The Fat and the Thin Part 34

Two months later Florent was again sentenced to transportation. The affair caused a great stir. The newspapers published all possible details, and gave portraits of the accused, sketches of the banners and scarves, and plans of the places where the conspirators had met. For a fortnight nothing but the great plot of the central markets was talked of in Paris. The police kept on launching more and more alarming reports, and it was at last even declared that the whole of the Montmartre Quarter was undermined. The excitement in the Corps Legislatif was so intense that the members of the Centre and the Right forgot their temporary disagreement over the Imperial Grant Bill, and became reconciled. And then by an overwhelming majority they voted the unpopular tax, of which even the lower cla.s.ses, in the panic which was sweeping over the city, dared no longer complain.

The trial lasted a week. Florent was very much surprised at the number of accomplices with which he found himself credited. Out of the twenty and more who were placed in the dock with him, he knew only some six or seven. After the sentence of the court had been read, he fancied he could see Robine's innocent-looking hat and back going off quietly through the crowd. Logre was acquitted, as was also Lacaille; Alexandre was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for his child-like complicity in the conspiracy; while as for Gavard, he, like Florent, was condemned to transportation. This was a heavy blow, which quite crushed him amidst the final enjoyment that he derived from those lengthy proceedings in which he had managed to make himself so conspicuous. He was paying very dearly for the way in which he had vented the spirit of perpetual opposition peculiar to the Paris shopkeeping cla.s.ses. Two big tears coursed down his scared face--the face of a white-haired child.

And then one morning in August, amidst the busy awakening of the markets, Claude Lantier, sauntering about in the thick of the arriving vegetables, with his waist tightly girded by his red sash, came to grasp Madame Francois's hand close by Saint Eustache. She was sitting on her carrots and turnips, and her long face looked very sad. The artist, too, was gloomy, notwithstanding the bright sun which was already softening the deep-green velvet of the mountains of cabbages.

"Well, it's all over now," he said. "They are sending him back again.

He's already on his way to Brest, I believe."

Madame Francois made a gesture of mute grief. Then she gently waved her hand around, and murmured in a low voice; "Ah, it is all Paris's doing, this villainous Paris!"

"No, no, not quite that; but I know whose doing it is, the contemptible creatures!" exclaimed Claude, clenching his fists. "Do you know, Madame Francois, there was nothing too ridiculous for those fellows in the court to say! Why, they even went ferreting in a child's copy-books!

That great idiot of a Public Prosecutor made a tremendous fuss over them, and ranted about the respect due to children, and the wickedness of demagogical education! It makes me quite sick to think of it all!"

A shudder of disgust shook him, and then, burying himself more deeply in his discoloured cloak, he resumed: "To think of it! A man who was as gentle as a girl! Why, I saw him turn quite faint at seeing a pigeon killed! I couldn't help smiling with pity when I saw him between two gendarmes. Ah, well, we shall never see him again! He won't come back this time."

"He ought to have listened to me," said Madame Francois, after a pause, "and have come to live at Nanterre with my fowls and rabbits. I was very fond of him, you see, for I could tell that he was a good-hearted fellow. Ah, we might have been so happy together! It's a sad pity. Well, we must bear it as best we can, Monsieur Claude. Come and see me one of these days. I'll have an omelet ready for you."

Her eyes were dim with tears; but all at once she sprang up like a brave woman who bears her sorrows with fort.i.tude.

"Ah!" she exclaimed, "here's old Mother Chantemesse coming to buy some turnips of me. The fat old lady's as sprightly as ever!"

