glistening ruddy brown of a hamper
of onions, the blood-red crimson of a heap of tomatoes, the quiet yellow
of a display of marrows, and the sombre violet of the fruit of the
eggplant; while numerous fat black radishes still left patches of gloom
amidst 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 maintained
that they were not yet dead, but, gathered in the previous evening,
waited for the morning sun to bid him good-bye from the flag-stones
of the market. He could observe their vitality, he declared, see their
leaves stir and open as though their roots were yet firmly and warmly
embedded in well-manured soil. And here, in the markets, he added, he
heard the death-rattle of all the kitchen gardens of the environs of
Paris.

A crowd of white caps, loose black jackets, and blue blouses was
swarming in the narrow paths between the various piles. The big baskets
of the market porters passed along slowly, above the heads of the
throng. Retail dealers, costermongers, and greengrocers were making
their purchases in haste. Corporals and nuns clustered round the
mountains of cabbages, and college cooks prowled about inquisitively, on
the look-out for good bargains. The unloading was still going on;
heavy tumbrels, discharging their contents as though these were so many
paving-stones, added more and more waves to the sea of greenery which
was now beating against the opposite footways. And from the far end of
the 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 some
supernatural temptation, and, unwilling to look at the markets any
longer, turned towards Saint Eustache, a side view of which he obtained
from the spot where he now stood. With its roses, and broad arched
windows, its bell-turret, and roofs of slate, it looked as though
painted in sepia against the blue of the sky. He fixed his eyes at last
on the sombre depths of the Rue Montorgueil, where fragments of
gaudy sign boards showed conspicuously, and on the corner of the Rue
Montmartre, where there were balconies gleaming with letters of gold.
And when he again glanced at the cross-roads, his gaze was solicited by
other sign boards, on which such inscriptions as "Druggist and Chemist,"
"Flour