wding the market with cages full of
live poultry, and square hampers in which dead birds were stowed in deep
layers. On the other side of the way were other drays from which porters
were removing freshly killed calves, wrapped in canvas, and laid at full
length in baskets, whence only the four bleeding stumps of their legs
protruded. There were also whole sheep, and sides and quarters of beef.
Butchers in long white aprons marked the meat with a stamp, carried it
off, weighted it, and hung it up on hooks in the auction room. Florent,
with his face close to the grating, stood gazing at the rows of hanging
carcasses, at the ruddy sheep and oxen and paler calves, all streaked
with yellow fat and sinews, and with bellies yawning open. Then he
passed along the sidewalk where the tripe market was held, amidst the
pallid calves' feet and heads, the rolled tripe neatly packed in boxes,
the brains delicately set out in flat baskets, the sanguineous livers,
and purplish kidneys. He checked his steps in front of some long
two-wheeled carts, covered with round awnings, and containing sides of
pork hung on each side of the vehicle over a bed of straw. Seen from
the back end, the interiors of the carts looked like recesses of some
tabernacle, like some taper-lighted chapel, such was the glow of all the
bare flesh they contained. And on the beds of straw were lines of tin
cans, full of the blood that had trickled from the pigs. Thereupon
Florent was attacked by a sort of rage. The insipid odour of the meat,
the pungent smell of the tripe exasperated him. He made his way out of
the covered road, preferring to return once more to the footwalk of the
Rue de Pont Neuf.

He was enduring perfect agony. The shiver of early morning came upon
him; his teeth chattered, and he was afraid of falling to the ground and
finding himself unable to rise again. He looked about, but could see no
vacant place on any bench. Had he found one he would have dropped
asleep there, even at the risk of being awakened by the police. Then, as
giddiness nearly blinded him, he leaned for support against a tree,
with his eyes closed and his ears ringing. The raw carrot, which he had
swallowed almost without chewing, was torturing his stomach, and the
glass of punch which he had drunk seemed to have intoxicated him. He was
indeed intoxicated with misery, weariness, and hunger. Again he felt a
burning fire in the pit of the stomach, to which he every now and then
carrie