Claude went off, and strolled about the footways. The dawn had risen in the white sheaf of light at the end of the Rue Rambuteau; and the sun, now level with the house-tops, was diffusing rosy rays which already fell in warm patches on the pavements. Claude was conscious of a gay awakening in the huge resonant markets--indeed, all over the neighbourhood--crowded with piles of food. It was like the joy that comes after cure, the mirth of folks who are at last relieved of a heavy weight which has been pulling them down. He saw La Sarriette displaying a gold chain and singing amidst her plums and strawberries, while she playfully pulled the moustaches of Monsieur Jules, who was arrayed in a velvet jacket. He also caught sight of Madame Lecoeur and Mademoiselle Saget pa.s.sing along one of the covered ways, and looking less sallow than usual--indeed, almost rosy--as they laughed like bosom friends over some amusing story. In the fish market, old Madame Mehudin, who had returned to her stall, was slapping her fish, abusing customers, and snubbing the new inspector, a presumptuous young man whom she had sworn to spank; while Claire, seemingly more languid and indolent than ever, extended her hands, blue from immersion in the water of her tanks, to gather together a great heap of edible snails, s.h.i.+mmering with silvery slime. In the tripe market Auguste and Augustine, with the foolish expression of newly-married people, had just been purchasing some pigs' trotters, and were starting off in a trap for their pork shop at Montrouge. Then, as it was now eight o'clock and already quite warm, Claude, on again coming to the Rue Rambuteau, perceived Muche and Pauline playing at horses. Muche was crawling along on all-fours, while Pauline sat on his back, and clung to his hair to keep herself from falling. However, a moving shadow which fell from the eaves of the market roof made Claude look up; and he then espied Cadine and Marjolin aloft, kissing and warming themselves in the suns.h.i.+ne, parading their loves before the whole neighbourhood like a pair of light-hearted animals.

Claude shook his fist at them. All this joyousness down below and on high exasperated him. He reviled the Fat; the Fat, he declared, had conquered the Thin. All around him he could see none but the Fat protruding their paunches, bursting with robust health, and greeting with delight another day of gorging and digestion. And a last blow was dealt to him by the spectacle which he perceived on either hand as he halted opposite the Rue Pirouette.

On his right, the beautiful Norman, or the beautiful Madame Lebigre, as she was now called, stood at the door of her shop. Her husband had at length been granted the privilege of adding a State tobacco agency[*] to his wine shop, a long-cherished dream of his which he had finally been able to realise through the great services he had rendered to the authorities. And to Claude the beautiful Madame Lebigre looked superb, with her silk dress and her frizzed hair, quite ready to take her seat behind her counter, whither all the gentlemen in the neighbourhood flocked to buy their cigars and packets of tobacco. She had become quite distinguished, quite the lady. The shop behind her had been newly painted, with borders of twining vine-branches showing against a soft background; the zinc-plated wine-counter gleamed brightly, and in the tall mirror the flasks of liqueurs set brighter flashes of colour than ever. And the mistress of all these things stood smiling radiantly at the bright suns.h.i.+ne.

[*] Most readers will remember that the tobacco trade is a State monopoly in France. The retail tobacconists are merely Government agents.--Translator.

Then, on Claude's left, the beautiful Lisa blocked up the doorway of her shop as she stood on the threshold. Never before had her linen shone with such dazzling whiteness; never had her serene face and rosy cheeks appeared in a more l.u.s.trous setting of glossy locks. She displayed the deep calmness of repletion, a ma.s.sive tranquillity unruffled even by a smile. She was a picture of absolute quietude, of perfect felicity, not only cloudless but lifeless, the simple felicity of basking in the warm atmosphere. Her tightly stretched bodice seemed to be still digesting the happiness of yesterday; while her dimpled hands, hidden in the folds of her ap.r.o.n, did not even trouble to grasp at the happiness of to-day, certain as they were that it would come of itself. And the shop-window at her side seemed to display the same felicity. It had recovered from its former blight; the tongues lolled out, red and healthy; the hams had regained their old chubbiness of form; the festoons of sausages no longer wore that mournful air which had so greatly distressed Quenu.

Hearty laughter, accompanied by a jubilant clattering of pans, sounded from the kitchen in the rear. The whole place again reeked with fat health. The flitches of bacon and the sides of pork that hung against the marble showed roundly like paunches, triumphant paunches, whilst Lisa, with her imposing breadth of shoulders and dignity of mien, bade the markets good morning with those big eyes of hers which so clearly bespoke a gross feeder.

However, the two women bowed to each other. Beautiful Madame Lebigre and beautiful Madame Quenu exchanged a friendly salute.

And then Claude, who had certainly forgotten to dine on the previous day, was thrilled with anger at seeing them standing there, looking so healthy and well-to-do with their buxom bosoms; and tightening his sash, he growled in a tone of irritation:

"What blackguards respectable people are!"