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By Root 1264 0

against solid collateral and at a high rate of interest. She was also informed of still more delicate matters: the sadness of a certain blonde woman whose husband failed to understand her, and who aspired to be understood; the secret desire of a conscientious mother who dreamed of an advantageous situation for her daughter; the tastes of a baron given to intimate late-night suppers and very young girls. With her wan smile she hawked these offers to buy and sell. She thought nothing of walking two leagues to make contact with the right people. She sent the baron to see the conscientious mother, persuaded the elderly gentleman to lend the 3,000 francs to the family strapped for cash, found consolation for the blonde and a less-than-scrupulous husband for the girl in need. She also had a hand in bigger deals, deals she could talk about out loud, with which she assailed the ears of anyone who came near: an interminable lawsuit that a ruined noble family had asked her to follow and a debt that England had incurred with France in the time of the Stuarts, and that now, with compound interest, amounted to nearly three billion francs. This three-billion-franc debt was her hobbyhorse. She explained the ins and outs of the case with a wealth of detail, a veritable course in history, and as she did so, her cheeks, ordinarily as soft and yellow as wax, turned red with enthusiasm. Occasionally, between an errand to the clerk of courts and a visit to a friend, she would unload a coffeemaker or a rain slicker or sell a remnant of lace or lease a piano. Business of this sort was quickly dispatched. Then she would hasten to her store, where she had an appointment with a client to view a piece of Chantilly. The client would arrive and slip as quietly as a shadow into the discreetly curtained shop. It was not rare on such occasions for a gentleman to enter by way of the carriage entrance on rue Papillon to visit Mme Touche’s pianos on the floor above.

If Mme Sidonie did not amass a fortune, it was because she often labored for sheer love of her art. With her fondness for legal formalities and willingness to neglect her own affairs for the sake of others, court clerks picked her pockets clean, but she allowed them to get away with this because she derived from her legal entanglements pleasures known only to the litigious. The woman in her died; she became nothing but a business agent, a deal-maker forever bustling about Paris with her legendary basket full of the most dubious merchandise, ready to sell anything and everything, dreaming of billions, yet willing to go to the justice of peace to plead for ten francs on behalf of a favorite client. Tiny, slight, pale, clad in the thin black dress that seemed to have been cut from a lawyer’s toga, she had shriveled, and to see her scuttle past a row of houses one might have thought she was an errand boy disguised as a girl. Her complexion had the awful pallor of an official document. The smile on her lips seemed to have been snuffed out, while her eyes seemed to swim in the swirl of business deals and other matters that preoccupied her mind. Timid and discreet in her manner, moreover, and with a vague odor of the confessional and the midwife’s consulting room, she had a gentle and maternal way about her, like a nun who has renounced the affections of this world and therefore takes pity on those whose hearts ache. She never spoke of her husband, any more than she spoke of her childhood, family, or interests. There was only one thing she did not sell: herself. Not because she had any scruples, but because the idea of such a bargain could never have occurred to her. She was as dry as an invoice, as cold as an unpaid bill, as indifferent and brutal inside as a sheriff ’s deputy.

Saccard, newly arrived from his province, could not at first fathom the intricate depths of Mme Sidonie’s numerous occupations. Since he had done a year of law, she spoke to him one day about the three billion francs with an air of seriousness that left him with a poor opinion of her intelligence. She gave the apartment on