The Fat and the Thin

“Oh, so much the worse for them,” said Cadine, who had now finished. “They are much nicer eating when they’ve been well fed. In a couple of hours or so all those over yonder will be given a dose of salt water. That makes their flesh white and tender. Then two hours afterwards they’ll be killed. If you would like to see the killing, there are some here which are quite ready. Marjolin will settle their account for them in a jiffy.”

Marjolin carried away a box containing some fifty pigeons, and Claude and Florent followed him. Squatting upon the ground near one of the water-taps, he placed the box by his side. Then he laid a framework of slender wooden bars on the top of a kind of zinc trough, and forthwith began to kill the pigeons. His knife flashed rapidly in his fingers, as he seized the birds by the wings, stunned them by a blow on the head from the knife-handle, and then thrust the point of the blade into their throats. They quivered for an instant, and ruffled their feathers as Marjolin laid them in a row, with their heads between the wooden bars above the zinc trough, into which their blood fell drop by drop. He repeated each different movement with the regularity of clockwork, the blows from the knife-handle falling with a monotonous tick-tack as he broke the birds’ skulls, and his hand working backwards and forwards like a pendulum as he took up the living pigeons on one side and laid them down dead on the other. Soon, moreover, he worked with increasing rapidity, gloating over the massacre with glistening eyes, squatting there like a huge delighted bull-dog enjoying the sight of slaughtered vermin. “Tick-tack! Tick-tack!” whilst his tongue clucked as an accompaniment to the rhythmical movements of his knife. The pigeons hung down like wisps of silken stuff.

“Ah, you enjoy that, don’t you, you great stupid?” exclaimed Cadine. “How comical those pigeons look when they bury their heads in their shoulders to hide their necks! They’re horrid things, you know, and would give one nasty bites if they got the chance.” Then she laughed more loudly at Marjolin’s increasing, feverish haste; and added: “I’ve killed them sometimes myself, but I can’t get on as quickly as he does. One day he killed a hundred in ten minutes.”

The wooden frame was nearly full; the blood could be heard falling into the zinc trough; and as Claude happened to turn round he saw Florent looking so pale that he hurriedly led him away. When they got above-ground again he made him sit down on a step.

“Why, what’s the matter with you?” he exclaimed, tapping him on the shoulder. “You’re fainting away like a woman!”

“It’s the smell of the cellar,” murmured Florent, feeling a little ashamed of himself.

The truth was, however, that those pigeons, which were forced to swallow tares and salt water, and then had their skulls broken and their throats slit, had reminded him of the wood-pigeons of the Tuileries gardens, strutting over the green turf, with their satiny plumage flashing iridescently in the sunlight. He again heard them cooing on the arm of the marble wrestler amidst the hushed silence of the garden, while children trundled their hoops in the deep gloom of the chestnuts. And then, on seeing that big fair-haired animal massacring his boxful of birds, stunning them with the handle of his knife and driving its point into their throats, in the depths of that foul-smelling cellar, he had felt sick and faint, his legs had almost given way beneath him, while his eyelids quivered tremulously.

“Well, you’d never do for a soldier!” Claude said to him when he recovered from his faintness. “Those who sent you to Cayenne must have been very simple-minded folks to fear such a man as you! Why, my good fellow, if ever you do put yourself at the head of a rising, you won’t dare to fire a shot. You’ll be too much afraid of killing somebody.”

Florent got up without making any reply. He had become very gloomy, his face was furrowed by deep wrinkles; and he walked off, leaving Claude to go back to the cellar alone. As he made his way towards the fish market his thoughts returned to his plan of attack, to the levies of armed men who were to invade the Palais Bourbon. Cannon would roar from the Champs Elysees; the gates would be burst open; blood would stain the steps, and men’s brains would bespatter the pillars. A vision of the fight passed rapidly before him; and he beheld himself in the midst of it, deadly pale, and hiding his face in his hands, not daring to look around him.

