na's whole attention. Fontan had caused
the seven thousand francs to vanish away. Without doubt they were quite
safe; indeed, she would never have dared ask him questions about them,
for she was wont to be blushingly diffident with that bird, as Mme Lerat
called him. She trembled lest he should think her capable of quarreling
with him about halfpence. He had certainly promised to subscribe toward
their common household expenses, and in the early days he had given
out three francs every morning. But he was as exacting as a boarder; he
wanted everything for his three francs--butter, meat, early fruit and
early vegetables--and if she ventured to make an observation, if she
hinted that you could not have everything in the market for three
francs, he flew into a temper and treated her as a useless, wasteful
woman, a confounded donkey whom the tradespeople were robbing. Moreover,
he was always ready to threaten that he would take lodgings somewhere
else. At the end of a month on certain mornings he had forgotten to
deposit the three francs on the chest of drawers, and she had ventured
to ask for them in a timid, roundabout way. Whereupon there had been
such bitter disputes and he had seized every pretext to render her life
so miserable that she had found it best no longer to count upon him.
Whenever, however, he had omitted to leave behind the three one-franc
pieces and found a dinner awaiting him all the same, he grew as merry
as a sandboy, kissed Nana gallantly and waltzed with the chairs. And
she was so charmed by this conduct that she at length got to hope that
nothing would be found on the chest of drawers, despite the difficulty
she experienced in making both ends meet. One day she even returned him
his three francs, telling him a tale to the effect that she still had
yesterday's money. As he had given her nothing then, he hesitated for
some moments, as though he dreaded a lecture. But she gazed at him with
her loving eyes and hugged him in such utter self-surrender that he
pocketed the money again with that little convulsive twitch or the
fingers peculiar to a miser when he regains possession of that which has
been well-nigh lost. From that day forth he never troubled himself about
money again or inquired whence it came. But when there were potatoes on
the table he looked intoxicated with delight and would laugh and smack
his lips before her turkeys and legs of mutton, though of course this
did not prevent his dealing Na