Poor Madame Bridau doesn't seem as if she were very happy with him." "Suppose we take advantage of his being here, and have our portraits painted ?" The result of all these observations, scattered through the town was, naturally, to excite curiosity.

All those who had the right to visit the Hochons resolved to call that very night and examine the Parisians.

The arrival of these two persons in the stagnant town was like the falling of a beam into a community of frogs.
After stowing his mother's things and his own into the two attic chambers, which he examined as he did so, Joseph took note of the silent house, where the walls, the stair-case, the wood-work, were devoid of decoration and humid with frost, and where there was literally nothing beyond the merest necessaries.

He felt the brusque transition from his poetic Paris to the dumb and arid province; and when, coming downstairs, he chanced to see Monsieur Hochon cutting slices of bread for each person, he understood, for the first time in his life, Moliere's Harpagon.
"We should have done better to go to an inn," he said to himself.
The aspect of the dinner confirmed his apprehensions.

After a soup whose watery clearness showed that quantity was more considered than quality, the bouilli was served, ceremoniously garnished with parsley; the vegetables, in a dish by themselves, being counted into the items of the repast.