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Chapter I

Amidst the deep silence and solitude prevailing in the avenue several
market gardeners' carts were climbing the slope which led towards
Paris, and the fronts of the houses, asleep behind the dim lines of
elms on either side of the road, echoed back the rhythmical jolting of
the wheels. At the Neuilly bridge a cart full of cabbages and another
full of peas had joined the eight waggons of carrots and turnips
coming down from Nanterre; and the horses, left to themselves, had
continued plodding along with lowered heads, at a regular though lazy
pace, which the ascent of the slope now slackened. The sleeping
waggoners, wrapped in woollen cloaks, striped black and grey, and
grasping the reins slackly in their closed hands, were stretched at
full length on their stomachs atop of the piles of vegetables. Every
now and then, a gas lamp, following some patch of gloom, would light
up the hobnails of a boot, the blue sleeve of a blouse, or the peak of
a cap peering out of the huge florescence of vegetables--red bouquets
of carrots, white bouquets of turnips, and the overflowing greenery of
peas and cabbages.

And all along the road, and along the neighbouring roads, in front and
behind, the distant rumbling of vehicles told of the presence of
similar contingents of the great caravan which was travelling onward
through the gloom and deep slumber of that matutinal hour, lulling the
dark city to continued repose with its echoes of passing food.

Madame Francois's horse, Balthazar, an animal that was far too fat,
led the van. He was plodding on, half asleep and wagging his ears,
when suddenly, on reaching the Rue de Longchamp, he quivered with fear
and came to a dead stop. The horses behind, thus unexpectedly checked,
ran their heads against the backs of the carts in front of them, and
the procession halted amidst a clattering of bolts and chains and the
oaths of the awakened waggoners. Madame Francois, who sat in front of
her vehicle, with her back to a board which kept her vegetables in
position, looked down; but, in the dim light thrown to the left by a
small square lantern, which illuminated little beyond one of
Balthazar's sheeny flanks, she could distinguish nothing.

"Come, old woman, let's get on!" cried one of the men, who had raised
himself to a kneeling position amongst his turnips; "it's only some
drunken sot."

Madame Francois, however, had bent forward and on her right hand had
caught sight of a black mass, lying almost under the horse's hoofs,
and blocking the road.

"You wouldn't have us drive over a man, would you?" said she, jumping
to the ground.

It was indeed a man lying at full length upon the road, with his arms
stretched out and his face in the dust. He seemed to be remarkably
tall, but as withered as a dry branch, and the wonder was that
Balthazar had not broken him in half with a blow from his hoof. Madame
Francois thought that he was dead; but on stooping and taking hold of
one of his hands, she found that it was quite warm.

"Poor fellow!" she murmured softly.

The waggoners, however, were getting impatient.

"Hurry up, there!" said the man kneeling amongst the turnips, in a
hoarse voice. "He's drunk till he can hold no more, the hog! Shove him
into the gutter."

Meantime, the man on the road had opened his eyes. He looked at Madame
Francois with a startled air, but did not move. She herself now
thought that he must indeed be drunk.

"You mustn't stop here," she said to him, "or you'll get run over and
killed. Where were you going?"

"I don't know," replied the man in a faint voice.

Then, with an effort and an anxious expression, he added: "I was going
to Paris; I fell down, and don't remember any more."

Madame Francois could now see him more distinctly, and he was truly a
pitiable object, with his ragged black coat and trousers, through the
rents in which you could espy his scraggy limbs. Underneath a black
cloth cap, which was drawn low over his brows, as though he were
afraid of being recognised, could be seen two large brown eyes,
gleaming with peculiar softness in his otherwise stern and harassed
countenance. It seemed to Madame Francois that he was in far too
famished a condition to have got drunk.

"And what part of Paris were you going to?" she continued.

The man did not reply immediately. This questioning seemed to distress
him. He appeared to be thinking the matter over, but at last said
hesitatingly, "Over yonder, towards the markets."

He had now, with great difficulty, got to his feet again, and seemed
anxious to resume his journey. But Madame Francois noticed that he
tottered, and clung for support to one of the shafts of her waggon.

"Are you tired?" she asked him.

"Yes, very tired," he replied.

Then she suddenly assumed a grumpy tone, as though displeased, and,
giving him a push, exclaimed: "Look sharp, then, and climb into my
cart. You've made us lose a lot of time. I'm going to the markets, and
I'll turn you out there with my vegetables."

Then, as the man seemed inclined to refuse her offer, she pushed him
up with her stout arms, and bundled him down upon the turnips and
carrots.

"Come, now, don't give us any more trouble," she cried angrily. "You
are quite enough to provoke one, my good fellow. Don't I tell you that
I'm going to the markets? Sleep away up there. I'll wake you when we
arrive."

She herself then clambered into the cart again, and settled herself
with her back against the board, grasping the reins of Balthazar, who
started off drowsily, swaying his ears once more. The other waggons
followed, and the procession resumed its lazy march through the
darkness, whilst the rhythmical jolting of the wheels again awoke the
echoes of the sleepy house fronts, and the waggoners, wrapped in their
cloaks, dozed off afresh. The one who had called to Madame Francois
growled out as he lay down: "As if we'd nothing better to do than pick
up every drunken sot we come across! You're a scorcher, old woman!"

The waggons rumbled on, and the horses picked their own way, with
drooping heads. The stranger whom Madame Francois had befriended was
lying on his stomach, with his long legs lost amongst the turnips
which filled the back part of the cart, whilst his face was buried
amidst the spreading piles of carrot bunches. With weary, extended
arms he clutched hold of his vegetable couch in fear of being thrown
to the ground by one of the waggon's jolts, and his eyes were fixed on
the two long lines of gas lamps which stretched away in front of him
till they mingled with a swarm of other lights in the distance atop of
the slope. Far away on the horizon floated a spreading, whitish
vapour, showing where Paris slept amidst the luminous haze of all
those flamelets.

"I come from Nanterre, and my name's Madame Francois," said the
market gardener presently. "Since my poor man died I go to the markets
every morning myself. It's a hard life, as you may guess. And who are
you?"

"My name's Florent, I come from a distance," replied the stranger,
with embarrassment. "Please excuse me, but I'm really so tired that it
is painful to me to talk."

He was evidently unwilling to say anything more, and so Madame
Francois relapsed into silence, and allowed the reins to fall loosely
on the back of Balthazar, who went his way like an animal acquainted
with every stone of the road.

Meantime, with his eyes still fixed upon the far-spreading glare of
Paris, Florent was pondering over the story which he had refused to
communicate to Madame Francois. After making his escape from Cayenne,
whither he had been transported for his participation in the
resistance to Louis Napoleon's Coup d'Etat, he had wandered about
Dutch Guiana for a couple of years, burning to return to France, yet
dreading the Imperial police. At last, however, he once more saw
before him the beloved and mighty city which he had so keenly
regretted and so ardently longed for. He would hide himself there, he
told himself, and again lead the quiet, peaceable life that he had
lived years ago. The police would never be any the wiser; and everyone
would imagine, indeed, that he had died over yonder, across the sea.
Then he thought of his arrival at Havre, where he had landed with only
some fifteen francs tied up in a corner of his handkerchief. He had
been able to pay for a seat in the coach as far as Rouen, but from
that point he had been forced to continue his journey on foot, as he
had scarcely thirty sous left of his little store. At Vernon his last
copper had gone in bread. After that he had no clear recollection of
anything. He fancied that he could remember having slept for several
hours in a ditch, and having shown the papers with which he had
provided himself to a gendarme; however, he had only a very confused
idea of what had happened. He had left Vernon without any breakfast,
seized every now and then with hopeless despair and raging pangs which
had driven him to munch the leaves of the hedges as he tramped along.
A prey to cramp and fright, his body bent, his sight dimmed, and his
feet sore, he had continued his weary march, ever drawn onwards in a
semi-unconscious state by a vision of Paris, which, far, far away,
beyond the horizon, seemed to be summoning him and waiting for him.

When he at length reached Courbevoie, the night was very dark. Paris,
looking like a patch of star-sprent sky that had fallen upon the black
earth, seemed to him to wear a forbidding aspect, as though angry at
his return. Then he felt very faint, and his legs almost gave way
beneath him as he descended the hill. As he crossed the Neuilly bridge
he sustained himself by clinging to the parapet, and bent over and
looked at the Seine rolling inky waves between its dense, massy banks.
A red lamp on the water seemed to be watching him with a sanguineous
eye. And then he had to climb the hill if he would reach Paris on its
summit yonder. The hundreds of leagues which he had already travelled
were as nothing to it. That bit of a road filled him with despair. He
would never be able, he thought, to reach yonder light crowned summit.
The spacious avenue lay before him with its silence and its darkness,
its lines of tall trees and low houses, its broad grey footwalks,
speckled with the shadows of overhanging branches, and parted
occasionally by the gloomy gaps of side streets. The squat yellow
flames of the gas lamps, standing erect at regular intervals, alone
imparted a little life to the lonely wilderness. And Florent seemed to
make no progress; the avenue appeared to grow ever longer and longer,
to be carrying Paris away into the far depths of the night. At last he
fancied that the gas lamps, with their single eyes, were running off
on either hand, whisking the road away with them; and then, overcome
by vertigo, he stumbled and fell on the roadway like a log.

Now he was lying at ease on his couch of greenery, which seemed to him
soft as a feather bed. He had slightly raised his head so as to keep
his eyes on the luminous haze which was spreading above the dark roofs
which he could divine on the horizon. He was nearing his goal, carried
along towards it, with nothing to do but to yield to the leisurely
jolts of the waggon; and, free from all further fatigue, he now only
suffered from hunger. Hunger, indeed, had once more awoke within him
with frightful and wellnigh intolerable pangs. His limbs seemed to
have fallen asleep; he was only conscious of the existence of his
stomach, horribly cramped and twisted as by a red-hot iron. The fresh
odour of the vegetables, amongst which he was lying, affected him so
keenly that he almost fainted away. He strained himself against that
piled-up mass of food with all his remaining strength, in order to
compress his stomach and silence its groans. And the nine other
waggons behind him, with their mountains of cabbages and peas, their
piles of artichokes, lettuces, celery, and leeks, seemed to him to be
slowly overtaking him, as though to bury him whilst he was thus
tortured by hunger beneath an avalanche of food. Presently the
procession halted, and there was a sound of deep voices. They had
reached the barriers, and the municipal customs officers were
examining the waggons. A moment later Florent entered Paris, in a
swoon, lying atop of the carrots, with clenched teeth.

"Hallow! You up there!" Madame Francois called out sharply.

And as the stranger made no attempt to move, she clambered up and
shook him. Florent rose to a sitting posture. He had slept and no
longer felt the pangs of hunger, but was dizzy and confused.

"You'll help me to unload, won't you?" Madame Francois said to him, as
she made him get down.

He helped her. A stout man with a felt hat on his head and a badge in
the top buttonhole of his coat was striking the ground with a stick
and grumbling loudly:

"Come, come, now, make haste! You must get on faster than that! Bring
the waggon a little more forward. How many yards' standing have you?
Four, isn't it?"

Then he gave a ticket to Madame Francois, who took some coppers out of
a little canvas bag and handed them to him; whereupon he went off to
vent his impatience and tap the ground with his stick a little further
away. Madame Francois took hold of Balthazar's bridle and backed him
so as to bring the wheels of the waggon close to the footway. Then,
having marked out her four yards with some wisps of straw, after
removing the back of the cart, she asked Florent to hand her the
vegetables bunch by bunch. She arranged them sort by sort on her
standing, setting them out artistically, the "tops" forming a band of
greenery around each pile; and it was with remarkable rapidity that
she completed her show, which, in the gloom of early morning, looked
like some piece of symmetrically coloured tapestry. When Florent had
handed her a huge bunch of parsley, which he had found at the bottom
of the cart, she asked him for still another service.

"It would be very kind of you," said she, "if you would look after my
goods while I put the horse and cart up. I'm only going a couple of
yards, to the Golden Compasses, in the Rue Montorgueil."

Florent told her that she might make herself easy. He preferred to
remain still, for his hunger had revived since he had begun to move
about. He sat down and leaned against a heap of cabbages beside Madame
Francois's stock. He was all right there, he told himself, and would
not go further afield, but wait. His head felt empty, and he had no
very clear notion as to where he was. At the beginning of September it
is quite dark in the early morning. Around him lighted lanterns were
flitting or standing stationary in the depths of the gloom. He was
sitting on one side of a broad street which he did not recognise; it
stretched far away into the blackness of the night. He could make out
nothing plainly, excepting the stock of which he had been left in
charge. All around him along the market footways rose similar piles of
goods. The middle of the roadway was blocked by huge grey tumbrels,
and from one end of the street to the other a sound of heavy breathing
passed, betokening the presence of horses which the eye could not
distinguish.

Shouts and calls, the noise of falling wood, or of iron chains
slipping to the ground, the heavy thud of loads of vegetables
discharged from the waggons, and the grating of wheels as the carts
were backed against the footways, filled the yet sonorous awakening,
whose near approach could be felt and heard in the throbbing gloom.
Glancing over the pile of cabbages behind him. Florent caught sight of
a man wrapped like a parcel in his cloak, and snoring away with his
head upon some baskets of plums. Nearer to him, on his left, he could
distinguish a lad, some ten years old, slumbering between two heaps of
endive, with an angelic smile on his face. And as yet there seemed to
be nothing on that pavement that was really awake except the lanterns
waving from invisible arms, and flitting and skipping over the sleep
of the vegetables and human beings spread out there in heaps pending
the dawn. However, what surprised Florent was the sight of some huge
pavilions on either side of the street, pavilions with lofty roofs
that seemed to expand and soar out of sight amidst a swarm of gleams.
In his weakened state of mind he fancied he beheld a series of
enormous, symmetrically built palaces, light and airy as crystal,
whose fronts sparkled with countless streaks of light filtering
through endless Venetian shutters. Gleaming between the slender pillar
shafts these narrow golden bars seemed like ladders of light mounting
to the gloomy line of the lower roofs, and then soaring aloft till
they reached the jumble of higher ones, thus describing the open
framework of immense square halls, where in the yellow flare of the
gas lights a multitude of vague, grey, slumbering things was gathered
together.

At last Florent turned his head to look about him, distressed at not
knowing where he was, and filled with vague uneasiness by the sight of
that huge and seemingly fragile vision. And now, as he raised his
eyes, he caught sight of the luminous dial and the grey massive pile
of Saint Eustache's Church. At this he was much astonished. He was
close to Saint Eustache, yet all was novel to him.

However, Madame Francois had come back again, and was engaged in a
heated discussion with a man who carried a sack over his shoulder and
offered to buy her carrots for a sou a bunch.

"Really, now, you are unreasonable, Lacaille!" said she. "You know
quite well that you will sell them again to the Parisians at four and
five sous the bunch. Don't tell me that you won't! You may have them
for two sous the bunch, if you like."

Then, as the man went off, she continued: "Upon my word, I believe
some people think that things grow of their own accord! Let him go and
find carrots at a sou the bunch elsewhere, tipsy scoundrel that he is!
He'll come back again presently, you'll see."

These last remarks were addressed to Florent. And, seating herself by
his side, Madame Francois resumed: "If you've been a long time away
from Paris, you perhaps don't know the new markets. They haven't been
built for more than five years at the most. That pavilion you see
there beside us is the flower and fruit market. The fish and poultry
markets are farther away, and over there behind us come the vegetables
and the butter and cheese. There are six pavilions on this side, and
on the other side, across the road, there are four more, with the meat
and the tripe stalls. It's an enormous place, but it's horribly cold
in the winter. They talk about pulling down the houses near the corn
market to make room for two more pavilions. But perhaps you know all
this?"

"No, indeed," replied Florent; "I've been abroad. And what's the name
of that big street in front of us?"

"Oh, that's a new street. It's called the Rue du Pont Neuf. It leads
from the Seine through here to the Rue Montmartre and the Rue
Montorgueil. You would soon have recognized where you were if it had
been daylight."

Madame Francois paused and rose, for she saw a woman heading down to
examine her turnips. "Ah, is that you, Mother Chantemesse?" she said
in a friendly way.

Florent meanwhile glanced towards the Rue Montorgueil. It was there
that a body of police officers had arrested him on the night of
December 4.
  • He had been walking along the Boulevard Montmartre at
    about two o'clock, quietly making his way through the crowd, and
    smiling at the number of soldiers that the Elysee had sent into the
    streets to awe the people, when the military suddenly began making a
    clean sweep of the thoroughfare, shooting folks down at close range
    during a quarter of an hour. Jostled and knocked to the ground,
    Florent fell at the corner of the Rue Vivienne and knew nothing
    further of what happened, for the panic-stricken crowd, in their wild
    terror of being shot, trampled over his body. Presently, hearing
    everything quiet, he made an attempt to rise; but across him there lay
    a young woman in a pink bonnet, whose shawl had slipped aside,
    allowing her chemisette, pleated in little tucks, to be seen. Two
    bullets had pierced the upper part of her bosom; and when Florent
    gently removed the poor creature to free his legs, two streamlets of
    blood oozed from her wounds on to his hands. Then he sprang up with a
    sudden bound, and rushed madly away, hatless and with his hands still
    wet with blood. Until evening he wandered about the streets, with his
    head swimming, ever seeing the young woman lying across his legs with
    her pale face, her blue staring eyes, her distorted lips, and her
    expression of astonishment at thus meeting death so suddenly. He was a
    shy, timid fellow. Albeit thirty years old he had never dared to stare
    women in the face; and now, for the rest of his life, he was to have
    that one fixed in his heart and memory. He felt as though he had lost
    some loved one of his own.

  • 1851. Two days after the Coup d'Etat.--Translator.

    In the evening, without knowing how he had got there, still dazed and
    horrified as he was by the terrible scenes of the afternoon, he had
    found himself at a wine shop in the Rue Montorgueil, where several men
    were drinking and talking of throwing up barricades. He went away with
    them, helped them to tear up a few paving-stones, and seated himself
    on the barricade, weary with his long wandering through the streets,
    and reflecting that he would fight when the soldiers came up. However,
    he had not even a knife with him, and was still bareheaded. Towards
    eleven o'clock he dozed off, and in his sleep could see the two holes
    in the dead woman's white chemisette glaring at him like eyes reddened
    by tears and blood. When he awoke he found himself in the grasp of
    four police officers, who were pummelling him with their fists. The
    men who had built the barricade had fled. The police officers treated
    him with still greater violence, and indeed almost strangled him when
    they noticed that his hands were stained with blood. It was the blood
    of the young woman.

    Florent raised his eyes to the luminous dial of Saint Eustache with
    his mind so full of these recollections that he did not notice the
    position of the pointers. It was, however, nearly four o'clock. The
    markets were as yet wrapped in sleep. Madame Francois was still
    talking to old Madame Chantemesse, both standing and arguing about the
    price of turnips, and Florent now called to mind how narrowly he had
    escaped being shot over yonder by the wall of Saint Eustache. A
    detachment of gendarmes had just blown out the brains of five unhappy
    fellows caught at a barricade in the Rue Greneta. The five corpses
    were lying on the footway, at a spot where he thought he could now
    distinguish a heap of rosy radishes. He himself had escaped being shot
    merely because the policemen only carried swords. They took him to a
    neighbouring police station and gave the officer in charge a scrap of
    paper, on which were these words written in pencil: "Taken with blood-
    stained hands. Very dangerous." Then he had been dragged from station
    to station till the morning came. The scrap of paper accompanied him
    wherever he went. He was manacled and guarded as though he were a
    raving madman. At the station in the Rue de la Lingerie some tipsy
    soldiers wanted to shoot him; and they had already lighted a lantern
    with that object when the order arrived for the prisoners to be taken
    to the depot of the Prefecture of Police. Two days afterwards he found
    himself in a casemate of the fort of Bicetre. Ever since then he had
    been suffering from hunger. He had felt hungry in the casemate, and
    the pangs of hunger had never since left him. A hundred men were pent
    in the depths of that cellar-like dungeon, where, scarce able to
    breathe, they devoured the few mouthfuls of bread that were thrown to
    them, like so many captive wild beasts.

    When Florent was brought before an investigating magistrate, without
    anyone to defend him, and without any evidence being adduced, he was
    accused of belonging to a secret society; and when he swore that this
    was untrue, the magistrate produced the scrap of paper from amongst
    the documents before him: "Taken with blood-stained hands. Very
    dangerous." That was quite sufficient. He was condemned to
    transportation. Six weeks afterwards, one January night, a gaoler
    awoke him and locked him up in a courtyard with more than four hundred
    other prisoners. An hour later this first detachment started for the
    pontoons and exile, handcuffed and guarded by a double file of
    gendarmes with loaded muskets. They crossed the Austerlitz bridge,
    followed the line of the boulevards, and so reached the terminus of
    the Western Railway line. It was a joyous carnival night. The windows
    of the restaurants on the boulevards glittered with lights. At the top
    of the Rue Vivienne, just at the spot where he ever saw the young
    woman lying dead--that unknown young woman whose image he always bore
    with him--he now beheld a large carriage in which a party of masked
    women, with bare shoulders and laughing voices, were venting their
    impatience at being detained, and expressing their horror of that
    endless procession of convicts. The whole of the way from Paris to
    Havre the prisoners never received a mouthful of bread or a drink of
    water. The officials had forgotten to give them their rations before
    starting, and it was not till thirty-six hours afterwards, when they
    had been stowed away in the hold of the frigate /Canada/, that they at
    last broke their fast.

    No, Florent had never again been free from hunger. He recalled all the
    past to mind, but could not recollect a single hour of satiety. He had
    become dry and withered; his stomach seemed to have shrunk; his skin
    clung to his bones. And now that he was back in Paris once more, he
    found it fat and sleek and flourishing, teeming with food in the midst
    of the darkness. He had returned to it on a couch of vegetables; he
    lingered in its midst encompassed by unknown masses of food which
    still and ever increased and disquieted him. Had that happy carnival
    night continued throughout those seven years, then? Once again he saw
    the glittering windows on the boulevards, the laughing women, the
    luxurious, greedy city which he had quitted on that far-away January
    night; and it seemed to him that everything had expanded and increased
    in harmony with those huge markets, whose gigantic breathing, still
    heavy from the indigestion of the previous day, he now began to hear.

    Old Mother Chantemesse had by this time made up her mind to buy a
    dozen bunches of turnips. She put them in her apron, which she held
    closely pressed to her person, thus making herself look yet more
    corpulent than she was; and for some time longer she lingered there,
    still gossiping in a drawling voice. When at last she went away,
    Madame Francois again sat down by the side of Florent.

    "Poor old Mother Chantemesse!" she said; "she must be at least
    seventy-two. I can remember her buying turnips of my father when I was
    a mere chit. And she hasn't a relation in the world; no one but a
    young hussy whom she picked up I don't know where and who does nothing
    but bring her trouble. Still, she manages to live, selling things by
    the ha'p'orth and clearing her couple of francs profit a day. For my
    own part, I'm sure that I could never spend my days on the foot-
    pavement in this horrid Paris! And she hasn't even any relations
    here!"

    "You have some relations in Paris, I suppose?" she asked presently,
    seeing that Florent seemed disinclined to talk.

    Florent did not appear to hear her. A feeling of distrust came back to
    him. His head was teeming with old stories of the police, stories of
    spies prowling about at every street corner, and of women selling the
    secrets which they managed to worm out of the unhappy fellows they
    deluded. Madame Francois was sitting close beside him and certainly
    looked perfectly straightforward and honest, with her big calm face,
    above which was bound a black and yellow handkerchief. She seemed
    about five and thirty years of age, and was somewhat stoutly built,
    with a certain hardy beauty due to her life in the fresh air. A pair
    of black eyes, which beamed with kindly tenderness, softened the more
    masculine characteristics of her person. She certainly was
    inquisitive, but her curiosity was probably well meant.

    "I've a nephew in Paris," she continued, without seeming at all
    offended by Florent's silence. "He's turned out badly though, and has
    enlisted. It's a pleasant thing to have somewhere to go to and stay
    at, isn't it? I dare say there's a big surprise in store for your
    relations when they see you. But it's always a pleasure to welcome one
    of one's own people back again, isn't it?"

    She kept her eyes fixed upon him while she spoke, doubtless
    compassionating his extreme scragginess; fancying, too, that there was
    a "gentleman" inside those old black rags, and so not daring to slip a
    piece of silver into his hand. At last, however, she timidly murmured:
    "All the same, if you should happen just at present to be in want of
    anything----"

    But Florent checked her with uneasy pride. He told her that he had
    everything he required, and had a place to go to. She seemed quite
    pleased to hear this, and, as though to tranquillise herself
    concerning him, repeated several times: "Well, well, in that case
    you've only got to wait till daylight."

    A large bell at the corner of the fruit market, just over Florent's
    head, now began to ring. The slow regular peals seemed to gradually
    dissipate the slumber that yet lingered all around. Carts were still
    arriving, and the shouts of the waggoners, the cracking of their
    whips, and the grinding of the paving-stones beneath the iron-bound
    wheels and the horses' shoes sounded with an increasing din. The carts
    could now only advance by a series of spasmodic jolts, and stretched
    in a long line, one behind the other, till they were lost to sight in
    the distant darkness, whence a confused roar ascended.

    Unloading was in progress all along the Rue du Pont Neuf, the vehicles
    being drawn up close to the edge of the footways, while their teams
    stood motionless in close order as at a horse fair. Florent felt
    interested in one enormous tumbrel which was piled up with magnificent
    cabbages, and had only been backed to the kerb with the greatest
    difficulty. Its load towered above the lofty gas lamp whose bright
    light fell full upon the broad leaves which looked like pieces of dark
    green velvet, scalloped and goffered. A young peasant girl, some
    sixteen years old, in a blue linen jacket and cap, had climbed on to
    the tumbrel, where, buried in the cabbages to her shoulders, she took
    them one by one and threw them to somebody concealed in the shade
    below. Every now and then the girl would slip and vanish, overwhelmed
    by an avalanche of the vegetables, but her rosy nose soon reappeared
    amidst the teeming greenery, and she broke into a laugh while the
    cabbages again flew down between Florent and the gas lamp. He counted
    them mechanically as they fell. When the cart was emptied he felt
    worried.

    The piles of vegetables on the pavement now extended to the verge of
    the roadway. Between the heaps, the market gardeners left narrow paths
    to enable people to pass along. The whole of the wide footway was
    covered from end to end with dark mounds. As yet, in the sudden
    dancing gleams of light from the lanterns, you only just espied the
    luxuriant fulness of the bundles of artichokes, the delicate green of
    the lettuces, the rosy coral of the carrots, and dull ivory of the
    turnips. And these gleams of rich colour flitted along the heaps,
    according as the lanterns came and went. The footway was now becoming
    populated: a crowd of people had awakened, and was moving hither and
    thither amidst the vegetables, stopping at times, and chattering and
    shouting. In the distance a loud voice could be heard crying, "Endive!
    who's got endive?" The gates of the pavilion devoted to the sale of
    ordinary vegetables had just been opened; and the retail dealers who
    had stalls there, with white caps on their heads, fichus knotted over
    their black jackets, and skirts pinned up to keep them from getting
    soiled, now began to secure their stock for the day, depositing their
    purchases in some huge porters' baskets placed upon the ground.
    Between the roadway and the pavilion these baskets were to be seen
    coming and going on all sides, knocking against the crowded heads of
    the bystanders, who resented the pushing with coarse expressions,
    whilst all around was a clamour of voices growing hoarse by prolonged
    wrangling over a sou or two. Florent was astonished by the calmness of
    the female market gardeners, with bandanas and bronzed faces,
    displayed amidst all this garrulous bargaining of the markets.

    Behind him, on the footway of the Rue Rambuteau, fruit was being sold.
    Hampers and low baskets covered with canvas or straw stood there in
    long lines, a strong odour of over-ripe mirabelle plums was wafted
    hither and thither. At last a subdued and gentle voice, which he had
    heard for some time past, induced him to turn his head, and he saw a
    charming darksome little woman sitting on the ground and bargaining.

    "Come now, Marcel," said she, "you'll take a hundred sous, won't you?"

    The man to whom she was speaking was closely wrapped in his cloak and
    made no reply; however, after a silence of five minutes or more, the
    young woman returned to the charge.

    "Come now, Marcel; a hundred sous for that basket there, and four
    francs for the other one; that'll make nine francs altogether."

    Then came another interval.

    "Well, tell me what you will take."

    "Ten francs. You know that well enough already; I told you so before.
    But what have you done with your Jules this morning, La Sarriette?"

    The young woman began to laugh as she took a handful of small change
    out of her pocket.

    "Oh," she replied, "Jules is still in bed. He says that men were not
    intended to work."

    She paid for the two baskets, and carried them into the fruit
    pavilion, which had just been opened. The market buildings still
    retained their gloom-wrapped aspect of airy fragility, streaked with
    the thousand lines of light that gleamed from the venetian shutters.
    People were beginning to pass along the broad covered streets
    intersecting the pavilions, but the more distant buildings still
    remained deserted amidst the increasing buzz of life on the footways.
    By Saint Eustache the bakers and wine sellers were taking down their
    shutters, and the ruddy shops, with their gas lights flaring, showed
    like gaps of fire in the gloom in which the grey house-fronts were yet
    steeped. Florent noticed a baker's shop on the left-hand side of the
    Rue Montorgueil, replete and golden with its last baking, and fancied
    he could scent the pleasant smell of the hot bread. It was now half
    past four.

    Madame Francois by this time had disposed of nearly all her stock. She
    had only a few bunches of carrots left when Lacaille once more made
    his appearance with his sack.

    "Well," said he, "will you take a sou now?"

    "I knew I should see you again," the good woman quietly answered.
    "You'd better take all I have left. There are seventeen bunches."

    "That makes seventeen sous."

    "No; thirty-four."

    At last they agreed to fix the price at twenty-five sous. Madame
    Francois was anxious to be off.

    "He'd been keeping his eye upon me all the time," she said to Florent,
    when Lacaille had gone off with the carrots in his sack. "That old
    rogue runs things down all over the markets, and he often waits till
    the last peal of the bell before spending four sous in purchase. Oh,
    these Paris folk! They'll wrangle and argue for an hour to save half a
    sou, and then go off and empty their purses at the wine shop."

    Whenever Madame Francois talked of Paris she always spoke in a tone of
    disdain, and referred to the city as though it were some ridiculous,
    contemptible, far-away place, in which she only condescended to set
    foot at nighttime.

    "There!" she continued, sitting down again, beside Florent, on some
    vegetables belonging to a neighbour, "I can get away now."

    Florent bent his head. He had just committed a theft. When Lacaille
    went off he had caught sight of a carrot lying on the ground, and
    having picked it up he was holding it tightly in his right hand.
    Behind him were some bundles of celery and bunches of parsley were
    diffusing pungent odours which painfully affected him.

    "Well, I'm off now!" said Madame Francois.

    However, she felt interested in this stranger, and could divine that
    he was suffering there on that foot-pavement, from which he had never
    stirred. She made him fresh offers of assistance, but he again refused
    them, with a still more bitter show of pride. He even got up and
    remained standing to prove that he was quite strong again. Then, as
    Madame Francois turned her head away, he put the carrot to his mouth.
    But he had to remove it for a moment, in spite of the terrible longing
    which he felt to dig his teeth into it; for Madame Francois turned
    round again and looking him full in the face, began to question him
    with her good-natured womanly curiosity. Florent, to avoid speaking,
    merely answered by nods and shakes of the head. Then, slowly and
    gently, he began to eat the carrot.

    The worthy woman was at last on the point of going off, when a
    powerful voice exclaimed close beside her, "Good morning, Madame
    Francois."

    The speaker was a slim young man, with big bones and a big head. His
    face was bearded, and he had a very delicate nose and narrow sparkling
    eyes. He wore on his head a rusty, battered, black felt hat, and was
    buttoned up in an immense overcoat, which had once been of a soft
    chestnut hue, but which rain had discoloured and streaked with long
    greenish stains. Somewhat bent, and quivering with a nervous
    restlessness which was doubtless habitual with him, he stood there in
    a pair of heavy laced shoes, and the shortness of his trousers allowed
    a glimpse of his coarse blue hose.

    "Good morning, Monsieur Claude," the market gardener replied
    cheerfully. "I expected you, you know, last Monday, and, as you didn't
    come, I've taken care of your canvas for you. I've hung it up on a
    nail in my room."

    "You are really very kind, Madame Francois. I'll go to finish that
    study of mine one of these days. I wasn't able to go on Monday. Has
    your big plum tree still got all its leaves?"

    "Yes, indeed."

    "I wanted to know, because I mean to put it in a corner of the
    picture. It will come in nicely by the side of the fowl house. I have
    been thinking about it all the week. What lovely vegetables are in the
    market this morning! I came down very early, expecting a fine sunrise
    effect upon all these heaps of cabbages."

    With a wave of the arm he indicated the footway.

    "Well, well, I must be off now," said Madame Francois. "Good-bye for
    the present. We shall meet again soon, I hope, Monsieur Claude."

    However, as she turned to go, she introduced Florent to the young
    artist.

    "This gentleman, it seems, has just come from a distance," said she.
    "He feels quite lost in your scampish Paris. I dare say you might be
    of service to him."

    Then she at last took her departure, feeling pleased at having left
    the two men together. Claude looked at Florent with a feeling of
    interest. That tall, slight, wavy figure seemed to him original.
    Madame Francois's hasty presentation was in his eyes quite sufficient,
    and he addressed Florent with the easy familiarity of a lounger
    accustomed to all sorts of chance encounters.

    "I'll accompany you," he said; "which way are you going?"

    Florent felt ill at ease; he was not wont to unbosom himself so
    readily. However, ever since his arrival in Paris, a question had been
    trembling on his lips, and now he ventured to ask it, with the evident
    fear of receiving an unfavourable reply.

    "Is the Rue Pirouette still in existence?"

    "Oh, yes," answered the artist. "A very curious corner of old Paris is
    the Rue Pirouette. It twists and turns like a dancing girl, and the
    houses bulge out like pot-bellied gluttons. I've made an etching of it
    that isn't half bad. I'll show it to you when you come to see me. Is
    it to the Rue Pirouette that you want to go?"

    Florent, who felt easier and more cheerful now that he knew the street
    still existed, declared that he did not want to go there; in fact, he
    did not want to go anywhere in particular. All his distrust awoke into
    fresh life at Claude's insistence.

    "Oh! never mind," said the artist, "let's go to the Rue Pirouette all
    the same. It has such a fine colour at night time. Come along; it's
    only a couple of yards away."

    Florent felt constrained to follow him, and the two men walked off,
    side by side, stepping over the hampers and vegetables like a couple
    of old friends. On the footway of the Rue Rambuteau there were some
    immense heaps of cauliflowers, symmetrically piled up like so many
    cannonballs. The soft-white flowers spread out like huge roses in the
    midst of their thick green leaves, and the piles had something of the
    appearance of bridal bouquets ranged in a row in colossal flower
    stands. Claude stopped in front of them, venting cries of admiration.

    Then, on turning into the Rue Pirouette, which was just opposite, he
    pointed out each house to his companion, and explained his views
    concerning it. There was only a single gas lamp, burning in a corner.
    The buildings, which had settled down and swollen, threw their pent-
    houses forward in such wise as to justify Claude's allusion to pot-
    bellied gluttons, whilst their gables receded, and on either side they
    clung to their neighbours for support. Three or four, however,
    standing in gloomy recesses, appeared to be on the point of toppling
    forward. The solitary gas lamp illumined one which was snowy with a
    fresh coat of whitewash, suggesting some flabby broken-down old
    dowager, powdered and bedaubed in the hope of appearing young. Then
    the others stretched away into the darkness, bruised, dented, and
    cracked, greeny with the fall of water from their roofs, and
    displaying such an extraordinary variety of attitudes and tints that
    Claude could not refrain from laughing as he contemplated them.

    Florent, however, came to stand at the corner of the rue de Mondetour,
    in front of the last house but one on the left. Here the three floors,
    each with two shutterless windows, having little white curtains
    closely drawn, seemed wrapped in sleep; but, up above, a light could
    be seen flitting behind the curtains of a tiny gable casement.
    However, the sight of the shop beneath the pent-house seemed to fill
    Florent with the deepest emotion. It was kept by a dealer in cooked
    vegetables, and was just being opened. At its far end some metal pans
    were glittering, while on several earthen ones in the window there was
    a display of cooked spinach and endive, reduced to a paste and
    arranged in conical mounds from which customers were served with
    shovel-like carvers of white metal, only the handles of which were
    visible. This sight seemed to rivet Florent to the ground with
    surprise. He evidently could not recognize the place. He read the name
    of the shopkeeper, Godeboeuf, which was painted on a red sign board up
    above, and remained quite overcome by consternation. His arms dangling
    beside him, he began to examine the cooked spinach, with the
    despairing air of one on whom some supreme misfortune falls.

    However, the gable casement was now opened, and a little old woman
    leaned out of it, and looked first at the sky and then at the markets
    in the distance.

    "Ah, Mademoiselle Saget is an early riser," exclaimed Claude, who had
    just raised his head. And, turning to his companion, he added: "I once
    had an aunt living in that house. It's a regular hive of tittle-
    tattle! Ah, the Mehudins are stirring now, I see. There's a light on
    the second floor."

    Florent would have liked to question his companion, but the latter's
    long discoloured overcoat give him a disquieting appearance. So
    without a word Florent followed him, whilst he went on talking about
    the Mehudins. These Mehudins were fish-girls, it seemed; the older one
    was a magnificent creature, while the younger one, who sold fresh-
    water fish, reminded Claude of one of Murillo's virgins, whenever he
    saw her standing with her fair face amidst her carps and eels.

    From this Claude went on to remark with asperity that Murillo painted
    like an ignoramus. But all at once he stopped short in the middle of
    the street.

    "Come!" he exclaimed, "tell me where it is that you want to go."

    "I don't want to go anywhere just at present," replied Florent in
    confusion. "Let's go wherever you like."

    Just as they were leaving the Rue Pirouette, some one called to Claude
    from a wine shop at the corner of the street. The young man went in,
    dragging Florent with him. The shutters had been taken down on one
    side only, and the gas was still burning in the sleepy atmosphere of
    the shop. A forgotten napkin and some cards that had been used in the
    previous evening's play were still lying on the tables; and the fresh
    breeze that streamed in through the open doorway freshened the close,
    warm vinous air. The landlord, Monsieur Lebigre, was serving his
    customers. He wore a sleeved waistcoat, and his fat regular features,
    fringed by an untidy beard, were still pale with sleep. Standing in
    front of the counter, groups of men, with heavy, tired eyes, were
    drinking, coughing, and spitting, whilst trying to rouse themselves by
    the aid of white wine and brandy. Amongst them Florent recognised
    Lacaille, whose sack now overflowed with various sorts of vegetables.
    He was taking his third dram with a friend, who was telling him a long
    story about the purchase of a hamper of potatoes.
  • When he had
    emptied his glass, he went to chat with Monsieur Lebigre in a little
    glazed compartment at the end of the room, where the gas had not yet
    been lighted.

  • At the Paris central markets potatoes are sold by the hamper, not
        by the sack as in England.--Translator.

    "What will you take?" Claude asked of Florent.

    He had on entering grasped the hand of the person who had called out
    to him. This was a market porter,
  • a well-built young man of two and
    twenty at the most. His cheeks and chin were clean-shaven, but he wore
    a small moustache, and looked a sprightly, strapping fellow with his
    broad-brimmed hat covered with chalk, and his wool-worked neck-piece,
    the straps falling from which tightened his short blue blouse. Claude,
    who called him Alexandre, patted his arms, and asked him when they
    were going to Charentonneau again. Then they talked about a grand
    excursion they had made together in a boat on the Marne, when they had
    eaten a rabbit for supper in the evening.
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  • /Fort/ is the French term, literally "a strong man," as every
        market porter needs to be.--Translator.

    "Well, what will you take?" Claude again asked Florent.

    The latter looked at the counter in great embarrassment. At one end of
    it some stoneware pots, encircled with brass bands and containing
    punch and hot wine, were standing over the short blue flames of a gas
    stove. Florent at last confessed that a glass of something warm would
    be welcome. Monsieur Lebigre thereupon served them with three glasses
    of punch. In a basket near the pots were some smoking hot rolls which
    had only just arrived. However, as neither of the others took one,
    Florent likewise refrained, and drank his punch. He felt it slipping
    down into his empty stomach, like a steam of molten lead. It was
    Alexandre who paid for the "shout."

    "He's a fine fellow, that Alexandre!" said Claude, when he and Florent
    found themselves alone again on the footway of the Rue Rambuteau.
    "He's a very amusing companion to take into the country. He's fond of
    showing his strength. And then he's so magnificently built! I have
    seen him stripped. Ah, if I could only get him to pose for me in the
    nude out in the open air! Well, we'll go and take a turn through the
    markets now, if you like."

    Florent followed, yielding entirely to his new friend's guidance. A
    bright glow at the far end of the Rue Rambuteau announced the break of
    day. The far-spreading voice of the markets was become more sonorous,
    and every now and then the peals of a bell ringing in some distant
    pavilion mingled with the swelling, rising clamour. Claude and Florent
    entered one of the covered streets between the fish and poultry
    pavilions. Florent raised his eyes and looked at the lofty vault
    overhead, the inner timbers of which glistened amidst a black lacework
    of iron supports. As he turned into the great central thoroughfare he
    pictured himself in some strange town, with its various districts and
    suburbs, promenades and streets, squares and cross-roads, all suddenly
    placed under shelter on a rainy day by the whim of some gigantic
    power. The deep gloom brooding in the hollows of the roofs multiplied,
    as it were, the forest of pillars, and infinitely increased the number
    of the delicate ribs, railed galleries, and transparent shutters. And
    over the phantom city and far away into the depths of the shade, a
    teeming, flowering vegetation of luxuriant metal-work, with spindle-
    shaped stems and twining knotted branches, covered the vast expanse as
    with the foliage of some ancient forest. Several departments of the
    markets still slumbered behind their closed iron gates. The butter and
    poultry pavilions displayed rows of little trellised stalls and long
    alleys, which lines of gas lights showed to be deserted. The fish
    market, however, had just been opened, and women were flitting to and
    fro amongst the white slabs littered with shadowy hampers and cloths.
    Among the vegetables and fruit and flowers the noise and bustle were
    gradually increasing. The whole place was by degree waking up, from
    the popular quarter where the cabbages are piled at four o'clock in
    the morning, to the lazy and wealthy district which only hangs up its
    pullets and pheasants when the hands of the clock point to eight.

    The great covered alleys were now teeming with life. All along the
    footways on both sides of the road there were still many market
    gardeners, with other small growers from the environs of Paris, who
    displayed baskets containing their "gatherings" of the previous
    evening--bundles of vegetables and clusters of fruit. Whilst the crowd
    incessantly paced hither and thither, vehicles barred the road; and
    Florent, in order to pass them, had to press against some dingy sacks,
    like coal-sacks in appearance, and so numerous and heavy that the
    axle-trees of the vans bent beneath them. They were quite damp, and
    exhaled a fresh odour of seaweed. From a rent low down in the side of
    one of them a black stream of big mussels was trickling.

    Florent and Claude had now to pause at every step. The fish was
    arriving and one after another the drays of the railway companies
    drove up laden with wooden cages full of the hampers and baskets that
    had come by train from the sea coast. And to get out of the way of the
    fish drays, which became more and more numerous and disquieting, the
    artist and Florent rushed amongst the wheels of the drays laden with
    butter and eggs and cheese, huge yellow vehicles bearing coloured
    lanterns, and drawn by four horses. The market porters carried the
    cases of eggs, and baskets of cheese and butter, into the auction
    pavilion, where clerks were making entries in note books by the light
    of the gas.

    Claude was quite charmed with all this uproar, and forgot everything
    to gaze at some effect of light, some group of blouses, or the
    picturesque unloading of a cart. At last they extricated themselves
    from the crowd, and as they continued on their way along the main
    artery they presently found themselves amidst an exquisite perfume
    which seemed to be following them. They were in the cut-flower market.
    All over the footways, to the right and left, women were seated in
    front of large rectangular baskets full of bunches of roses, violets,
    dahlias, and marguerites. At times the clumps darkened and looked like
    splotches of blood, at others they brightened into silvery greys of
    the softest tones. A lighted candle, standing near one basket, set
    amidst the general blackness quite a melody of colour--the bright
    variegations of marguerites, the blood-red crimson of dahlias, the
    bluey purple of violets, and the warm flesh tints of roses. And
    nothing could have been sweeter or more suggestive of springtide than
    this soft breath of perfume encountered on the footway, on emerging
    from the sharp odours of the fish market and the pestilential smell of
    the butter and the cheese.

    Claude and Florent turned round and strolled about, loitering among
    the flowers. They halted with some curiosity before several women who
    were selling bunches of fern and bundles of vine-leaves, neatly tied
    up in packets of five and twenty. Then they turned down another
    covered alley, which was almost deserted, and where their footsteps
    echoed as though they had been walking through a church. Here they
    found a little cart, scarcely larger than a wheelbarrow, to which was
    harnessed a diminutive donkey, who, no doubt, felt bored, for at sight
    of them he began braying with such prolonged and sonorous force that
    the vast roofing of the markets fairly trembled. Then the horses began
    to neigh in reply, there was a sound of pawing and tramping, a distant
    uproar, which swelled, rolled along, then died away.

    Meantime, in the Rue Berger in front of them, Claude and Florent
    perceived a number of bare, frontless, salesmen's shops, where, by the
    light of flaring gas jets, they could distinguish piles of hampers and
    fruit, enclosed by three dirty walls which were covered with addition
    sums in pencil. And the two wanderers were still standing there,
    contemplating this scene, when they noticed a well-dressed woman
    huddled up in a cab which looked quite lost and forlorn in the block
    of carts as it stealthily made its way onwards.

    "There's Cinderella coming back without her slippers," remarked Claude
    with a smile.

    They began chatting together as they went back towards the markets.
    Claude whistled as he strolled along with his hands in his pockets,
    and expatiated on his love for this mountain of food which rises every
    morning in the very centre of Paris. He prowled about the footways
    night after night, dreaming of colossal still-life subjects, paintings
    of an extraordinary character. He had even started on one, having his
    friend Marjolin and that jade Cadine to pose for him; but it was hard
    work to paint those confounded vegetables and fruit and fish and meat
    --they were all so beautiful! Florent listened to the artist's
    enthusiastic talk with a void and hunger-aching stomach. It did not
    seem to occur to Claude that all those things were intended to be
    eaten. Their charm for him lay in their colour. Suddenly, however, he
    ceased speaking and, with a gesture that was habitual to him,
    tightened the long red sash which he wore under his green-stained
    coat.

    And then with a sly expression he resumed:

    "Besides, I breakfast here, through my eyes, at any rate, and that's
    better than getting nothing at all. Sometimes, when I've forgotten to
    dine on the previous day, I treat myself to a perfect fit of
    indigestion in the morning by watching the carts arrive here laden
    with all sorts of good things. On such mornings as those I love my
    vegetables more than ever. Ah! the exasperating part, the rank
    injustice of it all, is that those rascally Philistines really eat
    these things!"

    Then he went on to tell Florent of a supper to which a friend had
    treated him at Baratte's on a day of affluence. They had partaken of
    oysters, fish, and game. But Baratte's had sadly fallen, and all the
    carnival life of the old Marche des Innocents was now buried. In place
    thereof they had those huge central markets, that colossus of
    ironwork, that new and wonderful town. Fools might say what they
    liked; it was the embodiment of the spirit of the times. Florent,
    however, could not at first make out whether he was condemning the
    picturesqueness of Baratte's or its good cheer.

    But Claude next began to inveigh against romanticism. He preferred his
    piles of vegetables, he said, to the rags of the middle ages; and he
    ended by reproaching himself with guilty weakness in making an etching
    of the Rue Pirouette. All those grimy old places ought to be levelled
    to the ground, he declared, and modern houses ought to be built in
    their stead.

    "There!" he exclaimed, coming to a halt, "look at the corner of the
    footway yonder! Isn't that a picture readymade, ever so much more
    human and natural than all their confounded consumptive daubs?"

