[Original]
[Original]
[Original]
XV. The Constant Wanderer XVI. The Luncheon XVII. Rendering
the Account XVIII. The Square of Notre Dame XIX. The Cholera
Masquerade XX. The Defiance XXI. Brandy to the Rescue XXII.
Memories XXIII. The Poisoner XXIV. In the Cathedral XXV. The
Murderers XXVI. The Patient XXVII. The Lure XXVIII. Good
News XXIX. The Operation XXX. The Torture XXXI. Vice and
Virtue XXXII. Suicide
CHAPTER XV. THE CONSTANT WANDERER.
It is night. The moon shines and the stars glimmer in the midst of a serene but cheerless sky; the sharp whistlings of the north wind, that fatal, dry, and icy breeze, ever and anon burst forth in violent gusts. With its harsh and cutting breath, it sweeps Montmartre’s Heights. On the highest point of the hills, a man is standing. His long shadow is cast upon the stony, moon-lit ground. He gazes on the immense city, which lies outspread beneath his feet. PARIS—with the dark outline of its towers, cupolas, domes, and steeples, standing out from the limpid blue of the horizon, while from the midst of the ocean of masonry, rises a luminous vapor, that reddens the starry azure of the sky. It is the distant reflection of the thousand fires, which at night, the hour of pleasures, light up so joyously the noisy capital.