CHAPTER SIX
A week later, Florent thought he was finally ready for action. The government had made a move unpopular enough to send groups of rebels into the streets of Paris. The Corps Législatif, divided on a pension law, were now in the process of debating an extremely unpopular tax,1 and all over the city people were muttering against it. Fearing defeat, the government was fighting with all its might. It might be a long time before a better pretext came along.
Early one morning Florent explored the Palais Bourbon. He forgot about his responsibilities as inspector and stayed there studying the area until eight o'clock, without a moment's thought as to how his absence from the fish market might be causing a revolution. He visited every street: rue de Lille, rue de l'Université, rue de Bourgogne, rue Saint-Dominique; he went as far as the parade ground in front of the Invalides, stopping at certain selected intersections, measuring distances by taking huge steps. Then, sitting on the wall back at the quai d'Orsay he decided that the attack should come from all sides at once: the Gros-Caillou group would arrive along the Champ de Mars, the group from northern Paris would come in by the Madeleine, and the groups from the west and south would come along the quais or fight their way along the streets of the Saint Germain suburb.
But he was worried by the Champs-Elysées on the other bank, with its wide-open avenue. He could see how they would place cannons there and fire at the quais. So he modified some details of the plan and marked combat positions for the various groups in a notebook he carried in his hand. The primary assault would definitely occur along rue de Bourgogne and rue de l'Université, while a diversion was created along the Seine. The sun at eight o'clock could be felt, warm on the back of the neck, lighting the pavement and gilding the columns of the large buildings across the way. Already he could envision the battle, groups of men clinging to those columns, the gates bursting open, the invasion penetrating past the columns, and then suddenly a glimpse of thin arms planting a flag.
Slowly he walked back with his head lowered. A cooing noise grabbed his attention. He realized that he was crossing the Tuileries Garden. A band of pigeons strutted on the lawn, puffing out their necks. He leaned for a moment against the stand of an orange tree and looked at the grass and the pigeons all bathed in sunlight. Across the way, chestnut trees were blackened by shadows. A warm silence reigned, disturbed only by the continual distant rumbling behind the railings of rue de Rivoli. The smell of the greenery affected him greatly because it reminded him of Madame François. The pigeons were scared away by a young girl chasing a hoop and flew to the marble arm of an ancient wrestler in the middle of the lawn, still cooing and puffed out but in a gentler way now.
As Florent returned to Les Halles by rue Vauvilliers, he heard the voice of Claude Lantier calling him. The painter was going into the basement below the poultry market.
“Hey, come with me,” he shouted. “I'm looking for that thug Marjolin.”
Florent followed him, to forget his work for a few more seconds, to delay his return to the fish market. Claude said that now his friend Marjolin no longer wanted anything—he had become nothing more than an animal—he was considering having him pose on all fours with his childlike grin. Whenever he was driven to tear up a sketch in a rage, he could spend hours in that imbecile's company, not speaking, trying to make him smile.
“He's probably feeding the pigeons,” Claude said. “The problem is that I don't know where Monsieur Gavard is.”
They searched everywhere in the cellar. In the pale shadows in the center, two water taps were running. The cages were reserved exclusively for pigeons. Along the chicken wire there was a constant plaintive hooting, the unassertive song of birds from under the leaves at dusk. It made Claude laugh to hear this music. “You would swear that every lover in Paris was snuggling under there,” he said.
Not one of the coops was open, and Claude was starting to think that Marjolin was not down there after all when the sound of kisses, real, loud kisses, stopped him in his tracks in front of a partly open door. He opened it and saw Marjolin, the animal, whom Cadine had made kneel on the straw-covered ground so that his face rose just to the level of her lips. She was kissing him gently, everywhere. She parted his long blond hair so that she could reach behind his ears, on the cheeks, behind the neck, coming back to his eyes, his mouth, slowly, devouring his face in tiny caresses, as though it were a scrumptious treat that she was consuming at her leisure. Contentedly he remained as she had placed him. He was no longer completely aware of things. He offered her his flesh, no longer even afraid of being tickled.
“Will you look at that,” said Claude. “Aren't you even embarrassed? You have no shame, you huge good-for-nothing. Teasing him like that in all this filth. He's up to his knees in dirt.”
“So what,” said Cadine brazenly. “He's not unhappy. He likes being kissed. Because he's afraid of the dark now. Aren't you? You're afraid.”
She had pulled him to his feet. He rubbed his hands across his face as though groping for the kisses she had placed there. He stammered that he was afraid. “Besides, I came here to help him. I was force-feeding the pigeons.”
Florent looked at the poor creatures. On the planks surrounding the coops were uncovered boxes. Pigeons were jammed into them with mottled feathers and stiff legs. From time to time a shudder ran through the feathers and the bodies huddled even more tightly together, a chaotic chatter rising out of the boxes. Cadine had a pot next to her full of water and seeds: she filled her mouth and, one by one, blew the seeds into the birds' beaks. They choked and squirmed, then fell backward white-eyed into the darkness of the box, knocked senseless by the forcibly swallowed food.
“The poor innocents,” said Claude.
“Too bad for them,” said Cadine when she finished. “They're a lot better off after they've been well stuffed. You'll see, in a couple of hours we'll make them swallow saltwater, these birds over here. That will make their meat white and delicate. Two hours after that, they'll be bled. But if you want to see bleeding, there's some over there all ready to go. Marjolin was just about to do them.”
Marjolin was carrying about fifty pigeons in a box. Claude and Florent followed him. He settled himself on the floor by one of the faucets, putting the box next to him and placing a fine screen on a wooden frame in a deep zinc tray. Then he began. He moved the knife quickly in his fingers, grabbing pigeons by the wings, knocking them out with a blow on the head from the knife handle, then sticking the blade into the throat. The pigeons shuddered for an instant, and their feathers rumpled as he laid them out in rows, their heads stuck out on the screen over the zinc tray into which, drop by drop, their blood fell. All of this was done in an even rhythm— the whack of the handle on the smashed little skull in measured time with the hand that took the live birds on one side and the hand that placed the dead ones on the other side.
