The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola [86]
But Florent barely thought about those two beautiful women. His usual attitude toward women was that it was a field at which he was not very good. He had wasted his virility on dreaming. Yes, he had come to feel a real friendship for the Beautiful Norman, who had a good heart when she wasn't putting on airs. But that was as far as he would ever go. In the evening, when she pulled her chair to the lamp as though to lean across Muche's page of writing, he did feel a certain uneasy sensation from her warm, powerful body next to his.
She seemed colossal, weighty, troubling, with her great breasts. He withdrew his pointy elbows and thin shoulders, fearing that he would inadvertently stab this flesh. His thin bones felt anguish in contact with her fat bosom. He lowered his head and shrank even thinner, incapacitated by the strong scent that rose from her. When her camisole was open a bit, he thought he saw the breath of health and life rise up between her two white breasts and pass over his face, still warm as if mingling for an instant with the stench of Les Halles on a hot July evening.
It was an insistent perfume, clinging to smooth, silken skin, a sea sweat running from her fine breasts, her regal arms and supple waist, bringing a strong, distinct dimension to her womanly scent. She had tried all kinds of aromatic oils, but as soon as the freshness of bathing wore off, her blood carried to her very fingertips the bland scent of salmon, the violet musk of smelts, and the pungency of herring and skates. The swing of her skirts released this mist. She walked as though through an evaporation of slimy seaweed. She was, with the body of a goddess, with her fantastic paleness and purity, like a fine ancient marble statue rolled in the sea and brought back in a sardine net. Florent suffered from it, but he did not desire it. His senses had been revolted by afternoons in the fish market. He found it upsetting, too salty, too bitter with a beauty that was too grand and smelled too strong.
Mademoiselle Saget, on the other hand, swore by all the gods that he was the Beautiful Norman's lover. She was still holding a grudge against her over ten sous' worth of dabs. Since that clash, she had become extremely friendly with Beautiful Lisa, hoping to become acquainted with what she termed “the game plan” of the Quenus. Since Florent continued to avoid her, she felt like a body without a soul, as she put it, without letting on about the cause of this grief. A young girl desperately chasing after a boy could not have been more upset than this horrid old woman feeling the secret of the cousin slipping from her fingers. She spied on the cousin, followed him, mentally undressed him, looked him up and down, furious because her overstimulated curiosity could not be sated.
Since he had begun visiting the Méhudins, she no longer moved from the stairs. Then she realized that Beautiful Lisa was very annoyed at the way Florent was always visiting “those women.” So she made a point of dropping by the charcuterie every morning with news from rue Pirouette. In cold weather she would walk in, shriveled by frost, and warm her hands on the heating stove. Thawing her fingers, standing by the counter but buying nothing, she would say, in her reedy voice, “He was at their place again yesterday. He barely seems to leave anymore. Oh, and the Norman called him ‘my dear’ when