She deprived them of their flatness by her pronunciation.
She had a way of her own of saying things, which spiced her reminiscences of the village and of her springtime.
It had formerly been her delight, so she affirmed, to hear the loups-de-gorge (rouges-gorges) chanter dans les ogrepines (aubepines)—to hear the redbreasts sing in the hawthorn-trees.
The hall on the first floor, where “the restaurant” was situated, was a large and long apartment encumbered with stools, chairs, benches, and tables, and with a crippled, lame, old billiard-table.
It was reached by a spiral staircase which terminated in the corner of the room at a square hole like the hatchway of a ship.
This room, lighted by a single narrow window, and by a lamp that was always burning, had the air of a garret.
All the four-footed furniture comported itself as though it had but three legs—the whitewashed walls had for their only ornament the following quatrain in honor of Mame Hucheloup:—
Elle etonne a dix pas, elle epouvente a deux,
Une verrue habite en son nez hasardeux;
On tremble a chaque instant qu’elle ne vous la mouche
Et qu’un beau jour son nez ne tombe dans sa bouche.
This was scrawled in charcoal on the wall.
Mame Hucheloup, a good likeness, went and came from morning till night before this quatrain with the most perfect tranquillity.
Two serving-maids, named Matelote and Gibelotte, and who had never been known by any other names, helped Mame Hucheloup to set on the tables the jugs of poor wine, and the various broths which were served to the hungry patrons in earthenware bowls.
Matelote, large, plump, redhaired, and noisy, the favorite ex-sultana of the defunct Hucheloup, was homelier than any mythological monster, be it what it may; still, as it becomes the servant to always keep in the rear of the mistress, she was less homely than Mame Hucheloup.
Gibelotte, tall, delicate, white with a lymphatic pallor, with circles round her eyes, and drooping lids, always languid and weary, afflicted with what may be called chronic lassitude, the first up in the house and the last in bed, waited on every one, even the other maid, silently and gently, smiling through her fatigue with a vague and sleepy smile.
Before entering the restaurant room, the visitor read on the door the following line written there in chalk by Courfeyrac:—
Regale si tu peux et mange si tu l’oses.
CHAPTER II—PRELIMINARY GAYETIES
Laigle de Meaux, as the reader knows, lived more with Joly than elsewhere.
He had a lodging, as a bird has one on a branch.
The two friends lived together, ate together, slept together.
They had everything in common, even Musichetta, to some extent.
They were, what the subordinate monks who accompany monks are called, bini.
On the morning of the 5th of June, they went to Corinthe to breakfast.
Joly, who was all stuffed up, had a catarrh which Laigle was beginning to share.
Laigle’s coat was threadbare, but Joly was well dressed.
It was about nine o’clock in the morning, when they opened the door of Corinthe.
They ascended to the first floor.
Matelote and Gibelotte received them.
“Oysters, cheese, and ham,” said Laigle.
And they seated themselves at a table.
The wine-shop was empty; there was no one there but themselves.
Gibelotte, knowing Joly and Laigle, set a bottle of wine on the table.
While they were busy with their first oysters, a head appeared at the hatchway of the staircase, and a voice said:—
“I am passing by.
I smell from the street a delicious odor of Brie cheese.
I enter.”
It was Grantaire.
Grantaire took a stool and drew up to the table.
At the sight of Grantaire, Gibelotte placed two bottles of wine on the table.
That made three.
“Are you going to drink those two bottles?” Laigle inquired of Grantaire.
Grantaire replied:— “All are ingenious, thou alone art ingenuous.
Two bottles never yet astonished a man.”
The others had begun by eating, Grantaire began by drinking.
Half a bottle was rapidly gulped down.
“So you have a hole in your stomach?” began Laigle again.
“You have one in your elbow,” said Grantaire. And after having emptied his glass, he added:—
“Ah, by the way, Laigle of the funeral oration, your coat is old.”