The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola [135]
“Well, you don't see it!” the old woman shouted impatiently. “Listen to me. I knew I'd seen that big oaf somewhere before.”
She told them Florent's story. Now she remembered rumors going around at the time that one of old Gradelle's nephews had been sent to Cayenne for killing six gendarmes at a barricade. She had even seen him once on rue Pirouette. And this was him, all right. That was the so-called cousin. She started feeling sorry for herself, complaining that she was losing her memory, she was through and soon would remember nothing at all. She bemoaned this memory loss like a scholar who sees a lifetime of notes being scattered in the wind.
“Six gendarmes!” sputtered La Sarriette with admiration. “He must have a hard fist, that one.”
“That's probably not all he has,” Mademoiselle Saget added. “I would advise you not to meet him at midnight.”
“What a thug!” stammered Madame Lecœur, completely overcome.
The sun angled into the pavilion, making the cheese smell even stronger. At this point the Marolles were particularly powerful. They let out a smell like the stink of an uncleaned stable into the dull smell of butter. Then the wind shifted and the three women were struck by a deadly whiff of Limbourg, bitter and sour like the breath of a dying man.
“But wait a minute,” Madame Lecœur said, returning to the subject. “If he is Fat Lisa's brother-in-law … then he's not sleeping with her.”
They stared at one another, surprised by this new side of the case of Florent. It was annoying to have to change the original version. The old spinster shrugged her shoulders. “That wouldn't necessarily stop him … It does seem a bit much … but I wouldn't put anything past him.”
“Oh, well,” said La Sarriette. “That's an old story, anyway. He wouldn't still be sleeping with her, since you've seen him with both the Méhudins.”
“Absolutely. As sure as I'm standing here looking at you, my sweet!” Mademoiselle Saget cried, annoyed that she was being questioned. “Every evening he's there in the Méhudins' skirts. But what do we care? He can sleep with whomever he likes, don't you think? As for us, we're respectable women. What a rogue he is.”
“He certainly is,” the other two agreed. “He's as sly as they come.”
Now the story was becoming tragic. They were feeling sorry for poor Lisa. There was nothing to do but wait for Florent to bring about some terrible calamity. Of course he was up to some evil. People like that escape only to breathe fire wherever they go. He certainly wouldn't have come to Les Halles if he were not planning something. The most extraordinary plots were proposed as to his likely mission. The two shopkeepers declared that they would put an additional padlock on their storage areas. La Sarriette recalled that just the other week a basket of peaches had been stolen from her. But Mademoiselle Saget terrified them by informing them that this was not the way the “reds” operated. They didn't care about baskets of peaches. They organized into groups of two or three hundred, killed everyone, and then helped themselves to whatever they wanted.
“That's their approach,” she said with the superiority of someone who knows. Madame Lecœur was starting to feel queasy. She could picture Les Halles in flames with Florent and his cohorts hiding deep in a cellar, ready to spring on Paris.
Suddenly the elderly woman said, “Now that I think about it, there is the inheritance from old Gradelle. My, my, the Quenus have nothing to laugh about.”
Now she was happy. The gossip continued. They started talking about the Quenus, and she told the story of the treasure in the salting tub, which she knew down to the most petty detail. She could even cite the figure of eighty-five thousand francs, though neither Lisa not her husband could recall telling this to a single soul. It didn't matter. The point was that they had not given “the skinny man” his fair share. He was too poorly dressed. Maybe he didn't even know the story about the