answer in a shrill voice accompanied by a rather disagreeable gesture
of disdain. Leaving the den of this woman-cannon to one side, you
would proceed; at the left of the entrance began the staircase, always
in darkness, with no air except what filtered in through a few high,
grated windows that opened upon a diminutive courtyard with filthy
walls punctured by round ventilators. For a broad, roomy nose endowed
with a keen pituitary membrane, it would have been a curious sport to
discover and investigate the provenience and the species of all the
vile odours comprising that fetid stench, which was an inalienable
characteristic of the establishment.

The author never succeeded in making the acquaintance of the persons
living upon the upper floors. He has a vague notion that there were
two or three landladies, a family who let out rooms to permanent
gentlemen boarders, but nothing else. Wherefore the author does not
climb those heights but pauses upon the first landing.

Here, at least by day, could be made out in the reigning darkness, a
tiny door; at night, on the other hand, by the light of a kerosene
lantern one could glimpse a tin door-plate painted red, upon which was
inscribed in black letters: "Casiana Fernandez."

At one side of the door hung a length of blackish rusted chain that
could be reached only by standing on tiptoe and stretching out one's
arm; but as the door was always ajar, the lodgers could come and go
without the need of knocking.

This led to the house. By day, one was plunged into utter obscurity;
the sole thing that indicated a change of place was the smell, not so
much because it was more agreeable than that of the staircase, as