Sundays, at long intervals, and Quenu then made great efforts at gaiety, but could not succeed in imparting any cheerfulness to the meal. He ate badly, and ended by feeling altogether put out. One evening, after one of these icy family gatherings, he said to his wife with tears in his eyes:
'What can be the matter with me? Is it true that I'm not ill? Don't you really see anything wrong in my appearance? I feel just as though I'd got a heavy weight somewhere inside me. And I'm so sad and depressed, too, without in the least knowing why. What can it be, do you think?'
'Oh, a little attack of indigestion, I dare say,' replied Lisa.
'No, no; it's been going on too long for that; I feel quite crushed down. Yet the business is going on all right; I've no great worries, and I am leading just the same steady life as ever. But you, too, my dear, don't look well; you seem melancholy. If there isn't a change for the better soon, I shall send for the doctor.'
Lisa looked at him with a grave expression.
'There's no need of a doctor,' she said, 'things will soon be all right again. There's something unhealthy in the atmosphere just now. All the neighbourhood is unwell.' Then, as if yielding to an impulse of anxious affection, she added: 'Don't worry yourself, my dear. I can't have you falling ill; that would be the crowning blow.'
As a rule she sent him back to the kitchen, knowing that the noise of the choppers, the tuneful simmering of the fat, and the bubbling of the pans had a cheering effect upon him. In this way, too, she kept him at a distance from the indiscreet chatter of Mademoiselle Saget, who now spent whole mornings in the shop. The old maid seemed bent on arousing Lisa's alarm, and thus driving her to some extreme step. She began by trying to obtain her confidence.
'What a lot of mischievous folks there are about!' she exclaimed; 'folks who would be much better employed in minding their own business. If you only knew, my dear Madame Quenu-but no, really, I should never dare to repeat such things to you.'
And, as Madame Quenu replied that she was quite indifferent to gossip, and that it had no effect upon her, the old maid whispered into her ear across the counter: 'Well, people say, you know, that Monsieur Florent isn't your cousin at all.'
Then she gradually allowed Lisa to see that she knew the whole story; by way of proving that she had her quite at her mercy. When Lisa confessed the truth, equally as a matter of diplomacy, in order that she might have the assistance of some one who would keep her well posted in all the gossip of the neighbourhood, the old maid swore that for her own part she would be as mute as a fish, and deny the truth of the reports about Florent, even if she were to be led to the stake for it. And afterwards this drama brought her intense enjoyment; every morning she came to the shop with some fresh piece of disturbing news.
'You must be careful,' she whispered one day; 'I have just heard two women in the tripe market talking about you know what. I can't interrupt people and tell them they are lying, you know. It would look so strange. But the story's got about, and it's spreading farther every day. It can't be stopped now, I fear; the truth will have to come out.'
A few days later she returned to the assault in all earnest. She made her appearance looking quite scared, and waited impatiently till there was no one in the shop, when she burst out in her sibilant voice:
'Do you know what people are saying now? Well, they say that all those men who meet at Monsieur Lebigre's have got guns, and are going to break out again as they did in '48. It's quite distressing to see such a worthy man as Monsieur Gavard-rich, too, and so respectable- leaguing himself with such scoundrels! I was very anxious to let you know, on account of your brother-in-law.'
'Oh, it's mere nonsense, I'm sure; it can't be serious,' rejoined Lisa, just to incite the old maid to tell her more.
'Not serious, indeed! Why, when one passes along the Rue Pirouette in the evening one can hear them screaming out in the most dreadful way. Oh! they make no mystery of it all. You know yourself how they tried to corrupt your husband. And the cartridges which I have seen them making from my own window, are they mere nonsense? Well, well, I'm only telling you this for your own good.'
'Oh! I'm sure of that, and I'm very much obliged to you,' replied Lisa; 'but people do invent such stories, you know.'
'Ah, but this is no invention, unfortunately. The whole neighbourhood is talking of it. It is said, too, that if the police discover the matter there will be a great many people compromised-Monsieur Gavard, for instance.'
