casks ranged along the wall, or a
few pieces of cloth upon the shelves. Enter. A neat girl, glowing
with youth, wearing a white kerchief, her arms red and bare, drops her
knitting and calls her father or her mother, one of whom comes forward
and sells you what you want, phlegmatically, civilly, or arrogantly,
according to his or her individual character, whether it be a matter of
two sous' or twenty thousand francs' worth of merchandise. You may see a
cooper, for instance, sitting in his doorway and twirling his thumbs as
he talks with a neighbor. To all appearance he owns nothing more than a
few miserable boat-ribs and two or three bundles of laths; but below
in the port his teeming wood-yard supplies all the cooperage trade of
Anjou. He knows to a plank how many casks are needed if the vintage is
good. A hot season makes him rich, a rainy season ruins him; in a single
morning puncheons worth eleven francs have been known to drop to six.
In this country, as in Touraine, atmospheric vicissitudes control
commercial life. Wine-growers, proprietors, wood-merchants, coopers,
inn-keepers, mariners, all keep watch of the sun. They tremble when they
go to bed lest they should hear in the morning of a frost in the night;
they dread rain, wind, drought, and want water, heat, and clouds to
suit their fancy. A perpetual duel goes on between the heavens and their
terrestrial interests. The barometer smooths, saddens, or makes merry
their countenances, turn and turn about. From end to end of this street,
formerly the Grand'Rue de Saumur, the words: "Here's golden weather,"
are passed from door to door; or each man calls to his neighbor: "It
rains louis," knowing well what a sunbeam or the opportune rainfall is
bringing him.

On Saturdays after midday, in the fine season, not one sou's worth
of merchandise can be bought from these worthy traders. Each has
his vineyard, his enclosure of fields, and all spend two days in the
country. This being foreseen, and purchases, sales, and profits provided
for, the merchants have ten or twelve hours to spend in parties of
pleasure, in making observations, in criticisms, and in continual
spying. A housewife cannot buy a partridge without the neighbors asking
the husband if it were cooked to a turn. A young girl never puts her
head near a window that she is not seen by idling groups in the street.
Consciences are held in the light; and the houses, dark, silent,
impenetrable as they seem, hide no