Madame Jabouille, or Mathilde, as she was familiarly called, appeared
on the threshold. She was about thirty, with a flat face horribly
emaciated, and passionate eyes, the lids of which had a bluish tinge
as if they were bruised. It was said that some members of the clergy
had brought about her marriage with little Jabouille, at a time when
the latter's business was still flourishing, thanks to the custom of
all the pious folk of the neighbourhood. The truth was, that one
sometimes espied black cassocks stealthily crossing that mysterious
shop, where all the aromatic herbs set a perfume of incense. A kind of
cloistral quietude pervaded the place; the devotees who came in spoke
in low voices, as if in a confessional, slipped their purchases into
their bags furtively, and went off with downcast eyes. Unfortunately,
some very horrid rumours had got abroad--slander invented by the
wine-shop keeper opposite, said pious folks. At any rate, since the
widower had re-married, the business had been going to the dogs. The
glass jars seemed to have lost all their brightness, and the dried
herbs, suspended from the ceiling, were tumbling to dust. Jabouille
himself was coughing his life out, reduced to a very skeleton. And
although Mathilde professed to be religious, the pious customers
gradually deserted her, being of opinion that she made herself too
conspicuous with young fellows of the neighbourhood now that Jabouille
was almost eaten out of house and home.

For a moment Mathilde remained motionless, blinking her eyes. A
pungent smell had spread through the shop, a smell of simples, which
she brought with her in her clothes and greasy, tumbled hair; the
sickly sweetness of mallow, the sharp odour of elderseed, the bitter
effluvia of rhubarb, but, above all, the hot whiff of peppermint,
which seemed like her very breath.