Florent gave but indifferent attention to Monsieur Verlaque’s explanations.  A flood of sunshine suddenly streamed through the lofty glass roof of the covered way, lighting up all these precious colours, toned and softened by the waves—­the iridescent flesh-tints of the shell-fish, the opal of the whiting, the pearly nacre of the mackerel, the ruddy gold of the mullets, the plated skins of the herrings, and massive silver of the salmon.  It was as though the jewel-cases of some sea-nymph had been emptied there—­a mass of fantastical, undreamt-of ornaments, a streaming and heaping of necklaces, monstrous bracelets, gigantic brooches, barbaric gems and jewels, the use of which could not be divined.  On the backs of the skate and the dog-fish you saw, as it were, big dull green and purple stones set in dark metal, while the slender forms of the sand-eels and the tails and fins of the smelts displayed all the delicacy of finely wrought silver-work.

And meantime Florent’s face was fanned by a fresh breeze, a sharp, salt breeze redolent of the sea.  It reminded him of the coasts of Guiana and his voyages.  He half fancied that he was gazing at some bay left dry by the receding tide, with the seaweed steaming in the sun, the bare rocks drying, and the beach smelling strongly of the brine.  All around him the fish in their perfect freshness exhaled a pleasant perfume, that slightly sharp, irritating perfume which depraves the appetite.

Monsieur Verlaque coughed.  The dampness was affecting him, and he wrapped his muffler more closely about his neck.

“Now,” said he, “we will pass on to the fresh water fish.”

This was in a pavilion beside the fruit market, the last one, indeed, in the direction of the Rue Rambuteau.  On either side of the space reserved for the auctions were large circular stone basins, divided into separate compartments by iron gratings.  Slender streams of water flowed from brass jets shaped like swan’s necks; and the compartments were filled with swarming colonies of crawfish, black-backed carp ever on the move, and mazy tangles of eels, incessantly knotting and unknotting themselves.  Again was Monsieur Verlaque attacked by an obstinate fit of coughing.  The moisture of the atmosphere was more insipid here than amongst the sea water fish:  there was a riverside scent, as of sun-warmed water slumbering on a bed of sand.

A great number of crawfishes had arrived from Germany that morning in cases and hampers, and the market was also crowded with river fish from Holland and England.  Several men were unpacking shiny carp from the Rhine, lustrous with ruddy metallic hues, their scales resembling bronzed cloisonne enamel; and others were busy with huge pike, the cruel iron-grey brigands of the waters, who ravenously protruded their savage jaws; or with magnificent dark-hued with verdigris.  And amidst these suggestions of copper, iron, and bronze, the gudgeon and perch, the trout, the bleak, and the flat-fish taken in sweep-nets showed brightly white, the steel-blue tints of their backs gradually toning down to the soft transparency of their bellies.  However, it was the fat snowy-white barbel that supplied the liveliest brightness in this gigantic collection of still life.