“Behind
the counter sat one of those absolutely inimitable and indomitable
ladies, produced only in the city of Paris, but produced there in great
numbers, who would be as outrageous and unsettling in any other city as a
mermaid on a mountaintop. All over Paris they sit behind their
counters like a mother bird in a nest and brood over the cash register
as though it were an egg. Nothing occurring under the circle of heaven
where they sit escapes their eye, if they have ever been surprised by
anything, it was only in a dream—a dream they long ago ceased having.
They are neither ill- nor good-natured, though they have their days and
styles, and they know, in the way, apparently, that other people know
when they have to go to the bathroom, everything about everyone who
enters their domain. Though some are white-haired and some not, some
fat, some thin, some grandmothers and some but lately virgins, they all
have exactly the same, shrewd, vacant, all-registering eye; it is
difficult to believe that they ever cried for milk or looked at the sun;
it seems they must have come into the world hungry for banknotes, and
squinting helplessly, unable to focus their eyes until they came to rest
on a cash register.”
Giovanni's Room — James
Baldwin