But there was a moment of panic. A door opened, and the servants were already diving back into their kitchens, when Lisa announced that it was only little Angèle: there was nothing to fear with her, she understood. And, from the foul spout, there again arose all the rancor of the domestics, in the midst of the poisonous stench caused by the thaw. There was a grand spreading out of all the dirty linen of the last two years. It was quite consoling not to be ladies and gentlemen, when one beheld the masters and mistresses living in the midst of it all, and apparently enjoying it, as they were preparing to go through it all again.
“Eh! I say, you, up there!” suddenly shouted Victoire, “was it with Mug-askew that you had what didn’t agree with you?”
At this, a ferocious yell of delight quite shook the stinking cesspool. Hippolyte actually tore madame’s dress; but he did not care, it was far too good for her as it was! The big camel and the little jade were bent over the hand-rails of their windows, wriggling in a mad burst of laughter. Adèle, however, who was quite scared, and who was half asleep through weakness, started, and she retorted in the midst of the jeers:
“You’re all of you heartless things. When you’re dying, I’ll come and dance at your bedsides.”
“Ah! mademoiselle,” resumed Lisa, leaning out to speak to Julie, “how happy you must feel at leaving such a wretched house in a week! On my word, one becomes wicked here in spite of oneself. I wish you a better home in your next place.”
Julie, her arms bare, and dripping with the blood from a turbot she had been just cleaning for that evening’s dinner, returned to the window beside the footman. She shrugged her shoulders, and concluded with this philosophical reply:
“Dear me! mademoiselle, here or there, they’re all alike. In the present day, whoever has been in the one has been in the other. It’s all Filth and Company.”