CROSSING PARIS
561
"All right," Martin cut in. "You're boring all of us with your
noise."
"You don't say so! And how old are you, both of you?"
The couple to whom the question was addressed maintained a
dignified silence, their glances vague, their lips compressed.
"Your ages, for God's sake!" howled the ram. "And what
family you have, the whole story! Spill it, and be quick about it!"
His facial expression had changed. A sudden anger, incompre–
hensible to Martin, sparkled in his little porcine eyes and dilated his
nostrils.
"Fifty-one years last November," a;nnounced the bartender.
"Lucienne forty-nine in April. Married in 1927 at Courbevoie. No
children. Employed at the Wine Market up to 1937. Convictions,
none. Military status.... "
"That's enough. I know too much already. Just look at these
beastly mugs, these wretched carcasses. Feast your eyes on this hand–
some fellow with the face of an alcoholic, his meat putty-colored
and soft all over, his jowls that wag foolishly. I say, how long is this
going on? Aren't you ever going to change that mug? And the moll,
the she-ape, the balloon, the dignified pudding with her three chins
holding each other up, and her big teats that fall down over her belly.
Fifty years old, each of you. Fifty years of low life. What are you
doing on earth anyway, you two? Aren't you ashamed of being alive?
But no, think of it, there they are, they've come to stay, they hit
you in the eye with their double dose of grease, they poison the air
you breathe with it. They make everything nasty, even colors. Look
at the red on Madam's cheeks. It's the color of crushed bedbugs.
White, violet, yellow, gray, when I see them on her mug I can't
bear them any more, I vomit them up. Robbers, give back those
colors!"
"Where does he get
all
that? He kills me," said Martin, who
was, in fact, laughing.
"I have never stolen a thing," protested the barkeeper, "not a
sou, never, I swear to it. Lucienne is as innocent as I am."
"Shut up, you freak," Grandgil enjoined him. "As for you,
Martin, I will love you all my life. Your turned-up brim suits me
fine, I'm crazy about
it.
I'm not kidding, you're the man of my life.
Spit in their faces. Spit on the pair of them, I tell you, you have
