snubbing the new inspector, a presumptuous young man
whom she had sworn to spank; while Claire, seemingly more languid and
indolent than ever, extended her hands, blue from immersion in the
water of her tanks, to gather together a great heap of edible snails,
shimmering with silvery slime. In the tripe market Auguste and
Augustine, with the foolish expression of newly-married people, had
just been purchasing some pigs’ trotters, and were starting off in a
trap for their pork shop at Montrouge. Then, as it was now eight
o’clock and already quite warm, Claude, on again coming to the Rue
Rambuteau, perceived Muche and Pauline playing at horses. Muche was
crawling along on all-fours, while Pauline sat on his back, and clung
to his hair to keep herself from falling. However, a moving shadow
which fell from the eaves of the market roof made Claude look up; and
he then espied Cadine and Marjolin aloft, kissing and warming
themselves in the sunshine, parading their loves before the whole
neighbourhood like a pair of light-hearted animals.
Claude shook his fist at them. All this joyousness down below and on
high exasperated him. He reviled the Fat; the Fat, he declared, had
conquered the Thin. All around him he could see none but the Fat
protruding their paunches, bursting with robust health, and greeting
with delight another day of gorging and digestion. And a last blow was
dealt to him by the spectacle which he perceived on either hand as he
halted opposite the Rue Pirouette.
On his right, the beautiful Norman, or the beautiful Madame Lebigre, as
she was now called, stood at the door of her shop. Her husband had at
length been granted the privilege of adding a State tobacco agency[*]
to his wine shop, a long-cherished dream of his which he had finally
been able to realise through the great services he had rendered to the
authorities. And to Claude the beautiful Madame Lebigre looked superb,
with her silk dress and her frizzed hair, quite ready to take her seat
behind her counter, whither all the gentlemen in the neighbourhood
flocked to buy their cigars and packets of tobacco. She had become
quite distinguished, quite the lady. The shop behind her had been newly
painted, with borders of twining vine-branches showing against a soft
background; the zinc-plated wine-counter gleamed brightly, and in the
tall mirror the flasks of liqueurs set brighter flashes of colour than
ever. And the mistress of all these things stood smiling radiantly at
the bright sunshine.
[*] Most readers will remember that the tobacco trade is a State
monopoly in France. The retail tobacconists are merely Government
agents.—Translator.
Then, on Claude’s left, the beautiful Lisa blocked up the doorway of
her shop as she stood on the threshold. Never before had her linen
shone with such dazzling whiteness; never had her serene face and rosy
cheeks appeared in a more lustrous setting of glossy locks. She
displayed the deep calmness of repletion, a massive tranquillity
unruffled even by a smile. She was a picture of absolute quietude, of
perfect felicity, not only cloudless but lifeless, the simple felicity
of basking in the warm atmosphere. Her tightly stretched bodice seemed
to be still digesting the happiness of yesterday; while her dimpled
hands, hidden in the folds of her apron, did not even trouble to grasp
at the happiness of to-day, certain as they were that it would come of
itself. And the shop-window at her side seemed to display the same
felicity. It had recovered from its former blight; the tongues lolled
out, red and healthy; the hams had regained their old chubbiness of
form; the festoons of sausages no longer wore that mournful air which
had so greatly distressed Quenu. Hearty laughter, accompanied by a
jubilant clattering of pans, sounded from the kitchen in the rear. The
whole place again reeked with fat health. The flitches of bacon and the
sides of pork that hung against the marble showed roundly like
paunches, triumphant paunches, whilst Lisa, with her imposing breadth
of shoulders and dignity of mien, bade the markets good morning with
those big eyes of hers which so clearly bespoke a gross feeder.
However, the two women bowed to each other. Beautiful Madame Lebigre
and beautiful Madame Quenu exchanged a friendly salute.
And then Claude, who had certainly forgotten to dine on the previous
day, was thrilled with anger at seeing them standing there, looking so
healthy and well-to-do with their buxom bosoms; and tightening his
sash, he growled in a tone of irritation:
“What blackguards respectable people are!”