"Ah! my dear lady," answered Philomène, "if we could only be rid of them!"
The rivalry between the Lebleus and the Roubauds, which had become more and more envenomed, simply arose from a question of apartments. All the first floor of the main station building, served to lodge members of the staff; and the central corridor, a regular corridor of a second-rate hotel, painted yellow, lighted from above, separated the floor in two, with lines of brown doors to right and left. Only the windows of the apartments on the right, looked on the courtyard facing the entrance, which was planted with old elms, and above these an admirable view spread out in the direction of Ingouville; while the apartments on the left, with semicircular, squatty windows, opened right on the marquee of the station, whose high slanting roof of zinc and dirty glass barred the horizon from view. Nothing could be more gay than the one side, with the constant animation in the courtyard, the verdure of the trees, the broad expanse of country; nothing more dismal than the other, where it was almost impossible to see, and where the sky was shut out as in a prison.
On the front, resided the station-master, the assistant station-master Moulin, and the Lebleus; on the back, the Roubauds and Mademoiselle Guichon, the office-keeper, without counting three rooms reserved to inspectors who made occasional visits. It was an established fact that the two assistant station-masters had always lodged side by side. If the Lebleus were there, it was due to an act of politeness on the part of the gentleman who had been succeeded by Roubaud, and who, being a widower without children, had thought proper to show Madame Lebleu the courtesy of giving up his apartments to her. But should not this lodging have gone to the Roubauds? Was it fair to relegate them to the back of the building, when they had the right to be on the front? So long as the two households had lived in harmony, Séverine had given way to her neighbour, her senior by twenty years, who, moreover, was in bad health, being so stout that she was constantly troubled with fits of choking. War had only been declared, since the day Philomène set the two women at variance, by her abominable tongue.
"You know," resumed the latter, "that they are quite capable of having taken advantage of their trip to Paris, to ask for your ejectment. I am told that they have written a long letter to the manager, setting forth their claim."
Madame Lebleu was suffocating.
"The wretches!" she exclaimed. "And I am sure they have been doing their best to get the office-keeper on their side. For the past fortnight she has hardly greeted me. There is another one who is no better than she should be! But I'm watching her."
She lowered her voice to say that Mademoiselle Guichon must be carrying on an intrigue with the station-master. Their doors faced one another. It was M. Dabadie, a widower, and the father of a grown-up daughter still at school, who had brought this thirty-year-old blonde to the station. Already faded, she was silent, slim, and supple as a serpent. She must have been a sort of governess. And it was impossible to catch her, so noiselessly did she glide along through the narrowest apertures.
"Oh! I shall succeed in finding it out," continued Madame Lebleu. "I will not be ridden down. We are here, and here we remain. All worthy people are on our side. Is it not so, my dear?"
Indeed, all the station was impassioned with this battle of the lodgings. The corridor, particularly, was torn asunder by it. It was only the assistant station-master Moulin, satisfied at being on the front, who did not take much interest in the matter. He was married to a little, timid, delicate woman, whom nobody ever saw, but who presented him with a baby every twenty months.
"Anyhow," concluded Philomène, "if they are tottering on their pedestals, this shock will not bring them down. Be on your guard, for they know someone of great influence."