Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 21, 2025
She reached the corner of the Rue Pirouette just as the commissary of police was re-entering the side passage of the Quenu-Gradelles' house. She grasped the situation at once, and entered the shop with such glistening eyes that Lisa enjoined silence by a gesture which called her attention to the presence of Quenu, who was hanging up some pieces of salt pork.
No one seemed to pay any further attention to him, so he remained still and quiet where he was, holding the sleeping child. Now came the tug of war, as Quenu said. He had to remove the black-puddings from the pot.
She came and sat down on the edge of the bed. Quenu was already much shaken in his opinions. "Listen to me, now," she resumed in a more serious voice. "You surely don't want to see your own shop pillaged, your cellar emptied, and your money taken from you?
Years, meantime, passed by. Florent, who had inherited all his mother's spirit of devotion, kept Quenu at home as though he were a big, idle girl. He did not even suffer him to perform any petty domestic duties, but always went to buy the provisions himself, and attended to the cooking and other necessary matters. This kept him, he said, from indulging in his own bad thoughts.
However, Lisa was a woman of practical common sense, and speedily saw the folly of allowing eighty-five thousand francs to lie idle in a chest of drawers. Quenu would have willingly stowed them away again at the bottom of the salting-tub until he had gained as much more, when they could have retired from business and have gone to live at Suresnes, a suburb to which both were partial.
Next, stepping up to the bed, he asked Florent if it was comfortable. His cousin slept below now, said he, and would be better there in the winter, for the attics were very cold. Then at last he went off, leaving Florent alone with the bed, and standing in front of the photograph. As shown on the latter Auguste looked like a sort of pale Quenu, and Augustine like an immature Lisa.
As she crossed the Pont au Change she grew quite calm again, recovering all her superb equanimity. On the whole, it was much better, she felt, that others should have anticipated her at the Prefecture. She would not have to deceive Quenu, and she would sleep with an easier conscience. "Have you booked the seats?" Quenu asked her when she returned home.
It must be given out that the master had died in his bed; otherwise the whole district would be disgusted, and the shop would lose its customers. Quenu helped to carry the dead man away, feeling quite confused, and astonished at being unable to shed any tears. Presently, however, he and Lisa cried together. Quenu and his brother Florent were the sole heirs.
"It was scarcely worth while trying to make himself out so disinterested," Lisa said to Quenu that night, as they went to bed. "I did quite right, you see, in keeping the account. By the way, I haven't noted down the thousand francs I gave him to-day." She sat down at the secretaire, and glanced over the page of figures. Then she added: "I did well to leave a blank space.
From the effects of this impudent story Madame Lecoeur had not yet recovered; she wore a doleful appearance, and her eyes were quite yellow with spleen. That morning, however, it was for Madame Quenu that the old maid had a shock in store. She looked round the counter, and then in her most gentle voice remarked: "I saw Monsieur Quenu last night.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking