Complete Works of Emile Zola (292 page)

“Oh, yes, indeed,” replied Pauline, still sobbing.

“And your papa, he’s good to you, too, isn’t he? He doesn’t flog you, or quarrel with your mother, does he? What do they talk about when they go to bed?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m asleep then.”

“Do they talk about your cousin Florent?”

“I don’t know.”

Mademoiselle Saget thereupon assumed a severe expression, and got up as if about to go away.

“I’m afraid you are a little story-teller,” she said. “Don’t you know that it’s very wicked to tell stories? I shall go away and leave you, if you tell me lies, and then Muche will come back and pinch you.”

Pauline began to cry again at the threat of being abandoned. “Be quiet, be quiet, you wicked little imp!” cried the old maid shaking her. “There, there, now, I won’t go away. I’ll buy you a stick of barley-sugar; yes, a stick of barley-sugar! So you don’t love your cousin Florent, eh?”

“No, mamma says he isn’t good.”

“Ah, then, so you see your mother does say something.”

“One night when I was in bed with Mouton — I sleep with Mouton sometimes, you know — I heard her say to father, ‘Your brother has only escaped from the galleys to take us all back with him there.’“

Mademoiselle Saget gave vent to a faint cry, and sprang to her feet, quivering all over. A ray of light had just broken upon her. Then without a word she caught hold of Pauline’s hand and made her run till they reached the pork shop, her lips meanwhile compressed by an inward smile, and her eyes glistening with keen delight. At the corner of the Rue Pirouette, Muche, who had so far followed them, amused at seeing the girl running along in her muddy stockings, prudently disappeared.

Lisa was now in a state of terrible alarm; and when she saw her daughter so bedraggled and limp, her consternation was such that she turned the child round and round, without even thinking of beating her.

“She has been with little Muche,” said the old maid, in her malicious voice. “I took her away at once, and I’ve brought her home. I found them together in the square. I don’t know what they’ve been up to; but that young vagabond is capable of anything.”

Lisa could not find a word to say; and she did not know where to take hold of her daughter, so great was her disgust at the sight of the child’s muddy boots, soiled stockings, torn skirts, and filthy face and hands. The blue velvet ribbon, the earrings, and the necklet were all concealed beneath a crust of mud. But what put the finishing touch to Lisa’s exasperation was the discovery of the two pockets filled with mould. She stooped and emptied them, regardless of the pink and white flooring of the shop. And as she dragged Pauline away, she could only gasp: “Come along, you filthy thing!”

Quite enlivened by this scene, Mademoiselle Saget now hurriedly made her way across the Rue Rambuteau. Her little feet scarcely touched the ground; her joy seemed to carry her along like a breeze which fanned her with a caressing touch. She had at last found out what she had so much wanted to know! For nearly a year she had been consumed by curiosity, and now at a single stroke she had gained complete power over Florent! This was unhoped-for contentment, positive salvation, for she felt that Florent would have brought her to the tomb had she failed much longer in satisfying her curiosity about him. At present she was complete mistress of the whole neighbourhood of the markets. There was no longer any gap in her information. She could have narrated the secret history of every street, shop by shop. And thus, as she entered the fruit market, she fairly gasped with delight, in a perfect transport of pleasure.

“Hallo, Mademoiselle Saget,” cried La Sarriette from her stall, “what are you smiling to yourself like that about? Have you won the grand prize in the lottery?”

“No, no. Ah, my dear, if you only knew!”

Standing there amidst her fruit, La Sarriette, in her picturesque disarray, looked charming. Frizzy hair fell over her brow like vine branches. Her bare arms and neck, indeed all the rosy flesh she showed, bloomed with the freshness of peach and cherry. She had playfully hung some cherries on her ears, black cherries which dangled against her cheeks when she stooped, shaking with merry laughter. She was eating currants, and her merriment arose from the way in which she was smearing her face with them. Her lips were bright red, glistening with the juice of the fruit, as though they had been painted and perfumed with some seraglio face-paint. A perfume of plum exhaled from her gown, while from the kerchief carelessly fastened across her breast came an odour of strawberries.

