The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola [22]
“So what are you drinking?” Claude asked Florent again.
Florent stared at the counter, feeling embarrassed. At the end were brass-ringed pots of punch and mulled wine, simmering over a gas burner's short blue-and-pink jets of flame. Finally, he admitted that he would love to have a hot drink. Monsieur Lebigre served them three glasses of punch. Near the pots was a basket of little butter rolls that had just been brought in and were still steaming. But the others didn't take any, so Florent just drank his glass of punch. He felt it falling into his stomach like a drizzle of molten lead.
Alexandre paid.
“He's a good guy, Alexandre,” said Claude after the two of them were back on the rue Rambuteau. “He's a lot of fun when we go to the country. He does amazing feats of strength. What a build, the oaf. I've seen him stripped. If he would only pose for me nude in the open air … Now, if you'd like, we could do a little tour through the market.”
Florent followed passively. The glow of light at the end of rue Rambuteau announced daybreak. The great voice of Les Halles grumbled in the distance; the occasional peal of bells7 from some far-off pavilion competed with the rising bedlam. Claude and Florent turned into one of the covered streets between the fish and poultry pavilions. Florent looked up into the vaulted roof overhead, at the glistening wooden beams in between the black iron struts. As they turned onto the main thoroughfare, he imagined being in some unknown town with its various neighborhoods and suburbs, its boulevards and roads, plazas and intersections, all suddenly sheltered from a rainy day by a huge roof dropped into place as though by the whimsy of some giant.
The shadows that lingered in the crevices of the roof multiplied the forest of pillars and expanded the delicate ribbing, the fretwork balconies, the slatted windows. And there, high above the town, nestled in the shadows, was an immense metal jungle, with stems and vines and tangled branches covering this little world that resembled the foliage of an age-old forest.
Some sections of the market were still sleeping behind iron gates. The butter and poultry stands had long rows of trellised stalls that the gas lighting showed to be deserted. The fish pavilion was opening, and women were scurrying among the white stone slabs, which were littered with baskets and forgotten rags. The noise and activity were slowly picking up over at the vegetables, the fruit, and the flowers. Little by little morning was coming, from the working-class neighborhood, where the cabbage was piled at four in the morning, to the lazy, privileged zone, which began hanging its chickens and pheasants at eight.
The main covered passageways teemed with life. All along the sidewalks there were many produce sellers, including small-scale gardeners from the outskirts of Paris showing their little harvests of vegetable bunches and fruit bundles from the previous night. In the midst of the crowd's incessant comings and goings, carts pulled in under the vaulted roof, the clop of the horses' hooves slowing down. Two of the wagons blocked the intersection, and in order to get around them Florent had to press against some shabby bundles that looked like coal sacks and were so heavy that they bowed the axle of the wagon carrying them. They were damp and gave off a scent of seaweed, and huge black mussels were spilling out of the split end of one sack.
At every step they took, Claude and Florent were forced to stop for something. The seafood was arriving, and, one after another, railroad carts pulled up with tall wooden cages loaded with the bins and hampers that had been shipped by train from the coast. Trying to get out of the way of the fish carts, which were coming with increasing urgency, Claude and Florent practically dived under the wheels of the wagons filled with butter, eggs, and cheese, huge yellow chariots drawn by four-horse teams and decorated with colored lanterns. Workers were bringing down cases of eggs and baskets of cheeses and butter, which they carried into the auction room,