watches, with the backs of their cases displayed, sparkled like fallen stars; wedding rings clustered round slender rods; bracelets, broaches, and other costly ornaments glittered on the black velvet linings of their cases; jewelled rings set their stands aglow with blue, green, yellow, and violet flamelets; while on every tier of the shelves superposed rows of earrings and crosses and lockets hung against the crystal like the rich fringes of altar-cloths. The glow of this gold illumined the street half way across with a sunlike radiance. And Cadine, as she gazed at it, almost fancied that she was in presence of something holy, or on the threshold of the Emperor’s treasure chamber. She would for a long time scrutinise all this show of gaudy jewellery, adapted to the taste of the fishwives, and carefully read the large figures on the tickets affixed to each article; and eventually she would select for herself a pair of earrings — pear-shaped drops of imitation coral hanging from golden roses.
One morning Claude caught her standing in ecstasy before a hairdresser’s window in the Rue Saint Honore. She was gazing at the display of hair with an expression of intense envy. High up in the window was a streaming cascade of long manes, soft wisps, loose tresses, frizzy falls, undulating comb-curls, a perfect cataract of silky and bristling hair, real and artificial, now in coils of a flaming red, now in thick black crops, now in pale golden locks, and even in snowy white ones for the coquette of sixty. In cardboard boxes down below were cleverly arranged fringes, curling side-ringlets, and carefully combed chignons glossy with pomade. And amidst this framework, in a sort of shrine beneath the ravelled ends of the hanging locks, there revolved the bust of a woman, arrayed in a wrapper of cherry-coloured satin fastened between the breasts with a brass brooch. The figure wore a lofty bridal coiffure picked out with sprigs of orange blossom, and smiled with a dollish smile. Its eyes were pale blue; its eyebrows were very stiff and of exaggerated length; and its waxen cheeks and shoulders bore evident traces of the heat and smoke of the gas. Cadine waited till the revolving figure again displayed its smiling face, and as its profile showed more distinctly and it slowly went round from left to right she felt perfectly happy. Claude, however, was indignant, and, shaking Cadine, he asked her what she was doing in front of “that abomination, that corpselike hussy picked up at the Morgue!” He flew into a temper with the “dummy’s” cadaverous face and shoulders, that disfigurement of the beautiful, and remarked that artists painted nothing but that unreal type of woman nowadays. Cadine, however, remained unconvinced by his oratory, and considered the lady extremely beautiful. Then, resisting the attempts of the artist to drag her away by the arm, and scratching her black mop in vexation, she pointed to an enormous ruddy tail, severed from the quarters of some vigorous mare, and told him she would have liked to have a crop of hair like that.
During the long rambles when Claude, Cadine, and Marjolin prowled about the neighbourhood of the markets, they saw the iron ribs of the giant building at the end of every street. Wherever they turned they caught sudden glimpses of it; the horizon was always bounded by it; merely the aspect under which it was seen varied. Claude was perpetually turning round, and particularly in the Rue Montmartre, after passing the church. From that point the markets, seen obliquely in the distance, filled him with enthusiasm. A huge arcade, a giant, gaping gateway, was open before him; then came the crowding pavilions with their lower and upper roofs, their countless Venetian shutters and endless blinds, a vision, as it were, of superposed houses and palaces; a Babylon of metal of Hindoo delicacy of workmanship, intersected by hanging terraces, aerial galleries, and flying bridges poised over space. The trio always returned to this city round which they strolled, unable to stray more than a hundred yards away. They came back to it during the hot afternoons when the Venetian shutters were closed and the blinds lowered. In the covered ways all seemed to be asleep, the ashy greyness was streaked by yellow bars of sunlight falling through the high windows. Only a subdued murmur broke the silence; the steps of a few hurrying passersby resounded on the footways; whilst the badge-wearing porters sat in rows on the stone ledges at the corners of the pavilions, taking off their boots and nursing their aching feet. The quietude was that of a colossus at rest, interrupted at times by some cockcrow rising from the cellars below.
