She thereupon showed him some big pike arranged in order of size upon clean scoured shelves, beside some bronze-hued tench and little heaps of gudgeon.  Her hands were now quite slimy with handling the carp, and as she stood there in the dampness rising from the tanks, she held them outstretched over the dripping fish on the stall.  She seemed enveloped by an odour of spawn, that heavy scent which rises from among the reeds and water-lilies when the fish, languid in the sunlight, discharge their eggs.  Then she wiped her hands on her apron, still smiling the placid smile of a girl who knew nothing of passion in that quivering atmosphere of the frigid loves of the river.

The kindliness which Claire showed to Florent was but a slight consolation to him.  By stopping to talk to the girl he only drew upon himself still coarser jeers from the other stallkeepers.  Claire shrugged her shoulders, and said that her mother was an old jade, and her sister a worthless creature.  The injustice of the market folk towards the new inspector filled her with indignation.  The war between them, however, grew more bitter every day.  Florent had serious thoughts of resigning his post; indeed, he would not have retained it for another twenty-four hours if he had not been afraid that Lisa might imagine him to be a coward.  He was frightened of what she might say and what she might think.  She was naturally well aware of the contest which was going on between the fish-wives and their inspector; for the whole echoing market resounded with it, and the entire neighbourhood discussed each fresh incident with endless comments.

“Ah, well,” Lisa would often say in the evening, after dinner, “I’d soon bring them to reason if I had anything to do with them!  Why, they are a lot of dirty jades that I wouldn’t touch with the tip of my finger!  That Normande is the lowest of the low!  I’d soon crush her, that I would!  You should really use your authority, Florent.  You are wrong to behave as you do.  Put your foot down, and they’ll all come to their senses very quickly, you’ll see.”

A terrible climax was presently reached.  One morning the servant of Madame Taboureau, the baker, came to the market to buy a brill; and the beautiful Norman, having noticed her lingering near her stall for several minutes, began to make overtures to her in a coaxing way:  “Come and see me; I’ll suit you,” she said.  “Would you like a pair of soles, or a fine turbot?”

Then as the servant at last came up, and sniffed at a brill with that dissatisfied pout which buyers assume in the hope of getting what they want at a lower price, La Normande continued: 

“Just feel the weight of that, now,” and so saying she laid the brill, wrapped in a sheet of thick yellow paper, on the woman’s open palm.

The servant, a mournful little woman from Auvergne, felt the weight of the brill, and examined its gills, still pouting, and saying not a word.