The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola [78]
At the age of seven, he ran through the alleyways, crawled under the stalls, clambered over the tin-lined boxes, and was the spoiled pet of the fish women. Whenever they showed him something new to amuse him, he would clap his hands and stammer, “That's so muche!”10 The word “muche” stuck to him: “Come over here, Muche.” “Over there, Muche.” It was what everyone called him. He turned up in every cranny, in the recesses of the auction office, between stacks of baskets, among buckets of fish guts. He was like a rosy white barbel gliding through deep water. He was drawn to running water like a small fish. He splashed through puddles in the alleys and stood under drips from tables. Often he would surreptitiously turn on a faucet to have the pleasure of a stream of water. But most of all, when his mother went to find him in the evening, she knew to look by the springs beneath the cellar stairways. She would lead him away, soaked, his skin blue, and his shoes, even his pockets, filled with water.
The seven-year-old Muche was a solid little boy pretty as an angel and crude as a wagon driver. He had curly chestnut hair, beautiful soft eyes, and a sweet, innocent-looking mouth out of which came language that even a policeman wouldn't use. Raised amid the trash of Les Halles, he could recite the vocabulary of the fish trade with his hands on his hips just like Mère Méhudin when she was angry. So “slut” and “whore” and worse danced off his tongue in a sweet, crystalline voice fit for a boys' choir. He tried to make his voice sound gruff even though he looked the smiling babe in the Virgin's arms. The fish women laughed until they cried, which so encouraged him that he would not say more than two words without belching out “goddamn it.” But there was something lovable about him, the way he didn't understand his own vulgarity and the breezes and strong smells of the fish market kept him healthy. He recited his repertoire of curses with deep pleasure, as though they were prayers.
Winter was coming, and Muche was bothered by the cold. As soon as the chill set in, the inspector's office became his hangout of choice. It was located at the left-hand corner of the pavilion on the rue Rambuteau side. It was furnished with a table, a filing cabinet, an easy chair, two other chairs, and a heating stove. For Muche the attraction was the stove. When Florent, who adored children, saw the small child, his legs dripping wet, staring longingly from the window, he invited him to come in. His first conversation with the boy shocked him. It was in front of the stove, and the boy said in his gentle voice, “I'll just warm up my paws, okay? It's goddamn freezing out there.”
Then after a laugh he said, “My aunt Claire looks a little off this morning. Hey, mister, is it true that you warm her feet for her at night?”
Florent was both shocked and fascinated by this waif. The Beautiful Norman remained curt to him but said nothing about her son visiting him. Florent took this as permission to receive him and encouraged him to come visit in the afternoons, thinking he could civilize the child a bit. It was almost as though his brother, Quenu, had become small again and they were in their room on the rue Royer-Collard once again. It was Florent's nature to be at his happiest with some young person who would never grow up, whom he could go on teaching forever, and through whose innocence he could feel love for mankind.
On the third day of his relationship with Muche he brought an alphabet primer to work, and he was thrilled to note a great deal of intelligence in the boy. Muche learned his letters with the quick mind characteristic of Paris street urchins. The boy found the alphabet tremendously entertaining.
He also found many other amusements in Florent's office. The stove remained the grand attraction, an object of endless pleasure. It was good for cooking potatoes and chestnuts, but that got a bit dull. Then he stole some gudgeons from his aunt Claire, which he roasted one by one by hanging them