“For instance,” Lisa would add in her expansive moments, “I have, you know, a cousin in Paris.  I never see him, as the two families have fallen out.  He has taken the name of Saccard,[*] on account of certain matters which he wants to be forgotten.  Well, this cousin of mine, I’m told, makes millions and millions of francs; but he gets no enjoyment out of life.  He’s always in a state of feverish excitement, always rushing hither and thither, up to his neck in all sorts of worrying business.  Well, it’s impossible, isn’t it, for such a man to eat his dinner peaceably in the evening?  We, at any rate, can take our meals comfortably, and make sure of what we eat, and we are not harassed by worries as he is.  The only reason why people should care for money is that money’s wanted for one to live.  People like comfort; that’s natural.  But as for making money simply for the sake of making it, and giving yourself far more trouble and anxiety to gain it than you can ever get pleasure from it when it’s gained, why, as for me, I’d rather sit still and cross my arms.  And besides, I should like to see all those millions of my cousin’s.  I can’t say that I altogether believe in them.  I caught sight of him the other day in his carriage.  He was quite yellow, and looked ever so sly.  A man who’s making money doesn’t have that kind of expression.  But it’s his business, and not mine.  For our part, we prefer to make merely a hundred sous at a time, and to get a hundred sous’ worth of enjoyment out of them.”

[*] See M. Zola’s novel, Money.

The household was undoubtedly thriving.  A daughter had been born to the young couple during their first year of wedlock, and all three of them looked blooming.  The business went on prosperously, without any laborious fatigue, just as Lisa desired.  She had carefully kept free of any possible source of trouble or anxiety, and the days went by in an atmosphere of peaceful, unctuous prosperity.  Their home was a nook of sensible happiness—­a comfortable manger, so to speak, where father, mother, and daughter could grow sleek and fat.  It was only Quenu who occasionally felt sad, through thinking of his brother Florent.  Up to the year 1856 he had received letters from him at long intervals.  Then no more came, and he had learned from a newspaper that three convicts having attempted to escape from the Ile du Diable, had been drowned before they were able to reach the mainland.  He had made inquiries at the Prefecture of Police, but had not learnt anything definite; it seemed probable that his brother was dead.  However, he did not lose all hope, though months passed without any tidings.  Florent, in the meantime, was wandering about Dutch Guiana, and refrained from writing home as he was ever in hope of being able to return to France.  Quenu at last began to mourn for him as one mourns for those whom one has been unable to bid farewell.  Lisa had never known Florent, but she spoke very kindly