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If the cremery had seemed lonely by gaslight, what must Ralph Flare have said of it next morning, as he sat in his old place and watched the ouvriers at breakfast? They came in, one by one, with their baton of brown bread, and called for two sous' worth of coffee and milk. The men wore blouses of blue and white, and jested after the Gallic code with the sewing-girls.
But the saleswoman, busily rearranging her stock, rarely responded. To-day they bought, besides the fascinating white things, some tan shoes, and a rough straw hat covered with roses, and two linen skirts, and three linen blouses, and a little dress of dotted lavender lawn.
But he was never at a loss for that commodity; he had other sources of revenue, he hinted, besides his wretched official salary. Wandering along arm in arm, they passed various contingents of the Russians, male and female, whose scarlet blouses shone brightly under the variegated globes of light.
Their starched blue blouses, glossy as though varnished, ornamented at collar and cuffs with a little embroidered design and blown out around their bony bodies, looked very much like balloons about to soar, whence issued two arms and two feet. Some of these fellows dragged a cow or a calf at the end of a rope.
Then Jacques, Jules, André, François, Chariot, Pierre, Joseph, Jean, and all the rest, in sabots, short trousers, and blue blouses, marching bareheaded with reverent air, and with them Julie, and Fifine, and Nana, and Adèle, and other feminine relatives, all in their Sunday best, and all devout in mien.
The snow is maintained at such a level that, while sledging is perfect, the closed carriages which are used for evening entertainments, calls, and shopping are never incommoded. Street sweepers, in red cotton blouses and clean white linen aprons, sweep on calmly in the icy chill.
They were to quell the disorder and to single out for punishment, whenever possible, the strangers, the obvious authors of the rebellion, easily discernible by their scarlet blouses. Not that the judge was particular about the lives or deaths of a few natives; he knew that any injuries received by his countrymen would strengthen his case against the outsiders.
Several workmen, in white blouses, went along the track, placing litters beside the obstacles where falls occurred most frequently. "Do you think the gatekeeper will allow us to enter at this hour?" Zibeline asked. "I hope not!" Henri replied. "Well, then, I shall enter without his permission! You are free to declare me the winner. I shall be left to make a walkover, I see!"
They passed in their tattered motley, some in the fantastic rags of the beggars of Albrecht Dürer and some in the grey cerecloths of Le Nain; many wore the blouses and the caps of the rabble in France, and many the dingy, smoke-grimed weeds of English poor. And they surged onward like a riotous crowd in narrow streets flying in terror before the mounted troops.
On market-days, some friendly enchanter struck his staff upon the stones of the Great Place, and instantly arose the liveliest booths and stalls, and sittings and standings, and a pleasant hum of chaffering and huckstering from many hundreds of tongues, and a pleasant, though peculiar, blending of colours, white caps, blue blouses, and green vegetables, and at last the Knight destined for the adventure seemed to have come in earnest, and all the Vaubanois sprang up awake.
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