Read Le ventre de Paris. English Page 2

  CHAPTER I

  Amidst the deep silence and solitude prevailing in the avenue severalmarket gardeners' carts were climbing the slope which led towards Paris,and the fronts of the houses, asleep behind the dim lines of elms oneither side of the road, echoed back the rhythmical jolting of thewheels. At the Neuilly bridge a cart full of cabbages and another fullof peas had joined the eight waggons of carrots and turnips comingdown from Nanterre; and the horses, left to themselves, had continuedplodding along with lowered heads, at a regular though lazy pace, whichthe ascent of the slope now slackened. The sleeping waggoners, wrappedin woollen cloaks, striped black and grey, and grasping the reinsslackly in their closed hands, were stretched at full length on theirstomachs atop of the piles of vegetables. Every now and then, a gaslamp, following some patch of gloom, would light up the hobnails of aboot, the blue sleeve of a blouse, or the peak of a cap peering outof the huge florescence of vegetables--red bouquets of carrots, whitebouquets of turnips, and the overflowing greenery of peas and cabbages.

  And all along the road, and along the neighbouring roads, in front andbehind, the distant rumbling of vehicles told of the presence of similarcontingents of the great caravan which was travelling onward through thegloom and deep slumber of that matutinal hour, lulling the dark city tocontinued repose with its echoes of passing food.

  Madame Francois's horse, Balthazar, an animal that was far too fat,led the van. He was plodding on, half asleep and wagging his ears, whensuddenly, on reaching the Rue de Longchamp, he quivered with fear andcame to a dead stop. The horses behind, thus unexpectedly checked, rantheir heads against the backs of the carts in front of them, and theprocession halted amidst a clattering of bolts and chains and the oathsof the awakened waggoners. Madame Francois, who sat in front of hervehicle, with her back to a board which kept her vegetables in position,looked down; but, in the dim light thrown to the left by a small squarelantern, which illuminated little beyond one of Balthazar's sheenyflanks, she could distinguish nothing.

  "Come, old woman, let's get on!" cried one of the men, who had raisedhimself to a kneeling position amongst his turnips; "it's only somedrunken sot."

  Madame Francois, however, had bent forward and on her right hand hadcaught sight of a black mass, lying almost under the horse's hoofs, andblocking the road.

  "You wouldn't have us drive over a man, would you?" said she, jumping tothe ground.

  It was indeed a man lying at full length upon the road, with his armsstretched out and his face in the dust. He seemed to be remarkably tall,but as withered as a dry branch, and the wonder was that Balthazarhad not broken him in half with a blow from his hoof. Madame Francoisthought that he was dead; but on stooping and taking hold of one of hishands, she found that it was quite warm.

  "Poor fellow!" she murmured softly.

  The waggoners, however, were getting impatient.

  "Hurry up, there!" said the man kneeling amongst the turnips, in ahoarse voice. "He's drunk till he can hold no more, the hog! Shove himinto the gutter."

  Meantime, the man on the road had opened his eyes. He looked at MadameFrancois with a startled air, but did not move. She herself now thoughtthat he must indeed be drunk.

  "You mustn't stop here," she said to him, "or you'll get run over andkilled. Where were you going?"

  "I don't know," replied the man in a faint voice.

  Then, with an effort and an anxious expression, he added: "I was goingto Paris; I fell down, and don't remember any more."

  Madame Francois could now see him more distinctly, and he was truly apitiable object, with his ragged black coat and trousers, through therents in which you could espy his scraggy limbs. Underneath a blackcloth cap, which was drawn low over his brows, as though he were afraidof being recognised, could be seen two large brown eyes, gleaming withpeculiar softness in his otherwise stern and harassed countenance. Itseemed to Madame Francois that he was in far too famished a condition tohave got drunk.

  "And what part of Paris were you going to?" she continued.

  The man did not reply immediately. This questioning seemed to distresshim. He appeared to be thinking the matter over, but at last saidhesitatingly, "Over yonder, towards the markets."

  He had now, with great difficulty, got to his feet again, and seemedanxious to resume his journey. But Madame Francois noticed that hetottered, and clung for support to one of the shafts of her waggon.

  "Are you tired?" she asked him.

  "Yes, very tired," he replied.

  Then she suddenly assumed a grumpy tone, as though displeased, and,giving him a push, exclaimed: "Look sharp, then, and climb into my cart.You've made us lose a lot of time. I'm going to the markets, and I'llturn you out there with my vegetables."

  Then, as the man seemed inclined to refuse her offer, she pushed him upwith her stout arms, and bundled him down upon the turnips and carrots.

  "Come, now, don't give us any more trouble," she cried angrily. "You arequite enough to provoke one, my good fellow. Don't I tell you thatI'm going to the markets? Sleep away up there. I'll wake you when wearrive."

  She herself then clambered into the cart again, and settled herself withher back against the board, grasping the reins of Balthazar, who startedoff drowsily, swaying his ears once more. The other waggons followed,and the procession resumed its lazy march through the darkness, whilstthe rhythmical jolting of the wheels again awoke the echoes of thesleepy house fronts, and the waggoners, wrapped in their cloaks, dozedoff afresh. The one who had called to Madame Francois growled out as helay down: "As if we'd nothing better to do than pick up every drunkensot we come across! You're a scorcher, old woman!"

  The waggons rumbled on, and the horses picked their own way, withdrooping heads. The stranger whom Madame Francois had befriended waslying on his stomach, with his long legs lost amongst the turnips whichfilled the back part of the cart, whilst his face was buried amidst thespreading piles of carrot bunches. With weary, extended arms he clutchedhold of his vegetable couch in fear of being thrown to the ground by oneof the waggon's jolts, and his eyes were fixed on the two long lines ofgas lamps which stretched away in front of him till they mingled with aswarm of other lights in the distance atop of the slope. Far away on thehorizon floated a spreading, whitish vapour, showing where Paris sleptamidst the luminous haze of all those flamelets.

  "I come from Nanterre, and my name's Madame Francois," said the marketgardener presently. "Since my poor man died I go to the markets everymorning myself. It's a hard life, as you may guess. And who are you?"

  "My name's Florent, I come from a distance," replied the stranger, withembarrassment. "Please excuse me, but I'm really so tired that it ispainful to me to talk."

  He was evidently unwilling to say anything more, and so Madame Francoisrelapsed into silence, and allowed the reins to fall loosely on theback of Balthazar, who went his way like an animal acquainted with everystone of the road.

  Meantime, with his eyes still fixed upon the far-spreading glare ofParis, Florent was pondering over the story which he had refused tocommunicate to Madame Francois. After making his escape from Cayenne,whither he had been transported for his participation in the resistanceto Louis Napoleon's Coup d'Etat, he had wandered about Dutch Guianafor a couple of years, burning to return to France, yet dreading theImperial police. At last, however, he once more saw before him thebeloved and mighty city which he had so keenly regretted and so ardentlylonged for. He would hide himself there, he told himself, and again leadthe quiet, peaceable life that he had lived years ago. The police wouldnever be any the wiser; and everyone would imagine, indeed, that hehad died over yonder, across the sea. Then he thought of his arrival atHavre, where he had landed with only some fifteen francs tied up in acorner of his handkerchief. He had been able to pay for a seat inthe coach as far as Rouen, but from that point he had been forced tocontinue his journey on foot, as he had scarcely thirty sous left of hislittle store. At Vernon his last copper had gone in bread. After that hehad no clear recollection of anything
. He fancied that he could rememberhaving slept for several hours in a ditch, and having shown the paperswith which he had provided himself to a gendarme; however, he had only avery confused idea of what had happened. He had left Vernon without anybreakfast, seized every now and then with hopeless despair and ragingpangs which had driven him to munch the leaves of the hedges as hetramped along. A prey to cramp and fright, his body bent, his sightdimmed, and his feet sore, he had continued his weary march, ever drawnonwards in a semi-unconscious state by a vision of Paris, which, far,far away, beyond the horizon, seemed to be summoning him and waiting forhim.

  When he at length reached Courbevoie, the night was very dark. Paris,looking like a patch of star-sprent sky that had fallen upon the blackearth, seemed to him to wear a forbidding aspect, as though angry at hisreturn. Then he felt very faint, and his legs almost gave way beneathhim as he descended the hill. As he crossed the Neuilly bridge hesustained himself by clinging to the parapet, and bent over and lookedat the Seine rolling inky waves between its dense, massy banks. A redlamp on the water seemed to be watching him with a sanguineous eye.And then he had to climb the hill if he would reach Paris on its summityonder. The hundreds of leagues which he had already travelled wereas nothing to it. That bit of a road filled him with despair. He wouldnever be able, he thought, to reach yonder light crowned summit. Thespacious avenue lay before him with its silence and its darkness, itslines of tall trees and low houses, its broad grey footwalks, speckledwith the shadows of overhanging branches, and parted occasionally by thegloomy gaps of side streets. The squat yellow flames of the gas lamps,standing erect at regular intervals, alone imparted a little life to thelonely wilderness. And Florent seemed to make no progress; the avenueappeared to grow ever longer and longer, to be carrying Paris away intothe far depths of the night. At last he fancied that the gas lamps, withtheir single eyes, were running off on either hand, whisking the roadaway with them; and then, overcome by vertigo, he stumbled and fell onthe roadway like a log.

  Now he was lying at ease on his couch of greenery, which seemed to himsoft as a feather bed. He had slightly raised his head so as to keep hiseyes on the luminous haze which was spreading above the dark roofs whichhe could divine on the horizon. He was nearing his goal, carried alongtowards it, with nothing to do but to yield to the leisurely jolts ofthe waggon; and, free from all further fatigue, he now only sufferedfrom hunger. Hunger, indeed, had once more awoke within him withfrightful and wellnigh intolerable pangs. His limbs seemed to havefallen asleep; he was only conscious of the existence of his stomach,horribly cramped and twisted as by a red-hot iron. The fresh odour ofthe vegetables, amongst which he was lying, affected him so keenly thathe almost fainted away. He strained himself against that piled-upmass of food with all his remaining strength, in order to compress hisstomach and silence its groans. And the nine other waggons behind him,with their mountains of cabbages and peas, their piles of artichokes,lettuces, celery, and leeks, seemed to him to be slowly overtaking him,as though to bury him whilst he was thus tortured by hunger beneathan avalanche of food. Presently the procession halted, and there was asound of deep voices. They had reached the barriers, and the municipalcustoms officers were examining the waggons. A moment later Florententered Paris, in a swoon, lying atop of the carrots, with clenchedteeth.