Marjolin was going ever faster, enjoying the slaughter, crouching with gleaming eyes like a huge salivating mastiff. Finally he started laughing and sang, “Tic-tac, tic-tac, tic-tac,” accompanying the rhythm of his knife with the clicking of his tongue, making the sound of a head-grinding mill. The pigeons hung like swatches of silk.
“So you think that's funny, you big dummy,” said Cadine, laughing too. “They look so funny, those pigeons, when they pull in their head between their shoulders and the neck is gone. They're mean little things anyway. They'd bite you if they could.”
Marjolin laughed even louder at an ever more feverish pace. She added, “No matter how hard I try, I can't do it as fast as he does. One day he bled a hundred in ten minutes.”
The wooden frame was filling up, and they could hear the blood dropping into the zinc tray below. Then Claude by chance looked at Florent and saw how pale he had turned. He hurried him out and made him sit on the top step by the street.
“Look at you,” Claude said, clapping his hands. “There you go, fainting like a woman.”
“It's the smell of the cellar,” said Florent, feeling a little ashamed.
The pigeons, force fed seeds and then saltwater and then slashed in the throat, reminded him of the pigeons of the Tuileries strutting in their satin gowns over the grass, yellow with sunlight. He pictured them cooing on the marble arm of the ancient wrestler amid the great silence of the garden, while under the dark shadows of chestnut trees a little girl played with a hoop. It was then that his bones iced over, when he saw that huge blond animal conducting his massacre, stunning with the handle and stabbing with the blade in the depths of the fetid cellar. Then he felt himself falling, his legs buckling and his eyelids fluttering.
“What the hell!” Claude said when Florent came to. “You wouldn't make much of a soldier. I have to say, whoever sent you to Guiana must have been some character to imagine you were dangerous. If you ever got involved in an uprising, my old friend, you wouldn't dare to fire your pistol, you'd be too afraid you might kill someone.”
Florent got up without answering. He had become very somber, and there were worry lines across his face. He walked away, leaving Claude to go back down into the cellar. On his way back to the fish market he once more went over his plan of attack and the armed groups that would invade the Palais Bourbon. In the Champs-Elysées the cannon would roar, the gates would be smashed down; there would be blood on the steps and skulls smashed against the columns. A fleeting image of the battle passed through his mind. He saw himself in the thick of it, pale, unable to look, his face hidden in his hands.
Crossing rue du Pont-Neuf, he thought he saw the pale face of Auguste at the corner of the fruit market, walking along, his neck outstretched. He seemed to be looking for someone, his eyes round with some extraordinary imbecilic emotion. Suddenly, he disappeared, running back toward the charcuterie.
“What was that about?” Florent wondered. “Did I scare him?”
That morning there had been serious events at the Quenu-Gradelles'. At sunrise Auguste had run to his mistress in great excitement with the news that the police had come to arrest Florent. Then, stammering even more, he gave a muddled account of how Florent had already left, no doubt to escape arrest. Beautiful Lisa, uncorseted and in her camisole, unfazed, hurried upstairs to her brother-in-law's room, where she took the photo of the Norman after a quick look around to make sure there was nothing to implicate any of them. On her way down, she ran into the police on the second floor. The police inspector asked her to go with them. They spoke in hushed voices for a few moments, and he and his men went into the bedroom, advising her to open the shop as on a normal day, so that no one would suspect anything. The trap was set.
The only thing worrying Lisa in this entire episode was the blow it would be to poor Quenu. That was partly because she feared he would burst into tears as soon as he found out that the police were there. Because of this she made Auguste promise not to say a word about it. Then she went back upstairs to put on her corset and to make up some story for her husband to explain the commotion. A half hour later she was standing at the doorway of the charcuterie, coiffed and corseted, her face pink and smooth. Auguste was calmly working on the window display. Quenu appeared outside for a minute, yawning and trying to wake up in the fresh morning air. There was nothing to give away the drama that was about to unfold upstairs.
But the police inspector himself had tipped off the entire neighborhood when he had visited the Méhudin household on rue Pirouette. He had remarkably detailed notes. In the anonymous letters sent to the prefecture, it had been established that Florent frequently slept with the Beautiful Norman. Could he be hiding there? The commandant, accompanied by two policemen, went over and pounded on the door in the name of the law. The Méhudins had barely gotten up. The old woman opened the door, at first in a rage and then more calm, even snickering when she understood the situation. Pulling up her clothes, she sat down and told her visitors, “We are respectable people with nothing to fear. You can search the house.”
Since the Norman was slow to open her door, the inspector had it knocked down. She was dressing. Her upper body was bare, her splendid shoulders showing, an undergarment clasped in her teeth. This violent, unexplained entrance infuriated her. She dropped the garment and was about to attack the men in her shift, reddened by anger and not embarrassment. The inspector, faced with this large, naked woman, stepped forward to protect his men, repeating in an icy voice, “In the name of the law! In the name of the law!”
Then she fell into a chair, sobbing, overtaken by emotion at feeling so helpless and not understanding what was expected of her. Her hair had come undone, her shift did not even come down to her knees, and the policemen were casting sideways glances for a better view. The inspector tossed her a shawl that he found hanging on the wall. She didn't use it. She started crying even harder, watching the police roughly searching her bed, smacking the pillows, running their hands down the sheets.
“What have I done?” she finally stuttered. “What are you looking for in my bed?”
The inspector said the name “Florent,” and since the old woman had remained in the doorway of the room, the Norman shouted, “It's her doing, the old battle-ax!” and tried to lunge across the room at her mother.
She would have pummeled her. But she was restrained and forcibly wrapped in her shawl. She struggled and managed to get out in a strangled voice, “What do you think I am? This Florent has never been in my room, do you understand? There's nothing between us. They're trying to smear my name in the neighborhood. But let just one of them come here and say it to my face. Then you'll see. Then you can send me to prison, I don't care. And Florent? I can do better than him. I can marry anyone I want and drive whatever woman sent you here crazy.”
She was calmed by her torrent of words. Then her wrath turned to Florent for causing all this. She turned to the inspector and justified herself. “I didn't know, Monsieur. He looked so gentle, he fooled us. I didn't want to listen to the gossip—they're all so malicious. He came to give the child lessons, and then he left. Sometimes I fed him, and often I gave him a good fish as a gift. That's all. But that's the last time I'll let myself be used for my kindness.”
