CHAPTER V

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At about four o'clock on the afternoon of the following day Lisa
betook herself to Saint Eustache. For the short walk across the square
she had arrayed herself very seriously in a black silk gown and thick
woollen shawl. The handsome Norman, who, from her stall in the fish
market, watched her till she vanished into the church porch, was quite
amazed.

"Hallo! So the fat thing's gone in for priests now, has she?" she
exclaimed, with a sneer. "Well, a little holy water may do her good!"

She was mistaken in her surmises, however, for Lisa was not a devotee.
She did not observe the ordinances of the Church, but said that she
did her best to lead an honest life, and that this was all that was
necessary. At the same time, however, she disliked to hear religion
spoken ill of, and often silenced Gavard, who delighted in scandalous
stories of priests and their doings. Talk of that sort seemed to her
altogether improper. Everyone, in her opinion, should be allowed to
believe as they pleased, and every scruple should be respected.
Besides, the majority of the clergy were most estimable men. She knew
Abbe Roustan, of Saint Eustache--a distinguished priest, a man of
shrewd sense, and one, she thought, whose friendship might be safely
relied upon. And she would wind up by explaining that religion was
absolutely necessary for the people; she looked upon it as a sort of
police force that helped to maintain order, and without which no
government would be possible. When Gavard went too far on this subject
and asserted that the priests ought to be turned into the streets and
have their shops shut up, Lisa, shrugged her shoulders and replied: "A
great deal of good that would do! Why, before a month was over the
people would be murdering one another in the streets, and you would be
compelled to invent another God. That was just what happened in '93.
You know very well that I'm not given to mixing with the priests, but
for all that I say that they are necessary, as we couldn't do without
them."

And so when Lisa happened to enter a church she always manifested the
utmost decorum. She had bought a handsome missal, which she never
opened, for use when she was invited to a funeral or a wedding. She
knelt and rose at the proper times, and made a point of conducting
herself with all propriety. She assumed, indeed, what she considered a
sort of official demeanour, such as all well-to-do folks,
tradespeople, and house-owners ought to observe with regard to
religion.

As she entered Saint Eustache that afternoon she let the double doors,
covered with green baize, faded and worn by the frequent touch of
pious hands, close gently behind her. Then she dipped her fingers in
the holy water and crossed herself in the correct fashion. And
afterwards, with hushed footsteps, she made her way to the chapel of
Saint Agnes, where two kneeling women with their faces buried in their
hands were waiting, whilst the blue skirts of a third protruded from
the confessional. Lisa seemed rather put out by the sight of these
women, and, addressing a verger who happened to pass along, wearing a
black skullcap and dragging his feet over the slabs, she inquired:
"Is this Monsieur l'Abbe Roustan's day for hearing confessions?"

The verger replied that his reverence had only two more penitents
waiting, and that they would not detain him long, so that if Lisa
would take a chair her turn would speedily come. She thanked him,
without telling him that she had not come to confess; and, making up
her mind to wait, she began to pace the church, going as far as the
chief entrance, whence she gazed at the lofty, severe, bare nave
stretching between the brightly coloured aisles. Raising her head a
little, she examined the high altar, which she considered too plain,
having no taste for the cold grandeur of stonework, but preferring the
gilding and gaudy colouring of the side chapels. Those on the side of
the Rue du Jour looked greyish in the light which filtered through
their dusty windows, but on the side of the markets the sunset was
lighting up the stained glass with lovely tints, limpid greens and
yellows in particular, which reminded Lisa of the bottle of liqueurs
in front of Monsieur Lebigre's mirror. She came back by this side,
which seemed to be warmed by the glow of light, and took a passing
interest in the reliquaries, altar ornaments, and paintings steeped in
prismatic reflections. The church was empty, quivering with the
silence that fell from its vaulted roofing. Here and there a woman's
dress showed like a dark splotch amidst the vague yellow of the
chairs; and a low buzzing came from the closed confessionals. As Lisa
again passed the chapel of Saint Agnes she saw the blue dress still
kneeling at Abbe Roustan's feet.

"Why, if I'd wanted to confess I could have said everything in ten
seconds," she thought, proud of her irreproachable integrity.

Then she went on to the end of the church. Behind the high altar, in
the gloom of a double row of pillars, is the chapel of the Blessed
Virgin, damp and dark and silent. The dim stained windows only show
the flowing crimson and violet robes of saints, which blaze like
flames of mystic love in the solemn, silent adoration of the darkness.
It is a weird, mysterious spot, like some crepuscular nook of paradise
solely illumined by the gleaming stars of two tapers. The four brass
lamps hanging from the roof remain unlighted, and are but faintly
seen; on espying them you think of the golden censers which the angels
swing before the throne of Mary. And kneeling on the chairs between
the pillars there are always women surrendering themselves
languorously to the dim spot's voluptuous charm.

Lisa stood and gazed tranquilly around her. She did not feel the least
emotion, but considered that it was a mistake not to light the lamps.
Their brightness would have given the place a more cheerful look. The
gloom even struck her as savouring of impropriety. Her face was warmed
by the flames of some candles burning in a candelabrum by her side,
and an old woman armed with a big knife was scraping off the wax which
had trickled down and congealed into pale tears. And amidst the
quivering silence, the mute ecstasy of adoration prevailing in the
chapel, Lisa would distinctly hear the rumbling of the vehicles
turning out of the Rue Montmartre, behind the scarlet and purple
saints on the windows, whilst in the distance the markets roared
without a moment's pause.

Just as Lisa was leaving the chapel, she saw the younger of the
Mehudins, Claire, the dealer in fresh water fish, come in. The girl
lighted a taper at the candelabrum, and then went to kneel behind a
pillar, her knees pressed upon the hard stones, and her face so pale
beneath her loose fair hair that she seemed a corpse. And believing
herself to be securely screened from observation, she gave way to
violent emotion, and wept hot tears with a passionate outpouring of
prayer which bent her like a rushing wind. Lisa looked on in
amazement, for the Mehudins were not known to be particularly pious;
indeed, Claire was accustomed to speak of religion and priests in such
terms as to horrify one.

"What's the meaning of this, I wonder?" pondered Lisa, as she again
made her way to the chapel of Saint Agnes. "The hussy must have been
poisoning some one or other."

Abbe Roustan was at last coming out of his confessional. He was a
handsome man, of some forty years of age, with a smiling, kindly air.
When he recognised Madame Quenu he grasped her hand, called her "dear
lady," and conducted her to the vestry, where, taking off his
surplice, he told her that he would be entirely at her service in a
moment. They returned, the priest in his cassock, bareheaded, and Lisa
strutting along in her shawl, and paced up and down in front of the
side-chapels adjacent to the Rue du Jour. They conversed together in
low tones. The sunlight was departing from the stained windows, the
church was growing dark, and the retreating footsteps of the last
worshippers sounded but faintly over the flagstones.

Lisa explained her doubts and scruples to Abbe Roustan. There had
never been any question of religion between them; she never confessed,
but merely consulted him in cases of difficulty, because he was shrewd
and discreet, and she preferred him, as she sometimes said, to shady
business men redolent of the galleys. The abbe, on his side,
manifested inexhaustible complaisance. He looked up points of law for
her in the Code, pointed out profitable investments, resolved her
moral difficulties with great tact, recommended tradespeople to her,
invariably having an answer ready however diverse and complicated her
requirements might be. And he supplied all this help in a natural
matter-of-fact way, without ever introducing the Deity into his talk,
or seeking to obtain any advantage either for himself or the cause of
religion. A word of thanks and a smile sufficed him. He seemed glad to
have an opportunity of obliging the handsome Madame Quenu, of whom his
housekeeper often spoke to him in terms of praise, as of a woman who
was highly respected in the neighbourhood.

Their consultation that afternoon was of a peculiarly delicate nature.
Lisa was anxious to know what steps she might legitimately take, as a
woman of honour, with respect to her brother-in-law. Had she a right
to keep a watch upon him, and to do what she could to prevent him from
compromising her husband, her daughter, and herself? And then how far
might she go in circumstances of pressing danger? She did not bluntly
put these questions to the abbe, but asked them with such skilful
circumlocutions that he was able to discuss the matter without
entering into personalities. He brought forward arguments on both
sides of the question, but the conclusion he came to was that a person
of integrity was entitled, indeed bound, to prevent evil, and was
justified in using whatever means might be necessary to ensure the
triumph of that which was right and proper.

"That is my opinion, dear lady," he said in conclusion. "The question
of means is always a very grave one. It is a snare in which souls of
average virtue often become entangled. But I know your scrupulous
conscience. Deliberate carefully over each step you think of taking,
and if it contains nothing repugnant to you, go on boldly. Pure
natures have the marvelous gift of purifying all that they touch."

Then, changing his tone of voice, he continued: "Pray give my kind
regards to Monsieur Quenu. I'll come in to kiss my dear little Pauline
some time when I'm passing. And now good-bye, dear lady; remember that
I'm always at your service."

Thereupon he returned to the vestry. Lisa, on her way out, was curious
to see if Claire was still praying, but the girl had gone back to her
eels and carp; and in front of the Lady-chapel, which was already
shrouded in darkness, there was now but a litter of chairs overturned
by the ardent vehemence of the woman who had knelt there.

When the handsome Lisa again crossed the square, La Normande, who had
been watching for her exit from the church, recognised her in the
twilight by the rotundity of her skirts.

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "she's been more than an hour in
there! When the priests set about cleansing her of her sins, the
choir-boys have to form in line to pass the buckets of filth and empty
them in the street!"

The next morning Lisa went straight up to Florent's bedroom and
settled herself there with perfect equanimity. She felt certain that
she would not be disturbed, and, moreover, she had made up her mind to
tell a falsehood and say that she had come to see if the linen was
clean, should Florent by any chance return. Whilst in the shop,
however, she had observed him busily engaged in the fish market.
Seating herself in front of the little table, she pulled out the
drawer, placed it upon her knees, and began to examine its contents,
taking the greatest care to restore them to their original positions.

First of all she came upon the opening chapters of the work on
Cayenne; then upon the drafts of Florent's various plans and projects,
his schemes for converting the Octroi duties into taxes upon sales,
for reforming the administrative system of the markets, and all the
others. These pages of small writing, which she set herself to read,
bored her extremely, and she was about to restore the drawer to its
place, feeling convinced that Florent concealed the proofs of his
wicked designs elsewhere, and already contemplating a searching
visitation of his mattress, when she discovered a photograph of La
Normande in an envelope. The impression was rather dark. La Normande
was standing up with her right arm resting on a broken column. Decked
out with all her jewels, and attired in a new silk dress, the fish-
girl was smiling impudently, and Lisa, at the sight, forgot all about
her brother-in-law, her fears, and the purpose for which she had come
into the room. She became quite absorbed in her examination of the
portrait, as often happens when one woman scrutinises the photograph
of another at her ease, without fear of being seen. Never before had
she so favourable an opportunity to study her rival. She scrutinised
her hair, her nose, her mouth; held the photograph at a distance, and
then brought it closer again. And, finally, with compressed lips, she
read on the back of it, in a big, ugly scrawl: "Louise, to her friend,
Florent." This quite scandalised her; to her mind it was a confession,
and she felt a strong impulse to take possession of the photograph,
and keep it as a weapon against her enemy. However, she slowly
replaced it in the envelope on coming to the conclusion that this
course would be wrong, and reflecting that she would always know where
to find it should she want it again.

Then, as she again began turning over the loose sheets of paper, it
occurred to her to look at the back end of the drawer, where Florent
had relegated Augustine's needles and thread; and there, between the
missal and the Dream-book, she discovered what she sought, some
extremely compromising memoranda, simply screened from observation by
a wrapper of grey paper.