  "Hallow! You up there!" Madame Francois called out sharply.

  And as the stranger made no attempt to move, she clambered up and shookhim. Florent rose to a sitting posture. He had slept and no longer feltthe pangs of hunger, but was dizzy and confused.

  "You'll help me to unload, won't you?" Madame Francois said to him, asshe made him get down.

  He helped her. A stout man with a felt hat on his head and a badge inthe top buttonhole of his coat was striking the ground with a stick andgrumbling loudly:

  "Come, come, now, make haste! You must get on faster than that! Bringthe waggon a little more forward. How many yards' standing have you?Four, isn't it?"

  Then he gave a ticket to Madame Francois, who took some coppers out of alittle canvas bag and handed them to him; whereupon he went off to venthis impatience and tap the ground with his stick a little further away.Madame Francois took hold of Balthazar's bridle and backed him so as tobring the wheels of the waggon close to the footway. Then, having markedout her four yards with some wisps of straw, after removing the back ofthe cart, she asked Florent to hand her the vegetables bunch by bunch.She arranged them sort by sort on her standing, setting them outartistically, the "tops" forming a band of greenery around each pile;and it was with remarkable rapidity that she completed her show, which,in the gloom of early morning, looked like some piece of symmetricallycoloured tapestry. When Florent had handed her a huge bunch of parsley,which he had found at the bottom of the cart, she asked him for stillanother service.

  "It would be very kind of you," said she, "if you would look after mygoods while I put the horse and cart up. I'm only going a couple ofyards, to the Golden Compasses, in the Rue Montorgueil."

  Florent told her that she might make herself easy. He preferred toremain still, for his hunger had revived since he had begun to moveabout. He sat down and leaned against a heap of cabbages beside MadameFrancois's stock. He was all right there, he told himself, and wouldnot go further afield, but wait. His head felt empty, and he had no veryclear notion as to where he was. At the beginning of September itis quite dark in the early morning. Around him lighted lanterns wereflitting or standing stationary in the depths of the gloom. He wassitting on one side of a broad street which he did not recognise; itstretched far away into the blackness of the night. He could makeout nothing plainly, excepting the stock of which he had been left incharge. All around him along the market footways rose similar piles ofgoods. The middle of the roadway was blocked by huge grey tumbrels,and from one end of the street to the other a sound of heavy breathingpassed, betokening the presence of horses which the eye could notdistinguish.

  Shouts and calls, the noise of falling wood, or of iron chains slippingto the ground, the heavy thud of loads of vegetables discharged from thewaggons, and the grating of wheels as the carts were backed against thefootways, filled the yet sonorous awakening, whose near approach couldbe felt and heard in the throbbing gloom. Glancing over the pile ofcabbages behind him. Florent caught sight of a man wrapped like a parcelin his cloak, and snoring away with his head upon some baskets of plums.Nearer to him, on his left, he could distinguish a lad, some ten yearsold, slumbering between two heaps of endive, with an angelic smile onhis face. And as yet there seemed to be nothing on that pavement thatwas really awake except the lanterns waving from invisible arms, andflitting and skipping over the sleep of the vegetables and human beingsspread out there in heaps pending the dawn. However, what surprisedFlorent was the sight of some huge pavilions on either side of thestreet, pavilions with lofty roofs that seemed to expand and soar out ofsight amidst a swarm of gleams. In his weakened state of mind he fanciedhe beheld a series of enormous, symmetrically built palaces, light andairy as crystal, whose fronts sparkled with countless streaks of lightfiltering through endless Venetian shutters. Gleaming between theslender pillar shafts these narrow golden bars seemed like ladders oflight mounting to the gloomy line of the lower roofs, and then soaringaloft till they reached the jumble of higher ones, thus describing theopen framework of immense square halls, where in the yellow flare of thegas lights a multitude of vague, grey, slumbering things was gatheredtogether.

  At last Florent turned his head to look about him, distressed at notknowing where he was, and filled with vague uneasiness by the sight ofthat huge and seemingly fragile vision. And now, as he raised his eyes,he caught sight of the luminous dial and the grey massive pile of SaintEustache's Church. At this he was much astonished. He was close to SaintEustache, yet all was novel to him.

  However, Madame Francois had come back again, and was engaged in aheated discussion with a man who carried a sack over his shoulder andoffered to buy her carrots for a sou a bunch.

 
"Really, now, you are unreasonable, Lacaille!" said she. "You know quitewell that you will sell them again to the Parisians at four and fivesous the bunch. Don't tell me that you won't! You may have them for twosous the bunch, if you like."

  Then, as the man went off, she continued: "Upon my word, I believe somepeople think that things grow of their own accord! Let him go and findcarrots at a sou the bunch elsewhere, tipsy scoundrel that he is! He'llcome back again presently, you'll see."

  These last remarks were addressed to Florent. And, seating herself byhis side, Madame Francois resumed: "If you've been a long time away fromParis, you perhaps don't know the new markets. They haven't been builtfor more than five years at the most. That pavilion you see there besideus is the flower and fruit market. The fish and poultry markets arefarther away, and over there behind us come the vegetables and thebutter and cheese. There are six pavilions on this side, and on theother side, across the road, there are four more, with the meat andthe tripe stalls. It's an enormous place, but it's horribly cold in thewinter. They talk about pulling down the houses near the corn market tomake room for two more pavilions. But perhaps you know all this?"

  "No, indeed," replied Florent; "I've been abroad. And what's the name ofthat big street in front of us?"

  "Oh, that's a new street. It's called the Rue du Pont Neuf. Itleads from the Seine through here to the Rue Montmartre and the RueMontorgueil. You would soon have recognized where you were if it hadbeen daylight."

  Madame Francois paused and rose, for she saw a woman heading down toexamine her turnips. "Ah, is that you, Mother Chantemesse?" she said ina friendly way.

  Florent meanwhile glanced towards the Rue Montorgueil. It was therethat a body of police officers had arrested him on the night of December4.[*] He had been walking along the Boulevard Montmartre at about twoo'clock, quietly making his way through the crowd, and smiling at thenumber of soldiers that the Elysee had sent into the streets to awe thepeople, when the military suddenly began making a clean sweep of thethoroughfare, shooting folks down at close range during a quarter of anhour. Jostled and knocked to the ground, Florent fell at the cornerof the Rue Vivienne and knew nothing further of what happened, for thepanic-stricken crowd, in their wild terror of being shot, trampled overhis body. Presently, hearing everything quiet, he made an attempt torise; but across him there lay a young woman in a pink bonnet, whoseshawl had slipped aside, allowing her chemisette, pleated in littletucks, to be seen. Two bullets had pierced the upper part of her bosom;and when Florent gently removed the poor creature to free his legs,two streamlets of blood oozed from her wounds on to his hands. Then hesprang up with a sudden bound, and rushed madly away, hatless and withhis hands still wet with blood. Until evening he wandered about thestreets, with his head swimming, ever seeing the young woman lyingacross his legs with her pale face, her blue staring eyes, her distortedlips, and her expression of astonishment at thus meeting death sosuddenly. He was a shy, timid fellow. Albeit thirty years old he hadnever dared to stare women in the face; and now, for the rest of hislife, he was to have that one fixed in his heart and memory. He felt asthough he had lost some loved one of his own.

  [*] 1851. Two days after the Coup d'Etat.--Translator.

  In the evening, without knowing how he had got there, still dazed andhorrified as he was by the terrible scenes of the afternoon, he hadfound himself at a wine shop in the Rue Montorgueil, where several menwere drinking and talking of throwing up barricades. He went away withthem, helped them to tear up a few paving-stones, and seated himself onthe barricade, weary with his long wandering through the streets, andreflecting that he would fight when the soldiers came up. However, hehad not even a knife with him, and was still bareheaded. Towards eleveno'clock he dozed off, and in his sleep could see the two holes in thedead woman's white chemisette glaring at him like eyes reddened by tearsand blood. When he awoke he found himself in the grasp of four policeofficers, who were pummelling him with their fists. The men who hadbuilt the barricade had fled. The police officers treated him with stillgreater violence, and indeed almost strangled him when they noticed thathis hands were stained with blood. It was the blood of the young woman.

  Florent raised his eyes to the luminous dial of Saint Eustache with hismind so full of these recollections that he did not notice the positionof the pointers. It was, however, nearly four o'clock. The markets wereas yet wrapped in sleep. Madame Francois was still talking to old MadameChantemesse, both standing and arguing about the price of turnips, andFlorent now called to mind how narrowly he had escaped being shot overyonder by the wall of Saint Eustache. A detachment of gendarmes had justblown out the brains of five unhappy fellows caught at a barricade inthe Rue Greneta. The five corpses were lying on the footway, at a spotwhere he thought he could now distinguish a heap of rosy radishes. Hehimself had escaped being shot merely because the policemen only carriedswords. They took him to a neighbouring police station and gave theofficer in charge a scrap of paper, on which were these words writtenin pencil: "Taken with blood-stained hands. Very dangerous." Then he hadbeen dragged from station to station till the morning came. The scrap ofpaper accompanied him wherever he went. He was manacled and guarded asthough he were a raving madman. At the station in the Rue de la Lingeriesome tipsy soldiers wanted to shoot him; and they had already lighted alantern with that object when the order arrived for the prisoners to betaken to the depot of the Prefecture of Police. Two days afterwards hefound himself in a casemate of the fort of Bicetre. Ever since then hehad been suffering from hunger. He had felt hungry in the casemate, andthe pangs of hunger had never since left him. A hundred men were pent inthe depths of that cellar-like dungeon, where, scarce able to breathe,they devoured the few mouthfuls of bread that were thrown to them, likeso many captive wild beasts.

