Thereupon she took up the fork with plated handle, which was lying at the edge of the dish, and began to turn all the pieces of pork about, prodding them, lightly tapping the bones to judge of their thickness, and minutely scrutinising the shreds of pinky meat. And as she turned them over she repeated, 'No, no; it doesn't tempt me.'
'Well, then, have a sheep's tongue, or a bit of brawn, or a slice of larded veal,' suggested Lisa patiently.
Mademoiselle Saget, however, shook her head. She remained there for a few minutes longer, pulling dissatisfied faces over the different dishes; then, seeing that the others were determined to remain silent, and that she would not be able to learn anything, she took herself off.
'No; I rather felt a fancy for a cutlet rolled in bread-crumbs,' she said as she left the shop, 'but the one you have left is too fat. I must come another time.'
Lisa bent forward to watch her through the sausage-skins hanging in the shop-front, and saw her cross the road and enter the fruit market.
'The old she-goat!' growled Gavard.
Then, as they were now alone again, he began to tell them of the situation he had found for Florent. A friend of his, he said, Monsieur Verlaque, one of the fish market inspectors, was so ill that he was obliged to take a rest; and that very morning the poor man had told him that he should be very glad to find a substitute who would keep his berth open for him in case he should recover.
'Verlaque, you know, won't last another six months,' added Gavard, 'and Florent will keep the place. It's a splendid idea, isn't it? And it will be such a take-in for the police! The berth is under the Prefecture, you know. What glorious fun to see Florent getting paid by the police, eh?'
He burst into a hearty laugh; the idea struck him as so extremely comical.
'I won't take the place,' Florent bluntly replied. 'I've sworn I'll never accept anything from the Empire, and I would rather die of starvation than serve under the Prefecture. It is quite out of the question, Gavard, quite so!'
Gavard seemed somewhat put out on hearing this. Quenu had lowered his head, while Lisa, turning round, looked keenly at Florent, her neck swollen, her bosom straining her bodice almost to bursting point. She was just going to open her mouth when La Sarriette entered the shop, and there was another pause in the conversation.
'Dear me!' exclaimed La Sarriette with her soft laugh, 'I'd almost forgotten to get any bacon fat. Please, Madame Quenu, cut me a dozen thin strips-very thin ones, you know; I want them for larding larks. Jules has taken it into his head to eat some larks. Ah! how do you do, uncle?'
She filled the whole shop with her dancing skirts and smiled brightly at everyone. Her face looked fresh and creamy, and on one side her hair was coming down, loosened by the wind which blew through the markets. Gavard grasped her hands, while she with merry impudence resumed: 'I'll bet that you were talking about me just as I came in. Tell me what you were saying, uncle.'
However, Lisa now called to her, 'Just look and tell me if this is thin enough.'
She was cutting the strips of bacon fat with great care on a piece of board in front of her. Then as she wrapped them up she inquired, 'Can I give you anything else?'
'Well, yes,' replied La Sarriette; 'since I'm about it, I think I'll have a pound of lard. I'm awfully fond of fried potatoes; I can make a breakfast off a penn'orth of potatoes and a bunch of radishes. Yes, I'll have a pound of lard, please, Madame Quenu.'
Lisa placed a sheet of stout paper in the pan of the scales. Then she took the lard out of a jar under the shelves with a boxwood spatula, gently adding small quantities to the fatty heap, which began to melt and run slightly. When the plate of the scale fell, she took up the paper, folded it, and rapidly twisted the ends with her finger- tips.
'That makes twenty-four sous,' she said; 'the bacon is six sous- thirty sous altogether. There's nothing else you want, is there?'
'No,' said La Sarriette, 'nothing.' She paid her money, still laughing and showing her teeth, and staring the men in the face. Her grey skirt was all awry, and her loosely fastened red neckerchief allowed a little of her white bosom to appear. Before she went away she stepped up to Gavard again, and pretending to threaten him exclaimed: 'So you won't tell me what you were talking about as I came in? I could see you laughing from the street. Oh, you sly fellow! Ah! I sha'n't love you any longer!'
