deputy. The only thing they could think about was a permanent job, and they saw but one means of attaining that end: to become some kind of rivet, bolt, or wheel in the party organization. It was commonly said that the quarter was ridden with poverty and hunger, but the truth is that it was suffering from a more dangerous affliction: the poison of machine politics. The inhabitants of Saint-Sauveur were divided into three classes: the separatists, the blues, and the reds. When one of the parties came to power, the vanquished inevitably fell into want and the result was unemployment, feverish looks, a succession of brawls, and the prolonging of enmities. If a blue was elected to city hall or the Legislative Assembly, a red lost the place that was coveted by every Conservative.
This ebb and flow, this clean sweep, this joyful coming in and gloomy going out took place regularly every five years. The separatist or independent workers, always discontented, were forever trying, one after the other, the two political colours. For ten traffic policemen who sped around happily to the rhythmic chug of their motorcycles there were ten ex-policemen who watched them go by with hate-filling glances. The same rancour existed among the street sweepers and the elevator “conductors.”
It was in little clubs such as this that the decadent mysticism of the bureaucratic spirit found a shrine.
Tit-Blanc and his friend were greeted with jovial exclamations.
“Monsieur le Président,” said Bison Langevin, father of the twins, “I’d like a word with you.”
Tit-Blanc clapped Denis on the shoulder. The young man looked him over. “You’re brave, aren’t you, seeing you’ve got your gang here? That doesn’t worry me.” Tit-Blanc spat on the floor at Denis’s feet by way of showing his contempt. If he were only a Mulot six feet tall!
“Here’s your fifteen cents,” said Bédarovitch, “and the next time wash them out.”
Denis was about to leave when from the corner where the young Liberals were engaged in a discussion he heard Lise’s name. They were laying bets, each wagering that he would be the first to kiss her. It was all Denis could do to keep from egging them on as he thought of how annoyed Jean would be. And then, suddenly, he felt like breaking their jaws. He went on back, his hands in his pockets, lightly kicking their chairs as he passed. No one spoke, for they could tell that he was looking for an argument. But he was satisfied and strolled over to lean against the frame of the door.
Seated on long, low benches close up against the wall, the men were enveloped in smokehouse atmosphere from the fumes of their pipes, and through this fog their eyes gleamed like marbles. Over to one side, near the Sacred Heart, sat Gus Perrault, his black horn-rimmed glasses on his nose, his hair carefully smoothed down, a cigar in his hand. He was listening to Bison Langevin, who was whispering his request and his hopes. He would wrinkle his forehead at moments and at other times would contrive to interject a word or two — “I’m looking after that affair of yours” — between a couple of “Monsieur le Président” preambles on the part of his interlocutor. Broko Lallemand, father of ten children and out of work, was shouting the loudest of any of them. If he had no work, it was because they suspected him of being a blue.
“Pipe down, you fellows! We can’t hear what you’re saying,” Paul Ménard, the wood vendor, called out. He was closing a little deal with Tit-Blanc.
The air was laden with chicanery. Méo Nolin, jealous of the lads who had learned their trade at the technical school, was seeking to pick a quarrel with Bison Langevin. He wished to place his sons in the Parliament Buildings and as a red believed that he was in line for it, but he did not propose to have them taken on as do-nothings, loud talkers who pretended to be plumbers, like Bison, for example. But these bursts of anger died down almost at once. The Mulots were plotting against Denis and were having fun with their “bully,” the club’s strong man, who was afraid of him. Voices rose and fell, and Tit-Blanc, who believed that he was whispering, was the loudest of any of them.
Denis studied them all, searched their faces, and wondered why it was he felt such a distance between these men and himself. Yet he had hit upon no theory, had formulated no new order of things! Did he at least have convictions? A vague anxiety gripped him, but this environment prevented it from attaining any depth. Did he know where he was going? It tired him to discuss the subject, and far from being drawn to this or that opinion over which the others argued, he was rather inclined to burst them all like bubbles and show up their ridiculous aspects. Did this feeling of superiority come from the fact that he was an educated young man who had studied stenography? A tinkling of the doorbell interrupted his reflections.
“Our good Abbé Bongrain! Why, if it isn’t Monsieur Pritontin!” exclaimed Bédarovitch. “We don’t see very much of you.”
There was silence. The Mulots smiled sarcastically, for this man who had just entered was the most despicable of the Soyeux. The choleric Adolphe Pomerleau, tormented by political worries and a fanatic on the subject of social systems (he went about selling pamphlets for little-known movements), now gave a sigh and, indicating his uncle, Anselme Pritontin, addressed the other members of the group.
“Don’t be too hard on him, gentlemen. He has his troubles. He had counted on being appointed churchwarden this year. As if anybody had a better right to the place! A regular churchgoer who never misses mass.”
“He’s a good citizen but not rich enough for them,” said Père Didace Jefferson, who never failed to get in his anticlerical digs, ever since Monsieur le Curé had seemingly gone over to the conservatives.
“The family even made a novena,” Adolphe went on. “I am telling you that my aunt wept when she learned he had lost out.”
“I can just see him carrying the canopy,” put in Denis.
Out at the counter a lively discussion was going on. “Five dollars, Monsieur Pritontin. These chandeliers are not worth even that. No! It’s no use; I can’t give you a cent more.”
“Be fair, Monsieur Bédarovitch. Just look, they’re all bronze and each one holds seven candles.”
“They’re far from being pure bronze — from some impoverished church, you know.”
“Take five, Monsieur Pritontin; it’s a good price,” counselled the Abbé Bongrain in his gruff, good-natured voice.
“But that will not cover half of the expense of an altar for my oldest boy. He has a true passion for playing mass. You can tell that the priesthood is in his blood. Now, if the money were to be spent for sinful purposes, such as I could mention —”
“Good evening, my lads,” the priest called out as his tall figure appeared on the other side of the partition. The Mulots took off their caps and greeted him cordially, and Gus Perrault left Bison and came over to join him. Pritontin, meanwhile, was casting a wary eye over the room. Piety fairly dripped from the Soyeux, seeming to melt his human personality and replace it with a cloud of dignity. It was distasteful to him to see the Abbé Bongrain slapping the Mulots on the back. He was thinking what his own attitude would be if he were a priest.
The abbé would smile at one of the group, make some bantering remark to another. It was plain to be seen that this strong individual, imperturbable as a Pharaoh of old, was a friend to all of them. He was not a handsome man. His stiff straight hair resembled a horse’s mane and could only be close cropped. His features were large and looked as if they had been well kneaded by his big, awkward hands. The eyes alone stood out. Exceedingly mild and filled with blue-grey glints, they were like azure breads that had been inadvertently dropped upon this mass of crude flesh. At first sight, he gave the impression of being a sturdy, square-shouldered, good-hearted child who had nothing to do with the sins of grown-ups.