    Along the covered way women were now selling hot soup and coffee. At
    one corner of the foot-pavement a large circle of customers clustered
    round a vendor of cabbage soup. The bright tin caldron, full of broth,
    was steaming over a little low stove, through the holes of which came
    the pale glow of the embers. From a napkin-lined basket the woman took
    some thin slices of bread and dropped them into yellow cups; then with
    a ladle she filled the cups with liquor. Around her were saleswomen
    neatly dressed, market gardeners in blouses, porters with coats soiled
    by the loads they had carried, poor ragged vagabonds--in fact, all the
    early hungry ones of the markets, eating, and scalding their mouths,
    and drawing back their chins to avoid soiling them with the drippings
    from their spoons. The delighted artist blinked, and sought a point of
    view so as to get a good ensemble of the picture. That cabbage soup,
    however, exhaled a very strong odour. Florent, for his part, turned
    his head away, distressed by the sight of the full cups which the
    customers emptied in silence, glancing around them the while like
    suspicious animals. As the woman began serving a fresh customer,
    Claude himself was affected by the odorous steam of the soup, which
    was wafted full in his face.

    He again tightened his sash, half amused and half annoyed. Then
    resuming his walk, and alluding to the punch paid for by Alexandre, he
    said to Florent in a low voice:

    "It's very odd, but have you ever noticed that although a man can
    always find somebody to treat him to something to drink, he can never
    find a soul who will stand him anything to eat?"

    The dawn was now rising. The houses on the Boulevard de Sebastopol at
    the end of the Rue de la Cossonnerie were still black; but above the
    sharp line of their slate roofs a patch of pale blue sky,
    circumscribed by the arch-pieces of the covered way, showed like a
    gleaming half-moon. Claude, who had been bending over some grated
    openings on a level with the ground, through which a glimpse could be
    obtained of deep cellars where gas lights glimmered, now glanced up
    into the air between the lofty pillars, as though scanning the dark
    roofs which fringed the clear sky. Then he halted again, with his eyes
    fixed on one of the light iron ladders which connect the superposed
    market roofs and give access from one to the other. Florent asked him
    what he was seeking there.

    "I'm looking for that scamp of a Marjolin," replied the artist. "He's
    sure to be in some guttering up there, unless, indeed, he's been
    spending the night in the poultry cellars. I want him to give me a
    sitting."

    Then he went on to relate how a market saleswoman had found his friend
    Marjolin one morning in a pile of cabbages, and how Marjolin had grown
    up in all liberty on the surrounding footways. When an attempt had
    been made to send him to school he had fallen ill, and it had been
    necessary to bring him back to the markets. He knew every nook and
    corner of them, and loved them with a filial affection, leading the
    agile life of a squirrel in that forest of ironwork. He and Cadine,
    the hussy whom Mother Chantemesse had picked up one night in the old
    Market of the Innocents, made a pretty couple--he, a splendid foolish
    fellow, as glowing as a Rubens, with a ruddy down on his skin which
    attracted the sunlight; and she, slight and sly, with a comical phiz
    under her tangle of black curly hair.

    Whilst talking Claude quickened his steps, and soon brought his
    companion back to Saint Eustache again. Florent, whose legs were once
    more giving way, dropped upon a bench near the omnibus office. The
    morning air was freshening. At the far end of the Rue Rambuteau rosy
    gleams were streaking the milky sky, which higher up was slashed by
    broad grey rifts. Such was the sweet balsamic scent of this dawn, that
    Florent for a moment fancied himself in the open country, on the brow
    of a hill. But behind the bench Claude pointed out to him the many
    aromatic herbs and bulbs on sale. All along the footway skirting the
    tripe market there were, so to say, fields of thyme and lavender,
    garlic and shallots; and round the young plane-trees on the pavement
    the vendors had twined long branches of laurel, forming trophies of
    greenery. The strong scent of the laurel leaves prevailed over every
    other odour.

    At present the luminous dial of Saint Eustache was paling as a night-
    light does when surprised by the dawn. The gas jets in the wine shops
    in the neighbouring streets went out one by one, like stars
    extinguished by the brightness. And Florent gazed at the vast markets
    now gradually emerging from the gloom, from the dreamland in which he
    had beheld them, stretching out their ranges of open palaces.
    Greenish-grey in hue, they looked more solid now, and even more
    colossal with their prodigious masting of columns upholding an endless
    expanse of roofs. They rose up in geometrically shaped masses; and
    when all the inner lights had been extinguished and the square uniform
    buildings were steeped in the rising dawn, they seemed typical of some
    gigantic modern machine, some engine, some caldron for the supply of a
    whole people, some colossal belly, bolted and riveted, built up of
    wood and glass and iron, and endowed with all the elegance and power
    of some mechanical motive appliance working there with flaring
    furnaces, and wild, bewildering revolutions of wheels.

    Claude, however, had enthusiastically sprung on to the bench, and
    stood upon it. He compelled his companion to admire the effect of the
    dawn rising over the vegetables. There was a perfect sea of these
    extending between the two clusters of pavilions from Saint Eustache to
    the Rue des Halles. And in the two open spaces at either end the flood
    of greenery rose to even greater height, and quite submerged the
    pavements. The dawn appeared slowly, softly grey in hue, and spreading
    a light water-colour tint over everything. These surging piles akin to
    hurrying waves, this river of verdure rushing along the roadway like
    an autumn torrent, assumed delicate shadowy tints--tender violet,
    blush-rose, and greeny yellow, all the soft, light hues which at
    sunrise make the sky look like a canopy of shot silk. And by degrees,
    as the fires of dawn rose higher and higher at the far end of the Rue
    Rambuteau, the mass of vegetation grew brighter and brighter, emerging
    more and more distinctly from the bluey gloom that clung to the
    ground. Salad herbs, cabbage-lettuce, endive, and succory, with rich
    soil still clinging to their roots, exposed their swelling hearts;
    bundles of spinach, bundles of sorrel, clusters of artichokes, piles
    of peas and beans, mounds of cos-lettuce, tied round with straws,
    sounded every note in the whole gamut of greenery, from the sheeny
    lacquer-like green of the pods to the deep-toned green of the foliage;
    a continuous gamut with ascending and descending scales which died
    away in the variegated tones of the heads of celery and bundles of
    leeks. But the highest and most sonorous notes still came from the
    patches of bright carrots and snowy turnips, strewn in prodigious
    quantities all along the markets and lighting them up with the medley
    of their two colours.

    At the crossway in the Rue des Halles cabbages were piled up in
    mountains; there were white ones, hard and compact as metal balls,
    curly savoys, whose great leaves made them look like basins of green
    bronze, and red cabbages, which the dawn seemed to transform into
    superb masses of bloom with the hue of wine-lees, splotched with dark
    purple and carmine. At the other side of the markets, at the crossway
    near Saint Eustache, the end of the Rue Rambuteau was blocked by a
    barricade of orange-hued pumpkins, sprawling with swelling bellies in
    two superposed rows. And here and there gleamed the glistening ruddy
    brown of a hamper of onions, the blood-red crimson of a heap of
    tomatoes, the quiet yellow of a display of marrows, and the sombre
    violet of the fruit of the eggplant; while numerous fat black
    radishes still left patches of gloom amidst the quivering brilliance
    of the general awakening.

    Claude clapped his hands at the sight. He declared that those
    "blackguard vegetables" were wild, mad, sublime! He stoutly maintained
    that they were not yet dead, but, gathered in the previous evening,
    waited for the morning sun to bid him good-bye from the flag-stones of
    the market. He could observe their vitality, he declared, see their
    leaves stir and open as though their roots were yet firmly and warmly
    embedded in well-manured soil. And here, in the markets, he added, he
    heard the death-rattle of all the kitchen gardens of the environs of
    Paris.

    A crowd of white caps, loose black jackets, and blue blouses was
    swarming in the narrow paths between the various piles. The big
    baskets of the market porters passed along slowly, above the heads of
    the throng. Retail dealers, costermongers, and greengrocers were
    making their purchases in haste. Corporals and nuns clustered round
    the mountains of cabbages, and college cooks prowled about
    inquisitively, on the look-out for good bargains. The unloading was
    still going on; heavy tumbrels, discharging their contents as though
    these were so many paving-stones, added more and more waves to the sea
    of greenery which was now beating against the opposite footways. And
    from the far end of the Rue du Pont Neuf fresh rows of carts were
    still and ever arriving.

    "What a fine sight it is!" exclaimed Claude in an ecstasy of
    enthusiasm.

    Florent was suffering keenly. He fancied that all this was some
    supernatural temptation, and, unwilling to look at the markets any
    longer, turned towards Saint Eustache, a side view of which he
    obtained from the spot where he now stood. With its roses, and broad
    arched windows, its bell-turret, and roofs of slate, it looked as
    though painted in sepia against the blue of the sky. He fixed his eyes
    at last on the sombre depths of the Rue Montorgueil, where fragments
    of gaudy sign boards showed conspicuously, and on the corner of the
    Rue Montmartre, where there were balconies gleaming with letters of
    gold. And when he again glanced at the cross-roads, his gaze was
    solicited by other sign boards, on which such inscriptions as
    "Druggist and Chemist," "Flour and Grain" appeared in big red and
    black capital letters upon faded backgrounds. Near these corners,
    houses with narrow windows were now awakening, setting amidst the
    newness and airiness of the Rue du Pont Neuf a few of the yellow
    ancient facades of olden Paris. Standing at the empty windows of the
    great drapery shop at the corner of the Rue Rambuteau a number of
    spruce-looking counter-jumpers in their shirt sleeves, with snowy-
    white wristbands and tight-fitting pantaloons, were "dressing" their
    goods. Farther away, in the windows of the severe looking, barrack-
    like Guillot establishment, biscuits in gilt wrappers and fancy cakes
    on glass stands were tastefully set out. All the shops were now open;
    and workmen in white blouses, with tools under their arms, were
    hurrying along the road.

    Claude had not yet got down from the bench. He was standing on tiptoe
    in order to see the farther down the streets. Suddenly, in the midst
    of the crowd which he overlooked, he caught sight of a fair head with
    long wavy locks, followed by a little black one covered with curly
    tumbled hair.

    "Hallo, Marjolin! Hallo, Cadine!" he shouted; and then, as his voice
    was drowned by the general uproar, he jumped to the ground and started
    off. But all at once, recollecting that he had left Florent behind
    him, he hastily came back. "I live at the end of the Impasse des
    Bourdonnais," he said rapidly. "My name's written in chalk on the
    door, Claude Lantier. Come and see the etching of the Rue Pirouette."

    Then he vanished. He was quite ignorant of Florent's name, and, after
    favouring him with his views on art, parted from him as he had met
    him, at the roadside.

    Florent was now alone, and at first this pleased him. Ever since
    Madame Francoise had picked him up in the Avenue de Neuilly he had
    been coming and going in a state of pain fraught somnolence which had
    quite prevented him from forming any definite ideas of his
    surroundings. Now at last he was at liberty to do what he liked, and
    he tried to shake himself free from that intolerable vision of teeming
    food by which he was pursued. But his head still felt empty and dizzy,
    and all that he could find within him was a kind of vague fear. The
    day was now growing quite bright, and he could be distinctly seen. He
    looked down at his wretched shabby coat and trousers. He buttoned the
    first, dusted the latter, and strove to make a bit of a toilet,
    fearing lest those black rags of his should proclaim aloud whence he
    had come. He was seated in the middle of the bench, by the side of
    some wandering vagabonds who had settled themselves there while
    waiting for the sunrise. The neighbourhood of the markets is a
    favourite spot with vagrants in the small hours of the morning.
    However, two constables, still in night uniform, with cloaks and
    /kepis/, paced up and down the footway side by side, their hands
    resting behind their backs; and every time they passed the bench they
    glanced at the game which they scented there. Florent felt sure that
    they recognised him, and were consulting together about arresting him.
    At this thought his anguish of mind became extreme. He felt a wild
    desire to get up and run away; but he did not dare to do so, and was
    quite at a loss as to how he might take himself off. The repeated
    glances of the constables, their cold, deliberate scrutiny caused him
    the keenest torture. At length he rose from the bench, making a great
    effort to restrain himself from rushing off as quickly as his long
    legs could carry him; and succeeded in walking quietly away, though
    his shoulders quivered in the fear he felt of suddenly feeling the
    rough hands of the constables clutching at his collar from behind.

    He had now only one thought, one desire, which was to get away from
    the markets as quickly as possible. He would wait and make his
    investigations later on, when the footways should be clear. The three
    streets which met here--the Rue Montmartre, Rue Montorgueil, and Rue
    Turbigo--filled him with uneasiness. They were blocked by vehicles of
    all kinds, and their footways were crowded with vegetables. Florent
    went straight along as far as the Rue Pierre Lescot, but there the
    cress and the potato markets seemed to him insuperable obstacles. So
    he resolved to take the Rue Rambuteau. On reaching the Boulevard de
    Sebastopol, however, he came across such a block of vans and carts and
    waggonettes that he turned back and proceeded along the Rue Saint
    Denis. Then he got amongst the vegetables once more. Retail dealers
    had just set up their stalls, formed of planks resting on tall
    hampers; and the deluge of cabbages and carrots and turnips began all
    over again. The markets were overflowing. Florent tried to make his
    escape from this pursuing flood which ever overtook him in his flight.
    He tried the Rue de la Cossonnerie, the Rue Berger, the Square des
    Innocents, the Rue de la Ferronnerie, and the Rue des Halles. And at
    last he came to a standstill, quite discouraged and scared at finding
    himself unable to escape from the infernal circle of vegetables, which
    now seemed to dance around him, twining clinging verdure about his
    legs.

    The everlasting stream of carts and horses stretched away as far as
    the Rue de Rivoli and the Place de l'Hotel de Ville. Huge vans were
    carrying away supplies for all the greengrocers and fruiterers of an
    entire district; /chars-a-bancs/ were starting for the suburbs with
    straining, groaning sides. In the Rue de Pont Neuf Florent got
    completely bewildered. He stumbled upon a crowd of hand-carts, in
    which numerous costermongers were arranging their purchases. Amongst
    them he recognised Lacaille, who went off along the Rue Saint Honore,
    pushing a barrow of carrots and cauliflowers before him. Florent
    followed him, in the hope that he would guide him out of the mob. The
    pavement was now quite slippery, although the weather was dry, and the
    litter of artichoke stalks, turnip tops, and leaves of all kinds made
    walking somewhat dangerous. Florent stumbled at almost every step. He
    lost sight of Lacaille in the Rue Vauvilliers, and on approaching the
    corn market he again found the streets barricaded with vehicles. Then
    he made no further attempt to struggle; he was once more in the clutch
    of the markets, and their stream of life bore him back. Slowly
    retracing his steps, he presently found himself by Saint Eustache
    again.

    He now heard the loud continuous rumbling of the waggons that were
    setting out from the markets. Paris was doling out the daily food of
    its two million inhabitants. These markets were like some huge central
    organ beating with giant force, and sending the blood of life through
    every vein of the city. The uproar was akin to that of colossal jaws--
    a mighty sound to which each phase of the provisioning contributed,
    from the whip-cracking of the larger retail dealers as they started
    off for the district markets to the dragging pit-a-pat of the old
    shoes worn by the poor women who hawked their lettuces in baskets from
    door to door.

    Florent turned into a covered way on the left, intersecting the group
    of four pavilions whose deep silent gloom he had remarked during the
    night. He hoped that he might there find a refuge, discover some
    corner in which he could hide himself. But these pavilions were now as
    busy, as lively as the others. Florent walked on to the end of the
    street. Drays were driving up at a quick trot, crowding the market
    with cages full of live poultry, and square hampers in which dead
    birds were stowed in deep layers. On the other side of the way were
    other drays from which porters were removing freshly killed calves,
    wrapped in canvas, and laid at full length in baskets, whence only the
    four bleeding stumps of their legs protruded. There were also whole
    sheep, and sides and quarters of beef. Butchers in long white aprons
    marked the meat with a stamp, carried it off, weighted it, and hung it
    up on hooks in the auction room. Florent, with his face close to the
    grating, stood gazing at the rows of hanging carcasses, at the ruddy
    sheep and oxen and paler calves, all streaked with yellow fat and
    sinews, and with bellies yawning open. Then he passed along the
    sidewalk where the tripe market was held, amidst the pallid calves'
    feet and heads, the rolled tripe neatly packed in boxes, the brains
    delicately set out in flat baskets, the sanguineous livers, and
    purplish kidneys. He checked his steps in front of some long two-
    wheeled carts, covered with round awnings, and containing sides of
    pork hung on each side of the vehicle over a bed of straw. Seen from
    the back end, the interiors of the carts looked like recesses of some
    tabernacle, like some taper-lighted chapel, such was the glow of all
    the bare flesh they contained. And on the beds of straw were lines of
    tin cans, full of the blood that had trickled from the pigs. Thereupon
    Florent was attacked by a sort of rage. The insipid odour of the meat,
    the pungent smell of the tripe exasperated him. He made his way out of
    the covered road, preferring to return once more to the footwalk of
    the Rue de Pont Neuf.

    He was enduring perfect agony. The shiver of early morning came upon
    him; his teeth chattered, and he was afraid of falling to the ground
    and finding himself unable to rise again. He looked about, but could
    see no vacant place on any bench. Had he found one he would have
    dropped asleep there, even at the risk of being awakened by the
    police. Then, as giddiness nearly blinded him, he leaned for support
    against a tree, with his eyes closed and his ears ringing. The raw
    carrot, which he had swallowed almost without chewing, was torturing
    his stomach, and the glass of punch which he had drunk seemed to have
    intoxicated him. He was indeed intoxicated with misery, weariness, and
    hunger. Again he felt a burning fire in the pit of the stomach, to
    which he every now and then carried his hands, as though he were
    trying to stop up a hole through which all his life was oozing away.
    As he stood there he fancied that the foot-pavement rocked beneath
    him; and thinking that he might perhaps lessen his sufferings by
    walking, he went straight on through the vegetables again. He lost
    himself among them. He went along a narrow footway, turned down
    another, was forced to retrace his steps, bungled in doing so, and
    once more found himself amidst piles of greenery. Some heaps were so
    high that people seemed to be walking between walls of bundles and
    bunches. Only their heads slightly overtopped these ramparts, and
    passed along showing whitely or blackly according to the colour of
    their hats or caps; whilst the huge swinging baskets, carried aloft on
    a level with the greenery, looked like osier boats floating on a
    stagnant, mossy lake.

    Florent stumbled against a thousand obstacles--against porters taking
    up their burdens, and saleswomen disputing in rough tones. He slipped
    over the thick bed of waste leaves and stumps which covered the
    footway, and was almost suffocated by the powerful odour of crushed
    verdure. At last he halted in a sort of confused stupor, and
    surrendered to the pushing of some and the insults of others; and then
    he became a mere waif, a piece of wreckage tossed about on the surface
    of that surging sea.

    He was fast losing all self-respect, and would willingly have begged.
    The recollection of his foolish pride during the night exasperated
    him. If he had accepted Madame Francois's charity, if he had not felt
    such idiotic fear of Claude, he would not now have been stranded there
    groaning in the midst of these cabbages. And he was especially angry
    with himself for not having questioned the artist when they were in
    the Rue Pirouette. Now, alas! he was alone and deserted, liable to die
    in the streets like a homeless dog.

    For the last time he raised his eyes and looked at the markets. At
    present they were glittering in the sun. A broad ray was pouring
    through the covered road from the far end, cleaving the massy
    pavilions with an arcade of light, whilst fiery beams rained down upon
    the far expanse of roofs. The huge iron framework grew less distinct,
    assumed a bluey hue, became nothing but a shadowy silhouette outlined
    against the flaming flare of the sunrise. But up above a pane of glass
    took fire, drops of light trickled down the broad sloping zinc plates
    to the gutterings; and then, below, a tumultuous city appeared amidst
    a haze of dancing golden dust. The general awakening had spread, from
    the first start of the market gardeners snoring in their cloaks, to
    the brisk rolling of the food-laden railway drays. And the whole city
    was opening its iron gates, the footways were humming, the pavilions
    roaring with life. Shouts and cries of all kinds rent the air; it was
    as though the strain, which Florent had heard gathering force in the
    gloom ever since four in the morning, had now attained its fullest
    volume. To the right and left, on all sides indeed, the sharp cries
    accompanying the auction sales sounded shrilly like flutes amidst the
    sonorous bass roar of the crowd. It was the fish, the butter, the
    poultry, and the meat being sold.

    The pealing of bells passed through the air, imparting a quiver to the
    buzzing of the opening markets. Around Florent the sun was setting the
    vegetables aflame. He no longer perceived any of those soft water-
    colour tints which had predominated in the pale light of early
    morning. The swelling hearts of the lettuces were now gleaming
    brightly, the scales of greenery showed forth with wondrous vigour,
    the carrots glowed blood-red, the turnips shone as if incandescent in
    the triumphant radiance of the sun.

    On Florent's left some waggons were discharging fresh loads of
    cabbages. He turned his eyes, and away in the distance saw carts yet
    streaming out of the Rue Turbigo. The tide was still and ever rising.
    He had felt it about his ankles, then on a level with his stomach, and
    now it was threatening to drown him altogether. Blinded and submerged,
    his ears buzzing, his stomach overpowered by all that he had seen, he
    asked for mercy; and wild grief took possession of him at the thought
    of dying there of starvation in the very heart of glutted Paris,
    amidst the effulgent awakening of her markets. Big hot tears started
    from his eyes.

    Walking on, he had now reached one of the larger alleys. Two women,
    one short and old, the other tall and withered, passed him, talking
    together as they made their way towards the pavilions.

    "So you've come to do your marketing, Mademoiselle Saget?" said the
    tall withered woman.

    "Well, yes, Madame Lecoeur, if you can give it such a name as
    marketing. I'm a lone woman, you know, and live on next to nothing. I
    should have liked a small cauliflower, but everything is so dear. How
    is butter selling to-day?"

    "At thirty-four sous. I have some which is first rate. Will you come
    and look at it?"

    "Well, I don't know if I shall want any to-day; I've still a little
    lard left."

    Making a supreme effort, Florent followed these two women. He
    recollected having heard Claude name the old one--Mademoiselle Saget--
    when they were in the Rue Pirouette; and he made up his mind to
    question her when she should have parted from her tall withered
    acquaintance.

    "And how's your niece?" Mademoiselle Saget now asked.

    "Oh, La Sarriette does as she likes," Madame Lecoeur replied in a
    bitter tone. "She's chosen to set up for herself and her affairs no
    longer concern me. When her lovers have beggared her, she needn't come
    to me for any bread."

    "And you were so good to her, too! She ought to do well this year;
    fruit is yielding big profits. And your brother-in-law, how is he?"

    "Oh, he----"

    Madame Lecoeur bit her lips, and seemed disinclined to say anything
    more.

    "Still the same as ever, I suppose?" continued Mademoiselle Saget.
    "He's a very worthy man. Still, I once heard it said that he spent his
    money in such a way that--"

    "But does anyone know how he spends his money?" interrupted Madame
    Lecoeur, with much asperity. "He's a miserly niggard, a scurvy fellow,
    that's what I say! Do you know, mademoiselle, he'd see me die of
    starvation rather than lend me five francs! He knows quite well that
    there's nothing to be made out of butter this season, any more than
    out of cheese and eggs; whereas he can sell as much poultry as ever he
    chooses. But not once, I assure you, not once has he offered to help
    me. I am too proud, as you know, to accept any assistance from him;
    still it would have pleased me to have had it offered."

    "Ah, by the way, there he is, your brother-in-law!" suddenly exclaimed
    Mademoiselle Saget, lowering her voice.

    The two women turned and gazed at a man who was crossing the road to
    enter the covered way close by.

    "I'm in a hurry," murmured Madame Lecoeur. "I left my stall without
    anyone to look after it; and, besides, I don't want to speak to him."

    However, Florent also had mechanically turned round and glanced at the
    individual referred to. This was a short, squarely-built man, with a
    cheery look and grey, close-cut brush-like hair. Under each arm he was
    carrying a fat goose, whose head hung down and flapped against his
    legs. And then all at once Florent made a gesture of delight.
    Forgetting his fatigue, he ran after the man, and, overtaking him,
    tapped him on the shoulder.

    "Gavard!" he exclaimed.

    The other raised his head and stared with surprise at Florent's tall
    black figure, which he did not at first recognise. Then all at once:
    "What! is it you?" he cried, as if overcome with amazement. "Is it
    really you?"

    He all but let his geese fall, and seemed unable to master his
    surprise. On catching sight, however, of his sister-in-law and
    Mademoiselle Saget, who were watching the meeting at a distance, he
    began to walk on again.

    "Come along; don't let us stop here," he said. "There are too many
    eyes and tongues about."

    When they were in the covered way they began to chat. Florent related
    how he had gone to the Rue Pirouette, at which Gavard seemed much
    amused and laughed heartily. Then he told Florent that his brother
    Quenu had moved from that street and had reopened his pork shop close
    by, in the Rue Rambuteau, just in front of the markets. And afterwards
    he was again highly amused to hear that Florent had been wandering
    about all that morning with Claude Lantier, an odd kind of fish, who,
    strangely enough, said he, was Madame Quenu's nephew. Thus chatting,
    Gavard was on the point of taking Florent straight to the pork shop,
    but, on hearing that he had returned to France with false papers, he
    suddenly assumed all sorts of solemn and mysterious airs, and insisted
    upon walking some fifteen paces in front of him, to avoid attracting
    attention. After passing through the poultry pavilion, where he hung
    his geese up in his stall, he began to cross the Rue Rambuteau, still
    followed by Florent; and then, halting in the middle of the road, he
    glanced significantly towards a large and well-appointed pork shop.

    The sun was obliquely enfilading the Rue Rambuteau, lighting up the
    fronts of the houses, in the midst of which the Rue Pirouette formed a
    dark gap. At the other end the great pile of Saint Eustache glittered
    brightly in the sunlight like some huge reliquary. And right through
    the crowd, from the distant crossway, an army of street-sweepers was
    advancing in file down the road, the brooms swishing rhythmically,
    while scavengers provided with forks pitched the collected refuse into
    tumbrels, which at intervals of a score of paces halted with a noise
    like the chattering of broken pots. However, all Florent's attention
    was concentrated on the pork shop, open and radiant in the rising sun.

    It stood very near the corner of the Rue Pirouette and provided quite
    a feast for the eyes. Its aspect was bright and smiling, touches of
    brilliant colour showing conspicuously amidst all the snowy marble.
    The sign board, on which the name of QUENU-GRADELLE glittered in fat
    gilt letters encircled by leaves and branches painted on a soft-hued
    background, was protected by a sheet of glass. On two panels, one on
    each side of the shop-front, and both, like the board above, covered
    with glass, were paintings representing various chubby little cupids
    playing amidst boars' heads, pork chops and strings of sausages; and
    these latter still-life subjects, embellished with scrolls and bows,
    had been painted in such soft tones that the uncooked pork which they
    represented had the pinkiness of raspberry jam. Within this pleasing
    framework arose the window display, arranged upon a bed of fine blue-
    paper shavings. Here and there fern-leaves, tastefully disposed,
    changed the plates which they encircled into bouquets fringed with
    foliage. There was a wealth of rich, luscious, melting things. Down
    below, quite close to the window, jars of preserved sausage-meat were
    interspersed with pots of mustard. Above these were some small, plump,
    boned hams. Golden with their dressings of toasted bread-crumbs, and
    adorned at the knuckles with green rosettes. Next came the larger
    dishes, some containing preserved Strasburg tongues, enclosed in
    bladders coloured a bright red and varnished, so that they looked
    quite sanguineous beside the pale sausages and trotters; then there
    were black-puddings coiled like harmless snakes, healthy looking
    chitterlings piled up two by two; Lyons sausages in little silver
    copes that made them look like choristers; hot pies, with little
    banner-like tickets stuck in them; big hams, and great glazed joints
    of veal and pork, whose jelly was as limpid as sugar-candy. In the
    rear were other dishes and earthen pans in which meat, minced and
    sliced, slumbered beneath lakes of melted fat. And betwixt the various
    plates and dishes, jars and bottle of sauce, cullis, stock and
    preserved truffles, pans of /foie gras/ and boxes of sardines and
    tunny-fish were strewn over the bed of paper shavings. A box of creamy
    cheeses, and one of edible snails, the apertures of whose shells were
    dressed with butter and parsley, had been placed carelessly at either
    corner. Finally, from a bar overhead strings of sausages and saveloys
    of various sizes hung down symmetrically like cords and tassels; while
    in the rear fragments of intestinal membranes showed like lacework,
    like some /guipure/ of white flesh. And on the highest tier in this
    sanctuary of gluttony, amidst the membranes and between two bouquets
    of purple gladioli, the window stand was crowned by a small square
    aquarium, ornamented with rock-work, and containing a couple of gold-
    fish, which were continually swimming round it.

    Florent's whole body thrilled at the sight. Then he perceived a woman
    standing in the sunlight at the door of the shop. With her prosperous,
    happy look in the midst of all those inviting things she added to the
    cherry aspect of the place. She was a fine woman and quite blocked the
    doorway. Still, she was not over stout, but simply buxom, with the
    full ripeness of her thirty years. She had only just risen, yet her
    glossy hair was already brushed smooth and arranged in little flat
    bands over her temples, giving her an appearance of extreme neatness.
    She had the fine skin, the pinky-white complexion common to those
    whose life is spent in an atmosphere of raw meat and fat. There was a
    touch of gravity about her demeanour, her movements were calm and
    slow; what mirth or pleasure she felt she expressed by her eyes, her
    lips retaining all their seriousness. A collar of starched linen
    encircled her neck, white sleevelets reached to her elbows, and a
    white apron fell even over the tips of her shoes, so that you saw but
    little of her black cashmere dress, which clung tightly to her well-
    rounded shoulders and swelling bosom. The sun rays poured hotly upon
    all the whiteness she displayed. However, although her bluish-black
    hair, her rosy face, and bright sleeves and apron were steeped in the
    glow of light, she never once blinked, but enjoyed her morning bath of
    sunshine with blissful tranquillity, her soft eyes smiling the while
    at the flow and riot of the markets. She had the appearance of a very
    worthy woman.

    "That is your brother's wife, your sister-in-law, Lisa," Gavard said
    to Florent.

    He had saluted her with a slight inclination of the head. Then he
    darted along the house passage, continuing to take the most minute
    precautions, and unwilling to let Florent enter the premises through
    the shop, though there was no one there. It was evident that he felt
    great pleasure in dabbling in what he considered to be a compromising
    business.

    "Wait here," he said, "while I go to see whether your brother is
    alone. You can come in when I clap my hands."

    Thereupon he opened a door at the end of the passage. But as soon as
    Florent heard his brother's voice behind it, he sprang inside at a
    bound. Quenu, who was much attached to him, threw his arms round his
    neck, and they kissed each other like children.

    "Ah! dash it all! Is it really you, my dear fellow?" stammered the
    pork butcher. "I never expected to see you again. I felt sure you were
    dead! Why, only yesterday I was saying to Lisa, 'That poor fellow,
    Florent!'"

    However, he stopped short, and popping his head into the shop, called
    out, "Lisa! Lisa!" Then turning towards a little girl who had crept
    into a corner, he added, "Pauline, go and find your mother."

    The little one did not stir, however. She was an extremely fine child,
    five years of age, with a plump chubby face, bearing a strong
    resemblance to that of the pork butcher's wife. In her arms she was
    holding a huge yellow cat, which had cheerfully surrendered itself to
    her embrace, with its legs dangling downwards; and she now squeezed it
    tightly with her little arms, as if she were afraid that yonder
    shabby-looking gentleman might rob her of it.

    Lisa, however, leisurely made her appearance.

    "Here is my brother Florent!" exclaimed Quenu.

    Lisa addressed him as "Monsieur," and gave him a kindly welcome. She
    scanned him quietly from head to foot, without evincing any
    disagreeable surprise. Merely a faint pout appeared for a moment on
    her lips. Then, standing by, she began to smile at her husband's
    demonstrations of affection. Quenu, however, at last recovered his
    calmness, and noticing Florent's fleshless, poverty-stricken
    appearance, exclaimed: "Ah, my poor fellow, you haven't improved in
    your looks since you were over yonder. For my part, I've grown fat;
    but what would you have!"

    He had indeed grown fat, too fat for his thirty years. He seemed to be
    bursting through his shirt and apron, through all the snowy-white
    linen in which he was swathed like a huge doll. With advancing years
    his clean-shaven face had become elongated, assuming a faint
    resemblance to the snout of one of those pigs amidst whose flesh his
    hands worked and lived the whole day through. Florent scarcely
    recognised him. He had now seated himself, and his glance turned from
    his brother to handsome Lisa and little Pauline. They were all brimful
    of health, squarely built, sleek, in prime condition; and in their
    turn they looked at Florent with the uneasy astonishment which
    corpulent people feel at the sight of a scraggy person. The very cat,
    whose skin was distended by fat, dilated its yellow eyes and
    scrutinised him with an air of distrust.

    "You'll wait till we have breakfast, won't you?" asked Quenu. "We have
    it early, at ten o'clock."

    A penetrating odour of cookery pervaded the place; and Florent looked
    back upon the terrible night which he had just spent, his arrival
    amongst the vegetables, his agony in the midst of the markets, the
    endless avalanches of food from which he had just escaped. And then in
    a low tone and with a gentle smile he responded:

    "No; I'm really very hungry, you see."
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    Chapter II


    Florent had just begun to study law in Paris when his mother died. She
    lived at Le Vigan, in the department of the Gard, and had taken for
    her second husband one Quenu, a native of Yvetot in Normandy, whom
    some sub-prefect had transplanted to the south and then forgotten
    there. He had remained in employment at the sub-prefecture, finding
    the country charming, the wine good, and the women very amiable. Three
    years after his marriage he had been carried off by a bad attack of
    indigestion, leaving as sole legacy to his wife a sturdy boy who
    resembled him. It was only with very great difficulty that the widow
    could pay the college fees of Florent, her elder son, the issue of her
    first marriage. He was a very gentle youth, devoted to his studies,
    and constantly won the chief prizes at school. It was upon him that
    his mother lavished all her affection and based all her hopes.
    Perhaps, in bestowing so much love on this slim pale youth, she was
    giving evidence of her preference for her first husband, a tender-
    hearted, caressing Provencal, who had loved her devotedly. Quenu,
    whose good humour and amiability had at first attracted her, had
    perhaps displayed too much self-satisfaction, and shown too plainly
    that he looked upon himself as the main source of happiness. At all
    events she formed the opinion that her younger son--and in southern
    families younger sons are still often sacrificed--would never do any
    good; so she contented herself with sending him to a school kept by a
    neighbouring old maid, where the lad learned nothing but how to idle
    his time away. The two brothers grew up far apart from each other, as
    though they were strangers.

    When Florent arrived at Le Vigan his mother was already buried. She
    had insisted upon having her illness concealed from him till the very
    last moment, for fear of disturbing his studies. Thus he found little
    Quenu, who was then twelve years old, sitting and sobbing alone on a
    table in the middle of the kitchen. A furniture dealer, a neighbour,
    gave him particulars of his mother's last hours. She had reached the
    end of her resources, had killed herself by the hard work which she
    had undertaken to earn sufficient money that her elder son might
    continue his legal studies. To her modest trade in ribbons, the
    profits of which were but small, she had been obliged to add other
    occupations, which kept her up very late at night. Her one idea of
    seeing Florent established as an advocate, holding a good position in
    the town, had gradually caused her to become hard and miserly, without
    pity for either herself or others. Little Quenu was allowed to wander
    about in ragged breeches, and in blouses from which the sleeves were
    falling away. He never dared to serve himself at table, but waited
    till he received his allowance of bread from his mother's hands. She
    gave herself equally thin slices, and it was to the effects of this
    regimen that she had succumbed, in deep despair at having failed to
    accomplish her self-allotted task.

    This story made a most painful impression upon Florent's tender
    nature, and his sobs wellnigh choked him. He took his little half
    brother in his arms, held him to his breast, and kissed him as though
    to restore to him the love of which he had unwittingly deprived him.
    Then he looked at the lad's gaping shoes, torn sleeves, and dirty
    hands, at all the manifest signs of wretchedness and neglect. And he
    told him that he would take him away, and that they would both live
    happily together. The next day, when he began to inquire into affairs,
    he felt afraid that he would not be able to keep sufficient money to
    pay for the journey back to Paris. However, he was determined to leave
    Le Vigan at any cost. He was fortunately able to sell the little
    ribbon business, and this enabled him to discharge his mother's debts,
    for despite her strictness in money matters she had gradually run up
    bills. Then, as there was nothing left, his mother's neighbour, the
    furniture dealer, offered him five hundred francs for her chattels and
    stock of linen. It was a very good bargain for the dealer, but the
    young man thanked him with tears in his eyes. He bought his brother
    some new clothes, and took him away that same evening.

    On his return to Paris he gave up all thought of continuing to attend
    the Law School, and postponed every ambitious project. He obtained a
    few pupils, and established himself with little Quenu in the Rue Royer
    Collard, at the corner of the Rue Saint Jacques, in a big room which
    he furnished with two iron bedsteads, a wardrobe, a table, and four
    chairs. He now had a child to look after, and this assumed paternity
    was very pleasing to him. During the earlier days he attempted to give
    the lad some lessons when he returned home in the evening, but Quenu
    was an unwilling pupil. He was dull of understanding, and refused to
    learn, bursting into tears and regretfully recalling the time when his
    mother had allowed him to run wild in the streets. Florent thereupon
    stopped his lessons in despair, and to console the lad promised him a
    holiday of indefinite length. As an excuse for his own weakness he
    repeated that he had not brought his brother to Paris to distress him.
    To see him grow up in happiness became his chief desire. He quite
    worshipped the boy, was charmed with his merry laughter, and felt
    infinite joy in seeing him about him, healthy and vigorous, and
    without a care. Florent for his part remained very slim and lean in
    his threadbare coat, and his face began to turn yellow amidst all the
    drudgery and worry of teaching; but Quenu grew up plump and merry, a
    little dense, indeed, and scarce able to read or write, but endowed
    with high spirits which nothing could ruffle, and which filled the big
    gloomy room in the Rue Royer Collard with gaiety.

    Years, meantime, passed by. Florent, who had inherited all his
    mother's spirit of devotion, kept Quenu at home as though he were a
    big, idle girl. He did not even suffer him to perform any petty
    domestic duties, but always went to buy the provisions himself, and
    attended to the cooking and other necessary matters. This kept him, he
    said, from indulging in his own bad thoughts. He was given to
    gloominess, and fancied that he was disposed to evil. When he returned
    home in the evening, splashed with mud, and his head bowed by the
    annoyances to which other people's children had subjected him, his
    heart melted beneath the embrace of the sturdy lad whom he found
    spinning his top on the tiled flooring of the big room. Quenu laughed
    at his brother's clumsiness in making omelettes, and at the serious
    fashion in which he prepared the soup-beef and vegetables. When the
    lamp was extinguished, and Florent lay in bed, he sometimes gave way
    to feelings of sadness. He longed to resume his legal studies, and
    strove to map out his duties in such wise as to secure time to follow
    the programme of the faculty. He succeeded in doing this, and was then
    perfectly happy. But a slight attack of fever, which confined him to
    his room for a week, made such a hole in his purse, and caused him so
    much alarm, that he abandoned all idea of completing his studies. The
    boy was now getting a big fellow, and Florent took a post as teacher
    in a school in the Rue de l'Estrapade, at a salary of eighteen hundred
    francs per annum. This seemed like a fortune to him. By dint of
    economy he hoped to be able to amass a sum of money which would set
    Quenu going in the world. When the lad reached his eighteenth year
    Florent still treated him as though he were a daughter for whom a
    dowry must be provided.

    However, during his brother's brief illness Quenu himself had made
    certain reflections. One morning he proclaimed his desire to work,
    saying that he was now old enough to earn his own living. Florent was
    deeply touched at this. Just opposite, on the other side of the
    street, lived a working watchmaker whom Quenu, through the curtainless
    window, could see leaning over a little table, manipulating all sorts
    of delicate things, and patiently gazing at them through a magnifying
    glass all day long. The lad was much attracted by the sight, and
    declared that he had a taste for watchmaking. At the end of a
    fortnight, however, he became restless, and began to cry like a child
    of ten, complaining that the work was too complicated, and that he
    would never be able to understand all the silly little things that
    enter into the construction of a watch.

    His next whim was to be a locksmith; but this calling he found too
    fatiguing. In a couple of years he tried more than ten different
    trades. Florent opined that he acted rightly, that it was wrong to
    take up a calling one did not like. However, Quenu's fine eagerness to
    work for his living strained the resources of the little establishment
    very seriously. Since he had begun flitting from one workshop to
    another there had been a constant succession of fresh expenses; money
    had gone in new clothes, in meals taken away from home, and in the
    payment of footings among fellow workmen. Florent's salary of eighteen
    hundred francs was no longer sufficient, and he was obliged to take a
    couple of pupils in the evenings. For eight years he had continued to
    wear the same old coat.

    However, the two brothers had made a friend. One side of the house in
    which they lived overlooked the Rue Saint Jacques, where there was a
    large poultry-roasting establishment
  • kept by a worthy man called
    Gavard, whose wife was dying from consumption amidst an atmosphere
    redolent of plump fowls. When Florent returned home too late to cook a
    scrap of meat, he was in the habit of laying out a dozen sous or so on
    a small portion of turkey or goose at this shop. Such days were feast
    days. Gavard in time grew interested in this tall, scraggy customer,
    learned his history, and invited Quenu into his shop. Before long the
    young fellow was constantly to be found there. As soon as his brother
    left the house he came downstairs and installed himself at the rear of
    the roasting shop, quite enraptured with the four huge spits which
    turned with a gentle sound in front of the tall bright flames.

  • These rotisseries, now all but extinct, were at one time a
        particular feature of the Parisian provision trade. I can myself
        recollect several akin to the one described by M. Zola. I suspect
        that they largely owed their origin to the form and dimensions of
        the ordinary Parisian kitchen stove, which did not enable people
        to roast poultry at home in a convenient way. In the old French
        cuisine, moreover, roast joints of meat were virtually unknown;
        roasting was almost entirely confined to chickens, geese, turkeys,
        pheasants, etc.; and among the middle classes people largely
        bought their poultry already cooked of the /rotisseur/, or else
        confided it to him for the purpose of roasting, in the same way as
        our poorer classes still send their joints to the baker's.
        Roasting was also long looked upon in France as a very delicate
        art. Brillat-Savarin, in his famous /Physiologie du Gout/, lays
        down the dictum that "A man may become a cook, but is born a
        /rotisseur/."--Translator.

    The broad copper bands of the fireplace glistened brightly, the
    poultry steamed, the fat bubbled melodiously in the dripping-pan, and
    the spits seemed to talk amongst themselves and to address kindly
    words to Quenu, who, with a long ladle, devoutly basted the golden
    breasts of the fat geese and turkeys. He would stay there for hours,
    quite crimson in the dancing glow of the flames, and laughing vaguely,
    with a somewhat stupid expression, at the birds roasting in front of
    him. Indeed, he did not awake from this kind of trance until the geese
    and turkeys were unspitted. They were placed on dishes, the spits
    emerged from their carcasses smoking hot, and a rich gravy flowed from
    either end and filled the shop with a penetrating odour. Then the lad,
    who, standing up, had eagerly followed every phase of the dishing,
    would clap his hands and begin to talk to the birds, telling them that
    they were very nice, and would be eaten up, and that the cats would
    have nothing but their bones. And he would give a start of delight
    whenever Gavard handed him a slice of bread, which he forthwith put
    into the dripping-pan that it might soak and toast there for half an
    hour.

    It was in this shop, no doubt, that Quenu's love of cookery took its
    birth. Later on, when he had tried all sorts of crafts, he returned,
    as though driven by fate, to the spits and the poultry and the savoury
    gravy which induces one to lick one's fingers. At first he was afraid
    of vexing his brother, who was a small eater and spoke of good fare
    with the disdain of a man who is ignorant of it; but afterwards, on
    seeing that Florent listened to him when he explained the preparation
    of some very elaborate dish, he confessed his desires and presently
    found a situation at a large restaurant. From that time forward the
    life of the two brothers was settled. They continued to live in the
    room in the Rue Royer Collard, whither they returned every evening;
    the one glowing and radiant from his hot fire, the other with the
    depressed countenance of a shabby, impecunious teacher. Florent still
    wore his old black coat, as he sat absorbed in correcting his pupils'
    exercises; while Quenu, to put himself more at ease, donned his white
    apron, cap, and jacket, and, flitting about in front of the stove,
    amused himself by baking some dainty in the oven. Sometimes they
    smiled at seeing themselves thus attired, the one all in black, the
    other all in white. These different garbs, one bright and the other
    sombre, seemed to make the big room half gay and half mournful. Never,
    however, was there so much harmony in a household marked by such
    dissimilarity. Though the elder brother grew thinner and thinner,
    consumed by the ardent temperament which he had inherited from his
    Provencal father, and the younger one waxed fatter and fatter like a
    true son of Normandy, they loved each other in the brotherhood they
    derived from their mother--a mother who had been all devotion.

    They had a relation in Paris, a brother of their mother's, one
    Gradelle, who was in business as a pork butcher in the Rue Pirouette,
    near the central markets. He was a fat, hard-hearted, miserly fellow,
    and received his nephews as though they were starving paupers the
    first time they paid him a visit. They seldom went to see him
    afterwards. On his nameday Quenu would take him a bunch of flowers,
    and receive a half-franc piece in return for it. Florent's proud and
    sensitive nature suffered keenly when Gradelle scrutinised his shabby
    clothes with the anxious, suspicious glance of a miser apprehending a
    request for a dinner, or the loan of a five-franc piece. One day,
    however, it occurred to Florent in all artlessness to ask his uncle to
    change a hundred-franc note for him, and after this the pork butcher
    showed less alarm at sight of the lads, as he called them. Still,
    their friendship got no further than these infrequent visits.

    These years were like a long, sweet, sad dream to Florent. As they
    passed he tasted to the full all the bitter joys of self-sacrifice. At
    home, in the big room, life was all love and tenderness; but out in
    the world, amidst the humiliations inflicted on him by his pupils, and
    the rough jostling of the streets, he felt himself yielding to wicked
    thoughts. His slain ambitions embittered him. It was long before he
    could bring himself to bow to his fate, and accept with equanimity the
    painful lot of a poor, plain, commonplace man. At last, to guard
    against the temptations of wickedness, he plunged into ideal goodness,
    and sought refuge in a self-created sphere of absolute truth and
    justice. It was then that he became a republican, entering into the
    republican idea even as heart-broken girls enter a convent. And not
    finding a republic where sufficient peace and kindliness prevailed to
    lull his troubles to sleep, he created one for himself. He took no
    pleasure in books. All the blackened paper amidst which he lived spoke
    of evil-smelling class-rooms, of pellets of paper chewed by unruly
    schoolboys, of long, profitless hours of torture. Besides, books only
    suggested to him a spirit of mutiny and pride, whereas it was of peace
    and oblivion that he felt most need. To lull and soothe himself with
    the ideal imaginings, to dream that he was perfectly happy, and that
    all the world would likewise become so, to erect in his brain the
    republican city in which he would fain have lived, such now became his
    recreation, the task, again and again renewed, of all his leisure
    hours. He no longer read any books beyond those which his duties
    compelled him to peruse; he preferred to tramp along the Rue Saint
    Jacques as far as the outer boulevards, occasionally going yet a
    greater distance and returning by the Barriere d'Italie; and all along
    the road, with his eyes on the Quartier Mouffetard spread out at his
    feet, he would devise reforms of great moral and humanitarian scope,
    such as he thought would change that city of suffering into an abode
    of bliss. During the turmoil of February 1848, when Paris was stained
    with blood he became quite heartbroken, and rushed from one to another
    of the public clubs demanding that the blood which had been shed
    should find atonement in "the fraternal embrace of all republicans
    throughout the world." He became one of those enthusiastic orators who
    preached revolution as a new religion, full of gentleness and
    salvation. The terrible days of December 1851, the days of the Coup
    d'Etat, were required to wean him from his doctrines of universal
    love. He was then without arms; allowed himself to be captured like a
    sheep, and was treated as though he were a wolf. He awoke from his
    sermon on universal brotherhood to find himself starving on the cold
    stones of a casemate at Bicetre.