  When Florent was brought before an investigating magistrate, withoutanyone to defend him, and without any evidence being adduced, he wasaccused of belonging to a secret society; and when he swore that thiswas untrue, the magistrate produced the scrap of paper from amongst thedocuments before him: "Taken with blood-stained hands. Very dangerous."That was quite sufficient. He was condemned to transportation. Six weeksafterwards, one January night, a gaoler awoke him and locked him up ina courtyard with more than four hundred other prisoners. An hour laterthis first detachment started for the pontoons and exile, handcuffed andguarded by a double file of gendarmes with loaded muskets. They crossedthe Austerlitz bridge, followed the line of the boulevards, and soreached the terminus of the Western Railway line. It was a joyouscarnival night. The windows of the restaurants on the boulevardsglittered with lights. At the top of the Rue Vivienne, just at the spotwhere he ever saw the young woman lying dead--that unknown young womanwhose image he always bore with him--he now beheld a large carriage inwhich a party of masked women, with bare shoulders and laughing voices,were venting their impatience at being detained, and expressing theirhorror of that endless procession of convicts. The whole of the way fromParis to Havre the prisoners never received a mouthful of bread or adrink of water. The officials had forgotten to give them their rationsbefore starting, and it was not till thirty-six hours afterwards, whenthey had been stowed away in the hold of the frigate _Canada_, that theyat last broke their fast.

  No, Florent had never again been free from hunger. He recalled all thepast to mind, but could not recollect a single hour of satiety. He hadbecome dry and withered; his stomach seemed to have shrunk; his skinclung to his bones. And now that he was back in Paris once more, hefound it fat and sleek and flourishing, teeming with food in the midstof the darkness. He had returned to it on a couch of vegetables; helingered in its midst encompassed by unknown masses of food which stilland ever increased and disquieted him. Had that happy carnival nightcontinued throughout those seven years, then? Once again he saw theglittering windows on the boulevards, the laughing women, the luxurious,greedy city which he had quitted on that far-away January night; and itseemed to him that everything had expanded and increased in harmonywith those huge
markets, whose gigantic breathing, still heavy from theindigestion of the previous day, he now began to hear.

  Old Mother Chantemesse had by this time made up her mind to buy a dozenbunches of turnips. She put them in her apron, which she held closelypressed to her person, thus making herself look yet more corpulent thanshe was; and for some time longer she lingered there, still gossiping ina drawling voice. When at last she went away, Madame Francois again satdown by the side of Florent.

  "Poor old Mother Chantemesse!" she said; "she must be at leastseventy-two. I can remember her buying turnips of my father when I wasa mere chit. And she hasn't a relation in the world; no one but a younghussy whom she picked up I don't know where and who does nothing butbring her trouble. Still, she manages to live, selling things by theha'p'orth and clearing her couple of francs profit a day. For my ownpart, I'm sure that I could never spend my days on the foot-pavement inthis horrid Paris! And she hasn't even any relations here!"

  "You have some relations in Paris, I suppose?" she asked presently,seeing that Florent seemed disinclined to talk.

  Florent did not appear to hear her. A feeling of distrust came back tohim. His head was teeming with old stories of the police, stories ofspies prowling about at every street corner, and of women selling thesecrets which they managed to worm out of the unhappy fellows theydeluded. Madame Francois was sitting close beside him and certainlylooked perfectly straightforward and honest, with her big calm face,above which was bound a black and yellow handkerchief. She seemed aboutfive and thirty years of age, and was somewhat stoutly built, with acertain hardy beauty due to her life in the fresh air. A pair of blackeyes, which beamed with kindly tenderness, softened the more masculinecharacteristics of her person. She certainly was inquisitive, but hercuriosity was probably well meant.

  "I've a nephew in Paris," she continued, without seeming at all offendedby Florent's silence. "He's turned out badly though, and has enlisted.It's a pleasant thing to have somewhere to go to and stay at, isn't it?I dare say there's a big surprise in store for your relations when theysee you. But it's always a pleasure to welcome one of one's own peopleback again, isn't it?"

  She kept her eyes fixed upon him while she spoke, doubtlesscompassionating his extreme scragginess; fancying, too, that there wasa "gentleman" inside those old black rags, and so not daring to slip apiece of silver into his hand. At last, however, she timidly murmured:"All the same, if you should happen just at present to be in want ofanything----"

  But Florent checked her with uneasy pride. He told her that he hadeverything he required, and had a place to go to. She seemed quitepleased to hear this, and, as though to tranquillise herself concerninghim, repeated several times: "Well, well, in that case you've only gotto wait till daylight."

  A large bell at the corner of the fruit market, just over Florent'shead, now began to ring. The slow regular peals seemed to graduallydissipate the slumber that yet lingered all around. Carts were stillarriving, and the shouts of the waggoners, the cracking of their whips,and the grinding of the paving-stones beneath the iron-bound wheels andthe horses' shoes sounded with an increasing din. The carts could nowonly advance by a series of spasmodic jolts, and stretched in a longline, one behind the other, till they were lost to sight in the distantdarkness, whence a confused roar ascended.

  Unloading was in progress all along the Rue du Pont Neuf, the vehiclesbeing drawn up close to the edge of the footways, while their teamsstood motionless in close order as at a horse fair. Florent feltinterested in one enormous tumbrel which was piled up with magnificentcabbages, and had only been backed to the kerb with the greatestdifficulty. Its load towered above the lofty gas lamp whose bright lightfell full upon the broad leaves which looked like pieces of dark greenvelvet, scalloped and goffered. A young peasant girl, some sixteen yearsold, in a blue linen jacket and cap, had climbed on to the tumbrel,where, buried in the cabbages to her shoulders, she took them one by oneand threw them to somebody concealed in the shade below. Every now andthen the girl would slip and vanish, overwhelmed by an avalanche ofthe vegetables, but her rosy nose soon reappeared amidst the teeminggreenery, and she broke into a laugh while the cabbages again flew downbetween Florent and the gas lamp. He counted them mechanically as theyfell. When the cart was emptied he felt worried.

  The piles of vegetables on the pavement now extended to the verge of theroadway. Between the heaps, the market gardeners left narrow paths toenable people to pass along. The whole of the wide footway was coveredfrom end to end with dark mounds. As yet, in the sudden dancing gleamsof light from the lanterns, you only just espied the luxuriant fulnessof the bundles of artichokes, the delicate green of the lettuces, therosy coral of the carrots, and dull ivory of the turnips. And thesegleams of rich colour flitted along the heaps, according as the lanternscame and went. The footway was now becoming populated: a crowd of peoplehad awakened, and was moving hither and thither amidst the vegetables,stopping at times, and chattering and shouting. In the distance a loudvoice could be heard crying, "Endive! who's got endive?" The gates ofthe pavilion devoted to the sale of ordinary vegetables had just beenopened; and the retail dealers who had stalls there, with white caps ontheir heads, fichus knotted over their black jackets, and skirts pinnedup to keep them from getting soiled, now began to secure their stock forthe day, depositing their purchases in some huge porters' baskets placedupon the ground. Between the roadway and the pavilion these baskets wereto be seen coming and going on all sides, knocking against thecrowded heads of the bystanders, who resented the pushing with coarseexpressions, whilst all around was a clamour of voices growing hoarseby prolonged wrangling over a sou or two. Florent was astonished bythe calmness of the female market gardeners, with bandanas and bronzedfaces, displayed amidst all this garrulous bargaining of the markets.

  Behind him, on the footway of the Rue Rambuteau, fruit was being sold.Hampers and low baskets covered with canvas or straw stood there in longlines, a strong odour of over-ripe mirabelle plums was wafted hither andthither. At last a subdued and gentle voice, which he had heard for sometime past, induced him to turn his head, and he saw a charming darksomelittle woman sitting on the ground and bargaining.

  "Come now, Marcel," said she, "you'll take a hundred sous, won't you?"

  The man to whom she was speaking was closely wrapped in his cloak andmade no reply; however, after a silence of five minutes or more, theyoung woman returned to the charge.

  "Come now, Marcel; a hundred sous for that basket there, and four francsfor the other one; that'll make nine francs altogether."

  Then came another interval.

  "Well, tell me what you will take."

  "Ten francs. You know that well enough already; I told you so before.But what have you done with your Jules this morning, La Sarriette?"

  The young woman began to laugh as she took a handful of small change outof her pocket.

  "Oh," she replied, "Jules is still in bed. He says that men were notintended to work."

  She paid for the two baskets, and carried them into the fruit pavilion,which had just been opened. The market buildings still retained theirgloom-wrapped aspect of airy fragility, streaked with the thousand linesof light that gleamed from the venetian shutters. People were beginningto pass along the broad covered streets intersecting the pavilions, butthe more distant buildings still remained deserted amidst the increasingbuzz of life on the footways. By Saint Eustache the bakers and winesellers were taking down their shutters, and the ruddy shops, with theirgas lights flaring, showed like gaps of fire in the gloom in which thegrey house-fronts were yet steeped. Florent noticed a baker's shop onthe left-hand side of the Rue Montorgueil, replete and golden with itslast baking, and fancied he could scent the pleasant smell of the hotbread. It was now half past four.

  Madame Francois by this time had disposed of nearly all her stock. Shehad only a few bunches of carrots left when Lacaille once more made hisappearance with his sack.

  "Well," said he, "will you take a sou now?"

  "I k
new I should see you again," the good woman quietly answered. "You'dbetter take all I have left. There are seventeen bunches."

  "That makes seventeen sous."

  "No; thirty-four."

  At last they agreed to fix the price at twenty-five sous. MadameFrancois was anxious to be off.

  "He'd been keeping his eye upon me all the time," she said to Florent,when Lacaille had gone off with the carrots in his sack. "That old rogueruns things down all over the markets, and he often waits till the lastpeal of the bell before spending four sous in purchase. Oh, these Parisfolk! They'll wrangle and argue for an hour to save half a sou, and thengo off and empty their purses at the wine shop."

