That evening, towards five o’clock, Octave experienced a real relief in making himself comfortable at the Pichons’ whilst waiting for dinner. The house bewildered him somewhat; after having allowed himself to be impressed with a provincial’s respect, in the face of the rich solemnity of the staircase, he was gliding to an exaggerated contempt for what he thought he could guess took place behind the high mahogany doors. He was quite at sea; it seemed to him now that those middle-class women, whose virtue had frozen him at first, should yield at a sign; and, when one of them resisted, he was filled with surprise and rancour.
Marie blushed with joy on seeing him place the pile of books which he had fetched for her in the morning on the sideboard. She kept saying, “How nice of you, Monsieur Octave! Oh! thank you, thank you! And how kind to come early! Will you have a glass of sugar and water with some cognac? It assists the appetite.”
He accepted, just to please her. Everything appeared pleasant to him, even Pichon and the Vuillaumes, who conversed round the table, slowly mumbling over again their usual Sunday conversation. Marie, now and again, ran to the kitchen, where she was cooking a boned shoulder of mutton; and he dared in a chaffing way to follow her, seizing hold of her before the stove, and kissing her on the nape of her neck. She, without a cry and without a start, turned round and kissed him in her turn on the mouth, with lips which were always cold. This coolness seemed delicious to the young man.
“Well, and your new Minister?” asked he of Pichon, on returning into the room.
But the clerk gave a start. Ah! there was going to be a new Minister of Public Instruction! He knew nothing of it; no one ever troubled about that at the Ministry.
“The weather is so bad!” he abruptly remarked. “It is quite impossible to keep one’s trousers clean!”
Madame Vuillaume talked of a girl at Batignolles who had gone to the bad.
“You will scarcely believe me, sir,” said she. “She had been exceedingly well brought up; but she felt so bored at her parents’, that she had twice tried to throw herself into the street. It is incredible!”
“They should have put bars on the windows,” said Monsieur Vuillaume simply.