sidewalk, where the horses stood motionless in a line as though at a horse fair.
Florent examined a cart filled with magnificent cabbages. It had been backed up to the sidewalk with great care and effort, and its leafy pile rose above a gas lamp whose light fell on the large leaves, making them look like crimped pieces of green velvet. A young farm girl of about sixteen, wearing a blue linen coat and cap, climbed up on the cart and was up to her shoulders in cabbages. She began tossing them one by one to someone hidden in shadow below. Every now and then the girl would slip and disappear in a cabbage avalanche. Then her pink nose would be seen sticking out of the green and she would be heard laughing as the cabbages were tossed between Florent and the gaslight. He counted them automatically until the cart was empty, which left him feeling somehow disappointed.
The piles of vegetables were now spilling into the road, with narrow paths between them so that people could pass. The sidewalk was covered end to end with the dark vegetable mounds. But in the flicker of lantern light, you could barely make out the lush fullness of a bouquet of artichokes, the delicate green of the lettuce, the flush coral of carrots, the soft ivory finish of turnips. Flashes of the bright colors skipped across the mounds with the flickering of the light.
A crowd had awakened, and people were starting to fill up the sidewalk, scrambling among the vegetables, sometimes stopping, at times chattering, occasionally shouting. A loud voice could be heard in the distance screaming, “Chicory!”
The gates of the vegetable pavilion had just been opened, and the retailers who had stalls there, white caps on their heads, shawls knotted over their black coats, and skirts pinned up to protect them from getting dirty, began gathering their day's provisions in roomy baskets that stood on the floor. These baskets were seen darting in and out between the road and the pavilion, bumping into the heads of bystanders in the thick crowds, the bystanders expressing their displeasure with coarse complaints that were lost in the growing clamor of increasingly hoarse voices.
They could spend a quarter of an hour fighting over one sou. Florent was surprised at the calm of the marketers with their plaid clothing and tanned faces in the middle of the long-winded haggling of the market.
Behind him on the sidewalk of the rue Rambuteau, fruit was being sold. Hampers and smaller baskets were lined up, covered with canvas or straw giving off a strong odor of overripe mirabelle plums. After listening for some time to a soft, slow voice, Florent had to turn his head and look. He saw a charming woman, small and dark, sitting on the ground and bargaining.
“Oh, come on, Marcel,” she said. “You can take a hundred sous, won't you?” She was speaking to a man who kept his coat closely wrapped around him and did not answer. After about five very long minutes the woman went back on the attack. “Come on, Marcel, one hundred sous for that basket there and four francs for the other one. That'll make nine francs I owe you.”
More silence.
“All right, what's your price?”
“Ten francs, as you well know because I already told you. And what have you done with your Jules this morning, La Sarriette?” The young woman started laughing as she grabbed a fistful of small change from her pocket.
“Oh,” she said, “Jules is having his beauty rest this morning. He claims that men are not made for work.”
She paid for the two baskets and carried them into the newly opened fruit pavilion. Les Halles was still wrapped in artfully lit dankness, with thousands of stripes from jalousies beneath theawnings of the long covered street already heavily trafficked with pedestrians, while the distant pavilions were still deserted. At the pointe Saint-Eustache the bakers and wine merchants were busy taking down their shutters; their red shops, gaslights aglow, were brilliant against the
Florent examined a cart filled with magnificent cabbages. It had been backed up to the sidewalk with great care and effort, and its leafy pile rose above a gas lamp whose light fell on the large leaves, making them look like crimped pieces of green velvet. A young farm girl of about sixteen, wearing a blue linen coat and cap, climbed up on the cart and was up to her shoulders in cabbages. She began tossing them one by one to someone hidden in shadow below. Every now and then the girl would slip and disappear in a cabbage avalanche. Then her pink nose would be seen sticking out of the green and she would be heard laughing as the cabbages were tossed between Florent and the gaslight. He counted them automatically until the cart was empty, which left him feeling somehow disappointed.
The piles of vegetables were now spilling into the road, with narrow paths between them so that people could pass. The sidewalk was covered end to end with the dark vegetable mounds. But in the flicker of lantern light, you could barely make out the lush fullness of a bouquet of artichokes, the delicate green of the lettuce, the flush coral of carrots, the soft ivory finish of turnips. Flashes of the bright colors skipped across the mounds with the flickering of the light.
A crowd had awakened, and people were starting to fill up the sidewalk, scrambling among the vegetables, sometimes stopping, at times chattering, occasionally shouting. A loud voice could be heard in the distance screaming, “Chicory!”
The gates of the vegetable pavilion had just been opened, and the retailers who had stalls there, white caps on their heads, shawls knotted over their black coats, and skirts pinned up to protect them from getting dirty, began gathering their day's provisions in roomy baskets that stood on the floor. These baskets were seen darting in and out between the road and the pavilion, bumping into the heads of bystanders in the thick crowds, the bystanders expressing their displeasure with coarse complaints that were lost in the growing clamor of increasingly hoarse voices.
They could spend a quarter of an hour fighting over one sou. Florent was surprised at the calm of the marketers with their plaid clothing and tanned faces in the middle of the long-winded haggling of the market.
Behind him on the sidewalk of the rue Rambuteau, fruit was being sold. Hampers and smaller baskets were lined up, covered with canvas or straw giving off a strong odor of overripe mirabelle plums. After listening for some time to a soft, slow voice, Florent had to turn his head and look. He saw a charming woman, small and dark, sitting on the ground and bargaining.
“Oh, come on, Marcel,” she said. “You can take a hundred sous, won't you?” She was speaking to a man who kept his coat closely wrapped around him and did not answer. After about five very long minutes the woman went back on the attack. “Come on, Marcel, one hundred sous for that basket there and four francs for the other one. That'll make nine francs I owe you.”
More silence.
“All right, what's your price?”
“Ten francs, as you well know because I already told you. And what have you done with your Jules this morning, La Sarriette?” The young woman started laughing as she grabbed a fistful of small change from her pocket.
“Oh,” she said, “Jules is having his beauty rest this morning. He claims that men are not made for work.”
She paid for the two baskets and carried them into the newly opened fruit pavilion. Les Halles was still wrapped in artfully lit dankness, with thousands of stripes from jalousies beneath theawnings of the long covered street already heavily trafficked with pedestrians, while the distant pavilions were still deserted. At the pointe Saint-Eustache the bakers and wine merchants were busy taking down their shutters; their red shops, gaslights aglow, were brilliant against the
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