That idea of an insurrection, of the overthrow of the Empire by means
of an armed rising, which Logre had one evening propounded at Monsieur
Lebigre's, had slowly ripened in Florent's feverish brain. He soon
grew to see a duty, a mission in it. Therein undoubtedly lay the task
to which his escape from Cayenne and his return to Paris predestined
him. Believing in a call to avenge his leanness upon the city which
wallowed in food while the upholders of right and equity were racked
by hunger in exile, he took upon himself the duties of a justiciary,
and dreamt of rising up, even in the midst of those markets, to sweep
away the reign of gluttony and drunkenness. In a sensitive nature like
his, this idea quickly took root. Everything about him assumed
exaggerated proportions, the wildest fancies possessed him. He
imagined that the markets had been conscious of his arrival, and had
seized hold of him that they might enervate him and poison him with
their stenches. Then, too, Lisa wanted to cast a spell over him, and
for two or three days at a time he would avoid her, as though she were
some dissolving agency which would destroy all his power of will
should he approach too closely. However, these paroxysms of puerile
fear, these wild surgings of his rebellious brain, always ended in
thrills of the gentlest tenderness, with yearnings to love and be
loved, which he concealed with a boyish shame.

It was more especially in the evening that his mind became blurred by
all his wild imaginings. Depressed by his day's work, but shunning
sleep from a covert fear--the fear of the annihilation it brought with
it--he would remain later than ever at Monsieur Lebigre's, or at the
Mehudins'; and on his return home he still refrained from going to
bed, and sat up writing and preparing for the great insurrection. By
slow degrees he devised a complete system of organisation. He divided
Paris into twenty sections, one for each arrondissement. Each section
would have a chief, a sort of general, under whose orders there were
to be twenty lieutenants commanding twenty companies of affiliated
associates. Every week, among the chiefs, there would be a
consultation, which was to be held in a different place each time;
and, the better to ensure secrecy and discretion, the associates would
only come in contact with their respective lieutenants, these alone
communicating with the chiefs of the sections. It also occurred to
Florent that it would be as well that the companies should believe
themselves charged with imaginary missions, as a means of putting the
police upon a wrong scent.

As for the employment of the insurrectionary forces, that would be all
simplicity. It would, of course, be necessary to wait till the
companies were quite complete, and then advantage would be taken of
the first public commotion. They would doubtless only have a certain
number of guns used for sporting purposes in their possession, so they
would commence by seizing the police stations and guard-houses,
disarming the soldiers of the line; resorting to violence as little as
possible, and inviting the men to make common cause with the people.
Afterwards they would march upon the Corps Legislatif, and thence to
the Hotel de Ville. This plan, to which Florent returned night after
night, as though it were some dramatic scenario which relieved his
over-excited nervous system, was as yet simply jotted down on scraps
of paper, full of erasures, which showed how the writer had felt his
way, and revealed each successive phase of his scientific yet puerile
conception. When Lisa had glanced through the notes, without
understanding some of them, she remained there trembling with fear;
afraid to touch them further lest they should explode in her hands
like live shells.

A last memorandum frightened her more than any of the others. It was a
half sheet of paper on which Florent had sketched the distinguishing
insignia which the chiefs and the lieutenants were to wear. By the
side of these were rough drawings of the standards which the different
companies were to carry; and notes in pencil even described what
colours the banners should assume. The chiefs were to wear red
scarves, and the lieutenants red armlets.

To Lisa this seemed like an immediate realisation of the rising; she
saw all the men with their red badges marching past the pork shop,
firing bullets into her mirrors and marble, and carrying off sausages
and chitterlings from the window. The infamous projects of her
brother-in-law were surely directed against herself--against her own
happiness. She closed the drawer and looked round the room, reflecting
that it was she herself who had provided this man with a home--that he
slept between her sheets and used her furniture. And she was
especially exasperated at his keeping his abominable infernal machine
in that little deal table which she herself had used at Uncle
Gradelle's before her marriage--a perfectly innocent, rickety little
table.

For a while she stood thinking what she should do. In the first place,
it was useless to say anything to Quenu. For a moment it occurred to
her to provoke an explanation with Florent, but she dismissed that
idea, fearing lest he would only go and perpetrate his crime
elsewhere, and maliciously make a point of compromising them. Then
gradually growing somewhat calmer, she came to the conclusion that her
best plan would be to keep a careful watch over her brother-in-law. It
would be time enough to take further steps at the first sign of
danger. She already had quite sufficient evidence to send him back to
the galleys.

On returning to the shop again, she found Augustine in a state of
great excitement. Little Pauline had disappeared more than half an
hour before, and to Lisa's anxious questions the young woman could
only reply: "I don't know where she can have got to, madame. She was
on the pavement there with a little boy. I was watching them, and then
I had to cut some ham for a gentleman, and I never saw them again."

"I'll wager it was Muche!" cried Lisa. "Ah, the young scoundrel!"

It was, indeed, Muche who had enticed Pauline away. The little girl,
who was wearing a new blue-striped frock that day for the first time,
had been anxious to exhibit it, and had accordingly taken her stand
outside the shop, manifesting great propriety of bearing, and
compressing her lips with the grave expression of a little woman of
six who is afraid of soiling her clothes. Her short and stiffly-
starched petticoats stood out like the skirts of a ballet girl,
allowing a full view of her tightly stretched white stockings and
little sky-blue boots. Her pinafore, which hung low about her neck,
was finished off at the shoulders with an edging of embroidery, below
which appeared her pretty little arms, bare and rosy. She had small
turquoise rings in her ears, a cross at her neck, a blue velvet ribbon
in her well-brushed hair; and she displayed all her mother's plumpness
and softness--the gracefulness, indeed, of a new doll.

Muche had caught sight of her from the market, where he was amusing
himself by dropping little dead fishes into the gutter, following them
along the kerb as the water carried them away, and declaring that they
were swimming. However, the sight of Pauline standing in front of the
shop and looking so smart and pretty made him cross over to her,
capless as he was, with his blouse ragged, his trousers slipping down,
and his whole appearance suggestive of a seven-year-old street-arab.
His mother had certainly forbidden him to play any more with "that fat
booby of a girl who was stuffed by her parents till she almost burst";
so he stood hesitating for a moment, but at last came up to Pauline,
and wanted to feel her pretty striped frock. The little girl, who had
at first felt flattered, then put on a prim air and stepped back,
exclaiming in a tone of displeasure: "Leave me alone. Mother says I'm
not to have anything to do with you."

This brought a laugh to the lips of Muche, who was a wily,
enterprising young scamp.

"What a little flat you are!" he retorted. "What does it matter what
your mother says? Let's go and play at shoving each other, eh?"

He doubtless nourished some wicked idea of dirtying the neat little
girl; but she, on seeing him prepare to give her a push in the back,
retreated as though about to return inside the shop. Muche thereupon
adopted a flattering tone like a born cajoler.

"You silly! I didn't mean it," said he. "How nice you look like that!
Is that little cross your mother's?"

Pauline perked herself up, and replied that it was her own, whereupon
Muche gently led her to the corner of the Rue Pirouette, touching her
skirts the while and expressing his astonishment at their wonderful
stiffness. All this pleased the little girl immensely. She had been
very much vexed at not receiving any notice while she was exhibiting
herself outside the shop. However, in spite of all Muche's
blandishments, she still refused to leave the footway.

"You stupid fatty!" thereupon exclaimed the youngster, relapsing into
coarseness. "I'll squat you down in the gutter if you don't look out,
Miss Fine-airs!"

The girl was dreadfully alarmed. Muche had caught hold of her by the
hand; but, recognising his mistake in policy, he again put on a
wheedling air, and began to fumble in his pocket.

"I've got a sou," said he.

The sight of the coin had a soothing effect upon Pauline. The boy held
up the sou with the tips of his fingers, and the temptation to follow
it proved so great that the girl at last stepped down into the
roadway. Muche's diplomacy was eminently successful.

"What do you like best?" he asked.

Pauline gave no immediate answer. She could not make up her mind;
there were so many things that she liked. Muche, however, ran over a
whole list of dainties--liquorice, molasses, gum-balls, and powdered
sugar. The powdered sugar made the girl ponder. One dipped one's
fingers into it and sucked them; it was very nice. For a while she
gravely considered the matter. Then, at last making up her mind, she
said:

"No, I like the mixed screws the best."

Muche thereupon took hold of her arm, and she unresistingly allowed
him to lead her away. They crossed the Rue Rambuteau, followed the
broad footway skirting the markets, and went as far as a grocer's shop
in the Rue de la Cossonnerie which was celebrated for its mixed
screws. These mixed screws are small screws of paper in which grocers
put up all sorts of damaged odds and ends, broken sugar-plums,
fragments of crystallised chestnuts--all the doubtful residuum of
their jars of sweets. Muche showed himself very gallant, allowed
Pauline to choose the screw--a blue one--paid his sou, and did not
attempt to dispossess her of the sweets. Outside, on the footway, she
emptied the miscellaneous collection of scraps into both pockets of
her pinafore; and they were such little pockets that they were quite
filled. Then in delight she began to munch the fragments one by one,
wetting her fingers to catch the fine sugary dust, with such effect
that she melted the scraps of sweets, and the pockets of her pinafore
soon showed two brownish stains. Muche laughed slily to himself. He
had his arm about the girl's waist, and rumpled her frock at his ease
whilst leading her round the corner of the Rue Pierre Lescot, in the
direction of the Place des Innocents.

"You'll come and play now, won't you?" he asked. "That's nice what
you've got in your pockets, ain't it? You see that I didn't want to do
you any harm, you big silly!"

Thereupon he plunged his own fingers into her pockets, and they
entered the square together. To this spot, no doubt, he had all along
intended to lure his victim. He did the honours of the square as
though it were his own private property, and indeed it was a favourite
haunt of his, where he often larked about for whole afternoons.
Pauline had never before strayed so far from home, and would have wept
like an abducted damsel had it not been that her pockets were full of
sweets. The fountain in the middle of the flowered lawn was sending
sheets of water down its tiers of basins, whilst, between the
pilasters above, Jean Goujon's nymphs, looking very white beside the
dingy grey stonework, inclined their urns and displayed their nude
graces in the grimy air of the Saint Denis quarter. The two children
walked round the fountain, watching the water fall into the basins,
and taking an interest in the grass, with thoughts, no doubt, of
crossing the central lawn, or gliding into the clumps of holly and
rhododendrons that bordered the railings of the square. Little Muche,
however, who had now effectually rumpled the back of the pretty frock,
said with his sly smile:

"Let's play at throwing sand at each other, eh?"

Pauline had no will of her own left; and they began to throw the sand
at each other, keeping their eyes closed meanwhile. The sand made its
way in at the neck of the girl's low bodice, and trickled down into
her stockings and boots. Muche was delighted to see the white pinafore
become quite yellow. But he doubtless considered that it was still far
too clean.

"Let's go and plant trees, shall we?" he exclaimed suddenly. "I know
how to make such pretty gardens."

"Really, gardens!" murmured Pauline full of admiration.

Then, as the keeper of the square happened to be absent, Muche told
her to make some holes in one of the borders; and dropping on her
knees in the middle of the soft mould, and leaning forward till she
lay at full length on her stomach, she dug her pretty little arms into
the ground. He, meantime, began to hunt for scraps of wood, and broke
off branches. These were the garden-trees which he planted in the
holes that Pauline made. He invariably complained, however, that the
holes were not deep enough, and rated the girl as though she were an
idle workman and he an indignant master. When she at last got up, she
was black from head to foot. Her hair was full of mould, her face was
smeared with it, she looked such a sight with her arms as black as a
coalheaver's that Muche clapped his hands with glee, and exclaimed:
"Now we must water the trees. They won't grow, you know, if we don't
water them."

