The old man searched in his dim memory. 'Ah! Yes, yes, I recollect—a funny business it was! Well, if he gave his money back he was a fool.'
The words were spoken sharply and contemptuously, for Daddy Lunot had never dreamt of anything but making a big fortune like the Qurignons, in order to enjoy life like a master, an idle gentleman, who amused himself from morning till night. That had remained his ideal, even as it was that of the whole generation of broken-down, exploited slaves, whoso sole regret was that they had not been born among the exploiters.
La Toupe burst into an insulting laugh. 'You see!' she cried, 'Father isn't such a fool as you others are; he's not the man to start on a wild-goose chase! Money's money; and when a man's rich he's the master!'
Bonnaire shrugged his broad shoulders, whilst Lucien gazed in silence through the window at the roses in the garden. What was the use of arguing? She represented the stubborn past, she would pass away in the Communist paradise, in the midst of fraternal happiness, denying its very existence and regretting the days of wretchedness when she had been obliged to save up ten sous one by one in order to buy herself a strip of ribbon.
Just then, however, Babette Bourron came in. Unlike La Toupe, she was ever gay, ever delighted with her new position. By her smiling and comforting optimism she had helped to save her simpleton of a husband from the pit into which Ragu had fallen. She had invariably shown confidence in the future, feeling certain that things would eventually turn out all right. And she often jestingly remarked that La Crêcherie, where work had become light, cleanly, and pleasant, where one and all lived amidst comforts formerly reserved to the bourgeois alone, was like a fulfilment of her dreams of Paradise. Her doll-like face remained fresh-looking under her carelessly twisted hair, and radiant with the delight she felt at finding her husband cured of his passion for drink, and at living in a gay house of her own with two handsome children whom she would soon be marrying off.
'Well, so it's decided, eh?' she exclaimed. 'Lucien is going to marry Louise Mazelle, that charming little bourgeoise who isn't ashamed of us?'
'Who told you that?' roughly asked La Toupe.
'Why, Madame Luc, Josine, whom I met this morning.'
La Toupe turned white with restrained wrath. Amidst her ceaseless irritation with La Crêcherie there was a great deal of hatred against Josine, whom she had never forgiven for having become the wife and helpmate of Luc, that hero whom all admired, and for having, moreover, a number of handsome children, who were now growing up for lives of happiness. Could she not remember the days when that wretched creature had been turned starving into the streets by her brother? Yet now she met her wearing a bonnet like a lady. That was a crushing blow. She would never be able to stomach the idea of that creature being happy.
'Josine,' she roughly exclaimed, 'would do better to make people forget what she calls her own marriage before meddling with marriages which don't concern her. And as for me, you do nothing but aggravate me, so just let me be!'