Read Online Pedigree by Georges Simenon - Free Book Online Page B

down, with no sign of the waist-line, and made of a black or very dark grey material. He had handsome, sparkling brown eyes, a big Cyrano-de-Bergerac nose, and a turned-up moustache; his hair, which was brushed back, and his bald temples gave him a high forehead.
    â€˜A poet’s forehead,’ Élise used to say.
    It was she who chose his ties. She was afraid of colours, because they were a sign of vulgarity. What she considered distinguished were mauves, violets, purplish reds and mouse greys, with tiny designs, practically invisible arabesques.
    Once the tie had been bought—one every festive occasion—it was hung on a celluloid holder and after that it did not change any more than if it had been cut out of zinc or painted on the starched shirt-front.
    Crossing the Pont des Arches, Désiré spotted his cloud, a funny little pink cloud which, for the past three days, had been floating at the same time every morning a little to the left of the spire of Saint-Pholien, as if it had been tied to the weathercock. It was not the same cloud of course, but Désiré pretended that it was the same, his own special cloud, put there just to bid him good day.
    It was the hour when, in the Rue Puits-en-Sock, the shopkeepers arranged their window-displays and emptied bucketfuls of water over the pavement to clean it. The alley-way that ran into the street gave out the smell of poverty as you passed, but it was not an unpleasant smell when you had known it since childhood.
    It was also the hour when Chrétien Mamelin stood on the threshold of his hat-shop, holding a meerschaum pipe in his hand.
    â€˜Good morning, Father.’
    â€˜Good morning, son.’
    They had nothing more to say to one another. Désiré stayed for a moment beside his father, the two of them standing with their backs to the old house, each as tall as the other, and both gazed at the bluish paving-stones, the tram rattling past them, the baker across the street who had come out for a breather, covered in flour and with laughter in his eyes, and the shop-assistant at Gruyelle-Marquant’s who was washing her windows with a chamois leather.
    The whole street knew them. They knew that Désiré no longer formed part of the Rue Puits-en-Sock, that he was married, that he worked over in the Rue des Guillemins, but they approved of his coming every morning, winter and summer alike.
    â€˜I’ll go and give Mother a kiss.’
    The shop next door was called the Dolls’ Hospital. The window was full of dolls of all sizes. Old Kreutz, who was smoking a German pipe with a porcelain head, was standing on the doorstep, like old Mamelin.
    In the morning they behaved like two little boys waiting for each other outside school. Had Désiré gone into the house? Then it was time. Did they wink at each other? In any case, some signal passed between them. There was a definite moment when old Kreutz, locking the door of his shop, walked a few steps and entered the hat-shop.
    In the back-shop, among the wooden heads, Chrétien Mamelin took a bottle of Dutch liqueur, a bottle of Kempenaar, out of a cupboard, and solemnly filled two tiny glasses.
    Then, and only then, glass in hand, the two old men looked at one another. It was almost a ceremony. They never drank a second glass. They would not drink either wine or spirits during the rest of the day. They looked at one another with a quiet satisfaction, as if they were gauging the distance they had travelled, Mamelin since the time when, in Italy, he used to sleep in barns, learning during the day how to plait straw and trying in vain to make himself understood to the Italians, and old Kreutz, whose French was intelligible only to initiates, since he had left the suburbs of Nürnberg.
    Already the irons were getting hot and the hats were waiting. At Kreutz’s the glue was slowly dissolving and the workshop was littered with dolls’ arms and legs.
    The baker across the street,