That was the finishing stroke. They went outside the square, scooped
the gutter-water up in the palms of their hands, and then ran back to
pour it over the bits of wood. On the way, Pauline, who was so fat
that she couldn't run properly, let the water trickle between her
fingers on to her frock, so that by the time of her sixth journey she
looked as if she had been rolled in the gutter. Muche chuckled with
delight on beholding her dreadful condition. He made her sit down
beside him under a rhododendron near the garden they had made, and
told her that the trees were already beginning to grow. He had taken
hold of her hand and called her his little wife.

"You're not sorry now that you came, are you," he asked, "instead of
mooning about on the pavement, where there was nothing to do? I know
all sorts of fun we can have in the streets; you must come with me
again. You will, won't you? But you mustn't say anything to your
mother, mind. If you say a word to her, I'll pull your hair the next
time I come past your shop."

Pauline consented to everything; and then, as a last attention, Muche
filled both pockets of her pinafore with mould. However, all the
sweets were finished, and the girl began to get uneasy, and ceased
playing. Muche thereupon started pinching her, and she burst into
tears, sobbing that she wanted to go away. But at this the lad only
grinned, and played the bully, threatening that he would not take her
home at all. Then she grew terribly alarmed, and sobbed and gasped
like a maiden in the power of a libertine. Muche would certainly have
ended by punching her in order to stop her row, had not a shrill
voice, the voice of Mademoiselle Saget, exclaimed, close by: "Why, I
declare it's Pauline! Leave her alone, you wicked young scoundrel!"

Then the old maid took the girl by the hand, with endless expressions
of amazement at the pitiful condition of her clothes. Muche showed no
alarm, but followed them, chuckling to himself, and declaring that it
was Pauline who had wanted to come with him, and had tumbled down.

Mademoiselle Saget was a regular frequenter of the Square des
Innocents. Every afternoon she would spend a good hour there to keep
herself well posted in the gossip of the common people. On either side
there is a long crescent of benches placed end to end; and on these
the poor folks who stifle in the hovels of the neighbouring narrow
streets assemble in crowds. There are withered, chilly-looking old
women in tumbled caps, and young ones in loose jackets and carelessly
fastened skirts, with bare heads and tired, faded faces, eloquent of
the wretchedness of their lives. There are some men also: tidy old
buffers, porters in greasy jackets, and equivocal-looking individuals
in black silk hats, while the foot-path is overrun by a swarm of
youngsters dragging toy carts without wheels about, filling pails with
sand, and screaming and fighting; a dreadful crew, with ragged clothes
and dirty noses, teeming in the sunshine like vermin.

Mademoiselle Saget was so slight and thin that she always managed to
insinuate herself into a place on one of the benches. She listened to
what was being said, and started a conversation with her neighbour,
some sallow-faced workingman's wife, who sat mending linen, from time
to time producing handkerchiefs and stockings riddled with holes from
a little basket patched up with string. Moreover, Mademoiselle Saget
had plenty of acquaintances here. Amidst the excruciating squalling of
the children, and the ceaseless rumble of the traffic in the Rue Saint
Denis, she took part in no end of gossip, everlasting tales about the
tradesmen of the neighbourhood, the grocers, the butchers, and the
bakers, enough, indeed, to fill the columns of a local paper, and the
whole envenomed by refusals of credit and covert envy, such as is
always harboured by the poor. From these wretched creatures she also
obtained the most disgusting revelations, the gossip of low lodging-
houses and doorkeepers' black-holes, all the filthy scandal of the
neighbourhood, which tickled her inquisitive appetite like hot spice.

As she sat with her face turned towards the markets, she had
immediately in front of her the square and its three blocks of houses,
into the windows of which her eyes tried to pry. She seemed to
gradually rise and traverse the successive floors right up to the
garret skylights. She stared at the curtains; based an entire drama on
the appearance of a head between two shutters; and, by simply gazing
at the facades, ended by knowing the history of all the dwellers in
these houses. The Baratte Restaurant, with its wine shop, its gilt
wrought-iron /marquise/, forming a sort of terrace whence peeped the
foliage of a few plants in flower-pots, and its four low storeys, all
painted and decorated, had an especial interest for her. She gazed at
its yellow columns standing out against a background of tender blue,
at the whole of its imitation temple-front daubed on the facade of a
decrepit, tumble-down house, crowned at the summit by a parapet of
painted zinc. Behind the red-striped window-blinds she espied visions
of nice little lunches, delicate suppers, and uproarious, unlimited
orgies. And she did not hesitate to invent lies about the place. It
was there, she declared, that Florent came to gorge with those two
hussies, the Mehudins, on whom he lavished his money.

However, Pauline cried yet louder than before when the old maid took
hold of her hand. Mademoiselle Saget at first led her towards the gate
of the square; but before she got there she seemed to change her mind;
for she sat down at the end of a bench and tried to pacify the child.

"Come, now, give over crying, or the policeman will lock you up," she
said to Pauline. "I'll take you home safely. You know me, don't you?
I'm a good friend. Come, come, let me see how prettily you can smile."

The child, however, was choking with sobs and wanted to go away.
Mademoiselle Saget thereupon quietly allowed her to continue weeping,
reserving further remarks till she should have finished. The poor
little creature was shivering all over; her petticoats and stockings
were wet through, and as she wiped her tears away with her dirty hands
she plastered the whole of her face with earth to the very tips of her
ears. When at last she became a little calmer the old maid resumed in
a caressing tone: "Your mamma isn't unkind, is she? She's very fond of
you, isn't she?"

"Oh, yes, indeed," replied Pauline, still sobbing.

"And your papa, he's good to you, too, isn't he? He doesn't flog you,
or quarrel with your mother, does he? What do they talk about when
they go to bed?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm asleep then."

"Do they talk about your cousin Florent?"

"I don't know."

Mademoiselle Saget thereupon assumed a severe expression, and got up
as if about to go away.

"I'm afraid you are a little story-teller," she said. "Don't you know
that it's very wicked to tell stories? I shall go away and leave you,
if you tell me lies, and then Muche will come back and pinch you."

Pauline began to cry again at the threat of being abandoned. "Be
quiet, be quiet, you wicked little imp!" cried the old maid shaking
her. "There, there, now, I won't go away. I'll buy you a stick of
barley-sugar; yes, a stick of barley-sugar! So you don't love your
cousin Florent, eh?"

"No, mamma says he isn't good."

"Ah, then, so you see your mother does say something."

"One night when I was in bed with Mouton--I sleep with Mouton
sometimes, you know--I heard her say to father, 'Your brother has only
escaped from the galleys to take us all back with him there.'"

Mademoiselle Saget gave vent to a faint cry, and sprang to her feet,
quivering all over. A ray of light had just broken upon her. Then
without a word she caught hold of Pauline's hand and made her run till
they reached the pork shop, her lips meanwhile compressed by an inward
smile, and her eyes glistening with keen delight. At the corner of the
Rue Pirouette, Muche, who had so far followed them, amused at seeing
the girl running along in her muddy stockings, prudently disappeared.

Lisa was now in a state of terrible alarm; and when she saw her
daughter so bedraggled and limp, her consternation was such that she
turned the child round and round, without even thinking of beating
her.

"She has been with little Muche," said the old maid, in her malicious
voice. "I took her away at once, and I've brought her home. I found
them together in the square. I don't know what they've been up to; but
that young vagabond is capable of anything."

Lisa could not find a word to say; and she did not know where to take
hold of her daughter, so great was her disgust at the sight of the
child's muddy boots, soiled stockings, torn skirts, and filthy face
and hands. The blue velvet ribbon, the earrings, and the necklet were
all concealed beneath a crust of mud. But what put the finishing touch
to Lisa's exasperation was the discovery of the two pockets filled
with mould. She stooped and emptied them, regardless of the pink and
white flooring of the shop. And as she dragged Pauline away, she could
only gasp: "Come along, you filthy thing!"

Quite enlivened by this scene, Mademoiselle Saget now hurriedly made
her way across the Rue Rambuteau. Her little feet scarcely touched the
ground; her joy seemed to carry her along like a breeze which fanned
her with a caressing touch. She had at last found out what she had so
much wanted to know! For nearly a year she had been consumed by
curiosity, and now at a single stroke she had gained complete power
over Florent! This was unhoped-for contentment, positive salvation,
for she felt that Florent would have brought her to the tomb had she
failed much longer in satisfying her curiosity about him. At present
she was complete mistress of the whole neighbourhood of the markets.
There was no longer any gap in her information. She could have
narrated the secret history of every street, shop by shop. And thus,
as she entered the fruit market, she fairly gasped with delight, in a
perfect transport of pleasure.

"Hallo, Mademoiselle Saget," cried La Sarriette from her stall, "what
are you smiling to yourself like that about? Have you won the grand
prize in the lottery?"

"No, no. Ah, my dear, if you only knew!"

Standing there amidst her fruit, La Sarriette, in her picturesque
disarray, looked charming. Frizzy hair fell over her brow like vine
branches. Her bare arms and neck, indeed all the rosy flesh she
showed, bloomed with the freshness of peach and cherry. She had
playfully hung some cherries on her ears, black cherries which dangled
against her cheeks when she stooped, shaking with merry laughter. She
was eating currants, and her merriment arose from the way in which she
was smearing her face with them. Her lips were bright red, glistening
with the juice of the fruit, as though they had been painted and
perfumed with some seraglio face-paint. A perfume of plum exhaled from
her gown, while from the kerchief carelessly fastened across her
breast came an odour of strawberries.

Fruits of all kinds were piled around her in her narrow stall. On the
shelves at the back were rows of melons, so-called "cantaloups"
swarming with wart-like knots, "maraichers" whose skin was covered
with grey lace-like netting, and "culs-de-singe" displaying smooth
bare bumps. In front was an array of choice fruits, carefully arranged
in baskets, and showing like smooth round cheeks seeking to hide
themselves, or glimpses of sweet childish faces, half veiled by
leaves. Especially was this the case with the peaches, the blushing
peaches of Montreuil, with skin as delicate and clear as that of
northern maidens, and the yellow, sun-burnt peaches from the south,
brown like the damsels of Provence. The apricots, on their beds of
moss, gleamed with the hue of amber or with that sunset glow which so
warmly colours the necks of brunettes at the nape, just under the
little wavy curls which fall below the chignon. The cherries, ranged
one by one, resembled the short lips of smiling Chinese girls; the
Montmorencies suggested the dumpy mouths of buxom women; the English
ones were longer and graver-looking; the common black ones seemed as
though they had been bruised and crushed by kisses; while the white-
hearts, with their patches of rose and white, appeared to smile with
mingled merriment and vexation. Then piles of apples and pears, built
up with architectural symmetry, often in pyramids, displayed the ruddy
glow of budding breasts and the gleaming sheen of shoulders, quite a
show of nudity, lurking modestly behind a screen of fern-leaves. There
were all sorts of varieties--little red ones so tiny that they seemed
to be yet in the cradle, shapeless "rambours" for baking, "calvilles"
in light yellow gowns, sanguineous-looking "Canadas," blotched
"chataignier" apples, fair freckled rennets and dusky russets. Then
came the pears--the "blanquettes," the "British queens," the
"Beurres," the "messirejeans," and the "duchesses"--some dumpy, some
long and tapering, some with slender necks, and others with thick-set
shoulders, their green and yellow bellies picked out at times with a
splotch of carmine. By the side of these the transparent plums
resembled tender, chlorotic virgins; the greengages and the Orleans
plums paled as with modest innocence, while the mirabelles lay like
golden beads of a rosary forgotten in a box amongst sticks of vanilla.
And the strawberries exhaled a sweet perfume--a perfume of youth--
especially those little ones which are gathered in the woods, and
which are far more aromatic than the large ones grown in gardens, for
these breathe an insipid odour suggestive of the watering-pot.
Raspberries added their fragrance to the pure scent. The currants--
red, white, and black--smiled with a knowing air; whilst the heavy
clusters of grapes, laden with intoxication, lay languorously at the
edges of their wicker baskets, over the sides of which dangled some of
the berries, scorched by the hot caresses of the voluptuous sun.

