arket, she
fairly gasped with delight, in a perfect transport of pleasure.

"Hallo, Mademoiselle Saget," cried La Sarriette from her stall, "what
are you smiling to yourself like that about? Have you won the grand
prize in the lottery?"

"No, no. Ah, my dear, if you only knew!"

Standing there amidst her fruit, La Sarriette, in her picturesque
disarray, looked charming. Frizzy hair fell over her brow like vine
branches. Her bare arms and neck, indeed all the rosy flesh she showed,
bloomed with the freshness of peach and cherry. She had playfully hung
some cherries on her ears, black cherries which dangled against her
cheeks when she stooped, shaking with merry laughter. She was eating
currants, and her merriment arose from the way in which she was smearing
her face with them. Her lips were bright red, glistening with the juice
of the fruit, as though they had been painted and perfumed with some
seraglio face-paint. A perfume of plum exhaled from her gown, while
from the kerchief carelessly fastened across her breast came an odour of
strawberries.

Fruits of all kinds were piled around her in her narrow stall. On the
shelves at the back were rows of melons, so-called "cantaloups" swarming
with wart-like knots, "maraichers" whose skin was covered with grey
lace-like netting, and "culs-de-singe" displaying smooth bare bumps. In
front was an array of choice fruits, carefully arranged in baskets, and
showing like smooth round cheeks seeking to hide themselves, or glimpses
of sweet childish faces, half veiled by leaves. Especially was this the
case with the peaches, the blushing peaches of Montreuil, with skin
as delicate and clear as that of northern maidens, and the yellow,
sun-burnt peaches from the south, brown like the damsels of Provence.
The apricots, on their beds of moss, gleamed with the hue of amber or
with that sunset glow which so warmly colours the necks of brunettes at
the nape, just under the little wavy curls which fall below the chignon.
The cherries, ranged one by one, resembled the short lips of smiling
Chinese girls; the Montmorencies suggested the dumpy mouths of buxom
women; the English ones were longer and graver-looking; the common black
ones seemed as though they had been bruised and crushed by kisses; while
the white-hearts, with their patches of rose and white, appeared to
smile with mingled merriment and vexation. Then piles of apples
and pears, built up with architectural symmetry, often in p