Claude, Cadine, and Marjolin then often went to see the empty hampers piled upon the drays, which came to fetch them every afternoon so that they might be sent back to the consignors. There were mountains of them, labelled with black letters and figures, in front of the salesmen’s warehouses in the Rue Berger. The porters arranged them symmetrically, tier by tier, on the vehicles. When the pile rose, however, to the height of a first floor, the porter who stood below balancing the next batch of hampers had to make a spring in order to toss them up to his mate, who was perched aloft with arms extended. Claude, who delighted in feats of strength and dexterity, would stand for hours watching the flight of these masses of osier, and would burst into a hearty laugh whenever too vigorous a toss sent them flying over the pile into the roadway beyond. He was fond, too, of the footways of the Rue Rambuteau and the Rue du Pont Neuf, near the fruit market, where the retail dealers congregated. The sight of the vegetables displayed in the open air, on trestle-tables covered with damp black rags, was full of charm for him. At four in the afternoon the whole of this nook of greenery was aglow with sunshine; and Claude wandered between the stalls, inspecting the bright-coloured heads of the saleswomen with keen artistic relish. The younger ones, with their hair in nets, had already lost all freshness of complexion through the rough life they led; while the older ones were bent and shrivelled, with wrinkled, flaring faces showing under the yellow kerchiefs bound round their heads. Cadine and Marjolin refused to accompany him hither, as they could perceive old Mother Chantemesse shaking her fist at them, in her anger at seeing them prowling about together. He joined them again, however, on the opposite footway, where he found a splendid subject for a picture in the stallkeepers squatting under their huge umbrellas of faded red, blue, and violet, which, mounted upon poles, filled the whole market-side with bumps, and showed conspicuously against the fiery glow of the sinking sun, whose rays faded amidst the carrots and the turnips. One tattered harridan, a century old, was sheltering three spare-looking lettuces beneath an umbrella of pink silk, shockingly split and stained.
Cadine and Marjolin had struck up an acquaintance with Leon, Quenu’s apprentice, one day when he was taking a pie to a house in the neighbourhood. They saw him cautiously raise the lid of his pan in a secluded corner of the Rue de Mondetour, and delicately take out a ball of forcemeat. They smiled at the sight, which gave them a very high opinion of Leon. And the idea came to Cadine that she might at last satisfy one of her most ardent longings. Indeed, the very next time that she met the lad with his basket she made herself very agreeable, and induced him to offer her a forcemeat ball. But, although she laughed and licked her fingers, she experienced some disappointment. The forcemeat did not prove nearly so nice as she had anticipated. On the other hand, the lad, with his sly, greedy phiz and his white garments, which made him look like a girl going to her first communion, somewhat took her fancy.
She invited him to a monster lunch which she gave amongst the hampers in the auction room at the butter market. The three of them — herself, Marjolin, and Leon — completely secluded themselves from the world within four walls of osier. The feast was laid out on a large flat basket. There were pears, nuts, cream-cheese, shrimps, fried potatoes, and radishes. The cheese came from a fruiterer’s in the Rue de la Cossonnerie, and was a present; and a “frier” of the Rue de la Grande Truanderie had given Cadine credit for two sous’ worth of potatoes. The rest of the feast, the pears, the nuts, the shrimps, and the radishes, had been pilfered from different parts of the market. It was a delicious treat; and Leon, desirous of returning the hospitality, gave a supper in his bedroom at one o’clock in the morning. The bill of fare included cold black-pudding, slices of polony, a piece of salt pork, some gherkins, and some goose-fat. The Quenu-Gradelles’ shop had provided everything. And matters did not stop there. Dainty suppers alternated with delicate luncheons, and invitation upon invitation. Three times a week there were banquets, either amidst the hampers or in Leon’s garret, where Florent, on the nights when he lay awake, could hear a stifled sound of munching and rippling laughter until day began to break.
The loves of Cadine and Marjolin now took another turn. The youth played the gallant, and just as another might entertain his innamorata at a champagne supper en tete a tete in a private room, he led Cadine into some quiet corner of the market cellars to munch apples or sprigs of celery. One day he stole a red-herring, which they devoured with immense enjoyment on the roof of the fish market beside