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

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СКАЧАТЬ bodies, waving hither and thither. This extraordinary jumble of detached limbs, these silent but frantic profiles, bore witness to the heated discussions that went on in the little room, and kept the old maid peering from behind her muslin curtains until the transparency turned black. She shrewdly suspected some “bit of trickery,” as she phrased it. By continual watching she had come to recognise the different shadows by their hands and hair and clothes. As she gazed upon the chaos of clenched fists, angry heads, and swaying shoulders, which seemed to have become detached from their trunks and to roll about one atop of the other, she would exclaim unhesitatingly, “Ah, there’s that big booby of a cousin; there’s that miserly old Gavard; and there’s the hunchback; and there’s that maypole of a Clemence!” Then, when the action of the shadow-play became more pronounced, and they all seemed to have lost control over themselves, she felt an irresistible impulse to go downstairs to try to find out what was happening. Thus she now made a point of buying her black-currant syrup at nights, pretending that she felt out-of-sorts in the morning, and was obliged to take a sip as soon as ever she was out of bed. On the evening when she noticed Quenu’s massive head shadowed on the transparency in close proximity to Charvet’s fist, she made her appearance at Monsieur Lebigre’s in a breathless condition. To gain more time, she made Rose rinse out her little bottle for her; however, she was about to return to her room when she heard the pork butcher exclaim with a sort of childish candour:

      “No, indeed, we’ll stand for it no longer! We’ll make a clean sweep of all those humbugging Deputies and Ministers! Yes, we’ll send the whole lot packing.”

      Eight o’clock had scarcely struck on the following morning when Mademoiselle Saget was already at the pork shop. She found Madame Lecoeur and La Sarriette there, dipping their noses into the heating-pan, and buying hot sausages for breakfast. As the old maid had managed to draw them into her quarrel with La Normande with respect to the ten-sou dab, they had at once made friends again with Lisa, and they now had nothing but contempt for the handsome fish-girl, and assailed her and her sister as good-for-nothing hussies, whose only aim was to fleece men of their money. This opinion had been inspired by the assertions of Mademoiselle Saget, who had declared to Madame Lecoeur that Florent had induced one of the two girls to coquette with Gavard, and that the four of them had indulged in the wildest dissipation at Barratte’s — of course, at the poultry dealer’s expense. From the effects of this impudent story Madame Lecoeur had not yet recovered; she wore a doleful appearance, and her eyes were quite yellow with spleen.

      That morning, however, it was for Madame Quenu that the old maid had a shock in store. She looked round the counter, and then in her most gentle voice remarked:

      “I saw Monsieur Quenu last night. They seem to enjoy themselves immensely in that little room at Lebigre’s, if one may judge from the noise they make.”

      Lisa had turned her head towards the street, listening very attentively, but apparently unwilling to show it. The old maid paused, hoping that one of the others would question her; and then, in a lower tone, she added: “They had a woman with them. Oh, I don’t mean Monsieur Quenu, of course! I didn’t say that; I don’t know — “

      “It must be Clemence,” interrupted La Sarriette; “a big scraggy creature who gives herself all sorts of airs just because she went to boarding school. She lives with a threadbare usher. I’ve seen them together; they always look as though they were taking each other off to the police station.”

      “Oh, yes; I know,” replied the old maid, who, indeed, knew everything about Charvet and Clemence, and whose only purpose was to alarm Lisa.

      The mistress of the pork shop, however, never flinched. She seemed to be absorbed in watching something of great interest in the market yonder. Accordingly the old maid had recourse to stronger measures. “I think,” said she, addressing herself to Madame Lecoeur, “that you ought to advise your brother-in-law to be careful. Last night they were shouting out the most shocking things in that little room. Men really seem to lose their heads over politics. If anyone had heard them, it might have been a very serious matter for them.”

      “Oh! Gavard will go his own way,” sighed Madame Lecoeur. “It only wanted this to fill my cup. I shall die of anxiety, I am sure, if he ever gets arrested.”

      As she spoke, a gleam shot from her dim eyes. La Sarriette, however, laughed and wagged her little face, bright with the freshness of the morning air.

      “You should hear what Jules says of those who speak against the Empire,” she remarked. “They ought all to be thrown into the Seine, he told me; for it seems there isn’t a single respectable person amongst them.”

      “Oh! there’s no harm done, of course, so long as only people like myself hear their foolish talk,” resumed Mademoiselle Saget. “I’d rather cut my hand off, you know, than make mischief. Last night now, for instance, Monsieur Quenu was saying — — “

      She again paused. Lisa had started slightly.

      “Monsieur Quenu was saying that the Ministers and Deputies and all who are in power ought to be shot.”

      At this Lisa turned sharply, her face quite white and her hands clenched beneath her apron.

      “Quenu said that?” she curtly asked.

      “Yes, indeed, and several other similar things that I can’t recollect now. I heard him myself. But don’t distress yourself like that, Madame Quenu. You know very well that I sha’n’t breathe a word. I’m quite old enough to know what might harm a man if it came out. Oh, no; it will go no further.”

      Lisa had recovered her equanimity. She took a pride in the happy peacefulness of her home; she would not acknowledge that there had ever been the slightest difference between herself and her husband. And so now she shrugged her shoulders and said with a smile: “Oh, it’s all a pack of foolish nonsense.”

      When the three others were in the street together they agreed that handsome Lisa had pulled a very doleful face; and they were unanimously of opinion that the mysterious goings-on of the cousin, the Mehudins, Gavard, and the Quenus would end in trouble. Madame Lecoeur inquired what was done to the people who got arrested “for politics,” but on this point Mademoiselle Saget could not enlighten her; she only knew that they were never seen again — no, never. And this induced La Sarriette to suggest that perhaps they were thrown into the Seine, as Jules had said they ought to be.

      Lisa avoided all reference to the subject at breakfast and dinner that day; and even in the evening, when Florent and Quenu went off together to Monsieur Lebigre’s, there was no unwonted severity in her glance. On that particular evening, however, the question of framing a constitution for the future came under discussion, and it was one o’clock in the morning before the politicians could tear themselves away from the little room. The shutters had already been fastened, and they were obliged to leave by a small door, passing out one at a time with bent backs. Quenu returned home with an uneasy conscience. He opened the three or four doors on his way to bed as gently as possible, walking on tip-toe and stretching out his hands as he passed through the sitting-room, to avoid a collision with any of the furniture. The whole house seemed to be asleep. When he reached the bedroom, he was annoyed to find that Lisa had not extinguished the candle, which was burning with a tall, mournful flame in the midst of the deep silence. As Quenu took off his shoes, and put them down in a corner, the timepiece struck half past one with such a clear, ringing sound that he turned in alarm, almost frightened to move, and gazing with an expression of angry reproach at the shining gilded Gutenberg standing there, with his finger on a book. Lisa’s head was buried in her pillow, and Quenu could only see her back; but he divined that she was merely feigning sleep, and her conduct in turning her back upon him was so instinct with reproach that he felt sorely ill at ease. At last he slipped beneath the bedclothes, blew out the candle, and lay perfectly СКАЧАТЬ