Little by little the neighbourhood calmed down, though throughout the day groups of people constantly assembled and discussed the events of the morning.  The pork shop was the object of much inquisitive curiosity.  Lisa avoided appearing there, and left the counter in charge of Augustine.  In the afternoon she felt bound to tell Quenu of what had happened, for fear the news might cause him too great a shock should he hear it from some gossiping neighbour.  She waited till she was alone with him in the kitchen, knowing that there he was always most cheerful, and would weep less than if he were anywhere else.  Moreover, she communicated her tidings with all sorts of motherly precautions.  Nevertheless, as soon as he knew the truth he fell on the chopping-block, and began to cry like a calf.

“Now, now, my poor dear, don’t give way like that; you’ll make yourself quite ill,” exclaimed Lisa, taking him in her arms.

His tears were inundating his white apron, the whole of his massive, torpid form quivered with grief.  He seemed to be sinking, melting away.  When he was at last able to speak, he stammered:  “Oh, you don’t know how good he was to me when we lived together in the Rue Royer-Collard!  He did everything.  He swept the room and cooked the meals.  He loved me as though I were his own child; and after his day’s work he used to come back splashed with mud, and so tired that he could scarcely move, while I stayed warm and comfortable in the house, and had nothing to do but eat.  And now they’re going to shoot him!”

At this Lisa protested, saying that he would certainly not be shot.  But Quenu only shook his head.

“I haven’t loved him half as much as I ought to have done,” he continued.  “I can see that very well now.  I had a wicked heart, and I hesitated about giving him his half of the money.”

“Why, I offered it to him a dozen times and more!” Lisa interrupted.  “I’m sure we’ve nothing to reproach ourselves with.”

“Oh, yes, I know that you are everything that is good, and that you would have given him every copper.  But I hesitated, I didn’t like to part with it; and now it will be a sorrow to me for the rest of my life.  I shall always think that if I’d shared the fortune with him he wouldn’t have gone wrong a second time.  Oh, yes; it’s my fault!  It is I who have driven him to this.”

Then Lisa, expostulating still more gently, assured him that he had nothing to blame himself for, and even expressed some pity for Florent.  But he was really very culpable, she said, and if he had had more money he would probably have perpetrated greater follies.  Gradually she gave her husband to understand that it was impossible matters could have had any other termination, and that now everything would go on much better.  Quenu was still weeping, wiping his cheeks with his apron, trying to suppress his sobs to listen to her, and then breaking into a wilder fit of tears than before.  His fingers had mechanically sought a heap of sausage-meat lying on the block, and he was digging holes in it, and roughly kneading it together.