It was there that La Sarriette lived in an orchard, as it were, in an
atmosphere of sweet, intoxicating scents. The cheaper fruits--the
cherries, plums, and strawberries--were piled up in front of her in
paper-lined baskets, and the juice coming from their bruised ripeness
stained the stall-front, and steamed, with a strong perfume, in the
heat. She would feel quite giddy on those blazing July afternoons when
the melons enveloped her with a powerful, vaporous odour of musk; and
then with her loosened kerchief, fresh as she was with the springtide
of life, she brought sudden temptation to all who saw her. It was
she--it was her arms and necks which gave that semblance of amorous
vitality to her fruit. On the stall next to her an old woman, a
hideous old drunkard, displayed nothing but wrinkled apples, pears as
flabby as herself, and cadaverous apricots of a witch-like sallowness.
La Sarriette's stall, however, spoke of love and passion. The cherries
looked like the red kisses of her bright lips; the silky peaches were
not more delicate than her neck; to the plums she seemed to have lent
the skin from her brow and chin; while some of her own crimson blood
coursed through the veins of the currants. All the scents of the
avenue of flowers behind her stall were but insipid beside the aroma
of vitality which exhaled from her open baskets and falling kerchief.

That day she was quite intoxicated by the scent of a large arrival of
mirabelle plums, which filled the market. She could plainly see that
Mademoiselle Saget had learnt some great piece of news, and she wished
to make her talk. But the old maid stamped impatiently whilst she
repeated: "No, no; I've no time. I'm in a great hurry to see Madame
Lecoeur. I've just learnt something and no mistake. You can come with
me, if you like."

As a matter of fact, she had simply gone through the fruit market for
the purpose of enticing La Sarriette to go with her. The girl could
not refuse temptation. Monsieur Jules, clean-shaven and as fresh as a
cherub, was seated there, swaying to and fro on his chair.

"Just look after the stall for a minute, will you?" La Sarriette said
to him. "I'll be back directly."

Jules, however, got up and called after her, in a thick voice: "Not I;
no fear! I'm off! I'm not going to wait an hour for you, as I did the
other day. And, besides, those cursed plums of yours quite make my
head ache."

Then he calmly strolled off, with his hands in his pockets, and the
stall was left to look after itself. Mademoiselle Saget went so fast
that La Sarriette had to run. In the butter pavilion a neighbour of
Madame Lecoeur's told them that she was below in the cellar; and so,
whilst La Sarriette went down to find her, the old maid installed
herself amidst the cheeses.

The cellar under the butter market is a very gloomy spot. The rows of
storerooms are protected by a very fine wire meshing, as a safeguard
against fire; and the gas jets, which are very few and far between,
glimmer like yellow splotches destitute of radiance in the heavy,
malordorous atmosphere beneath the low vault. Madame Lecoeur, however,
was at work on her butter at one of the tables placed parallel with
the Rue Berger, and here a pale light filtered through the vent-holes.
The tables, which are continually sluiced with a flood of water from
the taps, are as white as though they were quite new. With her back
turned to the pump in the rear, Madame Lecoeur was kneading her butter
in a kind of oak box. She took some of different sorts which lay
beside her, and mixed the varieties together, correcting one by
another, just as is done in the blending of wines. Bent almost double,
and showing sharp, bony shoulders, and arms bared to the elbows, as
scraggy and knotted as pea-rods, she dug her fists into the greasy
paste in front of her, which was assuming a whitish and chalky
appearance. It was trying work, and she heaved a sigh at each fresh
effort.

"Mademoiselle Saget wants to speak to you, aunt," said La Sarriette.

Madame Lecoeur stopped her work, and pulled her cap over her hair with
her greasy fingers, seemingly quite careless of staining it. "I've
nearly finished. Ask her to wait a moment," she said.

"She's got something very particular to tell you," continued La
Sarriette.

"I won't be more than a minute, my dear."

Then she again plunged her arms into the butter, which buried them up
to the elbows. Previously softened in warm water, it covered Madame
Lecoeur's parchment-like skin as with an oily film, and threw the big
purple veins that streaked her flesh into strong relief. La Sarriette
was quite disgusted by the sight of those hideous arms working so
frantically amidst the melting mass. However, she could recall the
time when her own pretty little hands had manipulated the butter for
whole afternoons at a time. It had even been a sort of almond-paste to
her, a cosmetic which had kept her skin white and her nails delicately
pink; and even now her slender fingers retained the suppleness it had
endowed them with.

"I don't think that butter of yours will be very good, aunt," she
continued, after a pause. "Some of the sorts seem much too strong."

"I'm quite aware of that," replied Madame Lecoeur, between a couple of
groans. "But what can I do? I must use everything up. There are some
folks who insist upon having butter cheap, and so cheap butter must be
made for them. Oh! it's always quite good enough for those who buy
it."

La Sarriette reflected that she would hardly care to eat butter which
had been worked by her aunt's arms. Then she glanced at a little jar
full of a sort of reddish dye. "Your colouring is too pale," she said.

This colouring-matter--"raucourt," as the Parisians call it is used to
give the butter a fine yellow tint. The butter women imagine that its
composition is known only to themselves, and keep it very secret.
However, it is merely made from anotta;[*] though a composition of
carrots and marigold is at times substituted for it.

[*] Anotta, which is obtained from the pulp surrounding the seeds of
the /Bixa Orellana/, is used for a good many purposes besides the
colouring of butter and cheese. It frequently enters into the
composition of chocolate, and is employed to dye nankeen. Police
court proceedings have also shown that it is well known to the
London milkmen, who are in the habit of adding water to their
merchandise.--Translator.

"Come, do be quick!" La Sarriette now exclaimed, for she was getting
impatient, and was, moreover, no longer accustomed to the malodorous
atmosphere of the cellar. "Mademoiselle Saget will be going. I fancy
she's got something very important to tell you abut my uncle Gavard."

On hearing this, Madame Lecoeur abruptly ceased working. She at once
abandoned both butter and dye, and did not even wait to wipe her arms.
With a slight tap of her hand she settled her cap on her head again,
and made her way up the steps, at her niece's heels, anxiously
repeating: "Do you really think that she'll have gone away?"

She was reassured, however, on catching sight of Mademoiselle Saget
amidst the cheeses. The old maid had taken good care not to go away
before Madame Lecoeur's arrival. The three women seated themselves at
the far end of the stall, crowding closely together, and their faces
almost touching one another. Mademoiselle Saget remained silent for
two long minutes, and then, seeing that the others were burning with
curiosity, she began, in her shrill voice: "You know that Florent!
Well, I can tell you now where he comes from."

For another moment she kept them in suspense; and then, in a deep,
melodramatic voice, she said: "He comes from the galleys!"

The cheeses were reeking around the three women. On the two shelves at
the far end of the stall were huge masses of butter: Brittany butters
overflowing from baskets; Normandy butters, wrapped in canvas, and
resembling models of stomachs over which some sculptor had thrown damp
cloths to keep them from drying; while other great blocks had been cut
into, fashioned into perpendicular rocky masses full of crevasses and
valleys, and resembling fallen mountain crests gilded by the pale sun
of an autumn evening.

Beneath the stall show-table, formed of a slab of red marble veined
with grey, baskets of eggs gleamed with a chalky whiteness; while on
layers of straw in boxes were Bondons, placed end to end, and
Gournays, arranged like medals, forming darker patches tinted with
green. But it was upon the table that the cheeses appeared in greatest
profusion. Here, by the side of the pound-rolls of butter lying on
white-beet leaves, spread a gigantic Cantal cheese, cloven here and
there as by an axe; then came a golden-hued Cheshire, and next a
Gruyere, resembling a wheel fallen from some barbarian chariot; whilst
farther on were some Dutch cheeses, suggesting decapitated heads
suffused with dry blood, and having all that hardness of skulls which
in France has gained them the name of "death's heads." Amidst the
heavy exhalations of these, a Parmesan set a spicy aroma. Then there
came three Brie cheeses displayed on round platters, and looking like
melancholy extinct moons. Two of them, very dry, were at the full; the
third, in its second quarter, was melting away in a white cream, which
had spread into a pool and flowed over the little wooden barriers with
which an attempt had been made to arrest its course. Next came some
Port Saluts, similar to antique discs, with exergues bearing their
makers' names in print. A Romantour, in its tin-foil wrapper,
suggested a bar of nougat or some sweet cheese astray amidst all these
pungent, fermenting curds. The Roqueforts under their glass covers
also had a princely air, their fat faces marbled with blue and yellow,
as though they were suffering from some unpleasant malady such as
attacks the wealthy gluttons who eat too many truffles. And on a dish
by the side of these, the hard grey goats' milk cheeses, about the
size of a child's fist, resembled the pebbles which the billy-goats
send rolling down the stony paths as they clamber along ahead of their
flocks. Next came the strong smelling cheeses: the Mont d'Ors, of a
bright yellow hue, and exhaling a comparatively mild odour; the
Troyes, very thick, and bruised at the edges, and of a far more
pungent smell, recalling the dampness of a cellar; the Camemberts,
suggestive of high game; the square Neufchatels, Limbourgs, Marolles,
and Pont l'Eveques, each adding its own particular sharp scent to the
malodorous bouquet, till it became perfectly pestilential; the
Livarots, ruddy in hue, and as irritating to the throat as sulphur
fumes; and, lastly, stronger than all the others, the Olivets, wrapped
in walnut leaves, like the carrion which peasants cover with branches
as it lies rotting in the hedgerow under the blazing sun.

The heat of the afternoon had softened the cheeses; the patches of
mould on their crusts were melting, and glistening with tints of ruddy
bronze and verdigris. Beneath their cover of leaves, the skins of the
Olivets seemed to be heaving as with the slow, deep respiration of a
sleeping man. A Livarot was swarming with life; and in a fragile box
behind the scales a Gerome flavoured with aniseed diffused such a
pestilential smell that all around it the very flies had fallen
lifeless on the gray-veined slap of ruddy marble.

This Gerome was almost immediately under Mademoiselle Saget's nose; so
she drew back, and leaned her head against the big sheets of white and
yellow paper which were hanging in a corner.

"Yes," she repeated, with an expression of disgust, "he comes from the
galleys! Ah, those Quenu-Gradelles have no reason to put on so many
airs!"

Madame Lecoeur and La Sarriette, however, had burst into exclamations
of astonishment: "It wasn't possible, surely! What had he done to be
sent to the galleys? Could anyone, now, have ever suspected that
Madame Quenu, whose virtue was the pride of the whole neighbourhood,
would choose a convict for a lover?"

"Ah, but you don't understand at all!" cried the old maid impatiently.
"Just listen, now, while I explain things. I was quite certain that I
had seen that great lanky fellow somewhere before."