As he was crossing the Rue du Pont Neuf he fancied he espied Auguste’s pale face peering round the corner of the fruit pavilion. The assistant seemed to be watching for someone, and his eyes were starting from his head with an expression of intense excitement. Suddenly, however, he vanished and hastened back to the pork shop.

“What’s the matter with him?” thought Florent. “Is he frightened of me, I wonder?”

Some very serious occurrences had taken place that morning at the Quenu-Gradelles’. Soon after daybreak, Auguste, breathless with excitement, had awakened his mistress to tell her that the police had come to arrest Monsieur Florent. And he added, with stammering incoherence, that the latter had gone out, and that he must have done so with the intention of escaping. Lisa, careless of appearances, at once hurried up to her brother-in-law’s room in her dressing-wrapper, and took possession of La Normande’s photograph, after glancing round to see if there was anything lying about that might compromise herself and Quenu. As she was making her way downstairs again, she met the police agents on the first floor. The commissary requested her to accompany them to Florent’s room, where, after speaking to her for a moment in a low tone, he installed himself with his men, bidding her open the shop as usual so as to avoid giving the alarm to anyone. The trap was set.

Lisa’s only worry in the matter was the terrible blow that the arrest would prove to poor Quenu. She was much afraid that if he learned that the police were in the house, he would spoil everything by his tears; so she made Auguste swear to observe the most rigid silence on the subject. Then she went back to her room, put on her stays, and concocted some story for the benefit of Quenu, who was still drowsy. Half an hour later she was standing at the door of the shop with all her usual neatness of appearance, her hair smooth and glossy, and her face glowing rosily. Auguste was quietly setting out the window. Quenu came for a moment on to the footway, yawning slightly, and ridding himself of all sleepiness in the fresh morning air. There was nothing to indicate the drama that was in preparation upstairs.

The commissary himself, however, gave the alarm to the neighbourhood by paying a domiciliary visit to the Mehudins’ abode in the Rue Pirouette. He was in possession of the most precise information. In the anonymous letters which had been sent to the Prefecture, all sorts of statements were made respecting Florent’s alleged intrigue with the beautiful Norman. Perhaps, thought the commissary, he had now taken refuge with her; and so, accompanied by two of his men, he proceeded to knock at the door in the name of the law. The Mehudins had only just got up. The old woman opened the door in a fury; but suddenly calmed down and began to smile when she learned the business on hand. She seated herself and fastened her clothes, while declaring to the officers: “We are honest folks here, and have nothing to be afraid of. You can search wherever you like.”

However, as La Normande delayed to open the door of her room, the commissary told his men to break it open. The young woman was scarcely clad when the others entered, and this unceremonious invasion, which she could not understand, fairly exasperated her. She flushed crimson from anger rather than from shame, and seemed as though she were about to fly at the officers. The commissary, at the sight, stepped forward to protect his men, repeating in his cold voice: “In the name of the law! In the name of the law!”

Thereupon La Normande threw herself upon a chair, and burst into a wild fit of hysterical sobbing at finding herself so powerless. She was quite at a loss to understand what these men wanted with her. The commissary, however, had noticed how scantily she was clad, and taking a shawl from a peg, he flung it over her. Still she did not wrap it round her, but only sobbed the more bitterly as she watched the men roughly searching the apartment.

“But what have I done?” she at last stammered out. “What are you looking for here?”

Thereupon the commissary pronounced the name of Florent; and La Normande, catching sight of the old woman, who was standing at the door, cried out: “Oh, the wretch! This is her doing!” and she rushed at her mother.

She would have struck her if she had reached her; but the police agents held her back, and forcibly wrapped her in the shawl. Meanwhile, she struggled violently, and exclaimed in a choking voice:

“What do you take me for? That Florent has never been in this room, I tell you. There was nothing at all between us. People are always trying to injure me in the neighbourhood; but just let anyone come here and say anything before my face, and then you’ll see! You’ll lock me up afterwards, I dare say, but I don’t mind that! Florent, indeed! What a lie! What nonsense!”

