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Updated: June 21, 2025
Indeed, she had turned her brain into an encyclopaedia brimful of every possible particular concerning the people of the neighbourhood and their homes. Quenu had always accused her of having spread the story of his Uncle Gradelle's death on the chopping-block, and had borne her a grudge ever since.
Uncle Gradelle was so charmed with this pretty girl that sometimes, as he was stringing his sausages, he would say to Quenu: "Upon my word, if I weren't turned sixty, I think I should be foolish enough to marry her. A wife like she'd make is worth her weight in gold to a shopkeeper, my lad."
As he tried to thank her, she told him that he must keep perfectly quiet, and that they could talk together later on. At the end of another three days Florent was on his feet again. Then one morning Quenu went up to tell him that Lisa awaited them in her room on the first floor. Quenu and his wife there occupied a suite of three rooms and a dressing-room.
And then, one night when they were in bed, she said to him: "Your brother earns a hundred and fifty francs a month, doesn't he? Well, it's strange he can't put a trifle by to buy himself some more linen. I've been obliged to give him three more of your old shirts." "Oh, that doesn't matter," Quenu replied. "Florent's not hard to please; and we must let him keep his money for himself."
That Quenu, by the way, was a lucky fellow; he wasn't a beauty himself, yet he had secured a beautiful wife, who had disinterred a fortune for him. Some even went so far as to whisper that Lisa was a simpleton for having acted as she had done; but the young woman only smiled when people speaking to her vaguely alluded to all these things.
Quenu growled something in reply; and Lisa refrained from pressing the point further, being of opinion that she had done all that could be expected of her. "He is not like other men," she resumed. "He's not a comfortable sort of person to have in the house. I shouldn't have said this if we hadn't got talking on the subject.
Augustine carried the sleeping Pauline upstairs; and Quenu, who liked to fasten up the kitchen himself, gave Auguste and Leon leave to go to bed, saying that he would fetch the black-pudding himself. The younger apprentice stole off with a very red face, having managed to secrete under his shirt nearly a yard of the pudding, which must have almost scalded him.
When he recognised Madame Quenu he grasped her hand, called her "dear lady," and conducted her to the vestry, where, taking off his surplice, he told her that he would be entirely at her service in a moment. They returned, the priest in his cassock, bareheaded, and Lisa strutting along in her shawl, and paced up and down in front of the side-chapels adjacent to the Rue du Jour.
Oh, I don't mean Monsieur Quenu, of course! I didn't say that; I don't know " "It must be Clemence," interrupted La Sarriette; "a big scraggy creature who gives herself all sorts of airs just because she went to boarding school. She lives with a threadbare usher. I've seen them together; they always look as though they were taking each other off to the police station."
"Yes, indeed, the police; for you're mixing yourself up with politics now." At this Quenu sat up in bed, quite dazed and confounded by such a violent and unexpected attack. "I mix myself up with politics! I mix myself up with politics!" he repeated. "It's no concern of the police. I've nothing to do with any compromising matters."
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