Then she proceeded to tell them Florent's story. She had recalled to
mind a vague report which had circulated of a nephew of old Gradelle
being transported to Cayenne for murdering six gendarmes at a
barricade. She had even seen this nephew on one occasion in the Rue
Pirouette. The pretended cousin was undoubtedly the same man. Then she
began to bemoan her waning powers. Her memory was quite going, she
said; she would soon be unable to remember anything. And she bewailed
her perishing memory as bitterly as any learned man might bewail the
loss of his notes representing the work of a life-time, on seeing them
swept away by a gust of wind.

"Six gendarmes!" murmured La Sarriette, admiringly; "he must have a
very heavy fist!"

"And he's made away with plenty of others, as well," added
Mademoiselle Saget. "I shouldn't advise you to meet him at night!"

"What a villain!" stammered out Madame Lecoeur, quite terrified.

The slanting beams of the sinking sun were now enfilading the
pavilion, and the odour of the cheeses became stronger than ever. That
of the Marolles seemed to predominate, borne hither and thither in
powerful whiffs. Then, however, the wind appeared to change, and
suddenly the emanations of the Limbourgs were wafted towards the three
women, pungent and bitter, like the last gasps of a dying man.

"But in that case," resumed Madame Lecoeur, "he must be fat Lisa's
brother-in-law. And we thought that he was her lover!"

The women exchanged glances. This aspect of the case took them by
surprise. They were loth to give up their first theory. However, La
Sarriette, turning to Mademoiselle Saget, remarked: "That must have
been all wrong. Besides, you yourself say that he's always running
after the two Mehudin girls."

"Certainly he is," exclaimed Mademoiselle Saget sharply, fancying that
her word was doubted. "He dangles about them every evening. But, after
all, it's no concern of ours, is it? We are virtuous women, and what
he does makes no difference to us, the horrid scoundrel!"

"No, certainly not," agreed the other two. "He's a consummate
villain."

The affair was becoming tragical. Of course beautiful Lisa was now out
of the question, but for this they found ample consolation in
prophesying that Florent would bring about some frightful catastrophe.
It was quite clear, they said, that he had got some base design in his
head. When people like him escaped from gaol it was only to burn
everything down; and if he had come to the markets it must assuredly
be for some abominable purpose. Then they began to indulge in the
wildest suppositions. The two dealers declared that they would put
additional padlocks to the doors of their storerooms; and La Sarriette
called to mind that a basket of peaches had been stolen from her
during the previous week. Mademoiselle Saget, however, quite
frightened the two others by informing them that that was not the way
in which the Reds behaved; they despised such trifles as baskets of
peaches; their plan was to band themselves together in companies of
two or three hundred, kill everybody they came across, and then
plunder and pillage at their ease. That was "politics," she said, with
the superior air of one who knew what she was talking about. Madame
Lecoeur felt quite ill. She already saw Florent and his accomplices
hiding in the cellars, and rushing out during the night to set the
markets in flames and sack Paris.

"Ah! by the way," suddenly exclaimed the old maid, "now I think of it,
there's all that money of old Gradelle's! Dear me, dear me, those
Quenus can't be at all at their ease!"

She now looked quite gay again. The conversation took a fresh turn,
and the others fell foul of the Quenus when Mademoiselle Saget had
told them the history of the treasure discovered in the salting-tub,
with every particular of which she was acquainted. She was even able
to inform them of the exact amount of the money found--eighty-five
thousand francs--though neither Lisa nor Quenu was aware of having
revealed this to a living soul. However, it was clear that the Quenus
had not given the great lanky fellow his share. He was too shabbily
dressed for that. Perhaps he had never even heard of the discovery of
the treasure. Plainly enough, they were all thieves in his family.
Then the three women bent their heads together and spoke in lower
tones. They were unanimously of opinion that it might perhaps be
dangerous to attack the beautiful Lisa, but it was decidedly necessary
that they should settle the Red Republican's hash, so that he might no
longer prey upon the purse of poor Monsieur Gavard.

At the mention of Gavard there came a pause. The gossips looked at
each other with a circumspect air. And then, as they drew breath, they
inhaled the odour of the Camemberts, whose gamy scent had overpowered
the less penetrating emanations of the Marolles and the Limbourgs, and
spread around with remarkable power. Every now and then, however, a
slight whiff, a flutelike note, came from the Parmesan, while the
Bries contributed a soft, musty scent, the gentle, insipid sound, as
it were, of damp tambourines. Next followed an overpowering refrain
from the Livarots, and afterwards the Gerome, flavoured with aniseed,
kept up the symphony with a high prolonged note, like that of a
vocalist during a pause in the accompaniment.

"I have seen Madame Leonce," Mademoiselle Saget at last continued,
with a significant expression.

At this the two others became extremely attentive. Madame Leonce was
the doorkeeper of the house where Gavard lived in the Rue de la
Cossonnerie. It was an old house standing back, with its ground floor
occupied by an importer of oranges and lemons, who had had the
frontage coloured blue as high as the first floor. Madame Leonce acted
as Gavard's housekeeper, kept the keys of his cupboards and closets,
and brought him up tisane when he happened to catch cold. She was a
severe-looking woman, between fifty and sixty years of age, and spoke
slowly, but at endless length. Mademoiselle Saget, who went to drink
coffee with her every Wednesday evening, had cultivated her friendship
more closely than ever since the poultry dealer had gone to lodge in
the house. They would talk about the worthy man for hours at a time.
They both professed the greatest affection for him, and a keen desire
to ensure his comfort and happiness.

"Yes, I have seen Madame Leonce," repeated the old maid. "We had a cup
of coffee together last night. She was greatly worried. It seems that
Monsieur Gavard never comes home now before one o'clock in the
morning. Last Sunday she took him up some broth, as she thought he
looked quite ill."

"Oh, she knows very well what she's about," exclaimed Madame Lecoeur,
whom these attentions to Gavard somewhat alarmed.

Mademoiselle Saget felt bound to defend her friend. "Oh, really, you
are quite mistaken," said she. "Madame Leonce is much above her
position; she is quite a lady. If she wanted to enrich herself at
Monsieur Gavard's expense, she might easily have done so long ago. It
seems that he leaves everything lying about in the most careless
fashion. It's about that, indeed, that I want to speak to you. But
you'll not repeat anything I say, will you? I am telling it you in
strict confidence."

Both the others swore that they would never breathe a word of what
they might hear; and they craned out their necks with eager curiosity,
whilst the old maid solemnly resumed: "Well, then, Monsieur Gavard has
been behaving very strangely of late. He has been buying firearms--a
great big pistol--one of those which revolve, you know. Madame Leonce
says that things are awful, for this pistol is always lying about on
the table or the mantelpiece; and she daren't dust anywhere near it.
But that isn't all. His money--"

"His money!" echoed Madame Lecoeur, with blazing cheeks.

"Well, he's disposed of all his stocks and shares. He's sold
everything, and keeps a great heap of gold in a cupboard."

"A heap of gold!" exclaimed La Sarriette in ecstasy.

"Yes, a great heap of gold. It covers a whole shelf, and is quite
dazzling. Madame Leonce told me that one morning Gavard opened the
cupboard in her presence, and that the money quite blinded her, it
shone so."

There was another pause. The eyes of the three women were blinking as
though the dazzling pile of gold was before them. Presently La
Sarriette began to laugh.

"What a jolly time I would have with Jules if my uncle would give that
money to me!" said she.

Madame Lecoeur, however, seemed quite overwhelmed by this revelation,
crushed beneath the weight of the gold which she could not banish from
her sight. Covetous envy thrilled her. But at last, raising her skinny
arms and shrivelled hands, her finger-nails still stuffed with butter,
she stammered in a voice full of bitter distress: "Oh, I mustn't think
of it! It's too dreadful!"

"Well, it would all be yours, you know, if anything were to happen to
Monsieur Gavard," retorted Mademoiselle Saget. "If I were in your
place, I would look after my interests. That revolver means nothing
good, you may depend upon it. Monsieur Gavard has got into the hands
of evil counsellors; and I'm afraid it will all end badly."

Then the conversation again turned upon Florent. The three women
assailed him more violently than ever. And afterwards, with perfect
composure, they began to discuss what would be the result of all these
dark goings-on so far as he and Gavard were concerned; certainly it
would be no pleasant one if there was any gossiping. And thereupon
they swore that they themselves would never repeat a word of what they
knew; not, however, because that scoundrel Florent merited any
consideration, but because it was necessary, at all costs, to save
that worthy Monsieur Gavard from being compromised. Then they rose
from their seats, and Mademoiselle Saget was burning as if to go away
when the butter dealer asked her: "All the same, in case of accident,
do you think that Madame Leonce can be trusted? I dare say she has the
key of the cupboard."

"Well, that's more than I can tell you," replied the old maid. "I
believe she's a very honest woman; but, after all, there's no telling.
There are circumstances, you know, which tempt the best of people.
Anyhow, I've warned you both; and you must do what you think proper."

As the three women stood there, taking leave of each other, the odour
of the cheeses seemed to become more pestilential than ever. It was a
cacophony of smells, ranging from the heavily oppressive odour of the
Dutch cheeses and the Gruyeres to the alkaline pungency of the
Olivets. From the Cantal, the Cheshire, and the goats' milk cheeses
there seemed to come a deep breath like the sound of a bassoon, amidst
which the sharp, sudden whiffs of the Neufchatels, the Troyes, and the
Mont d'Ors contributed short, detached notes. And then the different
odours appeared to mingle one with another, the reek of the Limbourgs,
the Port Saluts, the Geromes, the Marolles, the Livarots, and the Pont
l'Eveques uniting in one general, overpowering stench sufficient to
provoke asphyxia. And yet it almost seemed as though it were not the
cheeses but the vile words of Madame Lecoeur and Mademoiselle Saget
that diffused this awful odour.

"I'm very much obliged to you, indeed I am," said the butter dealer.
"If ever I get rich, you shall not find yourself forgotten."

The old maid still lingered in the stall. Taking up a Bondon, she
turned it round, and put it down on the slab again. Then she asked its
price.

"To me!" she added, with a smile.

"Oh, nothing to you," replied Madame Lecoeur. "I'll make you a present
of it." And again she exclaimed: "Ah, if I were only rich!"

Mademoiselle Saget thereupon told her that some day or other she would
be rich. The Bondon had already disappeared within the old maid's bag.
And now the butter dealer returned to the cellar, while Mademoiselle
Saget escorted La Sarriette back to her stall. On reaching it they
talked for a moment or two about Monsieur Jules. The fruits around
them diffused a fresh scent of summer.

"It smells much nicer here than at your aunt's," said the old maid. "I
felt quite ill a little time ago. I can't think how she manages to
exist there. But here it's very sweet and pleasant. It makes you look
quite rosy, my dear."

La Sarriette began to laugh, for she was fond of compliments. Then she
served a lady with a pound of mirabelle plums, telling her that they
were as sweet as sugar.

"I should like to buy some of those mirabelles too," murmured
Mademoiselle Saget, when the lady had gone away; "only I want so few.
A lone woman, you know."

"Take a handful of them," exclaimed the pretty brunette. "That won't
ruin me. Send Jules back to me if you see him, will you? You'll most
likely find him smoking his cigar on the first bench to the right as
you turn out of the covered way."

