he heavy thud of loads of vegetables discharged from the
waggons, and the grating of wheels as the carts were backed against the
footways, filled the yet sonorous awakening, whose near approach could
be felt and heard in the throbbing gloom. Glancing over the pile of
cabbages behind him. Florent caught sight of a man wrapped like a parcel
in his cloak, and snoring away with his head upon some baskets of plums.
Nearer to him, on his left, he could distinguish a lad, some ten years
old, slumbering between two heaps of endive, with an angelic smile on
his face. And as yet there seemed to be nothing on that pavement that
was really awake except the lanterns waving from invisible arms, and
flitting and skipping over the sleep of the vegetables and human beings
spread out there in heaps pending the dawn. However, what surprised
Florent was the sight of some huge pavilions on either side of the
street, pavilions with lofty roofs that seemed to expand and soar out of
sight amidst a swarm of gleams. In his weakened state of mind he fancied
he beheld a series of enormous, symmetrically built palaces, light and
airy as crystal, whose fronts sparkled with countless streaks of light
filtering through endless Venetian shutters. Gleaming between the
slender pillar shafts these narrow golden bars seemed like ladders of
light mounting to the gloomy line of the lower roofs, and then soaring
aloft till they reached the jumble of higher ones, thus describing the
open framework of immense square halls, where in the yellow flare of the
gas lights a multitude of vague, grey, slumbering things was gathered
together.

At last Florent turned his head to look about him, distressed at not
knowing where he was, and filled with vague uneasiness by the sight of
that huge and seemingly fragile vision. And now, as he raised his eyes,
he caught sight of the luminous dial and the grey massive pile of Saint
Eustache's Church. At this he was much astonished. He was close to Saint
Eustache, yet all was novel to him.

However, Madame Francois had come back again, and was engaged in a
heated discussion with a man who carried a sack over his shoulder and
offered to buy her carrots for a sou a bunch.

"Really, now, you are unreasonable, Lacaille!" said she. "You know quite
well that you will sell them again to the Parisians at four and five
sous the bunch. Don't tell me that you won't! You may have them for two
sous the bunch, if you like."

Then, as the ma