Free Pedigree by Georges Simenon

wiping his white hands on his apron, came to his door for a moment and stood blinking his eyes again in the sunlight.
    On the Quai de la Dérivation, Léopold, sitting opposite the boy while he had his breakfast, giving a start at every noise outside, drank half a jug of gin himself, and nobody could have said what he was thinking.
    â€˜I’m boring you, aren’t I, Madame Smet? When I think that I make you come here every day…’
    Désiré pushed open the glazed kitchen door. His mother was alone. He kissed her. She did not kiss him back. She had not kissed anybody since her daughter had died, the daughter whose portrait was enclosed in the gold locket.
    For all that it was early in the morning, her hair was sleek and shining, drawn back from her forehead, and she looked as smartly dressed in a cotton apron with a small check pattern as in her Sunday best. Nothing detracted from her serene dignity, neither peeling the vegetables, nor doing the washing-up, nor, on Fridays, cleaning the brasses. Nor was the kitchen, through which so many people passed and where so many children had lived, ever untidy.
    Old Papa took advantage of Désiré’s arrival to get up from his armchair and go out into the yard, for his blindness did not prevent him from moving round the house and even round the district, where everybody regarded him as if he were a big friendly dog.
    â€˜It smells good!’ said Désiré, as much because it really did smell good and he liked his food as in order to please his mother.
    The soup was already on the stove. It was on the stove every morning before the family got up. The stove had been made specially for the Mamelins in the days when there had been thirteen Mamelin children, thirteen insatiable stomachs, and when nobody had ever opened the door without giving the family war-cry:
    â€˜I’m hungry!’
    Hungry at every hour of the day, at ten o’clock in the morning and at four o’clock in the afternoon, with every member of the family, at the beginning of every meal, cutting himself five or six slices of brown bread and stacking them beside his plate.
    The cooker had ovens with revolving hot-plates on which you could bake tarts two foot wide.
    From morning to night the kettle went on singing, next to the coffee-pot in white enamel with blue flowers, which had been dented near the spout, just like Élise’s, since time immemorial.
    â€˜Do you want a bowl of soup?’
    â€˜No thank you, Mother.’
    â€˜That means yes.’
    He had just had a meal of eggs and bacon. With his hat pushed to the back of his head, he none the less did honour first to the soup, then to a piece of cake which had been kept for him from the day before.
    His mother did not sit down. She had never been seen sitting at table. She ate standing, while serving the others.
    â€˜What did the doctor say?’
    From the sound of her voice, you could tell straight away that it was useless to try lying to her.
    â€˜The milk isn’t rich enough.’
    â€˜Who was right?’
    â€˜She cried all night.’
    â€˜I knew all the time she was sickly. Still…’
    This meant:
    â€˜You would go and marry her. So much the worse for you.’
    Désiré did not take offence. She was his mother. Now and then he threw a glance at the clock. His time was calculated to a minute. At exactly a quarter to nine he crossed the Pont Neuf, where the pneumatic clock was two minutes slow. At five to nine, he turned the corner of the Boulevard Piercot and the Boulevard d’Avroy, and this enabled him to be at his office in the Rue des Guillemins at two minutes to nine, two minutes before the other employees, so that he could open the door for them.
    â€˜What did you have to eat yesterday?’
    Truth to tell, Désiré’s big body liked nothing but well-done meat, chipped potatoes, peas and sugared carrots. His Flemish wife liked nothing but meat soup, red