    Quenu, when two and twenty, was distressed with anguish when his
    brother did not return home. On the following day he went to seek his
    corpse at the cemetery of Montmartre, where the bodies of those shot
    down on the boulevards had been laid out in a line and covered with
    straw, from beneath which only their ghastly heads projected. However,
    Quenu's courage failed him, he was blinded by his tears, and had to
    pass twice along the line of corpses before acquiring the certainty
    that Florent's was not among them. At last, at the end of a long and
    wretched week, he learned at the Prefecture of Police that his brother
    was a prisoner. He was not allowed to see him, and when he pressed the
    matter the police threatened to arrest him also. Then he hastened off
    to his uncle Gradelle, whom he looked upon as a person of importance,
    hoping that he might be able to enlist his influence in Florent's
    behalf. But Gradelle waxed wrathful, declared that Florent deserved
    his fate, that he ought to have known better than to have mixed
    himself up with those rascally republicans. And he even added that
    Florent was destined to turn out badly, that it was written on his
    face.

    Quenu wept copiously and remained there, almost choked by his sobs.
    His uncle, a little ashamed of his harshness, and feeling that he
    ought to do something for him, offered to receive him into his house.
    He wanted an assistant, and knew that his nephew was a good cook.
    Quenu was so much alarmed by the mere thought of going back to live
    alone in the big room in the Rue Royer Collard, that then and there he
    accepted Gradelle's offer. That same night he slept in his uncle's
    house, in a dark hole of a garret just under the room, where there was
    scarcely space for him to lie at full length. However, he was less
    wretched there than he would have been opposite his brother's empty
    couch.

    He succeeded at length in obtaining permission to see Florent; but on
    his return from Bicetre he was obliged to take to his bed. For nearly
    three weeks he lay fever-stricken, in a stupefied, comatose state.
    Gradelle meantime called down all sorts of maledictions on his
    republican nephew; and one morning, when he heard of Florent's
    departure for Cayenne, he went upstairs, tapped Quenu on the hands,
    awoke him, and bluntly told him the news, thereby bringing about such
    a reaction that on the following day the young man was up and about
    again. His grief wore itself out, and his soft flabby flesh seemed to
    absorb his tears. A month later he laughed again, and then grew vexed
    and unhappy with himself for having been merry; but his natural light-
    heartedness soon gained the mastery, and he laughed afresh in
    unconscious happiness.

    He now learned his uncle's business, from which he derived even more
    enjoyment than from cookery. Gradelle told him, however, that he must
    not neglect his pots and pans, that it was rare to find a pork butcher
    who was also a good cook, and that he had been lucky in serving in a
    restaurant before coming to the shop. Gradelle, moreover, made full
    use of his nephew's acquirements, employed him to cook the dinners
    sent out to certain customers, and placed all the broiling, and the
    preparation of pork chops garnished with gherkins in his special
    charge. As the young man was of real service to him, he grew fond of
    him after his own fashion, and would nip his plump arms when he was in
    a good humour. Gradelle had sold the scanty furniture of the room in
    the Rue Royer Collard and retained possession of the proceeds--some
    forty francs or so--in order, said he, to prevent the foolish lad,
    Quenu, from making ducks and drakes of the cash. After a time,
    however, he allowed his nephew six francs a month a pocket-money.

    Quenu now became quite happy, in spite of the emptiness of his purse
    and the harshness with which he was occasionally treated. He liked to
    have life doled out to him; Florent had treated him too much like an
    indolent girl. Moreover, he had made a friend at his uncle's.
    Gradelle, when his wife died, had been obliged to engage a girl to
    attend to the shop, and had taken care to choose a healthy and
    attractive one, knowing that a good-looking girl would set off his
    viands and help to tempt custom. Amongst his acquaintances was a
    widow, living in the Rue Cuvier, near the Jardin des Plantes, whose
    deceased husband had been postmaster at Plassans, the seat of a
    sub-prefecture in the south of France. This lady, who lived in a very
    modest fashion on a small annuity, had brought with her from Plassans
    a plump, pretty child, whom she treated as her own daughter. Lisa, as
    the young one was called, attended upon her with much placidity and
    serenity of disposition. Somewhat seriously inclined, she looked quite
    beautiful when she smiled. Indeed, her great charm came from the
    exquisite manner in which she allowed this infrequent smile of hers to
    escape her. Her eyes then became most caressing, and her habitual
    gravity imparted inestimable value to these sudden, seductive flashes.
    The old lady had often said that one of Lisa's smiles would suffice to
    lure her to perdition.

    When the widow died she left all her savings, amounting to some ten
    thousand francs, to her adopted daughter. For a week Lisa lived alone
    in the Rue Cuvier; it was there that Gradelle came in search of her.
    He had become acquainted with her by often seeing her with her
    mistress when the latter called on him in the Rue Pirouette; and at
    the funeral she had struck him as having grown so handsome and sturdy
    that he had followed the hearse all the way to the cemetery, though he
    had not intended to do so. As the coffin was being lowered into the
    grave, he reflected what a splendid girl she would be for the counter
    of a pork butcher's shop. He thought the matter over, and finally
    resolved to offer her thirty francs a month, with board and lodging.
    When he made this proposal, Lisa asked for twenty-four hours to
    consider it. Then she arrived one morning with a little bundle of
    clothes, and her ten thousand francs concealed in the bosom of her
    dress. A month later the whole place belonged to her; she enslaved
    Gradelle, Quenu, and even the smallest kitchen-boy. For his part,
    Quenu would have cut off his fingers to please her. When she happened
    to smile, he remained rooted to the floor, laughing with delight as he
    gazed at her.

    Lisa was the eldest daughter of the Macquarts of Plassans, and her
    father was still alive.
  • But she said that he was abroad, and never
    wrote to him. Sometimes she just dropped a hint that her mother, now
    deceased, had been a hard worker, and that she took after her. She
    worked, indeed, very assiduously. However, she sometimes added that
    the worthy woman had slaved herself to death in striving to support
    her family. Then she would speak of the respective duties of husband
    and wife in such a practical though modest fashion as to enchant
    Quenu. He assured her that he fully shared her ideas. These were that
    everyone, man or woman, ought to work for his or her living, that
    everyone was charged with the duty of achieving personal happiness,
    that great harm was done by encouraging habits of idleness, and that
    the presence of so much misery in the world was greatly due to sloth.
    This theory of hers was a sweeping condemnation of drunkenness, of all
    the legendary loafing ways of her father Macquart. But, though she did
    not know it, there was much of Macquart's nature in herself. She was
    merely a steady, sensible Macquart with a logical desire for comfort,
    having grasped the truth of the proverb that as you make your bed so
    you lie on it. To sleep in blissful warmth there is no better plan
    than to prepare oneself a soft and downy couch; and to the preparation
    of such a couch she gave all her time and all her thoughts. When no
    more than six years old she had consented to remain quietly on her
    chair the whole day through on condition that she should be rewarded
    with a cake in the evening.

  • See M. Zola's novel, /The Fortune of the Rougons/.--Translator

    At Gradelle's establishment Lisa went on leading the calm, methodical
    life which her exquisite smiles illumined. She had not accepted the
    pork butcher's offer at random. She reckoned upon finding a guardian
    in him; with the keen scent of those who are born lucky she perhaps
    foresaw that the gloomy shop in the Rue Pirouette would bring her the
    comfortable future she dreamed of--a life of healthy enjoyment, and
    work without fatigue, each hour of which would bring its own reward.
    She attended to her counter with the quiet earnestness with which she
    had waited upon the postmaster's widow; and the cleanliness of her
    aprons soon became proverbial in the neighbourhood. Uncle Gradelle was
    so charmed with this pretty girl that sometimes, as he was stringing
    his sausages, he would say to Quenu: "Upon my word, if I weren't
    turned sixty, I think I should be foolish enough to marry her. A wife
    like she'd make is worth her weight in gold to a shopkeeper, my lad."

    Quenu himself was growing still fonder of her, though he laughed
    merrily one day when a neighbour accused him of being in love with
    Lisa. He was not worried with love-sickness. The two were very good
    friends, however. In the evening they went up to their bedrooms
    together. Lisa slept in a little chamber adjoining the dark hole which
    the young man occupied. She had made this room of hers quite bright by
    hanging it with muslin curtains. The pair would stand together for a
    moment on the landing, holding their candles in their hands, and
    chatting as they unlocked their doors. Then, as they closed them, they
    said in friendly tones:

    "Good night, Mademoiselle Lisa."

    "Good night, Monsieur Quenu."

    As Quenu undressed himself he listened to Lisa making her own
    preparations. The partition between the two rooms was very thin.
    "There, she is drawing her curtains now," he would say to himself;
    "what can she be doing, I wonder, in front of her chest of drawers?
    Ah! she's sitting down now and taking off her shoes. Now she's blown
    her candle out. Well, good night. I must get to sleep"; and at times,
    when he heard her bed creak as she got into it, he would say to
    himself with a smile, "Dash it all! Mademoiselle Lisa is no feather."
    This idea seemed to amuse him, and presently he would fall asleep
    thinking about the hams and salt pork that he had to prepare the next
    morning.

    This state of affairs went on for a year without causing Lisa a single
    blush or Quenu a moment's embarrassment. When the girl came into the
    kitchen in the morning at the busiest moment of the day's work, they
    grasped hands over the dishes of sausage-meat. Sometimes she helped
    him, holding the skins with her plump fingers while he filled them
    with meat and fat. Sometimes, too, with the tips of their tongues they
    just tasted the raw sausage-meat, to see if it was properly seasoned.
    She was able to give Quenu some useful hints, for she knew of many
    favourite southern recipes, with which he experimented with much
    success. He was often aware that she was standing behind his shoulder,
    prying into the pans. If he wanted a spoon or a dish, she would hand
    it to him. The heat of the fire would bring their blood to their
    skins; still, nothing in the world would have induced the young man to
    cease stirring the fatty /bouillis/ which were thickening over the
    fire while the girl stood gravely by him, discussing the amount of
    boiling that was necessary. In the afternoon, when the shop lacked
    customers, they quietly chatted together for hours at a time. Lisa sat
    behind the counter, leaning back, and knitting in an easy, regular
    fashion; while Quenu installed himself on a big oak block, dangling
    his legs and tapping his heels against the wood. They got on
    wonderfully well together, discussing all sorts of subjects, generally
    cookery, and then Uncle Gradelle and the neighbours. Lisa also amused
    the young man with stories, just as though he were a child. She knew
    some very pretty ones--some miraculous legends, full of lambs and
    little angels, which she narrated in a piping voice, with all her
    wonted seriousness. If a customer happened to come in, she saved
    herself the trouble of moving by asking Quenu to get the required pot
    of lard or box of snails. And at eleven o'clock they went slowly up to
    bed as on the previous night. As they closed their doors, they calmly
    repeated the words:

    "Good night, Mademoiselle Lisa."

    "Good night, Monsieur Quenu."

    One morning Uncle Gradelle was struck dead by apoplexy while preparing
    a galantine. He fell forward, with his face against the chopping-
    block. Lisa did not lose her self-possession. She remarked that the
    dead man could not be left lying in the middle of the kitchen, and had
    the body removed into a little back room where Gradelle had slept.
    Then she arranged with the assistants what should be said. It must be
    given out that the master had died in his bed; otherwise the whole
    district would be disgusted, and the shop would lose its customers.
    Quenu helped to carry the dead man away, feeling quite confused, and
    astonished at being unable to shed any tears. Presently, however, he
    and Lisa cried together. Quenu and his brother Florent were the sole
    heirs. The gossips of the neighbourhood credited old Gradelle with the
    possession of a considerable fortune. However, not a single crown
    could be discovered. Lisa seemed very restless and uneasy. Quenu
    noticed how pensive she became, how she kept on looking around her
    from morning till night, as though she had lost something. At last she
    decided to have a thorough cleaning of the premises, declaring that
    people were beginning to talk, that the story of the old man's death
    had got about, and that it was necessary they should make a great show
    of cleanliness. One afternoon, after remaining in the cellar for a
    couple of hours, whither she herself had gone to wash the salting-
    tubs, she came up again, carrying something in her apron. Quenu was
    just then cutting up a pig's fry. She waited till he had finished,
    talking awhile in an easy, indifferent fashion. But there was an
    unusual glitter in her eyes, and she smiled her most charming smile as
    she told him that she wanted to speak to him. She led the way upstairs
    with seeming difficulty, impeded by what she had in her apron, which
    was strained almost to bursting.

    By the time she reached the third floor she found herself short of
    breath, and for a moment was obliged to lean against the balustrade.
    Quenu, much astonished, followed her into her bedroom without saying a
    word. It was the first time she had ever invited him to enter it. She
    closed the door, and letting go the corners of her apron, which her
    stiffened fingers could no longer hold up, she allowed a stream of
    gold and silver coins to flow gently upon her bed. She had discovered
    Uncle Gradelle's treasure at the bottom of a salting-tub. The heap of
    money made a deep impression in the softy downy bed.

    Lisa and Quenu evinced a quiet delight. They sat down on the edge of
    the bed, Lisa at the head and Quenu at the foot, on either side of the
    heap of coins, and they counted the money out upon the counterpane, so
    as to avoid making any noise. There were forty thousand francs in
    gold, and three thousand francs in silver, whilst in a tin box they
    found bank notes to the value of forty-two thousand francs. It took
    them two hours to count up the treasure. Quenu's hands trembled
    slightly, and it was Lisa who did most of the work.

    They arranged the gold on the pillow in little heaps, leaving the
    silver in the hollow depression of the counterpane. When they had
    ascertained the total amount--eighty-five thousand francs, to them an
    enormous sum--they began to chat. And their conversation naturally
    turned upon their future, and they spoke of their marriage, although
    there had never been any previous mention of love between them. But
    this heap of money seemed to loosen their tongues. They had gradually
    seated themselves further back on the bed, leaning against the wall,
    beneath the white muslin curtains; and as they talked together, their
    hands, playing with the heap of silver between them, met, and remained
    linked amidst the pile of five-franc pieces. Twilight surprised them
    still sitting together. Then, for the first time, Lisa blushed at
    finding the young man by her side. For a few moments, indeed, although
    not a thought of evil had come to them, they felt much embarrassed.
    Then Lisa went to get her own ten thousand francs. Quenu wanted her to
    put them with his uncle's savings. He mixed the two sums together,
    saying with a laugh that the money must be married also. Then it was
    agreed that Lisa should keep the hoard in her chest of drawers. When
    she had locked it up they both quietly went downstairs. They were now
    practically husband and wife.

    The wedding took place during the following month. The neighbours
    considered the match a very natural one, and in every way suitable.
    They had vaguely heard the story of the treasure, and Lisa's honesty
    was the subject of endless eulogy. After all, said the gossips, she
    might well have kept the money herself, and not have spoken a word to
    Quenu about it; if she had spoken, it was out of pure honesty, for no
    one had seen her find the hoard. She well deserved, they added, that
    Quenu should make her his wife. That Quenu, by the way, was a lucky
    fellow; he wasn't a beauty himself, yet he had secured a beautiful
    wife, who had disinterred a fortune for him. Some even went so far as
    to whisper that Lisa was a simpleton for having acted as she had done;
    but the young woman only smiled when people speaking to her vaguely
    alluded to all these things. She and her husband lived on as
    previously, in happy placidity and quiet affection. She still assisted
    him as before, their hands still met amidst the sausage-meat, she
    still glanced over his shoulder into the pots and pans, and still
    nothing but the great fire in the kitchen brought the blood to their
    cheeks.

    However, Lisa was a woman of practical common sense, and speedily saw
    the folly of allowing eighty-five thousand francs to lie idle in a
    chest of drawers. Quenu would have willingly stowed them away again at
    the bottom of the salting-tub until he had gained as much more, when
    they could have retired from business and have gone to live at
    Suresnes, a suburb to which both were partial. Lisa, however, had
    other ambitions. The Rue Pirouette did not accord with her ideas of
    cleanliness, her craving for fresh air, light, and healthy life. The
    shop where Uncle Gradelle had accumulated his fortune, sou by sou, was
    a long, dark place, one of those suspicious looking pork butchers'
    shops of the old quarters of the city, where the well-worn flagstones
    retain a strong odour of meat in spite of constant washings. Now the
    young woman longed for one of those bright modern shops, ornamented
    like a drawing-room, and fringing the footway of some broad street
    with windows of crystalline transparence. She was not actuated by any
    petty ambition to play the fine lady behind a stylish counter, but
    clearly realised that commerce in its latest development needed
    elegant surroundings. Quenu showed much alarm the first time his wife
    suggested that they ought to move and spend some of their money in
    decorating a new shop. However, Lisa only shrugged her shoulders and
    smiled at finding him so timorous.

    One evening, when night was falling and the shop had grown dark, Quenu
    and Lisa overheard a woman of the neighbourhood talking to a friend
    outside their door.

    "No, indeed! I've given up dealing with them," said she. "I wouldn't
    buy a bit of black-pudding from them now on any account. They had a
    dead man in their kitchen, you know."

    Quenu wept with vexation. The story of Gradelle's death in the kitchen
    was clearly getting about; and his nephew began to blush before his
    customers when he saw them sniffing his wares too closely. So, of his
    own accord, he spoke to his wife of her proposal to take a new shop.
    Lisa, without saying anything, had already been looking out for other
    premises, and had found some, admirably situated, only a few yards
    away, in the Rue Rambuteau. The immediate neighbourhood of the central
    markets, which were being opened just opposite, would triple their
    business, and make their shop known all over Paris.

    Quenu allowed himself to be drawn into a lavish expenditure of money;
    he laid out over thirty thousand francs in marble, glass, and gilding.
    Lisa spent hours with the workmen, giving her views about the
    slightest details. When she was at last installed behind the counter,
    customers arrived in a perfect procession, merely for the sake of
    examining the shop. The inside walls were lined from top to bottom
    with white marble. The ceiling was covered with a huge square mirror,
    framed by a broad gilded cornice, richly ornamented, whilst from the
    centre hung a crystal chandelier with four branches. And behind the
    counter, and on the left, and at the far end of the shop were other
    mirrors, fitted between the marble panels and looking like doors
    opening into an infinite series of brightly lighted halls, where all
    sorts of appetising edibles were displayed. The huge counter on the
    right hand was considered a very fine piece of work. At intervals
    along the front were lozenge-shaped panels of pinky marble. The
    flooring was of tiles, alternately white and pink, with a deep red
    fretting as border. The whole neighbourhood was proud of the shop, and
    no one again thought of referring to the kitchen in the Rue Pirouette,
    where a man had died. For quite a month women stopped short on the
    footway to look at Lisa between the saveloys and bladders in the
    window. Her white and pink flesh excited as much admiration as the
    marbles. She seemed to be the soul, the living light, the healthy,
    sturdy idol of the pork trade; and thenceforth one and all baptised
    her "Lisa the beauty."

    To the right of the shop was the dining-room, a neat looking apartment
    containing a sideboard, a table, and several cane-seated chairs of
    light oak. The matting on the floor, the wallpaper of a soft yellow
    tint, the oil-cloth table-cover, coloured to imitate oak, gave the
    room a somewhat cold appearance, which was relieved only by the
    glitter of a brass hanging lamp, suspended from the ceiling, and
    spreading its big shade of transparent porcelain over the table. One
    of the dining-room doors opened into the huge square kitchen, at the
    end of which was a small paved courtyard, serving for the storage of
    lumber--tubs, barrels and pans, and all kinds of utensils not in use.
    To the left of the water-tap, alongside the gutter which carried off
    the greasy water, stood pots of faded flowers, removed from the shop
    window, and slowly dying.
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    Variety is the spice of life

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    Business was excellent. Quenu, who had been much alarmed by the
    initial outlay, now regarded his wife with something like respect, and
    told his friends that she had "a wonderful head." At the end of five
    years they had nearly eighty thousand francs invested in the State
    funds. Lisa would say that they were not ambitious, that they had no
    desire to pile up money too quickly, or else she would have enabled
    her husband to gain hundreds and thousands of francs by prompting him
    to embark in the wholesale pig trade. But they were still young, and
    had plenty of time before them; besides, they didn't care about a
    rough, scrambling business, but preferred to work at their ease, and
    enjoy life, instead of wearing themselves out with endless anxieties.

    "For instance," Lisa would add in her expansive moments, "I have, you
    know, a cousin in Paris. I never see him, as the two families have
    fallen out. He has taken the name of Saccard,
  • on account of certain
    matters which he wants to be forgotten. Well, this cousin of mine, I'm
    told, makes millions and millions of francs; but he gets no enjoyment
    out of life. He's always in a state of feverish excitement, always
    rushing hither and thither, up to his neck in all sorts of worrying
    business. Well, it's impossible, isn't it, for such a man to eat his
    dinner peaceably in the evening? We, at any rate, can take our meals
    comfortably, and make sure of what we eat, and we are not harassed by
    worries as he is. The only reason why people should care for money is
    that money's wanted for one to live. People like comfort; that's
    natural. But as for making money simply for the sake of making it, and
    giving yourself far more trouble and anxiety to gain it than you can
    ever get pleasure from it when it's gained, why, as for me, I'd rather
    sit still and cross my arms. And besides, I should like to see all
    those millions of my cousin's. I can't say that I altogether believe
    in them. I caught sight of him the other day in his carriage. He was
    quite yellow, and looked ever so sly. A man who's making money doesn't
    have that kind of expression. But it's his business, and not mine. For
    our part, we prefer to make merely a hundred sous at a time, and to
    get a hundred sous' worth of enjoyment out of them."

  • See M. Zola's novel, /Money/.

    The household was undoubtedly thriving. A daughter had been born to
    the young couple during their first year of wedlock, and all three of
    them looked blooming. The business went on prosperously, without any
    laborious fatigue, just as Lisa desired. She had carefully kept free
    of any possible source of trouble or anxiety, and the days went by in
    an atmosphere of peaceful, unctuous prosperity. Their home was a nook
    of sensible happiness--a comfortable manger, so to speak, where
    father, mother, and daughter could grow sleek and fat. It was only
    Quenu who occasionally felt sad, through thinking of his brother
    Florent. Up to the year 1856 he had received letters from him at long
    intervals. Then no more came, and he had learned from a newspaper that
    three convicts having attempted to escape from the Ile du Diable, had
    been drowned before they were able to reach the mainland. He had made
    inquiries at the Prefecture of Police, but had not learnt anything
    definite; it seemed probable that his brother was dead. However, he
    did not lose all hope, though months passed without any tidings.
    Florent, in the meantime, was wandering about Dutch Guiana, and
    refrained from writing home as he was ever in hope of being able to
    return to France. Quenu at last began to mourn for him as one mourns
    for those whom one has been unable to bid farewell. Lisa had never
    known Florent, but she spoke very kindly whenever she saw her husband
    give way to his sorrow; and she evinced no impatience when for the
    hundredth time or so he began to relate stories of his early days, of
    his life in the big room in the Rue Royer Collard, the thirty-six
    trades which he had taken up one after another, and the dainties which
    he had cooked at the stove, dressed all in white, while Florent was
    dressed all in black. To such talk as this, indeed, she listened
    placidly, with a complacency which never wearied.

    It was into the midst of all this happiness, ripening after careful
    culture, that Florent dropped one September morning just as Lisa was
    taking her matutinal bath of sunshine, and Quenu, with his eyes still
    heavy with sleep, was lazily applying his fingers to the congealed fat
    left in the pans from the previous evening. Florent's arrival caused a
    great commotion. Gavard advised them to conceal the "outlaw," as he
    somewhat pompously called Florent. Lisa, who looked pale, and more
    serious than was her wont, at last took him to the fifth floor, where
    she gave him the room belonging to the girl who assisted her in the
    shop. Quenu had cut some slices of bread and ham, but Florent was
    scarcely able to eat. He was overcome by dizziness and nausea, and
    went to bed, where he remained for five days in a state of delirium,
    the outcome of an attack of brain-fever, which fortunately received
    energetic treatment. When he recovered consciousness he perceived Lisa
    sitting by his bedside, silently stirring some cooling drink in a cup.
    As he tried to thank her, she told him that he must keep perfectly
    quiet, and that they could talk together later on. At the end of
    another three days Florent was on his feet again. Then one morning
    Quenu went up to tell him that Lisa awaited them in her room on the
    first floor.

    Quenu and his wife there occupied a suite of three rooms and a
    dressing-room. You first passed through an antechamber, containing
    nothing but chairs, and then a small sitting-room, whose furniture,
    shrouded in white covers, slumbered in the gloom cast by the Venetian
    shutters, which were always kept closed so as to prevent the light
    blue of the upholstery from fading. Then came the bedroom, the only
    one of the three which was really used. It was very comfortably
    furnished in mahogany. The bed, bulky and drowsy of aspect in the
    depths of the damp alcove, was really wonderful, with its four
    mattresses, its four pillows, its layers of blankets, and its
    corpulent /edredon/. It was evidently a bed intended for slumber. A
    mirrored wardrobe, a washstand with drawers, a small central table
    with a worked cover, and several chairs whose seats were protected by
    squares of lace, gave the room an aspect of plain but substantial
    middle-class luxury. On the left-hand wall, on either side of the
    mantelpiece, which was ornamented with some landscape-painted vases
    mounted on bronze stands, and a gilt timepiece on which a figure of
    Gutenberg, also gilt, stood in an attitude of deep thought, hung
    portraits in oils of Quenu and Lisa, in ornate oval frames. Quenu had
    a smiling face, while Lisa wore an air of grave propriety; and both
    were dressed in black and depicted in flattering fashion, their
    features idealised, their skins wondrously smooth, their complexions
    soft and pinky. A carpet, in the Wilton style, with a complicated
    pattern of roses mingling with stars, concealed the flooring; while in
    front of the bed was a fluffy mat, made out of long pieces of curly
    wool, a work of patience at which Lisa herself had toiled while seated
    behind her counter. But the most striking object of all in the midst
    of this array of new furniture was a great square, thick-set
    secretaire, which had been re-polished in vain, for the cracks and
    notches in the marble top and the scratches on the old mahogany front,
    quite black with age, still showed plainly. Lisa had desired to retain
    this piece of furniture, however, as Uncle Gradelle had used it for
    more than forty years. It would bring them good luck, she said. It's
    metal fastenings were truly something terrible, it's lock was like
    that of a prison gate, and it was so heavy that it could scarcely be
    moved.

    When Florent and Quenu entered the room they found Lisa seated at the
    lowered desk of the secretaire, writing and putting down figures in a
    big, round, and very legible hand. She signed to them not to disturb
    her, and the two men sat down. Florent looked round the room, and
    notably at the two portraits, the bed and the timepiece, with an air
    of surprise.

    "There!" at last exclaimed Lisa, after having carefully verified a
    whole page of calculations. "Listen to me now; we have an account to
    render to you, my dear Florent."

    It was the first time that she had so addressed him. However, taking
    up the page of figures, she continued: "Your Uncle Gradelle died
    without leaving a will. Consequently you and your brother are his sole
    heirs. We now have to hand your share over to you."

    "But I do not ask you for anything!" exclaimed Florent, "I don't wish
    for anything!"

    Quenu had apparently been in ignorance of his wife's intentions. He
    turned rather pale and looked at her with an expression of
    displeasure. Of course, he certainly loved his brother dearly; but
    there was no occasion to hurl his uncle's money at him in this way.
    There would have been plenty of time to go into the matter later on.

    "I know very well, my dear Florent," continued Lisa, "that you did not
    come back with the intention of claiming from us what belongs to you;
    but business is business, you know, and we had better get things
    settled at once. Your uncle's savings amounted to eighty-five thousand
    francs. I have therefore put down forty-two thousand five hundred to
    your credit. See!"

    She showed him the figures on the sheet of paper.

    "It is unfortunately not so easy to value the shop, plant, stock-in-
    trade, and goodwill. I have only been able to put down approximate
    amounts, but I don't think I have underestimated anything. Well, the
    total valuation which I have made comes to fifteen thousand three
    hundred and ten francs; your half of which is seven thousand six
    hundred and fifty-five francs, so that your share amounts, in all, to
    fifty thousand one hundred and fifty-five francs. Please verify it for
    yourself, will you?"

    She had called out the figures in a clear, distinct voice, and she now
    handed the paper to Florent, who was obliged to take it.

    "But the old man's business was certainly never worth fifteen thousand
    francs!" cried Quenu. "Why, I wouldn't have given ten thousand for
    it!"

    He had ended by getting quite angry with his wife. Really, it was
    absurd to carry honesty to such a point as that! Had Florent said one
    word about the business? No, indeed, he had declared that he didn't
    wish for anything.

    "The business was worth fifteen thousand three hundred and ten
    francs," Lisa re-asserted, calmly. "You will agree with me, my dear
    Florent, that it is quite unnecessary to bring a lawyer into our
    affairs. It is for us to arrange the division between ourselves, since
    you have now turned up again. I naturally thought of this as soon as
    you arrived; and, while you were in bed with the fever, I did my best
    to draw up this little inventory. It contains, as you see, a fairly
    complete statement of everything. I have been through our old books,
    and have called up my memory to help me. Read it aloud, and I will
    give you any additional information you may want."

    Florent ended by smiling. He was touched by this easy and, as it were,
    natural display of probity. Placing the sheet of figures on the young
    woman's knee, he took hold of her hand and said, "I am very glad, my
    dear Lisa, to hear that you are prosperous, but I will not take your
    money. The heritage belongs to you and my brother, who took care of my
    uncle up to the last. I don't require anything, and I don't intend to
    hamper you in carrying on your business."

    Lisa insisted, and even showed some vexation, while Quenu gnawed his
    thumbs in silence to restrain himself.

    "Ah!" resumed Florent with a laugh, "if Uncle Gradelle could hear you,
    I think he'd come back and take the money away again. I was never a
    favourite of his, you know."

    "Well, no," muttered Quenu, no longer able to keep still, "he
    certainly wasn't over fond of you."

    Lisa, however, still pressed the matter. She did not like to have
    money in her secretaire that did not belong to her; it would worry
    her, said she; the thought of it would disturb her peace. Thereupon
    Florent, still in a joking way, proposed to invest his share in the
    business. Moreover, said he, he did not intend to refuse their help;
    he would, no doubt, be unable to find employment all at once; and
    then, too, he would need a complete outfit, for he was scarcely
    presentable.

    "Of course," cried Quenu, "you will board and lodge with us, and we
    will buy you all that you want. That's understood. You know very well
    that we are not likely to leave you in the streets, I hope!"

    He was quite moved now, and even felt a trifle ashamed of the alarm he
    had experienced at the thought of having to hand over a large amount
    of money all at once. He began to joke, and told his brother that he
    would undertake to fatten him. Florent gently shook his hand; while
    Lisa folded up the sheet of figures and put it away in a drawer of the
    secretaire.

    "You are wrong," she said by way of conclusion. "I have done what I
    was bound to do. Now it shall be as you wish. But, for my part, I
    should never have had a moment's peace if I had not put things before
    you. Bad thoughts would quite upset me."

    They then began to speak of another matter. It would be necessary to
    give some reason for Florent's presence, and at the same time avoid
    exciting the suspicion of the police. He told them that in order to
    return to France he had availed himself of the papers of a poor fellow
    who had died in his arms at Surinam from yellow fever. By a singular
    coincidence this young fellow's Christian name was Florent.

    Florent Laquerriere, to give him his name in full, had left but one
    relation in Paris, a female cousin, and had been informed of her death
    while in America. Nothing could therefore be easier than for Quenu's
    half brother to pass himself off as the man who had died at Surinam.
    Lisa offered to take upon herself the part of the female cousin. They
    then agreed to relate that their cousin Florent had returned from
    abroad, where he had failed in his attempts to make a fortune, and
    that they, the Quenu-Gradelles, as they were called in the
    neighbourhood, had received him into their house until he could find
    suitable employment. When this was all settled, Quenu insisted upon
    his brother making a thorough inspection of the rooms, and would not
    spare him the examination of a single stool. Whilst they were in the
    bare looking chamber containing nothing but chairs, Lisa pushed open a
    door, and showing Florent a small dressing room, told him that the
    shop girl should sleep in it, so that he could retain the bedroom on
    the fifth floor.

    In the evening Florent was arrayed in new clothes from head to foot.
    He had insisted upon again having a black coat and black trousers,
    much against the advice of Quenu, upon whom black had a depressing
    effect. No further attempts were made to conceal his presence in the
    house, and Lisa told the story which had been planned to everyone who
    cared to hear it. Henceforth Florent spent almost all his time on the
    premises, lingering on a chair in the kitchen or leaning against the
    marble-work in the shop. At meal times Quenu plied him with food, and
    evinced considerable vexation when he proved such a small eater and
    left half the contents of his liberally filled plate untouched. Lisa
    had resumed her old life, evincing a kindly tolerance of her brother-
    in-law's presence, even in the morning, when he somewhat interfered
    with the work. Then she would momentarily forget him, and on suddenly
    perceiving his black form in front of her give a slight start of
    surprise, followed, however, by one of her sweet smiles, lest he might
    feel at all hurt. This skinny man's disinterestedness had impressed
    her, and she regarded him with a feeling akin to respect, mingled with
    vague fear. Florent had for his part only felt that there was great
    affection around him.

    When bedtime came he went upstairs, a little wearied by his lazy day,
    with the two young men whom Quenu employed as assistants, and who
    slept in attics adjoining his own. Leon, the apprentice, was barely
    fifteen years of age. He was a slight, gentle looking lad, addicted to
    stealing stray slices of ham and bits of sausages. These he would
    conceal under his pillow, eating them during the night without any
    bread. Several times at about one o'clock in the morning Florent
    almost fancied that Leon was giving a supper-party; for he heard low
    whispering followed by a sound of munching jaws and rustling paper.
    And then a rippling girlish laugh would break faintly on the deep
    silence of the sleeping house like the soft trilling of a flageolet.

    The other assistant, Auguste Landois, came from Troyes. Bloated with
    unhealthy fat, he had too large a head, and was already bald, although
    only twenty-eight years of age. As he went upstairs with Florent on
    the first evening, he told him his story in a confused, garrulous way.
    He had at first come to Paris merely for the purpose of perfecting
    himself in the business, intending to return to Troyes, where his
    cousin, Augustine Landois, was waiting for him, and there setting up
    for himself as a pork butcher. He and she had had the game godfather
    and bore virtually the same Christian name. However, he had grown
    ambitious; and now hoped to establish himself in business in Paris by
    the aid of the money left him by his mother, which he had deposited
    with a notary before leaving Champagne.

    Auguste had got so far in his narrative when the fifth floor was
    reached; however, he still detained Florent, in order to sound the
    praises of Madame Quenu, who had consented to send for Augustine
    Landois to replace an assistant who had turned out badly. He himself
    was now thoroughly acquainted with his part of the business, and his
    cousin was perfecting herself in shop management. In a year or
    eighteen months they would be married, and then they would set up on
    their own account in some populous corner of Paris, at Plaisance most
    likely. They were in no great hurry, he added, for the bacon trade was
    very bad that year. Then he proceeded to tell Florent that he and his
    cousin had been photographed together at the fair of St. Ouen, and he
    entered the attic to have another look at the photograph, which
    Augustine had left on the mantelpiece, in her desire that Madame
    Quenu's cousin should have a pretty room. Auguste lingered there for a
    moment, looking quite livid in the dim yellow light of his candle, and
    casting his eyes around the little chamber which was still full of
    memorials of the young girl. Next, stepping up to the bed, he asked
    Florent if it was comfortable. His cousin slept below now, said he,
    and would be better there in the winter, for the attics were very
    cold. Then at last he went off, leaving Florent alone with the bed,
    and standing in front of the photograph. As shown on the latter
    Auguste looked like a sort of pale Quenu, and Augustine like an
    immature Lisa.

    Florent, although on friendly terms with the assistants, petted by his
    brother, and cordially treated by Lisa, presently began to feel very
    bored. He had tried, but without success, to obtain some pupils;
    moreover, he purposely avoided the students' quarter for fear of being
    recognised. Lisa gently suggested to him that he had better try to
    obtain a situation in some commercial house, where he could take
    charge of the correspondence and keep the books. She returned to this
    subject again and again, and at last offered to find a berth for him
    herself. She was gradually becoming impatient at finding him so often
    in her way, idle, and not knowing what to do with himself. At first
    this impatience was merely due to the dislike she felt of people who
    do nothing but cross their arms and eat, and she had no thought of
    reproaching him for consuming her substance.

    "For my own part," she would say to him, "I could never spend the
    whole day in dreamy lounging. You can't have any appetite for your
    meals. You ought to tire yourself."

    Gavard, also, was seeking a situation for Florent, but in a very
    extraordinary and most mysterious fashion. He would have liked to find
    some employment of a dramatic character, or in which there should be a
    touch of bitter irony, as was suitable for an outlaw. Gavard was a man
    who was always in opposition. He had just completed his fiftieth year,
    and he boasted that he had already passed judgment on four
    Governments. He still contemptuously shrugged his shoulders at the
    thought of Charles X, the priests and nobles and other attendant
    rabble, whom he had helped to sweep away. Louis Philippe, with his
    bourgeois following, had been an imbecile, and he could tell how the
    citizen-king had hoarded his coppers in a woollen stocking. As for the
    Republic of '48, that had been a mere farce, the working classes had
    deceived him; however, he no longer acknowledged that he had applauded
    the Coup d'Etat, for he now looked upon Napoleon III as his personal
    enemy, a scoundrel who shut himself up with Morny and others to
    indulge in gluttonous orgies. He was never weary of holding forth upon
    this subject. Lowering his voice a little, he would declare that women
    were brought to the Tuileries in closed carriages every evening, and
    that he, who was speaking, had one night heard the echoes of the
    orgies while crossing the Place du Carrousel. It was Gavard's religion
    to make himself as disagreeable as possible to any existing
    Government. He would seek to spite it in all sorts of ways, and laugh
    in secret for several months at the pranks he played. To begin with,
    he voted for candidates who would worry the Ministers at the Corps
    Legislatif. Then, if he could rob the revenue, or baffle the police,
    and bring about a row of some kind or other, he strove to give the
    affair as much of an insurrectionary character as possible. He told a
    great many lies, too; set himself up as being a very dangerous man;
    talked as though "the satellites of the Tuileries" were well
    acquainted with him and trembled at the sight of him; and asserted
    that one half of them must be guillotined, and the other half
    transported, the next time there was "a flare-up." His violent
    political creed found food in boastful, bragging talk of this sort; he
    displayed all the partiality for a lark and a rumpus which prompts a
    Parisian shopkeeper to take down his shutters on a day of barricade-
    fighting to get a good view of the corpses of the slain. When Florent
    returned from Cayenne, Gavard opined that he had got hold of a
    splendid chance for some abominable trick, and bestowed much thought
    upon the question of how he might best vent his spleen on the Emperor
    and Ministers and everyone in office, down to the very lowest police
    constable.

    Gavard's manners with Florent were altogether those of a man tasting
    some forbidden pleasure. He contemplated him with blinking eyes,
    lowered his voice even when making the most trifling remark, and
    grasped his hand with all sorts of masonic flummery. He had at last
    lighted upon something in the way of an adventure; he had a friend who
    was really compromised, and could, without falsehood speak of the
    dangers he incurred. He undoubtedly experienced a secret alarm at the
    sight of this man who had returned from transportation, and whose
    fleshlessness testified to the long sufferings he had endured;
    however, this touch of alarm was delightful, for it increased his
    notion of his own importance, and convinced him that he was really
    doing something wonderful in treating a dangerous character as a
    friend. Florent became a sort of sacred being in his eyes: he swore by
    him alone, and had recourse to his name whenever arguments failed him
    and he wanted to crush the Government once and for all.

    Gavard had lost his wife in the Rue Saint Jacques some months after
    the Coup d'Etat; however, he had kept on his roasting shop till 1856.
    At that time it was reported that he had made large sums of money by
    going into partnership with a neighbouring grocer who had obtained a
    contract for supplying dried vegetables to the Crimean expeditionary
    corps. The truth was, however, that, having sold his shop, he lived on
    his income for a year without doing anything. He himself did not care
    to talk about the real origin of his fortune, for to have revealed it
    would have prevented him from plainly expressing his opinion of the
    Crimean War, which he referred to as a mere adventurous expedition,
    "undertaken simply to consolidate the throne and to fill certain
    persons' pockets." At the end of a year he had grown utterly weary of
    life in his bachelor quarters. As he was in the habit of visiting the
    Quenu-Gradelles almost daily, he determined to take up his residence
    nearer to them, and came to live in the Rue de la Cossonnerie. The
    neighbouring markets, with their noisy uproar and endless chatter,
    quite fascinated him; and he decided to hire a stall in the poultry
    pavilion, just for the purpose of amusing himself and occupying his
    idle hours with all the gossip. Thenceforth he lived amidst ceaseless
    tittle-tattle, acquainted with every little scandal in the
    neighbourhood, his head buzzing with the incessant yelping around him.
    He blissfully tasted a thousand titillating delights, having at last
    found his true element, and bathing in it, with the voluptuous
    pleasure of a carp swimming in the sunshine. Florent would sometimes
    go to see him at his stall. The afternoons were still very warm. All
    along the narrow alleys sat women plucking poultry. Rays of light
    streamed in between the awnings, and in the warm atmosphere, in the
    golden dust of the sunbeams, feathers fluttered hither and thither
    like dancing snowflakes. A trail of coaxing calls and offers followed
    Florent as he passed along. "Can I sell you a fine duck, monsieur?"
    "I've some very fine fat chickens here, monsieur; come and see!"
    "Monsieur! monsieur, do just buy this pair of pigeons!" Deafened and
    embarrassed he freed himself from the women, who still went on
    plucking as they fought for possession of him; and the fine down flew
    about and wellnigh choked him, like hot smoke reeking with the strong
    odour of the poultry. At last, in the middle of the alley, near the
    water-taps, he found Gavard ranting away in his shirt-sleeves, in
    front of his stall, with his arms crossed over the bib of his blue
    apron. He reigned there, in a gracious, condescending way, over a
    group of ten or twelve women. He was the only male dealer in that part
    of the market. He was so fond of wagging his tongue that he had
    quarrelled with five or six girls whom he had successively engaged to
    attend to his stall, and had now made up his mind to sell his goods
    himself, naively explaining that the silly women spent the whole
    blessed day in gossiping, and that it was beyond his power to manage
    them. As someone, however, was still necessary to supply his place
    whenever he absented himself he took in Marjolin, who was prowling
    about, after attempting in turn all the petty market callings.

    Florent sometimes remained for an hour with Gavard, amazed by his
    ceaseless flow of chatter, and his calm serenity and assurance amid
    the crowd of petticoats. He would interrupt one woman, pick a quarrel
    with another ten stalls away, snatch a customer from a third, and make
    as much noise himself as his hundred and odd garrulous neighbours,
    whose incessant clamour kept the iron plates of the pavilion vibrating
    sonorously like so many gongs.

    The poultry dealer's only relations were a sister-in-law and a niece.
    When his wife died, her eldest sister, Madame Lecoeur, who had become
    a widow about a year previously, had mourned for her in an exaggerated
    fashion, and gone almost every evening to tender consolation to the
    bereaved husband. She had doubtless cherished the hope that she might
    win his affection and fill the yet warm place of the deceased. Gavard,
    however, abominated lean women; and would, indeed, only stroke such
    cats and dogs as were very fat; so that Madame Lecoeur, who was long
    and withered, failed in her designs.

    With her feelings greatly hurt, furious at the ex-roaster's five-franc
    pieces eluding her grasp, she nurtured great spite against him. He
    became the enemy to whom she devoted all her time. When she saw him
    set up in the markets only a few yards away from the pavilion where
    she herself sold butter and eggs and cheese, she accused him of doing
    so simply for the sake of annoying her and bringing her bad luck. From
    that moment she began to lament, and turned so yellow and melancholy
    that she indeed ended by losing her customers and getting into
    difficulties. She had for a long time kept with her the daughter of
    one of her sisters, a peasant woman who had sent her the child and
    then taken no further trouble about it.

    This child grew up in the markets. Her surname was Sarriet, and so she
    soon became generally known as La Sarriette. At sixteen years of age
    she had developed into such a charming sly-looking puss that gentlemen
    came to buy cheeses at her aunt's stall simply for the purpose of
    ogling her. She did not care for the gentlemen, however; with her dark
    hair, pale face, and eyes glistening like live embers, her sympathies
    were with the lower ranks of the people. At last she chose as her
    lover a young man from Menilmontant who was employed by her aunt as a
    porter. At twenty she set up in business as a fruit dealer with the
    help of some funds procured no one knew how; and thenceforth Monsieur
    Jules, as her lover was called, displayed spotless hands, a clean
    blouse, and a velvet cap; and only came down to the market in the
    afternoon, in his slippers. They lived together on the third storey of
    a large house in the Rue Vauvilliers, on the ground floor of which was
    a disreputable cafe.

    Madame Lecoeur's acerbity of temper was brought to a pitch by what she
    called La Sarriette's ingratitude, and she spoke of the girl in the
    most violent and abusive language. They broke off all intercourse, the
    aunt fairly exasperated, and the niece and Monsieur Jules concocting
    stories about the aunt, which the young man would repeat to the other
    dealers in the butter pavilion. Gavard found La Sarriette very
    entertaining, and treated her with great indulgence. Whenever they met
    he would good-naturedly pat her cheeks.

    One afternoon, whilst Florent was sitting in his brother's shop, tired
    out with the fruitless pilgrimages he had made during the morning in
    search of work, Marjolin made his appearance there. This big lad, who
    had the massiveness and gentleness of a Fleming, was a protege of
    Lisa's. She would say that there was no evil in him; that he was
    indeed a little bit stupid, but as strong as a horse, and particularly
    interesting from the fact that nobody knew anything of his parentage.
    It was she who had got Gavard to employ him.

    Lisa was sitting behind the counter, feeling annoyed by the sight of
    Florent's muddy boots which were soiling the pink and white tiles of
    the flooring. Twice already had she risen to scatter sawdust about the
    shop. However, she smiled at Marjolin as he entered.

    "Monsieur Gavard," began the young man, "has sent me to ask--"

    But all at once he stopped and glanced round; then in a lower voice he
    resumed: "He told me to wait till there was no one with you, and then
    to repeat these words, which he made me learn by heart: 'Ask them if
    there is no danger, and if I can come and talk to them of the matter
    they know about.'"

    "Tell Monsieur Gavard that we are expecting him," replied Lisa, who
    was quite accustomed to the poultry dealer's mysterious ways.

    Marjolin, however, did not go away; but remained in ecstasy before the
    handsome mistress of the shop, contemplating her with an expression of
    fawning humility.

    Touched, as it were, by this mute adoration, Lisa spoke to him again.

    "Are you comfortable with Monsieur Gavard?" she asked. "He's not an
    unkind man, and you ought to try to please him."

    "Yes, Madame Lisa."

    "But you don't behave as you should, you know. Only yesterday I saw
    you clambering about the roofs of the market again; and, besides, you
    are constantly with a lot of disreputable lads and lasses. You ought
    to remember that you are a man now, and begin to think of the future."

    "Yes, Madame Lisa."

    However, Lisa had to get up to wait upon a lady who came in and wanted
    a pound of pork chops. She left the counter and went to the block at
    the far end of the shop. Here, with a long, slender knife, she cut
    three chops in a loin of pork; and then, raising a small cleaver with
    her strong hand, dealt three sharp blows which separated the chops
    from the loin. At each blow she dealt, her black merino dress rose
    slightly behind her, and the ribs of her stays showed beneath her
    tightly stretched bodice. She slowly took up the chops and weighed
    them with an air of gravity, her eyes gleaming and her lips tightly
    closed.

    When the lady had gone, and Lisa perceived Marjolin still full of
    delight at having seen her deal those three clean, forcible blows with
    the cleaver, she at once called out to him, "What! haven't you gone
    yet?"

    He thereupon turned to go, but she detained him for a moment longer.

    "Now, don't let me see you again with that hussy Cadine," she said.
    "Oh, it's no use to deny it! I saw you together this morning in the
    tripe market, watching men breaking the sheep's heads. I can't
    understand what attraction a good-looking young fellow like you can
    find in such a slipshod slattern as Cadine. Now then, go and tell
    Monsieur Gavard that he had better come at once, while there's no one
    about."

    Marjolin thereupon went off in confusion, without saying a word.

