lleys should be allowed to preserve
their filthy aspect. Passing through them by day, it is impossible
to imagine what they become by night; they are pervaded by strange
creatures of no known world; white, half-naked forms cling to the
walls--the darkness is alive. Between the passenger and the wall a dress
steals by--a dress that moves and speaks. Half-open doors suddenly
shout with laughter. Words fall on the ear such as Rabelais speaks of
as frozen and melting. Snatches of songs come up from the pavement. The
noise is not vague; it means something. When it is hoarse it is a voice;
but if it suggests a song, there is nothing human about it, it is
more like a croak. Often you hear a sharp whistle, and then the tap of
boot-heels has a peculiarly aggressive and mocking ring. This medley of
things makes you giddy. Atmospheric conditions are reversed there--it is
warm in winter and cool in summer.

Still, whatever the weather, this strange world always wears the same
aspect; it is the fantastic world of Hoffmann of Berlin. The most
mathematical of clerks never thinks of it as real, after returning
through the straits that lead into decent streets, where there are
passengers, shops, and taverns. Modern administration, or modern policy,
more scornful or more shamefaced than the queens and kings of past ages,
no longer dare look boldly in the face of this plague of our capitals.
Measures, of course, must change with the times, and such as bear on
individuals and on their liberty are a ticklish matter; still, we
ought, perhaps, to show some breadth and boldness as to merely material
measures--air, light, and construction. The moralist, the artist, and
the sage administrator alike must regret the old wooden galleries of the
Palais Royal, where the lambs were to be seen who will always be found
where there are loungers; and is it not best that the loungers should go
where they are to be found? What is the consequence? The gayest parts of
the Boulevards, that delightfulest of promenades, are impossible in the
evening for a family party. The police has failed to take advantage of
the outlet afforded by some small streets to purge the main street.

The girl whom we have seen crushed by a word at the opera ball had
been for the last month or two living in the Rue de Langlade, in a
very poor-looking house. This structure, stuck on to the wall of an
enormously large one, badly stuccoed, of no depth, and immensely high,
has all its wi