  Whenever Madame Francois talked of Paris she always spoke in a tone ofdisdain, and referred to the city as though it were some ridiculous,contemptible, far-away place, in which she only condescended to set footat nighttime.

  "There!" she continued, sitting down again, beside Florent, on somevegetables belonging to a neighbour, "I can get away now."

  Florent bent his head. He had just committed a theft. When Lacaillewent off he had caught sight of a carrot lying on the ground, and havingpicked it up he was holding it tightly in his right hand. Behind himwere some bundles of celery and bunches of parsley were diffusingpungent odours which painfully affected him.

  "Well, I'm off now!" said Madame Francois.

  However, she felt interested in this stranger, and could divine thathe was suffering there on that foot-pavement, from which he had neverstirred. She made him fresh offers of assistance, but he again refusedthem, with a still more bitter show of pride. He even got up andremained standing to prove that he was quite strong again. Then, asMadame Francois turned her head away, he put the carrot to his mouth.But he had to remove it for a moment, in spite of the terrible longingwhich he felt to dig his teeth into it; for Madame Francois turned roundagain and looking him full in the face, began to question him withher good-natured womanly curiosity. Florent, to avoid speaking, merelyanswered by nods and shakes of the head. Then, slowly and gently, hebegan to eat the carrot.

  The worthy woman was at last on the point of going off, when a powerfulvoice exclaimed close beside her, "Good morning, Madame Francois."

  The speaker was a slim young man, with big bones and a big head. Hisface was bearded, and he had a very delicate nose and narrow sparklingeyes. He wore on his head a rusty, battered, black felt hat, and wasbuttoned up in an immense overcoat, which had once been of a softchestnut hue, but which rain had discoloured and streaked withlong greenish stains. Somewhat bent, and quivering with a nervousrestlessness which was doubtless habitual with him, he stood there in apair of heavy laced shoes, and the shortness of his trousers allowed aglimpse of his coarse blue hose.

  "Good morning, Monsieur Claude," the market gardener replied cheerfully."I expected you, you know, last Monday, and, as you didn't come, I'vetaken care of your canvas for you. I've hung it up on a nail in myroom."

  "You are really very kind, Madame Francois. I'll go to finish that studyof mine one of these days. I wasn't able to go on Monday. Has your bigplum tree still got all its leaves?"

  "Yes, indeed."

  "I wanted to know, because I mean to put it in a corner of the picture.It will come in nicely by the side of the fowl house. I have beenthinking about it all the week. What lovely vegetables are in the marketthis morning! I came down very early, expecting a fine sunrise effectupon all these heaps of cabbages."

  With a wave of the arm he indicated the footway.

  "Well, well, I must be off now," said Madame Francois. "Good-bye for thepresent. We shall meet again soon, I hope, Monsieur Claude."

  However, as she turned to go, she introduced Florent to the youngartist.

  "This gentleman, it seems, has just come from a distance," said she."He feels quite lost in your scampish Paris. I dare say you might be ofservice to him."

  Then she at last took her departure, feeling pleased at having left thetwo men together. Claude looked at Florent with a feeling of interest.That tall, slight, wavy figure seemed to him original. Madame Francois'shasty presentation was in his eyes quite sufficient, and he addressedFlorent with the easy familiarity of a lounger accustomed to all sortsof chance encounters.

  "I'll accompany you," he said; "which way are you going?"

  Florent felt ill at ease; he was not wont to unbosom himself so readily.However, ever since his arrival in Paris, a question had been tremblingon his lips, and now he ventured to ask it, with the evident fear ofreceiving an unfavourable reply.

  "Is the Rue Pirouette still in existence?"

  "Oh, yes," answered the artist. "A very curious corner of old Parisis the Rue Pirouette. It twists and turns like a dancing girl, and thehouses bulge out like pot-bellied gluttons. I've made an etching of itthat isn't half bad. I'll show it to you when you come to see me. Is itto the Rue Pirouette that you want to go?"

  Florent, who felt easier and more cheerful now that he knew the streetstill existed, declared that he did not want to go there; in fact, hedid not want to go anywhere in particular. All his distrust awoke intofresh life at Claude's insistence.

  "Oh! never mind," said the artist, "let's go to the Rue Pirouette allthe same. It has such a fine colour at night time. Come along; it's onlya couple of yards away."

  Florent felt constrained to follow him, and the two men walked off, sideby side, stepping over the hampers and vegetables like a couple of oldfriends. On the footway of the Rue Rambuteau there were some immenseheaps of cauliflowers, symmetrically piled up like so many cannonballs.The soft-white flowers spread out like huge roses in the midst of theirthick green leaves, and the piles had something of the appearanceof bridal bouquets ranged in a row in colossal flower stands. Claudestopped in front of them, venting cries of admiration.

  Then, on turning into the Rue Pirouette, which was just opposite,he pointed out each house to his companion, and explained his viewsconcerning it. There was only a single gas lamp, burning in a corner.The buildings, which had settled down and swollen, threw theirpent-houses forward in such wise as to justify Claude's allusion topot-bellied gluttons, whilst their gables receded, and on either sidethey clung to their neighbours for support. Three or four, however,standing in gloomy recesses, appeared to be on the point of topplingforward. The solitary gas lamp illumined one which was snowy with afresh coat of whitewash, suggesting some flabby broken-down old dowager,powdered and bedaubed in the hope of appearing young. Then the othersstretched away into the darkness, bruised, dented, and cracked,greeny with the fall of water from their roofs, and displaying suchan extraordinary variety of attitudes and tints that Claude could notrefrain from laughing as he contemplated them.

  Florent, however, came to stand at the corner of the rue de Mondetour,in front of the last house but one on the left. Here the three floors,each with two shutterless windows, having little white curtains closelydrawn, seemed wrapped in sleep; but, up above, a light could be seenflitting behind the curtains of a tiny gable casement. However, thesight of the shop beneath the pent-house seemed to fill Florent with thedeepest emotion. It was kept by a dealer in cooked vegetables, and wasjust being opened. At its far end some metal pans were glittering, whileon several earthen ones in the window there was a display of cookedspinach and endive, reduced to a paste and arranged in conical moundsfrom which customers were served with shovel-like carvers of whitemetal, only the handles of which were visible. This sight seemed torivet Florent to the ground with surprise. He evidently could notrecognize the place. He read the name of the shopkeeper, Godeboeuf,which was painted on a red sign board up above, and remained quiteovercome by consternation. His arms dangling beside him, he began toexamine the cooked spinach, with the despairing air of one on whom somesupreme misfortune falls.

  However, the gable casement was now opened, and a little old womanleaned out of it, and looked first at the sky and then at the markets inthe distance.

  "Ah, Mademoiselle Saget is an early riser," exclaimed Claude, who hadjust raised his
head. And, turning to his companion, he added: "I oncehad an aunt living in that house. It's a regular hive of tittle-tattle!Ah, the Mehudins are stirring now, I see. There's a light on the secondfloor."

  Florent would have liked to question his companion, but the latter'slong discoloured overcoat give him a disquieting appearance. So withouta word Florent followed him, whilst he went on talking about theMehudins. These Mehudins were fish-girls, it seemed; the older one was amagnificent creature, while the younger one, who sold fresh-waterfish, reminded Claude of one of Murillo's virgins, whenever he saw herstanding with her fair face amidst her carps and eels.

  From this Claude went on to remark with asperity that Murillo paintedlike an ignoramus. But all at once he stopped short in the middle of thestreet.

  "Come!" he exclaimed, "tell me where it is that you want to go."

  "I don't want to go anywhere just at present," replied Florent inconfusion. "Let's go wherever you like."

  Just as they were leaving the Rue Pirouette, some one called to Claudefrom a wine shop at the corner of the street. The young man went in,dragging Florent with him. The shutters had been taken down on one sideonly, and the gas was still burning in the sleepy atmosphere of theshop. A forgotten napkin and some cards that had been used in theprevious evening's play were still lying on the tables; and the freshbreeze that streamed in through the open doorway freshened the close,warm vinous air. The landlord, Monsieur Lebigre, was serving hiscustomers. He wore a sleeved waistcoat, and his fat regular features,fringed by an untidy beard, were still pale with sleep. Standing infront of the counter, groups of men, with heavy, tired eyes, weredrinking, coughing, and spitting, whilst trying to rouse themselvesby the aid of white wine and brandy. Amongst them Florent recognisedLacaille, whose sack now overflowed with various sorts of vegetables.He was taking his third dram with a friend, who was telling him a longstory about the purchase of a hamper of potatoes.[*] When he had emptiedhis glass, he went to chat with Monsieur Lebigre in a little glazedcompartment at the end of the room, where the gas had not yet beenlighted.

  [*] At the Paris central markets potatoes are sold by the hamper, not by the sack as in England.--Translator.

  "What will you take?" Claude asked of Florent.

  He had on entering grasped the hand of the person who had called outto him. This was a market porter,[*] a well-built young man of two andtwenty at the most. His cheeks and chin were clean-shaven, but he worea small moustache, and looked a sprightly, strapping fellow with hisbroad-brimmed hat covered with chalk, and his wool-worked neck-piece,the straps falling from which tightened his short blue blouse. Claude,who called him Alexandre, patted his arms, and asked him when they weregoing to Charentonneau again. Then they talked about a grand excursionthey had made together in a boat on the Marne, when they had eaten arabbit for supper in the evening.

  [*] _Fort_ is the French term, literally "a strong man," as every market porter needs to be.--Translator.

  "Well, what will you take?" Claude again asked Florent.

  The latter looked at the counter in great embarrassment. At one end ofit some stoneware pots, encircled with brass bands and containing punchand hot wine, were standing over the short blue flames of a gas stove.Florent at last confessed that a glass of something warm would bewelcome. Monsieur Lebigre thereupon served them with three glasses ofpunch. In a basket near the pots were some smoking hot rolls which hadonly just arrived. However, as neither of the others took one, Florentlikewise refrained, and drank his punch. He felt it slipping down intohis empty stomach, like a steam of molten lead. It was Alexandre whopaid for the "shout."

