The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola [147]
Jules read the fluffy newspapers. He knew the people in the small theater world, talked with familiarity about the celebrities of the day, and always knew which plays had bombed and which had been cheered in the previous night's openings. But he had a weakness for politics. His ideal was Morny12 as he liked to call the duc de Morny. He read the annals of the sessions of the Corps Législatif and laughed merrily at Morny's most trivial comments. Morny ridiculed those dumb republicans. Then he would go on to say that only the scum of society hated the emperor, because the emperor cared for the well-being of all respectable people.
“Sometimes I go to their café,” Claude told Florent. “That bunch is very funny too with their pipes, talking about balls at court as though they were ever invited. That little fellow who goes around with La Sarriette, you know, he made fun of poor old Gavard the other night. He calls him ‘uncle.’ When La Sarriette came downstairs looking for him, she had to pay his bill because he had lost all his money between drinks and billiards. Pretty girl, that Sarriette, isn't she?”
“Ah, what a nice life you lead,” said Florent, smiling. “Between Cadine, La Sarriette, and all the others.”
The painter shrugged. “You see, that's where you are mistaken. I don't want women. They upset everything too much. I wouldn't even know what to do with a woman. I've always been afraid to find out … Good night, sleep well. If you ever become a government minister, I would like to give you a few ideas for the beautification of Paris.”
Florent had to give up on his plan to make Claude a disciple. That saddened him because despite his fanatic's blindness, he was beginning to sense a growing hostility around him. Even at the Méhudins' he was received a little more coldly. The old woman was cackling under her breath. Muche no longer listened to him. The Beautiful Norman treated him with curt impatience when she moved her chair close to him and he wouldn't respond. Once she said that he acted as though he were displeased with her, and when he only managed to respond with an embarrassed smile she angrily moved over to the other side of the table. And he had lost the friendship of Auguste. When the boy went up to bed, he never stopped in Florent's room anymore. Auguste was very frightened by the stories circulating about this man with whom he had spent so much time late at night. Augustine made him swear not to be so foolish anymore. But Lisa managed to end the friendship completely when she asked them to delay their marriage until the cousin had relinquished his upstairs room. She didn't want to put the new shopgirl into the tiny room on the first floor.
From that moment Auguste longed for “the expulsion of the jailbird.” He had found his dream charcuterie not in Plaisance but a little farther away in Montrouge. Smoked pork products had become profitable items, and Augustine had said that she was ready, laughing in that chubby-girl way she had. Every night Auguste would lurch out of sleep at the slightest sound, feeling a surge of false hope, thinking the police had come for Florent.
At the Quenu-Gradelles' no comment was ever made about these things. The staff of the charcuterie had a tacit understanding to shroud Quenu in silence. Quenu, saddened by the rift between his brother and his wife, consoled himself by stringing his sausages and salting his strips of pork fat. He sometimes went to the doorway of the shop to air his thick ruddy skin, which laughingly bulged out of the tight white apron stretched across his belly. He never realized how his appearance at the door always stirred up the Les Halles gossip mill. People sighed for him. People found that he was losing weight, overlooking the fact that he was enormously fat. On the other hand, there were those who accused him of being too fat, considering the shame he should be feeling for having a brother such as his.
Like a cheated husband, who is always the last to learn of his misfortune, he