Florent a present of a magnificent salmon. Feeling very much embarrassed
with the fish, and not daring to refuse it, he brought it to Lisa.

"You can make a pasty of it," he said ingenuously.

Lisa looked at him sternly with whitening lips. Then, striving to
restrain her anger, she exclaimed: "Do you think that we are short of
food? Thank God, we've got quite enough to eat here! Take it back!"

"Well, at any rate, cook it for me," replied Florent, amazed by her
anger; "I'll eat it myself."

At this she burst out furiously.

"The house isn't an inn! Tell those who gave you the fish to cook it for
you! I won't have my pans tainted and infected! Take it back again! Do
you hear?"

If he had not gone away with it, she would certainly have seized it and
hurled it into the street. Florent took it to Monsieur Lebigre's, where
Rose was ordered to make a pasty of it; and one evening the pasty was
eaten in the little "cabinet," Gavard, who was present, "standing"
some oysters for the occasion. Florent now gradually came more and more
frequently to Monsieur Lebigre's, till at last he was constantly to be
met in the little private room. He there found an atmosphere of heated
excitement in which his political feverishness could pulsate freely.
At times, now, when he shut himself up in his garret to work, the quiet
simplicity of the little room irritated him, his theoretical search
for liberty proved quite insufficient, and it became necessary that he
should go downstairs, sally out, and seek satisfaction in the trenchant