"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 subst.i.tute 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 quant.i.ties 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 ap.r.o.n, 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 ap.r.o.n.

Then, as she coughed slightly, Gavard, whom the silence embarra.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed 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 _pate_ on the tip of a broad-bladed knife. And she deposited each successive slice on the middle of a sheet of paper placed on the scales.

"Aren't you going to give me some of the boar's head with pistachio nuts?" asked Madame Lecoeur in her querulous voice.

Lisa was obliged to add some of the boar's head. But the b.u.t.ter dealer was getting exacting, and asked for two slices of galantine. She was very fond of it. Lisa, who was already irritated, played impatiently with the handles of the knives, and told her that the galantine was truffled, and that she could only include it in an "a.s.sortment" at three francs the pound. Madame Lecoeur, however, continued to pry into the dishes, trying to find something else to ask for. When the "a.s.sortment"

was weighed she made Lisa add some jelly and gherkins to it. The block of jelly, shaped like a Savoy cake, shook on its white china dish beneath the angry violence of Lisa's hand; and as with her finger-tips she took a couple of gherkins from a jar behind the heater, she made the vinegar spurt over the sides.

"Twenty-five sous, isn't it?" Madame Lecoeur leisurely inquired.

She fully perceived Lisa's covert irritation, and greatly enjoyed the sight of it, producing her money as slowly as possible, as though, indeed, her silver had got lost amongst the coppers in her pocket. And she glanced askance at Gavard, relishing the embarra.s.sed silence which her presence was prolonging, and vowing that she would not go off, since they were hiding some trickery or other from her. However, Lisa at last put the parcel in her hands, and she was then obliged to make her departure. She went away without saying a word, but darting a searching glance all round the shop.

"It was that Saget who sent her too!" burst out Lisa, as soon as the old woman was gone. "Is the old wretch going to send the whole market here to try to find out what we talk about? What a prying, malicious set they are! Did anyone ever hear before of crumbed cutlets and 'a.s.sortments'

being bought at five o'clock in the afternoon? But then they'd rack themselves with indigestion rather than not find out! Upon my word, though, if La Saget sends anyone else here, you'll see the reception she'll get. I would bundle her out of the shop, even if she were my own sister!"

The three men remained silent in presence of this explosion of anger.

Gavard had gone to lean over the bra.s.s rail of the window-front, where, seemingly lost in thought, he began playing with one of the cut-gla.s.s bal.u.s.ters detached from its wire fastening. Presently, however, he raised his head. "Well, for my part," he said, "I looked upon it all as an excellent joke."

"Looked upon what as a joke?" asked Lisa, still quivering with indignation.

"The inspectorship."

She raised her hands, gave a last glance at Florent, and then sat down upon the cushioned bench behind the counter and said nothing further.

Gavard, however, began to explain his views at length; the drift of his argument being that it was the Government which would look foolish in the matter, since Florent would be taking its money.

"My dear fellow," he said complacently, "those scoundrels all but starved you to death, didn't they? Well, you must make them feed you now. It's a splendid idea; it caught my fancy at once!"

Florent smiled, but still persisted in his refusal. Quenu, in the hope of pleasing his wife, did his best to find some good arguments. Lisa, however, appeared to pay no further attention to them. For the last moment or two she had been looking attentively in the direction of the markets. And all at once she sprang to her feet again, exclaiming, "Ah!

it is La Normande that they are sending to play the spy on us now! Well, so much the worse for La Normande; she shall pay for the others!"

A tall female pushed the shop door open. It was the handsome fish-girl, Louise Mehudin, generally known as La Normande. She was a bold-looking beauty, with a delicate white skin, and was almost as plump as Lisa, but there was more effrontery in her glance, and her bosom heaved with warmer life. She came into the shop with a light swinging step, her gold chain jingling on her ap.r.o.n, her bare hair arranged in the latest style, and a bow at her throat, a lace bow, which made her one of the most coquettish-looking queens of the markets. She brought a vague odour of fish with her, and a herring-scale showed like a tiny patch of mother-of-pearl near the little finger of one of her hands. She and Lisa having lived in the same house in the Rue Pirouette, were intimate friends, linked by a touch of rivalry which kept each of them busy with thoughts of the other. In the neighbourhood people spoke of "the beautiful Norman," just as they spoke of "beautiful Lisa." This brought them into opposition and comparison, and compelled each of them to do her utmost to sustain her reputation for beauty. Lisa from her counter could, by stooping a little, perceive the fish-girl amidst her salmon and turbot in the pavilion opposite; and each kept a watch on the other. Beautiful Lisa laced herself more tightly in her stays; and the beautiful Norman replied by placing additional rings on her fingers and additional bows on her shoulders. When they met they were very bland and unctuous and profuse in compliments; but all the while their eyes were furtively glancing from under their lowered lids, in the hope of discovering some flaw. They made a point of always dealing with each other, and professed great mutual affection.