Marjolin was in the stall alone.  He used to drowse there for hours, recouping himself from the fatigue of his long rambles.  He generally sat upon one chair with his legs resting upon another, and his head leaning against a little dresser.  In the wintertime he took a keen delight in lolling there and contemplating the display of game; the bucks hanging head downwards, with their fore-legs broken and twisted round their necks; the larks festooning the stall like garlands; the big ruddy hares, the mottled partridges, the water-fowl of a bronze-grey hue, the Russian black cocks and hazel hens, which arrived in a packing of oat straw and charcoal;[*] and the pheasants, the magnificent pheasants, with their scarlet hoods, their stomachers of green satin, their mantles of embossed gold, and their flaming tails, that trailed like trains of court robes.  All this show of plumage reminded Marjolin of his rambles in the cellars with Cadine amongst the hampers of feathers.

     [*] The baskets in which these are sent to Paris are
     identical with those which in many provinces of Russia serve
     the moujiks as cradles for their infants.—­Translator.

That afternoon the beautiful Lisa found Marjolin in the midst of the poultry.  It was warm, and whiffs of hot air passed along the narrow alleys of the pavilion.  She was obliged to stoop before she could see him stretched out inside the stall, below the bare flesh of the birds.  From the hooked bar up above hung fat geese, the hooks sticking in the bleeding wounds of their long stiffened necks, while their huge bodies bulged out, glowing ruddily beneath their fine down, and, with their snowy tails and wings, suggesting nudity encompassed by fine linen.  And also hanging from the bar, with ears thrown back and feet parted as though they were bent on some vigorous leap, were grey rabbits whose turned-up tails gleamed whitely, whilst their heads, with sharp teeth and dim eyes, laughed with the grin of death.  On the counter of the stall plucked fowls showed their strained fleshy breasts; pigeons, crowded on osier trays, displayed the soft bare skin of innocents; ducks, with skin of rougher texture, exhibited their webbed feet; and three magnificent turkeys, speckled with blue dots, like freshly-shaven chins, slumbered on their backs amidst the black fans of their expanded tails.  On plates near by were giblets, livers, gizzards, necks, feet, and wings; while an oval dish contained a skinned and gutted rabbit, with its four legs wide apart, its head bleeding, and is kidneys showing through its gashed belly.  A streamlet of dark blood, after trickling along its back to its tail, had fallen drop by drop, staining the whiteness of the dish.  Marjolin had not even taken the trouble to wipe the block, near which the rabbit’s feet were still lying.  He reclined there with his eyes half closed, encompassed by other piles of dead poultry which crowded the shelves of the stall, poultry in paper wrappers like bouquets, rows upon rows of protuberant breasts and bent legs showing confusedly.  And amidst all this mass of food, the young fellow’s big, fair figure, the flesh of his cheeks, hands, and powerful neck covered with ruddy down seemed as soft as that of the magnificent turkeys, and as plump as the breasts of the fat geese.