  "He's a fine fellow, that Alexandre!" said Claude, when he and Florentfound themselves alone again on the footway of the Rue Rambuteau. "He'sa very amusing companion to take into the country. He's fond of showinghis strength. And then he's so magnificently built! I have seen himstripped. Ah, if I could only get him to pose for me in the nude out inthe open air! Well, we'll go and take a turn through the markets now, ifyou like."

  Florent followed, yielding entirely to his new friend's guidance. Abright glow at the far end of the Rue Rambuteau announced the break ofday. The far-spreading voice of the markets was become more sonorous,and every now and then the peals of a bell ringing in some distantpavilion mingled with the swelling, rising clamour. Claude and Florententered one of the covered streets between the fish and poultrypavilions. Florent raised his eyes and looked at the lofty vaultoverhead, the inner timbers of which glistened amidst a black laceworkof iron supports. As he turned into the great central thoroughfare hepictured himself in some strange town, with its various districts andsuburbs, promenades and streets, squares and cross-roads, all suddenlyplaced under shelter on a rainy day by the whim of some gigantic power.The deep gloom brooding in the hollows of the roofs multiplied, as itwere, the forest of pillars, and infinitely increased the number of thedelicate ribs, railed galleries, and transparent shutters. And overthe phantom city and far away into the depths of the shade, a teeming,flowering vegetation of luxuriant metal-work, with spindle-shaped stemsand twining knotted branches, covered the vast expanse as with thefoliage of some ancient forest. Several departments of the marketsstill slumbered behind their closed iron gates. The butter and poultrypavilions displayed rows of little trellised stalls and long alleys,which lines of gas lights showed to be deserted. The fish market,however, had just been opened, and women were flitting to and froamongst the white slabs littered with shadowy hampers and cloths. Amongthe vegetables and fruit and flowers the noise and bustle were graduallyincreasing. The whole place was by degree waking up, from the popularquarter where the cabbages are piled at four o'clock in the morning,to the lazy and wealthy district which only hangs up its pullets andpheasants when the hands of the clock point to eight.

  The great covered alleys were now teeming with life. All along thefootways on both sides of the road there were still many marketgardeners, with other small growers from the environs of Paris,who displayed baskets containing their "gatherings" of the previousevening--bundles of vegetables and clusters of fruit. Whilst the crowdincessantly paced hither and thither, vehicles barred the road; andFlorent, in order to pass them, had to press against some dingy sacks,like coal-sacks in appearance, and so numerous and heavy that theaxle-trees of the vans bent beneath them. They were quite damp, andexhaled a fresh odour of seaweed. From a rent low down in the side ofone of them a black stream of big mussels was trickling.

  Florent and Claude had now to pause at every step. The fish was arrivingand one after another the drays of the railway companies drove up ladenwith wooden cages full of the hampers and baskets that had come by trainfrom the sea coast. And to get out of the way of the fish drays, whichbecame more and more numerous and disquieting, the artist and Florentrushed amongst the wheels of the drays laden with butter and eggs andcheese, huge yellow vehicles bearing coloured lanterns, and drawn byfour horses. The market porters carried the cases of eggs, and basketsof cheese and butter, into the auction pavilion, where clerks weremaking entries in note books by the light of the gas.

  Claude was quite charmed with all this uproar, and forgot everything togaze at some effect of light, some group of blouses, or the picturesqueunloading of a cart. At last they extricated themselves from the crowd,and as they continued on their way along the main artery they presentlyfound themselves amidst an exquisite perfume which seemed to befollowing them. They were in the cut-flower market. All over thefootways, to the right and left, women were seated in front of largerectangular baskets full of bunches of roses, violets, dahlias, andmarguerites. At times the clumps darkened and looked like splotchesof blood, at others they brightened into silvery greys of the softesttones. A lighted candle, standing near one basket, set amidst thegeneral blackness quite a melody of colour--the bright variegationsof marguerites, the blood-red crimson of dahlias, the bluey purple ofviolets, and the warm flesh tints of roses. And nothing could havebeen sweeter or more suggestive of springtide than this soft breath ofperfume e
ncountered on the footway, on emerging from the sharp odours ofthe fish market and the pestilential smell of the butter and the cheese.

  Claude and Florent turned round and strolled about, loitering among theflowers. They halted with some curiosity before several women who wereselling bunches of fern and bundles of vine-leaves, neatly tied up inpackets of five and twenty. Then they turned down another covered alley,which was almost deserted, and where their footsteps echoed as thoughthey had been walking through a church. Here they found a little cart,scarcely larger than a wheelbarrow, to which was harnessed a diminutivedonkey, who, no doubt, felt bored, for at sight of them he began brayingwith such prolonged and sonorous force that the vast roofing of themarkets fairly trembled. Then the horses began to neigh in reply, therewas a sound of pawing and tramping, a distant uproar, which swelled,rolled along, then died away.

  Meantime, in the Rue Berger in front of them, Claude and Florentperceived a number of bare, frontless, salesmen's shops, where, by thelight of flaring gas jets, they could distinguish piles of hampers andfruit, enclosed by three dirty walls which were covered with additionsums in pencil. And the two wanderers were still standing there,contemplating this scene, when they noticed a well-dressed woman huddledup in a cab which looked quite lost and forlorn in the block of carts asit stealthily made its way onwards.

  "There's Cinderella coming back without her slippers," remarked Claudewith a smile.

  They began chatting together as they went back towards the markets.Claude whistled as he strolled along with his hands in his pockets,and expatiated on his love for this mountain of food which rises everymorning in the very centre of Paris. He prowled about the footways nightafter night, dreaming of colossal still-life subjects, paintings of anextraordinary character. He had even started on one, having his friendMarjolin and that jade Cadine to pose for him; but it was hard work topaint those confounded vegetables and fruit and fish and meat--they wereall so beautiful! Florent listened to the artist's enthusiastic talkwith a void and hunger-aching stomach. It did not seem to occur toClaude that all those things were intended to be eaten. Their charm forhim lay in their colour. Suddenly, however, he ceased speaking and, witha gesture that was habitual to him, tightened the long red sash which hewore under his green-stained coat.

  And then with a sly expression he resumed:

  "Besides, I breakfast here, through my eyes, at any rate, and that'sbetter than getting nothing at all. Sometimes, when I've forgotten todine on the previous day, I treat myself to a perfect fit of indigestionin the morning by watching the carts arrive here laden with all sortsof good things. On such mornings as those I love my vegetables more thanever. Ah! the exasperating part, the rank injustice of it all, is thatthose rascally Philistines really eat these things!"

  Then he went on to tell Florent of a supper to which a friend hadtreated him at Baratte's on a day of affluence. They had partaken ofoysters, fish, and game. But Baratte's had sadly fallen, and all thecarnival life of the old Marche des Innocents was now buried. In placethereof they had those huge central markets, that colossus of ironwork,that new and wonderful town. Fools might say what they liked; it was theembodiment of the spirit of the times. Florent, however, could notat first make out whether he was condemning the picturesqueness ofBaratte's or its good cheer.

  But Claude next began to inveigh against romanticism. He preferred hispiles of vegetables, he said, to the rags of the middle ages; and heended by reproaching himself with guilty weakness in making an etchingof the Rue Pirouette. All those grimy old places ought to be levelledto the ground, he declared, and modern houses ought to be built in theirstead.

  "There!" he exclaimed, coming to a halt, "look at the corner of thefootway yonder! Isn't that a picture readymade, ever so much more humanand natural than all their confounded consumptive daubs?"

  Along the covered way women were now selling hot soup and coffee. At onecorner of the foot-pavement a large circle of customers clustered rounda vendor of cabbage soup. The bright tin caldron, full of broth, wassteaming over a little low stove, through the holes of which came thepale glow of the embers. From a napkin-lined basket the woman took somethin slices of bread and dropped them into yellow cups; then with aladle she filled the cups with liquor. Around her were saleswomen neatlydressed, market gardeners in blouses, porters with coats soiled by theloads they had carried, poor ragged vagabonds--in fact, all the earlyhungry ones of the markets, eating, and scalding their mouths, anddrawing back their chins to avoid soiling them with the drippings fromtheir spoons. The delighted artist blinked, and sought a point of viewso as to get a good ensemble of the picture. That cabbage soup, however,exhaled a very strong odour. Florent, for his part, turned his headaway, distressed by the sight of the full cups which the customersemptied in silence, glancing around them the while like suspiciousanimals. As the woman began serving a fresh customer, Claude himself wasaffected by the odorous steam of the soup, which was wafted full in hisface.

  He again tightened his sash, half amused and half annoyed. Then resuminghis walk, and alluding to the punch paid for by Alexandre, he said toFlorent in a low voice:

  "It's very odd, but have you ever noticed that although a man can alwaysfind somebody to treat him to something to drink, he can never find asoul who will stand him anything to eat?"

  The dawn was now rising. The houses on the Boulevard de Sebastopol atthe end of the Rue de la Cossonnerie were still black; but above thesharp line of their slate roofs a patch of pale blue sky, circumscribedby the arch-pieces of the covered way, showed like a gleaming half-moon.Claude, who had been bending over some grated openings on a level withthe ground, through which a glimpse could be obtained of deep cellarswhere gas lights glimmered, now glanced up into the air between thelofty pillars, as though scanning the dark roofs which fringed the clearsky. Then he halted again, with his eyes fixed on one of the light ironladders which connect the superposed market roofs and give access fromone to the other. Florent asked him what he was seeking there.

  "I'm looking for that scamp of a Marjolin," replied the artist. "He'ssure to be in some guttering up there, unless, indeed, he's beenspending the night in the poultry cellars. I want him to give me asitting."

