But what gives the rue Saint-Médard its character of supreme loathsomeness is because it is the headquarters of the chiffoniers. These hereditary scavengers, midden-rakers, ordure-sifters, monopolise its disease-ridden ruins, living in their immemorial dirt. They are creatures of the night, yet one may sometimes see a few of them shambling forth to blink with bleary eyes at the sun, their hair long and matted, the dirt grained into their skins, their clothes corroded, their boots agape at the seams—very spawn of the ashpit.
And oh, the odour of the street! The mere memory makes me feel a nausea. It is the acrid odour of decay, of ageless, indomitable squalor. It assails you the moment you enter that gap of ramshackle ruins, pungent, penetrating, almost palpable. It is the choking odour of an ash-bin, an ash-bin that is very old and is almost eaten away by its own putridity.
Then on a Sunday morning when the rue Mouffetard is such a carnival of sordid satisfactions the snake-like head of the rue Saint-Médard is devoted to the marché pouilleux. Here come the chiffoniers and spread out the treasures they have discovered during the week. Over a great array of his wares, all spread out on mildewed sheets of newspaper, stands an old chiffonier in a stove-pipe hat. He also wears a rusty frock coat, and with a cane points temptingly to his stock. His white beard and moustache are amber round the mouth, with the stain of tobacco, and in a hoarse alcoholic voice he draws our attention to a discarded corset, a pair of moth-eaten trousers, a frying-pan with a hole in it, an alarm-clock minus the minute hand, a hair brush almost innocent of bristles—any of which we may have for a sou or two.
Such then is the monstrous rue Saint-Médard, and on a dark, wet November day, when its characteristic odour is more than usually audacious; when the black, irregular houses, like rows of decayed teeth, seem to draw closer together; when the mildewed walls steam loathfully; when the jagged roofs are black against the sky and the sinister shadows crawl from the darkened doorways,—it is more like a horrible nightmare than a reality.
But the misery of others often makes us forget our own, and one day Helstern broke in on us looking grimmer than ever.
“Have you heard that our little Solonge is very ill?”
“No. What’s the matter?”
“Typhoid. Her mother is nursing her. You might go down and see her, Madam. It will be a comfort to her.”
Anastasia straightened herself from the métier over which she was stooping.
“Yes, yes, I go at once. Oh, poor Frosine! Poor Solonge!”