Florent, however, gave very little thought to these two handsome young women.  His usual manner towards them was that of a man who has but little success with the sex.  Certainly he had come to entertain a feeling of genuine friendship for La Normande, who really displayed a very good heart when her impetuous temper did not run away with her.  But he never went any further than this.  Moreover, the queenly proportions of her robust figure filled him with a kind of alarm; and of an evening, whenever she drew her chair up to the lamp and bent forward as though to look at Muche’s copy-book, he drew in his own sharp bony elbows and shrunken shoulders as if realising what a pitiful specimen of humanity he was by the side of that buxom, hardy creature so full of the life of ripe womanhood.  Moreover, there was another reason why he recoiled from her.  The smells of the markets distressed him; on finishing his duties of an evening he would have liked to escape from the fishy odour amidst which his days were spent; but, alas! beautiful though La Normande was, this odour seemed to adhere to her silky skin.  She had tried every sort of aromatic oil, and bathed freely; but as soon as the freshening influence of the bath was over her blood again impregnated her skin with the faint odour of salmon, the musky perfume of smelts, and the pungent scent of herrings and skate.  Her skirts, too, as she moved about, exhaled these fishy smells, and she walked as though amidst an atmosphere redolent of slimy seaweed.  With her tall, goddess-like figure, her purity of form, and transparency of complexion she resembled some lovely antique marble that had rolled about in the depths of the sea and had been brought to land in some fisherman’s net.

Mademoiselle Saget, however, swore by all her gods that Florent was the young woman’s lover.  According to her account, indeed, he courted both the sisters.  She had quarrelled with the beautiful Norman about a ten-sou dab; and ever since this falling-out she had manifested warm friendship for handsome Lisa.  By this means she hoped the sooner to arrive at a solution of what she called the Quenus’ mystery.  Florent still continued to elude her curiosity, and she told her friends that she felt like a body without a soul, though she was careful not to reveal what was troubling her so grievously.  A young girl infatuated with a hopeless passion could not have been in more distress than this terrible old woman at finding herself unable to solve the mystery of the Quenus’ cousin.  She was constantly playing the spy on Florent, following him about, and watching him, in a burning rage at her failure to satisfy her rampant curiosity.  Now that he had begun to visit the Mehudins she was for ever haunting the stairs and landings.  She soon discovered that handsome Lisa was much annoyed at Florent visiting “those women,” and accordingly she called at the pork shop every morning with a budget of information.  She went in shrivelled and shrunk by the frosty air, and, resting her hands on the heating-pan to warm them, remained in front of the counter buying nothing, but repeating in her shrill voice:  “He was with them again yesterday; he seems to live there now.  I heard La Normande call him ‘my dear’ on the staircase.”