Page 63 (1/1)
At last he reached the end of the street It opened upon an ihts flickered in the confusedto escape, by the swiftness of his legs, from the three infirm spectres who had clutched hi,away his crutches, and running after hieometrical step upon the paveless oire with his heavy iron bowl, and the blindeyes!
"Where am I?" said the terrified poet
"In the Court of Miracles," replied a fourth spectre, who had accosted theoire, "I certainly do behold the blind who see, and the lame alk, but where is the Saviour?"
They replied by a burst of sinister laughter
The poor poet cast his eyes about him It was, in truth, that redoubtable Cour des Miracles, whither an honest ic circle where the officers of the Châtelet and the sergeants of the provostship, who ventured thither, disappeared in morsels; a city of thieves, a hideous wart on the face of Paris; a sewer, froht to crouch, that streae which always overflows in the streets of capitals; a htfall, with their booty, all the drones of the social order; a lying hospital where the bohemian, the disfrocked monk, the ruined scholar, the ne'er-do-wells of all nations, Spaniards, Italians, Gerions, Jews, Christians, Mahoars by day, were transfor-room, in a word, where, at that epoch, the actors of that eternal comedy, which theft, prostitution, and murder play upon the pavements of Paris, dressed and undressed
It was a vast place, irregular and badly paved, like all the squares of Paris at that date Fires, around which swar, cohter was to be heard, the wailing of children, the voices of woainst the luestures At tiht of the fires,passing, which rese The limits of races and species seemed effaced in this city, as in a pandee, sex, health,these people; all went together, they led, confounded, superposed; each one there participated in all