Monsieur Gourd tried to seize hold of her, and almost slipped, so he fell to abusing those sluts of servants. He was always at war with them, tormented with the rage of a former servant who wishes to be waited on in his turn. But Lisa turned upon him, and with the verbosity of a girl who had grown up in the gutters of Montmartre, she shouted out:
“Eh! just you leave me alone, you miserable old flunkey! Go and empty the duke’s jerries!”
It was the only insult capable of silencing Monsieur Gourd, and the servants all took advantage of it. He returned to his room quivering with rage and mumbling to himself, saying that he was certainly very proud of having been in service at the duke’s, and that she would not have staid there two hours even, the baggage! Then he assailed mother Pérou, who almost jumped out of her skin.
“Well! what is it you’re owed? Eh! you say twelve francs sixty-five centimes. But it isn’t possible? Sixty-three hours at twenty centimes the hour. Ah! you charge a quarter of an hour. Never! I warned you, I only pay the hours that are completed.”
And he did not even give her her money then, he left her perfectly terrified, and joined in the conversation between his wife and Octave. The latter was cunningly alluding to all the worries that such a house must cause them, hoping thus to get them to talk about the lodgers. Such strange things must sometimes take place behind the doors! Then the doorkeeper chimed in, as grave as ever:
“What concerns us, concerns us, Monsieur Mouret, and what doesn’t concern us, doesn’t concern us. Over there, for instance, is something which quite puts me beside myself. Look at it, look at it!”
And, stretching out his arm, he pointed to the boot-stitcher, that tall, pale girl who had arrived at the house in the middle of the funeral. She walked with difficulty; she was evidently in the family way, and her condition was exaggerated by the sickly skinniness of her neck and legs.
“On my word of honor! sir, if this sort of thing was likely to continue, we would prefer to retire to our home at Mort-la-Ville; would we not, Madame Gourd? for, thank heaven! we have sufficient to live on, we are dependent on no one. A house like this to be made the talk of the place by such a creature! for so it is, sir!”
“She seems very ill,” said Octave, following her with his eyes, not daring to pity her too much. “I always see her looking so sad, so pale, so forlorn. But, of course, she has a lover.”
At this, Monsieur Gourd gave a violent start.