THE COMPLETE ROUGON-MACQUART SERIES (All 20 Books in One Edition). Эмиль Золя

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СКАЧАТЬ and displaying such keen eyesight that they detected the smallest details of each other’s dress and person when other women declared that they could see nothing at such a distance. Mademoiselle Saget expressed the highest admiration for Madame Quenu’s wonderful sight when she one day detected a scratch on the fish-girl’s left cheek. With eyes like those, said the old maid, one might even see through a door. However, the victory often remained undecided when night fell; sometimes one or other of the rivals was temporarily crushed, but she took her revenge on the morrow. Several people of the neighbourhood actually laid wagers on these contests, some backing the beautiful Lisa and others the beautiful Norman.

      At last they ended by forbidding their children to speak to one another. Pauline and Muche had formerly been good friends, notwithstanding the girl’s stiff petticoats and ladylike demeanour, and the lad’s tattered appearance, coarse language, and rough manners. They had at times played together at horses on the broad footway in front of the fish market, Pauline always being the horse and Muche the driver. One day, however, when the boy came in all simplicity to seek his playmate, Lisa turned him out of the house, declaring that he was a dirty little street arab.

      “One can’t tell what may happen with children who have been so shockingly brought up,” she observed.

      “Yes, indeed; you are quite right,” replied Mademoiselle Saget, who happened to be present.

      When Muche, who was barely seven years old, came in tears to his mother to tell her of what had happened, La Normande broke out into a terrible passion. At the first moment she felt a strong inclination to rush over to the Quenu-Gradelles’ and smash everything in their shop. But eventually she contented herself with giving Muche a whipping.

      “If ever I catch you going there again,” she cried, boiling over with anger, “you’ll get it hot from me, I can tell you!”

      Florent, however, was the real victim of the two women. It was he, in truth, who had set them by the ears, and it was on his account that they were fighting each other. Ever since he had appeared upon the scene things had been going from bad to worse. He compromised and disturbed and embittered all these people, who had previously lived in such sleek peace and harmony. The beautiful Norman felt inclined to claw him when he lingered too long with the Quenus, and it was chiefly from an impulse of hostile rivalry that she desired to win him to herself. The beautiful Lisa, on her side, maintained a cold judicial bearing, and although extremely annoyed, forced herself to silence whenever she saw Florent leaving the pork shop to go to the Rue Pirouette.

      Still, there was now much less cordiality than formerly round the Quenus’ dinner-table in the evening. The clean, prim dining-room seemed to have assumed an aspect of chilling severity. Florent divined a reproach, a sort of condemnation in the bright oak, the polished lamp, and the new matting. He scarcely dared to eat for fear of letting crumbs fall on the floor or soiling his plate. There was a guileless simplicity about him which prevented him from seeing how the land really lay. He still praised Lisa’s affectionate kindliness on all sides; and outwardly, indeed, she did continue to treat him with all gentleness.

      “It is very strange,” she said to him one day with a smile, as though she were joking; “although you don’t eat at all badly now, you don’t get fatter. Your food doesn’t seem to do you any good.”

      At this Quenu laughed aloud, and tapping his brother’s stomach, protested that the whole contents of the pork shop might pass through it without depositing a layer of fat as thick as a two-sou piece. However, Lisa’s insistence on this particular subject was instinct with that same suspicious dislike for fleshless men which Madame Mehudin manifested more outspokenly; and behind it all there was likewise a veiled allusion to the disorderly life which she imagined Florent was leading. She never, however, spoke a word to him about La Normande. Quenu had attempted a joke on the subject one evening, but Lisa had received it so icily that the good man had not ventured to refer to the matter again. They would remain seated at table for a few moments after dessert, and Florent, who had noticed his sister-in-law’s vexation if ever he went off too soon, tried to find something to talk about. On these occasions Lisa would be near him, and certainly he did not suffer in her presence from that fishy smell which assailed him when he was in the company of La Normande. The mistress of the pork shop, on the contrary, exhaled an odour of fat and rich meats. Moreover, not a thrill of life stirred her tight-fitting bodice; she was all massiveness and all sedateness. Gavard once said to Florent in confidence that Madame Quenu was no doubt handsome, but that for his part he did not admire such armour-plated women.

      Lisa avoided talking to Quenu of Florent. She habitually prided herself on her patience, and considered, too, that it would not be proper to cause any unpleasantness between the brothers, unless some peremptory reason for her interference should arise. As she said, she could put up with a good deal, but, of course, she must not be tried too far. She had now reached the period of courteous tolerance, wearing an expressionless face, affecting perfect indifference and strict politeness, and carefully avoiding everything which might seem to hint that Florent was boarding and lodging with them without their receiving the slightest payment from him. Not, indeed, that she would have accepted any payment from him, she was above all that; still he might, at any rate, she thought, have lunched away from the house.

      “We never seem to be alone now,” she remarked to Quenu one day. “If there is anything we want to say to one another we have to wait till we go upstairs at night.”

      And then, one night when they were in bed, she said to him: “Your brother earns a hundred and fifty francs a month, doesn’t he? Well, it’s strange he can’t put a trifle by to buy himself some more linen. I’ve been obliged to give him three more of your old shirts.”

      “Oh, that doesn’t matter,” Quenu replied. “Florent’s not hard to please; and we must let him keep his money for himself.”

      “Oh, yes, of course,” said Lisa, without pressing the matter further. “I didn’t mention it for that reason. Whether he spends his money well or ill, it isn’t our business.”

      In her own mind she felt quite sure that he wasted his salary at the Mehudins’.

      Only on one occasion did she break through her habitual calmness of demeanour, the quiet reserve which was the result of both natural temperament and preconceived design. The beautiful Norman had made Florent a present of a magnificent salmon. Feeling very much embarrassed with the fish, and not daring to refuse it, he brought it to Lisa.

      “You can make a pasty of it,” he said ingenuously.

      Lisa looked at him sternly with whitening lips. Then, striving to restrain her anger, she exclaimed: “Do you think that we are short of food? Thank God, we’ve got quite enough to eat here! Take it back!”

      “Well, at any rate, cook it for me,” replied Florent, amazed by her anger; “I’ll eat it myself.”

      At this she burst out furiously.

      “The house isn’t an inn! Tell those who gave you the fish to cook it for you! I won’t have my pans tainted and infected! Take it back again! Do you hear?”

      If he had not gone away with it, she would certainly have seized it and hurled it into the street. Florent took it to Monsieur Lebigre’s, where Rose was ordered to make a pasty of it; and one evening the pasty was eaten in the little “cabinet,” Gavard, who was present, “standing” some oysters for the occasion. Florent now gradually came more and more frequently to Monsieur Lebigre’s, till at last he was constantly to be met in the little private room. He there found an atmosphere of heated excitement in which his political feverishness could pulsate freely. At times, now, when he shut himself up in his garret to work, the quiet simplicity of the little room irritated him, his theoretical search for liberty СКАЧАТЬ