_Quelle degringolade_!
And as to the actual denizens! One gazed with a dull, wondering pity at
the poor, pale, rickety children; the slatternly, coarse women who never
smiled (except when drunk); the dull, morose, miserable men. How they
lacked the grace of French deformity, the ease and lightness of French
depravity, the sympathetic distinction of French grotesqueness. How
unterrible they were, who preferred the fist to the noiseless and
insidious knife! who fought with their hands instead of their feet,
quite loyally; and reserved the kicks of their hobnailed boots for their
recalcitrant wives!
And then there was no Morgue; one missed one's Morgue badly.
And Smithfield! It would split me truly to the heart (as M. le Major
used to say) to watch the poor beasts that came on certain days to make
a short station in that hideous cattle-market, on their way to the
slaughter-house.
What bludgeons have I seen descend on beautiful, bewildered, dazed, meek
eyes, so thickly fringed against the country sun; on soft, moist, tender
nostrils that clouded the poisonous reek with a fragrance of the far-off
fields! What torture of silly sheep and genially cynical pigs!
The very dogs seemed demoralized, and brutal as their masters.
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