and saw what, to a man with any pity in his soul, is the saddest sight beneath the sun.
Bright jets of gas were flaming over the Criterion Restaurant, the night houses on every side were opening their foul jaws, and from the darkness of every street and lane were fluttering forth the moths of night. Painted and bedizened creatures, fluttering gladly in the gaslight; some faint and feeble, as if already scorched with the destroying flame; others splendidly merry, with the new flush of the infernal brightness upon them; many beautiful beyond measure, with faces as pure and sweet as those of little children that know not sin.
With the smile and swagger of one who knew his company, Gavrolles made his way from group to group, accosted from time to time by some passing figure, and more than once plucked softly by the sleeve. Once, as he paused under a lamplight, a slight form, clad in the thinnest of silk, paused before him, and a baby face leered hideously up into his; but he pushed the shape softly aside, and swaggered on. To him, as to many of his class, the sight was quite proper and pleasant; his fine nerves were not shocked, his noble soul was not sadly stirred; indeed, such a man might walk confidently by the side of the very flames of Hell, and be conscious of nothing but the picturesque lights and shadows of the dreadful place. Yes, for as Swedenborg has sublimely guessed, Hell is Heaven to the devilish nature, and the penalty of the morally damned is not to know that it is Hell.
Not far away, that very night, walked another man, one of nobler fibre, with the shuddering sense of infinite pity and despair. He, too, was familiar with the sight of moral leprosy and spiritual disease, and as he gazed on those painted things, all and each of whom were infected with the goitre of incurable infamy, he felt weary of the world. ‘So long as this is possible,’ thought Edgar Sutherland, ‘how can the dead Christ rise?’
Crossing the street at the Quadrant, Sutherland saw, standing in the lamplight of the corner, two figures, one an elderly woman with a face swollen and deformed by drink, the other a wild-looking girl, poorly clad, coughing violently as if in sharp physical pain. As he was passing he heard them speak to each other in French; he paused and listened.
‘You are a fool, Adèle,’ said the elder woman. ‘Come and have some brandy—you will be all right then.’
The girl laughed hoarsely and uttered a coarse oath, then the cough seized her again with a paroxysm so violent that her whole frame shook like a leaf.
‘Devil take the cough,’ she said. ‘I shall have to go into the hospital after all.’
A few more words passed, and then the elder woman, impatient to reach the bar of some neighbouring public-house, ran across the street. The young girl was feebly following, when Sutherland stepped forward, lifting his hat.
‘Good evening, mademoiselle,’ he said, speaking in her own language. ‘I am afraid you are ill?’