    Handsome Lisa remained standing behind her counter, with her head
    turned slightly in the direction of her markets, and Florent gazed at
    her in silence, surprised to see her looking so beautiful. He had
    never looked at her properly before; indeed, he did not know the right
    way to look at a woman. He now saw her rising above the viands on the
    counter. In front of her was an array of white china dishes,
    containing long Arles and Lyons sausages, slices of which had already
    been cut off, with tongues and pieces of boiled pork; then a pig's
    head in a mass of jelly; an open pot of preserved sausage-meat, and a
    large box of sardines disclosing a pool of oil. On the right and left,
    upon wooden platters, were mounds of French and Italian brawn, a
    common French ham, of a pinky hue, and a Yorkshire ham, whose deep red
    lean showed beneath a broad band of fat. There were other dishes too,
    round ones and oval ones, containing spiced tongue, truffled
    galantine, and a boar's head stuffed with pistachio nuts; while close
    to her, in reach of her hand, stood some yellow earthen pans
    containing larded veal, /pate de foie gras/, and hare-pie.

    As there were no signs of Gavard's coming, she arranged some fore-end
    bacon upon a little marble shelf at the end of the counter, put the
    jars of lard and dripping back into their places, wiped the plates of
    each pair of scales, and saw to the fire of the heater, which was
    getting low. Then she turned her head again, and gazed in silence
    towards the markets. The smell of all the viands ascended around her,
    she was enveloped, as it were, by the aroma of truffles. She looked
    beautifully fresh that afternoon. The whiteness of all the dishes was
    supplemented by that of her sleevelets and apron, above which appeared
    her plump neck and rosy cheeks, which recalled the soft tones of the
    hams and the pallor of all the transparent fat.

    As Florent continued to gaze at her he began to feel intimidated,
    disquieted by her prim, sedate demeanour; and in lieu of openly
    looking at her he ended by glancing surreptitiously in the mirrors
    around the shop, in which her back and face and profile could be seen.
    The mirror on the ceiling, too, reflected the top of her head, with
    its tightly rolled chignon and the little bands lowered over her
    temples. There seemed, indeed, to be a perfect crowd of Lisas, with
    broad shoulders, powerful arms, and round, full bosoms. At last
    Florent checked his roving eyes, and let them rest on a particularly
    pleasing side view of the young woman as mirrored between two pieces
    of pork. From the hooks running along the whole line of mirrors and
    marbles hung sides of pork and bands of larding fat; and Lisa, with
    her massive neck, rounded hips, and swelling bosom seen in profile,
    looked like some waxwork queen in the midst of the dangling fat and
    meat. However, she bent forward and smiled in a friendly way at the
    two gold-fish which were ever and ever swimming round the aquarium in
    the window.

    Gavard entered the shop. With an air of great importance he went to
    fetch Quenu from the kitchen. Then he seated himself upon a small
    marble-topped table, while Florent remained on his chair and Lisa
    behind the counter; Quenu meantime leaning his back against a side of
    pork. And thereupon Gavard announced that he had at last found a
    situation for Florent. They would be vastly amused when they heard
    what it was, and the Government would be nicely caught.

    But all at once he stopped short, for a passing neighbour,
    Mademoiselle Saget, having seen such a large party gossiping together
    at the Quenu-Gradelles', had opened the door and entered the shop.
    Carrying her everlasting black ribbonless straw hat, which
    appropriately cast a shadow over her prying white face, she saluted
    the men with a slight bow and Lisa with a sharp smile.

    She was an acquaintance of the family, and still lived in the house in
    the Rue Pirouette where she had resided for the last forty years,
    probably on a small private income; but of that she never spoke. She
    had, however, one day talked of Cherbourg, mentioning that she had
    been born there. Nothing further was ever known of her antecedents.
    All her conversation was about other people; she could tell the whole
    story of their daily lives, even to the number of things they sent to
    be washed each month; and she carried her prying curiosity concerning
    her neighbours' affairs so far as to listen behind their doors and
    open their letters. Her tongue was feared from the Rue Saint Denis to
    the Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and from the Rue Saint Honore to the
    Rue Mauconseil. All day long she went ferreting about with her empty
    bag, pretending that she was marketing, but in reality buying nothing,
    as her sole purpose was to retail scandal and gossip, and keep herself
    fully informed of every trifling incident that happened. Indeed, she
    had turned her brain into an encyclopaedia brimful of every possible
    particular concerning the people of the neighbourhood and their homes.

    Quenu had always accused her of having spread the story of his Uncle
    Gradelle's death on the chopping-block, and had borne her a grudge
    ever since. She was extremely well posted in the history of Uncle
    Gradelle and the Quenus, and knew them, she would say, by heart. For
    the last fortnight, however, Florent's arrival had greatly perplexed
    her, filled her, indeed, with a perfect fever of curiosity. She became
    quite ill when she discovered any unforeseen gap in her information.
    And yet she could have sworn that she had seen that tall lanky fellow
    somewhere or other before.

    She remained standing in front of the counter, examining the dishes
    one after another, and saying in a shrill voice:

    "I hardly know what to have. When the afternoon comes I feel quite
    famished for my dinner, and then, later on, I don't seem able to fancy
    anything at all. Have you got a cutlet rolled in bread-crumbs left,
    Madame Quenu?"

    Without waiting for a reply, she removed one of the covers of the
    heater. It was that of the compartment reserved for the chitterlings,
    sausages, and black-puddings. However, the chafing-dish was quite
    cold, and there was nothing left but one stray forgotten sausage.

    "Look under the other cover, Mademoiselle Saget," said Lisa. "I
    believe there's a cutlet there."

    "No, it doesn't tempt me," muttered the little old woman, poking her
    nose under the other cover, however, all the same. "I felt rather a
    fancy for one, but I'm afraid a cutlet would be rather too heavy in
    the evening. I'd rather have something, too, that I need not warm."

    While speaking she had turned towards Florent and looked at him; then
    she looked at Gavard, who was beating a tattoo with his finger-tips on
    the marble table. She smiled at them, as though inviting them to
    continue their conversation.

    "Wouldn't a little piece of salt pork suit you?" asked Lisa.

    "A piece of salt pork? Yes, that might do."

    Thereupon she took up the fork with plated handle, which was lying at
    the edge of the dish, and began to turn all the pieces of pork about,
    prodding them, lightly tapping the bones to judge of their thickness,
    and minutely scrutinising the shreds of pinky meat. And as she turned
    them over she repeated, "No, no; it doesn't tempt me."

    "Well, then, have a sheep's tongue, or a bit of brawn, or a slice of
    larded veal," suggested Lisa patiently.

    Mademoiselle Saget, however, shook her head. She remained there for a
    few minutes longer, pulling dissatisfied faces over the different
    dishes; then, seeing that the others were determined to remain silent,
    and that she would not be able to learn anything, she took herself
    off.

    "No; I rather felt a fancy for a cutlet rolled in bread-crumbs," she
    said as she left the shop, "but the one you have left is too fat. I
    must come another time."

    Lisa bent forward to watch her through the sausage-skins hanging in
    the shop-front, and saw her cross the road and enter the fruit market.

    "The old she-goat!" growled Gavard.

    Then, as they were now alone again, he began to tell them of the
    situation he had found for Florent. A friend of his, he said, Monsieur
    Verlaque, one of the fish market inspectors, was so ill that he was
    obliged to take a rest; and that very morning the poor man had told
    him that he should be very glad to find a substitute who would keep
    his berth open for him in case he should recover.

    "Verlaque, you know, won't last another six months," added Gavard,
    "and Florent will keep the place. It's a splendid idea, isn't it? And
    it will be such a take-in for the police! The berth is under the
    Prefecture, you know. What glorious fun to see Florent getting paid by
    the police, eh?"

    He burst into a hearty laugh; the idea struck him as so extremely
    comical.

    "I won't take the place," Florent bluntly replied. "I've sworn I'll
    never accept anything from the Empire, and I would rather die of
    starvation than serve under the Prefecture. It is quite out of the
    question, Gavard, quite so!"

    Gavard seemed somewhat put out on hearing this. Quenu had lowered his
    head, while Lisa, turning round, looked keenly at Florent, her neck
    swollen, her bosom straining her bodice almost to bursting point. She
    was just going to open her mouth when La Sarriette entered the shop,
    and there was another pause in the conversation.

    "Dear me!" exclaimed La Sarriette with her soft laugh, "I'd almost
    forgotten to get any bacon fat. Please, Madame Quenu, cut me a dozen
    thin strips--very thin ones, you know; I want them for larding larks.
    Jules has taken it into his head to eat some larks. Ah! how do you do,
    uncle?"

    She filled the whole shop with her dancing skirts and smiled brightly
    at everyone. Her face looked fresh and creamy, and on one side her
    hair was coming down, loosened by the wind which blew through the
    markets. Gavard grasped her hands, while she with merry impudence
    resumed: "I'll bet that you were talking about me just as I came in.
    Tell me what you were saying, uncle."

    However, Lisa now called to her, "Just look and tell me if this is
    thin enough."

    She was cutting the strips of bacon fat with great care on a piece of
    board in front of her. Then as she wrapped them up she inquired, "Can
    I give you anything else?"

    "Well, yes," replied La Sarriette; "since I'm about it, I think I'll
    have a pound of lard. I'm awfully fond of fried potatoes; I can make a
    breakfast off a penn'orth of potatoes and a bunch of radishes. Yes,
    I'll have a pound of lard, please, Madame Quenu."

    Lisa placed a sheet of stout paper in the pan of the scales. Then she
    took the lard out of a jar under the shelves with a boxwood spatula,
    gently adding small quantities to the fatty heap, which began to melt
    and run slightly. When the plate of the scale fell, she took up the
    paper, folded it, and rapidly twisted the ends with her finger-tips.

    "That makes twenty-four sous," she said; "the bacon is six sous--
    thirty sous altogether. There's nothing else you want, is there?"

    "No," said La Sarriette, "nothing." She paid her money, still laughing
    and showing her teeth, and staring the men in the face. Her grey skirt
    was all awry, and her loosely fastened red neckerchief allowed a
    little of her white bosom to appear. Before she went away she stepped
    up to Gavard again, and pretending to threaten him exclaimed: "So you
    won't tell me what you were talking about as I came in? I could see
    you laughing from the street. Oh, you sly fellow! Ah! I sha'n't love
    you any longer!"

    Then she left the shop and ran across the road.

    "It was Mademoiselle Saget who sent her here," remarked handsome Lisa
    drily.

    Then silence fell again for some moments. Gavard was dismayed at
    Florent's reception of his proposal. Lisa was the first to speak. "It
    was wrong of you to refuse the post, Florent," she said in the most
    friendly tones. "You know how difficult it is to find any employment,
    and you are not in a position to be over-exacting."

    "I have my reasons," Florent replied.

    Lisa shrugged her shoulders. "Come now," said she, "you really can't
    be serious, I'm sure. I can understand that you are not in love with
    the Government, but it would be too absurd to let your opinions
    prevent you from earning your living. And, besides, my dear fellow,
    the Emperor isn't at all a bad sort of man. You don't suppose, do you,
    that he knew you were eating mouldy bread and tainted meat? He can't
    be everywhere, you know, and you can see for yourself that he hasn't
    prevented us here from doing pretty well. You are not at all just;
    indeed you are not."

    Gavard, however, was getting very fidgety. He could not bear to hear
    people speak well of the Emperor.

    "No, no, Madame Quenu," he interrupted; "you are going too far. It is
    a scoundrelly system altogether."

    "Oh, as for you," exclaimed Lisa vivaciously, "you'll never rest until
    you've got yourself plundered and knocked on the head as the result of
    all your wild talk. Don't let us discuss politics; you would only make
    me angry. The question is Florent, isn't it? Well, for my part, I say
    that he ought to accept this inspectorship. Don't you think so too,
    Quenu?"

    Quenu, who had not yet said a word, was very much put out by his
    wife's sudden appeal.

    "It's a good berth," he replied, without compromising himself.

    Then, amidst another interval of awkward silence, Florent resumed: "I
    beg you, let us drop the subject. My mind is quite made up. I shall
    wait."

    "You will wait!" cried Lisa, losing patience.

    Two rosy fires had risen to her cheeks. As she stood there, erect, in
    her white apron, with rounded, swelling hips, it was with difficulty
    that she restrained herself from breaking out into bitter words.
    However, the entrance of another person into the shop arrested her
    anger. The new arrival was Madame Lecoeur.

    "Can you let me have half a pound of mixed meats at fifty sous the
    pound?" she asked.

    She at first pretended not to notice her brother-in-law; but presently
    she just nodded her head to him, without speaking. Then she
    scrutinised the three men from head to foot, doubtless hoping to
    divine their secret by the manner in which they waited for her to go.
    She could see that she was putting them out, and the knowledge of this
    rendered her yet more sour and angular, as she stood there in her limp
    skirts, with her long, spider-like arms bent and her knotted fingers
    clasped beneath her apron. Then, as she coughed slightly, Gavard, whom
    the silence embarrassed, inquired if she had a cold.

    She curtly answered in the negative. Her tightly stretched skin was of
    a red-brick colour on those parts of her face where her bones
    protruded, and the dull fire burning in her eyes and scorching their
    lids testified to some liver complaint nurtured by the querulous
    jealousy of her disposition. She turned round again towards the
    counter, and watched each movement made by Lisa as she served her with
    the distrustful glance of one who is convinced that an attempt will be
    made to defraud her.

    "Don't give me any saveloy," she exclaimed; "I don't like it."

    Lisa had taken up a slender knife, and was cutting some thin slices of
    sausage. She next passed on to the smoked ham and the common ham,
    cutting delicate slices from each, and bending forward slightly as she
    did so, with her eyes ever fixed on the knife. Her plump rosy hands,
    flitting about the viands with light and gentle touches, seemed to
    have derived suppleness from contact with all the fat.

    "You would like some larded veal, wouldn't you?" she asked, bringing a
    yellow pan towards her.

    Madame Lecoeur seemed to be thinking the matter over at considerable
    length; however, she at last said that she would have some. Lisa had
    now begun to cut into the contents of the pans, from which she removed
    slices of larded veal and hare /pate/ on the tip of a broad-bladed
    knife. And she deposited each successive slice on the middle of a
    sheet of paper placed on the scales.

    "Aren't you going to give me some of the boar's head with pistachio
    nuts?" asked Madame Lecoeur in her querulous voice.

    Lisa was obliged to add some of the boar's head. But the butter dealer
    was getting exacting, and asked for two slices of galantine. She was
    very fond of it. Lisa, who was already irritated, played impatiently
    with the handles of the knives, and told her that the galantine was
    truffled, and that she could only include it in an "assortment" at
    three francs the pound. Madame Lecoeur, however, continued to pry into
    the dishes, trying to find something else to ask for. When the
    "assortment" was weighed she made Lisa add some jelly and gherkins to
    it. The block of jelly, shaped like a Savoy cake, shook on its white
    china dish beneath the angry violence of Lisa's hand; and as with her
    finger-tips she took a couple of gherkins from a jar behind the
    heater, she made the vinegar spurt over the sides.

    "Twenty-five sous, isn't it?" Madame Lecoeur leisurely inquired.

    She fully perceived Lisa's covert irritation, and greatly enjoyed the
    sight of it, producing her money as slowly as possible, as though,
    indeed, her silver had got lost amongst the coppers in her pocket. And
    she glanced askance at Gavard, relishing the embarrassed silence which
    her presence was prolonging, and vowing that she would not go off,
    since they were hiding some trickery or other from her. However, Lisa
    at last put the parcel in her hands, and she was then obliged to make
    her departure. She went away without saying a word, but darting a
    searching glance all round the shop.

    "It was that Saget who sent her too!" burst out Lisa, as soon as the
    old woman was gone. "Is the old wretch going to send the whole market
    here to try to find out what we talk about? What a prying, malicious
    set they are! Did anyone ever hear before of crumbed cutlets and
    "assortments" being bought at five o'clock in the afternoon? But then
    they'd rack themselves with indigestion rather than not find out! Upon
    my word, though, if La Saget sends anyone else here, you'll see the
    reception she'll get. I would bundle her out of the shop, even if she
    were my own sister!"

    The three men remained silent in presence of this explosion of anger.
    Gavard had gone to lean over the brass rail of the window-front,
    where, seemingly lost in thought, he began playing with one of the
    cut-glass balusters detached from its wire fastening. Presently,
    however, he raised his head. "Well, for my part," he said, "I looked
    upon it all as an excellent joke."

    "Looked upon what as a joke?" asked Lisa, still quivering with
    indignation.

    "The inspectorship."

    She raised her hands, gave a last glance at Florent, and then sat down
    upon the cushioned bench behind the counter and said nothing further.
    Gavard, however, began to explain his views at length; the drift of
    his argument being that it was the Government which would look foolish
    in the matter, since Florent would be taking its money.

    "My dear fellow," he said complacently, "those scoundrels all but
    starved you to death, didn't they? Well, you must make them feed you
    now. It's a splendid idea; it caught my fancy at once!"

    Florent smiled, but still persisted in his refusal. Quenu, in the hope
    of pleasing his wife, did his best to find some good arguments. Lisa,
    however, appeared to pay no further attention to them. For the last
    moment or two she had been looking attentively in the direction of the
    markets. And all at once she sprang to her feet again, exclaiming,
    "Ah! it is La Normande that they are sending to play the spy on us
    now! Well, so much the worse for La Normande; she shall pay for the
    others!"
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    A tall female pushed the shop door open. It was the handsome fish-
    girl, Louise Mehudin, generally known as La Normande. She was a bold-
    looking beauty, with a delicate white skin, and was almost as plump as
    Lisa, but there was more effrontery in her glance, and her bosom
    heaved with warmer life. She came into the shop with a light swinging
    step, her gold chain jingling on her apron, her bare hair arranged in
    the latest style, and a bow at her throat, a lace bow, which made her
    one of the most coquettish-looking queens of the markets. She brought
    a vague odour of fish with her, and a herring-scale showed like a tiny
    patch of mother-of-pearl near the little finger of one of her hands.
    She and Lisa having lived in the same house in the Rue Pirouette, were
    intimate friends, linked by a touch of rivalry which kept each of them
    busy with thoughts of the other. In the neighbourhood people spoke of
    "the beautiful Norman," just as they spoke of "beautiful Lisa." This
    brought them into opposition and comparison, and compelled each of
    them to do her utmost to sustain her reputation for beauty. Lisa from
    her counter could, by stooping a little, perceive the fish-girl amidst
    her salmon and turbot in the pavilion opposite; and each kept a watch
    on the other. Beautiful Lisa laced herself more tightly in her stays;
    and the beautiful Norman replied by placing additional rings on her
    fingers and additional bows on her shoulders. When they met they were
    very bland and unctuous and profuse in compliments; but all the while
    their eyes were furtively glancing from under their lowered lids, in
    the hope of discovering some flaw. They made a point of always dealing
    with each other, and professed great mutual affection.

    "I say," said La Normande, with her smiling air, "it's to-morrow
    evening that you make your black-puddings, isn't it?"

    Lisa maintained a cold demeanour. She seldom showed any anger; but
    when she did it was tenacious, and slow to be appeased. "Yes," she
    replied drily, with the tips of her lips.

    "I'm so fond of black-puddings, you know, when they come straight out
    of the pot," resumed La Normande. "I'll come and get some of you
    to-morrow."

    She was conscious of her rival's unfriendly greeting. However, she
    glanced at Florent, who seemed to interest her; and then, unwilling to
    go off without having the last word, she was imprudent enough to add:
    "I bought some black-pudding of you the day before yesterday, you
    know, and it wasn't quite sweet."

    "Not quite sweet!" repeated Lisa, very pale, and her lips quivering.

    She might, perhaps, have once more restrained herself, for fear of La
    Normande imagining that she was overcome by envious spite at the sight
    of the lace bow; but the girl, not content with playing the spy,
    proceeded to insult her, and that was beyond endurance. So, leaning
    forward, with her hands clenched on the counter, she exclaimed, in a
    somewhat hoarse voice: "I say! when you sold me that pair of soles
    last week, did I come and tell you, before everybody that they were
    stinking?"

    "Stinking! My soles stinking!" cried the fish dealer, flushing
    scarlet.

    For a moment they remained silent, choking with anger, but glaring
    fiercely at each other over the array of dishes. All their honeyed
    friendship had vanished; a word had sufficed to reveal what sharp
    teeth there were behind their smiling lips.

    "You're a vulgar, low creature!" cried the beautiful Norman. "You'll
    never catch me setting foot in here again, I can tell you!"

    "Get along with you, get along with you," exclaimed beautiful Lisa. "I
    know quite well whom I've got to deal with!"

    The fish-girl went off, hurling behind her a coarse expression which
    left Lisa quivering. The whole scene had passed so quickly that the
    three men, overcome with amazement, had not had time to interfere.
    Lisa soon recovered herself, and was resuming the conversation,
    without making any allusion to what had just occurred, when the shop
    girl, Augustine, returned from an errand on which she had been sent.
    Lisa thereupon took Gavard aside, and after telling him to say nothing
    for the present to Monsieur Verlaque, promised that she would
    undertake to convince her brother-in-law in a couple of days' time at
    the utmost. Quenu then returned to his kitchen, while Gavard took
    Florent off with him. And as they were just going into Monsieur
    Lebigre's to drink a drop of vermouth together he called his attention
    to three women standing in the covered way between the fish and
    poultry pavilions.

    "They're cackling together!" he said with an envious air.

    The markets were growing empty, and Mademoiselle Saget, Madame
    Lecoeur, and La Sarriette alone lingered on the edge of the footway.
    The old maid was holding forth.

    "As I told you before, Madame Lecoeur," said she, "they've always got
    your brother-in-law in their shop. You saw him there yourself just
    now, didn't you?"

    "Oh yes, indeed! He was sitting on a table, and seemed quite at home."

    "Well, for my part," interrupted La Sarriette, "I heard nothing wrong;
    and I can't understand why you're making such a fuss."

    Mademoiselle Saget shrugged her shoulders. "Ah, you're very innocent
    yet, my dear," she said. "Can't you see why the Quenus are always
    attracting Monsieur Gavard to their place? Well, I'll wager that he'll
    leave all he has to their little Pauline."

    "You believe that, do you?" cried Madame Lecoeur, white with rage.
    Then, in a mournful voice, as though she had just received some heavy
    blow, she continued: "I am alone in the world, and have no one to take
    my part; he is quite at liberty to do as he pleases. His niece sides
    with him too--you heard her just now. She has quite forgotten all that
    she cost me, and wouldn't stir a hand to help me."

    "Indeed, aunt," exclaimed La Sarriette, "you are quite wrong there!
    It's you who've never had anything but unkind words for me."

    They became reconciled on the spot, and kissed one another. The niece
    promised that she would play no more pranks, and the aunt swore by all
    she held most sacred that she looked upon La Sarriette as her own
    daughter. Then Mademoiselle Saget advised them as to the steps they
    ought to take to prevent Gavard from squandering his money. And they
    all agreed that the Quenu-Gradelles were very disreputable folks, and
    required closely watching.

    "I don't know what they're up to just now," said the old maid, "but
    there's something suspicious going on, I'm sure. What's your opinion,
    now, of that fellow Florent, that cousin of Madame Quenu's?"

    The three women drew more closely together, and lowered their voices.

    "You remember," said Madame Lecoeur, "that we saw him one morning with
    his boots all split, and his clothes covered with dust, looking just
    like a thief who's been up to some roguery. That fellow quite
    frightens me."

    "Well, he's certainly very thin," said La Sarriette, "but he isn't
    ugly."

    Mademoiselle Saget was reflecting, and she expressed her thoughts
    aloud. "I've been trying to find out something about him for the last
    fortnight, but I can make nothing of it. Monsieur Gavard certainly
    knows him. I must have met him myself somewhere before, but I can't
    remember where."

    She was still ransacking her memory when La Normande swept up to them
    like a whirlwind. She had just left the pork shop.

    "That big booby Lisa has got nice manners, I must say!" she cried,
    delighted to be able to relieve herself. "Fancy her telling me that I
    sold nothing but stinking fish! But I gave her as good as she
    deserved, I can tell you! A nice den they keep, with their tainted
    pig meat which poisons all their customers!"

    "But what had you been saying to her?" asked the old maid, quite
    frisky with excitement, and delighted to hear that the two women had
    quarrelled.

    "I! I'd said just nothing at all--no, not that! I just went into the
    shop and told her very civilly that I'd buy some black-pudding
    to-morrow evening, and then she overwhelmed me with abuse. A dirty
    hypocrite she is, with her saint-like airs! But she'll pay more dearly
    for this than she fancies!"

    The three women felt that La Normande was not telling them the truth,
    but this did not prevent them from taking her part with a rush of bad
    language. They turned towards the Rue Rambuteau with insulting mien,
    inventing all sorts of stories about the uncleanliness of the cookery
    at the Quenu's shop, and making the most extraordinary accusations. If
    the Quenus had been detected selling human flesh the women could not
    have displayed more violent and threatening anger. The fish-girl was
    obliged to tell her story three times over.

    "And what did the cousin say?" asked Mademoiselle Saget, with wicked
    intent.

    "The cousin!" repeated La Normande, in a shrill voice. "Do you really
    believe that he's a cousin? He's some lover or other, I'll wager, the
    great booby!"

    The three others protested against this. Lisa's honourability was an
    article of faith in the neighbourhood.

    "Stuff and nonsense!" retorted La Normande. "You can never be sure
    about those smug, sleek hypocrites."

    Mademoiselle Saget nodded her head as if to say that she was not very
    far from sharing La Normande's opinion. And she softly added:
    "Especially as this cousin has sprung from no one knows where; for
    it's a very doubtful sort of account that the Quenus give of him."

    "Oh, he's the fat woman's sweetheart, I tell you!" reaffirmed the
    fish-girl; "some scamp or vagabond picked up in the streets. It's easy
    enough to see it."

    "She has given him a complete outfit," remarked Madame Lecoeur. "He
    must be costing her a pretty penny."

    "Yes, yes," muttered the old maid; "perhaps you are right. I must
    really get to know something about him."

    Then they all promised to keep one another thoroughly informed of
    whatever might take place in the Quenu-Gradelle establishment. The
    butter dealer pretended that she wished to open her brother-in-law's
    eyes as to the sort of places he frequented. However, La Normande's
    anger had by this time toned down, and, a good sort of girl at heart,
    she went off, weary of having talked so much on the matter.

    "I'm sure that La Normande said something or other insolent," remarked
    Madame Lecoeur knowingly, when the fish-girl had left them. "It is
    just her way; and it scarcely becomes a creature like her to talk as
    she did of Lisa."

    The three women looked at each other and smiled. Then, when Madame
    Lecoeur also had gone off, La Sarriette remarked to Mademoiselle
    Saget: "It is foolish of my aunt to worry herself so much about all
    these affairs. It's that which makes her so thin. Ah! she'd have
    willingly taken Gavard for a husband if she could only have got him.
    Yet she used to beat me if ever a young man looked my way."

    Mademoiselle Saget smiled once more. And when she found herself alone,
    and went back towards the Rue Pirouette, she reflected that those
    three cackling hussies were not worth a rope to hang them. She was,
    indeed, a little afraid that she might have been seen with them, and
    the idea somewhat troubled her, for she realised that it would be bad
    policy to fall out with the Quenu-Gradelles, who, after all, were
    well-to-do folks and much esteemed. So she went a little out of her
    way on purpose to call at Taboureau the baker's in the Rue Turbigo--
    the finest baker's shop in the whole neighbourhood. Madame Taboureau
    was not only an intimate friend of Lisa's, but an accepted authority
    on every subject. When it was remarked that "Madame Taboureau had said
    this," or "Madame Taboureau had said that," there was no more to be
    urged. So the old maid, calling at the baker's under pretence of
    inquiring at what time the oven would be hot, as she wished to bring a
    dish of pears to be baked, took the opportunity to eulogise Lisa, and
    lavish praise upon the sweetness and excellence of her black-puddings.
    Then, well pleased at having prepared this moral alibi and delighted
    at having done what she could to fan the flames of a quarrel without
    involving herself in it, she briskly returned home, feeling much
    easier in her mind, but still striving to recall where she had
    previously seen Madame Quenu's so-called cousin.

    That same evening, after dinner, Florent went out and strolled for
    some time in one of the covered ways of the markets. A fine mist was
    rising, and a grey sadness, which the gas lights studded as with
    yellow tears, hung over the deserted pavilions. For the first time
    Florent began to feel that he was in the way, and to recognise the
    unmannerly fashion in which he, thin and artless, had tumbled into
    this world of fat people; and he frankly admitted to himself that his
    presence was disturbing the whole neighbourhood, and that he was a
    source of discomfort to the Quenus--a spurious cousin of far too
    compromising appearance. These reflections made him very sad; not,
    indeed, that the had noticed the slightest harshness on the part of
    his brother or Lisa: it was their very kindness, rather, that was
    troubling him, and he accused himself of a lack of delicacy in
    quartering himself upon them. He was beginning to doubt the propriety
    of his conduct. The recollection of the conversation in the shop
    during the afternoon caused him a vague disquietude. The odour of the
    viands on Lisa's counter seemed to penetrate him; he felt himself
    gliding into nerveless, satiated cowardice. Perhaps he had acted
    wrongly in refusing the inspectorship offered him. This reflection
    gave birth to a stormy struggle in his mind, and he was obliged to
    brace and shake himself before he could recover his wonted rigidity of
    principles. However, a moist breeze had risen, and was blowing along
    the covered way, and he regained some degree of calmness and
    resolution on being obliged to button up his coat. The wind seemingly
    swept from his clothes all the greasy odour of the pork shop, which
    had made him feel so languid.

    He was returning home when he met Claude Lantier. The artist, hidden
    in the folds of his greenish overcoat, spoke in a hollow voice full of
    suppressed anger. He was in a passion with painting, declared that it
    was a dog's trade, and swore that he would not take up a brush again
    as long as he lived. That very afternoon he had thrust his foot
    through a study which he had been making of the head of that hussy
    Cadine.

    Claude was subject to these outbursts, the fruit of his inability to
    execute the lasting, living works which he dreamed of. And at such
    times life became an utter blank to him, and he wandered about the
    streets, wrapped in the gloomiest thoughts, and waiting for the
    morning as for a sort of resurrection. He used to say that he felt
    bright and cheerful in the morning, and horribly miserable in the
    evening.
  • Each of his days was a long effort ending in
    disappointment. Florent scarcely recognised in him the careless night
    wanderer of the markets. They had already met again at the pork shop,
    and Claude, who knew the fugitive's story, had grasped his hand and
    told him that he was a sterling fellow. It was very seldom, however,
    that the artist went to the Quenus'.

  • Claude Lantier's struggle for fame is fully described in M. Zola's
        novel, /L'Oeuvre/ ("His Masterpiece").--Translator.

    "Are you still at my aunt's?" he asked. "I can't imagine how you
    manage to exist amidst all that cookery. The places reeks with the
    smell of meat. When I've been there for an hour I feel as though I
    shouldn't want anything to eat for another three days. I ought not to
    have gone there this morning; it was that which made me make a mess of
    my work."

    Then, after he and Florent had taken a few steps in silence, he
    resumed:

    "Ah! the good people! They quite grieve me with their fine health. I
    had thought of painting their portraits, but I've never been able to
    succeed with such round faces, in which there is never a bone. Ah! You
    wouldn't find my aunt Lisa kicking her foot through her pans! I was an
    idiot to have destroyed Cadine's head! Now that I come to think of it,
    it wasn't so very bad, perhaps, after all."

    Then they began to talk about Aunt Lisa. Claude said that his
    mother
  • had not seen anything of her for a long time, and he hinted
    that the pork butcher's wife was somewhat ashamed of her sister having
    married a common working man; moreover, she wasn't at all fond of
    unfortunate folks. Speaking of himself, he told Florent that a
    benevolent gentleman had sent him to college, being very pleased with
    the donkeys and old women that he had managed to draw when only eight
    years old; but the good soul had died, leaving him an income of a
    thousand francs, which just saved him from perishing of hunger.

  • Gervaise, the heroine of the /Assommoir/.

    "All the same, I would rather have been a working man," continued
    Claude. "Look at the carpenters, for instance. They are very happy
    folks, the carpenters. They have a table to make, say; well, they make
    it, and then go off to bed, happy at having finished the table, and
    perfectly satisfied with themselves. Now I, on the other hand,
    scarcely get any sleep at nights. All those confounded pictures which
    I can't finish go flying about my brain. I never get anything finished
    and done with--never, never!"

    His voice almost broke into a sob. Then he attempted to laugh; and
    afterwards began to swear and pour forth coarse expressions, with the
    cold rage of one who, endowed with a delicate, sensitive mind, doubts
    his own powers, and dreams of wallowing in the mire. He ended by
    squatting down before one of the gratings which admit air into the
    cellars beneath the markets--cellars where the gas is continually kept
    burning. And in the depths below he pointed out Marjolin and Cadine
    tranquilly eating their supper, whilst seated on one of the stone
    blocks used for killing the poultry. The two young vagabonds had
    discovered a means of hiding themselves and making themselves at home
    in the cellars after the doors had been closed.

    "What a magnificent animal he is, eh!" exclaimed Claude, with envious
    admiration, speaking of Marjolin. "He and Cadine are happy, at all
    events! All they care for is eating and kissing. They haven't a care
    in the world. Ah, you do quite right, after all, to remain at the
    pork shop; perhaps you'll grow sleek and plump there."

    Then he suddenly went off. Florent climbed up to his garret, disturbed
    by Claude's nervous restlessness, which revived his own uncertainty.
    On the morrow, he avoided the pork shop all the morning, and went for
    a long walk on the quays. When he returned to lunch, however, he was
    struck by Lisa's kindliness. Without any undue insistence she again
    spoke to him about the inspectorship, as of something which was well
    worth his consideration. As he listened to her, with a full plate in
    front of him, he was affected, in spite of himself, by the prim
    comfort of his surroundings. The matting beneath his feet seemed very
    soft; the gleams of the brass hanging lamp, the soft, yellow tint of
    the wallpaper, and the bright oak of the furniture filled him with
    appreciation of a life spent in comfort, which disturbed his notions
    of right and wrong. He still, however, had sufficient strength to
    persist in his refusal, and repeated his reasons; albeit conscious of
    the bad taste he was showing in thus ostentatiously parading his
    animosity and obstinacy in such a place. Lisa showed no signs of
    vexation; on the contrary, she smiled, and the sweetness of her smile
    embarrassed Florent far more than her suppressed irritation of the
    previous evening. At dinner the subject was not renewed; they talked
    solely of the great winter saltings, which would keep the whole staff
    of the establishment busily employed.

    The evenings were growing cold, and as soon as they had dined they
    retired into the kitchen, where it was very warm. The room was so
    large, too, that several people could sit comfortably at the square
    central table, without in any way impeding the work that was going on.
    Lighted by gas, the walls were coated with white and blue tiles to a
    height of some five or six feet from the floor. On the left was a
    great iron stove, in the three apertures of which were set three large
    round pots, their bottoms black with soot. At the end was a small
    range, which, fitted with an oven and a smoking-place, served for the
    broiling; and up above, over the skimming-spoons, ladles, and long-
    handled forks, were several numbered drawers, containing rasped bread,
    both fine and coarse, toasted crumbs, spices, cloves, nutmegs, and
    pepper. On the right, leaning heavily against the wall, was the
    chopping-block, a huge mass of oak, slashed and scored all over.
    Attached to it were several appliances, an injecting pump, a forcing-
    machine, and a mechanical mincer, which, with their wheels and cranks,
    imparted to the place an uncanny and mysterious aspect, suggesting
    some kitchen of the infernal regions.

    Then, all round the walls upon shelves, and even under the tables,
    were iron pots, earthenware pans, dishes, pails, various kinds of tin
    utensils, a perfect battery of deep copper saucepans, and swelling
    funnels, racks of knives and choppers, rows of larding-pins and
    needles--a perfect world of greasy things. In spite of the extreme
    cleanliness, grease was paramount; it oozed forth from between the
    blue and white tiles on the wall, glistened on the red tiles of the
    flooring, gave a greyish glitter to the stove, and polished the edges
    of the chopping-block with the transparent sheen of varnished oak.
    And, indeed, amidst the ever-rising steam, the continuous evaporation
    from the three big pots, in which pork was boiling and melting, there
    was not a single nail from ceiling to floor from which grease did not
    exude.

    The Quenu-Gradelles prepared nearly all their stock themselves. All
    that they procured from outside were the potted meats of celebrated
    firms, with jars of pickles and preserves, sardines, cheese, and
    edible snails. They consequently became very busy after September in
    filling the cellars which had been emptied during the summer. They
    continued working even after the shop had been closed for the night.
    Assisted by Auguste and Leon, Quenu would stuff sausages-skins,
    prepare hams, melt down lard, and salt the different sorts of bacon.
    There was a tremendous noise of cauldrons and cleavers, and the odour
    of cooking spread through the whole house. All this was quite
    independent of the daily business in fresh pork, /pate de fois gras/,
    hare patty, galantine, saveloys and black-puddings.

    That evening, at about eleven o'clock, Quenu, after placing a couple
    of pots on the fire in order to melt down some lard, began to prepare
    the black-puddings. Auguste assisted him. At one corner of the square
    table Lisa and Augustine sat mending linen, whilst opposite to them,
    on the other side, with his face turned towards the fireplace, was
    Florent. Leon was mincing some sausage-meat on the oak block in a
    slow, rhythmical fashion.

    Auguste first of all went out into the yard to fetch a couple of jug-
    like cans full of pigs' blood. It was he who stuck the animals in the
    slaughter house. He himself would carry away the blood and interior
    portions of the pigs, leaving the men who scalded the carcasses to
    bring them home completely dressed in their carts. Quenu asserted that
    no assistant in all Paris was Auguste' equal as a pig-sticker. The
    truth was that Auguste was a wonderfully keen judge of the quality of
    the blood; and the black-pudding proved good every time that he said
    such would be the case.

    "Well, will the black-pudding be good this time?" asked Lisa.

    August put down the two cans and slowly answered: "I believe so,
    Madame Quenu; yes, I believe so. I tell it at first by the way the
    blood flows. If it spurts out very gently when I pull out the knife,
    that's a bad sign, and shows that the blood is poor."

    "But doesn't that depend on how far the knife has been stuck in?"
    asked Quenu.

    A smile came over Auguste's pale face. "No," he replied; "I always let
    four digits of the blade go in; that's the right way to measure. But
    the best sign of all is when the blood runs out and I beat it with my
    hand when it pours into the pail; it ought to be of a good warmth, and
    creamy, without being too thick."

    Augustine had put down her needle, and with her eyes raised was now
    gazing at Auguste. On her ruddy face, crowned by wiry chestnut hair,
    there was an expression of profound attention. Lisa and even little
    Pauline were also listening with deep interest.

    "Well, I beat it, and beat it, and beat it," continued the young man,
    whisking his hand about as though he were whipping cream. "And then,
    when I take my hand out and look at it, it ought to be greased, as it
    were, by the blood and equally coated all over. And if that's the
    case, anyone can say without fear of mistake that the black-puddings
    will be good."

    He remained for a moment in an easy attitude, complacently holding his
    hand in the air. This hand, which spent so much of its time in pails
    of blood, had brightly gleaming nails, and looked very rosy above his
    white sleeve. Quenu had nodded his head in approbation, and an
    interval of silence followed. Leon was still mincing. Pauline,
    however, after remaining thoughtful for a little while, mounted upon
    Florent's feet again, and in her clear voice exclaimed: "I say,
    cousin, tell me the story of the gentleman who was eaten by the wild
    beasts!"

    It was probably the mention of the pig's blood which had aroused in
    the child's mind the recollection of "the gentleman who had been eaten
    by the wild beasts." Florent did not at first understand what she
    referred to, and asked her what gentleman she meant. Lisa began to
    smile.

    "She wants you to tell her," she said, "the story of that unfortunate
    man--you know whom I mean--which you told to Gavard one evening. She
    must have heard you."

    At this Florent grew very grave. The little girl got up, and taking
    the big cat in her arms, placed it on his knees, saying that Mouton
    also would like to hear the story. Mouton, however, leapt on to the
    table, where, with rounded back, he remained contemplating the tall,
    scraggy individual who for the last fortnight had apparently afforded
    him matter for deep reflection. Pauline meantime began to grow
    impatient, stamping her feet and insisting on hearing the story.

    "Oh, tell her what she wants," said Lisa, as the child persisted and
    became quite unbearable; "she'll leave us in peace then."

    Florent remained silent for a moment longer, with his eyes turned
    towards the floor. Then slowly raising his head he let his gaze rest
    first on the two women who were plying their needles, and next on
    Quenu and Auguste, who were preparing the pot for the black-puddings.
    The gas was burning quietly, the stove diffused a gentle warmth, and
    all the grease of the kitchen glistened in an atmosphere of comfort
    such as attends good digestion

    Then, taking little Pauline upon his knee, and smiling a sad smile,
    Florent addressed himself to the child as follows
  • :--

  • Florent's narrative is not romance, but is based on the statements
        of several of the innocent victims whom the third Napoleon
        transported to Cayenne when wading through blood to the power
        which he so misused.--Translator.

    "Once upon a time there was a poor man who was sent away, a long, long
    way off, right across the sea. On the ship which carried him were four
    hundred convicts, and he was thrown among them. He was forced to live
    for five weeks amidst all those scoundrels, dressed like them in
    coarse canvas, and feeding at their mess. Foul insects preyed on him,
    and terrible sweats robbed him of all his strength. The kitchen, the
    bakehouse, and the engine-room made the orlop deck so terribly hot
    that ten of the convicts died from it. In the daytime they were sent
    up in batches of fifty to get a little fresh air from the sea; and as
    the crew of the ship feared them, a couple of cannons were pointed at
    the little bit of deck where they took exercise. The poor fellow was
    very glad indeed when his turn to go up came. His terrible
    perspiration then abated somewhat; still, he could not eat, and felt
    very ill. During the night, when he was manacled again, and the
    rolling of the ship in the rough sea kept knocking him against his
    companions, he quite broke down, and began to cry, glad to be able to
    do so without being seen."

    Pauline was listening with dilated eyes, and her little hands crossed
    primly in front of her.

    "But this isn't the story of the gentleman who was eaten by the wild
    beasts," she interrupted. "This is quite a different story; isn't it
    now, cousin?"

    "Wait a bit, and you'll see," replied Florent gently. "I shall come to
    the gentleman presently. I'm telling you the whole story from the
    beginning."

    "Oh, thank you," murmured the child, with a delighted expression.
    However, she remained thoughtful, evidently struggling with some great
    difficulty to which she could find no explanation. At last she spoke.

    "But what had the poor man done," she asked, "that he was sent away
    and put in the ship?"

    Lisa and Augustine smiled. They were quite charmed with the child's
    intelligence; and Lisa, without giving the little one a direct reply,
    took advantage of the opportunity to teach her a lesson by telling her
    that naughty children were also sent away in boats like that.

    "Oh, then," remarked Pauline judiciously, "perhaps it served my
    cousin's poor man quite right if he cried all night long."

    Lisa resumed her sewing, bending over her work. Quenu had not
    listened. He had been cutting some little rounds of onion over a pot
    placed on the fire; and almost at once the onions began to crackle,
    raising a clear shrill chirrup like that of grasshoppers basking in
    the heat. They gave out a pleasant odour too, and when Quenu plunged
    his great wooden spoon into the pot the chirruping became yet louder,
    and the whole kitchen was filled with the penetrating perfume of the
    onions. Auguste meantime was preparing some bacon fat in a dish, and
    Leon's chopper fell faster and faster, and every now and then scraped
    the block so as to gather together the sausage-meat, now almost a
    paste.

    "When they got across the sea," Florent continued, "they took the man
    to an island called the Devil's Island,
  • where he found himself
    amongst others who had been carried away from their own country. They
    were all very unhappy. At first they were kept to hard labour, just
    like convicts. The gendarme who had charge of them counted them three
    times every day, so as to be sure that none were missing. Later on,
    they were left free to do as they liked, being merely locked up at
    night in a big wooden hut, where they slept in hammocks stretched
    between two bars. At the end of the year they went about barefooted,
    as their boots were quite worn out, and their clothes had become so
    ragged that their flesh showed through them. They had built themselves
    some huts with trunks of trees as a shelter against the sun, which is
    terribly hot in those parts; but these huts did not shield them
    against the mosquitoes, which covered them with pimples and swellings
    during the night. Many of them died, and the others turned quite
    yellow, so shrunken and wretched, with their long, unkempt beards,
    that one could not behold them without pity."

  • The Ile du Diable. This spot was selected as the place of
        detention of Captain Dreyfus, the French officer convicted in 1894
        of having divulged important military documents to foreign powers.
        --Translator.

    "Auguste, give me the fat," cried Quenu; and when the apprentice had
    handed him the dish he let the pieces of bacon-fat slide gently into
    the pot, and then stirred them with his spoon. A yet denser steam now
    rose from the fireplace.

    "What did they give them to eat?" asked little Pauline, who seemed
    deeply interested.

    "They gave them maggoty rice and foul meat," answered Florent, whose
    voice grew lower as he spoke. "The rice could scarcely be eaten. When
    the meat was roasted and very well done it was just possible to
    swallow it; but if it was boiled, it smelt so dreadfully that the men
    had nausea and stomach ache."

    "I'd rather have lived upon dry bread," said the child, after thinking
    the matter carefully over.

    Leon, having finished the mincing, now placed the sausage-meat upon
    the square table in a dish. Mouton, who had remained seated with his
    eyes fixed upon Florent, as though filled with amazement by his story,
    was obliged to retreat a few steps, which he did with a very bad
    grace. Then he rolled himself up, with his nose close to the sausage-
    meat, and began to purr.

    Lisa was unable to conceal her disgust and amazement. That foul rice,
    that evil-smelling meat, seemed to her to be scarcely credible
    abominations, which disgraced those who had eaten them as much as it
    did those who had provided them; and her calm, handsome face and round
    neck quivered with vague fear of the man who had lived upon such
    horrid food.

    "No, indeed, it was not a land of delights," Florent resumed,
    forgetting all about little Pauline, and fixing his dreamy eyes upon
    the steaming pot. "Every day brought fresh annoyances--perpetual
    grinding tyranny, the violation of every principle of justice,
    contempt for all human charity, which exasperated the prisoners, and
    slowly consumed them with a fever of sickly rancour. They lived like
    wild beasts, with the lash ceaselessly raised over their backs. Those
    torturers would have liked to kill the poor man-- Oh, no; it can never
    be forgotten; it is impossible! Such sufferings will some day claim
    vengeance."

    His voice had fallen, and the pieces of fat hissing merrily in the pot
    drowned it with the sound of their boiling. Lisa, however, heard him,
    and was frightened by the implacable expression which had suddenly
    come over his face; and, recollecting the gentle look which he
    habitually wore, she judged him to be a hypocrite.

    Florent's hollow voice had brought Pauline's interest and delight to
    the highest pitch, and she fidgeted with pleasure on his knee.

    "But the man?" she exclaimed. "Go on about the man!"

    Florent looked at her, and then appeared to remember, and smiled his
    sad smile again.

    "The man," he continued, "was weary of remaining on the island, and
    had but one thought--that of making his escape by crossing the sea and
    reaching the mainland, whose white coast line could be seen on the
    horizon in clear weather. But it was no easy matter to escape. It was
    necessary that a raft should be built, and as several of the prisoners
    had already made their escape, all the trees on the island had been
    felled to prevent the others from obtaining timber. The island was,
    indeed, so bare and naked, so scorched by the blazing sun, that life
    in it had become yet more perilous and terrible. However, it occurred
    to the man and two of his companions to employ the timbers of which
    their huts were built; and one evening they put out to sea on some
    rotten beams, which they had fastened together with dry branches. The
    wind carried them towards the coast. Just as daylight was about to
    appear, the raft struck on a sandbank with such violence that the
    beams were severed from their lashings and carried out to sea. The
    three poor fellows were almost engulfed in the sand. Two of them sank
    in it to their waists, while the third disappeared up to his chin, and
    his companions were obliged to pull him out. At last they reached a
    rock, so small that there was scarcely room for them to sit down upon
    it. When the sun rose they could see the coast in front of them, a bar
    of grey cliffs stretching all along the horizon. Two, who knew how to
    swim, determined to reach those cliffs. They preferred to run the risk
    of being drowned at once to that of slowly starving on the rock. But
    they promised their companion that they would return for him when they
    had reached land and had been able to procure a boat."

    "Ah, I know now!" cried little Pauline, clapping her hands with glee.
    "It's the story of the gentleman who was eaten by the crabs!"

    "They succeeded in reaching the coast," continued Florent, "but it was
    quite deserted; and it was only at the end of four days that they were
    able to get a boat. When they returned to the rock, they found their
    companion lying on his back, dead, and half-eaten by crabs, which were
    still swarming over what remained of his body."