Mademoiselle Saget distended her fingers as widely as possible in
order to take a handful of mirabelles, which joined the Bondon in the
bag. Then she pretended to leave the market, but in reality made a
detour by one of the covered ways, thinking, as she walked slowly
along, that the mirabelles and Bondon would not make a very
substantial dinner. When she was unable, during her afternoon
perambulations, to wheedle stallkeepers into filling her bag for her,
she was reduced to dining off the merest scraps. So she now slyly made
her way back to the butter pavilions, where, on the side of the Rue
Berger, at the back of the offices of the oyster salesmen, there were
some stalls at which cooked meat was sold. Every morning little closed
box-like carts, lined with zinc and furnished with ventilators, drew
up in front of the larger Parisian kitchens and carried away the
leavings of the restaurants, the embassies, and State Ministries.
These leavings were conveyed to the market cellars and there sorted.
By nine o'clock plates of food were displayed for sale at prices
ranging from three to five sous, their contents comprising slices of
meat, scraps of game, heads and tails of fishes, bits of galantine,
stray vegetables, and, by way of dessert, cakes scarcely cut into, and
other confectionery. Poor starving wretches, scantily-paid clerks, and
women shivering with fever were to be seen crowding around, and the
street lads occasionally amused themselves by hooting the pale-faced
individuals, known to be misers, who only made their purchases after
slyly glancing about them to see that they were not observed.[*]
Mademoiselle Saget wriggled her way to a stall, the keeper of which
boasted that the scraps she sold came exclusively from the Tuileries.
One day, indeed, she had induced the old maid to buy a slice of leg of
mutton by informing that it had come from the plate of the Emperor
himself; and this slice of mutton, eaten with no little pride, had
been a soothing consolation to Mademoiselle Saget's vanity. The
wariness of her approach to the stall was, moreover, solely caused by
her desire to keep well with the neighbouring shop people, whose
premises she was eternally haunting without ever buying anything. Her
usual tactics were to quarrel with them as soon as she had managed to
learn their histories, when she would bestow her patronage upon a
fresh set, desert it in due course, and then gradually make friends
again with those with whom she had quarrelled. In this way she made
the complete circuit of the market neighbourhood, ferreting about in
every shop and stall. Anyone would have imagined that she consumed an
enormous amount of provisions, whereas, in point of fact, she lived
solely upon presents and the few scraps which she was compelled to buy
when people were not in the giving vein.

[*] The dealers in these scraps are called /bijoutiers/, or jewellers,
whilst the scraps themselves are known as /harlequins/, the idea
being that they are of all colours and shapes when mingled
together, thus suggesting harlequin's variegated attire.--
Translator.

On that particular evening there was only a tall old man standing in
front of the stall. He was sniffing at a plate containing a mixture of
meat and fish. Mademoiselle Saget, in her turn, began to sniff at a
plate of cold fried fish. The price of it was three sous, but, by dint
of bargaining, she got it for two. The cold fish then vanished into
the bag. Other customers now arrived, and with a uniform impulse
lowered their noses over the plates. The smell of the stall was very
disgusting, suggestive alike of greasy dishes and a dirty sink.[*]

[*] Particulars of the strange and repulsive trade in harlequins,
which even nowadays is not extinct, will be found in Privat
d'Anglemont's well-known book /Paris Anecdote/, written at the
very period with which M. Zola deals in the present work. My
father, Henry Vizetelly, also gave some account of it in his
/Glances Back through Seventy Years/, in a chapter describing the
odd ways in which certain Parisians contrive to get a living.--
Translator.

"Come and see me to-morrow," the stallkeeper called out to the old
maid, "and I'll put something nice on one side for you. There's going
to be a grand dinner at the Tuileries to-night."

Mademoiselle Saget was just promising to come, when, happening to turn
round, she discovered Gavard looking at her and listening to what she
was saying. She turned very red, and, contracting her skinny
shoulders, hurried away, affecting not to recognise him. Gavard,
however, followed her for a few yards, shrugging his shoulders and
muttering to himself that he was no longer surprised at the old
shrew's malice, now he knew that "she poisoned herself with the filth
carted away from the Tuileries."

On the very next morning vague rumours began to circulate in the
markets. Madame Lecoeur and La Sarriette were in their own fashion
keeping the oaths of silence they had taken. For her own part,
Mademoiselle Saget warily held her tongue, leaving the two others to
circulate the story of Florent's antecedents. At first only a few
meagre details were hawked about in low tones; then various versions
of the facts got into circulation, incidents were exaggerated, and
gradually quite a legend was constructed, in which Florent played the
part of a perfect bogey man. He had killed ten gendarmes at the
barricade in the Rue Greneta, said some; he had returned to France on
a pirate ship whose crew scoured the seas to murder everyone they came
across, said others; whilst a third set declared that ever since his
arrival he had been observed prowling about at nighttime with
suspicious-looking characters, of whom he was undoubtedly the leader.
Soon the imaginative market women indulged in the highest flights of
fancy, revelled in the most melodramatic ideas. There was talk of a
band of smugglers plying their nefarious calling in the very heart of
Paris, and of a vast central association formed for systematically
robbing the stalls in the markets. Much pity was expressed for the
Quenu-Gradelles, mingled with malicious allusions to their uncle's
fortune. That fortune was an endless subject of discussion. The
general opinion was that Florent had returned to claim his share of
the treasure; however, as no good reason was forthcoming to explain
why the division had not taken place already, it was asserted that
Florent was waiting for some opportunity which might enable him to
pocket the whole amount. The Quenu-Gradelles would certainly be found
murdered some morning, it was said; and a rumour spread that dreadful
quarrels already took place every night between the two brothers and
beautiful Lisa.

When these stories reached the ears of the beautiful Norman, she
shrugged her shoulders and burst out laughing.

"Get away with you!" she cried, "you don't know him. Why, the dear
fellow's as gentle as a lamb."

She had recently refused the hand of Monsieur Lebigre, who had at last
ventured upon a formal proposal. For two months past he had given the
Mehudins a bottle of some liqueur every Sunday. It was Rose who
brought it, and she was always charged with a compliment for La
Normande, some pretty speech which she faithfully repeated, without
appearing in the slightest degree embarrassed by the peculiar
commission. When Monsieur Lebigre was rejected, he did not pine, but
to show that he took no offence and was still hopeful, he sent Rose on
the following Sunday with two bottles of champagne and a large bunch
of flowers. She gave them into the handsome fish-girl's own hands,
repeating, as she did so, the wine dealer's prose madrigal:

"Monsieur Lebigre begs you to drink this to his health, which has been
greatly shaken by you know what. He hopes that you will one day be
willing to cure him, by being for him as pretty and as sweet as these
flowers."

La Normande was much amused by the servant's delighted air. She kissed
her as she spoke to her of her master, and asked her if he wore
braces, and snored at nights. Then she made her take the champagne and
flowers back with her. "Tell Monsieur Lebigre," said she, "that he's
not to send you here again. It quite vexes me to see you coming here
so meekly, with your bottles under your arms."

"Oh, he wishes me to come," replied Rose, as she went away. "It is
wrong of you to distress him. He is a very handsome man."

La Normande, however, was quite conquered by Florent's affectionate
nature. She continued to follow Muche's lessons of an evening in the
lamplight, indulging the while in a dream of marrying this man who was
so kind to children. She would still keep her fish stall, while he
would doubtless rise to a position of importance in the administrative
staff of the markets. This dream of hers, however, was scarcely
furthered by the tutor's respectful bearing towards her. He bowed to
her, and kept himself at a disntace, when she have liked to laugh with
him, and love him as she knew how to love. But it was just this covert
resistance on Florent's part which continually brought her back to the
dream of marrying him. She realised that he lived in a loftier sphere
than her own; and by becoming his wife she imagined that her vanity
would reap no little satisfaction.

She was greatly surprised when she learned the history of the man she
loved. He had never mentioned a word of those things to her; and she
scolded him about it. His extraordinary adventures only increased her
tenderness for him, and for evenings together she made him relate all
that had befallen him. She trembled with fear lest the police should
discover him; but he reassured her, saying that the matter was now too
old for the police to trouble their heads about it. One evening he
told her of the woman on the Boulevard Montmartre, the woman in the
pink bonnet, whose blood had dyed his hands. He still frequently
thought of that poor creature. His anguish-stricken mind had often
dwelt upon her during the clear nights he had passed in Cayenne; and
he had returned to France with a wild dream of meeting her again on
some footway in the bright sunshine, even though he could still feel
her corpse-like weight across his legs. And yet, he thought, she might
perhaps have recovered. At times he received quite a shock while he
was walking through the streets, on fancying that he recognised her;
and he followed pink bonnets and shawl-draped shoulders with a wildly
beating heart. When he closed his eyes he could see her walking, and
advancing towards him; but she let her shawl slip down, showing the
two red stains on her chemisette; and then he saw that her face was
pale as wax, and that her eyes were blank, and her lips distorted by
pain. For a long time he suffered from not knowing her name, from
being forced to look upon her as a mere shadow, whose recollection
filled him with sorrow. Whenever any idea of woman crossed his mind it
was always she that rose up before him, as the one pure, tender wife.
He often found himself fancying that she might be looking for him on
that boulevard where she had fallen dead, and that if she had met him
a few seconds sooner she would have given him a life of joy. And he
wished for no other wife; none other existed for him. When he spoke of
her, his voice trembled to such a degree that La Normande, her wits
quickened by her love, guessed his secret, and felt jealous.

"Oh, it's really much better that you shouldn't see her again," she
said maliciously. "She can't look particularly nice by this time."

Florent turned pale with horror at the vision which these words
evoked. His love was rotting in her grave. He could not forgive La
Normande's savage cruelty, which henceforth made him see the grinning
jaws and hollow eyes of a skeleton within that lovely pink bonnet.
Whenever the fish-girl tried to joke with him on the subject he turned
quite angry, and silenced her with almost coarse language.

That, however, which especially surprised the beautiful Norman in
these revelations was the discovery that she had been quite mistaken
in supposing that she was enticing a lover away from handsome Lisa.
This so diminished her feeling of triumph, that for a week or so her
love for Florent abated. She consoled herself, however, with the story
of the inheritance, no longer calling Lisa a strait-laced prude, but a
thief who kept back her brother-in-law's money, and assumed
sanctimonious airs to deceive people. Every evening, while Muche took
his writing lesson, the conversation turned upon old Gradelle's
treasure.

"Did anyone ever hear of such an idea?" the fish-girl would exclaim,
with a laugh. "Did the old man want to salt his money, since he put it
in a salting-tub? Eighty-five thousand francs! That's a nice sum of
money! And, besides, the Quenus, no doubt, lied about it--there was
perhaps two or three times as much. Ah, if I were in your place, I
shouldn't lose any time about claiming my share; indeed I shouldn't."

"I've no need of anything," was Florent's invariable answer. "I
shouldn't know what to do with the money if I had it."

"Oh, you're no man!" cried La Normande, losing all control over
herself. "It's pitiful! Can't you see that the Quenus are laughing at
you? That great fat thing passes all her husband's old clothes over to
you. I'm not saying this to hurt your feelings, but everybody makes
remarks about it. Why, the whole neighbourhood has seen the greasy
pair of trousers, which you're now wearing, on your brother's legs for
three years and more! If I were in your place I'd throw their dirty
rags in their faces, and insist upon my rights. Your share comes to
forty-two thousand five hundred francs, doesn't it? Well, I shouldn't
go out of the place till I'd got forty-two thousand five hundred
francs."

