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
carried his hands, as though he were trying to stop up a hole through
which all his life was oozing away. As he stood there he fancied that
the foot-pavement rocked beneath him; and thinking that he might perhaps
lessen his sufferings by walking, he went straight on through the
vegetables again. He lost himself among them. He went along a narrow
footway, turned down another, was forced to retrace his steps, bungled
in doing so, and once more found himself amidst piles of greenery. Some