The long wail of the fish-and-mussel woman, "J'ai des beaux maquereaux, des moules, poissons à frire, à frire!" as she pushes her cart, means seven o'clock.
The day now really begins. Water-pails are clanging and sabots are clicking on the stones. The wine people set up a rumble by cleaning their casks with chains and water. The anvils of the iron-workers are ringing, and there comes the tink-tink-tink of the little hammers in the embossed-picture factory. The lumbering garbage-cart arrives to bear away the ash-bins, the lead-horse shaking his head to ring the bell on his neck in announcement of the approach. Street-venders and hawkers of various comestibles, each with his or her quaint musical cry, come in numbers. "J'ai des beaux choux-fleurs! O, comme ils sont beaux!" The fruit- and potato-women come after, and then the chair-menders. These market-women are early risers. They are at the great Halles Centrales at four o'clock to bargain for their wares; and besides good lungs they have a marvellous shrewdness, born of long dealings with French housewives.
Always near eight may be heard, "Du mouron pour les petits oiseaux!" and all the birds in the court, familiar with the cry, pipe up for their chickweed. "Voilà le bon fromage à la crème pour trois sous!" cries a keen-faced little woman, her three-wheeled cart loaded with cream cheeses; and she gives a soup-plate full of them, with cream poured generously over, and as she pockets the money says, "Voilà! ce que c'est bon avec des confitures!" Cream cheeses and prayer! On Sunday mornings during the spring and summer the goat's-milk vender, blowing a reed-pipe, invades the passage with his living milk-cans,—a flock of eight hairy goats that know the route as well as he, and they are always willing to be milked when a customer offers a bowl. The tripe-man with his wares and bell is the last of the food-sellers of the day. The window-glass repairer, "Vitrier!" passes at nine, and then the beggars and strolling musicians and singers put in an appearance. In the afternoon the old-clo' man comes hobbling under his load of cast-off clothes, crying, "Marchand d'habits!" of which you can catch only "'Chand d'habits!" and the barrel-buyer, "Marchand de tonneaux!" The most musical of them all is the porcelain-mender, who cries, "Voici le raccommodeur de porcelaines, faïence, cristal, poseur de robinets!" and then plays a fragment of a hunting-song.
The beggars and musicians also have regular routes and fixed hours. Cold and stormy days are welcomed by them, for then pity lends activity to- sous. A piratical old beggar has his stand near the entrance to the court, where he kneels on the stones, his faithful mongrel dog beside him. He occasionally poses for the artists when times are dull, but he prefers begging,—it is easier and more remunerative. Three times a week we are treated to some really good singing by a blind old man, evidently an artist in his day. When the familiar sound of his guitar is heard all noises in the passage cease, and all windows are opened to hear. He sings arias from the operas. His little old wife gathers up the sous that ring on the flags. Sometimes a strolling troupe of two actors and three musicians makes its appearance, and invariably plays to a full house. There are droves of sham singers who do not sing at all, but give mournful howls and tell their woes to deaf windows. One of them, a tattered woman with two babies, refused to pose for Bishop, although he offered her five francs for the afternoon.
Her babies never grow older or bigger as the years pass.
We all know when anybody in the passage is going to take a bath. There are no bath-tubs in these old houses, but that difficulty is surmounted by a bathing establishment on the Boulevard St.-Michel. It sends around a cart bearing a tank of hot water and a zinc tub. The man who pulls the cart carries the tub to the room, and fills it by carrying up the water in buckets. Then he remains below until the bath is finished, to regain his tub and collect a franc.
Since we have been here the court entrance has been once draped in mourning. At the head of the casket of old Madame Courtoise, who lived across the way, stood a stately crucifix, and candles burned, and there were mourners and yellow bead wreaths. A quiet sadness sat upon the court, and the people spoke in whispers only.