Part 33 (1/2)
”Much obliged to you!” snarled the doorkeeper. ”Fifty francs for having coddled him up with tisane and broth! The old deceiver told me he had no relatives!”
Before locking the wardrobe up again, Madame Lecoeur searched it thoroughly from top to bottom. It contained all the political works which were forbidden admission into the country, the pamphlets printed at Brussels, the scandalous histories of the Bonapartes, and the foreign caricatures ridiculing the Emperor. One of Gavard's greatest delights was to shut himself up with a friend, and show him all these compromising things.
”He told me that I was to burn all the papers,” said La Sarriette.
”Oh, nonsense! we've no fire, and it would take up too long. The police will soon be here! We must get out of this!”
They all four hastened off; but they had not reached the bottom of the stairs before the police met them, and made Madame Leonce return with them upstairs. The three others, making themselves as small as possible, hurriedly escaped into the street. They walked away in single file at a brisk pace; the aunt and niece considerably incommoded by the weight of their drooping pockets. Mademoiselle Saget had kept her fifty francs in her closed fist, and remained deep in thought, brooding over a plan for extracting something more from the heavy pockets in front of her.
”Ah!” she exclaimed, as they reached the corner of the fish market, ”we've got here at a lucky moment. There's Florent yonder, just going to walk into the trap.”
Florent, indeed, was just then returning to the markets after his prolonged perambulation. He went into his office to change his coat, and then set about his daily duties, seeing that the marble slabs were properly washed, and slowly strolling along the alleys. He fancied that the fish-wives looked at him in a somewhat strange manner; they chuckled too, and smiled significantly as he pa.s.sed them. Some new vexation, he thought, was in store for him. For some time past those huge, terrible women had not allowed him a day's peace. However, as he pa.s.sed the Mehudins' stall he was very much surprised to hear the old woman address him in a honeyed tone: ”There's just been a gentleman inquiring for you, Monsieur Florent; a middle-aged gentleman. He's gone to wait for you in your room.”
As the old fish-wife, who was squatting, all of a heap, on her chair, spoke these words, she felt such a delicious thrill of satisfied vengeance that her huge body fairly quivered. Florent, still doubtful, glanced at the beautiful Norman; but the young woman, now completely reconciled with her mother, turned on her tap and slapped her fish, pretending not to hear what was being said.
”You are quite sure?” said Florent to Mother Mehudin.
”Oh, yes, indeed. Isn't that so, Louise?” said the old woman in a shriller voice.
Florent concluded that it must be some one who wanted to see him about the great business, and he resolved to go up to his room. He was just about to leave the pavilion, when, happening to turn round, he observed the beautiful Norman watching him with a grave expression on her face.
Then he pa.s.sed in front of the three gossips.
”Do you notice that there's no one in the pork shop?” remarked Mademoiselle Saget. ”Beautiful Lisa's not the woman to compromise herself.”
The shop was, indeed, quite empty. The front of the house was still bright with suns.h.i.+ne; the building looked like some honest, prosperous pile guilelessly warming itself in the morning rays. Up above, the pomegranate on the balcony was in full bloom. As Florent crossed the roadway he gave a friendly nod to Logre and Monsieur Lebigre, who appeared to be enjoying the fresh air on the doorstep of the latter's establishment. They returned his greeting with a smile. Florent was then about to enter the side-pa.s.sage, when he fancied he saw Auguste's pale face hastily vanis.h.i.+ng from its dark and narrow depths. Thereupon he turned back and glanced into the shop to make sure that the middle-aged gentleman was not waiting for him there. But he saw no one but Mouton, who sat on a block displaying his double chin and bristling whiskers, and gazed at him defiantly with his great yellow eyes. And when he had at last made up his mind to enter the pa.s.sage, Lisa's face appeared behind the little curtain of a glazed door at the back of the shop.
A hush had fallen over the fish market. All the huge paunches and bosoms held their breath, waiting till Florent should disappear from sight.
