The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola [143]
This pistol gave him tremendous importance. He was counted as one of the truly dangerous men in town. Sometimes in the back of his shop he would agree to take it out of his pocket and show it to two or three women. He would ask the women to stand in front of him so he would be hidden by their skirts. Then he would cock it, turn it over in his hand, and point it at a goose or turkey hanging on display. He enjoyed frightening the women but then would always comfort them by saying that it was not loaded. But he always carried cartridges with him, in a box that he opened with great care. Once they had held the cartridges, it was time to put everything back in the arsenal. And with his arms crossed he triumphantly held court for hours.
“With a pistol like that, a man is a man,” he would say with a braggart's bravado. “Now the police are nothing to me. Sunday, I tried it out with a friend on the plaine Saint-Denis. You know, you can't let everybody know you have one of these gadgets. But I tell you, my little darlings, we shot at a tree, and every time, whack, we hit it. You'll see, you'll see, it's just a matter of time until you hear everyone talking about Anatole.”
Anatole was his name for the revolver. He did such a thorough job that by the end of the week everyone in the pavilion knew of his pistol and the cartridges. His friendship with Florent was also thought to be suspicious. He was too rich and too fat to have the same resentments as Florent. But he lost his standing with thinking people and even managed to frighten the timid. All of this, of course, thrilled him.
“It's unwise to carry firearms,” Mademoiselle Saget said. “That habit will lead to trouble for him.”
At Monsieur Lebigre's, Gavard was in his glory Since Florent had stopped eating with the Quenus, he almost lived in that paneled room. He ate lunch and dinner there and came at odd hours to lock himself away behind its doors. It was almost his own room, a study where he kept his old coats and books and papers. Monsieur Lebigre accepted Florent moving in. He removed one of the two tables to put in its place an upholstered bench where, if he wanted to, Florent could sleep the night. When Florent hesitated, the landlord begged him not to worry about it and to consider the house at his disposal. Logre also displayed a warm friendship for Florent, making himself the trusty lieutenant. At all hours he would engage him in discussions of “the matter,” giving him the names of any new members and informing him of steps that were being taken. He had assumed responsibility for organizing the entire operation. He was the one who made contact with people, organizing the various districts, preparing each stitch in the vast net into which Paris would fall at a given signal. Florent remained in charge, the heart of the plot.
The hunchback tried so hard that he seemed to sweat blood with no appreciable result. Though he swore that he knew two or three supporters who could be counted on in each district, groups like the one that gathered at Monsieur Lebigre's, so far he had produced no precise information. He simply threw out names without any real information and untiringly bragged of tossing himself into the thick of the popular enthusiasm. The closest thing to concrete information he had to report was the number of hands he had shaken—so-and-so, whom he knew well, had shaken his hand heartily and said that he “would be there.” At Gros-Caillou, a big tall fellow who would make an excellent section chief had nearly yanked his arm off. On rue Popincourt, he had been embraced by a group of workers. It sounded as though a hundred thousand men could easily