“But surely he gave you some papers to keep for him?” the inspector asked.
“No, I swear he didn't. I wouldn't care. I'd give you the papers. I've had it, you know? I don't enjoy watching you search through my things. Enough, it's pointless.”
The police, who had examined every piece of furniture in the room, now wanted to go to the little nook where Muche slept. For a few minutes now, the child, awakened by the commotion, had been crying, no doubt thinking that someone had come to slit his throat.
“This is my child's room,” said the Norman, opening the door.
Muche, completely naked, ran up and threw his arms around her neck. She calmed him down and put him in her own bed. The police came out of his room very quickly. The inspector had just decided to leave when the child, still crying, whispered in his mother's ear. “They're going to take my exercise books! Don't let them have my exercise books!”
“Ah, that's right! There are the notebooks. Wait, I'll give them to you, just to show you I have nothing to hide. Look, his writing is in here. You can hang him for all I care, and it won't be me who cuts him down.”
She handed over Muche's notebooks with the writing samples. But the child got up from the bed in a rage, biting and scratching his mother, who shoved him down with a smack. He began to scream. At the doorway, Mademoiselle Saget was stretching her neck. She had come in, finding all the doors open, and asked Mère Méhudin if she could be of some help. She watched and listened and felt bad for these women without defenders. Meanwhile, the inspector was reading the handwriting specimens with great seriousness. Words such as “tyrannically” and “liberticide” and “anti-constitutional” and “revolutionary” made him frown. Then he read the sentence “When the hour strikes, the guilty shall fall.” He tapped the page and said, “This is serious, very serious.”
He gave the exercise books to one of his men, and then he was gone. Claire, who up to this point had not appeared, opened the door and watched the men leave. Then she entered into her sister's room for the first time in a year. Mademoiselle Saget seemed to be very friendly with the Norman; she was fussing over her, pulling the ends of the shawl to make sure she was well covered, and letting her discharge her anger with great sympathy.
“You're a complete coward,” Claire said, facing her.
The Norman rose to her feet, furious, and let the shawl slip off.
“You lying snitch!” she shouted. “Say that again!”
“You're a complete coward,” the young woman repeated in an even more sneering tone.
Then the Norman swung her arm all the way from behind and smacked Claire in the face so hard that she turned horribly pale as the Norman jumped on her and dug her fingernails into her neck. They wrestled a moment, pulling each other's hair, trying to strangle each other. The younger sister, frail as she was, violently pushed the older one with such superhuman strength that they both crashed into the wardrobe, shattering the mirror. Muche was sobbing, and the mother was shouting for Mademoiselle Saget to help separate them. But Claire pulled herself away, saying, “Coward, coward. I'm going to warn that poor man that you have betrayed him.”
Her mother blocked the doorway. The Norman grabbed her from behind. With the help of Mademoiselle Saget, the three pushed her back into her own room, where they managed to double-lock the door, despite her furious struggle. She kicked at the door and smashed everything in the room. Then they could hear only a rapid scraping noise, the sound of iron against plaster. She was unhinging the door with the point of her scissors.
“If she'd had a knife, she would have killed me,” said the Norman, looking for clothes to put on. “You'll see, someday that jealousy of hers will do her in. And nobody can open that door. She'd stir up the whole neighborhood against us.”
Mademoiselle Saget had hurried down the stairs. She arrived at the corner of rue Pirouette just as the inspector was returning to the alley by the Quenu-Gradelles'. She understood what was going on and went into the charcuterie, her eyes glowing with such intensity that Lisa made a sign to be quiet, pointing toward Quenu, who was hanging strips of petit salé. When he returned to the kitchen, the old woman whispered about the drama that had just unfolded at the Méhudins'.
Leaning across the counter, her hand resting on a dish of larded veal, Lisa listened with the happy face of a victorious woman. But then a customer came in to ask for pigs' feet, and she turned to wrap them carefully.
“Personally, I don't wish any harm to the Norman,” she said when they were finally alone again. “I like her very much, and have always felt bad that we've had this falling-out. Here, this is the proof that I'm not vindictive. Look what I rescued from the hands of the police. I'm perfectly willing to return it if she comes and asks for it herself.”
She pulled the portrait from her pocket. Mademoiselle Saget sniffed it and snickered as she read, “From Louise, to her friend Florent,” then, in her sharp-edged voice she said, “That may be a mistake. You should keep that.”
“No, no,” Lisa interrupted. “I want all this foolishness to end. Today's the day of reconciliation. Enough of all this. Let's have a peaceful neighborhood again.”
“So should I tell the Norman that you want to see her?” asked the elderly woman.
“Yes, I'd appreciate that.”
Mademoiselle Saget went back to rue Pirouette, where she alarmed the Norman by telling her she had just seen her portrait in Lisa's pocket. But she was not able to persuade the Norman to do as her rival had asked. The Norman had her conditions: she would go to the charcuterie only if Lisa would come out and meet her at the door. The elderly woman had to make two trips back and forth to settle the conditions for the upcoming encounter. But eventually she had the pleasure of negotiating an accord that was going to make some noise around the neighborhood. As she passed Claire's door one last time, she could still hear the sound of scissors in the plaster.
After having gotten a definitive response from the charcuterie woman, she hurried off to look for Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette. The three planted themselves at the corner of the fish market, opposite the charcuterie. From there they would miss nothing of the encounter. Growing impatient, they pretended to chat among themselves, watching rue Pirouette, where the Norman was expected to be coming out. Throughout Les Halles, gossip about the meeting was already circulating. The women, standing stiffly in their stalls, craned their necks in order to see. Others, more curious, left their places and took positions along the covered street. Every eye in Les Halles was turned toward the charcuterie. The neighborhood had been alerted.
It was a solemn moment. When the Norman finally emerged on rue Pirouette, no one was breathing.
“She has her diamonds on,” La Sarriette murmured.
“Look at the way she's walking,” added Madame Lecœur. “She's too aggressive.”
