Page:Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal, t. I.djvu/86

 feeling quite glad that I might at first remain only a spectator. I wondered, however, what the sight would be like.

"We had an endless drive through the narrow straggling streets, alleys, and by-ways, where painted women appeared in gorgeous dresses at the filthy windows of some wretched houses.

"As it was getting late, all the shops were now shut, except the fruiterers, who sold fried fish, mussels, and potatoes. These disgorged an offensive smell of dirt, grease, and hot oil, which mixed itself up with the stench of the gutters and that of the cesspools in the middle of the streets.

"In the darkness of the ill-lighted thoroughfares more than one café chantant and beer-house flared with red gas-lights, and as we passed them we felt the puffs of warm, close air reeking with alcohol, tobacco, and sour beer.

"All those streets were thronged with a motley crowd. There were tipsy men with scowling, ugly faces, slip-shod vixens, and pale, precociously withered children all tattered and torn,