It was not, Heaven help us all! a very uncommon occurrence these days: a
woman almost unsexed by misery, starvation, and the abnormal excitement
engendered by daily spectacles of revenge and of cruelty. They were to
be met with every day, round every street corner, these harridans, more
terrible far than were the men.

This one was still comparatively young, thirty at most; would have been
good-looking too, for the features were really delicate, the nose
chiselled, the brow straight, the chin round and small. But the mouth!
Heavens, what a mouth! Hard and cruel and thin-lipped; and those eyes!
sunken and rimmed with purple; eyes that told tales of sorrow and, yes!
of degradation. The crowd stood round her, sullen and apathetic; poor,
miserable wretches like herself, staring at her antics with lack-lustre
eyes and an ever-recurrent contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.

The woman was dancing, contorting her body in the small circle of light
formed by a flickering lanthorn which was hung across the street from
house to house, striking the muddy pavement with her shoeless feet, all
to the sound of a be-ribboned tambourine which she struck now and again
with her small, grimy hand. From time to time she paused, held out the
tambourine at arm's length, and went the round of the spectators, asking
for alms. But at her approach the crowd at once seemed to disintegrate,
to melt into the humid evening air; it was but rarely that a greasy
token fell into the outstretched tambourine. Then as the woman started
again to dance the crowd gradually reassembled, and stood, hands in
pockets, lips still sullen and contemptuous, but eyes watchful of the
spectacle. There were such few spectacles these days, other than the
monotonous processions of tumbrils with their load of aristocrats for
the guillotine!