The Belly of Paris by Émile Zola; Mark Kurlansky

Author:Émile Zola; Mark Kurlansky
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction:Historical
ISBN: 9780812974225
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1892-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

Marjolin had been found at the Marché des Innocents asleep on a pile of cabbages under an enormous white cabbage whose broad leaves had flopped over, hiding his rosy face. No one knew whose wretched hands had placed him there. He was already a sweet little boy of two or three when he was found, chubby and full of life, but so backward, so slow, that he barely managed a few words. All he could do was smile. When a vegetable seller found him underneath the big white cabbage, she let out a shriek that was so loud, her neighbors rushed over to see what was wrong and watched with wonder as the child, still in baby clothes and wrapped in a scrap of old blanket, reached out his arms to embrace her.

He wasn't able to say who his mother was. His eyes were wide with astonishment as he clung to the shoulder of the tripe merchant who had picked him up. He was the focus of the market until nightfall. He felt reassured and ate buttered bread, and he smiled for all the women. The hefty tripe seller took him for a while, then gave him to a neighbor, and a month later a third woman took him in.

When someone asked, “Where's your mama?” he would make an adorable gesture, a sweep of his hand that included every woman in sight. He was a child of the market, always clinging to the skirts of one woman or another, eating where he found a meal, clothed by the grace of God, and somehow he always had a few sous in the bottom of his threadbare pocket. A handsome redheaded girl who sold medicinal plants named him Marjolin, though no one knew why.

When Marjolin was nearly four years old, Mère Chantemesse happened to find a child, a little girl, on the sidewalk of rue Saint-Denis by the corner of the market. The little thing looked to be about two years old. She was already chattering like a magpie, strangling words in her incessant childish babble. But Mère Chantemesse was able to glean that her name was Cadine and that her mother had left her sitting in a doorway the night before with instructions to wait for her return.

The child had slept there and did not cry. She said that she had been beaten at home, and she seemed happy to follow Mère Chantemesse, enchanted by the large square full of so many people and so many vegetables. Mère Chantemesse, who sold retail, was a kind old witch, nearly sixty years old. She loved children and had lost three boys of her own when they were babies. She thought, “This little character is far too tough to die on me.” So she adopted Cadine.

But one evening, as Mère Chantemesse was leaving, holding Cadine's right hand, Marjolin came up and unceremoniously took the little girl's left hand.

“Well, young fellow,” said the old woman, stopping. “This place is taken. Have you given up Thérèse? You're getting a reputation as a flirt, you know.

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