inion; the
fourth, desire; the fifth, sorrow; the sixth, pride; and the seventh,
man.

"But," the reader objects, "where are the women in all this?"

Oh! creatures who bear the name of women and who have passed like dreams
through a life that was itself a dream, what shall I say of you? Where
there is no shadow of hope can there be memory? Where shall I seek
for it? What is there more dumb in human memory? What is there more
completely forgotten than you?

If I must speak of women I will mention two; here is one of them:

I ask what would be expected of a poor sewing-girl, young and pretty,
about eighteen, with a romantic affair on her hands that is purely a
question of love; with little knowledge of life and no idea of morals;
eternally sewing near a window before which processions were not allowed
to pass by order of the police, but near which a dozen young women
prowled who were licensed and recognized by these same police; what
could you expect of her, when after wearying her hands and eyes all day
long on a dress or a hat, she leans out of that window as night falls?
That dress she has sewed, that hat she has trimmed with her poor and
honest hands in order to earn a supper for the household, she sees
passing along the street on the head or on the body of a notorious
woman. Thirty times a day a hired carriage stops before the door, and
there steps out a dissolute character, numbered as is the hack in which
she rides, who stands before a glass and primps, taking off and putting
on the results of many days' work on the part of the poor girl who
watches her. She sees that woman draw from her pocket gold in plenty,
she who has but one louis a week; she looks at her feet and her head,
she examines her dress and eyes her as she steps into her carriage; and
then, what can you expect? When night has fallen, after a day when work
has been scarce, when her mother is sick, she opens her door, stretches
out her hand and stops a passerby.

Such is the story of a girl I once knew. She could play the piano, knew
something of accounts, a little designing, even a little history and
grammar, and thus a little of everything. How many times have I regarded
with poignant compassion that sad work of nature, mutilated by society!
How many times have I followed in the darkness the pale and vacillating
gleams of a spark flickering in abortive life! How many times have I
tried to revive the fire that smouldered under those ashes! Alas!