f
independence which prompted her to live apart; she never took things
as other people did, but would one day evince perfect fairness, and the
next day arrant injustice. She would sometimes throw the market into
confusion by suddenly increasing or lowering the prices at her stall,
without anyone being able to guess her reason for doing so. She
herself would refuse to explain her motive. By the time she reached her
thirtieth year, her delicate physique and fine skin, which the water
of the tanks seemed to keep continually fresh and soft, her small,
faintly-marked face and lissome limbs would probably become heavy,
coarse, and flabby, till she would look like some faded saint that had
stepped from a stained-glass window into the degrading sphere of the
markets. At twenty-two, however, Claire, in the midst of her carp and
eels, was, to use Claude Lantier's expression, a Murillo. A Murillo,
that is, whose hair was often in disorder, who wore heavy shoes and
clumsily cut dresses, which left her without any figure. But she was
free from all coquetry, and she assumed an air of scornful contempt when
Louise, displaying her bows and ribbons, chaffed her about her clumsily
knotted neckerchiefs. Moreover, she was virtuous; it was said that the
son of a rich shopkeeper in the neighbourhood had gone abroad in despair
at having failed to induce her to listen to his suit.

Louise, the beautiful Norman, was of a different nature. She had been
engaged to be married to a clerk in the corn market; but a sack of flour
falling upon the young man had broken his back and killed him. Not very
long afterwards Louise had given birth to a boy. In the Mehudins' circle
of acquaintance she was looked upon as a widow; and the old fish-wife
in conversation would occasionally refer to the time when her son-in-law
was alive.

The Mehudins were a power in the markets. When Monsieur Verlaque had
finished instructing Florent in his new duties, he advised him to
conciliate certain of the stall-holders, if he wished his life to be
endurable; and he even carried his sympathy so far as to put him in
possession of the little secrets of the office, such as the various
little breaches of rule that it was necessary to wink at, and those
at which he would have to feign stern displeasure; and also the
circumstances under which he might accept a small present. A market
inspector is at once a constable and a magistrate; he has to maintain
proper order and cleanlines