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Updated: May 14, 2025
"But surely Monsieur Lebigre won't have anything more to say to her." Mademoiselle Saget shrugged her shoulders. "Ah, you don't know him," she said. "He won't care a straw about all this business. He knows what he's about, and La Normande is rich. They'll come together in a couple of months, you'll see. Old Madame Mehudin's been scheming to bring about their marriage for a long time past."
Mademoiselle Saget was just promising to come, when, happening to turn round, she discovered Gavard looking at her and listening to what she was saying. She turned very red, and, contracting her skinny shoulders, hurried away, affecting not to recognise him.
"Oh, yes, indeed," replied Pauline, still sobbing. "And your papa, he's good to you, too, isn't he? He doesn't flog you, or quarrel with your mother, does he? What do they talk about when they go to bed?" "Oh, I don't know. I'm asleep then." "Do they talk about your cousin Florent?" "I don't know." Mademoiselle Saget thereupon assumed a severe expression, and got up as if about to go away.
He recollected having heard Claude name the old one Mademoiselle Saget when they were in the Rue Pirouette; and he made up his mind to question her when she should have parted from her tall withered acquaintance. "And how's your niece?" Mademoiselle Saget now asked. "Oh, La Sarriette does as she likes," Madame Lecoeur replied in a bitter tone.
Besides, you yourself say that he's always running after the two Mehudin girls." "Certainly he is," exclaimed Mademoiselle Saget sharply, fancying that her word was doubted. "He dangles about them every evening. But, after all, it's no concern of ours, is it? We are virtuous women, and what he does makes no difference to us, the horrid scoundrel!" "No, certainly not," agreed the other two.
However, on emerging into the open sunshine of the street he felt a touch of shame, and got into the cab with bent back and ashen face. He was conscious that the fish market was gazing at him in triumph; it seemed to him, indeed, as though the whole neighbourhood had gathered there to rejoice at his fall. "What a villainous expression he's got!" said Mademoiselle Saget.
Then the bottle disappeared under the apron again, and Mademoiselle Saget, with her hands out of sight, remained talking in the bright glow of the counter, face to face with the big mirror, in which the flasks and bottles of liqueurs were reflected like rows of Venetian lanterns. In the evening all the metal and glass of the establishment helped to illuminate it with wonderful brilliancy.
The next day, however, Mademoiselle Saget had calmed down, and again expressed much tender-hearted pity for that poor Monsieur Gavard who was so badly advised, and was certainly hastening to his ruin. Gavard was undoubtedly compromising himself. Ever since the conspiracy had begun to ripen he had carried the revolver, which caused Madame Leonce so much alarm, in his pocket wherever he went.
Mademoiselle Saget, however, quite frightened the two others by informing them that that was not the way in which the Reds behaved; they despised such trifles as baskets of peaches; their plan was to band themselves together in companies of two or three hundred, kill everybody they came across, and then plunder and pillage at their ease.
There they stood laughing together, exhibiting themselves to the neighbourhood like a couple of good friends. The markets were quite delighted; and the saleswomen returned to their stalls, declaring that everything had passed off extremely well. Mademoiselle Saget, however, detained Madame Lecoeur and La Sarriette. The drama was not over yet.
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