Fruits of all kinds were piled around her in her narrow stall. On the shelves at the back were rows of melons, so-called “cantaloups” swarming with wart-like knots, “maraichers” whose skin was covered with grey lace-like netting, and “culs-de-singe” displaying smooth bare bumps. In front was an array of choice fruits, carefully arranged in baskets, and showing like smooth round cheeks seeking to hide themselves, or glimpses of sweet childish faces, half veiled by leaves. Especially was this the case with the peaches, the blushing peaches of Montreuil, with skin as delicate and clear as that of northern maidens, and the yellow, sun-burnt peaches from the south, brown like the damsels of Provence. The apricots, on their beds of moss, gleamed with the hue of amber or with that sunset glow which so warmly colours the necks of brunettes at the nape, just under the little wavy curls which fall below the chignon. The cherries, ranged one by one, resembled the short lips of smiling Chinese girls; the Montmorencies suggested the dumpy mouths of buxom women; the English ones were longer and graver-looking; the common black ones seemed as though they had been bruised and crushed by kisses; while the white-hearts, with their patches of rose and white, appeared to smile with mingled merriment and vexation. Then piles of apples and pears, built up with architectural symmetry, often in pyramids, displayed the ruddy glow of budding breasts and the gleaming sheen of shoulders, quite a show of nudity, lurking modestly behind a screen of fern-leaves. There were all sorts of varieties — little red ones so tiny that they seemed to be yet in the cradle, shapeless “rambours” for baking, “calvilles” in light yellow gowns, sanguineous-looking “Canadas,” blotched “chataignier” apples, fair freckled rennets and dusky russets. Then came the pears — the “blanquettes,” the “British queens,” the “Beurres,” the “messirejeans,” and the “duchesses” — some dumpy, some long and tapering, some with slender necks, and others with thick-set shoulders, their green and yellow bellies picked out at times with a splotch of carmine. By the side of these the transparent plums resembled tender, chlorotic virgins; the greengages and the Orleans plums paled as with modest innocence, while the mirabelles lay like golden beads of a rosary forgotten in a box amongst sticks of vanilla. And the strawberries exhaled a sweet perfume — a perfume of youth — especially those little ones which are gathered in the woods, and which are far more aromatic than the large ones grown in gardens, for these breathe an insipid odour suggestive of the watering-pot. Raspberries added their fragrance to the pure scent. The currants — red, white, and black — smiled with a knowing air; whilst the heavy clusters of grapes, laden with intoxication, lay languorously at the edges of their wicker baskets, over the sides of which dangled some of the berries, scorched by the hot caresses of the voluptuous sun.

It was there that La Sarriette lived in an orchard, as it were, in an atmosphere of sweet, intoxicating scents. The cheaper fruits — the cherries, plums, and strawberries — were piled up in front of her in paper-lined baskets, and the juice coming from their bruised ripeness stained the stall-front, and steamed, with a strong perfume, in the heat. She would feel quite giddy on those blazing July afternoons when the melons enveloped her with a powerful, vaporous odour of musk; and then with her loosened kerchief, fresh as she was with the springtide of life, she brought sudden temptation to all who saw her. It was she — it was her arms and necks which gave that semblance of amorous vitality to her fruit. On the stall next to her an old woman, a hideous old drunkard, displayed nothing but wrinkled apples, pears as flabby as herself, and cadaverous apricots of a witch-like sallowness. La Sarriette’s stall, however, spoke of love and passion. The cherries looked like the red kisses of her bright lips; the silky peaches were not more delicate than her neck; to the plums she seemed to have lent the skin from her brow and chin; while some of her own crimson blood coursed through the veins of the currants. All the scents of the avenue of flowers behind her stall were but insipid beside the aroma of vitality which exhaled from her open baskets and falling kerchief.

That day she was quite intoxicated by the scent of a large arrival of mirabelle plums, which filled the market. She could plainly see that Mademoiselle Saget had learnt some great piece of news, and she wished to make her talk. But the old maid stamped impatiently whilst she repeated: “No, no; I’ve no time. I’m in a great hurry to see Madame Lecoeur. I’ve just learnt something and no mistake. You can come with me, if you like.”

As a matter of fact, she had simply gone through the fruit market for the purpose of enticing La Sarriette to go with her. The girl could not refuse temptation. Monsieur Jules, clean-shaven and as fresh as a cherub, was seated there, swaying to and fro on his chair.

