elf," replied Rastignac, and he turned to go.

"One moment," said the mask; "I will prove to you that you have never
seen me anywhere."

The speaker took his mask off; for a moment Rastignac hesitated,
recognizing nothing of the hideous being he had known formerly at Madame
Vauquer's.

"The devil has enabled you to change in every particular, excepting your
eyes, which it is impossible to forget," said he.

The iron hand gripped his arm to enjoin eternal secrecy.

At three in the morning des Lupeaulx and Finot found the elegant
Rastignac on the same spot, leaning against the column where the
terrible mask had left him. Rastignac had confessed to himself; he had
been at once priest and pentient, culprit and judge. He allowed himself
to be led away to breakfast, and reached home perfectly tipsy, but
taciturn.

The Rue de Langlade and the adjacent streets are a blot on the Palais
Royal and the Rue de Rivoli. This portion of one of the handsomest
quarters of Paris will long retain the stain of foulness left by the
hillocks formed of the middens of old Paris, on which mills formerly
stood. These narrow streets, dark and muddy, where such industries are
carried on as care little for appearances wear at night an aspect of
mystery full of contrasts. On coming from the well-lighted regions of
the Rue Saint-Honore, the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, and the Rue de
Richelieu, where the crowd is constantly pushing, where glitter the
masterpieces of industry, fashion, and art, every man to whom Paris by
night is unknown would feel a sense of dread and melancholy, on finding
himself in the labyrinth of little streets which lie round that blaze of
light reflected even from the sky. Dense blackness is here, instead of
floods of gaslight; a dim oil-lamp here and there sheds its doubtful
and smoky gleam, and many blind alleys are not lighted at all. Foot
passengers are few, and walk fast. The shops are shut, the few that are
open are of a squalid kind; a dirty, unlighted wineshop, or a seller
of underclothing and eau-de-Cologne. An unwholesome chill lays a clammy
cloak over your shoulders. Few carriages drive past. There are sinister
places here, especially the Rue de Langlade, the entrance to the Passage
Saint-Guillaume, and the turnings of some streets.

The municipal council has not yet been to purge this vast lazar-place,
for prostitution long since made it its headquarters. It is, perhaps,
a good thing for Paris that these a