Шоколад / Chocolat

Last Sunday, he says, Cure Reynaud preached such a virulent sermon on the topic of abstinence that the opening of La Celeste Praline that very morning had seemed a direct affront against the Church. Caroline Clairmont – who is beginning another of her diets was especially cutting, saying loudly to her friends in the congregation that it was “Quite shocking, just like stories of Roman decadence, my dears, and if that woman thinks she can just shimmy into town like the Queen of Sheba disgusting the way she flaunts that illegitimate child of hers as if – oh, the chocolates? Nothing special, my dears, and far too pricey.

” The general conclusion amongst the ladies was that ‘it’– whatever it was – wouldn’t last. I would be out of town within a fortnight. And yet, the number of my customers has doubled since yesterday, amongst them a number of Madame Clairmont’s cronies, bright-eyed if a little shameful, telling each other it was curiosity, that was all, that all they wanted was to see for themselves.

I know all their favourites.

It’s a knack, a professional secret like a fortune-teller reading palms: My mother would have laughed at this waste of my skills, but I have no desire to probe further into their lives than this. I do not want their secrets or their innermost thoughts. Nor do I want their fears or gratitude. A tame alchemist, she would have called me with kindly contempt, working domestic magic when I could have wielded marvels. But I like these people. I like their small and introverted concerns. I can read their eyes, their mouths, so easily: this one with its hint of bitterness will relish my zesty orange twists; this sweet-smiling one the soft-centred apricot hearts; this girl with the windblown hair will love the mendiants; this brisk, cheery woman the chocolate brazils. For Guillaume, the florentines, eaten neatly over a saucer in his tidy bachelor’s house. Narcisse’s appetite for double-chocolate truffles reveals the gentle heart beneath the gruff exterior. Caroline Clairmont will dream of cinder toffee tonight and wake hungry and irritable. And the children… Chocolate curls, white buttons with coloured vermicelli, pains d’epices with gilded edging, marzipan fruits in their nests of ruffled paper, peanut brittle, clusters, cracknels, assorted misshapes in half-kilo boxes… I sell dreams, small comforts, sweet harmless temptations to bring down a multitude of saints crash-crash-crashing amongst the hazels and nougatines.