Then there was an uproarious outbreak; and the bosoms heaved wildly and the paunches nearly burst with malicious delight. The joke had succeeded. Nothing could be more comical. As old Mother Mehudin vented her merriment she shook and quivered like a wine-skin that is being emptied. Her story of the middle-aged gentleman went the round of the market, and the fish-wives found it extremely amusing. At last the long spindle-shanks was collared, and they would no longer always have his miserable face and gaol-bird's expression before their eyes. They all wished him a pleasant journey, and trusted that they might get a handsome fellow for their next inspector. And in their delight they rushed about from one stall to another, and felt inclined to dance round their marble slabs like a lot of holiday-making schoolgirls.
The beautiful Norman, however, watched this outbreak of joy in a rigid att.i.tude, not daring to move for fear she should burst into tears; and she kept her hands pressed upon a big skate to cool her feverish excitement.
”You see how those Mehudins turn their backs upon him now that he's come to grief,” said Madame Lecoeur.
”Well, and they're quite right too,” replied Mademoiselle Saget.
”Besides, matters are settled now, my dear, and we're to have no more disputes. You've every reason to be satisfied; leave the others to act as they please.”
”It's only the old woman who is laughing,” La Sarriette remarked; ”La Normande looks anything but happy.”
Meantime, upstairs in his bedroom, Florent allowed himself to be taken as unresistingly as a sheep. The police officers sprang roughly upon him, expecting, no doubt, that they would meet with a desperate resistance. He quietly begged them to leave go of him; and then sat down on a chair while they packed up his papers, and the red scarves, armlets, and banners. He did not seem at all surprised at this ending; indeed, it was something of a relief to him, though he would not frankly confess it. But he suffered acutely at thought of the bitter hatred which had sent him into that room; he recalled Auguste's pale face and the sn.i.g.g.e.ring looks of the fish-wives; he bethought himself of old Madame Mehudin's words, La Normande's silence, and the empty shop downstairs. The markets were leagued against him, he reflected; the whole neighbourhood had conspired to hand him over to the police. The mud of those greasy streets had risen up all around to overwhelm him!
And amidst all the round faces which flitted before his mind's eye there suddenly appeared that of Quenu, and a spasm of mortal agony contracted his heart.
”Come, get along downstairs!” exclaimed one of the officers, roughly.
Florent rose and proceeded to go downstairs. When he reached the second floor he asked to be allowed to return; he had forgotten something, he said. But the officers refused to let him go back, and began to hustle him forward. Then he besought them to let him return to his room again, and even offered them the money he had in his pocket. Two of them at last consented to return with him, threatening to blow his brains out should he attempt to play them any trick; and they drew their revolvers out of their pockets as they spoke. However, on reaching his room once more Florent simply went straight to the chaffinch's cage, took the bird out of it, kissed it between its wings, and set it at liberty.
He watched it fly away through the open window, into the suns.h.i.+ne, and alight, as though giddy, on the roof of the fish market. Then it flew off again and disappeared over the markets in the direction of the Square des Innocents. For a moment longer Florent remained face to face with the sky, the free and open sky; and he thought of the wood-pigeons cooing in the garden of the Tuileries, and of those other pigeons down in the market cellars with their throats slit by Marjolin's knife. Then he felt quite broken, and turned and followed the officers, who were putting their revolvers back into their pockets as they shrugged their shoulders.
On reaching the bottom of the stairs, Florent stopped before the door which led into the kitchen. The commissary, who was waiting for him there, seemed almost touched by his gentle submissiveness, and asked him: ”Would you like to say good-bye to your brother?”
For a moment Florent hesitated. He looked at the door. A tremendous noise of cleavers and pans came from the kitchen. Lisa, with the design of keeping her husband occupied, had persuaded him to make the black-puddings in the morning instead of in the evening, as was his wont. The onions were simmering on the fire, and over all the noisy uproar Florent could hear Quenu's joyous voice exclaiming, ”Ah, dash it all, the pudding will be excellent, that it will! Auguste, hand me the fat!”
Florent thanked the commissary, but refused his offer. He was afraid to return any more into that warm kitchen, reeking with the odour of boiling onions, and so he went on past the door, happy in the thought that his brother knew nothing of what had happened to him, and hastening his steps as if to spare the establishment all further worry. However, on emerging into the open suns.h.i.+ne of the street he felt a touch of shame, and got into the cab with bent back and ashen face. He was conscious that the fish market was gazing at him in triumph; it seemed to him, indeed, as though the whole neighbourhood had gathered there to rejoice at his fall.