covered with broken glasses and unwashed
cups. Into one of these cups a pair of tin rimmed spectacles is
plunging. A nail lies on the floor. In the fireplace a dishcloth is
hanging on one of the fire-iron holders. No fire either in the fireplace
or in the stove. A heap of frightful sweepings replaces the heaps of
cinders. No looking glass on the mantelpiece, but a picture of varnished
canvas representing a nude negro at the knees of a white woman in a
decolletee ball dress in an arbour. Opposite the mantelpiece, a man's
cap and a woman's bonnet hang from nails on either side of a cracked
mirror.

At the end of the room is a bed. That is to say, a mattress laid on two
planks that rest upon a couple of trestles. Over the bed, other boards,
with openings between them, support an undesirable heap of linen,
clothes and rags. An imitation cashmere, called "French cashmere,"
protrudes between the boards and hangs over the pallet.

Mingled with the hideous litter of all these things are dirtiness, a
disgusting odour, spots of oil and tallow, and dust everywhere. In the
corner near the bed stands an enormous sack of shavings, and on a chair
beside the sack lies an old newspaper. I am moved by curiosity to look
at the title and the date. It is the "Constitutionnel" of April 25,
1843.

And now what can I add? I have not told the most horrible thing about
the place. The house is odious, the room is abominable, the pallet is
hideous; but all that is nothing.

When I entered a woman was sleeping on the bed--a woman old, short,
thickset, red, bloated, oily, tumefied, fat, dreadful, enormous. Her
frightful bonnet, which was awry, disclosed the side of her head, which
was grizzled, pink and bald.

She was fully dressed. She wore a yellowish fichu, a brown skirt, a
jacket, all this on her monstrous abdomen; and a vast soiled apron like
the linen trousers of a convict.

At the noise I made in entering she moved, sat up, showed her fat legs,
that were covered with unqualifiable blue stockings, and with a yawn
stretched her brawny arms, which terminated with fists that resembled
those of a butcher.

I perceived that the old woman was robust and formidable.

She turned towards me and opened her eyes. I could not see them.

"Monsieur," she said, in a very gentle voice, "what do you want?"

When about to speak to this being I experienced the sensation one would
feel in presence of a sow to which it behoved one to say: "Madam."