Émile Zola (author) - The belly of Paris

Maya Angelou
A. S. Byatt
Caleb Carr
Christopher Cerf
Harold Evans
Charles Frazier
Vartan Gregorian
Jessica Hagedorn
Richard Howard
Charles Johnson
Jon Krakauer
Edmund Morris
Azar Nafisi
Joyce Carol Oates
Elaine Pagels
John Richardson
Salman Rushdie
Oliver Sacks
Carolyn See
Gore Vidal

In the silence of a deserted avenue, wagons stuffed with produce made their way toward Paris, their thudding wheels rhythmically echoing off the houses sleeping behind the rows of elm trees meandering on either side of the road. At the pont de Neuilly a cart full of cabbages and another full of peas met up with eight carts of turnips and carrots coming in from Nanterre. The horses, their heads bent low, led themselves with their lazy, steady pace, a bit slowed by the slight uphill climb. Up on the carts, lying on their stomachs in the vegetables, wrapped in their black-and-gray-striped wool coats, the drivers slept with the reins in their fists. Occasionally the light from a gas lamp would grope its way through the shadows and brighten the hobnail of a boot, the blue sleeve of a blouse, or the tip of a hat poking from the bright bloom of vegetablesred bouquets of carrots, white bouquets of turnips, or the bursting greenery of peas and cabbages.

All along the road and all the nearby routes, up ahead and farther back, the distant rumbling of carts told of other huge wagons, all pushing on through the darkness and slumber of two in the morning, the sound of passing food lulling the darkened town to stay asleep.

Madame Franois's horse, Balthazar, an overweight beast, led the column. He dawdled on, half asleep, flicking his ears until, at rue de Longchamp, his legs were suddenly frozen by fear. The other animals bumped their heads into the stalled carts in front of them, and the column halted with the clanking of metal and the cursing of drivers who had been yanked from their sleep. Seated up top, Madame Franois, with her back against a plank that held the vegetables in place, peered out but saw nothing by the faint light of the little square lantern to her left, which barely lit one of Balthazar's glistening flanks.

Come on, lady, let's keep moving, shouted one of the men who was kneeling in turnips. It's just some drunken idiot.

But as she leaned over she thought she made out a dark patch of something blocking the road, about to be stepped on by the horse.

You can't just run people over, she said, jumping down from her wagon.

It was a man sprawled across the road, his arms stretched out, facedown in the dust. He seemed extraordinarily long and as thin as a dry branch. It was a miracle that Balthazar had not stepped on him and snapped him in two. Madame Franois thought he was dead, but when she crouched over him and took his hand, she found it was still warm.

Hey, mister, she called softly.

But the drivers were growing impatient. The one kneeling in the vegetables shouted in a gruff voice, Give it up, lady. The son of a bitch is plastered. Shove him in the gutter.

In the meantime, the man had opened his eyes. He stared, motionless, at Madame Franois, with a look of bewilderment. She too thought that he must be drunk.

You can't stay there, you're going to get yourself run over, she told him. Where were you going?

I don't know, the man replied in a feeble voice. Then, with great effort and a worried face, I was going to Paris, and I fell. I don't know

Now she could see him better, and he was pathetic with his black pants and black overcoat, so threadbare that they showed the contour of his bare bones. Underneath a hat of coarse black cloth that he had pulled down as though afraid of being recognized, two large brown eyes of a rare gentleness could be seen on a hard and tormented face. Madame Franois thought that this man was much too feeble to have been drinking.

Where in Paris were you going? she asked.

He didn't answer right away. This cross-examination was worrying him. After a moment's reflection, he cautiously replied, Over there, by Les Halles.

With great difficulty he had almost stood up again and seemed anxious to be on his way. But Madame Franois noticed him trying to steady himself against one of the wagon shafts.

You're tired?

Very tired, he mumbled.