IV. STROLLING BY THE SEINE

A year passed, with little other consequence than that Belle was almost always separated from Lucien's precious book of stories. And again, fall and winter passed Paris by; then spring—which this year felt more like a teasing of extreme temperatures than a separate season—ever-so-slowly turned into summer; a glorious, beautiful summer that choked the bridges over the Seine with young couples admiring the scenery (and, occasionally, their surroundings). Despite Paris's reputation as the City of Lovers, the bakers and weavers, peddlers and farmers, whether driving into or simply through the city to sell their wares, did not appreciate the congestion—although of course the farmers were only really present in the fall, at harvest time, and so only caught the traffic of lingering lovers taking advantage of the last warm, golden days.

The morning of the Feast of Fools, wagon traffic was slow enough that a fourteen-year-old girl on her way back from market, with a basket on each elbow, a bundle under one arm, and an open book in her hands could maneuver her way between vehicles as well as couples without much danger. As usual, she was oblivious to her surroundings as she read; by now, Belle's route was familiar enough to her that she picked her way over stray cats (who would never have scratched her, anyways, seeing as Belle fed them leftover scraps at her back door) and loose cobblestones with relative ease. As a result, Belle hardly noticed the sparkling (if not quite clean enough to be blue) river, the tall stone buildings and dramatic bridges, or even the stares that followed her everywhere: curious stares, that a person of the female persuasion would not only read books, so often and happily, but also in public and while walking; jealous stares, aimed by girls who knew nothing of the apparently reclusive, strange, daydreaming, but beautiful girl; and which were, of course, prompted by the intrigued stares of their beaux.

On the other side of the bridge, Belle's ears pricked at the sound of fluting music unlike anything she had really heard before. Lowering her book for the first time that morning, she looked around until her eyes settled on a small troupe of gypsies, performing for coins against the backdrop of the wall that divided river from city. Despite all the things she'd heard about gypsies—that they were thieves, and pernicious and sinful besides—Belle drifted closer, fascinated. The gypsy girl who danced to the piping of a flute, and accompanying herself on a strange, small drum with discs of metal set into it that jingled like bells, was only a few years older than Belle. She was clothed in varying shades of green, blue, gold, and purple (Belle looked down at her plain green frock, truly dissatisfied with it for the first time. Why couldn't she dress in such bright colors? she wondered enviously).

As the gypsy girl looked up from smiling at a pet goat that danced with her, her eyes caught on Belle's and Belle caught her breath. In addition to curly, pure-black hair such as Belle had never seen on anyone but gypsies, the girl had big green eyes. Belle had never been dissatisfied with her own looks, but this gypsy girl, she decided, was the most beautiful person she'd ever seen. Imagine looking like that!

The two girls stared at each other for a split second; then the gypsy tossed Belle a dazzling smile and resumed her dance. Returning the smile, Belle moved forward and tossed a few coins into a hat on the ground.

A hand clasped her arm like a vise. "Belle, be careful!" hissed Lucien, leading her away. "Keep doing that and you'll have a whole crowd of gypsies following you home like those stray cats you feed. Only stray cats aren't thieves like gypsies are," he clarified, looping his arm through Belle's. Belle allowed this liberty, but shoved a basket into his other hand in exchange.

"Lucien! Hello!" Belle replied innocently, her joy at seeing her friend diverting her as they walked away. "Look what I have with me." She waggled her book in his face.

"I can't believe you're still not done reading that book," Lucien complained, peering owlishly over it at his best friend. Ever since his fifteenth birthday in the winter, he'd assumed a sort of air of superiority over Belle—and gotten much taller, too. Belle couldn't ever quite be sure which fact annoyed her more.

"Maybe it's because you haven't asked for it back!" she said tartly, shutting the tome and tucking it into one of the baskets she carried. "You did lend it to me."

"A month ago," grumbled Lucien.

"And you hadn't brought it back from school in ages, but got to keep it now that school was out," she reminded him triumphantly.

Lucien acknowledged this with a twitch of his eyebrow. "It's not so much that I need it back, or anything. But you're such a fast reader, Belle," he pointed out. "I expected you'd have the book back to me in a week or so…"

Belle looked guilty. "I've been forcing myself to savor each story, so I only read one every week, on my way back from market—Oh! Can we stop walking for a moment?"

