four o’clock in the morning
The butter and poultry pavilions displayed rows of little trellised stalls and long alleys , which lines of gas lights showed to be deserted . The fish market , however , had just been opened , and women were flitting to and fro amongst the white slabs littered with shadowy hampers and cloths . Among the vegetables and fruit and flowers the noise and bustle were gradually increasing . The whole place was by degree waking up , from the popular quarter where the cabbages are piled at four o'clock in the morning , to the lazy and wealthy district which only hangs up its pullets and pheasants when the hands of the clock point to eight . The great covered alleys were now teeming with life . All along the footways on both sides of the road there were still many market gardeners , with other small growers from the environs of Paris , who displayed baskets containing their `` gatherings '' of the previous evening -- bundles of vegetables and clusters of fruit . Whilst the crowd incessantly paced hither and thither , vehicles barred the road ; and Florent , in order to pass them , had to press against some dingy sacks , like coal-sacks in appearance , and so numerous and heavy that the axle-trees of the vans bent beneath them .