However, the little party now slowly retraced its steps by way of the
Plateau de la Merlasse, the broad boulevard which skirts the inclined way
on the left hand and leads to the Avenue de la Grotte. It was already
past one o'clock, but people were still eating their /dejeuners/ from one
to the other end of the overflowing town. Many of the fifty thousand
pilgrims and sight-seers collected within it had not yet been able to sit
down and eat; and Pierre, who had left the /table d'hote/ still crowded,
who had just seen the hospitallers squeezing together so gaily at the
"ordinary," found more and more tables at each step he took. On all sides
people were eating, eating without a pause. Hereabouts, however, in the
open air, on either side of the broad road, the hungry ones were humble
folk who had rushed upon the tables set up on either footway--tables
formed of a couple of long boards, flanked by two forms, and shaded from
the sun by narrow linen awnings. Broth and coffee were sold at these
places at a penny a cup. The little loaves heaped up in high baskets also
cost a penny apiece. Hanging from the poles which upheld the awnings were
sausages, chitterlings, and hams. Some of the open-air /restaurateurs/
were frying potatoes, and others were concocting more or less savoury
messes of inferior meat and onions. A pungent smoke, a violent odour,
arose into the sunlight, mingling with the dust which was raised by the
continuous tramp of the promenaders.
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