m morning till night she sang songs, which were alternately
risque or sentimental, in a harsh voice; told silly, interminable tales,
and only stopped talking in order to eat, and left off eating in order
to talk; she was never still, and was active as a squirrel, in spite
of her embonpoint and her short legs; her laugh, which was a torrent of
shrill cries, resounded here and there, ceaselessly, in a bedroom, in
the loft, in the cafe, everywhere, and all about nothing.

The two women on the ground floor, Lodise, who was nicknamed La Cocotte,
and Flora, whom they called Balancoise, because she limped a little,
the former always dressed as the Goddess of Liberty, with a tri-colored
sash, and the other as a Spanish woman, with a string of copper coins in
her carroty hair, which jingled at every uneven step, looked like cooks
dressed up for the carnival. They were like all other women of the lower
orders, neither uglier nor better looking than they usually are.

They looked just like servants at an inn, and were generally called "the
two pumps."

A jealous peace, which was, however, very rarely disturbed, reigned
among these five women, thanks to Madame Tellier's conciliatory wisdom,
and to her constant good humor, and the establishment, which was the
only one of the kind in the little town, was very much frequented.
Madame Tellier had succeeded in giving it such a respectable appearance,
she was so amiable and obliging to everybody, her good heart was so well
known, that she was treated with a certain amount of consideration. The
regular customers spent money on her, and were delighted when she was
especially friendly toward them, and when they met during the day, they
would say: "Until this evening, you know where," just as men say: "At
the club, after dinner." In a word, Madame Tellier's house was somewhere
to go to, and they very rarely missed their daily meetings there.

One evening toward the end of May, the first arrival, Monsieur Poulin,
who was a timber merchant, and had been mayor, found the door shut. The
lantern behind the grating was not alight; there was not a sound in the
house; everything seemed dead. He knocked, gently at first, but then
more loudly, but nobody answered the door. Then he went slowly up the
street, and when he got to the market place he met Monsieur Duvert, the
gunmaker, who was going to the same place, so they went back together,
but did not meet with any better success. But suddenly they