Still we linger; soon we admire a group of women and children whose home is on the barges of the river bank. Barefoot, with shining black eyes and black hair, bright shawls and handkerchiefs, they add to the picturesqueness of the spectacle as they wander to and fro with wicker-work wares. A graceful English girl presents the children with grapes, and the children smile, displaying the whitest teeth. The women pounce upon stray slips of salad, broken atoms of cauliflower, and are watched suspiciously by the market-people. The foreigner sketches them; the painter evidently intends to include them in his scene—and we, also fascinated, would follow them, were we not tempted to listen to a noisy fellow who, flourishing a scrap of soap, boasts that it will blot out every stain.
How simple, how easy is it to stain your coat, he cries; then proceeds to point out stains on various coats. Fear not, however. Be not cast down. He is here, he, the enemy of stains—he with “The Miraculous Tablet.”
And the “Miraculous Tablet” is held on high and flourished to and fro, ready to render old clothes new, and soiled hats fresh, in exchange for two vulgar sous.
“Seize this surprising opportunity,” shouts the man. “Take out your stains, all of you. The Miraculous Tablet will away with them all... except stains on your conscience. I swear it, and I am honest.”
And then, continuing, he announces that the “Miraculous Tablet” has made him famous throughout the land; that clients return to him in thousands to express their gratitude; that a certain mother once shed tears of joy when he took an ink-stain out of her little boy’s white suit; that only yesterday, in Orleans, the inhabitants cheered and cheered him and, rushing forward, begged leave to shake his hand. “And,” he concludes, “believe me, ladies and gentlemen, I had not hands enough.”
Suddenly a tambourine sounds, and up the street come a man and a woman with a dancing bear, another woman with a monkey. The monkey screams, the bear on its hind legs bobs up and down, up and down, and the man encourages him gruffly and the woman shakes the tambourine.
Of course a crowd assembles, and of course cries go up. Cries rise everywhere: from the market-place, from the crowd, from the enemy of stains, from the man with the accordion, from the group around the bear; all cries, the strangest cries, all languages also—English, French, many a patois, “bargee,” the unknown tongue of the almost black people with the bear—and all accents.
Then several nuns issue forth from church and pause for a moment. The Curé appears. A “Savoyard” with statues—as white as his statues, for his clothes are white and his face is covered with chalk-dust—approaches. And all these different people, in all their different costumes, with different accents and different gestures, mingle together, elbow one another, and all around them are the stalls of bright stuffs, the vast baskets of vegetables and fresh fruits. In the background—grey and quaint—stands the church.
However, time is flying and luncheon hour is near. The purchases have to be borne home, washed, prepared, and so the inhabitants of Moret raise their baskets, exchange adieux. Off starts the patronne of our hotel; off go the postman, the garde champêtre, the barber and the fair Americans—still eating grapes—to their “finishing” school. The village girls disperse, and here and there the market-people are already dislodging their baskets, counting up sous. Once again we hear of the hot-tempered Madame Morin, the triumphant Madame Petilleau. Other familiar sounds reach us as we near the end of the street: “This, then, is the Miraculous Tablet... and only yesterday in Orleans...” and for the last time, “Cinq sous, Madame,” “Non, Madame, trois sous,” and the hour being told by the church.