  Then he went on to relate how a market saleswoman had found his friendMarjolin one morning in a pile of cabbages, and how Marjolin had grownup in all liberty on the surrounding footways. When an attempt had beenmade to send him to school he had fallen ill, and it had been necessaryto bring him back to the markets. He knew every nook and corner of them,and loved them with a filial affection, leading the agile life of asquirrel in that forest of ironwork. He and Cadine, the hussy whomMother Chantemesse had picked up one night in the old Market of theInnocents, made a pretty couple--he, a splendid foolish fellow, asglowing as a Rubens, with a ruddy down on his skin which attracted thesunlight; and she, slight and sly, with a comical phiz under her tangleof black curly hair.

  Whilst talking Claude quickened his steps, and soon brought hiscompanion back to Saint Eustache again. Florent, whose legs were oncemore giving way, dropped upon a bench near the omnibus office. Themorning air was freshening. At the far end of the Rue Rambuteau rosygleams were streaking the milky sky, which higher up was slashed bybroad grey rifts. Such was the sweet balsamic scent of this dawn, thatFlorent for a moment fancied himself in the open country, on the brow ofa hill. But behind the bench Claude pointed out to him the many aromaticherbs and bulbs on sale. All along the footway skirting the tripemarket there were, so to say, fields of thyme and lavender, garlic andshallots; and round the young plane-trees on the pavement the vendorshad twined long branches of laurel, forming trophies of greenery. Thestrong scent of the laurel leaves prevailed over every other odour.

  At present the luminous dial of Saint Eustache was paling as anight-light does when surprised by the dawn. The gas jets in the wineshops in the neighbouring streets went out one by one, like starsextinguished by the brightness. And Florent gazed at the vast marketsnow gradually emerging from the gloom, from th
e dreamland in whichhe had beheld them, stretching out their ranges of open palaces.Greenish-grey in hue, they looked more solid now, and even more colossalwith their prodigious masting of columns upholding an endless expanseof roofs. They rose up in geometrically shaped masses; and when all theinner lights had been extinguished and the square uniform buildings weresteeped in the rising dawn, they seemed typical of some gigantic modernmachine, some engine, some caldron for the supply of a whole people,some colossal belly, bolted and riveted, built up of wood and glass andiron, and endowed with all the elegance and power of some mechanicalmotive appliance working there with flaring furnaces, and wild,bewildering revolutions of wheels.

  Claude, however, had enthusiastically sprung on to the bench, and stoodupon it. He compelled his companion to admire the effect of the dawnrising over the vegetables. There was a perfect sea of these extendingbetween the two clusters of pavilions from Saint Eustache to the Rue desHalles. And in the two open spaces at either end the flood of greeneryrose to even greater height, and quite submerged the pavements. The dawnappeared slowly, softly grey in hue, and spreading a light water-colourtint over everything. These surging piles akin to hurrying waves, thisriver of verdure rushing along the roadway like an autumn torrent,assumed delicate shadowy tints--tender violet, blush-rose, and greenyyellow, all the soft, light hues which at sunrise make the sky look likea canopy of shot silk. And by degrees, as the fires of dawn rose higherand higher at the far end of the Rue Rambuteau, the mass of vegetationgrew brighter and brighter, emerging more and more distinctly from thebluey gloom that clung to the ground. Salad herbs, cabbage-lettuce,endive, and succory, with rich soil still clinging to their roots,exposed their swelling hearts; bundles of spinach, bundles of sorrel,clusters of artichokes, piles of peas and beans, mounds of cos-lettuce,tied round with straws, sounded every note in the whole gamut ofgreenery, from the sheeny lacquer-like green of the pods to thedeep-toned green of the foliage; a continuous gamut with ascending anddescending scales which died away in the variegated tones of the headsof celery and bundles of leeks. But the highest and most sonorous notesstill came from the patches of bright carrots and snowy turnips, strewnin prodigious quantities all along the markets and lighting them up withthe medley of their two colours.

  At the crossway in the Rue des Halles cabbages were piled up inmountains; there were white ones, hard and compact as metal balls, curlysavoys, whose great leaves made them look like basins of green bronze,and red cabbages, which the dawn seemed to transform into superb massesof bloom with the hue of wine-lees, splotched with dark purple andcarmine. At the other side of the markets, at the crossway near SaintEustache, the end of the Rue Rambuteau was blocked by a barricade oforange-hued pumpkins, sprawling with swelling bellies in two superposedrows. And here and there gleamed the glistening ruddy brown of a hamperof onions, the blood-red crimson of a heap of tomatoes, the quiet yellowof a display of marrows, and the sombre violet of the fruit of theeggplant; while numerous fat black radishes still left patches of gloomamidst the quivering brilliance of the general awakening.

  Claude clapped his hands at the sight. He declared that those"blackguard vegetables" were wild, mad, sublime! He stoutly maintainedthat they were not yet dead, but, gathered in the previous evening,waited for the morning sun to bid him good-bye from the flag-stonesof the market. He could observe their vitality, he declared, see theirleaves stir and open as though their roots were yet firmly and warmlyembedded in well-manured soil. And here, in the markets, he added, heheard the death-rattle of all the kitchen gardens of the environs ofParis.

  A crowd of white caps, loose black jackets, and blue blouses wasswarming in the narrow paths between the various piles. The big basketsof the market porters passed along slowly, above the heads of thethrong. Retail dealers, costermongers, and greengrocers were makingtheir purchases in haste. Corporals and nuns clustered round themountains of cabbages, and college cooks prowled about inquisitively, onthe look-out for good bargains. The unloading was still going on;heavy tumbrels, discharging their contents as though these were so manypaving-stones, added more and more waves to the sea of greenery whichwas now beating against the opposite footways. And from the far end ofthe Rue du Pont Neuf fresh rows of carts were still and ever arriving.

  "What a fine sight it is!" exclaimed Claude in an ecstasy of enthusiasm.

  Florent was suffering keenly. He fancied that all this was somesupernatural temptation, and, unwilling to look at the markets anylonger, turned towards Saint Eustache, a side view of which he obtainedfrom the spot where he now stood. With its roses, and broad archedwindows, its bell-turret, and roofs of slate, it looked as thoughpainted in sepia against the blue of the sky. He fixed his eyes at laston the sombre depths of the Rue Montorgueil, where fragments ofgaudy sign boards showed conspicuously, and on the corner of the RueMontmartre, where there were balconies gleaming with letters of gold.And when he again glanced at the cross-roads, his gaze was solicited byother sign boards, on which such inscriptions as "Druggist and Chemist,""Flour and Grain" appeared in big red and black capital letters uponfaded backgrounds. Near these corners, houses with narrow windows werenow awakening, setting amidst the newness and airiness of the Rue duPont Neuf a few of the yellow ancient facades of olden Paris. Standingat the empty windows of the great drapery shop at the corner of theRue Rambuteau a number of spruce-looking counter-jumpers in their shirtsleeves, with snowy-white wristbands and tight-fitting pantaloons,were "dressing" their goods. Farther away, in the windows of the severelooking, barrack-like Guillot establishment, biscuits in gilt wrappersand fancy cakes on glass stands were tastefully set out. All the shopswere now open; and workmen in white blouses, with tools under theirarms, were hurrying along the road.

  Claude had not yet got down from the bench. He was standing on tiptoe inorder to see the farther down the streets. Suddenly, in the midst of thecrowd which he overlooked, he caught sight of a fair head with long wavylocks, followed by a little black one covered with curly tumbled hair.

  "Hallo, Marjolin! Hallo, Cadine!" he shouted; and then, as his voice wasdrowned by the general uproar, he jumped to the ground and started off.But all at once, recollecting that he had left Florent behind him, hehastily came back. "I live at the end of the Impasse des Bourdonnais,"he said rapidly. "My name's written in chalk on the door, ClaudeLantier. Come and see the etching of the Rue Pirouette."

  Then he vanished. He was quite ignorant of Florent's name, and, afterfavouring him with his views on art, parted from him as he had met him,at the roadside.

  Florent was now alone, and at first this pleased him. Ever since MadameFrancoise had picked him up in the Avenue de Neuilly he had beencoming and going in a state of pain fraught somnolence which had quiteprevented him from forming any definite ideas of his surroundings. Nowat last he was at liberty to do what he liked, and he tried to shakehimself free from that intolerable vision of teeming food by which hewas pursued. But his head still felt empty and dizzy, and all that hecould find within him was a kind of vague fear. The day was now growingquite bright, and he could be distinctly seen. He looked down at hiswretched shabby coat and trousers. He buttoned the first, dusted thelatter, and strove to make a bit of a toilet, fearing lest those blackrags of his should proclaim aloud whence he had come. He was seated inthe middle of the bench, by the side of some wandering vagabonds whohad settled themselves there while waiting for the sunrise. Theneighbourhood of the markets is a favourite spot with vagrants in thesmall hours of the morning. However, two constables, still in nightuniform, with cloaks and _kepis_, paced up and down the footway side byside, their hands resting behind their backs; and every time they passedthe bench they glanced at the game which they scented there. Florentfelt sure that they recognised him, and were consulting together aboutarresting him. At this thought his anguish of mind became extreme. Hefelt a wild desire to get up and run away; but he did not dare to doso, and was quite at a loss as to how he might take himself off. Therepeated glances of the constables, their cold, deliberate scrutinycause
d him the keenest torture. At length he rose from the bench, makinga great effort to restrain himself from rushing off as quickly as hislong legs could carry him; and succeeded in walking quietly away, thoughhis shoulders quivered in the fear he felt of suddenly feeling the roughhands of the constables clutching at his collar from behind.