  • In deference to the easily shocked feelings of the average English
        reader I have somewhat modified this passage. In the original M.
        Zola fully describes the awful appearance of the body.--
        Translator.

    A murmur of disgust escaped Lisa and Augustine, and a horrified
    grimace passed over the face of Leon, who was preparing the skins for
    the black-puddings. Quenu stopped in the midst of his work and looked
    at Auguste, who seemed to have turned faint. Only little Pauline was
    smiling. In imagination the others could picture those swarming,
    ravenous crabs crawling all over the kitchen, and mingling gruesome
    odours with the aroma of the bacon-fat and onions.

    "Give me the blood," cried Quenu, who had not been following the
    story.

    Auguste came up to him with the two cans, from which he slowly poured
    the blood, while Quenu, as it fell, vigorously stirred the now
    thickening contents of the pot. When the cans were emptied, Quenu
    reached up to one of the drawers above the range, and took out some
    pinches of spice. Then he added a plentiful seasoning of pepper.

    "They left him there, didn't they," Lisa now asked of Florent, "and
    returned themselves in safety?"

    "As they were going back," continued Florent, "the wind changed, and
    they were driven out into the open sea. A wave carried away one of
    their oars, and the water swept so furiously into the boat that their
    whole time was taken up in baling it out with their hands. They tossed
    about in this way in sight of the coast, carried away by squalls and
    then brought back again by the tide, without a mouthful of bread to
    eat, for their scanty stock of provisions had been consumed. This went
    on for three days."

    "Three days!" cried Lisa in stupefaction; "three days without food!"

    "Yes, three days without food. When the east wind at last brought them
    to shore, one of them was so weak that he lay on the beach the whole
    day. In the evening he died. His companion had vainly attempted to get
    him to chew some leaves which he gathered from the trees."

    At this point Augustine broke into a slight laugh. Then, ashamed at
    having done so and not wishing to be considered heartless, she
    stammered out in confusion: "Oh! I wasn't laughing at that. It was
    Mouton. Do just look at Mouton, madame."

    Then Lisa in her turn began to smile. Mouton, who had been lying all
    this time with his nose close to the dish of sausage-meat, had
    probably begun to feel distressed and disgusted by the presence of all
    this food, for he had risen and was rapidly scratching the table with
    his paws as though he wanted to bury the dish and its contents. At
    last, however, turning his back to it and lying down on his side, he
    stretched himself out, half closing his eyes and rubbing his head
    against the table with languid pleasure. Then they all began to
    compliment Mouton. He never stole anything, they said, and could be
    safely left with the meat. Pauline related that he licked her fingers
    and washed her face after dinner without trying to bite her.

    However, Lisa now came back to the question as to whether it were
    possible to live for three days without food. In her opinion it was
    not. "No," she said, "I can't believe it. No one ever goes three days
    without food. When people talk of a person dying of hunger, it is a
    mere expression. They always get something to eat, more or less. It is
    only the most abandoned wretches, people who are utterly lost----"

    She was doubtless going to add, "vagrant rogues," but she stopped
    short and looked at Florent. The scornful pout of her lips and the
    expression of her bright eyes plainly signified that in her belief
    only villains made such prolonged fasts. It seemed to her that a man
    able to remain without food for three days must necessarily be a very
    dangerous character. For, indeed, honest folks never placed themselves
    in such a position.

    Florent was now almost stifling. In front of him the stove, into which
    Leon had just thrown several shovelfuls of coal, was snoring like a
    lay clerk asleep in the sun; and the heat was very great. Auguste, who
    had taken charge of the lard melting in the pots, was watching over it
    in a state of perspiration, and Quenu wiped his brow with his sleeve
    whilst waiting for the blood to mix. A drowsiness such as follows
    gross feeding, an atmosphere heavy with indigestion, pervaded the
    kitchen.

    "When the man had buried his comrade in the sand," Florent continued
    slowly, "he walked off alone straight in front of him. Dutch Guiana,
    in which country he now was, is a land of forests intermingled with
    rivers and swamps. The man walked on for more than a week without
    coming across a single human dwelling-place. All around, death seemed
    to be lurking and lying in wait for him. Though his stomach was racked
    by hunger, he often did not dare to eat the bright-coloured fruits
    which hung from the trees; he was afraid to touch the glittering
    berries, fearing lest they should be poisonous. For whole days he did
    not see a patch of sky, but tramped on beneath a canopy of branches,
    amidst a greenish gloom that swarmed with horrible living creatures.
    Great birds flew over his head with a terrible flapping of wings and
    sudden strange calls resembling death groans; apes sprang, wild
    animals rushed through the thickets around him, bending the saplings
    and bringing down a rain of leaves, as though a gale were passing. But
    it was particularly the serpents that turned his blood cold when,
    stepping upon a matting of moving, withered leaves, he caught sight of
    their slim heads gliding amidst a horrid maze of roots. In certain
    nooks, nooks of dank shadow, swarming colonies of reptiles--some
    black, some yellow, some purple, some striped, some spotted, and some
    resembling withered reeds--suddenly awakened into life and wriggled
    away. At such times the man would stop and look about for a stone on
    which he might take refuge from the soft yielding ground into which
    his feet sank; and there he would remain for hours, terror-stricken on
    espying in some open space near by a boa, who, with tail coiled and
    head erect, swayed like the trunk of a big tree splotched with gold.

    "At night he used to sleep in the trees, alarmed by the slightest
    rustling of the branches, and fancying that he could hear endless
    swarms of serpents gliding through the gloom. He almost stifled
    beneath the interminable expanse of foliage. The gloomy shade reeked
    with close, oppressive heat, a clammy dankness and pestilential sweat,
    impregnated with the coarse aroma of scented wood and malodorous
    flowers.

    "And when at last, after a long weary tramp, the man made his way out
    of the forest and beheld the sky again, he found himself confronted by
    wide rivers which barred his way. He skirted their banks, keeping a
    watchful eye on the grey backs of the alligators and the masses of
    drifting vegetation, and then, when he came to a less suspicious-
    looking spot, he swam across. And beyond the rivers the forests began
    again. At other times there were vast prairie lands, leagues of thick
    vegetation, in which, at distant intervals, small lakes gleamed
    bluely. The man then made a wide detour, and sounded the ground
    beneath him before advancing, having but narrowly escaped from being
    swallowed up and buried beneath one of those smiling plains which he
    could hear cracking at each step he took. The giant grass, nourished
    by all the collected humus, concealed pestiferous marshes, depths of
    liquid mud; and amongst the expanses of verdure spread over the
    glaucous immensity to the very horizon there were only narrow
    stretches of firm ground with which the traveller must be acquainted
    if he would avoid disappearing for ever. One night the man sank down
    as far as his waist. At each effort he made to extricate himself the
    mud threatened to rise to his mouth. Then he remained quite still for
    nearly a couple of hours; and when the moon rose he was fortunately
    able to catch hold of a branch of a tree above his head. By the time
    he reached a human dwelling his hands and feet were bruised and
    bleeding, swollen with poisonous stings. He presented such a pitiable,
    famished appearance that those who saw him were afraid of him. They
    tossed him some food fifty yards away from the house, and the master
    of it kept guard over his door with a loaded gun."

    Florent stopped, his voice choked by emotion, and his eyes gazing
    blankly before him. For some minutes he had seemed to be speaking to
    himself alone. Little Pauline, who had grown drowsy, was lying in his
    arms with her head thrown back, though striving to keep her wondering
    eyes open. And Quenu, for his part, appeared to be getting impatient.

    "Why, you stupid!" he shouted to Leon, "don't you know how to hold a
    skin yet? What do you stand staring at me for? It's the skin you
    should look at, not me! There, hold it like that, and don't move
    again!"

    With his right hand Leon was raising a long string of sausage-skin, at
    one end of which a very wide funnel was inserted; while with his left
    hand he coiled the black-pudding round a metal bowl as fast as Quenu
    filled the funnel with big spoonfuls of the meat. The latter, black
    and steaming, flowed through the funnel, gradually inflating the skin,
    which fell down again, gorged to repletion and curving languidly. As
    Quenu had removed the pot from the range both he and Leon stood out
    prominently, he broad visaged, and the lad slender of profile, in the
    burning glow which cast over their pale faces and white garments a
    flood of rosy light.

    Lisa and Augustine watched the filling of the skin with great
    interest, Lisa especially; and she in her turn found fault with Leon
    because he nipped the skin too tightly with his fingers, which caused
    knots to form, she said. When the skin was quite full, Quenu let it
    slip gently into a pot of boiling water; and seemed quite easy in his
    mind again, for now nothing remained but to leave it to boil.

    "And the man--go on about the man!" murmured Pauline, opening her
    eyes, and surprised at no longer hearing the narrative.

    Florent rocked her on his knee, and resumed his story in a slow,
    murmuring voice, suggestive of that of a nurse singing an infant to
    sleep.

    "The man," he said, "arrived at a large town. There he was at first
    taken for an escaped convict, and was kept in prison for several
    months. Then he was released, and turned his hand to all sorts of
    work. He kept accounts and taught children to read, and at one time he
    was even employed as a navvy in making an embankment. He was
    continually hoping to return to his own country. He had saved the
    necessary amount of money when he was attacked by yellow fever. Then,
    believing him to be dead, those about him divided his clothes amongst
    themselves; so that when he at last recovered he had not even a shirt
    left. He had to begin all over again. The man was very weak, and was
    afraid he might have to remain where he was. But at last he was able
    to get away, and he returned."

    His voice had sunk lower and lower, and now died away altogether in a
    final quivering of his lips. The close of the story had lulled little
    Pauline to sleep, and she was now slumbering with her head on
    Florent's shoulder. He held her with one arm, and still gently rocked
    her on his knee. No one seemed to pay any further attention to him, so
    he remained still and quiet where he was, holding the sleeping child.

    Now came the tug of war, as Quenu said. He had to remove the black-
    puddings from the pot. In order to avoid breaking them or getting them
    entangled, he coiled them round a thick wooden pin as he drew them
    out, and then carried them into the yard and hung them on screens,
    where they quickly dried. Leon helped him, holding up the drooping
    ends. And as these reeking festoons of black-pudding crossed the
    kitchen they left behind them a trail of odorous steam, which still
    further thickened the dense atmosphere.

    Auguste, on his side, after giving a hasty glance at the lard moulds,
    now took the covers off the two pots in which the fat was simmering,
    and each bursting bubble discharged an acrid vapour into the kitchen.
    The greasy haze had been gradually rising ever since the beginning of
    the evening, and now it shrouded the gas and pervaded the whole room,
    streaming everywhere, and veiling the ruddy whiteness of Quenu and his
    two assistants. Lisa and Augustine had risen from their seats; and all
    were panting as though they had eaten too much.

    Augustine carried the sleeping Pauline upstairs; and Quenu, who liked
    to fasten up the kitchen himself, gave Auguste and Leon leave to go to
    bed, saying that he would fetch the black-pudding himself. The younger
    apprentice stole off with a very red face, having managed to secrete
    under his shirt nearly a yard of the pudding, which must have almost
    scalded him. Then the Quenus and Florent remained alone, in silence.
    Lisa stood nibbling a little piece of the hot pudding, keeping her
    pretty lips well apart all the while, for fear of burning them, and
    gradually the black compound vanished in her rosy mouth.

    "Well," said she, "La Normande was foolish in behaving so rudely; the
    black-pudding's excellent to-day."

    However, there was a knock at the passage door, and Gavard, who stayed
    at Monsieur Lebigre's every evening until midnight, came in. He had
    called for a definite answer about the fish inspectorship.

    "You must understand," he said, "that Monsieur Verlaque cannot wait
    any longer; he is too ill. So Florent must make up his mind. I have
    promised to give a positive answer early to-morrow."

    "Well, Florent accepts," Lisa quietly remarked, taking another nibble
    at some black-pudding.

    Florent, who had remained in his chair, overcome by a strange feeling
    of prostration, vainly endeavoured to rise and protest.

    "No, no, say nothing," continued Lisa; "the matter is quite settled.
    You have suffered quite enough already, my dear Florent. What you have
    just been telling us is enough to make one shudder. It is time now for
    you to settle down. You belong to a respectable family, you received a
    good education, and it is really not fitting that you should go
    wandering about the highways like a vagrant. At your age childishness
    is no longer excusable. You have been foolish; well, all that will be
    forgotten and forgiven. You will take your place again among those of
    your own class--the class of respectable folks--and live in future
    like other people."

    Florent listened in astonishment, quite unable to say a word. Lisa
    was, doubtless, right. She looked so healthy, so serene, that it was
    impossible to imagine that she desired anything but what was proper.
    It was he, with his fleshless body and dark, equivocal-looking
    countenance, who must be in the wrong, and indulging in unrighteous
    dreams. He could, indeed, no longer understand why he had hitherto
    resisted.

    Lisa, however, continued to talk to him with an abundant flow of
    words, as though he were a little boy found in fault and threatened
    with the police. She assumed, indeed, a most maternal manner, and
    plied him with the most convincing reasons. And at last, as a final
    argument, she said:

    "Do it for us, Florent. We occupy a fair position in the neighbourhood
    which obliges us to use a certain amount of circumspection; and, to
    tell you the truth, between ourselves, I'm afraid that people will
    begin to talk. This inspectorship will set everything right; you will
    be somebody; you will even be an honour to us."

    Her manner had become caressingly persuasive, and Florent was
    penetrated by all the surrounding plenteousness, all the aroma filling
    the kitchen, where he fed, as it were, on the nourishment floating in
    the atmosphere. He sank into blissful meanness, born of all the
    copious feeding that went on in the sphere of plenty in which he had
    been living during the last fortnight. He felt, as it were, the
    titillation of forming fat which spread slowly all over his body. He
    experienced the languid beatitude of shopkeepers, whose chief concern
    is to fill their bellies. At this late hour of night, in the warm
    atmosphere of the kitchen, all his acerbity and determination melted
    away. That peaceable evening, with the odour of the black-pudding and
    the lard, and the sight of plump little Pauline slumbering on his
    knee, had so enervated him that he found himself wishing for a
    succession of such evenings--endless ones which would make him fat.

    However, it was the sight of Mouton that chiefly decided him. Mouton
    was sound asleep, with his stomach turned upwards, one of his paws
    resting on his nose, and his tail twisted over this side, as though to
    keep him warm; and he was slumbering with such an expression of feline
    happiness that Florent, as he gazed at him, murmured: "No, it would be
    too foolish! I accept the berth. Say that I accept it, Gavard."

    Then Lisa finished eating her black-pudding, and wiped her fingers on
    the edge of her apron. And next she got her brother-in-law's candle
    ready for him, while Gavard and Quenu congratulated him on his
    decision. It was always necessary for a man to settle down, said they;
    the breakneck freaks of politics did not provide one with food. And,
    meantime, Lisa, standing there with the lighted candle in her hand,
    looked at him with an expression of satisfaction resting on her
    handsome face, placid like that of some sacred cow.
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    Chapter III


    Three days later the necessary formalities were gone through, and
    without demur the police authorities at the Prefecture accepted
    Florent on Monsieur Verlaque's recommendation as his substitute.
    Gavard, by the way, had made it a point to accompany them. When he
    again found himself alone with Florent he kept nudging his ribs with
    his elbow as they walked along together, and laughed, without saying
    anything, while winking his eyes in a jeering way. He seemed to find
    something very ridiculous in the appearance of the police officers
    whom they met on the Quai de l'Horloge, for, as he passed them, he
    slightly shrugged his shoulders and made the grimace of a man seeking
    to restrain himself from laughing in people's faces.

    On the following morning Monsieur Verlaque began to initiate the new
    inspector into the duties of his office. It had been arranged that
    during the next few days he should make him acquainted with the
    turbulent sphere which he would have to supervise. Poor Verlaque, as
    Gavard called him was a pale little man, swathed in flannels,
    handkerchiefs, and mufflers. Constantly coughing, he made his way
    through the cool, moist atmosphere, and running waters of the fish
    market, on a pair of scraggy legs like those of a sickly child.

    When Florent made his appearance on the first morning, at seven
    o'clock, he felt quite distracted; his eyes were dazed, his head ached
    with all the noise and riot. Retail dealers were already prowling
    about the auction pavilion; clerks were arriving with their ledgers,
    and consigners' agents, with leather bags slung over their shoulders,
    sat on overturned chairs by the salesmen's desks, waiting to receive
    their cash. Fish was being unloaded and unpacked not only in the
    enclosure, but even on the footways. All along the latter were piles
    of small baskets, an endless arrival of cases and hampers, and sacks
    of mussels, from which streamlets of water trickled. The auctioneers'
    assistants, all looking very busy, sprang over the heaps, tore away
    the straw at the tops of the baskets, emptied the latter, and tossed
    them aside. They then speedily transferred their contents in lots to
    huge wickerwork trays, arranging them with a turn of the hand so that
    they might show to the best advantage. And when the large tray-like
    baskets were all set out, Florent could almost fancy that a whole
    shoal of fish had got stranded there, still quivering with life, and
    gleaming with rosy nacre, scarlet coral, and milky pearl, all the
    soft, pale, sheeny hues of the ocean.

    The deep-lying forests of seaweed, in which the mysterious life of the
    ocean slumbers, seemed at one haul of the nets to have yielded up all
    they contained. There were cod, keeling, whiting, flounders, plaice,
    dabs, and other sorts of common fish of a dingy grey with whitish
    splotches; there were conger-eels, huge serpent-like creatures, with
    small black eyes and muddy, bluish skins, so slimy that they still
    seemed to be gliding along, yet alive. There were broad flat skate
    with pale undersides edged with a soft red, and superb backs bumpy
    with vertebrae, and marbled down to the tautly stretched ribs of their
    fins with splotches of cinnabar, intersected by streaks of the tint of
    Florentine bronze--a dark medley of colour suggestive of the hues of a
    toad or some poisonous flower. Then, too, there were hideous dog-fish,
    with round heads, widely-gaping mouths like those of Chinese idols,
    and short fins like bats' wings; fit monsters to keep yelping guard
    over the treasures of the ocean grottoes. And next came the finer
    fish, displayed singly on the osier trays; salmon that gleamed like
    chased silver, every scale seemingly outlined by a graving-tool on a
    polished metal surface; mullet with larger scales and coarser
    markings; large turbot and huge brill with firm flesh white like
    curdled milk; tunny-fish, smooth and glossy, like bags of blackish
    leather; and rounded bass, with widely gaping mouths which a soul too
    large for the body seemed to have rent asunder as it forced its way
    out amidst the stupefaction of death. And on all sides there were
    sole, brown and grey, in pairs; sand-eels, slim and stiff, like
    shavings of pewter; herrings, slightly twisted, with bleeding gills
    showing on their silver-worked skins; fat dories tinged with just a
    suspicion of carmine; burnished mackerel with green-streaked backs,
    and sides gleaming with ever-changing iridescence; and rosy gurnets
    with white bellies, their head towards the centre of the baskets and
    their tails radiating all around, so that they simulated some strange
    florescence splotched with pearly white and brilliant vermilion. There
    were rock mullet, too, with delicious flesh, flushed with the pinky
    tinge peculiar to the Cyprinus family; boxes of whiting with opaline
    reflections; and baskets of smelts--neat little baskets, pretty as
    those used for strawberries, and exhaling a strong scent of violets.
    And meantime the tiny black eyes of the shrimps dotted as with beads
    of jet their soft-toned mass of pink and grey; and spiny crawfish and
    lobsters striped with black, all still alive, raised a grating sound
    as they tried to crawl along with their broken claws.

    Florent gave but indifferent attention to Monsieur Verlaque's
    explanations. A flood of sunshine suddenly streamed through the lofty
    glass roof of the covered way, lighting up all these precious colours,
    toned and softened by the waves--the iridescent flesh-tints of the
    shell-fish, the opal of the whiting, the pearly nacre of the mackerel,
    the ruddy gold of the mullets, the plated skins of the herrings, and
    massive silver of the salmon. It was as though the jewel-cases of some
    sea-nymph had been emptied there--a mass of fantastical, undreamt-of
    ornaments, a streaming and heaping of necklaces, monstrous bracelets,
    gigantic brooches, barbaric gems and jewels, the use of which could
    not be divined. On the backs of the skate and the dog-fish you saw, as
    it were, big dull green and purple stones set in dark metal, while the
    slender forms of the sand-eels and the tails and fins of the smelts
    displayed all the delicacy of finely wrought silver-work.

    And meantime Florent's face was fanned by a fresh breeze, a sharp,
    salt breeze redolent of the sea. It reminded him of the coasts of
    Guiana and his voyages. He half fancied that he was gazing at some bay
    left dry by the receding tide, with the seaweed steaming in the sun,
    the bare rocks drying, and the beach smelling strongly of the brine.
    All around him the fish in their perfect freshness exhaled a pleasant
    perfume, that slightly sharp, irritating perfume which depraves the
    appetite.

    Monsieur Verlaque coughed. The dampness was affecting him, and he
    wrapped his muffler more closely about his neck.

    "Now," said he, "we will pass on to the fresh water fish."

    This was in a pavilion beside the fruit market, the last one, indeed,
    in the direction of the Rue Rambuteau. On either side of the space
    reserved for the auctions were large circular stone basins, divided
    into separate compartments by iron gratings. Slender streams of water
    flowed from brass jets shaped like swan's necks; and the compartments
    were filled with swarming colonies of crawfish, black-backed carp ever
    on the move, and mazy tangles of eels, incessantly knotting and
    unknotting themselves. Again was Monsieur Verlaque attacked by an
    obstinate fit of coughing. The moisture of the atmosphere was more
    insipid here than amongst the sea water fish: there was a riverside
    scent, as of sun-warmed water slumbering on a bed of sand.

    A great number of crawfishes had arrived from Germany that morning in
    cases and hampers, and the market was also crowded with river fish
    from Holland and England. Several men were unpacking shiny carp from
    the Rhine, lustrous with ruddy metallic hues, their scales resembling
    bronzed /cloisonne/ enamel; and others were busy with huge pike, the
    cruel iron-grey brigands of the waters, who ravenously protruded their
    savage jaws; or with magnificent dark-hued with verdigris. And amidst
    these suggestions of copper, iron, and bronze, the gudgeon and perch,
    the trout, the bleak, and the flat-fish taken in sweep-nets showed
    brightly white, the steel-blue tints of their backs gradually toning
    down to the soft transparency of their bellies. However, it was the
    fat snowy-white barbel that supplied the liveliest brightness in this
    gigantic collection of still life.

    Bags of young carp were being gently emptied into the basins. The fish
    spun round, then remained motionless for a moment, and at last shot
    away and disappeared. Little eels were turned out of their hampers in
    a mass, and fell to the bottom of the compartments like tangled knots
    of snakes; while the larger ones--those whose bodies were about as
    thick as a child's arm--raised their heads and slipped of their own
    accord into the water with the supple motion of serpents gliding into
    the concealment of a thicket. And meantime the other fish, whose death
    agony had been lasting all the morning as they lay on the soiled
    osiers of the basket-trays, slowly expired amidst all the uproar of
    the auctions, opening their mouths as though to inhale the moisture of
    the air, with great silent gasps, renewed every few seconds.

    However, Monsieur Verlaque brought Florent back to the salt water
    fish. He took him all over the place and gave him the minutest
    particulars about everything. Round the nine salesmen's desks ranged
    along three sides of the pavilion there was now a dense crowd of
    surging, swaying heads, above which appeared the clerks, perched upon
    high chairs and making entries in their ledgers.

    "Are all these clerks employed by the salesmen?" asked Florent.

    By way of reply Monsieur Verlaque made a detour along the outside
    footway, led him into the enclosure of one of the auctions, and then
    explained the working of the various departments of the big yellow
    office, which smelt strongly of fish and was stained all over by
    drippings and splashings from the hampers. In a little glazed
    compartment up above, the collector of the municipal dues took note of
    the prices realised by the different lots of fish. Lower down, seated
    upon high chairs and with their wrists resting upon little desks, were
    two female clerks, who kept account of the business on behalf of the
    salesmen. At each end of the stone table in front of the office was a
    crier who brought the basket-trays forward in turn, and in a bawling
    voice announced what each lot consisted of; while above him the female
    clerk, pen in hand, waited to register the price at which the lots
    were knocked down. And outside the enclosure, shut up in another
    little office of yellow wood, Monsieur Verlaque showed Florent the
    cashier, a fat old woman, who was ranging coppers and five-franc
    pierces in piles.

    "There is a double control, you see," said Monsieur Verlaque; "the
    control of the Prefecture of the Seine and that of the Prefecture of
    Police. The latter, which licenses the salesmen, claims to have the
    right of supervision over them; and the municipality asserts its right
    to be represented at the transactions as they are subject to
    taxation."

    He went on expatiating at length in his faint cold voice respecting
    the rival claims of the two Prefectures. Florent, however, was paying
    but little heed, his attention being concentrated on a female clerk
    sitting on one of the high chairs just in front of him. She was a
    tall, dark woman of thirty, with big black eyes and an easy calmness
    of manner, and she wrote with outstretched fingers like a girl who had
    been taught the regulation method of the art.

    However, Florent's attention was diverted by the yelping of the crier,
    who was just offering a magnificent turbot for sale.

    "I've a bid of thirty francs! Thirty francs, now; thirty francs!"

    He repeated these words in all sorts of keys, running up and down a
    strange scale of notes full of sudden changes. Humpbacked and with
    his face twisted askew, and his hair rough and disorderly, he wore a
    great blue apron with a bib; and with flaming eyes and outstretched
    arms he cried vociferously: "Thirty-one! thirty-two! thirty-three!
    Thirty-three francs fifty centimes! thirty-three fifty!"

    Then he paused to take breath, turning the basket-tray and pushing it
    farther upon the table. The fish-wives bent forward and gently touched
    the turbot with their finger-tips. Then the crier began again with
    renewed energy, hurling his figures towards the buyers with a wave of
    the hand and catching the slightest indication of a fresh bid--the
    raising of a finger, a twist of the eyebrows, a pouting of the lips, a
    wink, and all with such rapidity and such a ceaseless jumble of words
    that Florent, utterly unable to follow him, felt quite disconcerted
    when, in a sing-song voice like that of a priest intoning the final
    words of a versicle, he chanted: "Forty-two! forty-two! The turbot
    goes for forty-two francs."

    It was the beautiful Norman who had made the last bid. Florent
    recognised her as she stood in the line of fish-wives crowding against
    the iron rails which surrounded the enclosure. The morning was fresh
    and sharp, and there was a row of tippets above the display of big
    white aprons, covering the prominent bosoms and stomachs and sturdy
    shoulders. With high-set chignon set off with curls, and white and
    dainty skin, the beautiful Norman flaunted her lace bow amidst tangled
    shocks of hair covered with dirty kerchiefs, red noses eloquent of
    drink, sneering mouths, and battered faces suggestive of old pots. And
    she also recognised Madame Quenu's cousin, and was so surprised to see
    him there that she began gossiping to her neighbours about him.

    The uproar of voices had become so great that Monsieur Verlaque
    renounced all further attempt to explain matters to Florent. On the
    footway close by, men were calling out the larger fish with prolonged
    shouts, which sounded as though they came from gigantic speaking-
    trumpets; and there was one individual who roared "Mussels! Mussels!"
    in such a hoarse, cracked, clamorous voice that the very roofs of the
    market shook. Some sacks of mussels were turned upside down, and their
    contents poured into hampers, while others were emptied with shovels.
    And there was a ceaseless procession of basket-trays containing skate,
    soles, mackerel, conger-eels, and salmon, carried backwards and
    forwards amidst the ever-increasing cackle and pushing of the fish-
    women as they crowded against the iron rails which creaked with their
    pressure. The humpbacked crier, now fairly on the job, waved his
    skinny arms in the air and protruded his jaws. Presently, seemingly
    lashed into a state of frenzy by the flood of figures that spurted
    from his lips, he sprang upon a stool, where, with his mouth twisted
    spasmodically and his hair streaming behind him, he could force
    nothing more than unintelligible hisses from his parched throat. And
    in the meantime, up above, the collector of municipal dues, a little
    old man, muffled in a collar of imitation astrachan, remained with
    nothing but his nose showing under his black velvet skullcap. And the
    tall, dark-complexioned female clerk, with eyes shining calmly in her
    face, which had been slightly reddened by the cold, sat on her high
    wooden chair, quietly writing, apparently unruffled by the continuous
    rattle which came from the hunchback below her.

    "That fellow Logre is wonderful," muttered Monsieur Verlaque with a
    smile. "He is the best crier in the markets. I believe he could make
    people buy boot soles in the belief they were fish!"

    Then he and Florent went back into the pavilion. As they again passed
    the spot where the fresh water fish was being sold by auction, and
    where the bidding seemed much quieter, Monsieur Verlaque explained
    that French river fishing was in a bad way.
  • The crier here, a fair,
    sorry-looking fellow, who scarcely moved his arms, was disposing of
    some lots of eels and crawfish in a monotonous voice, while the
    assistants fished fresh supplies out of the stone basins with their
    short-handled nets.

  • M. Zola refers, of course, to the earlier years of the Second
        Empire. Under the present republican Government, which has largely
        fostered fish culture, matters have considerably improved.--
        Translator.

    However, the crowd round the salesmen's desks was still increasing.
    Monsieur Verlaque played his part as Florent's instructor in the most
    conscientious manner, clearing the way by means of his elbows, and
    guiding his successor through the busiest parts. The upper-class
    retail dealers were there, quietly waiting for some of the finer fish,
    or loading the porters with their purchases of turbot, tunny, and
    salmon. The street-hawkers who had clubbed together to buy lots of
    herrings and small flat-fish were dividing them on the pavement. There
    were also some people of the smaller middle class, from distant parts
    of the city, who had come down at four o'clock in the morning to buy a
    really fresh fish, and had ended by allowing some enormous lot,
    costing from forty to fifty francs, to be knocked down to them, with
    the result that they would be obliged to spend the whole day in
    getting their friends and acquaintances to take the surplus off their
    hands. Every now and then some violent pushing would force a gap
    through part of the crowd. A fish-wife, who had got tightly jammed,
    freed herself, shaking her fists and pouring out a torrent of abuse.
    Then a compact mass of people again collected, and Florent, almost
    suffocated, declared that he had seen quite enough, and understood all
    that was necessary.

    As Monsieur Verlaque was helping him to extricate himself from the
    crowd, they found themselves face to face with the handsome Norman.
    She remained stock-still in front of them, and with her queenly air
    inquired:

    "Well, is it quite settled? You are going to desert us, Monsieur
    Verlaque?"

    "Yes, yes," replied the little man; "I am going to take a rest in the
    country, at Clamart. The smell of the fish is bad for me, it seems.
    Here, this is the gentleman who is going to take my place."

    So speaking he turned round to introduce Florent to her. The handsome
    Norman almost choked; however, as Florent went off, he fancied he
    could hear her whisper to her neighbours, with a laugh: "Well, we
    shall have some fine fun now, see if we don't!"

    The fish-wives had begun to set out their stalls. From all the taps at
    the corners of the marble slabs water was gushing freely; and there
    was a rustling sound all round, like the plashing of rain, a streaming
    of stiff jets of water hissing and spurting. And then, from the lower
    side of the sloping slabs, great drops fell with a softened murmur,
    splashing on the flagstones where a mass of tiny streams flowed along
    here and there, turning holes and depressions into miniature lakes,
    and afterwards gliding in a thousand rills down the slope towards the
    Rue Rambuteau. A moist haze ascended, a sort of rainy dust, bringing
    fresh whiffs of air to Florent's face, whiffs of that salt, pungent
    sea breeze which he remembered so well; while in such fish as was
    already laid out he once more beheld the rosy nacres, gleaming corals,
    and milky pearls, all the rippling colour and glaucous pallidity of
    the ocean world.

    That first morning left him much in doubt; indeed, he regretted that
    he had yielded to Lisa's insistence. Ever since his escape from the
    greasy drowsiness of the kitchen he had been accusing himself of base
    weakness with such violence that tears had almost risen in his eyes.
    But he did not dare to go back on his word. He was a little afraid of
    Lisa, and could see the curl of her lips and the look of mute reproach
    upon her handsome face. He felt that she was too serious a woman to be
    trifled with. However, Gavard happily inspired him with a consoling
    thought. On the evening of the day on which Monsieur Verlaque had
    conducted him through the auction sales, Gavard took him aside and
    told him, with a good deal of hesitation, that "the poor devil" was
    not at all well off. And after various remarks about the scoundrelly
    Government which ground the life out of its servants without allowing
    them even the means to die in comfort, he ended by hinting that it
    would be charitable on Florent's part to surrender a part of his
    salary to the old inspector. Florent welcomed the suggestion with
    delight. It was only right, he considered, for he looked upon himself
    simply as Monsieur Verlaque's temporary substitute; and besides, he
    himself really required nothing, as he boarded and lodged with his
    brother. Gavard added that he thought if Florent gave up fifty francs
    out of the hundred and fifty which he would receive monthly, the
    arrangement would be everything that could be desired; and, lowering
    his voice, he added that it would not be for long, for the poor fellow
    was consumptive to his very bones. Finally it was settled that Florent
    should see Monsieur Verlaque's wife, and arrange matters with her, to
    avoid any possibility of hurting the old man's feelings.

    The thought of this kindly action afforded Florent great relief, and
    he now accepted his duties with the object of doing good, thus
    continuing to play the part which he had been fulfilling all his life.
    However, he made the poultry dealer promise that he would not speak of
    the matter to anyone; and as Gavard also felt a vague fear of Lisa, he
    kept the secret, which was really very meritorious in him.

    And now the whole pork shop seemed happy. Handsome Lisa manifested the
    greatest friendliness towards her brother-in-law. She took care that
    he went to bed early, so as to be able to rise in good time; she kept
    his breakfast hot for him; and she no longer felt ashamed at being
    seen talking to him on the footway, now that he wore a laced cap.
    Quenu, quite delighted by all these good signs, sat down to table in
    the evening between his wife and brother with a lighter heart than
    ever. They often lingered over dinner till nine o'clock, leaving the
    shop in Augustine's charge, and indulging in a leisurely digestion
    interspersed with gossip about the neighbourhood, and the dogmatic
    opinions of Lisa on political topics; Florent also had to relate how
    matters had gone in the fish market that day. He gradually grew less
    frigid, and began to taste the happiness of a well-regulated
    existence. There was a well-to-do comfort and trimness about the light
    yellowish dining room which had a softening influence upon him as soon
    as he crossed its threshold. Handsome Lisa's kindly attentions wrapped
    him, as it were, in cotton-wool; and mutual esteem and concord reigned
    paramount.

    Gavard, however, considered the Quenu-Gradelles' home to be too
    drowsy. He forgave Lisa her weakness for the Emperor, because, he
    said, one ought never to discuss politics with women, and beautiful
    Madame Quenu was, after all, a very worthy person, who managed her
    business admirably. Nevertheless, he much preferred to spend his
    evenings at Monsieur Lebigre's, where he met a group of friends who
    shared his own opinions. Thus when Florent was appointed to the
    inspectorship of the fish market, Gavard began to lead him astray,
    taking him off for hours, and prompting him to lead a bachelor's life
    now that he had obtained a berth.

    Monsieur Lebigre was the proprietor of a very fine establishment,
    fitted up in the modern luxurious style. Occupying the right-hand
    corner of the Rue Pirouette, and looking on to the Rue Rambuteau, it
    formed, with its four small Norwegian pines in green-painted tubs
    flanking the doorway, a worthy pendant to the big pork shop of the
    Quenu-Gradelles. Through the clear glass windows you could see the
    interior, which was decorated with festoons of foliage, vine branches,
    and grapes, painted on a soft green ground. The floor was tiled with
    large black and white squares. At the far end was the yawning cellar
    entrance, above which rose a spiral staircase hung with red drapery,
    and leading to the billiard-room on the first floor. The counter or
    "bar" on the right looked especially rich, and glittered like polished
    silver. Its zinc-work, hanging with a broad bulging border over the
    sub-structure of white and red marble, edged it with a rippling sheet
    of metal as if it were some high altar laden with embroidery. At one
    end, over a gas stove, stood porcelain pots, decorated with circles of
    brass, and containing punch and hot wine. At the other extremity was a
    tall and richly sculptured marble fountain, from which a fine stream
    of water, so steady and continuous that it looked as though it were
    motionless, flowed into a basin. In the centre, edged on three sides
    by the sloping zinc surface of the counter, was a second basin for
    rinsing and cooling purposes, where quart bottles of draught wine,
    partially empty, reared their greenish necks. Then on the counter, to
    the right and left of this central basin, were batches of glasses
    symmetrically arranged: little glasses for brandy, thick tumblers for
    draught wine, cup glasses for brandied fruits, glasses for absinthe,
    glass mugs for beer, and tall goblets, all turned upside down and
    reflecting the glitter of the counter. On the left, moreover, was a
    metal urn, serving as a receptacle for gratuities; whilst a similar
    one on the right bristled with a fan-like arrangement of coffee
    spoons.

    Monsieur Lebigre was generally to be found enthroned behind his
    counter upon a seat covered with buttoned crimson leather. Within easy
    reach of his hand were the liqueurs in cut-glass decanters protruding
    from the compartments of a stand. His round back rested against a huge
    mirror which completely filled the panel behind him; across it ran two
    glass shelves supporting an array of jars and bottles. Upon one of
    them the glass jars of preserved fruits, cherries, plums, and peaches,
    stood out darkly; while on the other, between symmetrically arranged
    packets of finger biscuits, were bright flasks of soft green and red
    and yellow glass, suggesting strange mysterious liqueurs, or floral
    extracts of exquisite limpidity. Standing on the glass shelf in the
    white glow of the mirror, these flasks, flashing as if on fire, seemed
    to be suspended in the air.

    To give his premises the appearance of a cafe, Monsieur Lebigre had
    placed two small tables of bronzed iron and four chairs against the
    wall, in front of the counter. A chandelier with five lights and
    frosted globes hung down from the ceiling. On the left was a round
    gilt timepiece, above a /tourniquet/
  • fixed to the wall. Then at the
    far end came the private "cabinet," a corner of the shop shut off by a
    partition glazed with frosted glass of a small square pattern. In the
    daytime this little room received a dim light from a window that
    looked on to the Rue Pirouette; and in the evening, a gas jet burnt
    over the two tables painted to resemble marble. It was there that
    Gavard and his political friends met each evening after dinner. They
    looked upon themselves as being quite at home there, and had prevailed
    on the landlord to reserve the place for them. When Monsieur Lebigre
    had closed the door of the glazed partition, they knew themselves to
    be so safely screened from intrusion that they spoke quite
    unreservedly of the great "sweep out" which they were fond of
    discussing. No unprivileged customer would have dared to enter.

  • This is a kind of dial turning on a pivot, and usually enclosed in
        a brass frame, from which radiate a few small handles or spokes.
        Round the face of the dial--usually of paper--are various
        numerals, and between the face and its glass covering is a small
        marble or wooden ball. The appliance is used in lieu of dice or
        coins when two or more customers are "tossing" for drinks. Each in
        turn sends the dial spinning round, and wins or loses according to
        the numeral against which the ball rests when the dial stops. As I
        can find no English name for the appliance, I have thought it best
        to describe it.--Translator.

    On the first day that Gavard took Florent off he gave him some
    particulars of Monsieur Lebigre. He was a good fellow, he said, who
    sometimes came to drink his coffee with them; and, as he had said one
    day that he had fought in '48, no one felt the least constraint in his
    presence. He spoke but little, and seemed rather thick-headed. As the
    gentlemen passed him on their way to the private room they grasped his
    hand in silence across the glasses and bottles. By his side on the
    crimson leather seat behind the counter there was generally a fair
    little woman, whom he had engaged as counter assistant in addition to
    the white-aproned waiter who attended to the tables and the billiard-
    room. The young woman's name was Rose, and she seemed a very gentle
    and submissive being. Gavard, with a wink of his eye, told Florent
    that he fancied Lebigre had a weakness for her. It was she, by the
    way, who waited upon the friends in the private room, coming and
    going, with her happy, humble air, amidst the stormiest political
    discussions.

    Upon the day on which the poultry dealer took Florent to Lebigre's to
    present him to his friends, the only person whom the pair found in the
    little room when they entered it was a man of some fifty years of age,
    of a mild and thoughtful appearance. He wore a rather shabby-looking
    hat and a long chestnut-coloured overcoat, and sat, with his chin
    resting on the ivory knob of a thick cane, in front of a glass mug
    full of beer. His mouth was so completely concealed by a vigorous
    growth of beard that his face had a dumb, lipless appearance.

    "How are you, Robine?" exclaimed Gavard.

    Robine silently thrust out his hand, without making any reply, though
    his eyes softened into a slight smile of welcome. Then he let his chin
    drop on to the knob of his cane again, and looked at Florent over his
    beer. Florent had made Gavard swear to keep his story a secret for
    fear of some dangerous indiscretion; and he was not displeased to
    observe a touch of distrust in the discreet demeanour of the gentleman
    with the heavy beard. However, he was really mistaken in this, for
    Robine never talked more than he did now. He was always the first to
    arrive, just as the clock struck eight; and he always sat in the same
    corner, never letting go his hold of his cane, and never taking off
    either his hat or his overcoat. No one had ever seen him without his
    hat upon his head. He remained there listening to the talk of the
    others till midnight, taking four hours to empty his mug of beer, and
    gazing successively at the different speakers as though he heard them
    with his eyes. When Florent afterwards questioned Gavard about Robine,
    the poultry dealer spoke of the latter as though he held him in high
    esteem. Robine, he asserted, was an extremely clever and able man,
    and, though he was unable to say exactly where he had given proof of
    his hostility to the established order of things, he declared that he
    was one of the most dreaded of the Government's opponents. He lived in
    the Rue Saint Denis, in rooms to which no one as a rule could gain
    admission. The poultry dealer, however, asserted that he himself had
    once been in them. The wax floors, he said, were protected by strips
    of green linen; and there were covers over the furniture, and an
    alabaster timepiece with columns. He had caught a glimpse of the back
    of a lady, who was just disappearing through one doorway as he was
    entering by another, and had taken her to be Madame Robine. She
    appeared to be an old lady of very genteel appearance, with her hair
    arranged in corkscrew curls; but of this he could not be quite
    certain. No one knew why they had taken up their abode amidst all the
    uproar of a business neighbourhood; for the husband did nothing at
    all, spending his days no one knew how and living on no one knew what,
    though he made his appearance every evening as though he were tired
    but delighted with some excursion into the highest regions of
    politics.

    "Well, have you read the speech from the throne?" asked Gavard, taking
    up a newspaper that was lying on the table.

    Robine shrugged his shoulders. Just at that moment, however, the door
    of the glazed partition clattered noisily, and a hunchback made his
    appearance. Florent at once recognised the deformed crier of the fish
    market, though his hands were now washed and he was neatly dressed,
    with his neck encircled by a great red muffler, one end of which hung
    down over his hump like the skirt of a Venetian cloak.

    "Ah, here's Logre!" exclaimed the poultry dealer. "Now we shall hear
    what he thinks about the speech from the throne."

    Logre, however, was apparently furious. To begin with he almost broke
    the pegs off in hanging up his hat and muffler. Then he threw himself
    violently into a chair, and brought his fist down on the table, while
    tossing away the newspaper.

    "Do you think I read their fearful lies?" he cried.

    Then he gave vent to the anger raging within him. "Did ever anyone
    hear," he cried, "of masters making such fools of their people? For
    two whole hours I've been waiting for my pay! There were ten of us in
    the office kicking our heels there. Then at last Monsieur Manoury
    arrived in a cab. Where he had come from I don't know, and don't care,
    but I'm quite sure it wasn't any respectable place. Those salesmen are
    all a parcel of thieves and libertines! And then, too, the hog
    actually gave me all my money in small change!"

    Robine expressed his sympathy with Logre by the slight movement of his
    eyelids. But suddenly the hunchback bethought him of a victim upon
    whom to pour out his wrath. "Rose! Rose!" he cried, stretching his
    head out of the little room.

    The young woman quickly responded to the call, trembling all over.

    "Well," shouted Logre, "what do you stand staring at me like that for?
    Much good that'll do! You saw me come in, didn't you? Why haven't you
    brought me my glass of black coffee, then?"

    Gavard ordered two similar glasses, and Rose made all haste to bring
    what was required, while Logre glared sternly at the glasses and
    little sugar trays as if studying them. When he had taken a drink he
    seemed to grow somewhat calmer.

    "But it's Charvet who must be getting bored," he said presently. "He
    is waiting outside on the pavement for Clemence."

    Charvet, however, now made his appearance, followed by Clemence. He
    was a tall, scraggy young man, carefully shaved, with a skinny nose
    and thin lips. He lived in the Rue Vavin, behind the Luxembourg, and
    called himself a professor. In politics he was a disciple of
    Hebert.
  • He wore his hair very long, and the collar and lapels of
    his threadbare frock-coat were broadly turned back. Affecting the
    manner and speech of a member of the National Convention, he would
    pour out such a flood of bitter words and make such a haughty display
    of pedantic learning that he generally crushed his adversaries. Gavard
    was afraid of him, though he would not confess it; still, in Charvet's
    absence he would say that he really went too far. Robine, for his
    part, expressed approval of everything with his eyes. Logre sometimes
    opposed Charvet on the question of salaries; but the other was really
    the autocrat of the coterie, having the greatest fund of information
    and the most overbearing manner. For more than ten years he and
    Clemence had lived together as man and wife, in accordance with a
    previously arranged contract, the terms of which were strictly
    observed by both parties to it. Florent looked at the young woman with
    some little surprise, but at last he recollected where he had
    previously seen her. This was at the fish auction. She was, indeed,
    none other than the tall dark female clerk whom he had observed
    writing with outstretched fingers, after the manner of one who had
    been carefully instructed in the art of holding a pen.

  • Hebert, as the reader will remember, was the furious demagogue
        with the foul tongue and poisoned pen who edited the /Pere
        Duchesne/ at the time of the first French Revolution. We had a
        revival of his politics and his journal in Paris during the
        Commune of 1871.--Translator.

    Rose made her appearance at the heels of the two newcomers. Without
    saying a word she placed a mug of beer before Charvet and a tray
    before Clemence, who in a leisurely way began to compound a glass of
    "grog," pouring some hot water over a slice of lemon, which she
    crushed with her spoon, and glancing carefully at the decanter as she
    poured out some rum, so as not to add more of it than a small liqueur
    glass could contain.

    Gavard now presented Florent to the company, but more especially to
    Charvet. He introduced them to one another as professors, and very
    able men, who would be sure to get on well together. But it was
    probable that he had already been guilty of some indiscretion, for all
    the men at once shook hands with a tight and somewhat masonic squeeze
    of each other's fingers. Charvet, for his part, showed himself almost
    amiable; and whether he and the others knew anything of Florent's
    antecedents, they at all events indulged in no embarrassing allusions.

    "Did Manoury pay you in small change?" Logre asked Clemence.

    She answered affirmatively, and produced a roll of francs and another
    of two-franc pieces, and unwrapped them. Charvet watched her, and his
    eyes followed the rolls as she replaced them in her pocket, after
    counting their contents and satisfying herself that they were correct.

    "We have our accounts to settle," he said in a low voice.

    "Yes, we'll settle up to-night," the young woman replied. "But we are
    about even, I should think. I've breakfasted with you four times,
    haven't I? But I lent you a hundred sous last week, you know."

    Florent, surprised at hearing this, discreetly turned his head away.
    Then Clemence slipped the last roll of silver into her pocket, drank a
    little of her grog, and, leaning against the glazed partition, quietly
    settled herself down to listen to the men talking politics. Gavard had
    taken up the newspaper again, and, in tones which he strove to render
    comic, was reading out some passages of the speech from the throne
    which had been delivered that morning at the opening of the Chambers.
    Charvet made fine sport of the official phraseology; there was not a
    single line of it which he did not tear to pieces. One sentence
    afforded especial amusement to them all. It was this: "We are
    confident, gentlemen, that, leaning on your lights
  • and the
    conservative sentiments of the country, we shall succeed in increasing
    the national prosperity day by day."

  • In the sense of illumination of mind. It has been necessary to
        give a literal translation of this phrase to enable the reader to
        realise the point of subsequent witticisms in which Clemence and
        Gavard indulge.--Translator.

    Logre rose up and repeated this sentence, and by speaking through his
    nose succeeded fairly well in mimicking the Emperor's drawling voice.

