The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola [141]
Mère Méhudin was so exasperated by the rejection of Monsieur Lebigre that she went around the neighborhood screaming that her daughter was crazy and that the “big beanpole” must have slipped her some drugs. When she heard the story about Cayenne, she became furious, called him a convict and a murderer, and said it was his evil ways that kept him so thin. She was the one who spread the worst versions of the story through the neighborhood. But at home she contented herself with merely grumbling and locking the silver drawer when Florent showed up.
One day, after a quarrel with her older daughter, she shouted, “We can't go on like this anymore. It's that horrible man who's turned you against me, isn't it. Don't push me too far, because I'll go denounce him to the prefecture.”
“You'll denounce him,” repeated the Norman with her fists trembling and her body shaking. “Don't you dare do such a horrible thing. Oh, if you weren't my mother …”
Claire, who witnessed the argument, started to laugh nervously, as though it tore at her throat. After some time she became more serious and more emotional, turning white, her eyes bloodshot.
“You'll do what?” she asked. “Are you going to beat her? And then will you beat me, your own sister? That's how this will end. I'm getting out of this house. I'll go to the prefecture and save Mama the trip.”
And while the Norman was choked with rage and stammered threats, Claire added, “You won't have to bother beating me. I'm going to jump off the bridge into the water on my way back.”
Large tears rolled down her face, and she rushed into the bedroom and slammed the door. Mère Méhudin never said another word about denouncing Florent. But Muche reported to his mother that he had seen her talking to Monsieur Lebigre in quiet spots all over the neighborhood.
The rivalry between the Beautiful Norman and Beautiful Lisa took on a quieter but more disturbing character. In the afternoons, when the pink-striped gray canvas awning was pulled down in front of the charcuterie, the fishmonger would call out that the fatso was scared and hiding. The store also had a window blind that provoked the Norman when it was down. It featured a luncheon of a hunting party in a forest clearing with men in black and their bare-shouldered ladies sitting on the yellow grass, eating a red pâté almost as large as the people.
Of course, Beautiful Lisa wasn't really scared. As soon as the sun passed, she raised the awning as she knitted and looked out peacefully from her counter across the square in front of Les Halles, planted with plane trees and crawling with good-for-nothings sitting beneath trellises of leaves, poking at the gratings that protected the tree roots, while along the benches porters were smoking their pipes. At the ends of the pavement were two pillars plastered with square theater posters of green and yellow and blue and red, as colorful as a harlequin's costume. She had a perfect view of the Beautiful Norman, though all the time she appeared to be watching the traffic.
Sometimes she would lean forward, pretending to follow the omnibus from the Bastille to place Wagram as it went up to Saint Eustache. But actually she was leaning to get a better view of the fishmonger, who avenged the blinds with large sheets of gray paper with the excuse that it protected the merchandise from summer heat. But Beautiful Lisa had the advantage. She remained very calm as the day of reckoning drew