es, onions, leeks, and celery, planted by line in long straight
rows, looked like soldiers on parade; while the peas and beans were
beginning to twine their slender tendrils round a forest of sticks,
which, when June came, they would transform into a thick and verdant
wood. There was not a weed to be seen. The garden resembled two parallel
strips of carpet of a geometrical pattern of green on a reddish ground,
which were carefully swept every morning. Borders of thyme grew like
greyish fringe along each side of the pathway.

Florent paced backwards and forwards amidst the perfume of the thyme,
which the sun was warming. He felt profoundly happy in the peacefulness
and cleanliness of the garden. For nearly a year past he had only seen
vegetables bruised and crushed by the jolting of the market-carts;
vegetables torn up on the previous evening, and still bleeding. He
rejoiced to find them at home, in peace in the dark mould, and sound in
every part. The cabbages had a bulky, prosperous appearance; the carrots
looked bright and gay; and the lettuces lounged in line with an air of
careless indolence. And as he looked at them all, the markets which he
had left behind him that morning seemed to him like a vast mortuary,
an abode of death, where only corpses could be found, a charnel-house
reeking with foul smells and putrefaction. He slackened his steps, and
rested in that kitchen garden, as after a long perambulation amidst
deafening noises and repulsive odours. The uproar and the sickening
humidity of the fish market had departed from him; and he felt as though
he were being born anew in the pure fresh air. Claude was right, he
thought. The markets were a sphere of death. The soil was the life, the
eternal cradle, the health of the world.

"The omelet's ready!" suddenly cried Madame Francois.

When they were all three seated round the table in the kitchen, with
the door thrown open to the sunshine, they ate their breakfast with
such light-hearted gaiety that Madame Francois looked at Florent in
amazement, repeating between each mouthful: "You're quite altered.
You're ten years younger. It is that villainous Paris which makes you
seem so gloomy. You've got a little sunshine in your eyes now. Ah! those
big towns do one's health no good, you ought to come and live here."

Claude laughed, and retorted that Paris was a glorious place. He stuck
up for it and all that belonged to it, even to its gutters; though at
the same time