little blue lamp hanging from the ceiling, she glanced first of all at
the mirror, which gave back her reflection from head to foot, at all her
luxurious surroundings, so unfamiliar to her; then, instead of going to
bed, she opened the window and stood leaning against the sill, motionless
as a statue.

The night was clear and warm. She could see distinctly the whole
factory, its innumerable unshaded windows, its glistening panes, its tall
chimney losing itself in the depths of the sky, and nearer at hand the
lovely little garden against the ancient wall of the former mansion. All
about were gloomy, miserable roofs and squalid streets. Suddenly she
started. Yonder, in the darkest, the ugliest of all those attics
crowding so closely together, leaning against one another, as if
overweighted with misery, a fifth-floor window stood wide open, showing
only darkness within. She recognized it at once. It was the window of
the landing on which her parents lived.

The window on the landing!

How many things the mere name recalled! How many hours, how many days
she had passed there, leaning on that damp sill, without rail or balcony,
looking toward the factory. At that moment she fancied that she could
see up yonder little Chebe's ragged person, and in the frame made by that
poor window, her whole child life, her deplorable youth as a Parisian
street arab, passed before her eyes.




CHAPTER II