It was useless for Florent to explain to her that his sister-in-law
had offered to pay him his share, that she was taking care of it for
him, and that it was he himself who had refused to receive it. He
entered into the most minute particulars, seeking to convince her of
the Quenus' honesty, but she sarcastically replied: "Oh, yes, I dare
say! I know all about their honesty. That fat thing folds it up every
morning and puts it away in her wardrobe for fear it should get
soiled. Really, I quite pity you, my poor friend. It's easy to gull
you, for you can't see any further than a child of five. One of these
days she'll simply put your money in her pocket, and you'll never look
on it again. Shall I go, now, and claim your share for you, just to
see what she says? There'd be some fine fun, I can tell you! I'd
either have the money, or I'd break everything in the house--I swear I
would!"

"No, no, it's no business of yours," Florent replied, quite alarmed.
"I'll see about it; I may possibly be wanting some money soon."

At this La Normande assumed an air of doubt, shrugged her shoulders,
and told him that he was really too chicken-hearted. Her one great aim
now was to embroil him with the Quenu-Gradelles, and she employed
every means she could think of to effect her purpose, both anger and
banter, as well as affectionate tenderness. She also cherished another
design. When she had succeeded in marrying Florent, she would go and
administer a sound cuffing to beautiful Lisa, if the latter did not
yield up the money. As she lay awake in her bed at night she pictured
every detail of the scene. She saw herself sitting down in the middle
of the pork shop in the busiest part of the day, and making a terrible
fuss. She brooded over this idea to such an extent, it obtained such a
hold upon her, that she would have been willing to marry Florent
simply in order to be able to go and demand old Gradelle's forty-two
thousand five hundred francs.

Old Madame Mehudin, exasperated by La Normande's dismissal of Monsieur
Lebigre, proclaimed everywhere that her daughter was mad, and that the
"long spindle-shanks" must have administered some insidious drug to
her. When she learned the Cayenne story, her anger was terrible. She
called Florent a convict and murderer, and said it was no wonder that
his villainy had kept him lank and flat. Her versions of Florent's
biography were the most horrible of all that were circulated in the
neighbourhood. At home she kept a moderately quiet tongue in her head,
and restricted herself to muttered indignation, and a show of locking
up the drawer where the silver was kept whenever Florent arrived. One
day, however, after a quarrel with her elder daughter, she exclaimed:

"Things can't go on much longer like this! It is that vile man who is
setting you against me. Take care that you don't try me too far, or
I'll go and denounce him to the police. I will, as true as I stand
here!"

"You'll denounce him!" echoed La Normande, trembling violently, and
clenching her fists. "You'd better not! Ah, if you weren't my
mother----"

At this, Claire, who was a spectator of the quarrel, began to laugh,
with a nervous laughter that seemed to rasp her throat. For some time
past she had been gloomier and more erratic than ever, invariably
showing red eyes and a pale face.

"Well, what would you do?" she asked. "Would you give her a cuffing?
Perhaps you'd like to give me, your sister, one as well? I dare say it
will end in that. But I'll clear the house of him. I'll go to the
police to save mother the trouble."

Then, as La Normande almost choked with the angry threats that rose to
her throat, the younger girl added: "I'll spare you the exertion of
beating me. I'll throw myself into the river as I come back over the
bridge."

Big tears were streaming from her eyes; and she rushed off to her
bedroom, banging the doors violently behind her. Old Madame Mehudin
said nothing more about denouncing Florent. Muche, however, told La
Normande that he met his grandma talking with Monsieur Lebigre in
every corner of the neighbourhood.

The rivalry between the beautiful Norman and the beautiful Lisa now
assumed a less aggressive but more disturbing character. In the
afternoon, when the red-striped canvas awning was drawn down in front
of the pork shop, the fish-girl would remark that the big fat thing
felt afraid, and was concealing herself. She was also much exasperated
by the occasional lowering of the window-blind, on which was pictured
a hunting-breakfast in a forest glade, with ladies and gentlemen in
evening dress partaking of a red pasty, as big as themselves, on the
yellow grass.

Beautiful Lisa, however, was by no means afraid. As soon as the sun
began to sink she drew up the blind; and, as she sat knitting behind
her counter, she serenely scanned the market square, where numerous
urchins were poking about in the soil under the gratings which
protected the roots of the plane-trees, while porters smoked their
pipes on the benches along the footway, at either end of which was an
advertisement column covered with theatrical posters, alternately
green, yellow, red, and blue, like some harlequin's costume. And while
pretending to watch the passing vehicles, Lisa would really be
scrutinising the beautiful Norman. She might occasionally be seen
bending forward, as though her eyes were following the Bastille and
Place Wagram omnibus to the Pointe Saint Eustache, where it always
stopped for a time. But this was only a manoeuvre to enable her to get
a better view of the fish-girl, who, as a set-off against the blind,
retorted by covering her head and fish with large sheets of brown
paper, on the pretext of warding off the rays of the setting sun. The
advantage at present was on Lisa's side, for as the time for striking
the decisive blow approached she manifested the calmest serenity of
bearing, whereas her rival, in spite of all her efforts to attain the
same air of distinction, always lapsed into some piece of gross
vulgarity, which she afterwards regretted. La Normande's ambition was
to look "like a lady." Nothing irritated her more than to hear people
extolling the good manners of her rival. This weak point of hers had
not escaped old Madame Mehudin's observation, and she now directed all
her attacks upon it.

"I saw Madame Quenu standing at her door this evening," she would say
sometimes. "It is quite amazing how well she wears. And she's so
refined-looking, too; quite the lady, indeed. It's the counter that
does it, I'm sure. A fine counter gives a woman such a respectable
look."

In this remark there was a veiled allusion to Monsieur Lebigre's
proposal. The beautiful Norman would make no reply; but for a moment
or two she would seem deep in thought. In her mind's eye she saw
herself behind the counter of the wine shop at the other corner of the
street, forming a pendent, as it were, to beautiful Lisa. It was this
that first shook her love for Florent.

To tell the truth, it was now becoming a very difficult thing to
defend Florent. The whole neighbourhood was in arms against him; it
seemed as though everyone had an immediate interest in exterminating
him. Some of the market people swore that he had sold himself to the
police; while others asserted that he had been seen in the butter-
cellar, attempting to make holes in the wire grating, with the
intention of tossing lighted matches through them. There was a vast
increase of slander, a perfect flood of abuse, the source of which
could not be exactly determined. The fish pavilion was the last one to
join in the revolt against the inspector. The fish-wives liked Florent
on account of his gentleness, and for some time they defended him;
but, influenced by the stallkeepers of the butter and fruit pavilions,
they at last gave way. Then hostilities began afresh between these
huge, swelling women and the lean and lank inspector. He was lost in
the whirl of the voluminous petticoats and buxom bodices which surged
furiously around his scraggy shoulders. However, he understood
nothing, but pursued his course towards the realisation of his one
haunting idea.

At every hour of the day, and in every corner of the market,
Mademoiselle Saget's black bonnet was now to be seen in the midst of
this outburst of indignation. Her little pale face seemed to multiply.
She had sworn a terrible vengeance against the company which assembled
in Monsieur Lebigre's little cabinet. She accused them of having
circulated the story that she lived on waste scraps of meat. The truth
was that old Gavard had told the others one evening that the "old
nanny-goat" who came to play the spy upon them gorged herself with the
filth which the Bonapartist clique tossed away. Clemence felt quite
ill on hearing this, and Robine hurriedly gulped down a draught of
beer, as though to wash his throat. In Gavard's opinion, the scraps of
meat left on the Emperor's plate were so much political ordure, the
putrid remnants of all the filth of the reign. Thenceforth the party
at Monsieur Lebigre's looked on Mademoiselle Saget as a creature whom
no one could touch except with tongs. She was regarded as some unclean
animal that battened upon corruption. Clemence and Gavard circulated
the story so freely in the markets that the old maid found herself
seriously injured in her intercourse with the shopkeepers, who
unceremoniously bade her go off to the scrap-stalls when she came to
haggle and gossip at their establishments without the least intention
of buying anything. This cut her off from her sources of information;
and sometimes she was altogether ignorant of what was happening. She
shed tears of rage, and in one such moment of anger she bluntly said
to La Sarriette and Madame Lecoeur: "You needn't give me any more
hints: I'll settle your Gavard's hash for him now--that I will!"

The two women were rather startled, but refrained from all
protestation. The next day, however, Mademoiselle Saget had calmed
down, and again expressed much tender-hearted pity for that poor
Monsieur Gavard who was so badly advised, and was certainly hastening
to his ruin.

Gavard was undoubtedly compromising himself. Ever since the conspiracy
had begun to ripen he had carried the revolver, which caused Madame
Leonce so much alarm, in his pocket wherever he went. It was a big,
formidable-looking weapon, which he had bought of the principal
gunmaker in Paris. He exhibited it to all the women in the poultry
market, like a schoolboy who has got some prohibited novel hidden in
his desk. First he would allow the barrel to peer out of his pocket,
and call attention to it with a wink. Then he affected a mysterious
reticence, indulged in vague hints and insinuations--played, in short,
the part of a man who revelled in feigning fear. The possession of
this revolver gave him immense importance, placed him definitely
amongst the dangerous characters of Paris. Sometimes, when he was safe
inside his stall, he would consent to take it out of his pocket, and
exhibit it to two or three of the women. He made them stand before him
so as to conceal him with their petticoats, and then he brandished the
weapon, cocked the lock, caused the breech to revolve, and took aim at
one of the geese or turkeys that were hanging in the stall. He was
immensely delighted at the alarm manifested by the women; but
eventually reassured them by stating that the revolver was not loaded.
However, he carried a supply of cartridges about with him, in a case
which he opened with the most elaborate precautions. When he had
allowed his friends to feel the weight of the cartridges, he would
again place both weapon and ammunition in his pockets. And afterwards,
crossing his arms over his breast, he would chatter away jubilantly
for hours.

"A man's a man when he's got a weapon like that," he would say with a
swaggering air. "I don't care a fig now for the gendarmes. A friend
and I went to try it last Sunday on the plain of Saint Denis. Of
course, you know, a man doesn't tell everyone that he's got a
plaything of that sort. But, ah! my dears, we fired at a tree, and hit
it every time. Ah, you'll see, you'll see. You'll hear of Anatole one
of these days, I can tell you."

He had bestowed the name of Anatole upon the revolver; and he carried
things so far that in a week's time both weapon and cartridges were
known to all the women in the pavilion. His friendship for Florent
seemed to them suspicious; he was too sleek and rich to be visited
with the hatred that was manifested towards the inspector; still, he
lost the esteem of the shrewder heads amongst his acquaintances, and
succeeded in terrifying the timid ones. This delighted him immensely.

"It is very imprudent for a man to carry firearms about with him,"
said Mademoiselle Saget. "Monsieur Gavard's revolver will end by
playing him a nasty trick."

Gavard now showed the most jubilant bearing at Monsieur Lebigre's.
Florent, since ceasing to take his meals with the Quenus, had come
almost to live in the little "cabinet." He breakfasted, dined, and
constantly shut himself up there. In fact he had converted the place
almost into a sort of private room of his own, where he left his old
coats and books and papers lying about. Monsieur Lebigre had offered
no objection to these proceedings; indeed, he had even removed one of
the tables to make room for a cushioned bench, on which Florent could
have slept had he felt so inclined. When the inspector manifested any
scruples about taking advantage of Monsieur Lebigre's kindness, the
latter told him to do as he pleased, saying that the whole house was
at his service. Logre also manifested great friendship for him, and
even constituted himself his lieutenant. He was constantly discussing
affairs with him, rendering an account of the steps he was supposed to
take, and furnishing the names of newly affiliated associates. Logre,
indeed, had now assumed the duties of organiser; on him rested the
task of bringing the various plotters together, forming the different
sections, and weaving each mesh of the gigantic net into which Paris
was to fall at a given signal. Florent meantime remained the leader,
the soul of the conspiracy.

