please.'
'It's only the old woman who is laughing,' La Sarriette remarked; 'La Normande looks anything but happy.'
Meantime, upstairs in his bedroom, Florent allowed himself to be taken as unresistingly as a sheep. The police officers sprang roughly upon him, expecting, no doubt, that they would meet with a desperate resistance. He quietly begged them to leave go of him; and then sat down on a chair while they packed up his papers, and the red scarves, armlets, and banners. He did not seem at all surprised at this ending; indeed, it was something of a relief to him, though he would not frankly confess it. But he suffered acutely at thought of the bitter hatred which had sent him into that room; he recalled Auguste's pale face and the sniggering looks of the fish-wives; he bethought himself of old Madame Mehudin's words, La Normande's silence, and the empty shop downstairs. The markets were leagued against him, he reflected; the whole neighbourhood had conspired to hand him over to the police. The mud of those greasy streets had risen up all around to overwhelm him!
And amidst all the round faces which flitted before his mind's eye there suddenly appeared that of Quenu, and a spasm of mortal agony contracted his heart.
'Come, get along downstairs!' exclaimed one of the officers, roughly.
Florent rose and proceeded to go downstairs. When he reached the second floor he asked to be allowed to return; he had forgotten something, he said. But the officers refused to let him go back, and began to hustle him forward. Then he besought them to let him return to his room again, and even offered them the money he had in his pocket. Two of them at last consented to return with him, threatening to blow his brains out should he attempt to play them any trick; and they drew their revolvers out of their pockets as they spoke. However, on reaching his room once more Florent simply went straight to the chaffinch's cage, took the bird out of it, kissed it between its wings, and set it at liberty. He watched it fly away through the open window, into the sunshine, and alight, as though giddy, on the roof of the fish market. Then it flew off again and disappeared over the markets in the direction of the Square des Innocents. For a moment longer Florent remained face to face with the sky, the free and open sky; and he thought of the wood-pigeons cooing in the garden of the Tuileries, and of those other pigeons down in the market cellars with their throats slit by Marjolin's knife. Then he felt quite broken, and turned and followed the officers, who were putting their revolvers back into their pockets as they shrugged their shoulders.
On reaching the bottom of the stairs, Florent stopped before the door which led into the kitchen. The commissary, who was waiting for him there, seemed almost touched by his gentle submissiveness, and asked him: 'Would you like to say good-bye to your brother?'
For a moment Florent hesitated. He looked at the door. A tremendous noise of cleavers and pans came from the kitchen. Lisa, with the design of keeping her husband occupied, had persuaded him to make the black-puddings in the morning instead of in the evening, as was his wont. The onions were simmering on the fire, and over all the noisy uproar Florent could hear Quenu's joyous voice exclaiming, 'Ah, dash it all, the pudding will be excellent, that it will! Auguste, hand me the fat!'
Florent thanked the commissary, but refused his offer. He was afraid to return any more into that warm kitchen, reeking with the odour of boiling onions, and so he went on past the door, happy in the thought that his brother knew nothing of what had happened to him, and hastening his steps as if to spare the establishment all further worry. However, on emerging into the open sunshine of the street he felt a touch of shame, and got into the cab with bent back and ashen face. He was conscious that the fish market was gazing at him in triumph; it seemed to him, indeed, as though the whole neighbourhood had gathered there to rejoice at his fall.
'What a villainous expression he's got!' said Mademoiselle Saget.
'Yes, indeed, he looks just like a thief caught with his hand in somebody's till,' added Madame Lecoeur.
'I once saw a man guillotined who looked exactly like he does,' asserted La Sarriette, showing her white teeth.
They stepped forward, lengthened their necks, and tried to see into the cab. Just as it was starting, however, the old maid tugged sharply at the skirts of her companions, and pointed to Claire, who was coming round the corner of the Rue Pirouette, looking like a mad creature, with her hair loose and her nails bleeding. She had at last succeeded in opening her door. When she discovered that she was too late, and that Florent was being taken off, she darted after the cab, but checked herself almost immediately with a gesture of impotent rage, and shook her fists at the receding wheels. Then, with her face quite crimson beneath the fine plaster dust with which she was covered, she ran back again towards the Rue Pirouette.
'Had he promised to marry her, eh?' exclaimed La Sarriette, laughing. 'The silly fool must be quite cracked.'
Little by little the neighbourhood calmed down, though throughout the day groups of people constantly assembled and discussed the events of the morning. The pork shop was the object of much inquisitive curiosity. Lisa avoided appearing there, and left the counter in charge of Augustine. In the afternoon she felt bound to tell Quenu of what had happened, for fear the news might cause him too great a shock should he hear it from some gossiping neighbour. She waited till she was alone with him in the kitchen, knowing that there he was always most cheerful, and would weep less than if he were anywhere else. Moreover, she communicated her tidings with all sorts of motherly precautions. Nevertheless, as soon as he knew the truth he fell on the chopping-block, and began to cry like a calf.
'Now, now, my poor dear, don't give way like that; you'll make yourself quite ill,' exclaimed Lisa, taking him in her arms.
His tears were inundating his white apron, the whole of his massive, torpid form quivered with grief. He seemed to be sinking, melting away. When he was at last able to speak, he stammered: 'Oh, you don't know how good he was to me when we lived together in the Rue Royer- Collard! He did everything. He swept the room and cooked the meals. He loved me as though I were his own child; and after his day's work he used to come back splashed with mud, and so tired that he could scarcely move, while I stayed warm and comfortable in the house, and had nothing to do but eat. And now they're going to shoot him!'
At this Lisa protested, saying that he would certainly not be shot. But Quenu only shook his head.
'I haven't loved him half as much as I ought to have done,' he continued. 'I can see that very well now. I had a wicked heart, and I hesitated about giving him his half of the money.'
'Why, I offered it to him a dozen times and more!' Lisa interrupted. 'I'm sure we've nothing to reproach ourselves with.'
'Oh, yes, I know that you are everything that is good, and that you would have given him every copper. But I hesitated, I didn't like to part with it; and now it will be a sorrow to me for the rest of my life. I shall always think that if I'd shared the fortune with him he wouldn't have gone wrong a second time. Oh, yes; it's my fault! It is I who have driven him to this.'
Then Lisa, expostulating still more gently, assured him that he had nothing to blame himself for, and even expressed some pity for Florent. But he was really very culpable, she said, and if he had had more money he would probably have perpetrated greater follies. Gradually she gave her husband to understand that it was impossible matters could have had any other termination, and that now everything would go on much better. Quenu was still weeping, wiping his cheeks with his apron, trying to suppress his sobs to listen to her, and then breaking into a wilder fit of tears than before. His fingers had mechanically sought a heap of sausage-meat lying on the block, and he was digging holes in it, and roughly kneading it together.
'And how unwell you were feeling, you know,' Lisa continued. 'It was all because our life had got so shifted out of its usual course. I was very anxious, though I didn't tell you so, at seeing you getting so low.'
'Yes, wasn't I?' he murmured, ceasing to sob for a moment.
'And the business has been quite under a cloud this year. It was as though a spell had been cast on it. Come, now, don't take on so; you'll see that everything will look up again now. You must take care of yourself, you know, for my sake and your daughter's. You have duties to us as well as to others, remember.'
Quenu was now kneading the sausage-meat more gently. Another burst of emotion was thrilling him, but it was a softer emotion, which was already bringing a vague smile to his grief-stricken face. Lisa felt that she had convinced him, and she turned and called to Pauline, who was playing in the shop, and sat her on Quenu's knee.
'Tell your father, Pauline, that he ought not to give way like this. Ask him nicely not to go on distressing us so.'