“Just look after the stall for a minute, will you?” La Sarriette said to him. “I’ll be back directly.”

Jules, however, got up and called after her, in a thick voice: “Not I; no fear! I’m off! I’m not going to wait an hour for you, as I did the other day. And, besides, those cursed plums of yours quite make my head ache.”

Then he calmly strolled off, with his hands in his pockets, and the stall was left to look after itself. Mademoiselle Saget went so fast that La Sarriette had to run. In the butter pavilion a neighbour of Madame Lecoeur’s told them that she was below in the cellar; and so, whilst La Sarriette went down to find her, the old maid installed herself amidst the cheeses.

The cellar under the butter market is a very gloomy spot. The rows of storerooms are protected by a very fine wire meshing, as a safeguard against fire; and the gas jets, which are very few and far between, glimmer like yellow splotches destitute of radiance in the heavy, malordorous atmosphere beneath the low vault. Madame Lecoeur, however, was at work on her butter at one of the tables placed parallel with the Rue Berger, and here a pale light filtered through the vent-holes. The tables, which are continually sluiced with a flood of water from the taps, are as white as though they were quite new. With her back turned to the pump in the rear, Madame Lecoeur was kneading her butter in a kind of oak box. She took some of different sorts which lay beside her, and mixed the varieties together, correcting one by another, just as is done in the blending of wines. Bent almost double, and showing sharp, bony shoulders, and arms bared to the elbows, as scraggy and knotted as pea-rods, she dug her fists into the greasy paste in front of her, which was assuming a whitish and chalky appearance. It was trying work, and she heaved a sigh at each fresh effort.

“Mademoiselle Saget wants to speak to you, aunt,” said La Sarriette.

Madame Lecoeur stopped her work, and pulled her cap over her hair with her greasy fingers, seemingly quite careless of staining it. “I’ve nearly finished. Ask her to wait a moment,” she said.

“She’s got something very particular to tell you,” continued La Sarriette.

“I won’t be more than a minute, my dear.”

Then she again plunged her arms into the butter, which buried them up to the elbows. Previously softened in warm water, it covered Madame Lecoeur’s parchment-like skin as with an oily film, and threw the big purple veins that streaked her flesh into strong relief. La Sarriette was quite disgusted by the sight of those hideous arms working so frantically amidst the melting mass. However, she could recall the time when her own pretty little hands had manipulated the butter for whole afternoons at a time. It had even been a sort of almond-paste to her, a cosmetic which had kept her skin white and her nails delicately pink; and even now her slender fingers retained the suppleness it had endowed them with.

“I don’t think that butter of yours will be very good, aunt,” she continued, after a pause. “Some of the sorts seem much too strong.”

“I’m quite aware of that,” replied Madame Lecoeur, between a couple of groans. “But what can I do? I must use everything up. There are some folks who insist upon having butter cheap, and so cheap butter must be made for them. Oh! it’s always quite good enough for those who buy it.”

La Sarriette reflected that she would hardly care to eat butter which had been worked by her aunt’s arms. Then she glanced at a little jar full of a sort of reddish dye. “Your colouring is too pale,” she said.

This colouring-matter — “raucourt,” as the Parisians call it is used to give the butter a fine yellow tint. The butter women imagine that its composition is known only to themselves, and keep it very secret. However, it is merely made from anotta;[*] though a composition of carrots and marigold is at times substituted for it.

    [*] Anotta, which is obtained from the pulp surrounding the

    seeds of the
Bixa Orellana
, is used for a good many

    purposes besides the colouring of butter and cheese. It

    frequently enters into the composition of chocolate, and is

    employed to dye nankeen. Police court proceedings have also

    shown that it is well known to the London milkmen, who are

    in the habit of adding water to their merchandise.

  — Translator.

“Come, do be quick!” La Sarriette now exclaimed, for she was getting impatient, and was, moreover, no longer accustomed to the malodorous atmosphere of the cellar. “Mademoiselle Saget will be going. I fancy she’s got something very important to tell you abut my uncle Gavard.”

On hearing this, Madame Lecoeur abruptly ceased working. She at once abandoned both butter and dye, and did not even wait to wipe her arms. With a slight tap of her hand she settled her cap on her head again, and made her way up the steps, at her niece’s heels, anxiously repeating: “Do you really think that she’ll have gone away?”