Free The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R. by Carole DeSanti Page B

butcher shop where I might find a piece of bacon. A vegetable seller, maybe willing to part with his beet tops.
    That night I dreamed of a lady with a feather-plumed hat and a man who wore a long dark coat. We stood together, the three of us, before the doors of the lying-in hospital, that peaked-roof place of gables and windows; it looked like La Maternité on the rue d’Enfer, where poor women gave birth. The baby had survived; but she was ill and fragile. Then the dream changed, the man was someone else. The cord of misery, wrapped around the infant’s neck, was cut; the poison had come out of her. In the dream, I was crying, and when I awoke, my cheeks were wet.
    Chasseloup hadn’t needed to say that he didn’t want to be seen at the Mont de Piété the next morning, queuing with his trousers. He was still twisted under the sheets as I splashed my face, stirred up the coals, shook dust from the coffee tin into water from the pump—six flights down, and up again with the bucket. I bent and touched him, a tentative caress. Pressed my hand to his cheek, which was feverishly warm.
    â€œI want to work today,” he mumbled into my hair.
    â€œI’ll go, and bring home a soup bone.”
    â€œMore than that, I hope. For all of that monkey suit.”
    â€œI won’t take the coat. It’s cold, you might need it.” He pulled himself up, a mess of ruffled hair, his chest bare and full of creases.
    â€œI will
not
wear a coat with silk facings and a collar.”
    â€œYou
are
vain, aren’t you,” I said, sharper than usual. “You should wear it, and not care what they say.”
Too much woman in him, Chasseloup,
whispered a voice behind my ear.
    He groaned and sank his head back onto the pillow. “The madames will cluck like hens—a pretty-someone with an armful of gentleman’s rags.” I was so ignorant, still, that I didn’t catch his meaning. But the way he looked at me, too close, made me catch my breath. Chasseloup always knew what he didn’t know he knew. It was that, and his storms and calms, that shook me, brought me flying back.
    â€œMake a good day of it. Please?” I said, bending down for a kiss. Then he pulled me back toward him, wrapped his long body around mine. The pale coffee water bubbled down to nothing, using all the fire we had.
    Then, a bit later, it was cold, outside the narrow warmth of that bed.
    â€œYou’ll need proof of Paris residence.” Chasseloup scrabbled in a pile of dusty papers, and extracted a rent receipt—not a current one, as it wasn’t paid up.
    Then I had to be quick about it, for any luck with the queue.
    Â 
    The sky was still February-hard, not yet giving in to March, and I hurried, bag bumping against my knees. The Mont de Piété was across the city. On the rue de Rivoli, a shop window was hung with thick, jewel-colored fabrics. Russet and emerald, ruby and gold; striped silks. Two solid respectable figures in flaring woolen coats and sharp-heeled boots emerged with their packages. They left behind a cold whiff of perfume; stepped from the curb into a carriage.
    The Mont was a crowded hubbub, the line snaking around the stone courtyard. The wait would not be short; by the look of it, several hours—with people carrying bundles and baggage like passengers boarding a train, only this time returning home with less than they’d had before. Characters of every sort were here—well-dressed and modest, ragged and tailored; doctor, sailor, seamstress, thief—I inched forward, first through the courtyard, then through the narrow door.
    Inside, in a vast room hung with green-shaded lamps, a market in full sway. But this selling ground smelled of mildew, tarnish, and dust. The shelves behind the counters held tangles of white tags and strings: silver tea sets and stacks of cutlery, serving trays, candlesticks, violins, silver-backed hairbrushes, toilette sets,