Madame Quenu shrugged her shoulders as though to say that Monsieur Gavard was an old fool, and that it would do him good to be locked up.
'Well, I merely mention Monsieur Gavard as I might mention any of the others, your brother-in-law, for instance,' resumed the old maid with a wily glance. 'Your brother-in-law is the leader, it seems. That's very annoying for you, and I'm very sorry indeed; for if the police were to make a descent here they might march Monsieur Quenu off as well. Two brothers, you know, they're like two fingers of the same hand.'
Beautiful Lisa protested against this, but she turned very pale, for Mademoiselle Saget's last thrust had touched a vulnerable point. From that day forward the old maid was ever bringing her stories of innocent people who had been thrown into prison for extending hospitality to criminal scoundrels. In the evening, when La Saget went to get her black-currant syrup at the wine dealer's, she prepared her budget for the next morning. Rose was but little given to gossiping, and the old main reckoned chiefly on her own eyes and ears. She had been struck by Monsieur Lebigre's extremely kind and obliging manner towards Florent, his eagerness to keep him at his establishment, all the polite civilities, for which the little money which the other spent in the house could never recoup him. And this conduct of Monsieur Lebigre's surprised her the more as she was aware of the position in which the two men stood in respect to the beautiful Norman.
'It looks as though Lebigre were fattening him up for sale,' she reflected. 'Whom can he want to sell him to, I wonder?'
One evening when she was in the bar she saw Logre fling himself on the bench in the sanctum, and heard him speak of his perambulations through the faubourgs, with the remark that he was dead beat. She cast a hasty glance at his feet, and saw that there was not a speck of dust on his boots. Then she smiled quietly, and went off with her black- currant syrup, her lips closely compressed.
She used to complete her budget of information on getting back to her window. It was very high up, commanding a view of all the neighbouring houses, and proved a source of endless enjoyment to her. She was constantly installed at it, as though it were an observatory from which she kept watch upon everything that went on in the neighbourhood. She was quite familiar with all the rooms opposite her, both on the right and the left, even to the smallest details of their furniture. She could have described, without the least omission, the habits of their tenants, have related if the latter's homes were happy or the contrary, have told when and how they washed themselves, what they had for dinner, and who it was that came to see them. Then she obtained a side view of the markets, and not a woman could walk along the Rue Rambuteau without being seen by her; and she could have correctly stated whence the woman had come and whither she was going, what she had got in her basket, and, in short, every detail about her, her husband, her clothes, her children, and her means. 'That's Madame Loret, over there; she's giving her son a fine education; that's Madame Hutin, a poor little woman who's dreadfully neglected by her husband; that's Mademoiselle Cecile, the butcher's daughter, a girl that no one will marry because she's scrofulous.' In this way she could have continued jerking out biographical scraps for days together, deriving extraordinary amusement from the most trivial, uninteresting incidents. However, as soon as eight o'clock struck, she only had eyes for the frosted 'cabinet' window on which appeared the black shadows of the coterie of politicians. She discovered the secession of Charvet and Clemence by missing their bony silhouettes from the milky transparency. Not an incident occurred in that room but she sooner or later learnt it by some sudden motion of those silent arms and heads. She acquired great skill in interpretation, and could divine the meaning of protruding noses, spreading fingers, gaping mouths, and shrugging shoulders; and in this way she followed the progress of the conspiracy step by step, in such wise that she could have told day by day how matters stood. One evening the terrible outcome of it all was revealed to her. She saw the shadow of Gavard's revolver, a huge silhouette with pointed muzzle showing very blackly against the glimmering window. It kept appearing and disappearing so rapidly that it seemed as though the room was full of revolvers. Those were the firearms of which Mademoiselle Saget had spoken to Madame Quenu. On another evening she was much puzzled by the sight of endless lengths of some material or other, and came to the conclusion that the men must be manufacturing cartridges. The next morning, however, she made her appearance in the wine shop by eleven o'clock, on the pretext of asking Rose if she could let her have a candle, and, glancing furtively into the little sanctum, she espied a heap of red material lying on the
