TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

Jean Teulé

Chapter 2

Still on the same stable-lined street silent of whinnies and forges, a client-less draperwho neighbors the engraver’s studio gets some air at the entrance of his shop. He scratches his bald head covered with a shocking amount of scabies, opening his mouth wide like a gawker:

“Well, what’s with Frau Troffea over there, dancing around like that?”

The scabious man turns his head towards the young, disheveled bearded man who, standing flustered beneath his shop’s hand carved sign, contemplates Enneline. Approaching the artist, the draper asks:

“Hey, Melchior. Why is your Frau doing that?”

In a brick house across from the twirler and from rue de Jeu-des- Enfants, acouple, Attaleand JérômeGebiller, arefinishinguptheir meal seated at a tablemade out of barrels. Slanted rays of sunlight pierce through a narrow window of multicolored glass squares, slightly brightening the somber room. On the table—about a half muid in size—without a tablecloth, a red ray illuminates the inside of a clay bowl. It would be possible to believe that the beheaded carcass was that of a suckling pig; but, in reality, it was a child’s skull. Various little girl’s bones are strewn about on the oak bathed in yellow light in front of a brunette mother as she picks her teeth silently with a tibia in a green light.

“Don’t do that! Don’t do that, Attale!...” 114