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By Root 1406 0

to the wheezing cry made by the castors as the wagons went down. Below was exquisite horror. They entered into the scent of death, walked among dark, cloudy puddles that sometimes appeared to be lit by glowing purple eyes. The floor felt sticky on the soles of their shoes as they splashed through, revolted yet entranced by this horrifying muck. The gas jets had low flames like the batting lid of a bloodshot eye. Near the faucets, in the pale light that came through the grates, they came to the chopping blocks. Mesmerized, they watched the butchers, their aprons stiffened with gore, smashing sheeps' heads with mallets. They lingered for hours until all the baskets were empty, held rapt by the crack of bones, until the last tongue was torn out, the last brain knocked loose by blows to the skull. Sometimes a worker walked behind them, hosing down the cellar floor, the water bursting out with the rush of an open floodgate. But although the flood was so powerful that it wore away at the floor, it did not have the power to remove either the stain or the stench of blood.

Toward evening, between four and five, Cadine and Marjolin knew that they would run into Claude at the wholesale beef lung auction. He was always right there, standing where the tripe vendors parked their carts, amid a mob of men in blue work overalls and white aprons, being shoved and jostled, his ears splitting from voices bellowing out bids. But he never felt the jabs of their elbows; he stood in a peaceful stupor in front of the gigantic lungs hanging from the auction hooks.

He often told Cadine and Marjolin that this was the most beautiful sight in the world. The lungs were a gentle pink, gradually deepening in color down the length of the organs until the bottom was bordered in a brilliant crimson. Claude compared them to watered satin, unable to find any other way to describe the supple silkiness of the lengths of flesh, bunched in folds like the gathered skirts of dancers. He spoke of gauze and lace that revealed the thigh of a beautiful woman. When a ray of sunlight fell on the huge lungs and gave off a golden halo, Claude looked enraptured, as if he had seen a host of resplendently naked Grecian goddesses or perhaps fair ladies in their castles dressed in brocaded gowns.

The painter became a close friend of the two children. He was a great admirer of savage beauty and for a long time envisioned a large painting of Cadine and Marjolin as lovers wandering Les Halles amid the vegetables, the seafood, the meat. He would pose them seated on a bed of food, their arms embracing each other, exchanging an idyllic kiss. In this he saw an artistic manifesto, positivism in art,3 a modern art that was completely experimental and materialistic, but also as satire, as a punch in the mouth of the old school. But for almost two years he constantly redid his sketches, never able to strike the exact right note. He must have torn up at least fifteen canvases.

He judged himself harshly for this failure, but he continued to spend his time with his two models, held by a kind of unrequited love for his unrealized painting. Often when he ran into them, wandering about in the afternoon, he would join them, drifting through the Les Halles neighborhood, killing off time with his hands jammed deep into his pockets, fascinated by the street life around him.

The three ambled together, dragging their heels and scuffling along the pavement, forcing passersby into the street. They inhaled the odors of Paris, their noses in the air. They could have recognized every corner with their eyes shut, just by the scent of alcohol of the wine merchants, the warm breath of bakeries and pastry makers, or the vague impression of fruit. They took long walks. They loved to cross the round hall of the grain market, a huge, weighty stone cage, past the white piles of sacks of flour, listening to the echo of their footsteps in the silent vault.

They had their favorite sections of the neighborhood streets, silent now, sad and dark as the edge of a ghost town—rue Babille, rue Sauval, rue des Deux-Ecus,