The Fat and the Thin | Page 5

the new Halles Centrales were yet
young, and indeed not altogether complete. Still, although many old
landmarks have long since been swept away, the picture of life in all
essential particulars remained the same. Prior to 1860 the limits of Paris
were the so-called /boulevards exterieurs/, from which a girdle of
suburbs, such as Montmartre, Belleville, Passy, and Montrouge,
extended to the fortifications; and the population of the city was then
only 1,400,000 souls. Some of the figures which will be found scattered
through M. Zola's work must therefore be taken as applying entirely to
the past.
Nowadays the amount of business transacted at the Halles has very
largely increased, in spite of the multiplication of district markets. Paris
seems to have an insatiable appetite, though, on the other hand, its
cuisine is fast becoming all simplicity. To my thinking, few more
remarkable changes have come over the Parisians of recent years than
this change of diet. One by one great restaurants, formerly renowned
for particular dishes and special wines, have been compelled through
lack of custom to close their doors; and this has not been caused so
much by inability to defray the cost of high feeding as by inability to
indulge in it with impunity in a physical sense. In fact, Paris has
become a city of impaired digestions, which nowadays seek the
simplicity without the heaviness of the old English cuisine; and, should
things continue in their present course, I fancy that Parisians anxious
for high feeding will ultimately have to cross over to our side of the
Channel.
These remarks, I trust, will not be considered out of place in an
introduction to a work which to no small extent treats of the appetite of
Paris. The reader will find that the characters portrayed by M. Zola are

all types of humble life, but I fail to see that their circumstances should
render them any the less interesting. A faithful portrait of a shopkeeper,
a workman, or a workgirl is artistically of far more value than all the
imaginary sketches of impossible dukes and good and wicked baronets
in which so many English novels abound. Several of M. Zola's
personages seem to me extremely lifelike--Gavard, indeed, is a
/chef-d'oeuvre/ of portraiture: I have known many men like him; and no
one who lived in Paris under the Empire can deny the accuracy with
which the author has delineated his hero Florent, the dreamy and
hapless revolutionary caught in the toils of others. In those days, too,
there was many such a plot as M. Zola describes, instigated by agents
like Logre and Lebigre, and allowed to mature till the eve of an election
or some other important event which rendered its exposure desirable
for the purpose of influencing public opinion. In fact, in all that relates
to the so-called "conspiracy of the markets," M. Zola, whilst changing
time and place to suit the requirements of his story, has simply
followed historical lines. As for the Quenus, who play such prominent
parts in the narrative, the husband is a weakling with no soul above his
stewpans, whilst his wife, the beautiful Lisa, in reality wears the
breeches and rules the roast. The manner in which she cures Quenu of
his political proclivities, though savouring of persuasiveness rather than
violence, is worthy of the immortal Mrs. Caudle: Douglas Jerrold might
have signed a certain lecture which she administers to her astounded
helpmate. Of Pauline, the Quenus' daughter, we see but little in the
story, but she becomes the heroine of another of M. Zola's novels, "La
Joie de Vivre," and instead of inheriting the egotism of her parents,
develops a passionate love and devotion for others. In a like way
Claude Lantier, Florent's artist friend and son of Gervaise of the
"Assommoir," figures more particularly in "L'Oeuvre," which tells how
his painful struggle for fame resulted in madness and suicide. With
reference to the beautiful Norman and the other fishwives and gossips
scattered through the present volume, and those genuine types of
Parisian /gaminerie/, Muche, Marjolin, and Cadine, I may mention that
I have frequently chastened their language in deference to English
susceptibilities, so that the story, whilst retaining every essential feature,
contains nothing to which exception can reasonably be taken.
E. A. V.

THE FAT AND THE THIN


CHAPTER I
Amidst the deep silence and solitude prevailing in the avenue several
market gardeners' carts were climbing the slope which led towards
Paris, and the fronts of the houses, asleep behind the dim lines of elms
on either side of the road, echoed back the rhythmical jolting of the
wheels. At the Neuilly bridge a cart full of cabbages and another full of
peas had joined the eight waggons of carrots and turnips coming down
from Nanterre; and