The truth was that the Beautiful Norman walked like a queen who deigned to accept an offer of peace. She had primped carefully, with her hair all in curls and the corners of her apron turned up to show the cashmere skirt underneath; she even wore a lace bow of stunning lavishness. Feeling the eyes of Les Halles on her, she thrust her chest out and marched up to the charcuterie, stopping in front of the door. “Now it's Beautiful Lisa's turn,” said Mademoiselle Saget, watching closely.
Smiling Beautiful Lisa walked away from the counter, crossed the shop without hurrying, and gently offered her hand to the Beautiful Norman. She too was very well put together, her linen brilliantly white, radiating cleanliness. A whisper ran through the fish market; every head outside drew closer together as they chattered excitedly.
Now the two women were in the shop, and the paper from the window displays obstructed a clear view. But they seemed to be chatting cordially, giving each other little greetings, no doubt flattering each other.
“Look,” said Mademoiselle Saget. “The Beautiful Norman is buying something … What could she be buying? Oh, I think it's an andouille. Ah, did the rest of you see that? Beautiful Lisa gave her the photograph when she handed her the andouille.”
Then there were more pleasantries. Beautiful Lisa went beyond the courtesies she had planned on and said she would accompany the Beautiful Norman to the street. That's what she did, and they both laughed and showed the neighborhood what good friends they were. It was a cheerful moment for the neighborhood, and the fish women all went back to their stalls, agreeing that it had all gone very well.
But Mademoiselle Saget detained Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette. The drama was reaching its climax. The three of them fixed their eyes on the house across from them with a curiosity that hoped to penetrate the stone walls of the building. To pass the time, they gossiped a bit about the Beautiful Norman.
“Now she doesn't have a man,” said Madame Lecœur.
“She has Monsieur Lebigre,” observed La Sarriette, chuckling.
“Monsieur Lebigre isn't going to want her anymore.”
Mademoiselle Saget shrugged, saying, “You don't really know him. He couldn't care less about all this. He is a man who knows how to do business, and the Norman is rich. In two months they'll be together, you'll see. Mère Méhudin has been working on this marriage for a long time.”
“It doesn't matter,” the butter merchant insisted. “The inspector found her sleeping with Florent.”
“No, that's not what I said. The big beanpole had just left. I was there when they looked in her bed. The inspector examined it with his hands. There were two spots still warm.”
The elderly mademoiselle paused to catch her breath and then said with indignation, “You know what hurt most? To hear of all the terrible things that evil man taught little Muche. You wouldn't believe it. There was a whole bundle of them.”
“What horrors?” La Sarriette asked eagerly.
“Who knows? Filth, profanity. The inspector said he could be hanged for this alone. The man is a monster, going after a child like that. Little Muche doesn't amount to much, but that's no reason to fill him with that red propaganda, the poor thing.”
“Absolutely,” the other two agreed.
“Anyway, they're starting to get this scheming straightened out. I told you, you might recall, that there was ‘something hidden at the Quenus’ that didn't smell right.' You see, I have a keen nose … Thank God, now the neighborhood can breathe a little. All it needed was a good sweeping—because, I swear, it was going to end up with everyone afraid of being murdered in broad daylight. You can't live like that. Upheavals and fights and killing. And all because of one man, this Florent. And now, you see, Beautiful Lisa and the Beautiful Norman have made up, which is good news for them, and they had to do it for everyone's peace of mind. Now everything else will fall into place, you'll see. Oh, look, there's poor Monsieur Quenu laughing over there.”
Quenu was indeed outside again, his fat belly spilling over his apron, joking with Madame Taboureau's maid. He was in a good mood this morning. He squeezed the young maid's hands hard enough to make her cry out, in the best of charcuterie humor. Lisa had a hard time getting him back into the kitchen. She paced up and down the shop, fearing that Florent would appear at any moment and wanting to keep the two of them apart.
“She's awfully anxious,” said Mademoiselle Saget. “Poor Monsieur Quenu has no idea. He's laughing like a child. You know, Madame Taboureau said she was going to get into a fight with the Quenus if they continued to ruin themselves by letting Florent stay there.”
“Meanwhile, they kept the inheritance,” Madame Lecœur commented.
“Oh, no, my dear. He got his share.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“Oh, you can tell,” the elderly woman answered after a short hesitation and without offering any further evidence. “In fact, he took more than his share. The Quenus have lost several thousand francs. With a man of vices, money simply disappears. Maybe you hadn't heard. There was another woman.”
“That doesn't surprise me,” La Sarriette interjected. “Those skinny men have a lot of pride.”
“Yes, and not all that young, this woman. When a man wants it, he wants it—he'd grab them from anywhere. Madame Verlaque, the wife of the former fish inspector. You know her, that yellow-faced woman …”
But the other two would not accept that. “It's not possible. Madame Verlaque was in terrible shape.”
But Mademoiselle Saget had taken off. “I'm telling you. Are you calling me a liar? There's proof. Letters have been found from this woman, a whole bundle of letters in which she asked him for money, ten and twenty francs at a time. It's pretty obvious, that's what killed her husband.”
La Sarriette and Madame Lecœur were convinced. But they were growing impatient. They had been standing out on the street waiting for more than an hour. Their stalls might have been robbed in the meantime, they said. So Mademoiselle Saget found yet another story to hold them there. It was impossible for Florent to escape. He was going to come back, and it would be something to see him arrested. And she gave the most minute details of the plan, so that the butter vendor and the fruit vendor continued to examine the building, looking it up and down, trying to peer through every chink and crack in the hopes of seeing the caps of the sergents de ville. But the house was calm and silent, bathing in the morning sunlight.
“You'd never guess that it's full of police,” said Madame Lecœur.
“They're all up there in the attic,” said the older woman. “They left the window just as they found it. But wait, isn't that one of them hidden behind the pomegranate on the balcony?”
They craned their necks and saw nothing.
“No, just a shadow,” said La Sarriette. “Even the little curtains don't stir. They all must be sitting down up there and not moving.”
At that very moment she saw Gavard walk out of the fish market looking preoccupied with something. They glanced at one another, their eyes gleaming, and not a word passed between them. They had huddled close together, standing very erect in their full skirts. The poultryman crossed over to them.
