The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola [148]
One day he asked Lisa, “What's going on with all these women? They look at me as though we were at a funeral. Do I look ill or something?”
She reassured him that he looked fresh as a rose, because he had a terrible fear of illness, moaning and disrupting the entire household with the least sniffle. But the truth was that the handsome Quenu-Gradelle charcuterie was becoming a gloomy place—the mirrors looked pale, the marble was white as ice, the cooked meats on the counter lay sleeping under a cover of yellow fat or sitting in lakes of troubled jelly Even Claude dropped in one day to tell his aunt her display looked “all agitated,” and it was true. The stuffed tongues from Strasbourg on their bed of blue shredded paper had white spots like the tongues of sick people. The fine yellow faces of the jambonneaux looked sickly, garnished with sorry wilted green pom-poms. Furthermore, customers never came into the shop to ask for a link of boudin or six sous' worth of saindoux without lowering their voice as though in the room of a dying man. There were always two or three despondent-looking women lingering by the cooled-off warming oven.
Beautiful Lisa supervised the charcuterie-in-mourning with perfect dignity. She smoothed her white apron over her black dress with even more than the usual correctness. Her clean hands were clasped at the wrists by long sleeves, and her face was even more lovely with this proper sorrow, all of which sent a clear message to the neighborhood and all the inquisitive women who stopped there from morning until night that they were the victims of undeserved misfortune, but that knowing the cause of it, she would triumph in the end. Sometimes she would bend down and with her eyes reassure the two goldfish who swam joylessly in their aquarium that better days were coming.
Now Beautiful Lisa allowed herself only one pleasure. She could chuck Marjolin under his satin chin without fear. He had just returned from the hospital with his skull restored, as fat and happy as ever—but stupid, even stupider than before, in fact a complete idiot. The blow seemed to have gone to his brain. He was stupid as an animal. With the body of a Goliath, he had the mentality of a five-year-old. He laughed and lisped, completely failing to pronounce some words, and was as obedient as a lamb. Cadine once more completely took him over, shocked at first but then thrilled with this wonderful pet with whom she could do as she liked. She would bed him down in a basket of feathers, take him to romp and play in the streets, use him according to her whims as a dog, a doll, or a lover. He was her cookie, a delicious little part of Les Halles, blond flesh available for whatever she wished. But though the girl took all he had and kept him trained at her heel, a submissive giant, she could not keep him from going back to Madame Quenu's. She would pummel him with her fists. He didn't even feel it. As soon as she slung her flower tray over her neck and left with her violets down rue du Pont-Neuf or rue de Turbigo, he wandered around in front of the charcuterie.
“So come in!” Lisa would shout out to him.
Usually she would give him cornichons. He loved them and ate them at the counter with his childish giggle. He was overcome by the sight of this beautiful woman, and it made him clap his hands together with joy Then he would hop around the shop letting out little shrieks, like a street child confronted with something exquisite.
At first she had been afraid that he would remember. “Does your head still hurt?” she would ask.
He said that it didn't and he balanced and swayed merrily. Gently she pushed on: “What happened? You fell?”
“Yes. Fell. Fell. Fell,” he started singing to a happy tune as he started smacking his head.
Then seriously and