ealization of his England, enjoyed in
Paris through the means of this frightful weather: a rainy, colossal
London smelling of molten metal and of soot, ceaselessly steaming and
smoking in the fog now spread out before his eyes; then rows of docks
sprawled ahead, as far as the eye could reach, docks full of cranes,
hand winches and bales, swarming with men perched on masts or astride
yard sails, while myriads of other men on the quays pushed hogsheads
into cellars.

All this was transpiring in vast warehouses along the river banks
which were bathed by the muddy and dull water of an imaginary Thames,
in a forest of masts and girders piercing the wan clouds of the
firmament, while trains rushed past at full speed or rumpled
underground uttering horrible cries and vomiting waves of smoke, and
while, through every street, monstrous and gaudy and infamous
advertisements flared through the eternal twilight, and strings of
carriages passed between rows of preoccupied and taciturn people whose
eyes stared ahead and whose elbows pressed closely against their
bodies.

Des Esseintes shivered deliciously to feel himself mingling in this
terrible world of merchants, in this insulating mist, in this
incessant activity, in this pitiless gearing which ground millions of
the disinherited, urged by the comfort-distilling philanthropists to
recite Biblical verses and to sing psalms.

Then the vision faded suddenly with a jolt of the _fiacre_ which made
him rebound in his seat. He gazed through the carriage windows. Night
had fallen; gas burners blinked through the fog, amid a yellowish
halo; ribbons of fire swam in puddles of water and seemed to revolve
around wheels of carriages moving through liquid and dirty flame. He
endeavored to get his bearings, perceived the Carrousel and suddenly,
unreasoningly, perhaps through the simple effect of the high fall from
fanciful spaces, his thought reverted to a very trivial incident. He
remembered that his domestic had neglected to put a tooth brush in his
belongings. Then, he passed in review the list of objects packed up;
everything had been placed in his valise, but the annoyance of having
omitted this brush persisted until the driver, pulling up, broke the
chain of his reminiscences and regrets.

He was in the rue de Rivoli, in front of _Galignani's Messenger_.
Separated by a door whose unpolished glass was covered with
inscriptions and with strips of passe-partout framing newspaper
clippi