The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola [137]
“It would be good for you if there were an accident,” said Mademoiselle Saget. “If I were you, I'd watch out for my interests. You see, nothing good will come of this pistol. Monsieur Gavard is getting very bad advice. This is not going to end well.”
Then they went back to Florent, ripping him apart with even more fury than before. They calculated where the troubling stories of Florent and Gavard would lead. A long way down, if certain people didn't hold their tongues. Then they resolved to keep their mouths shut, not that this lowlife Florent was worth worrying about but because they had to do what they could to save Monsieur Gavard from trouble. They all stood up and were about to leave when Mademoiselle Saget turned and asked, “But if there were to be an accident, do you think we can trust Madame Léonce? Does she have the key to the wardrobe?”
“Now you're going too far,” said the old woman. “She's a very fine woman, but of course, I don't know, under the right circumstances. In any case, I've warned you both. It's up to you.”
They stood there saying their farewells in the last bouquet of the cheeses. At this time of day, all the cheeses exhaled together in a cacophony of bad breath, from the heavy softness of the cooked preparations to the Gruyère and the Dutch cheese to the sharp, alkaline Olivet. The Cantal, Chester, and chèvres sang their muffled bass against the high pitched trills of the Neufchâtels, Troyes, and Mont d'Ors. Then the odors ran wild, collided with one another, the Port Salut, Limbourg, Géromé, Marolles, Livarot, Pont l'Evêques, merging and broadening into an explosion of smells. It rose and spread, no longer a collection of individual odors but a nauseating blend, a fierce and suffocating force. For an instant it seemed that it was the venomous words of Madame Lecœur and Mademoiselle Saget fouling the air.
“Thank you very much,” said the butter merchant. “I'll remember you if I ever get rich.”
But Mademoiselle Saget did not leave. She picked up a bondon, turned it over, and put it back on the marble counter. Then she asked the price.
“For me,” she added, smiling.
“For you, nothing,” said Madame Lecœur. “It's a gift.” And then she said again, “Oh, if I were only rich.”
Mademoiselle Saget told her that someday she would be. The bondon had already vanished into her bag. The butter woman went back down to her cellar, while the old woman accompanied La Sarriette back to her stand. Surrounded by fruit with the fresh smell of spring, they stopped for a moment to talk about Monsieur Jules.
“It smells a lot better over here than at your aunt's,” said the old woman. “I was starting to feel queasy. How can she live with it? At least here it's sweet and pleasant. It makes you look all pink and healthy, my dear.”
La Sarriette began to laugh. She loved getting compliments. Then she sold a pound of mirabelles to a woman, telling her they tasted like candy.
“I'd like to buy some mirabelles,” Mademoiselle Saget murmured after the other woman left. “But I can only use a few, you know, living alone …”
“Then grab a handful!” exclaimed the pretty brunette. “That's not going to ruin me. Send Jules over here, will you, if you see him? He should be smoking his cigar on the first bench to the right, off the main road.”
Mademoiselle Saget stretched her fingers wide to take a handful of mirabelles that joined the bondon in her bag. She pretended that she was trying to leave Les Halles, but she detoured through one of the covered streets, walking slowly and thinking what a meager meal mirabelles and bondon would be. Usually if she failed to fill her bag to the top while plying shopkeepers with gossip, she was reduced to eating leftovers. She slipped back to the butter market. There, near rue Berger and behind the offices of the oyster