This flood of words seemed to calm her; and her anger now turned against Florent, who was the cause of all the trouble. Addressing the commissary, she sought to justify herself.

“I did not know his real character, sir,” she said. “He had such a mild manner that he deceived us all. I was unwilling to believe all I heard, because I know people are so malicious. He only came here to give lessons to my little boy, and went away directly they were over. I gave him a meal here now and again, that’s true and sometimes made him a present of a fine fish. That’s all. But this will be a warning to me, and you won’t catch me showing the same kindness to anyone again.”

“But hasn’t he given you any of his papers to take care of?” asked the commissary.

“Oh no, indeed! I swear it. I’d give them up to you at once if he had. I’ve had quite enough of this, I can tell you! It’s no joke to see you tossing all my things about and ferreting everywhere in this way. Oh! you may look; there’s nothing.”

The officers, who examined every article of furniture, now wished to enter the little closet where Muche slept. The child had been awakened by the noise, and for the last few moments he had been crying bitterly, as though he imagined that he was going to be murdered.

“This is my boy’s room,” said La Normande, opening the door.

Muche, quite naked, ran up and threw his arms round his mother’s neck. She pacified him, and laid him down in her own bed. The officers came out of the little room again almost immediately, and the commissary had just made up his mind to retire, when the child, still in tears, whispered in his mother’s ear: “They’ll take my copy-books. Don’t let them have my copy-books.”

“Oh, yes; that’s true,” cried La Normande; “there are some copy-books. Wait a moment, gentlemen, and I’ll give them to you. I want you to see that I’m not hiding anything from you. Then, you’ll find some of his writing inside these. You’re quite at liberty to hang him as far as I’m concerned; you won’t find me trying to cut him down.”

Thereupon she handed Muche’s books and the copies set by Florent to the commissary. But at this the boy sprang angrily out of bed, and began to scratch and bite his mother, who put him back again with a box on the ears. Then he began to bellow.

In the midst of the uproar, Mademoiselle Saget appeared on the threshold, craning her neck forward. Finding all the doors open, she had come in to offer her services to old Madame Mehudin. She spied about and listened, and expressed extreme pity for these poor women, who had no one to defend them. The commissary, however, had begun to read the copies with a grave air. The frequent repetition of such words as “tyrannically,” “liberticide,” “unconstitutional,” and “revolutionary” made him frown; and on reading the sentence, “When the hour strikes, the guilty shall fall,” he tapped his fingers on the paper and said: “This is very serious, very serious indeed.”

Thereupon he gave the books to one of his men, and went off. Claire, who had hitherto not shown herself, now opened her door, and watched the police officers go down the stairs. And afterwards she came into her sister’s bedroom, which she had not entered for a year. Mademoiselle Saget appeared to be on the best of terms with La Normande, and was hanging over her in a caressing way, bringing the shawl forward to cover her the better, and listening to her angry indignation with an expression of the deepest sympathy.

“You wretched coward!” exclaimed Claire, planting herself in front of her sister.

La Normande sprang up, quivering with anger, and let the shawl fall to the floor.

“Ah, you’ve been playing the spy, have you?” she screamed. “Dare to repeat what you’ve just said!”

“You wretched coward!” repeated Claire, in still more insulting tones than before.

Thereupon La Normande struck Claire with all her force; and in return Claire, turning terribly pale, sprang upon her sister and dug her nails into her neck. They struggled together for a moment or two, tearing at each other’s hair and trying to choke one another. Claire, fragile though she was, pushed La Normande backward with such tremendous violence that they both fell against the wardrobe, smashing the mirror on its front. Muche was roaring, and old Madame Mehudin called to Mademoiselle Saget to come and help her separate the sisters. Claire, however, shook herself free.

“Coward! Coward!” she cried; “I’ll go and tell the poor fellow that it is you who have betrayed him.”

