"Jesus!" she complained, "they want to alter everything,—days, months, seasons of the year, the sun and the moon! Lord God, Monsieur Combalot, what ever is this pair of over-shoes down for the 8 Vendémiaire?"
"Citoyenne, just cast your eye over your almanac, and you'll get the hang of it."
She took it down from the wall, glanced at it and immediately turning her head another way.
"It hasn't a Christian look!" she cried in a shocked tone.
"Not only that, citoyenne," said the cobbler, "but now we have only three Sundays in the month instead of four. And that's not all; we shall soon have to change our ways of reckoning. There will be no more farthings and half-farthings, everything will be regulated by distilled water."
At the words the citoyenne Gamelin, whose lips were trembling, threw up her eyes to the ceiling and sighed out:
"They are going too far!"
And, while she was lost in lamentations, looking like the holy women in a wayside calvary, a bad coal that had caught alight in the fire when her attention was diverted, began to fill the studio with a poisonous smother which, added to the stifling smell of quinces, was like to make the air unbreathable.
Élodie complained that her throat was tickling her and begged to have the window opened. But, directly the citoyen Combalot had taken his leave and the citoyenne Gamelin had gone back to her stove, Évariste repeated the same name in the girl's ear:
"Jacques Maubel," he reiterated.