yramids,
displayed the ruddy glow of budding breasts and the gleaming sheen of
shoulders, quite a show of nudity, lurking modestly behind a screen of
fern-leaves. There were all sorts of varieties--little red ones so
tiny that they seemed to be yet in the cradle, shapeless "rambours"
for baking, "calvilles" in light yellow gowns, sanguineous-looking
"Canadas," blotched "chataignier" apples, fair freckled rennets and
dusky russets. Then came the pears--the "blanquettes," the "British
queens," the "Beurres," the "messirejeans," and the "duchesses"--some
dumpy, some long and tapering, some with slender necks, and others with
thick-set shoulders, their green and yellow bellies picked out at times
with a splotch of carmine. By the side of these the transparent plums
resembled tender, chlorotic virgins; the greengages and the Orleans
plums paled as with modest innocence, while the mirabelles lay like
golden beads of a rosary forgotten in a box amongst sticks of
vanilla. And the strawberries exhaled a sweet perfume--a perfume of
youth--especially those little ones which are gathered in the woods, and
which are far more aromatic than the large ones grown in gardens,
for these breathe an insipid odour suggestive of the watering-pot.
Raspberries added their fragrance to the pure scent. The currants--red,
white, and black--smiled with a knowing air; whilst the heavy clusters
of grapes, laden with intoxication, lay languorously at the edges
of their wicker baskets, over the sides of which dangled some of the
berries, scorched by the hot caresses of the voluptuous sun.

It was there that La Sarriette lived in an orchard, as it were, in
an atmosphere of sweet, intoxicating scents. The cheaper fruits--the
cherries, plums, and strawberries--were piled up in front of her in
paper-lined baskets, and the juice coming from their bruised ripeness
stained the stall-front, and steamed, with a strong perfume, in the
heat. She would feel quite giddy on those blazing July afternoons when
the melons enveloped her with a powerful, vaporous odour of musk; and
then with her loosened kerchief, fresh as she was with the springtide of
life, she brought sudden temptation to all who saw her. It was she--it
was her arms and necks which gave that semblance of amorous vitality
to her fruit. On the stall next to her an old woman, a hideous old
drunkard, displayed nothing but wrinkled apples, pears as flabby
as herself, and cadaverous apricots of a witch-like