had saluted her with a slight inclination of the head. Then he darted along the house passage, continuing to take the most minute precautions, and unwilling to let Florent enter the premises through the shop, though there was no one there. It was evident that he felt great pleasure in dabbling in what he considered to be a compromising business.
“Wait here,” he said, “while I go to see whether your brother is alone. You can come in when I clap my hands.”
Thereupon he opened a door at the end of the passage. But as soon as Florent heard his brother’s voice behind it, he sprang inside at a bound. Quenu, who was much attached to him, threw his arms round his neck, and they kissed each other like children.
“Ah! dash it all! Is it really you, my dear fellow?” stammered the pork butcher. “I never expected to see you again. I felt sure you were dead! Why, only yesterday I was saying to Lisa, ‘That poor fellow, Florent!’“
However, he stopped short, and popping his head into the shop, called out, “Lisa! Lisa!” Then turning towards a little girl who had crept into a corner, he added, “Pauline, go and find your mother.”
The little one did not stir, however. She was an extremely fine child, five years of age, with a plump chubby face, bearing a strong resemblance to that of the pork butcher’s wife. In her arms she was holding a huge yellow cat, which had cheerfully surrendered itself to her embrace, with its legs dangling downwards; and she now squeezed it tightly with her little arms, as if she were afraid that yonder shabby-looking gentleman might rob her of it.
Lisa, however, leisurely made her appearance.
“Here is my brother Florent!” exclaimed Quenu.
Lisa addressed him as “Monsieur,” and gave him a kindly welcome. She scanned him quietly from head to foot, without evincing any disagreeable surprise. Merely a faint pout appeared for a moment on her lips. Then, standing by, she began to smile at her husband’s demonstrations of affection. Quenu, however, at last recovered his calmness, and noticing Florent’s fleshless, poverty-stricken appearance, exclaimed: “Ah, my poor fellow, you haven’t improved in your looks since you were over yonder. For my part, I’ve grown fat; but what would you have!”
He had indeed grown fat, too fat for his thirty years. He seemed to be bursting through his shirt and apron, through all the snowy-white linen in which he was swathed like a huge doll. With advancing years his cleanshaven face had become elongated, assuming a faint resemblance to the snout of one of those pigs amidst whose flesh his hands worked and lived the whole day through. Florent scarcely recognised him. He had now seated himself, and his glance turned from his brother to handsome Lisa and little Pauline. They were all brimful of health, squarely built, sleek, in prime condition; and in their turn they looked at Florent with the uneasy astonishment which corpulent people feel at the sight of a scraggy person. The very cat, whose skin was distended by fat, dilated its yellow eyes and scrutinised him with an air of distrust.
“You’ll wait till we have breakfast, won’t you?” asked Quenu. “We have it early, at ten o’clock.”
A penetrating odour of cookery pervaded the place; and Florent looked back upon the terrible night which he had just spent, his arrival amongst the vegetables, his agony in the midst of the markets, the endless avalanches of food from which he had just escaped. And then in a low tone and with a gentle smile he responded:
“No; I’m really very hungry, you see.”
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