ad made a friend. One side of the house in
which they lived overlooked the Rue Saint Jacques, where there was a
large poultry-roasting establishment[*] kept by a worthy man called
Gavard, whose wife was dying from consumption amidst an atmosphere
redolent of plump fowls. When Florent returned home too late to cook a
scrap of meat, he was in the habit of laying out a dozen sous or so on
a small portion of turkey or goose at this shop. Such days were feast
days. Gavard in time grew interested in this tall, scraggy customer,
learned his history, and invited Quenu into his shop. Before long the
young fellow was constantly to be found there. As soon as his brother
left the house he came downstairs and installed himself at the rear
of the roasting shop, quite enraptured with the four huge spits which
turned with a gentle sound in front of the tall bright flames.

[*] These rotisseries, now all but extinct, were at one time
a particular feature of the Parisian provision trade. I can
myself recollect several akin to the one described by M.
Zola. I suspect that they largely owed their origin to the
form and dimensions of the ordinary Parisian kitchen stove,
which did not enable people to roast poultry at home in a
convenient way. In the old French cuisine, moreover, roast
joints of meat were virtually unknown; roasting was almost
entirely confined to chickens, geese, turkeys, pheasants,
etc.; and among the middle classes people largely bought
their poultry already cooked of the _rotisseur_, or else
confided it to him for the purpose of roasting, in the same
way as our poorer classes still send their joints to the
baker's. Roasting was also long looked upon in France as a
very delicate art. Brillat-Savarin, in his famous
_Physiologie du Gout_, lays down the dictum that "A man may
become a cook, but is born a _rotisseur_."--Translator.

The broad copper bands of the fireplace glistened brightly, the poultry
steamed, the fat bubbled melodiously in the dripping-pan, and the spits
seemed to talk amongst themselves and to address kindly words to Quenu,
who, with a long ladle, devoutly basted the golden breasts of the fat
geese and turkeys. He would stay there for hours, quite crimson in the
dancing glow of the flames, and laughing vaguely, with a somewhat stupid
expression, at the birds roasting in front of him. Indeed, he did
not awake from this ki