“It never does me any harm,” replied Marjolin in astonishment. “There’s nothing unpleasant about the smell when you’ve got accustomed to it; and it’s very warm and cosy down here in the wintertime.”
As Lisa followed him, however, she declared that the strong scent of the poultry quite turned her stomach, and that she would certainly not be able to eat a fowl for the next two months. All around her, the storerooms, the small cabins where the stallkeepers keep their live stock, formed regular streets, intersecting each other at right angles. There were only a few scattered gas lights, and the little alleys seemed wrapped in sleep like the lanes of a village where the inhabitants have all gone to bed. Marjolin made Lisa feel the close-meshed wiring, stretched on a framework of cast iron; and as she made her way along one of the streets she amused herself by reading the names of the different tenants, which were inscribed on blue labels.
“Monsieur Gavard’s place is quite at the far end,” said the young man, still walking on.
They turned to the left, and found themselves in a sort of blind alley, a dark, gloomy spot where not a ray of light penetrated. Gavard was not there.
“Oh, it makes no difference,” said Marjolin. “I can show you our birds just the same. I have a key of the storeroom.”
Lisa followed him into the darkness.
“You don’t suppose that I can see your birds in this black oven, do you?” she asked, laughing.
Marjolin did not reply at once; but presently he stammered out that there was always a candle in the storeroom. He was fumbling about the lock, and seemed quite unable to find the keyhole. As Lisa came up to help him, she felt a hot breath on her neck; and when the young man had at last succeeded in opening the door and lighted the candle, she saw that he was trembling.
“You silly fellow!” she exclaimed, “to get yourself into such a state just because a door won’t open! Why, you’re no better than a girl, in spite of your big fists!”
She stepped inside the storeroom. Gavard had rented two compartments, which he had thrown into one by removing the partition between them. In the dirt on the floor wallowed the larger birds—the geese, turkeys, and ducks—while up above, on tiers of shelves, were boxes with barred fronts containing fowls and rabbits. The grating of the storeroom was so coated with dust and cobwebs that it looked as though covered with grey blinds. The woodwork down below was rotting, and covered with filth. Lisa, however, not wishing to vex Marjolin, refrained from any further expression of disgust. She pushed her fingers between the bars of the boxes, and began to lament the fate of the unhappy fowls, which were so closely huddled together and could not even stand upright. Then she stroked a duck with a broken leg which was squatting in a corner, and the young man told her that it would be killed that very evening, for fear lest it should die during the night.