On reaching the bottom of the stairs, Florent stopped before the door which led into the kitchen.  The commissary, who was waiting for him there, seemed almost touched by his gentle submissiveness, and asked him:  “Would you like to say good-bye to your brother?”

For a moment Florent hesitated.  He looked at the door.  A tremendous noise of cleavers and pans came from the kitchen.  Lisa, with the design of keeping her husband occupied, had persuaded him to make the black-puddings in the morning instead of in the evening, as was his wont.  The onions were simmering on the fire, and over all the noisy uproar Florent could hear Quenu’s joyous voice exclaiming, “Ah, dash it all, the pudding will be excellent, that it will!  Auguste, hand me the fat!”

Florent thanked the commissary, but refused his offer.  He was afraid to return any more into that warm kitchen, reeking with the odour of boiling onions, and so he went on past the door, happy in the thought that his brother knew nothing of what had happened to him, and hastening his steps as if to spare the establishment all further worry.  However, on emerging into the open sunshine of the street he felt a touch of shame, and got into the cab with bent back and ashen face.  He was conscious that the fish market was gazing at him in triumph; it seemed to him, indeed, as though the whole neighbourhood had gathered there to rejoice at his fall.

“What a villainous expression he’s got!” said Mademoiselle Saget.

“Yes, indeed, he looks just like a thief caught with his hand in somebody’s till,” added Madame Lecoeur.

“I once saw a man guillotined who looked exactly like he does,” asserted La Sarriette, showing her white teeth.

They stepped forward, lengthened their necks, and tried to see into the cab.  Just as it was starting, however, the old maid tugged sharply at the skirts of her companions, and pointed to Claire, who was coming round the corner of the Rue Pirouette, looking like a mad creature, with her hair loose and her nails bleeding.  She had at last succeeded in opening her door.  When she discovered that she was too late, and that Florent was being taken off, she darted after the cab, but checked herself almost immediately with a gesture of impotent rage, and shook her fists at the receding wheels.  Then, with her face quite crimson beneath the fine plaster dust with which she was covered, she ran back again towards the Rue Pirouette.

“Had he promised to marry her, eh?” exclaimed La Sarriette, laughing.  “The silly fool must be quite cracked.”