"I will know the right of it to-day," Madame Famette thinks, and she lashes out at Mouton in an unusual fashion.
The first customer at her stall is Madame Houlard, the wife of the tailor and town councillor. "How is Marie?" she says: "the market does not seem itself without Marie Famette."
Madame Famette smiles, but she sighs too: "My poor little girl is ill;" and then her eyes rove round the market, and fix on Mademoiselle Lesage bustling in and out among her clients. "Have you then heard that Elise Lesage is to be married?" she says in a low, cautious voice.
Madame Houlard's flat, good-tempered face grows troubled: "Ah yes, I have heard some talk; and listen to that noisy fellow;" then she points to Floris Marceau, who is gesticulating and vehement as usual.
She is surprised to find her arm tightly grasped by the large hand of the fruit-seller: "Madame Houlard, tell me the truth: who is to marry with Elise Lesage?"
Madame Houlard leads a very tranquil life: her husband is the most placid man in Aubette, and she has never had any children to disturb the calm of existence. She is ruffled and shocked by Madame Famette's vehemence. She bridles and releases her plump arm: "Ma foi, my friend! what will you? Gossip comes, and gossip goes. I believe all I hear—that is but convenable—but then, look you, I am quite as willing to believe in the contradiction which so frequently follows. One should never excite one's self about anything: be sure of this, my friend, it is bad for the nerves. What is salsify a bundle to-day?"
Madame Famette, as has been said, has a sieve-like nature with regard to the passing away of wrath, but still her anger is easily roused. "It would be simpler to tell me what you have heard," she says in a very snappish accent. "When I want a lecture I can get it from monsieur le curé."
Madame Houlard had felt unwilling to tell her news, but this aggravating sentence goaded it out of her mouth: "It is to Monsieur Roussel, the timber-merchant, that Elise Lesage is to be married: see, he is talking to her now." There is a slight tone of satisfaction in Madame Houlard's smooth voice, and yet in her heart she is sorry for her friend's disappointment. All the market-place of Aubette had given Léon Roussel to the charming Marie.
"Léon Roussel! Why, she is as old as he is—older; and, ma foi! how ugly! and her parents—no one knows where they came from; and she—she is nothing but a money-grubber."
The day was tedious to Madame Famette. She tried to speak to Léon, but he avoided her with a distant bow. There was not even Alphonse Poiseau to help her: only little Pierre Trotin came and carried her baskets to the donkey-cart. She called at the doctor's house, but she could not see him. Madame Famette's heart had not been so heavy since her husband died. "It is that serpent"—she wiped her eyes on a huge blue-and-yellow pocket handkerchief—"who has done it all; and my poor unsuspecting child has flirted with Nicolas, and made the way easy. Ciel! what do I know? It is possible that Marie loves Nicolas, and is willing to throw herself away on a vaurien with a pair of dark eyes; and the news will not grieve her as it has grieved me."