Piping hot! (Pot-bouille)

That morning the house awoke with a great middle-class dignity. Nothing of the staircase preserved a trace of the scandals of the night, neither the imitation marble which had r...

One morning that Berthe happened to be at her mother’s, Adèle came and said with a scared look that Monsieur Saturnin was there with a man. Doctor Chassagne, the director of the...

So soon as the fish was served, skate of doubtful freshness with black butter, which that bungler Adèle had drowned in a flood of vinegar, Hortense and Berthe, seated on the rig...

Matters, however, were not so far advanced. Octave was again in his old place at “The Ladies’ Paradise,” the business of which developed daily. Since her husband’s death, Madame...

On the following Tuesday Berthe did not keep her promise to Octave. This time she had warned him not to expect her, in a rapid explanation they had had that evening, after the w...

Towards nine o’clock, Octave, who had been invited for the first time, was just finishing dressing. He was grave, and felt irritated with himself. Why had he missed fire with Va...

On the morrow, which was a Sunday, Octave with his eyes open lay thinking for an hour in the warmth of the sheets. He awoke happy, full of the lucidity of the morning laziness....

For a fortnight past, with the view of getting uncle Bachelard to give Berthe a dowry, the Josserands had been inviting him to dinner almost every evening, in spite of his offen...

AS early as the morrow, Octave commenced to occupy himself about Valérie. He studied her habits, and ascertained the hour when he would have a chance of meeting her on the stair...

For some time past, Monsieur Gourd had been prowling about with an uneasy and mysterious air. He was met gliding noiselessly along, his eyes open, his ears pricked up, continual...

In the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, a block of vehicles arrested the cab which was bringing Octave Mouret and his three trunks from the Lyons railway station. The young man lowered...

The marriage before the mayor had taken place on the Thursday. On the Saturday morning, as early as a quarter past ten, some ladies were already waiting in the Josserands’ drawi...

When Octave went down on the morrow at eight o’clock, he was greatly surprised to find the entire house acquainted with the attack of the night before, and the desperate conditi...

The architect was abandoning his punctual habits; was never there at the proper time for his meals, arrived very red in the face, with a wild expression, and cursing business. T...

In December, the eighth month of her morning, Madame Josserand for the first time accepted an invitation to dine out. It was merely at the Duveyriers’, almost a family gathering...

On the Wednesday morning, when Marie brought Berthe to Madame Josserand, the latter, bursting with anger at the thought of an adventure which she felt was a sad blow to her prid...

THEN, Octave found himself brought into closer contact with the Duveyriers. Often, when Madame Duveyrier returned from a walk, she would come through her brother’s shop, and sto...

could discover anything. The father at once returned stealthily to his wrappers. He well knew that, without them, every little luxury in the home would have disappeared; and tha...

One day, in the middle of a long literary conversation, Théodore Duret said to me: “I have known in my life two men of supreme intelligence. I knew of both before the world knew...

When Madame Josserand, preceded by her young ladies, left the evening party given by Madame Dambreville, who resided on a fourth floor in the Rue de Rivoli, at the corner of the...