pon this uneven floor, where the dirt
seemed to be fairly incrusted, and which possessed but one virginity,
that of the broom, were capriciously grouped constellations of old
shoes, socks, and repulsive rags; however, this room had a fireplace,
so it was let for forty francs a year. There was every sort of thing
in that fireplace, a brazier, a pot, broken boards, rags suspended
from nails, a bird-cage, ashes, and even a little fire. Two brands were
smouldering there in a melancholy way.

One thing which added still more to the horrors of this garret was, that
it was large. It had projections and angles and black holes, the lower
sides of roofs, bays, and promontories. Hence horrible, unfathomable
nooks where it seemed as though spiders as big as one's fist, wood-lice
as large as one's foot, and perhaps even--who knows?--some monstrous
human beings, must be hiding.

One of the pallets was near the door, the other near the window. One
end of each touched the fireplace and faced Marius. In a corner near the
aperture through which Marius was gazing, a colored engraving in a black
frame was suspended to a nail on the wall, and at its bottom, in large
letters, was the inscription: THE DREAM. This represented a sleeping
woman, and a child, also asleep, the child on the woman's lap, an eagle
in a cloud, with a crown in his beak, and the woman thrusting the
crown away from the child's head, without awaking the latter; in the
background, Napoleon in a glory, leaning on a very blue column with a
yellow capital ornamented with this inscription:

MARINGO
AUSTERLITS
IENA
WAGRAMME
ELOT

Beneath this frame, a sort of wooden panel, which was no longer than it
was broad, stood on the ground and rested in a sloping attitude against
the wall. It had the appearance of a picture with its face turned to
the wall, of a frame probably showing a daub on the other side, of some
pier-glass detached from a wall and lying forgotten there while waiting
to be rehung.

Near the table, upon which Marius descried a pen, ink, and paper, sat
a man about sixty years of age, small, thin, livid, haggard, with a
cunning, cruel, and uneasy air; a hideous scoundrel.

If Lavater had studied this visage, he would have found the vulture
mingled with the attorney there, the bird of prey and the pettifogger
rendering