"If anything goes wrong,
apply in that quarter. Man and money, all at your service."
The strange speaker's manner was sufficiently burlesque, so that no
one but Rastignac knew that there was a serious meaning underlying the
pantomime.
As soon as the police, soldiers, and detectives had left the house,
Sylvie, who was rubbing her mistress' temples with vinegar, looked
round at the bewildered lodgers.
"Well," said she, "he was a man, he was, for all that."
Her words broke the spell. Every one had been too much excited, too
much moved by very various feelings to speak. But now the lodgers
began to look at each other, and then all eyes were turned at once on
Mlle. Michonneau, a thin, shriveled, dead-alive, mummy-like figure,
crouching by the stove; her eyes were downcast, as if she feared that
the green eye-shade could not shut out the expression of those faces
from her. This figure and the feeling of repulsion she had so long
excited were explained all at once. A smothered murmur filled the
room; it was so unanimous, that it seemed as if the same feeling of
loathing had pitched all the voices in one key. Mlle. Michonneau heard
it, and did not stir.
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