A crowd of white caps, loose black jackets, and blue blouses was swarming in the narrow paths between the various piles.  The big baskets of the market porters passed along slowly, above the heads of the throng.  Retail dealers, costermongers, and greengrocers were making their purchases in haste.  Corporals and nuns clustered round the mountains of cabbages, and college cooks prowled about inquisitively, on the look-out for good bargains.  The unloading was still going on; heavy tumbrels, discharging their contents as though these were so many paving-stones, added more and more waves to the sea of greenery which was now beating against the opposite footways.  And from the far end of the Rue du Pont Neuf fresh rows of carts were still and ever arriving.

“What a fine sight it is!” exclaimed Claude in an ecstasy of enthusiasm.

Florent was suffering keenly.  He fancied that all this was some supernatural temptation, and, unwilling to look at the markets any longer, turned towards Saint Eustache, a side view of which he obtained from the spot where he now stood.  With its roses, and broad arched windows, its bell-turret, and roofs of slate, it looked as though painted in sepia against the blue of the sky.  He fixed his eyes at last on the sombre depths of the Rue Montorgueil, where fragments of gaudy sign boards showed conspicuously, and on the corner of the Rue Montmartre, where there were balconies gleaming with letters of gold.  And when he again glanced at the cross-roads, his gaze was solicited by other sign boards, on which such inscriptions as “Druggist and Chemist,” “Flour and Grain” appeared in big red and black capital letters upon faded backgrounds.  Near these corners, houses with narrow windows were now awakening, setting amidst the newness and airiness of the Rue du Pont Neuf a few of the yellow ancient facades of olden Paris.  Standing at the empty windows of the great drapery shop at the corner of the Rue Rambuteau a number of spruce-looking counter-jumpers in their shirt sleeves, with snowy-white wristbands and tight-fitting pantaloons, were “dressing” their goods.  Farther away, in the windows of the severe looking, barrack-like Guillot establishment, biscuits in gilt wrappers and fancy cakes on glass stands were tastefully set out.  All the shops were now open; and workmen in white blouses, with tools under their arms, were hurrying along the road.

Claude had not yet got down from the bench.  He was standing on tiptoe in order to see the farther down the streets.  Suddenly, in the midst of the crowd which he overlooked, he caught sight of a fair head with long wavy locks, followed by a little black one covered with curly tumbled hair.

“Hallo, Marjolin!  Hallo, Cadine!” he shouted; and then, as his voice was drowned by the general uproar, he jumped to the ground and started off.  But all at once, recollecting that he had left Florent behind him, he hastily came back.  “I live at the end of the Impasse des Bourdonnais,” he said rapidly.  “My name’s written in chalk on the door, Claude Lantier.  Come and see the etching of the Rue Pirouette.”