  He had now only one thought, one desire, which was to get away fromthe markets as quickly as possible. He would wait and make hisinvestigations later on, when the footways should be clear. The threestreets which met here--the Rue Montmartre, Rue Montorgueil, and RueTurbigo--filled him with uneasiness. They were blocked by vehicles ofall kinds, and their footways were crowded with vegetables. Florent wentstraight along as far as the Rue Pierre Lescot, but there the cress andthe potato markets seemed to him insuperable obstacles. So he resolvedto take the Rue Rambuteau. On reaching the Boulevard de Sebastopol,however, he came across such a block of vans and carts and waggonettesthat he turned back and proceeded along the Rue Saint Denis. Then he gotamongst the vegetables once more. Retail dealers had just set up theirstalls, formed of planks resting on tall hampers; and the deluge ofcabbages and carrots and turnips began all over again. The markets wereoverflowing. Florent tried to make his escape from this pursuingflood which ever overtook him in his flight. He tried the Rue de laCossonnerie, the Rue Berger, the Square des Innocents, the Rue dela Ferronnerie, and the Rue des Halles. And at last he came to astandstill, quite discouraged and scared at finding himself unable toescape from the infernal circle of vegetables, which now seemed to dancearound him, twining clinging verdure about his legs.

  The everlasting stream of carts and horses stretched away as far as theRue de Rivoli and the Place de l'Hotel de Ville. Huge vans were carryingaway supplies for all the greengrocers and fruiterers of an entiredistrict; _chars-a-bancs_ were starting for the suburbs with straining,groaning sides. In the Rue de Pont Neuf Florent got completelybewildered. He stumbled upon a crowd of hand-carts, in which numerouscostermongers were arranging their purchases. Amongst them he recognisedLacaille, who went off along the Rue Saint Honore, pushing a barrow ofcarrots and cauliflowers before him. Florent followed him, in the hopethat he would guide him out of the mob. The pavement was now quiteslippery, although the weather was dry, and the litter of artichokestalks, turnip tops, and leaves of all kinds made walking somewhatdangerous. Florent stumbled at almost every step. He lost sight ofLacaille in the Rue Vauvilliers, and on approaching the corn markethe again found the streets barricaded with vehicles. Then he made nofurther attempt to struggle; he was once more in the clutch of themarkets, and their stream of life bore him back. Slowly retracing hissteps, he presently found himself by Saint Eustache again.

  He now heard the loud continuous rumbling of the waggons that weresetting out from the markets. Paris was doling out the daily food of itstwo million inhabitants. These markets were like some huge central organbeating with giant force, and sending the blood of life through everyvein of the city. The uproar was akin to that of colossal jaws--a mightysound to which each phase of the provisioning contributed, from thewhip-cracking of the larger retail dealers as they started off for thedistrict markets to the dragging pit-a-pat of the old shoes worn by thepoor women who hawked their lettuces in baskets from door to door.

  Florent turned into a covered way on the left, intersecting the group offour pavilions whose deep silent gloom he had remarked during the night.He hoped that he might there find a refuge, discover some corner inwhich he could hide himself. But these pavilions were now as busy, aslively as the others. Florent walked on to the end of the street. Drayswere driving up at a quick trot, crowding the market with cages full oflive poultry, and square hampers in which dead birds were stowed in deeplayers. On the other side of the way were other drays from which porterswere removing freshly killed calves, wrapped in canvas, and laid at fulllength in baskets, whence only the four bleeding stumps of their legsprotruded. There were also whole sheep, and sides and quarters of beef.Butchers in long white aprons marked the meat with a stamp, carried itoff, weighted it, and hung it up on hooks in the auction room. Florent,with his face close to the grating, stood gazing at the rows of hangingcarcasses, at the ruddy sheep and oxen and paler calves, all streakedwith yellow fat and sinews, and with bellies yawning open. Then hepassed along the sidewalk where the tripe market was held, amidst thepallid calves' feet and heads, the rolled tripe neatly packed in boxes,the brains delicately set out in flat baskets, the sanguineous livers,and purplish kidneys. He checked his steps in front of some longtwo-wheeled carts, covered with round awnings, and containing sides ofpork hung on each side of the vehicle over a bed of straw. Seen fromthe back end, the interiors of the carts looked like recesses of sometabernacle, like some taper-lighted chapel, such was the glow of all thebare flesh they contained. And on the beds of straw were lines of tincans, full of the blood that had trickled from the pigs. ThereuponFlorent was attacked by a sort of rage. The insipid odour of the meat,the pungent smell of the tripe exasperated him. He made his way out ofthe covered road, preferring to return once more to the footwalk of theRue de Pont Neuf.

  He was enduring perfect agony. The shiver of early morning came uponhim; his teeth chattered, and he was afraid of falling to the ground andfinding himself unable to rise again. He looked about, but could see novacant place on any bench. Had he found one he would have droppedasleep there, even at the risk of being awakened by the police. Then, asgiddiness nearly blinded him, he leaned for support against a tree,with his eyes closed and his ears ringing. The raw carrot, which he hadswallowed almost without chewing, was torturing his stomach, and theglass of punch which he had drunk seemed to have intoxicated him. He wasindeed intoxicated with misery, weariness, and hunger. Again he felt aburning fire in the pit of the stomach, to which he every now and thencarried his hands, as though he were trying to stop up a hole throughwhich all his life was oozing away. As he stood there he fancied thatthe foot-pavement rocked beneath him; and thinking that he might perhapslessen his sufferings by walking, he went straight on through thevegetables again. He lost himself among them. He went along a narrowfootway, turned down another, was forced to retrace his steps, bungledin doing so, and once more found himself amidst piles of greenery. Someheaps were so high that people seemed to be walking between wallsof bundles and bunches. Only their heads slightly overtopped theseramparts, and passed along showing whitely or blackly according to thecolour of their hats or caps; whilst the huge swinging baskets, carriedaloft on a level with the greenery, looked like osier boats floating ona stagnant, mossy lake.

  Florent stumbled against a thousand obstacles--against porters taking uptheir burdens, and saleswomen disputing in rough tones. He slipped overthe thick bed of waste leaves and stumps which covered the footway, andwas almost suffocated by the powerful odour of crushed verdure. At lasthe halted in a sort of confused stupor, and surrendered to the pushingof some and the insults of others; and then he became a mere waif, apiece of wreckage tossed about on the surface of that surging sea.

  He was fast losing all self-respect, and would willingly have begged.The recollection of his foolish pride during the night exasperated him.If he had accepted Madame Francois's charity, if he had not felt suchidiotic fear of Claude, he would not now have been stranded theregroaning in the midst of these cabbages. And he was especially angrywith himself for not having questioned the artist when they were in theRue Pirouette. Now, alas! he was alone and deserted, liable to die inthe streets like a homeless dog.

  For the last time he raised his eyes and looked at the markets. Atpresent they were glittering in the sun. A broad ray was pouring throughthe covered road from the far end, cleaving the massy pavilions with anarcade of light, whilst fiery beams rained down upon the far expanse ofroofs. The huge iron framework grew less distinct, assumed a bluey hue,became nothing but a shadowy silhouette outlined against the flamingflare of the sunrise. But up above a pane of glass took fire, drops oflight trickled down the broad sloping zinc plates to the gutterings; andthen, below, a tumul
tuous city appeared amidst a haze of dancing goldendust. The general awakening had spread, from the first start of themarket gardeners snoring in their cloaks, to the brisk rolling of thefood-laden railway drays. And the whole city was opening its iron gates,the footways were humming, the pavilions roaring with life. Shouts andcries of all kinds rent the air; it was as though the strain, whichFlorent had heard gathering force in the gloom ever since four in themorning, had now attained its fullest volume. To the right and left, onall sides indeed, the sharp cries accompanying the auction sales soundedshrilly like flutes amidst the sonorous bass roar of the crowd. It wasthe fish, the butter, the poultry, and the meat being sold.

  The pealing of bells passed through the air, imparting a quiver to thebuzzing of the opening markets. Around Florent the sun was setting thevegetables aflame. He no longer perceived any of those soft water-colourtints which had predominated in the pale light of early morning. Theswelling hearts of the lettuces were now gleaming brightly, the scalesof greenery showed forth with wondrous vigour, the carrots glowedblood-red, the turnips shone as if incandescent in the triumphantradiance of the sun.

  On Florent's left some waggons were discharging fresh loads of cabbages.He turned his eyes, and away in the distance saw carts yet streaming outof the Rue Turbigo. The tide was still and ever rising. He had feltit about his ankles, then on a level with his stomach, and now it wasthreatening to drown him altogether. Blinded and submerged, his earsbuzzing, his stomach overpowered by all that he had seen, he asked formercy; and wild grief took possession of him at the thought of dyingthere of starvation in the very heart of glutted Paris, amidst theeffulgent awakening of her markets. Big hot tears started from his eyes.

  Walking on, he had now reached one of the larger alleys. Two women, oneshort and old, the other tall and withered, passed him, talking togetheras they made their way towards the pavilions.

  "So you've come to do your marketing, Mademoiselle Saget?" said the tallwithered woman.

  "Well, yes, Madame Lecoeur, if you can give it such a name as marketing.I'm a lone woman, you know, and live on next to nothing. I should haveliked a small cauliflower, but everything is so dear. How is butterselling to-day?"

  "At thirty-four sous. I have some which is first rate. Will you come andlook at it?"

  "Well, I don't know if I shall want any to-day; I've still a little lardleft."

  Making a supreme effort, Florent followed these two women. Herecollected having heard Claude name the old one--MademoiselleSaget--when they were in the Rue Pirouette; and he made up his mindto question her when she should have parted from her tall witheredacquaintance.

  "And how's your niece?" Mademoiselle Saget now asked.

  "Oh, La Sarriette does as she likes," Madame Lecoeur replied in a bittertone. "She's chosen to set up for herself and her affairs no longerconcern me. When her lovers have beggared her, she needn't come to mefor any bread."

  "And you were so good to her, too! She ought to do well this year; fruitis yielding big profits. And your brother-in-law, how is he?"

  "Oh, he----"

  Madame Lecoeur bit her lips, and seemed disinclined to say anythingmore.

  "Still the same as ever, I suppose?" continued Mademoiselle Saget. "He'sa very worthy man. Still, I once heard it said that he spent his moneyin such a way that--"

  "But does anyone know how he spends his money?" interrupted MadameLecoeur, with much asperity. "He's a miserly niggard, a scurvy fellow,that's what I say! Do you know, mademoiselle, he'd see me die ofstarvation rather than lend me five francs! He knows quite well thatthere's nothing to be made out of butter this season, any more thanout of cheese and eggs; whereas he can sell as much poultry as ever hechooses. But not once, I assure you, not once has he offered to help me.I am too proud, as you know, to accept any assistance from him; still itwould have pleased me to have had it offered."