“Have you seen Florent around?” he asked.
They didn't answer.
“I need to talk to him right away,” Gavard continued. “He isn't in the fish market. He must have gone back home. But then you would have seen him.”
The three women were looking a little pale. They were still staring at one another, looking very serious, with a quiver in the corner of their lips. Since her brother-in-law still hesitated, Madame Lecœur snapped, “We've only been here five minutes. He probably came by before that.”
“Then I'll go up and take a chance climbing five flights,” Gavard answered with a laugh.
La Sarriette started to move to stop him, but her aunt grabbed her arm and whispered in her ear, “Let him go, you big idiot. It's what he deserves. That'll teach him to step on us.”
In a lower voice Mademoiselle Saget muttered, “He won't be telling people I eat bad meat anymore.”
Then the women had nothing to add. La Sarriette blushed bright red, the other two remained yellow. They now turned their heads, embarrassed to look at one another. They didn't know what to do with their hands, so they hid them under their aprons. Intuitively their eyes wandered to the house, following Gavard through the stone walls, watching him climb five flights of stairs. When they estimated he had arrived in the bedroom, they began to shoot hard sideways glances at one another. La Sarriette laughed nervously. They thought they saw the curtain move for an instant, which they imagined had been caused by some kind of struggle.
But the outside of the house kept its look of warm tranquillity. A quarter of an hour passed in complete silence, total peace, during which time mounting emotions gripped them in the throat. They were nearly overcome when finally a man running out of the side alley went to find a cab. Five minutes later Gavard came down, followed by two policemen. Lisa, who had gone outside, had seen the cab coming and hurried back into the shop.
Gavard had turned white. Upstairs he had been searched and his pistol and box of cartridges had been found. To judge by the inspector's rude treatment of him and the reaction he had shown upon hearing his name, Gavard was lost. This was a terrible turn of events that he had never considered. The Tuileries would never pardon him. His legs had gone limp as though the executioner were awaiting him. But when he reached the street, he found enough strength to walk upright. He even gave a last smile, thinking that Les Halles would see him going to his death bravely.
Meanwhile, La Sarriette and Madame Lecœur ran to him. They asked what was happening, Madame Lecœur sobbing and the niece emotionally hugging her uncle. He held her tightly and slipped her a key, whispering in her ear, “Take everything and burn the papers.”
Like a man climbing the scaffold, he stepped into the cab. As soon as the coach disappeared around the corner of rue Pierre-Lescot, Madame Lecœur saw La Sarriette trying to hide the key in her pocket.
“It's no use, my dear,” she said between clenched teeth. “I saw him put it in your hand. I swear to God, I will go to the prison and tell him everything if you're not nice.”
“But my dear aunt, I'm always nice,” La Sarriette answered with an awkward smile.
“Let's go to his place right away. No point in letting the police get their paws in his cupboards.”
Mademoiselle Saget had been listening wild-eyed, and now followed, running behind them with the biggest strides her little legs could manage. She couldn't care less about waiting for Florent now. From rue Rambuteau to rue de la Cossonnerie, she was very humble and full of little suggestions. She offered to speak to the concierge, Madame Léonce.
“We'll see. We'll see,” Madame Lecœur repeated curtly.
It turned out she needed to negotiate. Madame Léonce did not want to let these women go upstairs to her tenant's apartment. She stared at them severely, shocked by La Sarriette's badly tied shawl. But when the elderly mademoiselle whispered a few words and showed her the key, she made a decision. Feeling exasperated, once they were upstairs, she would let them into the rooms only one at a time, as though she were being forced to show thieves where she kept her money.
“Go on, take it all,” she said, flopping down on a chair.
La Sarriette tried the key on every wardrobe. The suspicious Madame Lecœur followed close behind—so close that La Sarriette complained, “You're in my way, Aunt, at least give me a little arm room.”
Finally a wardrobe was opened, the one in front of the window between the fireplace and the bed. The four women heaved sighs. On the middle shelf were about ten thousand francs in gold coins, methodically stacked in little piles. Gavard, whose real holdings had wisely been placed in the hands of a broker, held this amount in reserve for “the day the dogs are unleashed.” As he used to say with great solemnity, he was “ready to support the revolution.” He had sold a few securities and took particular pleasure in fondling these ten thousand francs every evening, contemplating them and finding in them something bold and revolutionary. At night he would dream of a battle in his wardrobe: he could hear gunshots and the sound of paving stones being torn up and rolled down the street, voices of confusion and of victory, and it was his money that paid for it all.
La Sarriette had thrust out her hands with a joyful cry.
“Pull your claws back, my child,” said Madame Lecœur in a hoarse voice.
She was even more yellow in the reflection of the gold, her face and eyes burning from the liver disease that was silently consuming her. Behind her, up on her tiptoes, was Mademoiselle Saget, in ecstacy looking into the depths of the wardrobe. Madame Léonce had also risen to her feet, mouthing unspoken words.
“My uncle told me to take everything,” said the girl crisply.
“And me? I looked after him, will I get nothing?” the concierge exclaimed.
Madame Lecœur was choking. She pushed them back and clung to the wardrobe, stammering, “It's mine. I'm the nearest relative. You're a bunch of thieves. I'd rather throw it all out the window.”
There was silence while they looked at each other suspiciously. La Sarriette's shawl was now completely undone, and her admirable breasts were showing along with her moist lips and the pink around her nostrils. Madame Lecœur was disheartened to see the girl so radiant with longing.
“Listen,” she said in her muted voice, “let's not fight about this … You're his niece, and I'm willing to share. We'll take turns taking stacks.”
They pushed the other two aside and Madame Lecœur went first, a pile disappearing into her skirts. Then La Sarriette swept up a pile too. They watched each other carefully, ready to slap the other's hand. Their fingers reached at regular intervals, first the horrid gnarled ones, then the white ones smooth as silk. They filled their pockets. When there was only one stack left, La Sarriette refused to let Madame Lecœur take it, pointing out that she had taken the first round. She quickly split it between Mademoiselle Saget and Madame Léonce, who had been watching the taking of the gold with a feverish taping of the feet.
