wer lighted windows, the shops
were fast shut, no one was chatting on the thresholds, the street grew
sombre, and, at the same time, the crowd increased in density. For the
passers-by now amounted to a crowd. No one could be seen to speak in
this throng, and yet there arose from it a dull, deep murmur.

Near the fountain of the Arbre-Sec, there were "assemblages", motionless
and gloomy groups which were to those who went and came as stones in the
midst of running water.

At the entrance to the Rue des Prouvaires, the crowd no longer walked.
It formed a resisting, massive, solid, compact, almost impenetrable
block of people who were huddled together, and conversing in low tones.
There were hardly any black coats or round hats now, but smock frocks,
blouses, caps, and bristling and cadaverous heads. This multitude
undulated confusedly in the nocturnal gloom. Its whisperings had the
hoarse accent of a vibration. Although not one of them was walking, a
dull trampling was audible in the mire. Beyond this dense portion of
the throng, in the Rue du Roule, in the Rue des Prouvaires, and in the
extension of the Rue Saint-Honore, there was no longer a single window
in which a candle was burning. Only the solitary and diminishing rows
of lanterns could be seen vanishing into the street in the distance. The
lanterns of that date resembled large red stars, hanging to ropes, and
shed upon the pavement a shadow which had the form of a huge spider.
These streets were not deserted. There could be descried piles of guns,
moving bayonets, and troops bivouacking. No curious observer passed that
limit. There circulation ceased. There the rabble ended and the army
began.

Marius willed with the will of a man who hopes no more. He had been
summoned, he must go. He found a means to traverse the throng and to
pass the bivouac of the troops, he shunned the patrols, he avoided the
sentinels. He made a circuit, reached the Rue de Bethisy, and directed
his course towards the Halles. At the corner of the Rue des Bourdonnais,
there were no longer any lanterns.

After having passed the zone of the crowd, he had passed the limits of
the troops; he found himself in something startling. There was no longer
a passer-by, no longer a soldier, no longer a light, there was no one;
solitude, silence, night, I know not what chill which seized hold upon
one. Entering a street was like entering a cellar.

He continued to advance.

He took a few steps. Some