inner, which was still
running away. She walked about for a long while, without thinking of the
flight of time or of the direction she took. Around her the dark, mute
women went to and fro under the trees like wild beasts in a cage. They
stepped out of the shade like apparitions, and passed under the light
of a gas lamp with their pale masks fully apparent; then they grew
vague again as they went off into the darkness, with a white strip of
petticoat swinging to and fro. Men let themselves be stopped at times,
talked jokingly, and then started off again laughing. Others would
quietly follow a woman to her room, discreetly, ten paces behind.
There was a deal of muttering, quarreling in an undertone and furious
bargaining, which suddenly subsided into profound silence. And as far as
Gervaise went she saw these women standing like sentinels in the night.
They seemed to be placed along the whole length of the Boulevard. As
soon as she met one she saw another twenty paces further on, and the
file stretched out unceasingly. Entire Paris was guarded. She grew
enraged on finding herself disdained, and changing her place, she now
perambulated between the Chaussee de Clignancourt and the Grand Rue of
La Chapelle. All were beggars.

"Sir, just listen."

But the men passed by. She started from the slaughter-houses, which
stank of blood. She glanced on her way at the old Hotel Boncoeur,
now closed. She passed in front of the Lariboisiere Hospital, and
mechanically counted the number of windows that were illuminated with
a pale quiet glimmer, like that of night-lights at the bedside of some
agonizing sufferers. She crossed the railway bridge as the trains rushed
by with a noisy rumble, rending the air in twain with their shrill
whistling! Ah! how sad everything seemed at night-time! Then she turned
on her heels again and filled her eyes with the sight of the same
houses, doing this ten and twenty times without pausing, without resting
for a minute on a bench. No; no one wanted her. Her shame seemed to be
increased by this contempt. She went down towards the hospital again,
and then returned towards the slaughter-houses. It was her last
promenade--from the blood-stained courtyards, where animals were
slaughtered, down to the pale hospital wards, where death stiffened
the patients stretched between the sheets. It was between these two
establishments that she had passed her life.

"Sir, just listen."

But suddenly she perceived her