“Thanks a lot,” said the concierge. “Fifty francs for coddling him all these years with infusions and broths. And he told me he had no relatives, the old swindler.”
Before closing up the wardrobe, Madame Lecœur wanted to inspect it from top to bottom. It contained political books that were not allowed into the country, pamphlets from Brussels, scandalous stories about the Bonapartes, foreign cartoons in which the emperor seemed ludicrous. A favorite pastime of Gavard's was to lock himself up with a friend and show him all this contraband.
“He specifically asked me to burn all the papers,” La Sarriette pointed out.
“Ach, we don't have a fire, and it would take too long. I can smell the police. We should get out of here.”
And all four of them walked out of the room. No sooner had they reached the bottom of the stairs than the police arrived. Madame Léonce had to go up again to accompany them. The other three, with bent shoulders, hurried back to the street. They walked quickly in a row, the aunt and the niece encumbered by their bulging pockets. La Sarriette, in front, turned around as she stepped onto rue Rambuteau and said with her endearing laugh, “It's banging into my legs.”
Madame Lecœur spit out an obscenity, which made them all laugh. They tasted a special pleasure from the feel of this weight on their skirts like the caress of a hand. Mademoiselle Saget had kept her fifty francs in her closed fist. Her face looked serious as she worked on her plan to shake more money out of the plump pockets she was following.
Finally reaching the corner of the fish market, the elderly woman said, “Look, we got back at just the right moment. They're about to catch Florent.”
Florent was just returning from his long walk. He went to his office to change his jacket and then began his daily work, supervising the washing of the stones, strolling through the long aisles. It seemed to him that people were looking at him strangely. The fish women were whispering to each other as he walked past, their noses down and their eyes shifty. He thought some new annoyance had arisen. For some time now these fat, troublesome women had not given him a moment's peace.
When he passed by the Méhudin stall he was very surprised to hear the mother say in a sugary voice, “Monsieur Florent, someone came by asking for you just now. A middle-aged monsieur. He went up and is waiting for you in your room.”
The old fishmonger, collapsed in a chair, was so savoring these words, the perfection of this revenge, that her enormous bulk was quivering. Florent, dubious, looked at the Beautiful Norman. She, now completely in league with her mother, turned on the faucet, slapped some fish beneath it, and seemed not to hear.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Oh, absolutely. Isn't that right, Louise?” the woman continued in an ever shriller voice.
He thought it must have something to do with the big event, so he decided to climb up to his room. He was about to leave the fish market when, turning around mechanically, he caught the Beautiful Norman following him with her eyes, a grave look on her face. He passed the three gossips.
Mademoiselle Saget murmured, “Notice how the charcuterie is empty. Beautiful Lisa is not a woman to put herself at risk.”
It was true, the charcuterie was empty. The front of the building remained bathed in sunlight, and it seemed to have the happy air of a good house warming its belly in the first rays of the morning sun. Above, on the balcony, the pomegranate was in bloom. As he crossed the street, Florent gave a friendly nod to Logre and Monsieur Lebigre, who seemed to be getting some fresh air on the doorstep of the latter's establishment. The two smiled at him.
He was about to start down the alleyway when he thought he saw at its end the pale face of Auguste suddenly vanishing from sight. He then returned to look in the charcuterie to make sure there was not a middle-aged monsieur waiting for him there. But the only one he saw was Mouton, sitting on the chopping block and studying him with two large yellow eyes, double chin, and the large bristly mustache of a defiant cat. Just as Florent decided to enter by the alley, he saw Beautiful Lisa appear at the end of the shop, behind the curtained windows of a door.
A silence had fallen over the entire fish market. The bellies and enormous breasts held their breath waiting until Florent disappeared. Then it was all released—breasts expanded and bellies were bursting with malice. The scam had succeeded. What could be more funny? The old Méhudin woman jiggled with silent laughter like a full wineskin emptying. Her story about the middle-aged monsieur had circulated in the market, and all the women thought it was highly amusing. Finally the string bean was to be shipped off! They would have no more of his gruesome face and convict eyes. They all wished him good riddance and hoped that the new inspector would be good-looking. They ran from one stall to the next and would gladly have danced around the slabs like girls escaped from a convent.
The Beautiful Norman stood stiffly, watching all this merriment, not daring to move for fear she would start crying, with her hands on a large skate to calm her fever.
“See how the Méhudins dropped him as soon as his money was gone,” said Madame Lecœur.
“And they're right,” replied Mademoiselle Saget. “In any event, my dear, it's over, isn't it? There's nothing more to fight about. You're happy. Let the others deal with it as they want.”
“Only the old one is laughing,” said La Sarriette. “The Norman is not looking very merry.”
Meanwhile, up in his room, Florent let himself be taken like a lamb. The policemen, assuming he would put up a desperate struggle, jumped him roughly. But he gently asked them to let go. Then he just sat there while the men wrapped up the papers, the scarves, the armbands, and the banners. He did not seem surprised by how things had turned out. In fact, it came as a relief, but he did not understand this clearly enough to admit it. But it was painful for him to think of the hatred down below that had urged him into this room. He saw again the pale face of Auguste, the lowered faces of the fish women, he remembered Mère Méhudin's words, the silence of the Norman, the empty charcuterie, and he told himself that Les Halles had been an accomplice, the entire neighborhood had turned him in. All around him the stench of the greasy streets rose up.
His heart was gripped by a stabbing anguish when, amid the round faces that he conjured up in his mind, he suddenly evoked the image of Quenu.
“Let's go, downstairs,” said a policeman roughly.
He got up and went down. On the third-floor landing he asked to go back as he had forgotten something. The police, not wanting him to go back up, pushed him forward. But he begged to be allowed back. He even offered them the small amount of money he had. Finally two of them agreed to go back up with him but threatened to club him on the head if he tried any tricks. They took their revolvers from their holsters. On reaching the room he went straight to the finch's cage, took the bird, kissed it between its wings, and released it from the window. He watched it perch in the sunlight on the roof of the fish market, seeming dazed. Then it took flight again, disappearing above Les Halles, headed in the direction of square des Innocents. He remained an instant longer, staring at the sky, the open, free sky. He thought of the pigeons cooing in the Tuileries and the pigeons in the storage cellar whose throats had been slit by Marjolin. Then everything in him crumbled, and he followed the police, who put their weapons back in the holsters and shrugged.
