erson occupy a house of his own, enclosed
between a court and a garden, all life is double. At every story, a
family sees another family in the opposite house. Everybody plunges
his gaze at will into his neighbor's domains. There is a necessity for
mutual observation, a common right of search from which none can escape.
At a given time, in the morning, you get up early, the servant opposite
is dusting the parlor, she has left the windows open and has put the
rugs on the railing; you divine a multitude of things, and vice-versa.
Thus, in a given time, you are acquainted with the habits of the pretty,
the old, the young, the coquettish, the virtuous woman opposite, or the
caprices of the coxcomb, the inventions of the old bachelor, the
color of the furniture, and the cat of the two pair front. Everything
furnishes a hint, and becomes matter for divination. At the fourth
story, a grisette, taken by surprise, finds herself--too late, like the
chaste Susanne,--the prey of the delighted lorgnette of an aged clerk,
who earns eighteen hundred francs a year, and who becomes criminal
gratis. On the other hand, a handsome young gentleman, who, for the
present, works without wages, and is only nineteen years old, appears
before the sight of a pious old lady, in the simple apparel of a man
engaged in shaving. The watch thus kept up is never relaxed, while
prudence, on the contrary, has its moments of forgetfulness. Curtains
are not always let down in time. A woman, just before dark, approaches
the window to thread her needle, and the married man opposite may then
admire a head that Raphael might have painted, and one that he considers
worthy of himself--a National Guard truly imposing when under arms.
Oh, sacred private life, where art thou! Paris is a city ever ready to
exhibit itself half naked, a city essentially libertine and devoid
of modesty. For a person's life to be decorous in it, the said person
should have a hundred thousand a year. Virtues are dearer than vices in
Paris.

Caroline, whose gaze sometimes steals between the protecting muslins
which hide her domestic life from the five stories opposite, at last
discovers a young couple plunged in the delights of the honey-moon, and
newly established in the first story directly in view of her window. She
spends her time in the most exciting observations. The blinds are closed
early, and opened late. One day, Caroline, who has arisen at eight
o'clock notices, by accident, of c