Lebigre thereupon served them with three glasses of
punch. In a basket near the pots were some smoking hot rolls which had
only just arrived. However, as neither of the others took one, Florent
likewise refrained, and drank his punch. He felt it slipping down into
his empty stomach, like a steam of molten lead. It was Alexandre who
paid for the "shout."

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

Florent followed, yielding entirely to his new friend's guidance. A
bright glow at the far end of the Rue Rambuteau announced the break of
day. The far-spreading voice of the markets was become more sonorous,
and every now and then the peals of a bell ringing in some distant
pavilion mingled with the swelling, rising clamour. Claude and Florent
entered one of the covered streets between the fish and poultry
pavilions. Florent raised his eyes and looked at the lofty vault
overhead, the inner timbers of which glistened amidst a black lacework
of iron supports. As he turned into the great central thoroughfare he
pictured himself in some strange town, with its various districts and
suburbs, promenades and streets, squares and cross-roads, all suddenly
placed 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 it
were, the forest of pillars, and infinitely increased the number of the
delicate ribs, railed galleries, and transparent shutters. And over
the phantom city and far away into the depths of the shade, a teeming,
flowering vegetation of luxuriant metal-work, with spindle-shaped stems
and twining knotted branches, covered the vast expanse as with the
foliage of some ancient forest. Several departments of the markets
still slumbered behind their closed iron gates. The butter and poultry
pavilions 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 fro
amongst the white slabs littered with shadowy hampers and cloths. Among
the