  "Ah, by the way, there he is, your brother-in-law!" suddenly exclaimedMademoiselle Saget, lowering her voice.

  The two women turned and gazed at a man who was crossing the road toenter the covered way close by.

  "I'm in a hurry," murmured Madame Lecoeur. "I left my stall withoutanyone to look after it; and, besides, I don't want to speak to him."

  However, Florent also had mechanically turned round and glanced at theindividual referred to. This was a short, squarely-built man, with acheery look and grey, close-cut brush-like hair. Under each arm he wascarrying a fat goose, whose head hung down and flapped against his legs.And then all at once Florent made a gesture of delight. Forgetting hisfatigue, he ran after the man, and, overtaking him, tapped him on theshoulder.

  "Gavard!" he exclaimed.

  The other raised his head and stared with surprise at Florent's tallblack figure, which he did not at first recognise. Then all at once:"What! is it you?" he cried, as if overcome with amazement. "Is itreally you?"

  He all but let his geese fall, and seemed unable to master his surprise.On catching sight, however, of his sister-in-law and Mademoiselle Saget,who were watching the meeting at a distance, he began to walk on again.

  "Come along; don't let us stop here," he said. "There are too many eyesand tongues about."

  When they were in the covered way they began to chat. Florent relatedhow he had gone to the Rue Pirouette, at which Gavard seemed much amusedand laughed heartily. Then he told Florent that his brother Quenu hadmoved from that street and had reopened his pork shop close by, in theRue Rambuteau, just in front of the markets. And afterwards he was againhighly amused to hear that Florent had been wandering about all thatmorning with Claude Lantier, an odd kind of fish, who, strangely enough,said he, was Madame Quenu's nephew. Thus chatting, Gavard was on thepoint of taking Florent straight to the pork shop, but, on hearing thathe had returned to France with false papers, he suddenly assumed allsorts of solemn and mysterious airs, and insisted upon walking somefifteen paces in front of him, to avoid attracting attention. Afterpassing through the poultry pavilion, where he hung his geese up in hisstall, he began to cross the Rue Rambuteau, still followed by Florent;and then, halting in the middle of the road, he glanced significantlytowards a large and well-appointed pork shop.

  The sun was obliquely enfilading the Rue Rambuteau, lighting up thefronts of the houses, in the midst of which the Rue Pirouette formed adark gap. At the other end the great pile of Saint Eustache glitteredbrightly in the sunlight like some huge reliquary. And right throughthe crowd, from the distant crossway, an army of street-sweepers wasadvancing in file down the road, the brooms swishing rhythmically,while scavengers provided with forks pitched the collected refuse intotumbrels, which at intervals of a score of paces halted with a noiselike the chattering of broken pots. However, all Florent's attention wasconcentrated on the pork shop, open and radiant in the rising sun.

  It stood very near the corner of the Rue Pirouette and provided quitea feast for the eyes. Its aspect was bright and smiling, touches ofbrilliant colour showing conspicuously amidst all the snowy marble. Thesign board, on which the name of QUENU-GRADELLE glittered in fatgilt letters encircled by leaves and branches painted on a soft-huedbackground, was protected by a sheet of glass. On two panels, one oneach side of the shop-front, and both, like the board above, coveredwith glass, were paintings representing various chubby little cupidsplaying amidst boars' heads, pork chops and strings of sausages; andthese latter still-life subjects, embellished with scrolls and bows,had been painted in such soft tones that the uncooked pork which theyrepresented had the pinkiness of raspberry jam. Within this pleasingframework arose the window display, arranged upon a bed of fineblue-paper shavings. Here and there fern-leaves, tastefully disposed,changed the plates which they encircled into bouquets fringed withfoliage. There was a wealth of rich, luscious, melting things. Downbelow, quite close to the window, jars of preserved sausage-meat wereinterspersed with pots of mustard. Above these were some small, plump,boned hams. Golden with their dressings of toasted bread-crumbs, andadorned at the knuckles with green rosettes. Next came the larg
erdishes, some containing preserved Strasburg tongues, enclosed inbladders coloured a bright red and varnished, so that they looked quitesanguineous beside the pale sausages and trotters; then there wereblack-puddings coiled like harmless snakes, healthy looking chitterlingspiled up two by two; Lyons sausages in little silver copes that madethem look like choristers; hot pies, with little banner-like ticketsstuck in them; big hams, and great glazed joints of veal and pork, whosejelly was as limpid as sugar-candy. In the rear were other dishes andearthen pans in which meat, minced and sliced, slumbered beneath lakesof melted fat. And betwixt the various plates and dishes, jars andbottle of sauce, cullis, stock and preserved truffles, pans of _foiegras_ and boxes of sardines and tunny-fish were strewn over the bed ofpaper shavings. A box of creamy cheeses, and one of edible snails, theapertures of whose shells were dressed with butter and parsley, had beenplaced carelessly at either corner. Finally, from a bar overhead stringsof sausages and saveloys of various sizes hung down symmetrically likecords and tassels; while in the rear fragments of intestinal membranesshowed like lacework, like some _guipure_ of white flesh. And on thehighest tier in this sanctuary of gluttony, amidst the membranes andbetween two bouquets of purple gladioli, the window stand was crownedby a small square aquarium, ornamented with rock-work, and containing acouple of gold-fish, which were continually swimming round it.

  Florent's whole body thrilled at the sight. Then he perceived a womanstanding in the sunlight at the door of the shop. With her prosperous,happy look in the midst of all those inviting things she added to thecherry aspect of the place. She was a fine woman and quite blocked thedoorway. Still, she was not over stout, but simply buxom, with the fullripeness of her thirty years. She had only just risen, yet her glossyhair was already brushed smooth and arranged in little flat bands overher temples, giving her an appearance of extreme neatness. She had thefine skin, the pinky-white complexion common to those whose life isspent in an atmosphere of raw meat and fat. There was a touch of gravityabout her demeanour, her movements were calm and slow; what mirth orpleasure she felt she expressed by her eyes, her lips retaining alltheir seriousness. A collar of starched linen encircled her neck, whitesleevelets reached to her elbows, and a white apron fell even over thetips of her shoes, so that you saw but little of her black cashmeredress, which clung tightly to her well-rounded shoulders and swellingbosom. The sun rays poured hotly upon all the whiteness she displayed.However, although her bluish-black hair, her rosy face, and brightsleeves and apron were steeped in the glow of light, she never onceblinked, but enjoyed her morning bath of sunshine with blissfultranquillity, her soft eyes smiling the while at the flow and riot ofthe markets. She had the appearance of a very worthy woman.

  "That is your brother's wife, your sister-in-law, Lisa," Gavard said toFlorent.

  He had saluted her with a slight inclination of the head. Then he dartedalong the house passage, continuing to take the most minute precautions,and unwilling to let Florent enter the premises through the shop, thoughthere was no one there. It was evident that he felt great pleasure indabbling in what he considered to be a compromising business.

  "Wait here," he said, "while I go to see whether your brother is alone.You can come in when I clap my hands."

  Thereupon he opened a door at the end of the passage. But as soon asFlorent heard his brother's voice behind it, he sprang inside at abound. Quenu, who was much attached to him, threw his arms round hisneck, and they kissed each other like children.

  "Ah! dash it all! Is it really you, my dear fellow?" stammered the porkbutcher. "I never expected to see you again. I felt sure you were dead!Why, only yesterday I was saying to Lisa, 'That poor fellow, Florent!'"

  However, he stopped short, and popping his head into the shop, calledout, "Lisa! Lisa!" Then turning towards a little girl who had crept intoa corner, he added, "Pauline, go and find your mother."

  The little one did not stir, however. She was an extremely finechild, five years of age, with a plump chubby face, bearing a strongresemblance to that of the pork butcher's wife. In her arms she washolding a huge yellow cat, which had cheerfully surrendered itself toher embrace, with its legs dangling downwards; and she now squeezedit tightly with her little arms, as if she were afraid that yondershabby-looking gentleman might rob her of it.

  Lisa, however, leisurely made her appearance.

  "Here is my brother Florent!" exclaimed Quenu.

  Lisa addressed him as "Monsieur," and gave him a kindly welcome. Shescanned him quietly from head to foot, without evincing any disagreeablesurprise. Merely a faint pout appeared for a moment on her lips. Then,standing by, she began to smile at her husband's demonstrations ofaffection. Quenu, however, at last recovered his calmness, and noticingFlorent's fleshless, poverty-stricken appearance, exclaimed: "Ah, mypoor fellow, you haven't improved in your looks since you were overyonder. For my part, I've grown fat; but what would you have!"

  He had indeed grown fat, too fat for his thirty years. He seemed to bebursting through his shirt and apron, through all the snowy-white linenin which he was swathed like a huge doll. With advancing years hisclean-shaven face had become elongated, assuming a faint resemblance tothe snout of one of those pigs amidst whose flesh his hands worked andlived the whole day through. Florent scarcely recognised him. He had nowseated himself, and his glance turned from his brother to handsome Lisaand little Pauline. They were all brimful of health, squarely built,sleek, in prime condition; and in their turn they looked at Florent withthe uneasy astonishment which corpulent people feel at the sight of ascraggy person. The very cat, whose skin was distended by fat, dilatedits yellow eyes and scrutinised him with an air of distrust.

  "You'll wait till we have breakfast, won't you?" asked Quenu. "We haveit early, at ten o'clock."

  A penetrating odour of cookery pervaded the place; and Florent lookedback upon the terrible night which he had just spent, his arrivalamongst the vegetables, his agony in the midst of the markets, theendless avalanches of food from which he had just escaped. And then in alow tone and with a gentle smile he responded:

  "No; I'm really very hungry, you see."