ays; you look to find the execrable engravings which spoil your
appetite, framed every one in a black varnished frame, with a gilt
beading round it; you know the sort of tortoise-shell clock-case, inlaid
with brass; the green stove, the Argand lamps, covered with oil and
dust, have met your eyes before. The oilcloth which covers the long
table is so greasy that a waggish _externe_ will write his name on the
surface, using his thumb-nail as a style. The chairs are broken-down
invalids; the wretched little hempen mats slip away from under your
feet without slipping away for good; and finally, the foot-warmers are
miserable wrecks, hingeless, charred, broken away about the holes. It
would be impossible to give an idea of the old, rotten, shaky, cranky,
worm-eaten, halt, maimed, one-eyed, rickety, and ramshackle condition of
the furniture without an exhaustive description, which would delay
the progress of the story to an extent that impatient people would not
pardon. The red tiles of the floor are full of depressions brought about
by scouring and periodical renewings of color. In short, there is
no illusory grace left to the poverty that reigns here; it is dire,
parsimonious, concentrated, threadbare poverty; as yet it has not sunk
into the mire, it is only splashed by it, and though not in rags as yet,
its clothing is ready to drop to pieces.

This apartment is in all its glory at seven o'clock in the morning,
when Mme. Vauquer's cat appears, announcing the near approach of his
mistress, and jumps upon the sideboards to sniff at the milk in the
bowls, each protected by a plate, while he purrs his morning greeting to
the world. A moment later the widow shows her face; she is tricked out
in a net cap attached to a false front set on awry, and shuffles into
the room in her slipshod fashion. She is an oldish woman, with a bloated
countenance, and a nose like a parrot's beak set in the middle of
it; her fat little hands (she is as sleek as a church rat) and her
shapeless, slouching figure are in keeping with the room that reeks of
misfortune, where hope is reduced to speculate for the meanest
stakes. Mme. Vauquer alone can breathe that tainted air without being
disheartened by it. Her face is as fresh as a frosty morning in autumn;
there are wrinkles about the eyes that vary in their expression from
the set smile of a ballet-dancer to the dark, suspicious scowl of
a discounter of bills; in short, she is at once the embodiment a