The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola [71]
“Women,” Charvet declared authoritatively, “are the equal of men and being so ought not to inconvenience men with the daily affairs of life. Marriage is a partnership in which everything should be divided in half. Isn't that so, Clémence?”
“Of course,” the young woman answered with her head against the paneling, looking into space.
Florent noticed Lacaille the grocer and Alexandre the fort, the friend of Claude Lantier. The two men had been at the other table of the little room, apparently belonging to a different world from the other gentlemen. But at the mention of politics their chairs had drawn nearer until they became part of the group. Charvet, in whose eyes they represented “the people,” tried to indoctrinate them with his political theories, whereas Gavard played the prejudice-free shopkeeper, clinking glasses with them. Alexandre was a handsome cheerful giant who seemed like a happy child. Lacaille, embittered, already gray-haired, his shoulders stooped by his endless walking in the streets of Paris, sometimes cast a suspicious glance at all this bourgeois complacency, at Robine's good shoes and fine coat. Each of them was brought a small glass, and the conversation continued, more heated and tumultuous than ever, now that the social order was complete.
That evening, through the half-open door of their section, Florent glimpsed Mademoiselle Saget standing at the counter. She had pulled a bottle from under her apron and was watching Rose fill it with a great deal of black-currant liqueur and a touch of eau-de-vie. Then the bottle vanished back under her apron and Mademoiselle Saget, her hands hidden, chatted in the bright light of the counter in front of the mirror where bottles and jars hung like Viennese lanterns. In the evening all the crystal and metal gave the place a warm glow. The elderly woman, standing there in the gaudy light in her black skirt, looked like a strange large insect.
Florent noticed that Mademoiselle Saget was trying to entrap Rose in a conversation and cunningly suspected that she had noticed him through the half-open door. Since he had started working at Les Halles, he had seen her every time he took a step, dawdling in one of the covered streets and usually accompanied by Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette, the three of them studying him and completely confounded when he had become an inspector. But this particular evening Rose did not want to converse with the old lady, for she finally turned around, apparently planning to approach Monsieur Lebigre, who was playing piquet7 with a customer at one of the bronze tables. Sneaking softly along, Mademoiselle Saget at last managed to install herself beside the partition, where she was noticed by Gavard, who detested her.
“Would you close the door, Florent?” he said harshly. “Can't we have a little privacy?”
On leaving at midnight, Lacaille whispered a few words to Monsieur Lebigre. As Lebigre shook his hand, he slipped him four five-franc coins without anyone noticing. “Remember,” he said in his ear, “that we'll need twenty-two francs to pay tomorrow. The person who loaned the money wants it back in full. And remember that you still owe three days with the cart. And you have to pay it all off.”
Then Monsieur Lebigre wished all of them a good night. He was going for a good night's sleep, he declared with a yawn that showed his large teeth, while Rose looked at him deferentially. He gave her a little shove and told her to turn off the gas in the little room.
Gavard stumbled and nearly fell on the sidewalk. But with a laugh he said, “Oh, darn, I should have supported myself on someone's lights.”
That made everyone laugh, and on that note they parted. Florent returned to lean against the glass paneling where he could still feel the silence of Robine, the outbursts of Logre, and the icy enmity of Charvet.
Even later, when he finally got home, he still did not go to bed. He liked his attic, this girl's room where Augustine had left bits of ribbon, sweet and frilly female things.