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Updated: June 22, 2025
On the previous day he had been to Clamart to attend the funeral of Monsieur Verlaque, who had died after terrible sufferings; and he still felt sad at the recollection of the narrow coffin which he had seen lowered into the earth.
The husband was probably unaware of it; however, the wife gratefully kissed Florent's hands. This charity afforded him the greatest pleasure, and he concealed it as though it were some forbidden selfish indulgence. "That rascal Verlaque is making a fool of you," Gavard would sometimes say. "He's coddling himself up finely now that you are doing the work and paying him an income."
Then they would begin to speak of something else, and the coins remained lying on the table. When Florent went away, Madame Verlaque always accompanied him to the street door. She was a gentle little woman, of a very tearful disposition.
And outside the enclosure, shut up in another little office of yellow wood, Monsieur Verlaque showed Florent the cashier, a fat old woman, who was ranging coppers and five-franc pierces in piles. "There is a double control, you see," said Monsieur Verlaque; "the control of the Prefecture of the Seine and that of the Prefecture of Police.
On the evenings of these visits from the apprentice, Florent could not settle down to work again; he went off to bed in a discontented mood, and did not recover his equilibrium till the thought passed through his mind, "Why, that Auguste is a perfect animal!" Every month he went to Clamart to see Monsieur Verlaque. These visits were almost a delight to him.
Lisa thereupon took Gavard aside, and after telling him to say nothing for the present to Monsieur Verlaque, promised that she would undertake to convince her brother-in-law in a couple of days' time at the utmost. Quenu then returned to his kitchen, while Gavard took Florent off with him.
Nor could he banish from his mind the image of Madame Verlaque, who, with a tearful voice, though there was not a tear in her eyes, kept following him and speaking to him about the coffin, which was not paid for, and of the cost of the funeral, which she was quite at a loss about, as she had not a copper in the place, for the druggist, on hearing of her husband's death on the previous day, had insisted upon his bill being paid.
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