    "It's lovely, that prosperity of his; why, everyone's dying of
    hunger!" said Charvet.

    "Trade is shocking," asserted Gavard.

    "And what in the name of goodness is the meaning of anybody 'leaning
    on lights'?" continued Clemence, who prided herself upon literary
    culture.

    Robine himself even allowed a faint laugh to escape from the depths of
    his beard. The discussion began to grow warm. The party fell foul of
    the Corps Legislatif, and spoke of it with great severity. Logre did
    not cease ranting, and Florent found him the same as when he cried the
    fish at the auctions--protruding his jaws and hurling his words
    forward with a wave of the arm, whilst retaining the crouching
    attitude of a snarling dog. Indeed, he talked politics in just the
    same furious manner as he offered a tray full of soles for sale.

    Charvet, on the other hand, became quieter and colder amidst the smoke
    of the pipes and the fumes of the gas which were now filling the
    little den; and his voice assumed a dry incisive tone, sharp like a
    guillotine blade, while Robine gently wagged his head without once
    removing his chin from the ivory knob of his cane. However, some
    remark of Gavard's led the conversation to the subject of women.

    "Woman," declared Charvet drily, "is the equal of man; and, that being
    so, she ought not to inconvenience him in the management of his life.
    Marriage is a partnership, in which everything should be halved. Isn't
    that so, Clemence?"

    "Clearly so," replied the young woman, leaning back with her head
    against the wall and gazing into the air.

    However, Florent now saw Lacaille, the costermonger, and Alexandre,
    the porter, Claude Lantier's friend, come into the little room. In the
    past these two had long remained at the other table in the sanctum;
    they did not belong to the same class as the others. By the help of
    politics, however, their chairs had drawn nearer, and they had ended
    by forming part of the circle. Charvet, in whose eyes they represented
    "the people," did his best to indoctrinate them with his advanced
    political theories, while Gavard played the part of the shopkeeper
    free from all social prejudices by clinking glasses with them.
    Alexandre was a cheerful, good-humoured giant, with the manner of a
    big merry lad. Lacaille, on the other hand, was embittered; his hair
    was already grizzling; and, bent and wearied by his ceaseless
    perambulations through the streets of Paris, he would at times glance
    loweringly at the placid figure of Robine, and his sound boots and
    heavy coat.

    That evening both Lacaille and Alexandre called for a liqueur glass of
    brandy, and then the conversation was renewed with increased warmth
    and excitement, the party being now quite complete. A little later,
    while the door of the cabinet was left ajar, Florent caught sight of
    Mademoiselle Saget standing in front of the counter. She had taken a
    bottle from under her apron, and was watching Rose as the latter
    poured into it a large measureful of black-currant syrup and a smaller
    one of brandy. Then the bottle disappeared under the apron again, and
    Mademoiselle Saget, with her hands out of sight, remained talking in
    the bright glow of the counter, face to face with the big mirror, in
    which the flasks and bottles of liqueurs were reflected like rows of
    Venetian lanterns. In the evening all the metal and glass of the
    establishment helped to illuminate it with wonderful brilliancy. The
    old maid, standing there in her black skirts, looked almost like some
    big strange insect amidst all the crude brightness. Florent noticed
    that she was trying to inveigle Rose into a conversation, and shrewdly
    suspected that she had caught sight of him through the half open
    doorway. Since he had been on duty at the markets he had met her at
    almost every step, loitering in one or another of the covered ways,
    and generally in the company of Madame Lecoeur and La Sarriette. He
    had noticed also that the three women stealthily examined him, and
    seemed lost in amazement at seeing him installed in the position of
    inspector. That evening, however, Rose was no doubt loath to enter
    into conversation with the old maid, for the latter at last turned
    round, apparently with the intention of approaching Monsieur Lebigre,
    who was playing piquet with a customer at one of the bronzed tables.
    Creeping quietly along, Mademoiselle Saget had at last managed to
    install herself beside the partition of the cabinet, when she was
    observed by Gavard, who detested her.

    "Shut the door, Florent!" he cried unceremoniously. "We can't even be
    by ourselves, it seems!"

    When midnight came and Lacaille went away he exchanged a few whispered
    words with Monsieur Lebigre, and as the latter shook hands with him he
    slipped four five-franc pieces into his palm, without anyone noticing
    it. "That'll make twenty-two francs that you'll have to pay to-morrow,
    remember," he whispered in his ear. "The person who lends the money
    won't do it for less in future. Don't forget, too, that you owe three
    days' truck hire. You must pay everything off."

    Then Monsieur Lebigre wished the friends good night. He was very
    sleepy and should sleep well, he said, with a yawn which revealed his
    big teeth, while Rose gazed at him with an air of submissive humility.
    However, he gave her a push, and told her to go and turn out the gas
    in the little room.

    On reaching the pavement, Gavard stumbled and nearly fell. And being
    in a humorous vein, he thereupon exclaimed: "Confound it all! At any
    rate, I don't seem to be leaning on anybody's lights."

    This remark seemed to amuse the others, and the party broke up. A
    little later Florent returned to Lebigre's, and indeed he became quite
    attached to the "cabinet," finding a seductive charm in Robine's
    contemplative silence, Logre's fiery outbursts, and Charvet's cool
    venom. When he went home, he did not at once retire to bed. He had
    grown very fond of his attic, that girlish bedroom, where Augustine
    had left scraps of ribbons, souvenirs, and other feminine trifles
    lying about. There still remained some hair-pins on the mantelpiece,
    with gilt cardboard boxes of buttons and lozenges, cutout pictures,
    and empty pomade pots that retained an odour of jasmine. Then there
    were some reels of thread, needles, and a missal lying by the side of
    a soiled Dream-book in the drawer of the rickety deal table. A white
    summer dress with yellow spots hung forgotten from a nail; while upon
    the board which served as a toilet-table a big stain behind the water-
    jug showed where a bottle of bandoline had been overturned. The little
    chamber, with its narrow iron bed, its two rush-bottomed chairs, and
    its faded grey wallpaper, was instinct with innocent simplicity. The
    plain white curtains, the childishness suggested by the cardboard
    boxes and the Dream-book, and the clumsy coquetry which had stained
    the walls, all charmed Florent and brought him back to dreams of
    youth. He would have preferred not to have known that plain, wiry-
    haired Augustine, but to have been able to imagine that he was
    occupying the room of a sister, some bright sweet girl of whose
    budding womanhood every trifle around him spoke.

    Yet another pleasure which he took was to lean out of the garret
    window at nighttime. In front of it was a narrow ledge of roof,
    enclosed by an iron railing, and forming a sort of balcony, on which
    Augustine had grown a pomegranate in a box. Since the nights had
    turned cold, Florent had brought the pomegranate indoors and kept it
    by the foot of his bed till morning. He would linger for a few minutes
    by the open window, inhaling deep draughts of the sharp fresh air
    which was wafted up from the Seine, over the housetops of the Rue de
    Rivoli. Below him the roofs of the markets spread confusedly in a grey
    expanse, like slumbering lakes on whose surface the furtive reflection
    of a pane of glass gleamed every now and then like a silvery ripple.
    Farther away the roofs of the meat and poultry pavilions lay in deeper
    gloom, and became mere masses of shadow barring the horizon. Florent
    delighted in the great stretch of open sky in front of him, in that
    spreading expanse of the markets which amidst all the narrow city
    streets brought him a dim vision of some strip of sea coast, of the
    still grey waters of a bay scarce quivering from the roll of the
    distant billows. He used to lose himself in dreams as he stood there;
    each night he conjured up the vision of some fresh coast line. To
    return in mind to the eight years of despair which he had spent away
    from France rendered him both very sad and very happy. Then at last,
    shivering all over, he would close the window. Often, as he stood in
    front of the fireplace taking off his collar, the photograph of
    Auguste and Augustine would fill him with disquietude. They seemed to
    be watching him as they stood there, hand in hand, smiling faintly.

    Florent's first few weeks at the fish market were very painful to him.
    The Mehudins treated him with open hostility, which infected the whole
    market with a spirit of opposition. The beautiful Norman intended to
    revenge herself on the handsome Lisa, and the latter's cousin seemed a
    victim ready to hand.

    The Mehudins came from Rouen. Louise's mother still related how she
    had first arrived in Paris with a basket of eels. She had ever
    afterwards remained in the fish trade. She had married a man employed
    in the Octroi service, who had died leaving her with two little girls.
    It was she who by her full figure and glowing freshness had won for
    herself in earlier days the nickname of "the beautiful Norman," which
    her eldest daughter had inherited. Now five and sixty years of age,
    Madame Mehudin had become flabby and shapeless, and the damp air of
    the fish market had rendered her voice rough and hoarse, and given a
    bluish tinge to her skin. Sedentary life had made her extremely bulky,
    and her head was thrown backwards by the exuberance of her bosom. She
    had never been willing to renounce the fashions of her younger days,
    but still wore the flowered gown, the yellow kerchief, and turban-like
    head-gear of the classic fish-wife, besides retaining the latter's
    loud voice and rapidity of gesture as she stood with her hands on her
    hips, shouting out the whole abusive vocabulary of her calling.

    She looked back regretfully to the old Marche des Innocents, which the
    new central markets had supplanted. She would talk of the ancient
    rights of the market "ladies," and mingle stories of fisticuffs
    exchanged with the police with reminiscences of the visits she had
    paid the Court in the time of Charles X and Louis Philippe, dressed in
    silk, and carrying a bouquet of flowers in her hand. Old Mother
    Mehudin, as she was now generally called, had for a long time been the
    banner-bearer of the Sisterhood of the Virgin at St. Leu. She would
    relate that in the processions in the church there she had worn a
    dress and cap of tulle trimmed with satin ribbons, whilst holding
    aloft in her puffy fingers the gilded staff of the richly-fringed silk
    standard on which the figure of the Holy Mother was embroidered.

    According to the gossip of the neighbourhood, the old woman had made a
    fairly substantial fortune, though the only signs of it were the
    massive gold ornaments with which she loaded her neck and arms and
    bosom on important occasions. Her two daughters got on badly together
    as they grew up. The younger one, Claire, an idle, fair-complexioned
    girl, complained of the ill-treatment which she received from her
    sister Louise, protesting, in her languid voice, that she could never
    submit to be the other's servant. As they would certainly have ended
    by coming to blows, their mother separated them. She gave her stall in
    the fish market to Louise, while Claire, whom the smell of the skate
    and the herrings affected in the lungs, installed herself among the
    fresh water fish. And from that time the old mother, although she
    pretended to have retired from business altogether, would flit from
    one stall to the other, still interfering in the selling of the fish,
    and causing her daughters continual annoyance by the foul insolence
    with which she would at times speak to customers.

    Claire was a fantastical creature, very gentle in her manner, and yet
    continually at loggerheads with others. People said that she
    invariably followed her own whimsical inclinations. In spite of her
    dreamy, girlish face she was imbued with a nature of silent firmness,
    a spirit of independence which prompted her to live apart; she never
    took things as other people did, but would one day evince perfect
    fairness, and the next day arrant injustice. She would sometimes throw
    the market into confusion by suddenly increasing or lowering the
    prices at her stall, without anyone being able to guess her reason for
    doing so. She herself would refuse to explain her motive. By the time
    she reached her thirtieth year, her delicate physique and fine skin,
    which the water of the tanks seemed to keep continually fresh and
    soft, her small, faintly-marked face and lissome limbs would probably
    become heavy, coarse, and flabby, till she would look like some faded
    saint that had stepped from a stained-glass window into the degrading
    sphere of the markets. At twenty-two, however, Claire, in the midst of
    her carp and eels, was, to use Claude Lantier's expression, a Murillo.
    A Murillo, that is, whose hair was often in disorder, who wore heavy
    shoes and clumsily cut dresses, which left her without any figure. But
    she was free from all coquetry, and she assumed an air of scornful
    contempt when Louise, displaying her bows and ribbons, chaffed her
    about her clumsily knotted neckerchiefs. Moreover, she was virtuous;
    it was said that the son of a rich shopkeeper in the neighbourhood had
    gone abroad in despair at having failed to induce her to listen to his
    suit.

    Louise, the beautiful Norman, was of a different nature. She had been
    engaged to be married to a clerk in the corn market; but a sack of
    flour falling upon the young man had broken his back and killed him.
    Not very long afterwards Louise had given birth to a boy. In the
    Mehudins' circle of acquaintance she was looked upon as a widow; and
    the old fish-wife in conversation would occasionally refer to the time
    when her son-in-law was alive.

    The Mehudins were a power in the markets. When Monsieur Verlaque had
    finished instructing Florent in his new duties, he advised him to
    conciliate certain of the stall-holders, if he wished his life to be
    endurable; and he even carried his sympathy so far as to put him in
    possession of the little secrets of the office, such as the various
    little breaches of rule that it was necessary to wink at, and those at
    which he would have to feign stern displeasure; and also the
    circumstances under which he might accept a small present. A market
    inspector is at once a constable and a magistrate; he has to maintain
    proper order and cleanliness, and settle in a conciliatory spirit all
    disputes between buyers and sellers. Florent, who was of a weak
    disposition put on an artificial sternness when he was obliged to
    exercise his authority, and generally over-acted his part. Moreover,
    his gloomy, pariah-like face and bitterness of spirit, the result of
    long suffering, were against him.

    The beautiful Norman's idea was to involve him in some quarrel or
    other. She had sworn that he would not keep his berth a fortnight.
    "That fat Lisa's much mistaken," said she one morning on meeting
    Madame Lecoeur, "if she thinks that she's going to put people over us.
    We don't want such ugly wretches here. That sweetheart of hers is a
    perfect fright!"
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    Variety is the spice of life

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    After the auctions, when Florent commenced his round of inspection,
    strolling slowly through the dripping alleys, he could plainly see the
    beautiful Norman watching him with an impudent smile on her face. Her
    stall, which was in the second row on the left, near the fresh water
    fish department faced the Rue Rambuteau. She would turn round,
    however, and never take her eyes off her victim whilst making fun of
    him with her neighbours. And when he passed in front of her, slowly
    examining the slabs, she feigned hilarious merriment, slapped her fish
    with her hand, and turned her jets of water on at full stream,
    flooding the pathway. Nevertheless Florent remained perfectly calm.

    At last, one morning as was bound to happen, war broke out. As Florent
    reached La Normande's stall that day an unbearable stench assailed his
    nostrils. On the marble slab, in addition to part of a magnificent
    salmon, showing its soft roseate flesh, there lay some turbots of
    creamy whiteness, a few conger-eels pierced with black pins to mark
    their divisions, several pairs of soles, and some bass and red mullet
    --in fact, quite a display of fresh fish. But in the midst of it,
    amongst all these fish whose eyes still gleamed and whose gills were
    of a bright crimson, there lay a huge skate of a ruddy tinge,
    splotched with dark stains--superb, indeed, with all its strange
    colourings. Unfortunately, it was rotten; its tail was falling off and
    the ribs of its fins were breaking through the skin.

    "You must throw that skate away," said Florent as he came up.

    The beautiful Norman broke into a slight laugh. Florent raised his
    eyes and saw her standing before him, with her back against the bronze
    lamp post which lighted the stalls in her division. She had mounted
    upon a box to keep her feet out of the damp, and appeared very tall as
    he glanced at her. She looked also handsomer than usual, with her hair
    arranged in little curls, her sly face slightly bent, her lips
    compressed, and her hands showing somewhat too rosily against her big
    white apron. Florent had never before seen her decked with so much
    jewellery. She had long pendants in her ears, a chain round her neck,
    a brooch in her dress body, and quite a collection of rings on two
    fingers of her left hand and one of her right.

    As she still continued to look slyly at Florent, without making any
    reply, the latter continued: "Do you hear? You must remove that
    skate."

    He had not yet noticed the presence of old Madame Mehudin, who sat all
    of a heap on a chair in a corner. She now got up, however, and, with
    her fists resting on the marble slap, insolently exclaimed: "Dear me!
    And why is she to throw her skate away? You won't pay her for it, I'll
    bet!"

    Florent immediately understood the position. The women at the other
    stalls began to titter, and he felt that he was surrounded by covert
    rebellion, which a word might cause to blaze forth. He therefore
    restrained himself, and in person drew the refuse-pail from under the
    stall and dropped the skate into it. Old Madame Mehudin had already
    stuck her hands on her hips, while the beautiful Norman, who had not
    spoken a word, burst into another malicious laugh as Florent strode
    sternly away amidst a chorus of jeers, which he pretended not to hear.

    Each day now some new trick was played upon him, and he was obliged to
    walk through the market alleys as warily as though he were in a
    hostile country. He was splashed with water from the sponges employed
    to cleanse the slabs; he stumbled and almost fell over slippery refuse
    intentionally spread in his way; and even the porters contrived to run
    their baskets against the nape of his neck. One day, moreover, when
    two of the fish-wives were quarrelling, and he hastened up to prevent
    them coming to blows, he was obliged to duck in order to escape being
    slapped on either cheek by a shower of little dabs which passed over
    his head. There was a general outburst of laughter on this occasion,
    and Florent always believed that the two fish-wives were in league
    with the Mehudins. However, his old-time experiences as a teacher had
    endowed him with angelic patience, and he was able to maintain a
    magisterial coolness of manner even when anger was hotly rising within
    him, and his whole being quivered with a sense of humiliation. Still,
    the young scamps of the Rue de l'Estrapade had never manifested the
    savagery of these fish-wives, the cruel tenacity of these huge
    females, whose massive figures heaved and shook with a giant-like joy
    whenever he fell into any trap. They stared him out of countenance
    with their red faces; and in the coarse tones of their voices and the
    impudent gesture of their hands he could read volumes of filthy abuse
    levelled at himself. Gavard would have been quite in his element
    amidst all these petticoats, and would have freely cuffed them all
    round; but Florent, who had always been afraid of women, gradually
    felt overwhelmed as by a sort of nightmare in which giant women, buxom
    beyond all imagination, danced threateningly around him, shouting at
    him in hoarse voices and brandishing bare arms, as massive as any
    prize-fighter's.

    Amongst this hoard of females, however, Florent had one friend. Claire
    unhesitatingly declared that the new inspector was a very good fellow.
    When he passed in front of her, pursued by the coarse abuse of the
    others, she gave him a pleasant smile, sitting nonchalantly behind her
    stall, with unruly errant locks of pale hair straying over her neck
    and her brow, and the bodice of her dress pinned all askew. He also
    often saw her dipping her hands into her tanks, transferring the fish
    from one compartment to another, and amusing herself by turning on the
    brass taps, shaped like little dolphins with open mouths, from which
    the water poured in streamlets. Amidst the rustling sound of the water
    she had some of the quivering grace of a girl who has just been
    bathing and has hurriedly slipped on her clothes.

    One morning she was particularly amiable. She called the inspector to
    her to show him a huge eel which had been the wonder of the market
    when exhibited at the auction. She opened the grating, which she had
    previously closed over the basin in whose depths the eel seemed to be
    lying sound asleep.

    "Wait a moment," she said, "and I'll show it to you."

    Then she gently slipped her bare arm into the water; it was not a very
    plump arm, and its veins showed softly blue beneath its satiny skin.
    As soon as the eel felt her touch, it rapidly twisted round, and
    seemed to fill the narrow trough with its glistening greenish coils.
    And directly it had settled down to rest again Claire once more
    stirred it with her fingertips.

    "It is an enormous creature," Florent felt bound to say. "I have
    rarely seen such a fine one."

    Claire thereupon confessed to him that she had at first been
    frightened of eels; but now she had learned how to tighten her grip so
    that they could not slip away. From another compartment she took a
    smaller one, which began to wriggle both with head and tail, as she
    held it about the middle in her closed fist. This made her laugh. She
    let it go, then seized another and another, scouring the basin and
    stirring up the whole heap of snaky-looking creatures with her slim
    fingers.

    Afterwards she began to speak of the slackness of trade. The hawkers
    on the foot-pavement of the covered way did the regular saleswomen a
    great deal of injury, she said. Meantime her bare arm, which she had
    not wiped, was glistening and dripping with water. Big drops trickled
    from each finger.

    "Oh," she exclaimed suddenly, "I must show you my carp, too!"

    She now removed another grating, and, using both hands, lifted out a
    large carp, which began to flap its tail and gasp. It was too big to
    be held conveniently, so she sought another one. This was smaller, and
    she could hold it with one hand, but the latter was forced slightly
    open by the panting of the sides each time that the fish gasped. To
    amuse herself it occurred to Claire to pop the tip of her thumb into
    the carp's mouth whilst it was dilated. "It won't bite," said she with
    her gentle laugh; "it's not spiteful. No more are the crawfishes; I'm
    not the least afraid of them."

    She plunged her arm into the water again, and from a compartment full
    of a confused crawling mass brought up a crawfish that had caught her
    little finger in its claws. She gave the creature a shake, but it no
    doubt gripped her too tightly, for she turned very red, and snapped
    off its claw with a quick, angry gesture, though still continuing to
    smile.

    "By the way," she continued quickly, to conceal her emotion, "I
    wouldn't trust myself with a pike; he'd cut off my fingers like a
    knife."

    She thereupon showed him some big pike arranged in order of size upon
    clean scoured shelves, beside some bronze-hued tench and little heaps
    of gudgeon. Her hands were now quite slimy with handling the carp, and
    as she stood there in the dampness rising from the tanks, she held
    them outstretched over the dripping fish on the stall. She seemed
    enveloped by an odour of spawn, that heavy scent which rises from
    among the reeds and water-lilies when the fish, languid in the
    sunlight, discharge their eggs. Then she wiped her hands on her apron,
    still smiling the placid smile of a girl who knew nothing of passion
    in that quivering atmosphere of the frigid loves of the river.

    The kindliness which Claire showed to Florent was but a slight
    consolation to him. By stopping to talk to the girl he only drew upon
    himself still coarser jeers from the other stallkeepers. Claire
    shrugged her shoulders, and said that her mother was an old jade, and
    her sister a worthless creature. The injustice of the market folk
    towards the new inspector filled her with indignation. The war between
    them, however, grew more bitter every day. Florent had serious
    thoughts of resigning his post; indeed, he would not have retained it
    for another twenty-four hours if he had not been afraid that Lisa
    might imagine him to be a coward. He was frightened of what she might
    say and what she might think. She was naturally well aware of the
    contest which was going on between the fish-wives and their inspector;
    for the whole echoing market resounded with it, and the entire
    neighbourhood discussed each fresh incident with endless comments.

    "Ah, well," Lisa would often say in the evening, after dinner, "I'd
    soon bring them to reason if I had anything to do with them! Why, they
    are a lot of dirty jades that I wouldn't touch with the tip of my
    finger! That Normande is the lowest of the low! I'd soon crush her,
    that I would! You should really use your authority, Florent. You are
    wrong to behave as you do. Put your foot down, and they'll all come to
    their senses very quickly, you'll see."

    A terrible climax was presently reached. One morning the servant of
    Madame Taboureau, the baker, came to the market to buy a brill; and
    the beautiful Norman, having noticed her lingering near her stall for
    several minutes, began to make overtures to her in a coaxing way:
    "Come and see me; I'll suit you," she said. "Would you like a pair of
    soles, or a fine turbot?"

    Then as the servant at last came up, and sniffed at a brill with that
    dissatisfied pout which buyers assume in the hope of getting what they
    want at a lower price, La Normande continued:

    "Just feel the weight of that, now," and so saying she laid the brill,
    wrapped in a sheet of thick yellow paper, on the woman's open palm.

    The servant, a mournful little woman from Auvergne, felt the weight of
    the brill, and examined its gills, still pouting, and saying not a
    word.

    "And how much do you want for it?" she asked presently, in a reluctant
    tone.

    "Fifteen francs," replied La Normande.

    At this the servant hastily laid the brill on the stall again, and
    seemed anxious to hurry away, but the other detained her. "Wait a
    moment," said she. "What do you offer?"

    "No, no, I can't take it. It is much too dear."

    "Come, now, make me an offer."

    "Well, will you take eight francs?"

    Old Madame Mehudin, who was there, suddenly seemed to wake up, and
    broke out into a contemptuous laugh. Did people think that she and her
    daughter stole the fish they sold? "Eight francs for a brill that
    size!" she exclaimed. "You'll be wanting one for nothing next, to use
    as a cooling plaster!"

    Meantime La Normande turned her head away, as though greatly offended.
    However, the servant came back twice and offered nine francs; and
    finally she increased her bid to ten.

    "All right, come on, give me your money!" cried the fish-girl, seeing
    that the woman was now really going away.

    The servant took her stand in front of the stall and entered into a
    friendly gossip with old Madame Mehudin. Madame Taboureau, she said,
    was so exacting! She had got some people coming to dinner that
    evening, some cousins from Blois a notary and his wife. Madame
    Taboureau's family, she added, was a very respectable one, and she
    herself, although only a baker, had received an excellent education.

    "You'll clean it nicely for me, won't you?" added the woman, pausing
    in her chatter.

    With a jerk of her finger La Normande had removed the fish's entrails
    and tossed them into a pail. Then she slipped a corner of her apron
    under its gills to wipe away a few grains of sand. "There, my dear,"
    she said, putting the fish into the servant's basket, "you'll come
    back to thank me."

    Certainly the servant did come back a quarter of an hour afterwards,
    but it was with a flushed, red face. She had been crying, and her
    little body was trembling all over with anger. Tossing the brill on to
    the marble slab, she pointed to a broad gash in its belly that reached
    the bone. Then a flood of broken words burst from her throat, which
    was still contracted by sobbing: "Madame Taboureau won't have it. She
    says she couldn't put it on her table. She told me, too, that I was an
    idiot, and let myself be cheated by anyone. You can see for yourself
    that the fish is spoilt. I never thought of turning it round; I quite
    trusted you. Give me my ten francs back."

    "You should look at what you buy," the handsome Norman calmly
    observed.

    And then, as the servant was just raising her voice again, old Madame
    Mehudin got up. "Just you shut up!" she cried. "We're not going to
    take back a fish that's been knocking about in other people's houses.
    How do we know that you didn't let it fall and damage it yourself?"

    "I! I damage it!" The little servant was choking with indignation.
    "Ah! you're a couple of thieves!" she cried, sobbing bitterly. "Yes, a
    couple of thieves! Madame Taboureau herself told me so!"

    Matters then became uproarious. Boiling over with rage and brandishing
    their fists, both mother and daughter fairly exploded; while the poor
    little servant, quite bewildered by their voices, the one hoarse and
    the other shrill, which belaboured her with insults as though they
    were battledores and she a shuttlecock, sobbed on more bitterly than
    ever.

    "Be off with you! Your Madame Taboureau would like to be half as fresh
    as that fish is! She'd like us to sew it up for her, no doubt!"

    "A whole fish for ten francs! What'll she want next!"

    Then came coarse words and foul accusations. Had the servant been the
    most worthless of her sex she could not have been more bitterly
    upbraided.

    Florent, whom the market keeper had gone to fetch, made his appearance
    when the quarrel was at its hottest. The whole pavilion seemed to be
    in a state of insurrection. The fish-wives, who manifest the keenest
    jealousy of each other when the sale of a penny herring is in
    question, display a united front when a quarrel arises with a buyer.
    They sang the popular old ditty, "The baker's wife has heaps of
    crowns, which cost her precious little"; they stamped their feet, and
    goaded the Mehudins as though the latter were dogs which they were
    urging on to bite and devour. And there were even some, having stalls
    at the other end of the alley, who rushed up wildly, as though they
    meant to spring at the chignon of the poor little woman, she meantime
    being quite submerged by the flood of insulting abuse poured upon her.

    "Return mademoiselle her ten francs," said Florent sternly, when he
    had learned what had taken place.

    But old Madame Mehudin had her blood up. "As for you, my little man,"
    quoth she, "go to blazes! Here, that's how I'll return the ten
    francs!"

    As she spoke, she flung the brill with all her force at the head of
    Madame Taboureau's servant, who received it full in the face. The
    blood spurted from her nose, and the brill, after adhering for a
    moment to her cheeks, fell to the ground and burst with a flop like
    that of a wet clout. This brutal act threw Florent into a fury. The
    beautiful Norman felt frightened and recoiled, as he cried out: "I
    suspend you for a week, and I will have your licence withdrawn. You
    hear me?"

    Then, as the other fish-wives were still jeering behind him, he turned
    round with such a threatening air that they quailed like wild beasts
    mastered by the tamer, and tried to assume an expression of innocence.
    When the Mehudins had returned the ten francs, Florent peremptorily
    ordered them to cease selling at once. The old woman was choking with
    rage, while the daughter kept silent, but turned very white. She, the
    beautiful Norman, to be driven out of her stall!

    Claire said in her quiet voice that it served her mother and sister
    right, a remark which nearly resulted in the two girls tearing each
    other's hair out that evening when they returned home to the Rue
    Pirouette. However, when the Mehudins came back to the market at the
    week's end, they remained very quiet, reserved, and curt of speech,
    though full of a cold-blooded wrath. Moreover, they found the pavilion
    quite calm and restored to order again. From that day forward the
    beautiful Norman must have harboured the thought of some terrible
    vengeance. She felt that she really had Lisa to thank for what had
    happened. She had met her, the day after the battle, carrying her head
    so high, that she had sworn she would make her pay dearly for her
    glance of triumph. She held interminable confabulations with Madame
    Saget, Madame Lecoeur, and La Sarriette, in quiet corners of the
    market; however, all their chatter about the shameless conduct which
    they slanderously ascribed to Lisa and her cousin, and about the hairs
    which they declared were found in Quenu's chitterlings, brought La
    Normande little consolation. She was trying to think of some very
    malicious plan of vengeance, which would strike her rival to the
    heart.

    Her child was growing up in the fish market in all freedom and
    neglect. When but three years old the youngster had been brought
    there, and day by day remained squatting on some rag amidst the fish.
    He would fall asleep beside the big tunnies as though he were one of
    them, and awake among the mackerel and whiting. The little rascal
    smelt of fish as strongly as though he were some big fish's offspring.
    For a long time his favourite pastime, whenever his mother's back was
    turned, was to build walls and houses of herrings; and he would also
    play at soldiers on the marble slab, arranging the red gurnets in
    confronting lines, pushing them against each other, and battering
    their heads, while imitating the sound of drum and trumpet with his
    lips; after which he would throw them all into a heap again, and
    exclaim that they were dead. When he grew older he would prowl about
    his aunt Claire's stall to get hold of the bladders of the carp and
    pike which she gutted. He placed them on the ground and made them
    burst, an amusement which afforded him vast delight. When he was seven
    he rushed about the alleys, crawled under the stalls, ferreted amongst
    the zinc bound fish boxes, and became the spoiled pet of all the
    women. Whenever they showed him something fresh which pleased him, he
    would clasp his hands and exclaim in ecstasy, "Oh, isn't it stunning!"
    /Muche/ was the exact word which he used; /muche/ being the equivalent
    of "stunning" in the lingo of the markets; and he used the expression
    so often that it clung to him as a nickname. He became known all over
    the place as "Muche." It was Muche here, there and everywhere; no one
    called him anything else. He was to be met with in every nook; in out-
    of-the-way corners of the offices in the auction pavilion; among the
    piles of oyster baskets, and betwixt the buckets where the refuse was
    thrown. With a pinky fairness of skin, he was like a young barbel
    frisking and gliding about in deep water. He was as fond of running,
    streaming water as any young fry. He was ever dabbling in the pools in
    the alleys. He wetted himself with the drippings from the tables, and
    when no one was looking often slyly turned on the taps, rejoicing in
    the bursting gush of water. But it was especially beside the fountains
    near the cellar steps that his mother went to seek him in the evening,
    and she would bring him thence with his hands quite blue, and his
    shoes, and even his pockets, full of water.

    At seven years old Muche was as pretty as an angel, and as coarse in
    his manners as any carter. He had curly chestnut hair, beautiful eyes,
    and an innocent-looking mouth which gave vent to language that even a
    gendarme would have hesitated to use. Brought up amidst all the
    ribaldry and profanity of the markets, he had the whole vocabulary of
    the place on the tip of his tongue. With his hands on his hips he
    often mimicked Grandmother Mehudin in her anger, and at these times
    the coarsest and vilest expressions would stream from his lips in a
    voice of crystalline purity that might have belonged to some little
    chorister chanting the /Ave Maria/. He would even try to assume a
    hoarse roughness of tone, seek to degrade and taint that exquisite
    freshness of childhood which made him resemble a /bambino/ on the
    Madonna's knees. The fish-wives laughed at him till they cried; and
    he, encouraged, could scarcely say a couple of words without rapping
    out an oath. But in spite of all this he still remained charming,
    understanding nothing of the dirt amidst which he lived, kept in
    vigorous health by the fresh breezes and sharp odours of the fish
    market, and reciting his vocabulary of coarse indecencies with as pure
    a face as though he were saying his prayers.

    The winter was approaching, and Muche seemed very sensitive to the
    cold. As soon as the chilly weather set in he manifested a strong
    predilection for the inspector's office. This was situated in the
    left-hand corner of the pavilion, on the side of the Rue Rambuteau.
    The furniture consisted of a table, a stack of drawers, an easy-chair,
    two other chairs, and a stove. It was this stove which attracted
    Muche. Florent quite worshipped children, and when he saw the little
    fellow, with his dripping legs, gazing wistfully through the window,
    he made him come inside. His first conversation with the lad caused
    him profound amazement. Muche sat down in front of the stove, and in
    his quiet voice exclaimed: "I'll just toast my toes, do you see? It's
    d----d cold this morning." Then he broke into a rippling laugh, and
    added: "Aunt Claire looks awfully blue this morning. Is it true, sir,
    that you are sweet on her?"

    Amazed though he was, Florent felt quite interested in the odd little
    fellow. The handsome Norman retained her surly bearing, but allowed
    her son to frequent the inspector's office without a word of
    objection. Florent consequently concluded that he had the mother's
    permission to receive the boy, and every afternoon he asked him in; by
    degrees forming the idea of turning him into a steady, respectable
    young fellow. He could almost fancy that his brother Quenu had grown
    little again, and that they were both in the big room in the Rue
    Royer-Collard once more. The life which his self-sacrificing nature
    pictured to him as perfect happiness was a life spent with some young
    being who would never grow up, whom he could go on teaching for ever,
    and in whose innocence he might still love his fellow man. On the
    third day of his acquaintance with Muche he brought an alphabet to the
    office, and the lad delighted him by the intelligence he manifested.
    He learned his letters with all the sharp precocity which marks the
    Parisian street arab, and derived great amusement from the woodcuts
    illustrating the alphabet.

    He found opportunities, too, for plenty of fine fun in the little
    office, where the stove still remained the chief attraction and a
    source of endless enjoyment. At first he cooked potatoes and chestnuts
    at it, but presently these seemed insipid, and he thereupon stole some
    gudgeons from his aunt Claire, roasted them one by one, suspended from
    a string in front of the glowing fire, and then devoured them with
    gusto, though he had no bread. One day he even brought a carp with
    him; but it was impossible to roast it sufficiently, and it made such
    a smell in the office that both window and door had to be thrown open.
    Sometimes, when the odour of all these culinary operations became too
    strong, Florent would throw the fish into the street, but as a rule he
    only laughed. By the end of a couple of months Muche was able to read
    fairly well, and his copy-books did him credit.

    Meantime, every evening the lad wearied his mother with his talk about
    his good friend Florent. His good friend Florent had drawn him
    pictures of trees and of men in huts, said he. His good friend Florent
    waved his arm and said that men would be far better if they all knew
    how to read. And at last La Normande heard so much about Florent that
    she seemed to be almost intimate with this man against whom she
    harboured so much rancour. One day she shut Muche up at home to
    prevent him from going to the inspector's, but he cried so bitterly
    that she gave him his liberty again on the following morning. There
    was very little determination about her, in spite of her broad
    shoulders and bold looks. When the lad told her how nice and warm he
    had been in the office, and came back to her with his clothes quite
    dry, she felt a sort of vague gratitude, a pleasure in knowing that he
    had found a shelter-place where he could sit with his feet in front of
    a fire. Later on, she was quite touched when he read her some words
    from a scrap of soiled newspaper wrapped round a slice of conger-eel.
    By degrees, indeed, she began to think, though without admitting it,
    that Florent could not really be a bad sort of fellow. She felt
    respect for his knowledge, mingled with an increasing curiosity to see
    more of him and learn something of his life. Then, all at once, she
    found an excuse for gratifying this inquisitiveness. She would use it
    as a means of vengeance. It would be fine fun to make friends with
    Florent and embroil him with that great fat Lisa.

    "Does your good friend Florent ever speak to you about me?" she asked
    Muche one morning as she was dressing him.

    "Oh, no," replied the boy. "We enjoy ourselves."

    "Well, you can tell him that I've quite forgiven him, and that I'm
    much obliged to him for having taught you to read."

    Thenceforward the child was entrusted with some message every day. He
    went backwards and forwards from his mother to the inspector, and from
    the inspector to his mother, charged with kindly words and questions
    and answers, which he repeated mechanically without knowing their
    meaning. He might, indeed, have been safely trusted with the most
    compromising communications. However, the beautiful Norman felt afraid
    of appearing timid, and so one day she herself went to the inspector's
    office and sat down on the second chair, while Muche was having his
    writing lesson. She proved very suave and complimentary, and Florent
    was by far the more embarrassed of the two. They only spoke of the
    lad; and when Florent expressed a fear that he might not be able to
    continue the lessons in the office, La Normande invited him to come to
    their home in the evening. She spoke also of payment; but at this he
    blushed, and said that he certainly would not come if any mention were
    made of money. Thereupon the young woman determined in her own mind
    that she would recompense him with presents of choice fish.

    Peace was thus made between them; the beautiful Norman even took
    Florent under her protection. Apart from this, however, the whole
    market was becoming reconciled to the new inspector, the fish-wives
    arriving at the conclusion that he was really a better fellow than
    Monsieur Verlaque, notwithstanding his strange eyes. It was only old
    Madame Mehudin who still shrugged her shoulders, full of rancour as
    she was against the "long lanky-guts," as she contemptuously called
    him. And then, too, a strange thing happened. One morning, when
    Florent stopped with a smile before Claire's tanks, the girl dropped
    an eel which she was holding and angrily turned her back upon him, her
    cheeks quite swollen and reddened by temper. The inspector was so much
    astonished that he spoke to La Normande about it.

    "Oh, never mind her," said the young woman; "she's cracked. She makes
    a point of always differing from everybody else. She only behaved like
    that to annoy me."

    La Normande was now triumphant--she strutted about her stall, and
    became more coquettish than ever, arranging her hair in the most
    elaborate manner. Meeting the handsome Lisa one day she returned her
    look of scorn, and even burst out laughing in her face. The certainty
    she felt of driving the mistress of the pork shop to despair by
    winning her cousin from her endowed her with a gay, sonorous laugh,
    which rolled up from her chest and rippled her white plump neck. She
    now had the whim of dressing Muche very showily in a little Highland
    costume and velvet bonnet. The lad had never previously worn anything
    but a tattered blouse. It unfortunately happened, however, that just
    about this time he again became very fond of the water. The ice had
    melted and the weather was mild, so he gave his Scotch jacket a bath,
    turning the fountain tap on at full flow and letting the water pour
    down his arm from his elbow to his hand. He called this "playing at
    gutters." Then a little later, when his mother came up and caught him,
    she found him with two other young scamps watching a couple of little
    fishes swimming about in his velvet cap, which he had filled with
    water.

    For nearly eight months Florent lived in the markets, feeling
    continual drowsiness. After his seven years of suffering he had
    lighted upon such calm quietude, such unbroken regularity of life,
    that he was scarcely conscious of existing. He gave himself up to this
    jog-trot peacefulness with a dazed sort of feeling, continually
    experiencing surprise at finding himself each morning in the same
    armchair in the little office. This office with its bare hut-like
    appearance had a charm for him. He here found a quiet and secluded
    refuge amidst that ceaseless roar of the markets which made him dream
    of some surging sea spreading around him, and isolating him from the
    world. Gradually, however, a vague nervousness began to prey upon him;
    he became discontented, accused himself of faults which he could not
    define, and began to rebel against the emptiness which he experienced
    more and more acutely in mind and body. Then, too, the evil smells of
    the fish market brought him nausea. By degrees he became unhinged, his
    vague boredom developing into restless, nervous excitement.

    All his days were precisely alike, spent among the same sounds and the
    same odours. In the mornings the noisy buzzing of the auction sales
    resounded in his ears like a distant echo of bells; and sometimes,
    when there was a delay in the arrival of the fish, the auctions
    continued till very late. Upon these occasions he remained in the
    pavilion till noon, disturbed at every moment by quarrels and
    disputes, which he endeavoured to settle with scrupulous justice.
    Hours elapsed before he could get free of some miserable matter or
    other which was exciting the market. He paced up and down amidst the
    crush and uproar of the sales, slowly perambulating the alleys and
    occasionally stopping in front of the stalls which fringed the Rue
    Rambuteau, and where lay rosy heaps of prawns and baskets of boiled
    lobsters with tails tied backwards, while live ones were gradually
    dying as they sprawled over the marble slabs. And then he would watch
    gentlemen in silk hats and black gloves bargaining with the fish-
    wives, and finally going off with boiled lobsters wrapped in paper in
    the pockets of their frock-coats.
  • Farther away, at the temporary
    stalls, where the commoner sorts of fish were sold, he would recognise
    the bareheaded women of the neighbourhood, who always came at the same
    hour to make their purchases.

  • The little fish-basket for the use of customers, so familiar in
        London, is not known in Paris.--Translator.

    At times he took an interest in some well-dressed lady trailing her
    lace petticoats over the damp stones, and escorted by a servant in a
    white apron; and he would follow her at a little distance on noticing
    how the fish-wives shrugged their shoulders at sight of her air of
    disgust. The medley of hampers and baskets and bags, the crowd of
    skirts flitting along the damp alleys, occupied his attention until
    lunchtime. He took a delight in the dripping water and the fresh
    breeze as he passed from the acrid smell of the shell-fish to the
    pungent odour of the salted fish. It was always with the latter that
    he brought his official round of inspection to a close. The cases of
    red herrings, the Nantes sardines on their layers of leaves, and the
    rolled cod, exposed for sale under the eyes of stout, faded fish-
    wives, brought him thoughts of a voyage necessitating a vast supply of
    salted provisions.

    In the afternoon the markets became quieter, grew drowsy; and Florent
    then shut himself up in his office, made out his reports, and enjoyed
    the happiest hours of his day. If he happened to go out and cross the
    fish market, he found it almost deserted. There was no longer the
    crushing and pushing and uproar of ten o'clock in the morning. The
    fish-wives, seated behind their stalls, leant back knitting, while a
    few belated purchasers prowled about casting sidelong glances at the
    remaining fish, with the thoughtful eyes and compressed lips of women
    closely calculating the price of their dinner. At last the twilight
    fell, there was a noise of boxes being moved, and the fish was laid
    for the night on beds of ice; and then, after witnessing the closing
    of the gates, Florent went off, seemingly carrying the fish market
    along with him in his clothes and his beard and his hair.

    For the first few months this penetrating odour caused him no great
    discomfort. The winter was a severe one, the frosts converted the
    alleys into slippery mirrors, and the fountains and marble slabs were
    fringed with a lacework of ice. In the mornings it was necessary to
    place little braziers underneath the taps before a drop of water could
    be drawn. The frozen fish had twisted tails; and, dull of hue and hard
    to the touch like unpolished metal, gave out a ringing sound akin to
    that of pale cast-iron when it snaps. Until February the pavilion
    presented a most mournful appearance: it was deserted, and wrapped in
    a bristling shroud of ice. But with March came a thaw, with mild
    weather and fogs and rain. Then the fish became soft again, and
    unpleasant odours mingled with the smell of mud wafted from the
    neighbouring streets. These odours were as yet vague, tempered by the
    moisture which clung to the ground. But in the blazing June afternoons
    a reeking stench arose, and the atmosphere became heavy with a
    pestilential haze. The upper windows were then opened, and huge blinds
    of grey canvas were drawn beneath the burning sky. Nevertheless, a
    fiery rain seemed to be pouring down, heating the market as though it
    were a big stove, and there was not a breath of air to waft away the
    noxious emanations from the fish. A visible steam went up from the
    stalls.

    The masses of food amongst which Florent lived now began to cause him
    the greatest discomfort. The disgust with which the pork shop had
    filled him came back in a still more intolerable fashion. He almost
    sickened as he passed these masses of fish, which, despite all the
    water lavished upon them, turned bad under a sudden whiff of hot air.
    Even when he shut himself up in his office his discomfort continued,
    for the abominable odour forced its way through the chinks in the
    woodwork of the window and door. When the sky was grey and leaden, the
    little room remained quite dark; and then the day was like a long
    twilight in the depths of some fetid march. He was often attacked by
    fits of nervous excitement, and felt a craving desire to walk; and he
    would then descend into the cellars by the broad staircase opening in
    the middle of the pavilion. In the pent-up air down below, in the dim
    light of the occasional gas jets, he once more found the refreshing
    coolness diffused by pure cold water. He would stand in front of the
    big tank where the reserve stock of live fish was kept, and listen to
    the ceaseless murmur of the four streamlets of water falling from the
    four corners of the central urn, and then spreading into a broad
    stream and gliding beneath the locked gratings of the basins with a
    gentle and continuous flow. This subterranean spring, this stream
    murmuring in the gloom, had a tranquillising effect upon him. Of an
    evening, too, he delighted in the fine sunsets which threw the
    delicate lacework of the market buildings blackly against the red glow
    of the heavens. The dancing dust of the last sun rays streamed through
    every opening, through every chink of the Venetian shutters, and the
    whole was like some luminous transparency on which the slender shafts
    of the columns, the elegant curves of the girders, and the geometrical
    tracery of the roofs were minutely outlined. Florent feasted his eyes
    on this mighty diagram washed in with Indian ink on phosphorescent
    vellum, and his mind reverted to his old fancy of a colossal machine
    with wheels and levers and beams espied in the crimson glow of the
    fires blazing beneath its boilers. At each consecutive hour of the day
    the changing play of the light--from the bluish haze of early morning
    and the black shadows of noon to the flaring of the sinking sun and
    the paling of its fires in the ashy grey of the twilight--revealed the
    markets under a new aspect; but on the flaming evenings, when the foul
    smells arose and forced their way across the broad yellow beams like
    hot puffs of steam, Florent again experienced discomfort, and his
    dream changed, and he imagined himself in some gigantic knacker's
    boiling-house where the fat of a whole people was being melted down.

    The coarseness of the market people, whose words and gestures seemed
    to be infected with the evil smell of the place, also made him suffer.
    He was very tolerant, and showed no mock modesty; still, these
    impudent women often embarrassed him. Madame Francois, whom he had
    again met, was the only one with whom he felt at ease. She showed such
    pleasure on learning he had found a berth and was quite comfortable
    and out of worry, as she put it, that he was quite touched. The
    laughter of Lisa, the handsome Norman, and the others disquieted him;
    but of Madame Francois he would willingly have made a confidante. She
    never laughed mockingly at him; when she did laugh, it was like a
    woman rejoicing at another's happiness. She was a brave, plucky
    creature, too; hers was a hard business in winter, during the frosts,
    and the rainy weather was still more trying. On some mornings Florent
    saw her arrive in a pouring deluge which had been slowly, coldly
    falling ever since the previous night. Between Nanterre and Paris the
    wheels of her cart had sunk up to the axles in mud, and Balthazar was
    caked with mire to his belly. His mistress would pity him and
    sympathise with him as she wiped him down with some old aprons.

    "The poor creatures are very sensitive," said she; "a mere nothing
    gives them a cold. Ah, my poor old Balthazar! I really thought that we
    had tumbled into the Seine as we crossed the Neuilly bridge, the rain
    came down in such a deluge!"

    While Balthazar was housed in the inn stable his mistress remained in
    the pouring rain to sell her vegetables. The footway was transformed
    into a lake of liquid mud. The cabbages, carrots, and turnips were
    pelted by the grey water, quite drowned by the muddy torrent that
    rushed along the pavement. There was no longer any of that glorious
    greenery so apparent on bright mornings. The market gardeners,
    cowering in their heavy cloaks beneath the downpour, swore at the
    municipality which, after due inquiry, had declared that rain was in
    no way injurious to vegetables, and that there was accordingly no
    necessity to erect any shelters.

