scene, like a thousand others which our heaving Paris presents daily;
but he examined it mechanically, as a man absorbed in thought, when,
happening to look up, he found himself all but nose to nose with a man
who had just entered the gateway.

In appearance this man was a beggar, but not the Parisian beggar,
--that creation without a name in human language; no, this man formed
another type, while presenting on the outside all the ideas suggested
by the word "beggar." He was not marked by those original Parisian
characteristics which strike us so forcibly in the paupers whom
Charlet was fond of representing, with his rare luck in observation,
--coarse faces reeking of mud, hoarse voices, reddened and bulbous
noses, mouths devoid of teeth but menacing; humble yet terrible
beings, in whom a profound intelligence shining in their eyes seems
like a contradiction. Some of these bold vagabonds have blotched,
cracked, veiny skins; their foreheads are covered with wrinkles, their
hair scanty and dirty, like a wig thrown on a dust-heap. All are gay
in their degradation, and degraded in their joys; all are marked with
the stamp of debauchery, casting their silence as a reproach; their
very attitude revealing fearful thoughts. Placed between crime and
beggary they have no compunctions, and circle prudently around the
scaffold without mounting it, innocent in the midst of crime, and
vicious in their innocence. They often cause a laugh, but they always
cause reflection. One represents to you civilization stunted,
repressed; he comprehends everything, the honor of the galleys,
patriotism, virtue, the malice of a vulgar crime, or the fine
astuteness of elegant wickedness. Another is resigned, a perfect
mimer, but stupid. All have slight yearnings after order and work, but
they are pushed back into their mire by society, which makes no
inquiry as to what there may be of great men, poets, intrepid souls,