At the bottom of the stairs, Florent stopped at the door that led to the kitchen.
The inspector, who was waiting for him there, was touched by his gentle obedience and asked, “Do you want to say good-bye to your brother?”
He hesitated a moment. He looked at the door. A commotion of hatchets and saucepans came from the kitchen. Lisa, wishing to keep her husband busy, had come up with the idea of making boudin, which he normally made only at night. Onions were sizzling on the fire, and Florent heard Quenu's happy voice, shouting above the noise, “Oh, my God, this boudin is going to be so good … Auguste, pass me the fat.”
Florent thanked the inspector. He was afraid to go into the hot kitchen, full of the strong smell of cooking onions. He passed the door, content in the belief that his brother knew nothing, quickening his steps to avoid causing a final scene in the charcuterie. But as he felt the bright sunbeams strike his face, he was ashamed and climbed into the cab with his shoulders stooped. He could feel the presence of the fish market enjoying its victory, and it seemed to him that the whole neighborhood was gathering to celebrate.
“Oh, he looked terrible, didn't he?” said Mademoiselle Saget.
“It's the face of a convict caught redhanded,” added Madame Lecœur.
La Sarriette showed her white teeth and said, “I once saw a man guillotined, and he looked just like that.”
They had come closer and were craning their necks, trying to see inside the cab. Just as the vehicle was leaving, the old woman pulled hard at the skirts of the other two to point out Claire, who was running wildly from rue Pirouette. Her hair was undone, and she looked like a madwoman, her fingernails bleeding. She had managed to dismantle her door. Once she realized that she had arrived too late and Florent was being taken, she hurled herself in the direction of the cab, then stopped abruptly, making a gesture of useless rage, shaking her fist at the vanishing wheels. Then, all red under the fine plaster powder with which she was covered, she hurried home to rue Pirouette.
“You would think he'd promised to marry her,” said La Sarriette, laughing. “She's completely smitten, the big idiot.”
The neighborhood returned to calm. Small groups gathered until the pavilion closed to discuss the morning's events. People peered curiously into the charcuterie. Lisa avoided showing herself, leaving Augustine at the counter. Finally, in the afternoon, she thought it her duty to tell Quenu everything for fear that some big mouth would blurt it all out. She waited until she could be alone with him in the kitchen, understanding that this was the part of the house where he felt most at ease and he would cry less. She proceeded with maternal gentleness. But once he knew the truth, he fell on the butcher block and started crying like a baby.
“Now, now, my poor big lug, don't carry on like this, you'll hurt yourself.” And she took him in her arms.
Tears ran out of his eyes and down his white apron. His bulk shook with pain. He was silent, melting away. When he managed to speak, he stammered, “You have no idea how good he was to me when we lived on rue Royer-Collard. He cleaned and did the cooking … He loved me like his child, you see. He would come home at night caked in mud, too tired to stand. Meanwhile there was me, staying at home well fed and warm … And now they're going to shoot him.”
Lisa insisted that he was not going to be shot, but he shook his head and continued, “It doesn't matter. I didn't love him enough. It's no use saying that now. I've been heartless. I even hesitated to give him his inheritance.”
“But I offered it to him more than ten times,” she interjected. “We have nothing to reproach ourselves about on that score.”
“Oh, I know, you were very kind. You'd have given him everything. But not me, you see. I'll have to live with this grief for the rest of my life. I will always think that if I had shared with him, he would not have gone back to his bad ways. It's my fault. I'm the one who drove him to this.”
She was even gentler, telling him to stop torturing himself. She felt sorry for Florent too, even though he was very guilty. If he'd had more money, he might have committed even greater follies. Little by little, she managed to convince him that it could not have ended up any other way and that it had all worked out for the best. Quenu was still crying, wiping his cheeks with his apron, stifling his sobs to listen, then melting into a fresh wave of tears. Without thinking, he had sunk his fingers into a pile of sausage meat on the chopping block. He was drilling holes in it, kneading it roughly.
“Do you remember that you weren't feeling well?” Lisa continued. “It was because we had lost our routine. Although I never said anything about it, I was worried. I could see your health was suffering.”
“It was, wasn't it?” he said, holding back his tears for an instant.
“And the shop too. That hasn't done well this year. It was as if a spell … Come on, don't cry. You'll see how everything will be better. You have to take care of yourself. For my sake. And your daughter's. You have your responsibilities to us, too.”
He was kneading the sausage meat more gently now. He was still in the grip of his emotions, but now a more tender kind, which brought a slight smile to his drawn face. Lisa could see that she had convinced him. Quickly she called Pauline, who was playing in the shop, and lifting her onto his lap, she said, “Pauline, isn't it true that your father must be reasonable? Ask him nicely not to make any more trouble.”
The child asked him gently. They looked at each other and hugged in one huge, overflowing embrace, already recuperating from the yearlong illness that was now slipping away from them. Smiles broadened on their round faces, and Lisa said, “After all, there are only three of us, my dear, only three.”
Two months later Florent was once more sentenced to deportation. The incident got widespread attention. Newspapers published the tiniest of details, along with photos of the accused, the designs of the banners and the scarves, and plans of the place where the conspirators had held their meetings. For fifteen days there was no topic in Paris except the Les Halles conspiracy. The police issued statements that were more and more disturbing and in the end stated that the entire Montmartre neighborhood had been mined. Emotions were running so high in the Corps Législatif that the center and right-wing parties forgot about the ill-conceived pensions that had for an instant divided them and agreed to vote with a crushing majority for the unpopular tax. In the panic that gripped the city, not even the people of the lower-class neighborhoods dared complain.
