There were always two or three lachrymose women in front of the chilled heating-pan.  Beautiful Lisa meantime discharged the duties of chief mourner with silent dignity.  Her white apron fell more primly than ever over her black dress.  Her hands, scrupulously clean and closely girded at the wrists by long white sleevelets, her face with its becoming air of sadness, plainly told all the neighbourhood, all the inquisitive gossips who streamed into the shop from morning to night, that they, the Quenu-Gradelles, were suffering from unmerited misfortune, but that she knew the cause of it, and would triumph over it at last.  And sometimes she stooped to look at the two gold-fish, who also seemed ill at ease as they swam languidly around the aquarium in the window, and her glance seemed to promise them better days in the future.

Beautiful Lisa now only allowed herself one indulgence.  She fearlessly patted Marjolin’s satiny chin.  The young man had just come out of the hospital.  His skull had healed, and he looked as fat and merry as ever; but even the little intelligence he had possessed had left him, he was now quite an idiot.  The gash in his skull must have reached his brain, for he had become a mere animal.  The mind of a child of five dwelt in his sturdy frame.  He laughed and stammered, he could no longer pronounce his words properly, and he was as submissively obedient as a sheep.  Cadine took entire possession of him again; surprised, at first, at the alteration in him, and then quite delighted at having this big fellow to do exactly as she liked with.  He was her doll, her toy, her slave in all respects but one:  she could not prevent him from going off to Madame Quenu’s every now and then.  She thumped him, but he did not seem to feel her blows; as soon as she had slung her basket round her neck, and set off to sell her violets in the Rue du Pont Neuf and the Rue de Turbigo, he went to prowl about in front of the pork shop.

“Come in!” Lisa cried to him.

She generally gave him some gherkins, of which he was extremely fond; and he ate them, laughing in a childish way, whilst he stood in front of the counter.  The sight of the handsome mistress of the shop filled him with rapture; he often clapped his hands with joy and began to jump about and vent little cries of pleasure, like a child delighted at something shown to it.  On the first few occasions when he came to see her after leaving the hospital Lisa had feared that he might remember what had happened.

“Does your head still hurt you?” she asked him.

But he swayed about and burst into a merry laugh as he answered no; and then Lisa gently inquired:  “You had a fall, hadn’t you?”

“Yes, a fall, fall, fall,” he sang, in a happy voice, tapping his skull the while.