hat was worse, the
immediate prosperity of the Salon Malakoff, bred dire resentment. Her
own establishment had grown grimy with the passage of time, and the
annual profits displayed a constant and disturbing tendency toward
complete evaporation, since the coming of the big cafes, and the
resultant subversion of custom to the wholesale dealers. This persistent
narrowing of the former appreciable gap between purchase and selling
price rankled in Alexandrine's mind, but her misguided efforts to
maintain the percentage of profit by recourse to inferior qualities only
made bad worse, and, even as the Sergeot were steering the Salon
Malakoff forth upon the waters of prosperity, there were nightly
conferences in the household next door, at which impending ruin
presided, and exasperation sounded the keynote of every sentence. The
resplendent facade of Hippolyte's establishment, the tide of custom
which poured into and out of his door, the loudly expressed admiration
of his ability and thrift, which greeted her ears on every side, and,
finally, the sight of Esperance, fresh, smiling, and prosperous, behind
her little counter--all these were as gall and wormwood to Alexandrine,
brooding over her accumulating debts and her decreasing earnings, among
her dusty stacks of jars and boxes. Once she had called upon her
neighbour, somewhat for courtesy's sake, but more for curiosity's, and
since then the agreeable scent of violet and lilac perfumery dwelt
always in her memory, and mirages of scrupulously polished nickel and
glass hung always before her eyes. The air of her own shop was heavy
with the pungent odours of raw vegetables, cheeses, and dried fish, and
no brilliance redeemed the sardine and biscuit boxes which surrounded
her. Life became a bitter thing to Alexandrine Caille, for if nothing is
more gratifying than one's own success, surely nothing is less so than
that of one's neighbour. Moreover, her visit had never been returned,
and this again was fuel for her rage.

But the sharpest thorn in her flesh--and even in that of her phlegmatic
husband--was the base desertion to the enemy's camp of Abel Flique. In
the days when Madame Caille was unmarried, and when her ninety kilos
were fifty still, Abel had been youngest commis in the very shop over
which she now held sway, and the most devoted suitor in all her train.
Even after his prowess in the black days of '71 had won him the
attention of the civil authorities, and a grateful