Quenu wept with vexation. The story of Gradelle’s death in the kitchen
was clearly getting about; and his nephew began to blush before his
customers when he saw them sniffing his wares too closely. So, of his
own accord, he spoke to his wife of her proposal to take a new shop.
Lisa, without saying anything, had already been looking out for other
premises, and had found some, admirably situated, only a few yards
away, in the Rue Rambuteau. The immediate neighbourhood of the central
markets, which were being opened just opposite, would triple their
business, and make their shop known all over Paris.
Quenu allowed himself to be drawn into a lavish expenditure of money;
he laid out over thirty thousand francs in marble, glass, and gilding.
Lisa spent hours with the workmen, giving her views about the slightest
details. When she was at last installed behind the counter, customers
arrived in a perfect procession, merely for the sake of examining the
shop. The inside walls were lined from top to bottom with white marble.
The ceiling was covered with a huge square mirror, framed by a broad
gilded cornice, richly ornamented, whilst from the centre hung a
crystal chandelier with four branches. And behind the counter, and on
the left, and at the far end of the shop were other mirrors, fitted
between the marble panels and looking like doors opening into an
infinite series of brightly lighted halls, where all sorts of
appetising edibles were displayed. The huge counter on the right hand
was considered a very fine piece of work. At intervals along the front
were lozenge-shaped panels of pinky marble. The flooring was of tiles,
alternately white and pink, with a deep red fretting as border. The
whole neighbourhood was proud of the shop, and no one again thought of
referring to the kitchen in the Rue Pirouette, where a man had died.
For quite a month women stopped short on the footway to look at Lisa
between the saveloys and bladders in the window. Her white and pink
flesh excited as much admiration as the marbles. She seemed to be the
soul, the living light, the healthy, sturdy idol of the pork trade; and
thenceforth one and all baptised her “Lisa the beauty.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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