France -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Fiction; French fiction -- Translations into English
pacing up and down the garden, or looking round the kitchen to watch
what was going on.
The Saillard’s avarice, which was really imposed on them in the first
instance by dire necessity, was now a second nature. When the cashier
got back from the office, he laid aside his coat, and went to work in
the large garden, shut off from the courtyard by an iron railing, and
which the family reserved to itself. For years Elisabeth, the daughter,
went to market every morning with her mother, and the two did all
the work of the house. The mother cooked well, especially a duck with
turnips; but, according to Saillard, no one could equal Elisabeth in
hashing the remains of a leg of mutton with onions. “You might eat
your boots with those onions and not know it,” he remarked. As soon
as Elisabeth knew how to hold a needle, her mother had her mend the
household linen and her father’s coats. Always at work, like a servant,
she never went out alone. Though living close by the boulevard du
Temple, where Franconi, La Gaite, and l’Ambigu-Comique were within a
stone’s throw, and, further on, the Porte-Saint-Martin, Elisabeth had
never seen a comedy. When she asked to “see what it was like” (with the
Abbe Gaudron’s permission, be it understood), Monsieur Baudoyer took
her--for the glory of the thing, and to show her the finest that was to
be seen--to the Opera, where they were playing “The Chinese Laborer.”
Elisabeth thought “the comedy” as wearisome as the plague of flies, and
never wished to see another. On Sundays, after walking four times to
and fro between the place Royale and Saint-Paul’s church (for her mother
made her practise the precepts and the duties of religion), her parents
took her to the pavement in front of the Cafe Ture, where they sat on
chairs placed between a railing and the wall. The Saillards always made
haste to reach the place early so as to choose the best seats, and found
much entertainment in watching the passers-by. In those days the Cafe
Ture was the rendezvous of the fashionable society of the Marais, the
faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the circumjacent regions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account