    Those rainy mornings greatly worried Florent, who thought about Madame
    Francois. He always managed to slip away and get a word with her. But
    he never found her at all low-spirited. She shook herself like a
    poodle, saying that she was quite used to such weather, and was not
    made of sugar, to melt away beneath a few drops of rain. However, he
    made her seek refuge for a few minutes in one of the covered ways, and
    frequently even took her to Monsieur Lebigre's, where they had some
    hot wine together. While she with her peaceful face beamed on him in
    all friendliness, he felt quite delighted with the healthy odour of
    the fields which she brought into the midst of the foul market
    atmosphere. She exhaled a scent of earth, hay, fresh air, and open
    skies.

    "You must come to Nanterre, my lad," she said to him, "and look at my
    kitchen garden. I have put borders of thyme everywhere. How bad your
    villainous Paris does smell!"

    Then she went off, dripping. Florent, on his side, felt quite
    re-invigorated when he parted from her. He tried, too the effect of
    work upon the nervous depression from which he suffered. He was a man
    of a very methodical temperament, and sometimes carried out his plans
    for the allotment of his time with a strictness that bordered on
    mania. He shut himself up two evenings a week in order to write an
    exhaustive work on Cayenne. His modest bedroom was excellently
    adapted, he thought, to calm his mind and incline him to work. He
    lighted his fire, saw that the pomegranate at the foot of the bed was
    looking all right, and then seated himself at the little table, and
    remained working till midnight. He had pushed the missal and Dream-
    book back in the drawer, which was now filling with notes, memoranda,
    manuscripts of all kinds. The work on Cayenne made but slow progress,
    however, as it was constantly being interrupted by other projects,
    plans for enormous undertakings which he sketched out in a few words.
    He successively drafted an outline of a complete reform of the
    administrative system of the markets, a scheme for transforming the
    city dues, levied on produce as it entered Paris, into taxes levied
    upon the sales, a new system of victualling the poorer neighbourhoods,
    and, lastly, a somewhat vague socialist enactment for the storing in
    common warehouses of all the provisions brought to the markets, and
    the ensuring of a minimum daily supply to each household in Paris. As
    he sat there, with his head bent over his table, and his mind absorbed
    in thoughts of all these weighty matters, his gloomy figure cast a
    great black shadow on the soft peacefulness of the garret. Sometimes a
    chaffinch which he had picked up one snowy day in the market would
    mistake the lamplight for the day, and break the silence, which only
    the scratching of Florent's pen on his paper disturbed, by a cry.

    Florent was fated to revert to politics. He had suffered too much
    through them not to make them the dearest occupation of his life.
    Under other conditions he might have become a good provincial
    schoolmaster, happy in the peaceful life of some little town. But he
    had been treated as though he were a wolf, and felt as though he had
    been marked out by exile for some great combative task. His nervous
    discomfort was the outcome of his long reveries at Cayenne, the
    brooding bitterness he had felt at his unmerited sufferings, and the
    vows he had secretly sworn to avenge humanity and justice--the former
    scourged with a whip, and the latter trodden under foot. Those
    colossal markets and their teeming odoriferous masses of food had
    hastened the crisis. To Florent they appeared symbolical of some
    glutted, digesting beast, of Paris, wallowing in its fat and silently
    upholding the Empire. He seemed to be encircled by swelling forms and
    sleek, fat faces, which ever and ever protested against his own
    martyrlike scragginess and sallow, discontented visage. To him the
    markets were like the stomach of the shopkeeping classes, the stomach
    of all the folks of average rectitude puffing itself out, rejoicing,
    glistening in the sunshine, and declaring that everything was for the
    best, since peaceable people had never before grown so beautifully
    fat. As these thoughts passed through his mind Florent clenched his
    fists, and felt ready for a struggle, more irritated now by the
    thought of his exile than he had been when he first returned to
    France. Hatred resumed entire possession of him. He often let his pen
    drop and became absorbed in dreams. The dying fire cast a bright glow
    upon his face; the lamp burned smokily, and the chaffinch fell asleep
    again on one leg, with its head tucked under its wing.

    Sometimes Auguste, on coming upstairs at eleven o'clock and seeing the
    light shining under the door, would knock, before going to bed.
    Florent admitted him with some impatience. The assistant sat down in
    front of the fire, speaking but little, and never saying why he had
    come. His eyes would all the time remain fixed upon the photograph of
    himself and Augustine in their Sunday finery. Florent came to the
    conclusion that the young man took a pleasure in visiting the room for
    the simple reason that it had been occupied by his sweetheart; and one
    evening he asked him with a smile if he had guessed rightly.

    "Well, perhaps it is so," replied Auguste, very much surprised at the
    discovery which he himself now made of the reasons which actuated him.
    "I'd really never thought of that before. I came to see you without
    knowing why. But if I were to tell Augustine, how she'd laugh!"

    Whenever he showed himself at all loquacious, his one eternal theme
    was the pork shop which he was going to set up with Augustine at
    Plaisance. He seemed so perfectly assured of arranging his life in
    accordance with his desires, that Florent grew to feel a sort of
    respect for him, mingled with irritation. After all, the young fellow
    was very resolute and energetic, in spite of his seeming stupidity. He
    made straight for the goal he had in view, and would doubtless reach
    it in perfect assurance and happiness. On the evenings of these visits
    from the apprentice, Florent could not settle down to work again; he
    went off to bed in a discontented mood, and did not recover his
    equilibrium till the thought passed through his mind, "Why, that
    Auguste is a perfect animal!"

    Every month he went to Clamart to see Monsieur Verlaque. These visits
    were almost a delight to him. The poor man still lingered on, to the
    great astonishment of Gavard, who had not expected him to last for
    more than six months. Every time that Florent went to see him Verlaque
    would declare that he was feeling better, and was most anxious to
    resume his work again. But the days glided by, and he had serious
    relapses. Florent would sit by his bedside, chat about the fish
    market, and do what he could to enliven him. He deposited on the
    pedestal table the fifty francs which he surrendered to him each
    month; and the old inspector, though the payment had been agreed upon,
    invariably protested, and seemed disinclined to take the money. Then
    they would begin to speak of something else, and the coins remained
    lying on the table. When Florent went away, Madame Verlaque always
    accompanied him to the street door. She was a gentle little woman, of
    a very tearful disposition. Her one topic of conversation was the
    expense necessitated by her husband's illness, the costliness of
    chicken broth, butcher's meat, Bordeaux wine, medicine, and doctors'
    fees. Her doleful conversation greatly embarrassed Florent, and on the
    first few occasions he did not understand the drift of it. But at
    last, as the poor woman seemed always in a state of tears, and kept
    saying how happy and comfortable they had been when they had enjoyed
    the full salary of eighteen hundred francs a year, he timidly offered
    to make her a private allowance, to be kept secret from her husband.
    This offer, however, she declined, inconsistently declaring that the
    fifty francs were sufficient. But in the course of the month she
    frequently wrote to Florent, calling him their saviour. Her
    handwriting was small and fine, yet she would contrive to fill three
    pages of letter paper with humble, flowing sentences entreating the
    loan of ten francs; and this she at last did so regularly that
    wellnigh the whole of Florent's hundred and fifty francs found its way
    to the Verlaques. The husband was probably unaware of it; however, the
    wife gratefully kissed Florent's hands. This charity afforded him the
    greatest pleasure, and he concealed it as though it were some
    forbidden selfish indulgence.

    "That rascal Verlaque is making a fool of you," Gavard would sometimes
    say. "He's coddling himself up finely now that you are doing the work
    and paying him an income."

    At last one day Florent replied:

    "Oh, we've arranged matters together. I'm only to give him twenty-five
    francs a month in future."

    As a matter of fact, Florent had but little need of money. The Quenus
    continued to provide him with board and lodging; and the few francs
    which he kept by him sufficed to pay for the refreshment he took in
    the evening at Monsieur Lebigre's. His life had gradually assumed all
    the regularity of clockwork. He worked in his bedroom, continued to
    teach little Muche twice a week from eight to nine o'clock, devoted an
    evening to Lisa, to avoid offending her, and spent the rest of his
    spare time in the little "cabinet" with Gavard and his friends.

    When he went to the Mehudins' there was a touch of tutorial stiffness
    in his gentle demeanour. He was pleased with the old house in the Rue
    Pirouette. On the ground floor he passed through the faint odours
    pervading the premises of the purveyor of cooked vegetables. Big pans
    of boiled spinach and sorrel stood cooling in the little backyard.
    Then he ascended the winding staircase, greasy and dark, with worn and
    bulging steps which sloped in a disquieting manner. The Mehudins
    occupied the whole of the second floor. Even when they had attained to
    comfortable circumstances the old mother had always declined to move
    into fresh quarters, despite all the supplications of her daughters,
    who dreamt of living in a new house in a fine broad street. But on
    this point the old woman was not to be moved; she had lived there, she
    said, and meant to die there. She contented herself, moreover, with a
    dark little closet, leaving the largest rooms to Claire and La
    Normande. The later, with the authority of the elder born, had taken
    possession of the room that overlooked the street; it was the best and
    largest of the suite. Claire was so much annoyed at her sister's
    action in the matter that she refused to occupy the adjoining room,
    whose window overlooked the yard, and obstinately insisted on sleeping
    on the other side of the landing, in a sort of garret, which she did
    not even have whitewashed. However, she had her own key, and so was
    independent; directly anything happened to displease her she locked
    herself up in her own quarters.

    As a rule, when Florent arrived the Mehudins were just finishing their
    dinner. Muche sprang to his neck, and for a moment the young man
    remained seated with the lad chattering between his legs. Then, when
    the oilcloth cover had been wiped, the lesson began on a corner of the
    table. The beautiful Norman gave Florent a cordial welcome. She
    generally began to knit or mend some linen, and would draw her chair
    up to the table and work by the light of the same lamp as the others;
    and she frequently put down her needle to listen to the lesson, which
    filled her with surprise. She soon began to feel warm esteem for this
    man who seemed so clever, who, in speaking to the little one, showed
    himself as gentle as a woman, and manifested angelic patience in again
    and again repeating the same instructions. She no longer considered
    him at all plain, but even felt somewhat jealous of beautiful Lisa.
    And then she drew her chair still nearer, and gazed at Florent with an
    embarrassing smile.

    "But you are jogging my elbow, mother, and I can't write," Muche
    exclaimed angrily. "There! see what a blot you've made me make! Get
    further away, do!"

    La Normande now gradually began to say a good many unpleasant things
    about beautiful Lisa. She pretended that the latter concealed her real
    age, that she laced her stays so tightly that she nearly suffocated
    herself, and that if she came down of a morning looking so trim and
    neat, without a single hair out of place, it must be because she
    looked perfectly hideous when in dishabille. Then La Normande would
    raise her arm a little, and say that there was no need for her to wear
    any stays to cramp and deform her figure. At these times the lessons
    would be interrupted, and Muche gazed with interest at his mother as
    she raised her arms. Florent listened to her, and even laughed,
    thinking to himself that women were very odd creatures. The rivalry
    between the beautiful Norman and beautiful Lisa amused him.

    Muche, however, managed to finish his page of writing. Florent, who
    was a good penman, set him copies in large hand and round hand on
    slips of paper. The words he chose were very long and took up the
    whole line, and he evinced a marked partiality for such expressions as
    "tyrannically," "liberticide," "unconstitutional," and
    "revolutionary." At times also he made the boy copy such sentences as
    these: "The day of justice will surely come"; "The suffering of the
    just man is the condemnation of the oppressor"; "When the hour
    strikes, the guilty shall fall." In preparing these copy slips he was,
    indeed, influenced by the ideas which haunted his brain; he would for
    the time become quite oblivious of Muche, the beautiful Norman, and
    all his surroundings. The lad would have copied Rousseau's "Contrat
    Social" had he been told to do so; and thus, drawing each letter in
    turn, he filled page after page with lines of "tyrannically" and
    "unconstitutional."

    As long as the tutor remained there, old Madame Mehudin kept fidgeting
    round the table, muttering to herself. She still harboured terrible
    rancour against Florent; and asserted that it was folly to make the
    lad work in that way at a time when children should be in bed. She
    would certainly have turned that "spindle-shanks" out of the house, if
    the beautiful Norman, after a stormy scene, had not bluntly told her
    that she would go to live elsewhere if she were not allowed to receive
    whom she chose. However, the pair began quarrelling again on the
    subject every evening.

    "You may say what you like," exclaimed the old woman; "but he's got
    treacherous eyes. And, besides, I'm always suspicious of those skinny
    people. A skinny man's capable of anything. I've never come across a
    decent one yet. That one's as flat as a board. And he's got such an
    ugly face, too! Though I'm sixty-five and more, I'd precious soon send
    him about his business if he came a-courting of me!"

    She said this because she had a shrewd idea of how matters were likely
    to turn out. And then she went on to speak in laudatory terms of
    Monsieur Lebigre, who, indeed, paid the greatest attention to the
    beautiful Norman. Apart from the handsome dowry which he imagined she
    would bring with her, he considered that she would be a magnificent
    acquisition to his counter. The old woman never missed an opportunity
    to sound his praises; there was no lankiness, at any rate, about him,
    said she; he was stout and strong, with a pair of calves which would
    have done honour even to one of the Emperor's footmen.

    However, La Normande shrugged her shoulders and snappishly replied:
    "What do I care whether he's stout or not? I don't want him or
    anybody. And besides, I shall do as I please."

    Then, if the old woman became too pointed in her remarks, the other
    added: "It's no business of yours, and besides, it isn't true. Hold
    your tongue and don't worry me." And thereupon she would go off into
    her room, banging the door behind her. Florent, however, had a yet
    more bitter enemy than Madame Mehudin in the house. As soon as ever he
    arrived there, Claire would get up without a word, take a candle, and
    go off to her own room on the other side of the landing; and she could
    be heard locking her door in a burst of sullen anger. One evening when
    her sister asked the tutor to dinner, she prepared her own food on the
    landing, and ate it in her bedroom; and now and again she secluded
    herself so closely that nothing was seen of her for a week at a time.
    She usually retained her appearance of soft lissomness, but
    periodically had a fit of iron rigidity, when her eyes blazed from
    under her pale tawny locks like those of a distrustful wild animal.
    Old Mother Mehudin, fancying that she might relieve herself in her
    company, only made her furious by speaking to her of Florent; and
    thereupon the old woman, in her exasperation, told everyone that she
    would have gone off and left her daughters to themselves had she not
    been afraid of their devouring each other if they remained alone
    together.

    As Florent went away one evening, he passed in front of Claire's door,
    which was standing wide open. He saw the girl look at him, and turn
    very red. Her hostile demeanour annoyed him; and it was only the
    timidity which he felt in the presence of women that restrained him
    from seeking an explanation of her conduct. On this particular evening
    he would certainly have addressed her if he had not detected
    Mademoiselle Saget's pale face peering over the balustrade of the
    upper landing. So he went his way, but had not taken a dozen steps
    before Claire's door was closed behind him with such violence as to
    shake the whole staircase. It was after this that Mademoiselle Saget,
    eager to propagate slander, went about repeating everywhere that
    Madame Quenu's cousin was "carrying on" most dreadfully with both the
    Mehudin girls.

  • « Poslednja izmena: 18. Apr 2006, 17:00:13 od Ace_Ventura »
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    Variety is the spice of life

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    Florent, however, gave very little thought to these two handsome young
    women. His usual manner towards them was that of a man who has but
    little success with the sex. Certainly he had come to entertain a
    feeling of genuine friendship for La Normande, who really displayed a
    very good heart when her impetuous temper did not run away with her.
    But he never went any further than this. Moreover, the queenly
    proportions of her robust figure filled him with a kind of alarm; and
    of an evening, whenever she drew her chair up to the lamp and bent
    forward as though to look at Muche's copy-book, he drew in his own
    sharp bony elbows and shrunken shoulders as if realising what a
    pitiful specimen of humanity he was by the side of that buxom, hardy
    creature so full of the life of ripe womanhood. Moreover, there was
    another reason why he recoiled from her. The smells of the markets
    distressed him; on finishing his duties of an evening he would have
    liked to escape from the fishy odour amidst which his days were spent;
    but, alas! beautiful though La Normande was, this odour seemed to
    adhere to her silky skin. She had tried every sort of aromatic oil,
    and bathed freely; but as soon as the freshening influence of the bath
    was over her blood again impregnated her skin with the faint odour of
    salmon, the musky perfume of smelts, and the pungent scent of herrings
    and skate. Her skirts, too, as she moved about, exhaled these fishy
    smells, and she walked as though amidst an atmosphere redolent of
    slimy seaweed. With her tall, goddess-like figure, her purity of form,
    and transparency of complexion she resembled some lovely antique
    marble that had rolled about in the depths of the sea and had been
    brought to land in some fisherman's net.

    Mademoiselle Saget, however, swore by all her gods that Florent was
    the young woman's lover. According to her account, indeed, he courted
    both the sisters. She had quarrelled with the beautiful Norman about a
    ten-sou dab; and ever since this falling-out she had manifested warm
    friendship for handsome Lisa. By this means she hoped the sooner to
    arrive at a solution of what she called the Quenus' mystery. Florent
    still continued to elude her curiosity, and she told her friends that
    she felt like a body without a soul, though she was careful not to
    reveal what was troubling her so grievously. A young girl infatuated
    with a hopeless passion could not have been in more distress than this
    terrible old woman at finding herself unable to solve the mystery of
    the Quenus' cousin. She was constantly playing the spy on Florent,
    following him about, and watching him, in a burning rage at her
    failure to satisfy her rampant curiosity. Now that he had begun to
    visit the Mehudins she was for ever haunting the stairs and landings.
    She soon discovered that handsome Lisa was much annoyed at Florent
    visiting "those women," and accordingly she called at the pork shop
    every morning with a budget of information. She went in shrivelled and
    shrunk by the frosty air, and, resting her hands on the heating-pan to
    warm them, remained in front of the counter buying nothing, but
    repeating in her shrill voice: "He was with them again yesterday; he
    seems to live there now. I heard La Normande call him 'my dear' on the
    staircase."

    She indulged like this in all sorts of lies in order to remain in the
    shop and continue warming her hands for a little longer. On the
    morning after the evening when she had heard Claire close her door
    behind Florent, she spun out her story for a good half hour, inventing
    all sorts of mendacious and abominable particulars.

    Lisa, who had assumed a look of contemptuous scorn, said but little,
    simply encouraging Mademoiselle Saget's gossip by her silence. At
    last, however, she interrupted her. "No, no," she said; "I can't
    really listen to all that. Is it possible that there can be such
    women?"

    Thereupon Mademoiselle Saget told Lisa that unfortunately all women
    were not so well conducted as herself. And then she pretended to find
    all sorts of excuses for Florent: it wasn't his fault; he was no doubt
    a bachelor; these women had very likely inveigled him in their snares.
    In this way she hinted questions without openly asking them. But Lisa
    preserved silence with respect to her cousin, merely shrugging her
    shoulders and compressing her lips. When Mademoiselle Saget at last
    went away, the mistress of the shop glanced with disgust at the cover
    of the heating-pan, the glistening metal of which had been tarnished
    by the impression of the old woman's little hands.

    "Augustine," she cried, "bring a duster, and wipe the cover of the
    heating-pan. It's quite filthy!"

    The rivalry between the beautiful Lisa and the beautiful Norman now
    became formidable. The beautiful Norman flattered herself that she had
    carried a lover off from her enemy; and the beautiful Lisa was
    indignant with the hussy who, by luring the sly cousin to her home,
    would surely end by compromising them all. The natural temperament of
    each woman manifested itself in the hostilities which ensued. The one
    remained calm and scornful, like a lady who holds up her skirts to
    keep them from being soiled by the mud; while the other, much less
    subject to shame, displayed insolent gaiety and swaggered along the
    footways with the airs of a duellist seeking a cause of quarrel. Each
    of their skirmishes would be the talk of the fish market for the whole
    day. When the beautiful Norman saw the beautiful Lisa standing at the
    door of her shop, she would go out of her way in order to pass her,
    and brush against her with her apron; and then the angry glances of
    the two rivals crossed like rapiers, with the rapid flash and thrust
    of pointed steel. When the beautiful Lisa, on the other hand, went to
    the fish market, she assumed an expression of disgust on approaching
    the beautiful Norman's stall. And then she proceeded to purchase some
    big fish--a turbot or a salmon--of a neighbouring dealer, spreading
    her money out on the marble slab as she did so, for she had noticed
    that this seemed to have a painful effect upon the "hussy," who ceased
    laughing at the sight. To hear the two rivals speak, anyone would have
    supposed that the fish and pork they sold were quite unfit for food.
    However, their principal engagements took place when the beautiful
    Norman was seated at her stall and the beautiful Lisa at her counter,
    and they glowered blackly at each other across the Rue Rambuteau. They
    sat in state in their big white aprons, decked out with showy toilets
    and jewels, and the battle between them would commence early in the
    morning.

    "Hallo, the fat woman's got up!" the beautiful Norman would exclaim.
    "She ties herself up as tightly as her sausages! Ah, she's got
    Saturday's collar on again, and she's still wearing that poplin
    dress!"

    At the same moment, on the opposite side of the street, beautiful Lisa
    was saying to her shop girl: "Just look at that creature staring at us
    over yonder, Augustine! She's getting quite deformed by the life she
    leads. Do you see her earrings? She's wearing those big drops of hers,
    isn't she? It makes one feel ashamed to see a girl like that with
    brilliants."

    All complaisance, Augustine echoed her mistress's words.

    When either of them was able to display a new ornament it was like
    scoring a victory--the other one almost choked with spleen. Every day
    they would scrutinise and count each other's customers, and manifest
    the greatest annoyance if they thought that the "big thing over the
    way" was doing the better business. Then they spied out what each had
    for lunch. Each knew what the other ate, and even watched to see how
    she digested it. In the afternoon, while the one sat amidst her cooked
    meats and the other amidst her fish, they posed and gave themselves
    airs, as though they were queens of beauty. It was then that the
    victory of the day was decided. The beautiful Norman embroidered,
    selecting the most delicate and difficult work, and this aroused
    Lisa's exasperation.

    "Ah!" she said, speaking of her rival, "she had far better mend her
    boy's stockings. He's running about quite barefooted. Just look at
    that fine lady, with her red hands stinking of fish!"

    For her part, Lisa usually knitted.

    "She's still at that same sock," La Normande would say, as she watched
    her. "She eats so much that she goes to sleep over her work. I pity
    her poor husband if he's waiting for those socks to keep his feet
    warm!"

    They would sit glowering at each other with this implacable hostility
    until evening, taking note of every customer, and displaying such keen
    eyesight that they detected the smallest details of each other's dress
    and person when other women declared that they could see nothing at
    such a distance. Mademoiselle Saget expressed the highest admiration
    for Madame Quenu's wonderful sight when she one day detected a scratch
    on the fish-girl's left cheek. With eyes like those, said the old
    maid, one might even see through a door. However, the victory often
    remained undecided when night fell; sometimes one or other of the
    rivals was temporarily crushed, but she took her revenge on the
    morrow. Several people of the neighbourhood actually laid wagers on
    these contests, some backing the beautiful Lisa and others the
    beautiful Norman.

    At last they ended by forbidding their children to speak to one
    another. Pauline and Muche had formerly been good friends,
    notwithstanding the girl's stiff petticoats and lady-like demeanour,
    and the lad's tattered appearance, coarse language, and rough manners.
    They had at times played together at horses on the broad footway in
    front of the fish market, Pauline always being the horse and Muche the
    driver. One day, however, when the boy came in all simplicity to seek
    his playmate, Lisa turned him out of the house, declaring that he was
    a dirty little street arab.

    "One can't tell what may happen with children who have been so
    shockingly brought up," she observed.

    "Yes, indeed; you are quite right," replied Mademoiselle Saget, who
    happened to be present.

    When Muche, who was barely seven years old, came in tears to his
    mother to tell her of what had happened, La Normande broke out into a
    terrible passion. At the first moment she felt a strong inclination to
    rush over to the Quenu-Gradelles' and smash everything in their shop.
    But eventually she contented herself with giving Muche a whipping.

    "If ever I catch you going there again," she cried, boiling over with
    anger, "you'll get it hot from me, I can tell you!"

    Florent, however, was the real victim of the two women. It was he, in
    truth, who had set them by the ears, and it was on his account that
    they were fighting each other. Ever since he had appeared upon the
    scene things had been going from bad to worse. He compromised and
    disturbed and embittered all these people, who had previously lived in
    such sleek peace and harmony. The beautiful Norman felt inclined to
    claw him when he lingered too long with the Quenus, and it was chiefly
    from an impulse of hostile rivalry that she desired to win him to
    herself. The beautiful Lisa, on her side, maintained a cold judicial
    bearing, and although extremely annoyed, forced herself to silence
    whenever she saw Florent leaving the pork shop to go to the Rue
    Pirouette.

    Still, there was now much less cordiality than formerly round the
    Quenus' dinner-table in the evening. The clean, prim dining-room
    seemed to have assumed an aspect of chilling severity. Florent divined
    a reproach, a sort of condemnation in the bright oak, the polished
    lamp, and the new matting. He scarcely dared to eat for fear of
    letting crumbs fall on the floor or soiling his plate. There was a
    guileless simplicity about him which prevented him from seeing how the
    land really lay. He still praised Lisa's affectionate kindliness on
    all sides; and outwardly, indeed, she did continue to treat him with
    all gentleness.

    "It is very strange," she said to him one day with a smile, as though
    she were joking; "although you don't eat at all badly now, you don't
    get fatter. Your food doesn't seem to do you any good."

    At this Quenu laughed aloud, and tapping his brother's stomach,
    protested that the whole contents of the pork shop might pass through
    it without depositing a layer of fat as thick as a two-sou piece.
    However, Lisa's insistence on this particular subject was instinct
    with that same suspicious dislike for fleshless men which Madame
    Mehudin manifested more outspokenly; and behind it all there was
    likewise a veiled allusion to the disorderly life which she imagined
    Florent was leading. She never, however, spoke a word to him about La
    Normande. Quenu had attempted a joke on the subject one evening, but
    Lisa had received it so icily that the good man had not ventured to
    refer to the matter again. They would remain seated at table for a few
    moments after dessert, and Florent, who had noticed his sister-in-
    law's vexation if ever he went off too soon, tried to find something
    to talk about. On these occasions Lisa would be near him, and
    certainly he did not suffer in her presence from that fishy smell
    which assailed him when he was in the company of La Normande. The
    mistress of the pork shop, on the contrary, exhaled an odour of fat
    and rich meats. Moreover, not a thrill of life stirred her tight-
    fitting bodice; she was all massiveness and all sedateness. Gavard
    once said to Florent in confidence that Madame Quenu was no doubt
    handsome, but that for his part he did not admire such armour-plated
    women.

    Lisa avoided talking to Quenu of Florent. She habitually prided
    herself on her patience, and considered, too, that it would not be
    proper to cause any unpleasantness between the brothers, unless some
    peremptory reason for her interference should arise. As she said, she
    could put up with a good deal, but, of course, she must not be tried
    too far. She had now reached the period of courteous tolerance,
    wearing an expressionless face, affecting perfect indifference and
    strict politeness, and carefully avoiding everything which might seem
    to hint that Florent was boarding and lodging with them without their
    receiving the slightest payment from him. Not, indeed, that she would
    have accepted any payment from him, she was above all that; still he
    might, at any rate, she thought, have lunched away from the house.

    "We never seem to be alone now," she remarked to Quenu one day. "If
    there is anything we want to say to one another we have to wait till
    we go upstairs at night."

    And then, one night when they were in bed, she said to him: "Your
    brother earns a hundred and fifty francs a month, doesn't he? Well,
    it's strange he can't put a trifle by to buy himself some more linen.
    I've been obliged to give him three more of your old shirts."

    "Oh, that doesn't matter," Quenu replied. "Florent's not hard to
    please; and we must let him keep his money for himself."

    "Oh, yes, of course," said Lisa, without pressing the matter further.
    "I didn't mention it for that reason. Whether he spends his money well
    or ill, it isn't our business."

    In her own mind she felt quite sure that he wasted his salary at the
    Mehudins'.

    Only on one occasion did she break through her habitual calmness of
    demeanour, the quiet reserve which was the result of both natural
    temperament and preconceived design. The beautiful Norman had made
    Florent a present of a magnificent salmon. Feeling very much
    embarrassed with the fish, and not daring to refuse it, he brought it
    to Lisa.

    "You can make a pasty of it," he said ingenuously.

    Lisa looked at him sternly with whitening lips. Then, striving to
    restrain her anger, she exclaimed: "Do you think that we are short of
    food? Thank God, we've got quite enough to eat here! Take it back!"

    "Well, at any rate, cook it for me," replied Florent, amazed by her
    anger; "I'll eat it myself."

    At this she burst out furiously.

    "The house isn't an inn! Tell those who gave you the fish to cook it
    for you! I won't have my pans tainted and infected! Take it back
    again! Do you hear?"

    If he had not gone away with it, she would certainly have seized it
    and hurled it into the street. Florent took it to Monsieur Lebigre's,
    where Rose was ordered to make a pasty of it; and one evening the
    pasty was eaten in the little "cabinet," Gavard, who was present,
    "standing" some oysters for the occasion. Florent now gradually came
    more and more frequently to Monsieur Lebigre's, till at last he was
    constantly to be met in the little private room. He there found an
    atmosphere of heated excitement in which his political feverishness
    could pulsate freely. At times, now, when he shut himself up in his
    garret to work, the quiet simplicity of the little room irritated him,
    his theoretical search for liberty proved quite insufficient, and it
    became necessary that he should go downstairs, sally out, and seek
    satisfaction in the trenchant axioms of Charvet and the wild outbursts
    of Logre. During the first few evenings the clamour and chatter had
    made him feel ill at ease; he was then quite conscious of their utter
    emptiness, but he felt a need of drowning his thoughts, of goading
    himself on to some extreme resolution which might calm his mental
    disquietude. The atmosphere of the little room, reeking with the odour
    of spirits and warm with tobacco smoke, intoxicated him and filled him
    with peculiar beatitude, prompting a kind of self-surrender which made
    him willing to acquiesce in the wildest ideas. He grew attached to
    those he met there, and looked for them and awaited their coming with
    a pleasure which increased with habit. Robine's mild, bearded
    countenance, Clemence's serious profile, Charvet's fleshless pallor,
    Logre's hump, Gavard, Alexandre, and Lacaille, all entered into his
    life, and assumed a larger and larger place in it. He took quite a
    sensual enjoyment in these meetings. When his fingers closed round the
    brass knob on the door of the little cabinet it seemed to be animated
    with life, to warm him, and turn of its own accord. Had he grasped the
    supple wrist of a woman he could not have felt a more thrilling
    emotion.

    To tell the truth, very serious things took place in that little room.
    One evening, Logre, after indulging in wilder outbursts than usual,
    banged his fist upon the table, declaring that if they were men they
    would make a clean sweep of the Government. And he added that it was
    necessary they should come to an understanding without further delay,
    if they desired to be fully prepared when the time for action arrived.
    Then they all bent their heads together, discussed the matter in lower
    tones, and decided to form a little "group," which should be ready for
    whatever might happen. From that day forward Gavard flattered himself
    that he was a member of a secret society, and was engaged in a
    conspiracy. The little circle received no new members, but Logre
    promised to put it into communication with other associations with
    which he was acquainted; and then, as soon as they held all Paris in
    their grasp, they would rise and make the Tuileries' people dance. A
    series of endless discussions, renewed during several months, then
    began--discussions on questions of organisation, on questions of ways
    and means, on questions of strategy, and of the form of the future
    Government. As soon as Rose had brought Clemence's grog, Charvet's and
    Robine's beer, the coffee for Logre, Gavard, and Florent, and the
    liqueur glasses of brandy for Lacaille and Alexandre, the door of the
    cabinet was carefully fastened, and the debate began.

    Charvet and Florent were naturally those whose utterances were
    listened to with the greatest attention. Gavard had not been able to
    keep his tongue from wagging, but had gradually related the whole
    story of Cayenne; and Florent found himself surrounded by a halo of
    martyrdom. His words were received as though they were the expression
    of indisputable dogmas. One evening, however, the poultry dealer,
    vexed at hearing his friend, who happened to be absent, attacked,
    exclaimed: "Don't say anything against Florent; he's been to Cayenne!"

    Charvet was rather annoyed by the advantage which this circumstance
    gave to Florent. "Cayenne, Cayenne," he muttered between his teeth.
    "Ah, well, they were not so badly off there, after all."

    Then he attempted to prove that exile was a mere nothing, and that
    real suffering consisted in remaining in one's oppressed country,
    gagged in presence of triumphant despotism. And besides, he urged, it
    wasn't his fault that he hadn't been arrested on the Second of
    December. Next, however, he hinted that those who had allowed
    themselves to be captured were imbeciles. His secret jealousy made him
    a systematic opponent of Florent; and the general discussions always
    ended in a duel between these two, who, while their companions
    listened in silence, would speak against one another for hours at a
    time, without either of them allowing that he was beaten.

    One of the favourite subjects of discussion was that of the
    reorganisation of the country which would have to be effected on the
    morrow of their victory.

    "We are the conquerors, are we not?" began Gavard.

    And, triumph being taken for granted, everyone offered his opinion.
    There were two rival parties. Charvet, who was a disciple of Hebert,
    was supported by Logre and Robine; while Florent, who was always
    absorbed in humanitarian dreams, and called himself a Socialist, was
    backed by Alexandre and Lacaille. As for Gavard, he felt no repugnance
    for violent action; but, as he was often twitted about his fortune
    with no end of sarcastic witticisms which annoyed him, he declared
    himself a Communist.

    "We must make a clean sweep of everything," Charvet would curtly say,
    as though he were delivering a blow with a cleaver. "The trunk is
    rotten, and it must come down."

    "Yes! yes!" cried Logre, standing up that he might look taller, and
    making the partition shake with the excited motion of his hump.
    "Everything will be levelled to the ground; take my word for it. After
    that we shall see what to do."

    Robine signified approval by wagging his beard. His silence seemed
    instinct with delight whenever violent revolutionary propositions were
    made. His eyes assumed a soft ecstatic expression at the mention of
    the guillotine. He half closed them, as though he could see the
    machine, and was filled with pleasant emotion at the sight; and next
    he would gently rub his chin against the knob of his stick, with a
    subdued purr of satisfaction.

    "All the same," said Florent, in whose voice a vague touch of sadness
    lingered, "if you cut down the tree it will be necessary to preserve
    some seed. For my part, I think that the tree ought to be preserved,
    so that we may graft new life on it. The political revolution, you
    know, has already taken place; to-day we have got to think of the
    labourer, the working man. Our movement must be altogether a social
    one. I defy you to reject the claims of the people. They are weary of
    waiting, and are determined to have their share of happiness."

    These words aroused Alexandre's enthusiasm. With a beaming, radiant
    face he declared that this was true, that the people were weary of
    waiting.

    "And we will have our share," added Lacaille, with a more menacing
    expression. "All the revolutions that have taken place have been for
    the good of the middle classes. We've had quite enough of that sort of
    thing, and the next one shall be for our benefit."

    From this moment disagreement set in. Gavard offered to make a
    division of his property, but Logre declined, asserting that he cared
    nothing for money. Then Charvet gradually overcame the tumult, till at
    last he alone was heard speaking.

    "The selfishness of the different classes does more than anything else
    to uphold tyranny," said he. "It is wrong of the people to display
    egotism. If they assist us they shall have their share. But why should
    I fight for the working man if the working man won't fight for me?
    Moreover, that is not the question at present. Ten years of
    revolutionary dictatorship will be necessary to accustom a nation like
    France to the fitting enjoyment of liberty."

    "All the more so as the working man is not ripe for it, and requires
    to be directed," said Clemence bluntly.

    She but seldom spoke. This tall, serious looking girl, alone among so
    many men, listened to all the political chatter with a learnedly
    critical air. She leaned back against the partition, and every now and
    then sipped her grog whilst gazing at the speakers with frowning brows
    or inflated nostrils, thus silently signifying her approval or
    disapproval, and making it quite clear that she held decided opinions
    upon the most complicated matters. At times she would roll a
    cigarette, and puff slender whiffs of smoke from the corners of her
    mouth, whilst lending increased attention to what was being debated.
    It was as though she were presiding over the discussion, and would
    award the prize to the victor when it was finished. She certainly
    considered that it became her, as a woman, to display some reserve in
    her opinions, and to remain calm whilst the men grew more and more
    excited. Now and then, however, in the heat of the debate, she would
    let a word or a phrase escape her and "clench the matter" even for
    Charvet himself, as Gavard said. In her heart she believed herself the
    superior of all these fellows. The only one of them for whom she felt
    any respect was Robine, and she would thoughtfully contemplate his
    silent bearing.

    Neither Florent nor any of the others paid any special attention to
    Clemence. They treated her just as though she were a man, shaking
    hands with her so roughly as almost to dislocate her arms. One evening
    Florent witnessed the periodical settlement of accounts between her
    and Charvet. She had just received her pay, and Charvet wanted to
    borrow ten francs from her; but she first of all insisted that they
    must reckon up how matters stood between them. They lived together in
    a voluntary partnership, each having complete control of his or her
    earnings, and strictly paying his or her expenses. By so doing, said
    they, they were under no obligations to one another, but retained
    entire freedom. Rent, food, washing, and amusements, were all noted
    down and added up. That evening, when the accounts had been verified,
    Clemence proved to Charvet that he already owed her five francs. Then
    she handed him the other ten which he wished to borrow, and exclaimed:
    "Recollect that you now owe me fifteen. I shall expect you to repay me
    on the fifth, when you get paid for teaching little Lehudier."

    When Rose was summoned to receive payment for the "drinks," each
    produced the few coppers required to discharge his or her liability.
    Charvet laughingly called Clemence an aristocrat because she drank
    grog. She wanted to humiliate him, said he, and make him feel that he
    earned less than she did, which, as it happened, was the fact. Beneath
    his laugh, however, there was a feeling of bitterness that the girl
    should be better circumstanced than himself, for, in spite of his
    theory of the equality of the sexes, this lowered him.

    Although the discussions in the little room had virtually no result,
    they served to exercise the speakers' lungs. A tremendous hubbub
    proceeded from the sanctum, and the panes of frosted glass vibrated
    like drum-skins. Sometimes the uproar became so great that Rose, while
    languidly serving some blouse-wearing customer in the shop, would turn
    her head uneasily.

    "Why, they're surely fighting together in there," the customer would
    say, as he put his glass down on the zinc-covered counter, and wiped
    his mouth with the back of his hand.

    "Oh, there's no fear of that," Monsieur Lebigre tranquilly replied.
    "It's only some gentlemen talking together."

    Monsieur Lebigre, indeed, although very strict with his other
    customers, allowed the politicians to shout as loudly as they pleased,
    and never made the least remark on the subject. He would sit for hours
    together on the bench behind the counter, with his big head lolling
    drowsily against the mirror, whilst he watched Rose uncorking the
    bottles and giving a wipe here and there with her duster. And in spite
    of the somniferous effects of the wine fumes and the warm streaming
    gaslight, he would keep his ears open to the sounds proceeding from
    the little room. At times, when the voices grew noisier than usual, he
    got up from his seat and went to lean against the partition; and
    occasionally he even pushed the door open, and went inside and sat
    down there for a few minutes, giving Gavard a friendly slap on the
    thigh. And then he would nod approval of everything that was said. The
    poultry dealer asserted that although friend Lebigre hadn't the stuff
    of an orator in him, they might safely reckon on him when the "shindy"
    came.

    One morning, however, at the markets, when a tremendous row broke out
    between Rose and one of the fish-wives, through the former
    accidentally knocking over a basket of herrings, Florent heard Rose's
    employer spoken of as a "dirty spy" in the pay of the police. And
    after he had succeeded in restoring peace, all sorts of stories about
    Monsieur Lebigre were poured into his ears. Yes, the wine seller was
    in the pay of the police, the fish-wives said; all the neighbourhood
    knew it. Before Mademoiselle Saget had begun to deal with him she had
    once met him entering the Prefecture to make his report. It was
    asserted, too, that he was a money-monger, a usurer, and lent petty
    sums by the day to costermongers, and let out barrows to them,
    exacting a scandalous rate of interest in return. Florent was greatly
    disturbed by all this, and felt it his duty to repeat it that evening
    to his fellow politicians. The latter, however, only shrugged their
    shoulders, and laughed at his uneasiness.

    "Poor Florent!" Charvet exclaimed sarcastically; "he imagines the
    whole police force is on his track, just because he happens to have
    been sent to Cayenne!"

    Gavard gave his word of honour that Lebigre was perfectly staunch and
    true, while Logre, for his part, manifested extreme irritation. He
    fumed and declared that it would be quite impossible for them to get
    on if everyone was to be accused of being a police spy; for his own
    part, he would rather stay at home, and have nothing more to do with
    politics. Why, hadn't people even dared to say that he, Logre himself,
    who had fought in '48 and '51, and had twice narrowly escaped
    transportation, was a spy as well? As he shouted this out, he thrust
    his jaws forward, and glared at the others as though he would have
    liked to ram the conviction that he had nothing to do with the police
    down their throats. At the sight of his furious glances his companions
    made gestures of protestation. However, Lacaille, on hearing Monsieur
    Lebigre accused of usury, silently lowered his head.

    The incident was forgotten in the discussions which ensued. Since
    Logre had suggested a conspiracy, Monsieur Lebigre had grasped the
    hands of the frequenters of the little room with more vigor than ever.
    Their custom, to tell the truth, was of but small value to him, for
    they never ordered more than one "drink" apiece. They drained the last
    drops just as they rose to leave, having been careful to allow a
    little to remain in their glasses, even during their most heated
    arguments. In this wise the one "shout" lasted throughout the evening.
    They shivered as they turned out into the cold dampness of the night,
    and for a moment or two remained standing on the footway with dazzled
    eyes and buzzing ears, as though surprised by the dark silence of the
    street. Rose, meanwhile, fastened the shutters behind them. Then,
    quite exhausted, at a loss for another word they shook hands,
    separated, and went their different ways, still mentally continuing
    the discussion of the evening, and regretting that they could not ram
    their particular theories down each other's throats. Robine walked
    away, with his bent back bobbing up and down, in the direction of the
    Rue Rambuteau; whilst Charvet and Clemence went off through the
    markets on their return to the Luxembourg quarter, their heels
    sounding on the flag-stones in military fashion, whilst they still
    discussed some question of politics or philosophy, walking along side
    by side, but never arm-in-arm.

    The conspiracy ripened very slowly. At the commencement of the summer
    the plotters had got no further than agreeing that it was necessary a
    stroke should be attempted. Florent, who had at first looked upon the
    whole business with a kind of distrust, had now, however, come to
    believe in the possibility of a revolutionary movement. He took up the
    matter seriously; making notes, and preparing plans in writing, while
    the others still did nothing but talk. For his part, he began to
    concentrate his whole life in the one persistent idea which made his
    brain throb night after night; and this to such a degree that he at
    last took his brother Quenu with him to Monsieur Lebigre's, as though
    such a course were quite natural. Certainly he had no thought of doing
    anything improper. He still looked upon Quenu as in some degree his
    pupil, and may even have considered it his duty to start him on the
    proper path. Quenu was an absolute novice in politics, but after
    spending five or six evenings in the little room he found himself
    quite in accord with the others. When Lisa was not present he
    manifested much docility, a sort of respect for his brother's
    opinions. But the greatest charm of the affair for him was really the
    mild dissipation of leaving his shop and shutting himself up in the
    little room where the others shouted so loudly, and where Clemence's
    presence, in his opinion, gave a tinge of rakishness and romance to
    the proceedings. He now made all haste with his chitterlings in order
    that he might get away as early as possible, anxious to lose not a
    single word of the discussions, which seemed to him to be very
    brilliant, though he was not always able to follow them. The beautiful
    Lisa did not fail to notice his hurry to be gone, but as yet she
    refrained from saying anything. When Florent took him off, she simply
    went to the door-step, and watched them enter Monsieur Lebigre's, her
    face paling somewhat, and a severe expression coming into her eyes.

    One evening, as Mademoiselle Saget was peering out of her garret
    casement, she recognised Quenu's shadow on the frosted glass of the
    "cabinet" window facing the Rue Pirouette. She had found her casement
    an excellent post of observation, as it overlooked that milky
    transparency, on which the gaslight threw silhouettes of the
    politicians, with noses suddenly appearing and disappearing, gaping
    jaws abruptly springing into sight and then vanishing, and huge arms,
    apparently destitute of bodies, waving hither and thither. This
    extraordinary jumble of detached limbs, these silent but frantic
    profiles, bore witness to the heated discussions that went on in the
    little room, and kept the old maid peering from behind her muslin
    curtains until the transparency turned black. She shrewdly suspected
    some "bit of trickery," as she phrased it. By continual watching she
    had come to recognise the different shadows by their hands and hair
    and clothes. As she gazed upon the chaos of clenched fists, angry
    heads, and swaying shoulders, which seemed to have become detached
    from their trunks and to roll about one atop of the other, she would
    exclaim unhesitatingly, "Ah, there's that big booby of a cousin;
    there's that miserly old Gavard; and there's the hunchback; and
    there's that maypole of a Clemence!" Then, when the action of the
    shadow-play became more pronounced, and they all seemed to have lost
    control over themselves, she felt an irresistible impulse to go
    downstairs to try to find out what was happening. Thus she now made a
    point of buying her black-currant syrup at nights, pretending that she
    felt out-of-sorts in the morning, and was obliged to take a sip as
    soon as ever she was out of bed. On the evening when she noticed
    Quenu's massive head shadowed on the transparency in close proximity
    to Charvet's fist, she made her appearance at Monsieur Lebigre's in a
    breathless condition. To gain more time, she made Rose rinse out her
    little bottle for her; however, she was about to return to her room
    when she heard the pork butcher exclaim with a sort of childish
    candour:

    "No, indeed, we'll stand for it no longer! We'll make a clean sweep of
    all those humbugging Deputies and Ministers! Yes, we'll send the whole
    lot packing."

    Eight o'clock had scarcely struck on the following morning when
    Mademoiselle Saget was already at the pork shop. She found Madame
    Lecoeur and La Sarriette there, dipping their noses into the heating-
    pan, and buying hot sausages for breakfast. As the old maid had
    managed to draw them into her quarrel with La Normande with respect to
    the ten-sou dab, they had at once made friends again with Lisa, and
    they now had nothing but contempt for the handsome fish-girl, and
    assailed her and her sister as good-for-nothing hussies, whose only
    aim was to fleece men of their money. This opinion had been inspired
    by the assertions of Mademoiselle Saget, who had declared to Madame
    Lecoeur that Florent had induced one of the two girls to coquette with
    Gavard, and that the four of them had indulged in the wildest
    dissipation at Barratte's--of course, at the poultry dealer's expense.
    From the effects of this impudent story Madame Lecoeur had not yet
    recovered; she wore a doleful appearance, and her eyes were quite
    yellow with spleen.

    That morning, however, it was for Madame Quenu that the old maid had a
    shock in store. She looked round the counter, and then in her most
    gentle voice remarked:

    "I saw Monsieur Quenu last night. They seem to enjoy themselves
    immensely in that little room at Lebigre's, if one may judge from the
    noise they make."

    Lisa had turned her head towards the street, listening very
    attentively, but apparently unwilling to show it. The old maid paused,
    hoping that one of the others would question her; and then, in a lower
    tone, she added: "They had a woman with them. Oh, I don't mean
    Monsieur Quenu, of course! I didn't say that; I don't know--"

    "It must be Clemence," interrupted La Sarriette; "a big scraggy
    creature who gives herself all sorts of airs just because she went to
    boarding school. She lives with a threadbare usher. I've seen them
    together; they always look as though they were taking each other off
    to the police station."

    "Oh, yes; I know," replied the old maid, who, indeed, knew everything
    about Charvet and Clemence, and whose only purpose was to alarm Lisa.

    The mistress of the pork shop, however, never flinched. She seemed to
    be absorbed in watching something of great interest in the market
    yonder. Accordingly the old maid had recourse to stronger measures. "I
    think," said she, addressing herself to Madame Lecoeur, "that you
    ought to advise your brother-in-law to be careful. Last night they
    were shouting out the most shocking things in that little room. Men
    really seem to lose their heads over politics. If anyone had heard
    them, it might have been a very serious matter for them."

    "Oh! Gavard will go his own way," sighed Madame Lecoeur. "It only
    wanted this to fill my cup. I shall die of anxiety, I am sure, if he
    ever gets arrested."

