commercial expertise.
Félicité kissed Marthe on the forehead as if the latter were still sixteen. She then extended her hand to Mouret. Their usual mode of conversation had a sharp edge of irony.
‘Well,’ she asked with a smile, ‘have the police not been to arrest you yet, you old revolutionary?’
‘Not yet,’ he replied, also with a laugh. ‘They are waiting till your husband gives them the order.’
‘Oh, very funny,’ Félicité replied, her eyes blazing.
Marthe appealed to Mouret with a pleading look; he had certainly gone too far. But he was off and there was no stopping him:
‘Good gracious, what can we be thinking of? Here we are receiving you in the dining room! Let’s go into the drawing room.’
This was one of his usual jokes. When Félicité came calling he assumed her affectations. It was no good Marthe saying they were fine where they were, she and her mother were obliged to follow him into the drawing room. There he took enormous pains opening the shutters, arranging the armchairs. The drawing room was never used and its windows remained closed more often than not; it was a large, unused room, in which stood furniture with white covers yellowed by the damp from the garden.
‘This is terrible,’ Mouret murmured, wiping the dust from an occasional table, ‘Rose leaves everything in such a state.’
And, turning to his mother-in-law, in a voice laced with irony:
‘Please forgive us for receiving you like this in our poor little residence… We can’t all be rich.’
Félicité was choking with rage. For a moment she stared at Mouret, as if about to explode; then, making an effort, she slowly lowered her eyelids; when she raised them again she said, pleasantly:
‘I’ve just been to call on Madame de Condamin, and I came in to see how the family is… I suppose the children are quite well? And you too, my dear Mouret?’
‘Yes, everyone is in the best of health,’ he replied, taken aback by this great show of amiability.
But the old lady did not give him time to reinject a note of hostility into the conversation. She questioned Marthe affectionately about many things of small importance, and pretended to be the perfect grandmother, scolding her son-in-law for not sending ‘the little ones’ to her more often. She was so happy to see them!
‘Well, you know,’ she said finally, in a casual tone of voice, ‘it’s October. I’m going to start my “Thursdays” * again, just as I do at this time of the year. Can I count on you, Marthe, my dear?… And you, Mouret, shall we be seeing you occasionally, or will you be cross with us for ever?’
Mouret, who was beginning to be annoyed by the effusions of his mother-in-law, could not immediately find an answer to this. It was an unexpected blow, he couldn’t find anything nasty to say, but made do with:
‘You know very well that I can’t go to your house… You invite a whole lot of people who would take delight in being offensive to me. And I don’t want to meddle in politics.’
‘Oh, but you are quite wrong,’ responded Félicité. ‘You are quite wrong, you know, Mouret! For in that case wouldn’t they say my salon was a kind of club? That I don’t want. Everyone in town knows I try to make mine a welcoming sort of house. If people talk politics there, they do so on the quiet, I assure you. Oh, I’ve had enough trouble with politics in my time. Why do you say that?’
‘You invite the whole crowd from the sub-prefecture,’ grumbled Mouret.
‘The crowd from the sub-prefecture?’ she echoed. ‘The crowd from the sub-prefecture… Well of course, I invite those gentlemen. But I don’t think you will have often come across Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies at my house this winter… My husband told him what he thought of him with regard to the last elections. Like a fool he let himself be duped. As to his friends, they are very respectable men. Monsieur Delangre and Monsieur de Condamin are very nice, our friend
Félicité kissed Marthe on the forehead as if the latter were still sixteen. She then extended her hand to Mouret. Their usual mode of conversation had a sharp edge of irony.
‘Well,’ she asked with a smile, ‘have the police not been to arrest you yet, you old revolutionary?’
‘Not yet,’ he replied, also with a laugh. ‘They are waiting till your husband gives them the order.’
‘Oh, very funny,’ Félicité replied, her eyes blazing.
Marthe appealed to Mouret with a pleading look; he had certainly gone too far. But he was off and there was no stopping him:
‘Good gracious, what can we be thinking of? Here we are receiving you in the dining room! Let’s go into the drawing room.’
This was one of his usual jokes. When Félicité came calling he assumed her affectations. It was no good Marthe saying they were fine where they were, she and her mother were obliged to follow him into the drawing room. There he took enormous pains opening the shutters, arranging the armchairs. The drawing room was never used and its windows remained closed more often than not; it was a large, unused room, in which stood furniture with white covers yellowed by the damp from the garden.
‘This is terrible,’ Mouret murmured, wiping the dust from an occasional table, ‘Rose leaves everything in such a state.’
And, turning to his mother-in-law, in a voice laced with irony:
‘Please forgive us for receiving you like this in our poor little residence… We can’t all be rich.’
Félicité was choking with rage. For a moment she stared at Mouret, as if about to explode; then, making an effort, she slowly lowered her eyelids; when she raised them again she said, pleasantly:
‘I’ve just been to call on Madame de Condamin, and I came in to see how the family is… I suppose the children are quite well? And you too, my dear Mouret?’
‘Yes, everyone is in the best of health,’ he replied, taken aback by this great show of amiability.
But the old lady did not give him time to reinject a note of hostility into the conversation. She questioned Marthe affectionately about many things of small importance, and pretended to be the perfect grandmother, scolding her son-in-law for not sending ‘the little ones’ to her more often. She was so happy to see them!
‘Well, you know,’ she said finally, in a casual tone of voice, ‘it’s October. I’m going to start my “Thursdays” * again, just as I do at this time of the year. Can I count on you, Marthe, my dear?… And you, Mouret, shall we be seeing you occasionally, or will you be cross with us for ever?’
Mouret, who was beginning to be annoyed by the effusions of his mother-in-law, could not immediately find an answer to this. It was an unexpected blow, he couldn’t find anything nasty to say, but made do with:
‘You know very well that I can’t go to your house… You invite a whole lot of people who would take delight in being offensive to me. And I don’t want to meddle in politics.’
‘Oh, but you are quite wrong,’ responded Félicité. ‘You are quite wrong, you know, Mouret! For in that case wouldn’t they say my salon was a kind of club? That I don’t want. Everyone in town knows I try to make mine a welcoming sort of house. If people talk politics there, they do so on the quiet, I assure you. Oh, I’ve had enough trouble with politics in my time. Why do you say that?’
‘You invite the whole crowd from the sub-prefecture,’ grumbled Mouret.
‘The crowd from the sub-prefecture?’ she echoed. ‘The crowd from the sub-prefecture… Well of course, I invite those gentlemen. But I don’t think you will have often come across Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies at my house this winter… My husband told him what he thought of him with regard to the last elections. Like a fool he let himself be duped. As to his friends, they are very respectable men. Monsieur Delangre and Monsieur de Condamin are very nice, our friend
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