The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola [37]
Lisa, the oldest daughter of the Macquarts from Plassans, still had a father. But she said he lived abroad, and she never wrote him. She sometimes let it drop that her mother had been a very hard worker and that she took after her. In fact, she was indefatigable. She sometimes added that the good woman had worked herself to death in order to support her family. Then she would hold forth on the relative duties of husbands and wives, doing so with such wisdom and candor that Quenu was enchanted. He said that he completely agreed with her ideas. Lisa's ideas were that everyone should work to earn a living, that everyone had a duty to pursue his own happiness, that it was a mistake to encourage idleness, and that the presence of so much misery in the world was in large part due to laziness. This pet theory was a sweeping condemnation of the drunkenness and legendary idleness of her father, the elder Macquart. But though she could not see it, there was much of Macquart in her. She was just a steady, sensible Macquart with a rational desire for comfort, who understood that the best way to fall asleep blissfully is to make a comfortable bed to lie in. She gave all her time and effort to the preparation of this fluffy soft couch. Even when only six years old, she was willing to sit still on her little chair all day, as long as she was given her evening cake.
At Gradelle's charcuterie her life was calm and dependable and periodically lit up by her beautiful smiles. She had not taken his offer with a sense of adventure; in Gradelle, she knew she could find a protector, and perhaps she saw in this somber shop on the rue Pirouette, where there were people on whom fortune had smiled, the future of her dreams of a healthy, pleasant life with steady work that was not exhausting, in which each hour brought its own reward. She looked after her counter with the same quiet care that she had given to the postmaster's widow. Soon the cleanliness of Lisa's aprons became legendary in the neighborhood. Uncle Gradelle was so pleased by this beautiful girl that he sometimes said to Quenu as he was tying up sausages, “If I wasn't over sixty, I swear to God, I'd be fool enough to marry her. She's like a bar of gold, my boy a woman like that in trade.”
Quenu was becoming infatuated with her. He laughed with slightly too broad a smile one day when a neighbor accused him of being in love with her. But he wasn't bothered by it. They were great friends. In the evening they climbed the stairs together to go to bed. Lisa slept in a small room adjoining the young man's black hole. She had brightened her room with muslin curtains. The couple would stand together for a moment on the landing, each holding a candle, and chat as they put their keys in the locks. And as they closed their doors they would say, in a friendly tone:
“Good night, Mademoiselle Lisa.”
“Good night, Monsieur Quenu.”
As Quenu undressed, he would listen to Lisa getting ready for bed. The partition between them was so thin that they could hear each other's every move. He would think, “Ah, now she's closing the curtains. I wonder what she's doing in front of the dresser. There, now she's sitting down and taking her shoes off. Well, good night, she's blown out the candle. Let's sleep.” When he heard the bed creak, he would chuckle to himself, “Damn, she's no feather, that Lisa.” This thought amused him and made him laugh, but then he would fall asleep dreaming of hams and strips of petit salé7 that he had to prepare the next day.
It went on like this for a year without a blush from Lisa or any embarrassment from Quenu. In the morning, the busiest time of day, when the young girl came down to the kitchen, their hands would meet amid the ground meat. Sometimes she helped him, holding the sausage skins with her chubby fingers while he stuffed them with meats and lardoons.8 Sometimes they tasted the raw sausage meat on the tips of their tongues, to make sure it was well seasoned. She helped him