The murky-coloured houses, which were lighted within by a few panes of glass in the worm-eaten casements, overhung each other so closely that the eaves of each almost touched its opposite neighbour, so narrow were the streets. Dark and noisome alleys led to staircases still more black and foul, and so perpendicular that they could hardly be ascended by the help of a cord fixed to the dank and humid walls by holdfasts of iron.
Stalls of charcoal-sellers, fruit-sellers, or venders of refuse meat occupied the ground floor of some of these wretched abodes. Notwithstanding the small value of their commodities, the fronts of nearly all these shops were protected by strong bars of iron,—a proof that the shopkeepers knew and dreaded the gentry who infested the vicinity.
The man of whom we have spoken, having entered the Rue aux Fêves, which is in the centre of the Cité, slackened his pace: he felt he was on his own soil. The night was dark, and strong gusts of wind, mingled with rain, dashed against the walls. Ten o'clock struck by the distant dial of the Palais de Justice. Women were huddled together under the vaulted arches, deep and dark, like caverns; some hummed popular airs in a low key; others conversed together in whispers; whilst some, dumb and motionless, looked on mechanically at the wet, which fell and flowed in torrents. The man in the carter's frock, stopping suddenly before one of these creatures, silent and sad as she gazed, seized her by the arm, and said, "Ha! good evening, La Goualeuse."[2]
[2] Sweet-throated: in reference to the tone of her voice.
The girl receded, saying, in a faint and fearful tone, "Good evening, Chourineur.[3] Don't hurt me."
[3] One who strikes with the knife; the stabber, or slasher.
This man, a liberated convict, had been so named at the hulks.
"Now I have you," said the fellow; "you must pay me the glass of 'tape' (eau d'aff), or I'll make you dance without music," he added, with a hoarse and brutal laugh.
"Oh, Heaven! I have no money," replied Goualeuse, trembling from head to foot, for this man was the dread of the district.