The mistress of the pork shop, however, never flinched. She seemed to be absorbed in watching something of great interest in the market yonder. Accordingly the old maid had recourse to stronger measures. “I think,” said she, addressing herself to Madame Lecoeur, “that you ought to advise your brother-in-law to be careful. Last night they were shouting out the most shocking things in that little room. Men really seem to lose their heads over politics. If anyone had heard them, it might have been a very serious matter for them.”
“Oh! Gavard will go his own way,” sighed Madame Lecoeur. “It only wanted this to fill my cup. I shall die of anxiety, I am sure, if he ever gets arrested.”
As she spoke, a gleam shot from her dim eyes. La Sarriette, however, laughed and wagged her little face, bright with the freshness of the morning air.
“You should hear what Jules says of those who speak against the Empire,” she remarked. “They ought all to be thrown into the Seine, he told me; for it seems there isn’t a single respectable person amongst them.”
“Oh! there’s no harm done, of course, so long as only people like myself hear their foolish talk,” resumed Mademoiselle Saget. “I’d rather cut my hand off, you know, than make mischief. Last night now, for instance, Monsieur Quenu was saying — — “
She again paused. Lisa had started slightly.
“Monsieur Quenu was saying that the Ministers and Deputies and all who are in power ought to be shot.”
At this Lisa turned sharply, her face quite white and her hands clenched beneath her apron.
“Quenu said that?” she curtly asked.
“Yes, indeed, and several other similar things that I can’t recollect now. I heard him myself. But don’t distress yourself like that, Madame Quenu. You know very well that I sha’n’t breathe a word. I’m quite old enough to know what might harm a man if it came out. Oh, no; it will go no further.”
Lisa had recovered her equanimity. She took a pride in the happy peacefulness of her home; she would not acknowledge that there had ever been the slightest difference between herself and her husband. And so now she shrugged her shoulders and said with a smile: “Oh, it’s all a pack of foolish nonsense.”
When the three others were in the street together they agreed that handsome Lisa had pulled a very doleful face; and they were unanimously of opinion that the mysterious goings-on of the cousin, the Mehudins, Gavard, and the Quenus would end in trouble. Madame Lecoeur inquired what was done to the people who got arrested “for politics,” but on this point Mademoiselle Saget could not enlighten her; she only knew that they were never seen again — no, never. And this induced La Sarriette to suggest that perhaps they were thrown into the Seine, as Jules had said they ought to be.
Lisa avoided all reference to the subject at breakfast and dinner that day; and even in the evening, when Florent and Quenu went off together to Monsieur Lebigre’s, there was no unwonted severity in her glance. On that particular evening, however, the question of framing a constitution for the future came under discussion, and it was one o’clock in the morning before the politicians could tear themselves away from the little room. The shutters had already been fastened, and they were obliged to leave by a small door, passing out one at a time with bent backs. Quenu returned home with an uneasy conscience. He opened the three or four doors on his way to bed as gently as possible, walking on tip-toe and stretching out his hands as he passed through the sitting-room, to avoid a collision with any of the furniture. The whole house seemed to be asleep. When he reached the bedroom, he was annoyed to find that Lisa had not extinguished the candle, which was burning with a tall, mournful flame in the midst of the deep silence. As Quenu took off his shoes, and put them down in a corner, the timepiece struck half past one with such a clear, ringing sound that he turned in alarm, almost frightened to move, and gazing with an expression of angry reproach at the shining gilded Gutenberg standing there, with his finger on a book. Lisa’s head was buried in her pillow, and Quenu could only see her back; but he divined that she was merely feigning sleep, and her conduct in turning her back upon him was so instinct with reproach that he felt sorely ill at ease. At last he slipped beneath the bedclothes, blew out the candle, and lay perfectly still. He could have sworn that his wife was awake, though she did not speak to him; and presently he fell asleep, feeling intensely miserable, and lacking the courage to say good night.
He slept till late, and when he awoke he found himself sprawling in the middle of the bed with the eider-down quilt up to his chin, whilst Lisa sat in front of the secretaire, arranging some papers. His slumber had been so heavy that he had not heard her rise. However, he now took courage, and spoke to her from the depths of the alcove: “Why didn’t you wake me? What are you doing there?”
“I’m sorting the papers in these drawers,” she replied in her usual tone of voice.
Quenu felt relieved. But Lisa added: “One never knows what may happen. If the police were to come — “
“What! the police?”
“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.”
“No,” replied Lisa, shrugging her shoulders; “you merely talk about shooting everybody.”
“I! I!”
“Yes. And you bawl it out in a public-house! Mademoiselle Saget heard you. All the neighbourhood knows by this time that you are a Red Republican!”
Quenu fell back in bed again. He was not perfectly awake as yet. Lisa’s words resounded in his ears as though he already heard the heavy tramp of gendarmes at the bedroom door. He looked at her as she sat there, with her hair already arranged, her figure tightly imprisoned in her stays, her whole appearance the same as it was on any other morning; and he felt more astonished than ever that she should be so neat and prim under such extraordinary circumstances.
“I leave you absolutely free, you know,” she continued, as she went on arranging the papers. “I don’t want to wear the breeches, as the saying goes. You are the master, and you are at liberty to endanger your position, compromise our credit, and ruin our business.”
Then, as Quenu tried to protest, she silenced him with a gesture. “No, no; don’t say anything,” she continued. “This is no quarrel, and I am not even asking an explanation from you. But if you had consulted me, and we had talked the matter over together, I might have intervened. Ah! it’s a great mistake to imagine that women understand nothing about politics. Shall I tell you what my politics are?”
She had risen from her seat whilst speaking, and was now walking to and fro between the bed and the window, wiping as she went some specks of dust from the bright mahogany of the mirrored wardrobe and the dressing-table.
“My politics are the politics of honest folks,” said she. “I’m grateful to the Government when business is prosperous, when I can eat my meals in peace and comfort, and can sleep at nights without being awakened by the firing of guns. There were pretty times in ‘48, were there not? You remember our uncle Gradelle, the worthy man, showing us his books for that year? He lost more than six thousand francs. Now that we have got the Empire, however, everything prospers. We sell our goods readily enough. You can’t deny it. Well, then, what is it that you want? How will you be better off when you have shot everybody?”
She took her stand in front of the little night-table, crossed her arms over her breast, and fixed her eyes upon Quenu, who had shuffled himself beneath the bedclothes, almost out of sight. He attempted to explain what it was that his friends wanted, but he got quite confused in his endeavours to summarise Florent’s and Charvet’s political and social systems; and could only