Her mother, however, blocked the doorway, and would not let her pass, while La Normande seized her from behind, and then, Mademoiselle Saget coming to the assistance of the other two, the three of them dragged Claire into her bedroom and locked the door upon her, in spite of all her frantic resistance. In her rage she tried to kick the door down, and smashed everything in the room. Soon afterwards, however, nothing could be heard except a furious scratching, the sound of metal scarping at the plaster. The girl was trying to loosen the door hinges with the points of her scissors.

“She would have murdered me if she had had a knife,” said La Normande, looking about for her clothes, in order to dress herself. “She’ll be doing something dreadful, you’ll see, one of these days, with that jealousy of hers! We mustn’t let her get out on any account: she’d bring the whole neighbourhood down upon us!”

Mademoiselle Saget went off in all haste. She reached the corner of the Rue Pirouette just as the commissary of police was re-entering the side passage of the Quenu-Gradelles’ house. She grasped the situation at once, and entered the shop with such glistening eyes that Lisa enjoined silence by a gesture which called her attention to the presence of Quenu, who was hanging up some pieces of salt pork. As soon as he had returned to the kitchen, the old maid in a low voice described the scenes that had just taken place at the Mehudins’. Lisa, as she bent over the counter, with her hand resting on a dish of larded veal, listened to her with the happy face of one who triumphs. Then, as a customer entered the shop, and asked for a couple of pig’s trotters, Lisa wrapped them up, and handed them over with a thoughtful air.

“For my own part, I bear La Normande no ill-will,” she said to Mademoiselle Saget, when they were alone again. “I used to be very fond of her, and have always been sorry that other people made mischief between us. The proof that I’ve no animosity against her is here in this photograph, which I saved from falling into the hands of the police, and which I’m quite ready to give her back if she will come and ask me for it herself.”

She took the photograph out of her pocket as she spoke. Mademoiselle Saget scrutinised it and sniggered as she read the inscription, “Louise, to her dear friend Florent.”

“I’m not sure you’ll be acting wisely,” she said in her cutting voice. “You’d do better to keep it.”

“No, no,” replied Lisa; “I’m anxious for all this silly nonsense to come to an end. To-day is the day of reconciliation. We’ve had enough unpleasantness, and the neighbourhood’s now going to be quiet and peaceful again.”

“Well, well, shall I go and tell La Normande that you are expecting her?” asked the old maid.

“Yes; I shall be very glad if you will.”

Mademoiselle Saget then made her way back to the Rue Pirouette, and greatly frightened the fish-girl by telling her that she had just seen her photograph in Lisa’s pocket. She could not, however, at once prevail upon her to comply with her rival’s terms. La Normande propounded conditions of her own. She would go, but Madame Quenu must come to the door of the shop to receive her. Thus the old maid was obliged to make another couple of journeys between the two rivals before their meeting could be satisfactorily arranged. At last, however, to her great delight, she succeeded in negotiating the peace which was destined to cause so much talk and excitement. As she passed Claire’s door for the last time she still heard the sound of the scissors scraping away at the plaster.

When she had at last carried a definite reply to Madame Quenu, Mademoiselle Saget hurried off to find Madame Lecoeur and La Sarriette; and all three of them took up their position on the footway at the corner of the fish market, just in front of the pork shop. Here they would be certain to have a good view of every detail of the meeting. They felt extremely impatient, and while pretending to chat together kept an anxious look-out in the direction of the Rue Pirouette, along which La Normande must come. The news of the reconciliation was already travelling through the markets, and while some saleswomen stood up behind their stalls trying to get a view of what was taking place, others, still more inquisitive, actually left their places and took up a position in the covered way. Every eye in the markets was directed upon the pork shop; the whole neighbourhood was on the tip-toe of expectation.

It was a very solemn affair. When La Normande at last turned the corner of the Rue Pirouette the excitement was so great that the women held their breath.

“She has got her diamonds on,” murmured La Sarriette.