    As she spoke, a gleam shot from her dim eyes. La Sarriette, however,
    laughed and wagged her little face, bright with the freshness of the
    morning air.

    "You should hear what Jules says of those who speak against the
    Empire," she remarked. "They ought all to be thrown into the Seine, he
    told me; for it seems there isn't a single respectable person amongst
    them."

    "Oh! there's no harm done, of course, so long as only people like
    myself hear their foolish talk," resumed Mademoiselle Saget. "I'd
    rather cut my hand off, you know, than make mischief. Last night now,
    for instance, Monsieur Quenu was saying----"

    She again paused. Lisa had started slightly.

    "Monsieur Quenu was saying that the Ministers and Deputies and all who
    are in power ought to be shot."

    At this Lisa turned sharply, her face quite white and her hands
    clenched beneath her apron.

    "Quenu said that?" she curtly asked.

    "Yes, indeed, and several other similar things that I can't recollect
    now. I heard him myself. But don't distress yourself like that, Madame
    Quenu. You know very well that I sha'n't breathe a word. I'm quite old
    enough to know what might harm a man if it came out. Oh, no; it will
    go no further."

    Lisa had recovered her equanimity. She took a pride in the happy
    peacefulness of her home; she would not acknowledge that there had
    ever been the slightest difference between herself and her husband.
    And so now she shrugged her shoulders and said with a smile: "Oh, it's
    all a pack of foolish nonsense."

    When the three others were in the street together they agreed that
    handsome Lisa had pulled a very doleful face; and they were
    unanimously of opinion that the mysterious goings-on of the cousin,
    the Mehudins, Gavard, and the Quenus would end in trouble. Madame
    Lecoeur inquired what was done to the people who got arrested "for
    politics," but on this point Mademoiselle Saget could not enlighten
    her; she only knew that they were never seen again--no, never. And
    this induced La Sarriette to suggest that perhaps they were thrown
    into the Seine, as Jules had said they ought to be.

    Lisa avoided all reference to the subject at breakfast and dinner that
    day; and even in the evening, when Florent and Quenu went off together
    to Monsieur Lebigre's, there was no unwonted severity in her glance.
    On that particular evening, however, the question of framing a
    constitution for the future came under discussion, and it was one
    o'clock in the morning before the politicians could tear themselves
    away from the little room. The shutters had already been fastened, and
    they were obliged to leave by a small door, passing out one at a time
    with bent backs. Quenu returned home with an uneasy conscience. He
    opened the three or four doors on his way to bed as gently as
    possible, walking on tip-toe and stretching out his hands as he passed
    through the sitting-room, to avoid a collision with any of the
    furniture. The whole house seemed to be asleep. When he reached the
    bedroom, he was annoyed to find that Lisa had not extinguished the
    candle, which was burning with a tall, mournful flame in the midst of
    the deep silence. As Quenu took off his shoes, and put them down in a
    corner, the time-piece struck half past one with such a clear, ringing
    sound that he turned in alarm, almost frightened to move, and gazing
    with an expression of angry reproach at the shining gilded Gutenberg
    standing there, with his finger on a book. Lisa's head was buried in
    her pillow, and Quenu could only see her back; but he divined that she
    was merely feigning sleep, and her conduct in turning her back upon
    him was so instinct with reproach that he felt sorely ill at ease. At
    last he slipped beneath the bed-clothes, blew out the candle, and lay
    perfectly still. He could have sworn that his wife was awake, though
    she did not speak to him; and presently he fell asleep, feeling
    intensely miserable, and lacking the courage to say good night.

    He slept till late, and when he awoke he found himself sprawling in
    the middle of the bed with the eider-down quilt up to his chin, whilst
    Lisa sat in front of the secretaire, arranging some papers. His
    slumber had been so heavy that he had not heard her rise. However, he
    now took courage, and spoke to her from the depths of the alcove: "Why
    didn't you wake me? What are you doing there?"

    "I'm sorting the papers in these drawers," she replied in her usual
    tone of voice.

    Quenu felt relieved. But Lisa added: "One never knows what may happen.
    If the police were to come--"

    "What! the police?"

    "Yes, indeed, the police; for you're mixing yourself up with politics
    now."

    At this Quenu sat up in bed, quite dazed and confounded by such a
    violent and unexpected attack.

    "I mix myself up with politics! I mix myself up with politics!" he
    repeated. "It's no concern of the police. I've nothing to do with any
    compromising matters."

    "No," replied Lisa, shrugging her shoulders; "you merely talk about
    shooting everybody."

    "I! I!"

    "Yes. And you bawl it out in a public-house! Mademoiselle Saget heard
    you. All the neighbourhood knows by this time that you are a Red
    Republican!"

    Quenu fell back in bed again. He was not perfectly awake as yet.
    Lisa's words resounded in his ears as though he already heard the
    heavy tramp of gendarmes at the bedroom door. He looked at her as she
    sat there, with her hair already arranged, her figure tightly
    imprisoned in her stays, her whole appearance the same as it was on
    any other morning; and he felt more astonished than ever that she
    should be so neat and prim under such extraordinary circumstances.

    "I leave you absolutely free, you know," she continued, as she went on
    arranging the papers. "I don't want to wear the breeches, as the
    saying goes. You are the master, and you are at liberty to endanger
    your position, compromise our credit, and ruin our business."

    Then, as Quenu tried to protest, she silenced him with a gesture. "No,
    no; don't say anything," she continued. "This is no quarrel, and I am
    not even asking an explanation from you. But if you had consulted me,
    and we had talked the matter over together, I might have intervened.
    Ah! it's a great mistake to imagine that women understand nothing
    about politics. Shall I tell you what my politics are?"

    She had risen from her seat whilst speaking, and was now walking to
    and fro between the bed and the window, wiping as she went some specks
    of dust from the bright mahogany of the mirrored wardrobe and the
    dressing-table.

    "My politics are the politics of honest folks," said she. "I'm
    grateful to the Government when business is prosperous, when I can eat
    my meals in peace and comfort, and can sleep at nights without being
    awakened by the firing of guns. There were pretty times in '48, were
    there not? You remember our uncle Gradelle, the worthy man, showing us
    his books for that year? He lost more than six thousand francs. Now
    that we have got the Empire, however, everything prospers. We sell our
    goods readily enough. You can't deny it. Well, then, what is it that
    you want? How will you be better off when you have shot everybody?"

    She took her stand in front of the little night-table, crossed her
    arms over her breast, and fixed her eyes upon Quenu, who had shuffled
    himself beneath the bed-clothes, almost out of sight. He attempted to
    explain what it was that his friends wanted, but he got quite confused
    in his endeavours to summarise Florent's and Charvet's political and
    social systems; and could only talk about the disregard shown to
    principles, the accession of the democracy to power, and the
    regeneration of society, in such a strange tangled way that Lisa
    shrugged her shoulders, quite unable to understand him. At last,
    however, he extricated himself from his difficulties by declaring that
    the Empire was the reign of licentiousness, swindling finance, and
    highway robbery. And, recalling an expression of Logre's he added: "We
    are the prey of a band of adventurers, who are pillaging, violating,
    and assassinating France. We'll have no more of them."

    Lisa, however, still shrugged her shoulders.

    "Well, and is that all you have got to say?" she asked with perfect
    coolness. "What has all that got to do with me? Even supposing it were
    true, what then? Have I ever advised you to practise dishonest
    courses? Have I ever prompted you to dishonour your acceptances, or
    cheat your customers, or pile up money by fraudulent practices?
    Really, you'll end by making me quite angry! We are honest folks, and
    we don't pillage or assassinate anybody. That's quite sufficient. What
    other folks do is no concern of ours. If they choose to be rogues it's
    their affair."

    She looked quite majestic and triumphant; and again pacing the room,
    drawing herself up to her full height, she resumed: "A pretty notion
    it is that people are to let their business go to rack and ruin just
    to please those who are penniless. For my part, I'm in favour of
    making hay while the sun shines, and supporting a Government which
    promotes trade. If it does do dishonourable things, I prefer to know
    nothing about them. I know that I myself commit none, and that no one
    in the neighbourhood can point a finger at me. It's only fools who go
    tilting at windmills. At the time of the last elections, you remember,
    Gavard said that the Emperor's candidate had been bankrupt, and was
    mixed up in all sorts of scandalous matters. Well, perhaps that was
    true, I don't deny it; but all the same, you acted wisely in voting
    for him, for all that was not in question; you were not asked to lend
    the man any money or to transact any business with him, but merely to
    show the Government that you were pleased with the prosperity of the
    pork trade."

    At this moment Quenu called to mind a sentence of Charvet's, asserting
    that "the bloated bourgeois, the sleek shopkeepers, who backed up that
    Government of universal gormandising, ought to be hurled into the
    sewers before all others, for it was owing to them and their
    gluttonous egotism that tyranny had succeeded in mastering and preying
    upon the nation." He was trying to complete this piece of eloquence
    when Lisa, carried off by her indignation, cut him short.

    "Don't talk such stuff! My conscience doesn't reproach me with
    anything. I don't owe a copper to anybody; I'm not mixed up in any
    dishonest business; I buy and sell good sound stuff; and I charge no
    more than others do. What you say may perhaps apply to people like our
    cousins, the Saccards. They pretend to be even ignorant that I am in
    Paris; but I am prouder than they are, and I don't care a rap for
    their millions. It's said that Saccard speculates in condemned
    buildings, and cheats and robs everybody. I'm not surprised to hear
    it, for he was always that way inclined. He loves money just for the
    sake of wallowing in it, and then tossing it out of his windows, like
    the imbecile he is. I can understand people attacking men of his
    stamp, who pile up excessive fortunes. For my part, if you care to
    know it, I have but a bad opinion of Saccard. But we--we who live so
    quietly and peaceably, who will need at least fifteen years to put by
    sufficient money to make ourselves comfortably independent, we who
    have no reason to meddle in politics, and whose only aim is to bring
    up our daughter respectably, and to see that our business prospers--
    why you must be joking to talk such stuff about us. We are honest
    folks!"

    She came and sat down on the edge of the bed. Quenu was already much
    shaken in his opinions.

    "Listen to me, now," she resumed in a more serious voice. "You surely
    don't want to see your own shop pillaged, your cellar emptied, and
    your money taken from you? If these men who meet at Monsieur Lebigre's
    should prove triumphant, do you think that you would then lie as
    comfortably in your bed as you do now? And on going down into the
    kitchen, do you imagine that you would set about making your
    galantines as peacefully as you will presently? No, no, indeed! So why
    do you talk about overthrowing a Government which protects you, and
    enables you to put money by? You have a wife and a daughter, and your
    first duty is towards them. You would be in fault if you imperilled
    their happiness. It is only those who have neither home nor hearth,
    who have nothing to lose, who want to be shooting people. Surely you
    don't want to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for /them/! So stay
    quietly at home, you foolish fellow, sleep comfortably, eat well, make
    money, keep an easy conscience, and leave France to free herself of
    the Empire if the Empire annoys her. France can get on very well
    without /you/."

    She laughed her bright melodious laugh as she finished; and Quenu was
    now altogether convinced. Yes, she was right, after all; and she
    looked so charming, he thought, as she sat there on the edge of the
    bed, so trim, although it was so early, so bright, and so fresh in the
    dazzling whiteness of her linen. As he listened to her his eyes fell
    on their portraits hanging on either side of the fireplace. Yes, they
    were certainly honest folks; they had such a respectable, well-to-do
    air in their black clothes and their gilded frames! The bedroom, too,
    looked as though it belonged to people of some account in the world.
    The lace squares seemed to give a dignified appearance to the chairs;
    and the carpet, the curtains, and the vases decorated with painted
    landscapes--all spoke of their exertions to get on in the world and
    their taste for comfort. Thereupon he plunged yet further beneath the
    eider-down quilt, which kept him in a state of pleasant warmth. He
    began to feel that he had risked losing all these things at Monsieur
    Lebigre's--his huge bed, his cosy room, and his business, on which his
    thoughts now dwelt with tender remorse. And from Lisa, from the
    furniture, from all his cosy surroundings, he derived a sense of
    comfort which thrilled him with a delightful, overpowering charm.

    "You foolish fellow!" said his wife, seeing that he was now quite
    conquered. "A pretty business it was that you'd embarked upon; but
    you'd have had to reckon with Pauline and me, I can tell you! And now
    don't bother your head any more about the Government. To begin with,
    all Governments are alike, and if we didn't have this one, we should
    have another. A Government is necessary. But the one thing is to be
    able to live on, to spend one's savings in peace and comfort when one
    grows old, and to know that one has gained one's means honestly."

    Quenu nodded his head in acquiescence, and tried to commence a
    justification of his conduct.

    "It was Gavard--," he began.

    But Lisa's face again assumed a serious expression, and she
    interrupted him sharply.

    "No, it was not Gavard. I know very well who it was; and it would be a
    great deal better if he would look after his own safety before
    compromising that of others."

    "Is it Florent you mean?" Quenu timidly inquired after a pause.

    Lisa did not immediately reply. She got up and went back to the
    secretaire, as if trying to restrain herself.

    "Yes, it is Florent," she said presently, in incisive tones. "You know
    how patient I am. I would bear almost anything rather than come
    between you and your brother. The tie of relationship is a sacred
    thing. But the cup is filled to overflowing now. Since your brother
    came here things have been constantly getting worse and worse. But
    now, I won't say anything more; it is better that I shouldn't."

    There was another pause. Then, as her husband gazed up at the ceiling
    with an air of embarrassment, she continued, with increased violence:

    "Really, he seems to ignore all that we have done for him. We have put
    ourselves to great inconvenience for his sake; we have given him
    Augustine's bedroom, and the poor girl sleeps without a murmur in a
    stuffy little closet where she can scarcely breathe. We board and
    lodge him and give him every attention--but no, he takes it all quite
    as a matter of course. He is earning money, but what he does with it
    nobody knows; or, rather, one knows only too well."

    "But there's his share of the inheritance, you know," Quenu ventured
    to say, pained at hearing his brother attacked.

    Lisa suddenly stiffened herself as though she were stunned, and her
    anger vanished.

    "Yes, you are right; there is his share of the inheritance. Here is
    the statement of it, in this drawer. But he refused to take it; you
    remember, you were present, and heard him. That only proves that he is
    a brainless, worthless fellow. If he had had an idea in his head, he
    would have made something out of that money by now. For my own part, I
    should be very glad to get rid of it; it would be a relief to us. I
    have told him so twice, but he won't listen to me. You ought to
    persuade him to take it. Talk to him about it, will you?"

    Quenu growled something in reply; and Lisa refrained from pressing the
    point further, being of opinion that she had done all that could be
    expected of her.

    "He is not like other men," she resumed. "He's not a comfortable sort
    of person to have in the house. I shouldn't have said this if we
    hadn't got talking on the subject. I don't busy myself about his
    conduct, though it's setting the whole neighbourhood gossiping about
    us. Let him eat and sleep here, and put us about, if he likes; we can
    get over that; but what I won't tolerate is that he should involve us
    in his politics. If he tries to lead you off again, or compromises us
    in the least degree, I shall turn him out of the house without the
    least hesitation. I warn you, and now you understand!"

    Florent was doomed. Lisa was making a great effort to restrain
    herself, to prevent the animosity which had long been rankling in her
    heart from flowing forth. But Florent and his ways jarred against her
    every instinct; he wounded her, frightened her, and made her quite
    miserable.

    "A man who has made such a discreditable career," she murmured, "who
    has never been able to get a roof of his own over his head! I can very
    well understand his partiality for bullets! He can go and stand in
    their way if he chooses; but let him leave honest folks to their
    families! And then, he isn't pleasant to have about one! He reeks of
    fish in the evening at dinner! It prevents me from eating. He himself
    never lets a mouthful go past him, though it's little better he seems
    to be for it all! He can't even grow decently stout, the wretched
    fellow, to such a degree do his bad instincts prey on him!"

    She had stepped up to the window whilst speaking, and now saw Florent
    crossing the Rue Rambuteau on his way to the fish market. There was a
    very large arrival of fish that morning; the tray-like baskets were
    covered with rippling silver, and the auction rooms roared with the
    hubbub of their sales. Lisa kept her eyes on the bony shoulders of her
    brother-in-law as he made his way into the pungent smells of the
    market, stooping beneath the sickening sensation which they brought
    him; and the glance with which she followed his steps was that of a
    woman bent on combat and resolved to be victorious.

    « Poslednja izmena: 18. Apr 2006, 17:05:55 od Ace_Ventura »
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    When she turned round again, Quenu was getting up. As he sat on the
    edge of the bed in his night-shirt, still warm from the pleasant heat
    of the eider-down quilt and with his feet resting on the soft fluffy
    rug below him, he looked quite pale, quite distressed at the
    misunderstanding between his wife and his brother. Lisa, however, gave
    him one of her sweetest smiles, and he felt deeply touched when she
    handed him his socks.
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    Chapter IV


    Marjolin had been found in a heap of cabbages at the Market of the
    Innocents. He was sleeping under the shelter of a large white-hearted
    one, a broad leaf of which concealed his rosy childish face It was
    never known what poverty-stricken mother had laid him there. When he
    was found he was already a fine little fellow of two or three years of
    age, very plump and merry, but so backward and dense that he could
    scarcely stammer a few words, and only seemed able to smile. When one
    of the vegetable saleswomen found him lying under the big white
    cabbage she raised such a loud cry of surprise that her neighbours
    rushed up to see what was the matter, while the youngster, still in
    petticoats, and wrapped in a scrap of old blanket, held out his arms
    towards her. He could not tell who his mother was, but opened his eyes
    in wide astonishment as he squeezed against the shoulder of a stout
    tripe dealer who eventually took him up. The whole market busied
    itself about him throughout the day. He soon recovered confidence, ate
    slices of bread and butter, and smiled at all the women. The stout
    tripe dealer kept him for a time, then a neighbour took him; and a
    month later a third woman gave him shelter. When they asked him where
    his mother was, he waved his little hand with a pretty gesture which
    embraced all the women present. He became the adopted child of the
    place, always clinging to the skirts of one or another of the women,
    and always finding a corner of a bed and a share of a meal somewhere.
    Somehow, too, he managed to find clothes, and he even had a copper or
    two at the bottom of his ragged pockets. It was a buxom, ruddy girl
    dealing in medicinal herbs who gave him the name of Marjolin,

  • though no one knew why.

  • Literally "Marjoram."

    When Marjolin was nearly four years of age, old Mother Chantemesse
    also happened to find a child, a little girl, lying on the footway of
    the Rue Saint Denis, near the corner of the market. Judging by the
    little one's size, she seemed to be a couple of years old, but she
    could already chatter like a magpie, murdering her words in an
    incessant childish babble. Old Mother Chantemesse after a time
    gathered that her name was Cadine, and that on the previous evening
    her mother had left her sitting on a doorstep, with instructions to
    wait till she returned. The child had fallen asleep there, and did not
    cry. She related that she was beaten at home; and she gladly followed
    Mother Chantemesse, seemingly quite enchanted with that huge square,
    where there were so many people and such piles of vegetables. Mother
    Chantemesse, a retail dealer by trade, was a crusty but very worthy
    woman, approaching her sixtieth year. She was extremely fond of
    children, and had lost three boys of her own when they were mere
    babies. She came to the opinion that the chit she had found "was far
    too wide awake to kick the bucket," and so she adopted her.

    One evening, however, as she was going off home with her right hand
    clasping Cadine's, Marjolin came up and unceremoniously caught hold of
    her left hand.

    "Nay, my lad," said the old woman, stopping, "the place is filled.
    Have you left your big Therese, then? What a fickle little gadabout
    you are!"

    The boy gazed at her with his smiling eyes, without letting go of her
    hand. He looked so pretty with his curly hair that she could not
    resist him. "Well, come along, then, you little scamp," said she;
    "I'll put you to bed as well."

    Thus she made her appearance in the Rue au Lard, where she lived, with
    a child clinging to either hand. Marjolin made himself quite at home
    there. When the two children proved too noisy the old woman cuffed
    them, delighted to shout and worry herself, and wash the youngsters,
    and pack them away beneath the blankets. She had fixed them up a
    little bed in an old costermonger's barrow, the wheels and shafts of
    which had disappeared. It was like a big cradle, a trifle hard, but
    retaining a strong scent of the vegetables which it had long kept
    fresh and cool beneath a covering of damp cloths. And there, when four
    years old, Cadine and Marjolin slept locked in each other's arms.

    They grew up together, and were always to be seen with their arms
    about one another's waist. At night time old Mother Chantemesse heard
    them prattling softly. Cadine's clear treble went chattering on for
    hours together, while Marjolin listened with occasional expressions of
    astonishment vented in a deeper tone. The girl was a mischievous young
    creature, and concocted all sorts of stories to frighten her
    companion; telling him, for instance, that she had one night seen a
    man, dressed all in white, looking at them and putting out a great red
    tongue, at the foot of the bed. Marjolin quite perspired with terror,
    and anxiously asked for further particulars; but the girl would then
    begin to jeer at him, and end by calling him a big donkey. At other
    times they were not so peaceably disposed, but kicked each other
    beneath the blankets. Cadine would pull up her legs, and try to
    restrain her laughter as Marjolin missed his aim, and sent his feet
    banging against the wall. When this happened, old Madame Chantemesse
    was obliged to get up to put the bed-clothes straight again; and, by
    way of sending the children to sleep, she would administer a box on
    the ear to both of them. For a long time their bed was a sort of
    playground. They carried their toys into it, and munched stolen
    carrots and turnips as they lay side by side. Every morning their
    adopted mother was amazed at the strange things she found in the bed--
    pebbles, leaves, apple cores, and dolls made out of scraps of rags.
    When the very cold weather came, she went off to her work, leaving
    them sleeping there, Cadine's black mop mingling with Marjolin's sunny
    curls, and their mouths so near together that they looked as though
    they were keeping each other warm with their breath.

    The room in the Rue au Lard was a big, dilapidated garret, with a
    single window, the panes of which were dimmed by the rain. The
    children would play at hide-and-seek in the tall walnut wardrobe and
    underneath Mother Chantemesse's colossal bed. There were also two or
    three tables in the room, and they crawled under these on all fours.
    They found the place a very charming playground, on account of the dim
    light and the vegetables scattered about in the dark corners. The
    street itself, too, narrow and very quiet, with a broad arcade opening
    into the Rue de la Lingerie, provided them with plenty of
    entertainment. The door of the house was by the side of the arcade; it
    was a low door and could only be opened half way owing to the near
    proximity of the greasy corkscrew staircase. The house, which had a
    projecting pent roof and a bulging front, dark with damp, and
    displaying greenish drain-sinks near the windows of each floor, also
    served as a big toy for the young couple. They spent their mornings
    below in throwing stones up into the drain-sinks, and the stones
    thereupon fell down the pipes with a very merry clatter. In thus
    amusing themselves, however, they managed to break a couple of
    windows, and filled the drains with stones, so that Mother
    Chantemesse, who had lived in the house for three and forty years,
    narrowly escaped being turned out of it.

    Cadine and Marjolin then directed their attention to the vans and
    drays and tumbrels which were drawn up in the quiet street. They
    clambered on to the wheels, swung from the dangling chains, and larked
    about amongst the piles of boxes and hampers. Here also were the back
    premises of the commission agents of the Rue de la Poterie--huge,
    gloomy warehouses, each day filled and emptied afresh, and affording a
    constant succession of delightful hiding-places, where the youngsters
    buried themselves amidst the scent of dried fruits, oranges, and fresh
    apples. When they got tired of playing in his way, they went off to
    join old Madame Chantemesse at the Market of the Innocents. They
    arrived there arm-in-arm, laughing gaily as they crossed the streets
    with never the slightest fear of being run over by the endless
    vehicles. They knew the pavement well, and plunged their little legs
    knee-deep in the vegetable refuse without ever slipping. They jeered
    merrily at any porter in heavy boots who, in stepping over an
    artichoke stem, fell sprawling full-length upon the ground. They were
    the rosy-cheeked familiar spirits of those greasy streets. They were
    to be seen everywhere.

    On rainy days they walked gravely beneath the shelter of a ragged old
    umbrella, with which Mother Chantemesse had protected her stock-in-
    trade for twenty years, and sticking it up in a corner of the market
    they called it their house. On sunny days they romped to such a degree
    that when evening came they were almost too tired to move. They bathed
    their feet in the fountains, dammed up the gutters, or hid themselves
    beneath piles of vegetables, and remained there prattling to each
    other just as they did in bed at night. People passing some huge
    mountain of cos or cabbage lettuces often heard a muffled sound of
    chatter coming from it. And when the green-stuff was removed, the two
    children would be discovered lying side by side on their couch of
    verdure, their eyes glistening uneasily like those of birds discovered
    in the depth of a thicket. As time went on, Cadine could not get along
    without Marjolin, and Marjolin began to cry when he lost sight of
    Cadine. If they happened to get separated, they sought one another
    behind the petticoats of every stallkeeper in the markets, amongst the
    boxes and under the cabbages. If was, indeed, chiefly under the
    cabbages that they grew up and learned to love each other.

    Marjolin was nearly eight years old, and Cadine six, when old Madame
    Chantemesse began to reproach them for their idleness. She told them
    that she would interest them in her business, and pay them a sou a day
    to assist her in paring her vegetables. During the first few days the
    children displayed eager zeal; they squatted down on either side of
    the big flat basket with little knives in their hands, and worked away
    energetically. Mother Chantemesse made a specialty of pared
    vegetables; on her stall, covered with a strip of damp black lining,
    were little lots of potatoes, turnips, carrots, and white onions,
    arranged in pyramids of four--three at the base and one at the apex,
    all quite ready to be popped into the pans of dilatory housewives. She
    also had bundles duly stringed in readiness for the soup-pot--four
    leeks, three carrots, a parsnip, two turnips, and a couple of springs
    of celery. Then there were finely cut vegetables for julienne soup
    laid out on squares of paper, cabbages cut into quarters, and little
    heaps of tomatoes and slices of pumpkin which gleamed like red stars
    and golden crescents amidst the pale hues of the other vegetables.
    Cadine evinced much more dexterity than Marjolin, although she was
    younger. The peelings of the potatoes she pared were so thin that you
    could see through them; she tied up the bundles for the soup-pot so
    artistically that they looked like bouquets; and she had a way of
    making the little heaps she set up, though they contained but three
    carrots or turnips, look like very big ones. The passers-by would stop
    and smile when she called out in her shrill childish voice: "Madame!
    madame! come and try me! Each little pile for two sous."

    She had her regular customers, and her little piles and bundles were
    widely known. Old Mother Chantemesse, seated between the two children,
    would indulge in a silent laugh which made her bosom rise almost to
    her chin, at seeing them working away so seriously. She paid them
    their daily sous most faithfully. But they soon began to weary of the
    little heaps and bundles; they were growing up, and began to dream of
    some more lucrative business. Marjolin remained very childish for his
    years, and this irritated Cadine. He had no more brains than a
    cabbage, she often said. And it was, indeed, quite useless for her to
    devise any plan for him to make money; he never earned any. He could
    not even do an errand satisfactorily. The girl, on the other hand, was
    very shrewd. When but eight years old she obtained employment from one
    of those women who sit on a bench in the neighbourhood of the markets
    provided with a basket of lemons, and employ a troop of children to go
    about selling them. Carrying the lemons in her hands and offering them
    at two for three sous, Cadine thrust them under every woman's nose,
    and ran after every passer-by. Her hands empty, she hastened back for
    a fresh supply. She was paid two sous for every dozen lemons that she
    sold, and on good days she could earn some five or six sous. During
    the following year she hawked caps at nine sous apiece, which proved a
    more profitable business; only she had to keep a sharp look-out, as
    street trading of this kind is forbidden unless one be licensed.
    However, she scented a policeman at a distance of a hundred yards; and
    the caps forthwith disappeared under her skirts, whilst she began to
    munch an apple with an air of guileless innocence. Then she took to
    selling pastry, cakes, cherry-tarts, gingerbread, and thick yellow
    maize biscuits on wicker trays. Marjolin, however, ate up nearly the
    whole of her stock-in-trade. At last, when she was eleven years old,
    she succeeded in realising a grand idea which had long been worrying
    her. In a couple of months she put by four francs, bought a small
    /hotte/,
  • and then set up as a dealer in birds' food.

  • A basket carried on the back.--Translator.

    It was a big affair. She got up early in the morning and purchased her
    stock of groundsel, millet, and bird-cake from the wholesale dealers.
    Then she set out on her day's work, crossing the river, and
    perambulating the Latin Quarter from the Rue Saint Jacques to the Rue
    Dauphine, and even to the Luxembourg. Marjolin used to accompany her,
    but she would not let him carry the basket. He was only fit to call
    out, she said; and so, in his thick, drawling voice, he would raise
    the cry, "Chickweed for the little birds!"

    Then Cadine herself, with her flute-like voice, would start on a
    strange scale of notes ending in a clear, protracted alto, "Chickweed
    for the little birds!"

    They each took one side of the road, and looked up in the air as they
    walked along. In those days Marjolin wore a big scarlet waistcoat
    which hung down to his knees; it had belonged to the defunct Monsieur
    Chantemesse, who had been a cab-driver. Cadine for her part wore a
    white and blue check gown, made out of an old tartan of Madame
    Chantemesse's. All the canaries in the garrets of the Latin Quarter
    knew them; and, as they passed along, repeating their cry, each
    echoing the other's voice, every cage poured out a song.

    Cadine sold water-cress, too. "Two sous a bunch! Two sous a bunch!"
    And Marjolin went into the shops to offer it for sale. "Fine water-
    cress! Health for the body! Fine fresh water-cress!"

    However, the new central markets had just been erected, and the girl
    would stand gazing in ecstacy at the avenue of flower stalls which
    runs through the fruit pavilion. Here on either hand, from end to end,
    big clumps of flowers bloom as in the borders of a garden walk. It is
    a perfect harvest, sweet with perfume, a double hedge of blossoms,
    between which the girls of the neighbourhood love to walk, smiling the
    while, though almost stifled by the heavy perfume. And on the top
    tiers of the stalls are artificial flowers, with paper leaves, in
    which dewdrops are simulated by drops of gum; and memorial wreaths of
    black and white beads rippling with bluish reflections. Cadine's rosy
    nostrils would dilate with feline sensuality; she would linger as long
    as possible in that sweet freshness, and carry as much of the perfume
    away with her as she could. When her hair bobbed under Marjolin's nose
    he would remark that it smelt of pinks. She said that she had given
    over using pomatum; that is was quite sufficient for her to stroll
    through the flower walk in order to scent her hair. Next she began to
    intrigue and scheme with such success that she was engaged by one of
    the stallkeepers. And then Marjolin declared that she smelt sweet from
    head to foot. She lived in the midst of roses, lilacs, wall-flowers,
    and lilies of the valley; and Marjolin would playfully smell at her
    skirts, feign a momentary hesitation, and then exclaim, "Ah, that's
    lily of the valley!" Next he would sniff at her waist and bodice: "Ah,
    that's wall-flowers!" And at her sleeves and wrists: "Ah, that's
    lilac!" And at her neck, and her cheeks and lips: "Ah, but that's
    roses!" he would cry. Cadine used to laugh at him, and call him a
    "silly stupid," and tell him to get away, because he was tickling her
    with the tip of his nose. As she spoke her breath smelt of jasmine.
    She was verily a bouquet, full of warmth and life.

    She now got up at four o'clock every morning to assist her mistress in
    her purchases. Each day they bought armfuls of flowers from the
    suburban florists, with bundles of moss, and bundles of fern fronds,
    and periwinkle leaves to garnish the bouquets. Cadine would gaze with
    amazement at the diamonds and Valenciennes worn by the daughters of
    the great gardeners of Montreuil, who came to the markets amidst their
    roses.

    On the saints' days of popular observance, such as Saint Mary's, Saint
    Peter's, and Saint Joseph's days, the sale of flowers began at two
    o'clock. More than a hundred thousand francs' worth of cut flowers
    would be sold on the footways, and some of the retail dealers would
    make as much as two hundred francs in a few hours. On days like those
    only Cadine's curly locks peered over the mounds of pansies,
    mignonette, and marguerites. She was quite drowned and lost in the
    flood of flowers. Then she would spend all her time in mounting
    bouquets on bits of rush. In a few weeks she acquired considerable
    skillfulness in her business, and manifested no little originality.
    Her bouquets did not always please everybody, however. Sometimes they
    made one smile, sometimes they alarmed the eyes. Red predominated in
    them, mottled with violent tints of blue, yellow, and violet of a
    barbaric charm. On the mornings when she pinched Marjolin, and teased
    him till she made him cry, she made up fierce-looking bouquets,
    suggestive of her own bad temper, bouquets with strong rough scents
    and glaring irritating colours. On other days, however, when she was
    softened by some thrill of joy or sorrow, her bouquets would assume a
    tone of silvery grey, very soft and subdued, and delicately perfumed.

    Then, too, she would set roses, as sanguineous as open hearts, in
    lakes of snow-white pinks; arrange bunches of tawny iris that shot up
    in tufts of flame from foliage that seemed scared by the brilliance of
    the flowers; work elaborate designs, as complicated as those of Smyrna
    rugs, adding flower to flower, as on a canvas; and prepare rippling
    fanlike bouquets spreading out with all the delicacy of lace. Here was
    a cluster of flowers of delicious purity, there a fat nosegay,
    whatever one might dream of for the hand of a marchioness or a fish-
    wife; all the charming quaint fancies, in short, which the brain of a
    sharp-witted child of twelve, budding into womanhood, could devise.

    There were only two flowers for which Cadine retained respect; white
    lilac, which by the bundle of eight or ten sprays cost from fifteen to
    twenty francs in the winter time; and camellias, which were still more
    costly, and arrived in boxes of a dozen, lying on beds of moss, and
    covered with cotton wool. She handled these as delicately as though
    they were jewels, holding her breath for fear of dimming their lustre,
    and fastening their short stems to springs of cane with the tenderest
    care. She spoke of them with serious reverence. She told Marjolin one
    day that a speckless white camellia was a very rare and exceptionally
    lovely thing, and, as she was making him admire one, he exclaimed:
    "Yes; it's pretty; but I prefer your neck, you know. It's much more
    soft and transparent than the camellia, and there are some little blue
    and pink veins just like the pencillings on a flower." Then, drawing
    near and sniffing, he murmured: "Ah! you smell of orange blossom
    to-day."

    Cadine was self-willed, and did not get on well in the position of a
    servant, so she ended by setting up in business on her own account. As
    she was only thirteen at the time, and could not hope for a big trade
    and a stall in the flower avenue, she took to selling one-sou bunches
    of violets pricked into a bed of moss in an osier tray which she
    carried hanging from her neck. All day long she wandered about the
    markets and their precincts with her little bit of hanging garden. She
    loved this continual stroll, which relieved the numbness of her limbs
    after long hours spent, with bent knees, on a low chair, making
    bouquets. She fastened her violets together with marvellous deftness
    as she walked along. She counted out six or eight flowers, according
    to the season, doubled a sprig of cane in half, added a leaf, twisted
    some damp thread round the whole, and broke off the thread with her
    strong young teeth. The little bunches seemed to spring spontaneously
    from the layer of moss, so rapidly did she stick them into it.

    Along the footways, amidst the jostling of the street traffic, her
    nimble fingers were ever flowering though she gave them not a glance,
    but boldly scanned the shops and passers-by. Sometimes she would rest
    in a doorway for a moment; and alongside the gutters, greasy with
    kitchen slops, she sat, as it were a patch of springtime, a
    suggestion of green woods, and purple blossoms. Her flowers still
    betokened her frame of mind, her fits of bad temper and her thrills of
    tenderness. Sometimes they bristled and glowered with anger amidst
    their crumpled leaves; at other times they spoke only of love and
    peacefulness as they smiled in their prim collars. As Cadine passed
    along, she left a sweet perfume behind her; Marjolin followed her
    devoutly. From head to foot she now exhaled but one scent, and the lad
    repeated that she was herself a violet, a great big violet.

    "Do you remember the day when we went to Romainville together?" he
    would say; "Romainville, where there are so many violets. The scent
    was just the same. Oh! don't change again--you smell too sweetly."

    And she did not change again. This was her last trade. Still, she
    often neglected her osier tray to go rambling about the neighbourhood.
    The building of the central markets--as yet incomplete--provided both
    children with endless opportunities for amusement. They made their way
    into the midst of the work-yards through some gap or other between the
    planks; they descended into the foundations, and climbed up to the
    cast-iron pillars. Every nook, every piece of the framework witnessed
    their games and quarrels; the pavilions grew up under the touch of
    their little hands. From all this arose the affection which they felt
    for the great markets, and which the latter seemed to return. They
    were on familiar terms with that gigantic pile, old friends as they
    were, who had seen each pin and bolt put into place. They felt no fear
    of the huge monster; but slapped it with their childish hands, treated
    it like a good friend, a chum whose presence brought no constraint.
    And the markets seemed to smile at these two light-hearted children,
    whose love was the song, the idyll of their immensity.

    Cadine alone now slept at Mother Chantemesse's. The old woman had
    packed Marjolin off to a neighbour's. This made the two children very
    unhappy. Still, they contrived to spend much of their time together.
    In the daytime they would hide themselves away in the warehouses of
    the Rue au Lard, behind piles of apples and cases of oranges; and in
    the evening they would dive into the cellars beneath the poultry
    market, and secret themselves among the huge hampers of feathers which
    stood near the blocks where the poultry was killed. They were quite
    alone there, amidst the strong smell of the poultry, and with never a
    sound but the sudden crowing of some rooster to break upon their
    babble and their laughter. The feathers amidst which they found
    themselves were of all sorts--turkey's feathers, long and black; goose
    quills, white and flexible; the downy plumage of ducks, soft like
    cotton wool; and the ruddy and mottled feathers of fowls, which at the
    faintest breath flew up in a cloud like a swarm of flies buzzing in
    the sun. And then in wintertime there was the purple plumage of the
    pheasants, the ashen grey of the larks, the splotched silk of the
    partridges, quails, and thrushes. And all these feathers freshly
    plucked were still warm and odoriferous, seemingly endowed with life.
    The spot was as cosy as a nest; at times a quiver as of flapping wings
    sped by, and Marjolin and Cadine, nestling amidst all the plumage,
    often imagined that they were being carried aloft by one of those huge
    birds with outspread pinions that one hears of in the fairy tales.

    As time went on their childish affection took the inevitable turn.
    Veritable offsprings of Nature, knowing naught of social conventions
    and restraints, they loved one another in all innocence and
    guilelessness. They mated even as the birds of the air mate, even as
    youth and maid mated in primeval times, because such is Nature's law.
    At sixteen Cadine was a dusky town gipsy, greedy and sensual, whilst
    Marjolin, now eighteen, was a tall, strapping fellow, as handsome a
    youth as could be met, but still with his mental faculties quite
    undeveloped. He had lived, indeed, a mere animal life, which had
    strengthened his frame, but left his intellect in a rudimentary state.

    When old Madame Chantemesse realised the turn that things were taking
    she wrathfully upbraided Cadine and struck out vigorously at her with
    her broom. But the hussy only laughed and dodged the blows, and then
    hied off to her lover. And gradually the markets became their home,
    their manger, their aviary, where they lived and loved amidst the
    meat, the butter, the vegetables, and the feathers.

    They discovered another little paradise in the pavilion where butter,
    eggs, and cheese were sold wholesale. Enormous walls of empty baskets
    were here piled up every morning, and amidst these Cadine and Marjolin
    burrowed and hollowed out a dark lair for themselves. A mere partition
    of osier-work separated them from the market crowd, whose loud voices
    rang out all around them. They often shook with laughter when people,
    without the least suspicion of their presence, stopped to talk
    together a few yards away from them. On these occasions they would
    contrive peepholes, and spy through them, and when cherries were in
    season Cadine tossed the stones in the faces of all the old women who
    passed along--a pastime which amused them the more as the startled old
    crones could never make out whence the hail of cherry-stones had come.
    They also prowled about the depths of the cellars, knowing every
    gloomy corner of them, and contriving to get through the most
    carefully locked gates. One of their favourite amusements was to visit
    the track of the subterranean railway, which had been laid under the
    markets, and which those who planned the latter had intended to
    connect with the different goods' stations of Paris. Sections of this
    railway were laid beneath each of the covered ways, between the
    cellars of each pavilion; the work, indeed, was in such an advanced
    state that turn-tables had been put into position at all the points of
    intersection, and were in readiness for use. After much examination,
    Cadine and Marjolin had at last succeeded in discovering a loose plank
    in the hoarding which enclosed the track, and they had managed to
    convert it into a door, by which they could easily gain access to the
    line. There they were quite shut off from the world, though they could
    hear the continuous rumbling of the street traffic over their heads.

    The line stretched through deserted vaults, here and there illumined
    by a glimmer of light filtering through iron gratings, while in
    certain dark corners gas jets were burning. And Cadine and Marjolin
    rambled about as in the secret recesses of some castle of their own,
    secure from all interruption, and rejoicing in the buzzy silence, the
    murky glimmer, and subterranean secrecy, which imparted a touch of
    melodrama to their experiences. All sorts of smells were wafted
    through the hoarding from the neighbouring cellars; the musty smell of
    vegetables, the pungency of fish, the overpowering stench of cheese,
    and the warm reek of poultry.

    At other times, on clear nights and fine dawns, they would climb on to
    the roofs, ascending thither by the steep staircases of the turrets at
    the angles of the pavilions. Up above they found fields of leads,
    endless promenades and squares, a stretch of undulating country which
    belonged to them. They rambled round the square roofs of the
    pavilions, followed the course of the long roofs of the covered ways,
    climbed and descended the slopes, and lost themselves in endless
    perambulations of discovery. And when they grew tired of the lower
    levels they ascended still higher, venturing up the iron ladders, on
    which Cadine's skirts flapped like flags. Then they ran along the
    second tier of roofs beneath the open heavens. There was nothing save
    the stars above them. All sorts of sounds rose up from the echoing
    markets, a clattering and rumbling, a vague roar as of a distant
    tempest heard at nighttime. At that height the morning breeze swept
    away the evil smells, the foul breath of the awaking markets. They
    would kiss one another on the edge of the gutterings like sparrows
    frisking on the house-tops. The rising fires of the sun illumined
    their faces with a ruddy glow. Cadine laughed with pleasure at being
    so high up in the air, and her neck shone with iridescent tints like a
    dove's; while Marjolin bent down to look at the street still wrapped
    in gloom, with his hands clutching hold of the leads like the feet of
    a wood-pigeon. When they descended to earth again, joyful from their
    excursion in the fresh air, they would remark to one another that they
    were coming back from the country.

    It was in the tripe market that they had made the acquaintance of
    Claude Lantier. They went there every day, impelled thereto by an
    animal taste for blood, the cruel instinct of urchins who find
    amusement in the sight of severed heads. A ruddy stream flowed along
    the gutters round the pavilion; they dipped the tips of their shoes in
    it, and dammed it up with leaves, so as to form large pools of blood.
    They took a strong interest in the arrival of the loads of offal in
    carts which always smelt offensively, despite all the drenchings of
    water they got; they watched the unloading of the bundles of sheep's
    trotters, which were piled up on the ground like filthy paving-stones,
    of the huge stiffened tongues, bleeding at their torn roots, and of
    the massive bell-shaped bullocks' hearts. But the spectacle which,
    above all others, made them quiver with delight was that of the big
    dripping hampers, full of sheep's heads, with greasy horns and black
    muzzles, and strips of woolly skin dangling from bleeding flesh. The
    sight of these conjured up in their minds the idea of some guillotine
    casting into the baskets the heads of countless victims.

    They followed the baskets into the depths of the cellar, watching them
    glide down the rails laid over the steps, and listening to the rasping
    noise which the casters of these osier waggons made in their descent.
    Down below there was a scene of exquisite horror. They entered into a
    charnel-house atmosphere, and walked along through murky puddles,
    amidst which every now and then purple eyes seem to be glistening. At
    times the soles of their boots stuck to the ground, at others they
    splashed through the horrible mire, anxious and yet delighted. The
    gas jets burned low, like blinking, bloodshot eyes. Near the water-
    taps, in the pale light falling through the gratings, they came upon
    the blocks; and there they remained in rapture watching the tripe men,
    who, in aprons stiffened by gory splashings, broke the sheep's heads
    one after another with a blow of their mallets. They lingered there
    for hours, waiting till all the baskets were empty, fascinated by the
    crackling of the bones, unable to tear themselves away till all was
    over. Sometimes an attendant passed behind them, cleansing the cellar
    with a hose; floods of water rushed out with a sluice-like roar, but
    although the violence of the discharge actually ate away the surface
    of the flagstones, it was powerless to remove the ruddy stains and
    stench of blood.

    Cadine and Marjolin were sure of meeting Claude between four and five
    in the afternoon at the wholesale auction of the bullocks' lights. He
    was always there amidst the tripe dealers' carts backed up against the
    kerb-stones and the blue-bloused, white-aproned men who jostled him
    and deafened his ears by their loud bids. But he never felt their
    elbows; he stood in a sort of ecstatic trance before the huge hanging
    lights, and often told Cadine and Marjolin that there was no finer
    sight to be seen. The lights were of a soft rosy hue, gradually
    deepening and turning at the lower edges to a rich carmine; and Claude
    compared them to watered satin, finding no other term to describe the
    soft silkiness of those flowing lengths of flesh which drooped in
    broad folds like ballet dancers' skirts. He thought, too, of gauze and
    lace allowing a glimpse of pinky skin; and when a ray of sunshine fell
    upon the lights and girdled them with gold an expression of languorous
    rapture came into his eyes, and he felt happier than if he had been
    privileged to contemplate the Greek goddesses in their sovereign
    nudity, or the chatelaines of romance in their brocaded robes.

    The artist became a great friend of the two young scapegraces. He
    loved beautiful animals, and such undoubtedly they were. For a long
    time he dreamt of a colossal picture which should represent the loves
    of Cadine and Marjolin in the central markets, amidst the vegetables,
    the fish, and the meat. He would have depicted them seated on some
    couch of food, their arms circling each other's waists, and their lips
    exchanging an idyllic kiss. In this conception he saw a manifesto
    proclaiming the positivism of art--modern art, experimental and
    materialistic. And it seemed to him also that it would be a smart
    satire on the school which wishes every painting to embody an "idea,"
    a slap for the old traditions and all they represented. But during a
    couple of years he began study after study without succeeding in
    giving the particular "note" he desired. In this way he spoilt fifteen
    canvases. His failure filled him with rancour; however, he continued
    to associate with his two models from a sort of hopeless love for his
    abortive picture. When he met them prowling about in the afternoon, he
    often scoured the neighbourhood with them, strolling around with his
    hands in his pockets, and deeply interested in the life of the
    streets.

    They all three trudged along together, dragging their heels over the
    footways and monopolising their whole breadth so as to force others to
    step down into the road. With their noses in the air they sniffed in
    the odours of Paris, and could have recognised every corner blindfold
    by the spirituous emanations of the wine shops, the hot puffs that
    came from the bakehouses and confectioners', and the musty odours
    wafted from the fruiterers'. They would make the circuit of the whole
    district. They delighted in passing through the rotunda of the corn
    market, that huge massive stone cage where sacks of flour were piled
    up on every side, and where their footsteps echoed in the silence of
    the resonant roof. They were fond, too, of the little narrow streets
    in the neighbourhood, which had become as deserted, as black, and as
    mournful as though they formed part of an abandoned city. These were
    the Rue Babille, the Rue Sauval, the Rue des Deux Ecus, and the Rue de
    Viarmes, this last pallid from its proximity to the millers' stores,
    and at four o'clock lively by reason of the corn exchange held there.
    It was generally at this point that they started on their round. They
    made their way slowly along the Rue Vauvilliers, glancing as they went
    at the windows of the low eating-houses, and thus reaching the
    miserably narrow Rue des Prouvaires, where Claude blinked his eyes as
    he saw one of the covered ways of the market, at the far end of which,
    framed round by this huge iron nave, appeared a side entrance of St.
    Eustache with its rose and its tiers of arched windows. And then, with
    an air of defiance, he would remark that all the middle ages and the
    Renaissance put together were less mighty than the central markets.
    Afterwards, as they paced the broad new streets, the Rue du Pont Neuf
    and the Rue des Halles, he explained modern life with its wide
    footways, its lofty houses, and its luxurious shops, to the two
    urchins. He predicted, too, the advent of new and truly original art,
    whose approach he could divine, and despair filled him that its
    revelation should seemingly be beyond his own powers.
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