The trial lasted a week. Florent was surprised by the huge number of accomplices he was credited with having. He knew only six, seven at most, of the twenty faces in the dock. After the reading of the arrest decree, he thought he caught sight of the hat and innocent shoulders of Robine drifting around in the crowd. Logre was acquitted, as was Lacaille. Alexandre was sentenced to two years in prison for his childish stupidity. As for Gavard, like Florent he was sentenced to deportation. This was a crushing blow after his jubilation from a lengthy cross-examination that he managed to fill with his personality. He was paying dearly for that Parisian shopkeeper's verve. Two large tears ran down the gaunt cheeks of the white-haired fellow.
One August morning while the people of Les Halles were just getting up, Claude Lantier, wandering where the vegetables were arriving, his waist cinched with a red belt, came to touch the hand of Madame François at pointe Saint-Eustache. There she was with her big sad face, seated on turnips and carrots. The painter was in a dark mood, despite the bright sunlight, which was already softening the big green mountains of cabbage.
“Well,” he said, “it's over. They're sending him back there. I think they've already sent him to Brest.”
She made a silent gesture of pain. She waved her hand slowly around her and said in a muted voice, “It's Paris. It's this damned Paris.”
“No,” said Claude. “I know who it is. It's those sons of bitches.” Claude raised his fist. “You cannot imagine, Madame François. There isn't a single stupid thing that they didn't say at the trial. They even went as far as to go through a child's notebook. That moron of a prosecutor made a whole big thing out of preaching respect for children on one hand and demagogic education on the other. It made me sick.”
He shuddered and, hunching his shoulders inside his green coat, continued, “A man as gentle as a girl. I saw him fall ill seeing pigeons bled. It made me laugh with pity when I saw him between two policemen. We'll never see him again. This time he'll stay there.”
“He should have listened to me,” said the vegetable vendor after some silence. “He could have come to Nanterre, lived there with my rabbits and hens. I really liked him because I understood what a good man he was. We could have been happy. What a tragedy! Take care of yourself, Monsieur Claude. I'll expect you to come have an omelette with me one of these mornings.”
She had tears in her eyes. She got up, a strong woman bearing her sorrow. “Oh, look,” she said. “There's Mère Chantemesse coming to buy turnips. She's hale and hearty as ever, the old fatso.”
Claude went off for a while, prowling the streets. The day had risen like a white fountain from the depth of rue Rambuteau. The sun was spreading its rosy light above the rooftops, bright expanses washing the pavement even at this early hour. And Claude sensed a cheerful mood awakening in these vast echoing marketplaces filled with their piles of food. It was like the pleasure of recovered health, the brightening sound of people at last relieved of a heavy burden weighing on their stomachs. Along came La Sarriette with a gold watch, singing in the midst of her plums and strawberries, tweaking the little mustache of Monsieur Jules, who was wearing a velvet jacket.
He caught a glimpse of Madame Lecœur and Mademoiselle Saget walking down one of the covered streets, their faces less yellow than before, almost pink. Like good friends, they giggled over some amusing incident. In the fish market Mère Méhudin was back in her stall, slapping fish, abusing customers, and snubbing the new inspector, a young man whom she had vowed to get fired. Claire, lazier and more listless, was gathering a huge handful of snails, sparkling from their silvery slime, with her hands, which had turned blue from the tanks.
At the tripe market, Auguste and Augustine had just bought pigs' feet, and with the sweet faces of newlyweds they were taking their cart back to their charcuterie in Montrouge. It was now eight o'clock and already warm when Claude returned to rue Rambuteau, where he found Muche and Pauline playing at horses. Muche was on all fours, and Pauline was astride him, hanging on to his hair so she wouldn't fall. On the roofs of Les Halles along the gutter a shadow flitted by, causing Claude to look up. It was Cadine and Marjolin, laughing and kissing, basking in the sun, defying the neighborhood with their happy animal love.
Claude shook his fist at them. He was exasperated by all this celebration on the streets and in the sky. He cursed the Fats, for he had to say that the Fats had won. All around him he could see nothing but Fats, growing, bursting with health, saluting a new day of lovely digestion.
When he stopped in front of rue Pirouette, the sight in front of him, to the left and right, was the final blow. On his right was the Beautiful Norman, the Beautiful Madame Lebigre, as she was now known, standing at the doorway of her shop. Her husband had finally managed to merge his wine business with the tobacco shop, a long-nurtured ambition finally realized thanks to important services rendered. Beautiful Madame Lebigre was looking fantastic in her silk dress, her hair curled, ready to take her place behind the counter, where all the neighborhood men came to buy their cigars and pouches of tobacco. She had become very distinguished-looking, quite the lady. Behind her the barroom had been repainted with leaves on the pale wall. The zinc was bright, and the bottles of liquor cast even more sparkling reflections in the mirror. She laughed in the clear morning light.
To his left was Beautiful Lisa at the doorway to the charcuterie, taking up its entire width. Her linens had never been so white. Her rosy cheeks had never been so refreshed or so perfectly framed in smooth waves of hair. She exhibited calm and a splendid poise, an impressive peacefulness that could not be disturbed, even by a smile. This was total tranquillity, complete happiness, lifeless and unshakable, as she bathed in the warm air. Her tightly stretched bodice seemed to be still digesting yesterday's happiness. Her chubby hands, lost in the folds of her apron, were not even outstretched to catch today's happiness, for it was certain to fall into her hands.
Close by, the window display expressed a similar felicity. It too had recovered, and the stuffed tongues were redder and healthier, the jambonneaux were showing their fine yellow faces, the garlands of sausages no longer had the look of despair that had depressed Quenu.
A loud laugh resounded from the kitchen in the back, accompanied by the tintinnabulation of saucepans. The charcuterie was once again ringing with good health, a fatted health. The strips of lard and the half pigs hanging against the marble suggested the roundness of bellies, the belly triumphant, while Lisa, motionless, posed with dignity, offering Les Halles her large, well-fed smile as a morning greeting.
Then both ladies bowed. Beautiful Madame Lebigre and Beautiful Madame Quenu exchanged a friendly salute.
And Claude, who no doubt had forgotten supper the night before, was infuriated by the sight of the two of them looking so prosperous and well, with their huge breasts shoved out in front of them, and he tightened his belt as he muttered in an angry voice, “What bastards respectable people are!”