idle hours with all the gossip.  Thenceforth he lived amidst ceaseless tittle-tattle, acquainted with every little scandal in the neighbourhood, his head buzzing with the incessant yelping around him.  He blissfully tasted a thousand titillating delights, having at last found his true element, and bathing in it, with the voluptuous pleasure of a carp swimming in the sunshine.  Florent would sometimes go to see him at his stall.  The afternoons were still very warm.  All along the narrow alleys sat women plucking poultry.  Rays of light streamed in between the awnings, and in the warm atmosphere, in the golden dust of the sunbeams, feathers fluttered hither and thither like dancing snowflakes.  A trail of coaxing calls and offers followed Florent as he passed along.  “Can I sell you a fine duck, monsieur?” “I’ve some very fine fat chickens here, monsieur; come and see!” “Monsieur! monsieur, do just buy this pair of pigeons!” Deafened and embarrassed he freed himself from the women, who still went on plucking as they fought for possession of him; and the fine down flew about and wellnigh choked him, like hot smoke reeking with the strong odour of the poultry.  At last, in the middle of the alley, near the water-taps, he found Gavard ranting away in his shirt-sleeves, in front of his stall, with his arms crossed over the bib of his blue apron.  He reigned there, in a gracious, condescending way, over a group of ten or twelve women.  He was the only male dealer in that part of the market.  He was so fond of wagging his tongue that he had quarrelled with five or six girls whom he had successively engaged to attend to his stall, and had now made up his mind to sell his goods himself, naively explaining that the silly women spent the whole blessed day in gossiping, and that it was beyond his power to manage them.  As someone, however, was still necessary to supply his place whenever he absented himself he took in Marjolin, who was prowling about, after attempting in turn all the petty market callings.

Florent sometimes remained for an hour with Gavard, amazed by his ceaseless flow of chatter, and his calm serenity and assurance amid the crowd of petticoats.  He would interrupt one woman, pick a quarrel with another ten stalls away, snatch a customer from a third, and make as much noise himself as his hundred and odd garrulous neighbours, whose incessant clamour kept the iron plates of the pavilion vibrating sonorously like so many gongs.

The poultry dealer’s only relations were a sister-in-law and a niece.  When his wife died, her eldest sister, Madame Lecoeur, who had become a widow about a year previously, had mourned for her in an exaggerated fashion, and gone almost every evening to tender consolation to the bereaved husband.  She had doubtless cherished the hope that she might win his affection and fill the yet warm place of the deceased.  Gavard, however, abominated lean women; and would, indeed, only stroke such cats and dogs as were very fat; so that Madame Lecoeur, who was long and withered, failed in her designs.