Confused, Lucien obliged and looked Belle over. She didn't look injured in any way, so he followed her gaze. "What's wrong? It's only the Cathedral de Notre Dame de Paris, Belle. We attend Mass here every Sunday. Remember?"

"Only! Lucien, it's so beautiful."

"Mhm." Lucien's eyes, in time-honored tradition, were directed at Belle, not the building she was staring at.

Belle fluttered a hand through the air, somewhat hampered by the basket in the crook of her elbow. "It's such a grand building. It reminds me of…of when the choir is singing all together, with the organ, in Mass. That wide, full feeling. And those windows! Oh, I think stained glass is one of the most exquisite things in the world. And the bells—the big ones loud as thunder, and the little bells soft as…as a psalm. I wonder what the view must be like from so hi—Lucien! Look!"

Lucien squinted. "It's just the bell-ringer."

"Well, I thought so, too, but I've never actually seen him before." Belle was spellbound. "Isn't he afraid, climbing the spires and towers and gargoyles? Imagine if he fell!"

"I try not to," shuddered Lucien. "Belle, nobody knows how long that man has been up there, but it's probably long enough that he's good at climbing. Like a monkey, in the jungle, or something."

Shading her eyes against the sun, Belle watched the hunchbacked man, as small as an ant from where she stood, as he leapt nimbly about the cathedral's façade. She couldn't help but notice that he never left the area of the roof. "But he's not a monkey, Lucien," she said softly. "That poor man, all alone up there. He must be very lonely."

"They say his face is as misshapen as his back," Lucien said irrelevantly.

"Perhaps he's afraid to come down," Belle continued. "Who could blame him? People are so cruel. They might treat him as if he were a monkey, not a person."

Because of her father's dependency on herself, Belle left her house only to go to market, or to visit with Lucien, or trade recipes and household tricks with his mother. Sometimes, she left the house alone and found somewhere warm, sunny, and peaceful to read, but even then she was alone. She had very few people to talk to, besides Papa and Lucien's family and Nicole, a shy little girl who lived next door and whom Belle had only recently coaxed into a sort of friendship. Belle was teaching the child how to read. Reclusive as Belle might be by default, though, at least she could leave her house—and she had very little reason to be afraid to do so.

Tearing her eyes away from the cathedral and its lonely denizen, she looked down at the contents of her market basket. "Oh, dear. The vegetables are beginning to wilt. Lucien, we'd better head home," she counseled him, as though it had been his idea to stop. Lucien noticed this too, but in his relief he simply rolled his eyes as he trotted after Belle.

"Which story are you in the middle of?" Lucien asked, in the interest of cheerful conversation, especially as Belle seemed lost in thought, her face sad and thoughtful.

"What? Oh, a fascinating one about a prince who was turned into a frog."

"I haven't read it," lied Lucien. "What happens?"

"Well, he meets a princess who accidentally drops her necklace into the pond he lives in," giggled Belle, imagining living in a slimy, untended pond. "So he promises to bring her the necklace if she'll give him a kiss. Of course the princess thinks that's disgusting, but she agrees to the deal. Only she's lied, and she runs away laughing when he gives her her necklace back," Belle concluded. "That's as far as I've gotten, because someone was suddenly towering over me like a tree!"

Fortunately for Lucien, they had reached the street where they both lived. "So, Belle, are you coming back with me?" he asked hastily.

"Coming back where?" asked Belle absently, rooting around in her pocket for the key to her house.

"Why, to the Festival of Fools!"

"What? I've never been to it before," Belle added, irrelevantly, but Lucien used that to his advantage.

"All the more reason to attend today!" Lucien grinned. "Belle, I thought you were the adventurous one! The one who likes to try new things!"

"There is that," Belle said drily. "What is it like?"

"Well, it's not your ordinary festival," Lucien informed her. "Everyone is devoted to being very silly and topsy-turvy."

Belle snickered suddenly. "Oh—sorry, Lucien! I wasn't…I thought for a moment of all the men in dresses, and the women in trousers," she informed her companion.

Lucien raised an eyebrow. "That's just too silly, Belle. A woman in trousers is about as immodest as she can be. But there probably will be some men dressed as women, and vice versa," he added, trying to illustrate the craziness of such a day.

"Papa won't be home until late, he has a rush order, so I doubt he'll mind…" mused Belle. "I think I will come with you. Let me bring all of the food inside, and write Papa a note…"