Then she left the shop and ran across the road.
'It was Mademoiselle Saget who sent her here,' remarked handsome Lisa drily.
Then silence fell again for some moments. Gavard was dismayed at Florent's reception of his proposal. Lisa was the first to speak. 'It was wrong of you to refuse the post, Florent,' she said in the most friendly tones. 'You know how difficult it is to find any employment, and you are not in a position to be over-exacting.'
'I have my reasons,' Florent replied.
Lisa shrugged her shoulders. 'Come now,' said she, 'you really can't be serious, I'm sure. I can understand that you are not in love with the Government, but it would be too absurd to let your opinions prevent you from earning your living. And, besides, my dear fellow, the Emperor isn't at all a bad sort of man. You don't suppose, do you, that he knew you were eating mouldy bread and tainted meat? He can't be everywhere, you know, and you can see for yourself that he hasn't prevented us here from doing pretty well. You are not at all just; indeed you are not.'
Gavard, however, was getting very fidgety. He could not bear to hear people speak well of the Emperor.
'No, no, Madame Quenu,' he interrupted; 'you are going too far. It is a scoundrelly system altogether.'
'Oh, as for you,' exclaimed Lisa vivaciously, 'you'll never rest until you've got yourself plundered and knocked on the head as the result of all your wild talk. Don't let us discuss politics; you would only make me angry. The question is Florent, isn't it? Well, for my part, I say that he ought to accept this inspectorship. Don't you think so too, Quenu?'
Quenu, who had not yet said a word, was very much put out by his wife's sudden appeal.
'It's a good berth,' he replied, without compromising himself.
Then, amidst another interval of awkward silence, Florent resumed: 'I beg you, let us drop the subject. My mind is quite made up. I shall wait.'
'You will wait!' cried Lisa, losing patience.
Two rosy fires had risen to her cheeks. As she stood there, erect, in her white apron, with rounded, swelling hips, it was with difficulty that she restrained herself from breaking out into bitter words. However, the entrance of another person into the shop arrested her anger. The new arrival was Madame Lecoeur.
'Can you let me have half a pound of mixed meats at fifty sous the pound?' she asked.
She at first pretended not to notice her brother-in-law; but presently she just nodded her head to him, without speaking. Then she scrutinised the three men from head to foot, doubtless hoping to divine their secret by the manner in which they waited for her to go. She could see that she was putting them out, and the knowledge of this rendered her yet more sour and angular, as she stood there in her limp skirts, with her long, spider-like arms bent and her knotted fingers clasped beneath her apron. Then, as she coughed slightly, Gavard, whom the silence embarrassed, inquired if she had a cold.
She curtly answered in the negative. Her tightly stretched skin was of a red-brick colour on those parts of her face where her bones protruded, and the dull fire burning in her eyes and scorching their lids testified to some liver complaint nurtured by the querulous jealousy of her disposition. She turned round again towards the counter, and watched each movement made by Lisa as she served her with the distrustful glance of one who is convinced that an attempt will be made to defraud her.
'Don't give me any saveloy,' she exclaimed; 'I don't like it.'
Lisa had taken up a slender knife, and was cutting some thin slices of sausage. She next passed on to the smoked ham and the common ham, cutting delicate slices from each, and bending forward slightly as she did so, with her eyes ever fixed on the knife. Her plump rosy hands, flitting about the viands with light and gentle touches, seemed to have derived suppleness from contact with all the fat.
'You would like some larded veal, wouldn't you?' she asked, bringing a yellow pan towards her.
Madame Lecoeur seemed to be thinking the matter over at considerable length; however, she at last said that she would have some. Lisa had now begun to cut into the contents of the pans, from which she removed slices of larded veal and hare
