“I don’t know why Mamma Théodore doesn’t come back,” repeated Céline. “Perhaps she’s chatting.” Then, an idea occurring to her she continued: “I’ll take you to my Uncle Toussaint’s, Monsieur l’Abbé, if you like. It’s close by, just round the corner.”
“But you have no shoes, my child.”
“Oh! that don’t matter, I walk all the same.”
Thereupon he rose from the chair and said simply: “Well, yes, that will be better, take me there. And I’ll buy you some shoes.”
Céline turned quite pink, and then made haste to follow him after carefully locking the door of the room like a good little housewife, though, truth to tell, there was nothing worth stealing in the place.
In the meantime it had occurred to Madame Théodore that before calling on her brother Toussaint to try to borrow a franc from him, she might first essay her luck with her younger sister, Hortense, who had married little Chrétiennot, the clerk, and occupied a flat of four rooms on the Boulevard de Rochechouart. This was quite an affair, however, and the poor woman only made the venture because Céline had been fasting since the previous day.
Eugène Toussaint, the mechanician, a man of fifty, was her stepbrother, by the first marriage contracted by her father. A young dressmaker whom the latter had subsequently wedded, had borne him three daughters, Pauline, Léonie and Hortense. And on his death, his son Eugène, who already had a wife and child of his own, had found himself for a short time with his stepmother and sisters on his hands. The stepmother, fortunately, was an active and intelligent woman, and knew how to get out of difficulties. She returned to her former workroom where her daughter Pauline was already apprenticed, and she next placed Léonie there; so that Hortense, the youngest girl, who was a spoilt child, prettier and more delicate than her sisters, was alone left at school. And, later on,—after Pauline had married Labitte the stonemason, and Léonie, Salvat the journeyman-engineer,—Hortense, while serving as assistant at a confectioner’s in the Rue des Martyrs, there became acquainted with Chrétiennot, a clerk, who married her. Léonie had died young, only a few weeks after her mother; Pauline, forsaken by her husband, lived with her brother-in-law Salvat, and Hortense alone wore a light silk gown on Sundays, resided in a new house, and ranked as a bourgeoise, at the price, however, of interminable worries and great privation.
Madame Théodore knew that her sister was generally short of money towards the month’s end, and therefore felt rather ill at ease in thus venturing to apply for a loan. Chrétiennot, moreover, embittered by his own mediocrity, had of late years accused his wife of being the cause of their spoilt life, and had ceased all intercourse with her relatives. Toussaint, no doubt, was a decent workman; but that Madame Théodore who lived in misery with her brother-in-law, and that Salvat who wandered from workshop to workshop like an incorrigible ranter whom no employer would keep; those two, with their want and dirt and rebellion, had ended by incensing the vain little clerk, who was not only a great stickler for the proprieties, but was soured by all the difficulties he encountered in his own life. And thus he had forbidden Hortense to receive her sister.
All the same, as Madame Théodore climbed the carpeted staircase of the house on the Boulevard Rochechouart, she experienced a certain feeling of pride at the thought that she had a relation living in such luxury. The Chrétiennot’s rooms were on the third floor, and overlooked the courtyard. Their femme-de-ménage—a woman who goes out by the day or hour charring, cleaning and cooking—came back every afternoon about four o’clock to see to the dinner, and that day she was already there. She admitted the visitor, though she could not conceal her anxious surprise at her boldness in calling in such slatternly garb. However, on the very threshold of the little salon, Madame Théodore stopped short in wonderment herself, for her sister Hortense was sobbing and crouching on one of the armchairs, upholstered in blue repp, of which she was so proud.
“What is the matter? What has happened to you?” asked Madame Théodore.