However, much as the hunchback seemed to toil, he attained no
appreciable result. Although he had loudly asserted that in each
district of Paris he knew two or three groups of men as determined and
trustworthy as those who met at Monsieur Lebigre's, he had never yet
given any precise information about them, but had merely mentioned a
name here and there, and recounted stories of endless alleged secret
expeditions, and the wonderful enthusiasm that the people manifested
for the cause. He made a great point of the hand-grasps he had
received. So-and-so, whom he thou'd and thee'd, had squeezed his
fingers and declared he would join them. At the Gros Caillou a big,
burly fellow, who would make a magnificent sectional leader, had
almost dislocated his arm in his enthusiasm; while in the Rue
Popincourt a whole group of working men had embraced him. He declared
that at a day's notice a hundred thousand active supporters could be
gathered together. Each time that he made his appearance in the little
room, wearing an exhausted air, and dropping with apparent fatigue on
the bench, he launched into fresh variations of his usual reports,
while Florent duly took notes of what he said, and relied on him to
realise his many promises. And soon in Florent's pockets the plot
assumed life. The notes were looked upon as realities, as indisputable
facts, upon which the entire plan of the rising was constructed. All
that now remained to be done was to wait for a favourable opportunity,
and Logre asserted with passionate gesticulations that the whole thing
would go on wheels.

Florent was at last perfectly happy. His feet no longer seemed to
tread the ground; he was borne aloft by his burning desire to pass
sentence on all the wickedness he had seen committed. He had all the
credulity of a little child, all the confidence of a hero. If Logre
had told him that the Genius of Liberty perched on the Colonne de
Juillet[*] would have come down and set itself at their head, he would
hardly have expressed any surprise. In the evenings, at Monsieur
Lebigre's, he showed great enthusiasm and spoke effusively of the
approaching battle, as though it were a festival to which all good and
honest folks would be invited. But although Gavard in his delight
began to play with his revolver, Charvet got more snappish than ever,
and sniggered and shrugged his shoulders. His rival's assumption of
the leadership angered him extremely; indeed, quite disgusted him with
politics. One evening when, arriving early, he happened to find
himself alone with Logre and Lebigre, he frankly unbosomed himself.

[*] The column erected on the Place de la Bastille in memory of the
Revolution of July 1830, by which Charles X was dethroned.--
Translator.

"Why," said he, "that fellow Florent hasn't an idea about politics,
and would have done far better to seek a berth as writing master in a
ladies' school! It would be nothing short of a misfortune if he were
to succeed, for, with his visionary social sentimentalities, he would
crush us down beneath his confounded working men! It's all that, you
know, which ruins the party. We don't need any more tearful
sentimentalists, humanitarian poets, people who kiss and slobber over
each other for the merest scratch. But he won't succeed! He'll just
get locked up, and that will be the end of it."

Logre and the wine dealer made no remark, but allowed Charvet to talk
on without interruption.

"And he'd have been locked up long ago," he continued, "if he were
anything as dangerous as he fancies he is. The airs he puts on just
because he's been to Cayenne are quite sickening. But I'm sure that
the police knew of his return the very first day he set foot in Paris,
and if they haven't interfered with him it's simply because they hold
him in contempt."

At this Logre gave a slight start.

"They've been dogging me for the last fifteen years," resumed the
Hebertist, with a touch of pride, "but you don't hear me proclaiming
it from the house-tops. However, he won't catch me taking part in his
riot. I'm not going to let myself be nabbed like a mere fool. I dare
say he's already got half a dozen spies at his heels, who will take
him by the scruff of the neck whenever the authorities give the word."

"Oh, dear, no! What an idea!" exclaimed Monsieur Lebigre, who usually
observed complete silence. He was rather pale, and looked at Logre,
who was gently rubbing his hump against the partition.

"That's mere imagination," murmured the hunchback.

"Very well; call it imagination, if you like," replied the tutor; "but
I know how these things are arranged. At all events, I don't mean to
let the 'coppers' nab me this time. You others, of course, will please
yourselves, but if you take my advice--and you especially, Monsieur
Lebigre--you'll take care not to let your establishment be
compromised, or the authorities will close it."

At this Logre could not restrain a smile. On several subsequent
occasions Charvet plied him and Lebigre with similar arguments, as
though he wished to detach them from Florent's project by frightening
them; and he was much surprised at the calmness and confidence which
they both continued to manifest. For his own part, he still came
pretty regularly in the evening with Clemence. The tall brunette was
no longer a clerk at the fish auctions--Monsieur Manoury had
discharged her.

"Those salesmen are all scoundrels!" Logre growled, when he heard of
her dismissal.

Thereupon Clemence, who, lolling back against the partition, was
rolling a cigarette between her long, slim fingers, replied in a sharp
voice: "Oh, it's fair fighting! We don't hold the same political
views, you know. That fellow Manoury, who's making no end of money,
would lick the Emperor's boots. For my part, if I were an auctioneer,
I wouldn't keep him in my service for an hour."

The truth was that she had been indulging in some clumsy pleasantry,
amusing herself one day by inscribing in the sale-book, alongside of
the dabs and skate and mackerel sold by auction, the names of some of
the best-known ladies and gentlemen of the Court. This bestowal of
piscine names upon high dignitaries, these entries of the sale of
duchesses and baronesses at thirty sous apiece, had caused Monsieur
Manoury much alarm. Gavard was still laughing over it.

"Well, never mind!" said he, patting Clemence's arm; "you are every
inch a man, you are!"

Clemence had discovered a new method of mixing her grog. She began by
filling her glass with hot water; and after adding some sugar she
poured the rum drop by drop upon the slice of lemon floating on the
surface, in such wise that it did not mix with the water. Then she
lighted it and with a grave expression watched it blaze, slowly
smoking her cigarette while the flame of the alcohol cast a greenish
tinge over her face. "Grog," however, was an expensive luxury in which
she could not afford to indulge after she had lost her place. Charvet
told her, with a strained laugh, that she was no longer a millionaire.
She supported herself by giving French lessons, at a very early hour
in the morning, to a young lady residing in the Rue de Miromesnil, who
was perfecting her education in secrecy, unknown even to her maid. And
so now Clemence merely ordered a glass of beer in the evenings, but
this she drank, it must be admitted, with the most philosophical
composure.

The evenings in the little sanctum were now far less noisy than they
had been. Charvet would suddenly lapse into silence, pale with
suppressed rage, when the others deserted him to listen to his rival.
The thought that he had been the king of the place, had ruled the
whole party with despotic power before Florent's appearance there,
gnawed at his heart, and he felt all the regretful pangs of a
dethroned monarch. If he still came to the meetings, it was only
because he could not resist the attraction of the little room where he
had spent so many happy hours in tyrannising over Gavard and Robine.
In those days even Logre's hump had been his property, as well as
Alexandre's fleshy arms and Lacaille's gloomy face. He had done what
he liked with them, stuffed his opinions down their throats,
belaboured their shoulders with his sceptre. But now he endured much
bitterness of spirit; and ended by quite ceasing to speak, simply
shrugging his shoulders and whistling disdainfully, without
condescending to combat the absurdities vented in his presence. What
exasperated him more than anything else was the gradual way in which
he had been ousted from his position of predominance without being
conscious of it. He could not see that Florent was in any way his
superior, and after hearing the latter speak for hours, in his gentle
and somewhat sad voice, he often remarked: "Why, the fellow's a
parson! He only wants a cassock!"

The others, however, to all appearance eagerly absorbed whatever the
inspector said. When Charvet saw Florent's clothes hanging from every
peg, he pretended not to know where he could put his hat so that it
would not be soiled. He swept away the papers that lay about the
little room, declaring that there was no longer any comfort for anyone
in the place since that "gentleman" had taken possession of it. He
even complained to the landlord, and asked if the room belonged to a
single customer or to the whole company. This invasion of his realm
was indeed the last straw. Men were brutes, and he conceived an
unspeakable scorn for humanity when he saw Logre and Monsieur Lebigre
fixing their eyes on Florent with rapt attention. Gavard with his
revolver irritated him, and Robine, who sat silent behind his glass of
beer, seemed to him to be the only sensible person in the company, and
one who doubtless judged people by their real value, and was not led
away by mere words. As for Alexandre and Lacaille, they confirmed him
in his belief that "the people" were mere fools, and would require at
least ten years of revolutionary dictatorship to learn how to conduct
themselves.

Logre, however, declared that the sections would soon be completely
organised; and Florent began to assign the different parts that each
would have to play. One evening, after a final discussion in which he
again got worsted, Charvet rose up, took his hat, and exclaimed:
"Well, I'll wish you all good night. You can get your skulls cracked
if it amuses you; but I would have you understand that I won't take
any part in the business. I have never abetted anybody's ambition."

Clemence, who had also risen and was putting on her shawl, coldly
added: "The plan's absurd."

Then, as Robine sat watching their departure with a gentle glance,
Charvet asked him if he were not coming with them; but Robine, having
still some beer left in his glass, contented himself with shaking
hands. Charvet and Clemence never returned again; and Lacaille one day
informed the company that they now frequented a beer-house in the Rue
Serpente. He had seen them through the window, gesticulating with
great energy, in the midst of an attentive group of very young men.

Florent was never able to enlist Claude amongst his supporters. He had
once entertained the idea of gaining him over to his own political
views, of making a disciple of him, an assistant in his revolutionary
task; and in order to initiate him he had taken him one evening to
Monsieur Lebigre's. Claude, however, spent the whole time in making a
sketch of Robine, in his hat and chestnut cloak, and with his beard
resting on the knob of his walking-stick.

"Really, you know," he said to Florent, as they came away, "all that
you have been saying inside there doesn't interest me in the least. It
may be very clever, but, for my own part, I see nothing in it. Still,
you've got a splendid fellow there, that blessed Robine. He's as deep
as a well. I'll come with you again some other time, but it won't be
for politics. I shall make sketches of Logre and Gavard, so as to put
them with Robine in a picture which I was thinking about while you
were discussing the question of--what do you call it? eh? Oh, the
question of the two Chambers. Just fancy, now, a picture of Gavard and
Logre and Robine talking politics, entrenched behind their glasses of
beer! It would be the success of the Salon, my dear fellow, an
overwhelming success, a genuine modern picture!"

Florent was grieved by the artist's political scepticism; so he took
him up to his bedroom, and kept him on the narrow balcony in front of
the bluish mass of the markets, till two o'clock in the morning,
lecturing him, and telling him that he was no man to show himself so
indifferent to the happiness of his country.

"Well, you're perhaps right," replied Claude, shaking his head; "I'm
an egotist. I can't even say that I paint for the good of my country;
for, in the first place, my sketches frighten everybody, and then,
when I'm busy painting, I think about nothing but the pleasure I take
in it. When I'm painting, it is as though I were tickling myself; it
makes me laugh all over my body. Well, I can't help it, you know; it's
my nature to be like that; and you can't expect me to go and drown
myself in consequence. Besides, France can get on very well without
me, as my aunt Lisa says. And--may I be quite frank with you?--if I
like you it's because you seem to me to follow politics just as I
follow painting. You titillate yourself, my good friend."

Then, as Florent protested, he continued:

"Yes, yes; you are an artist in your own way; you dream of politics,
and I'll wager you spend hours here at night gazing at the stars and
imagining they are the voting-papers of infinity. And then you
titillate yourself with your ideas of truth and justice; and this is
so evidently the case that those ideas of yours cause just as much
alarm to commonplace middle-class folks as my sketches do. Between