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But he would not deny himself the pleasure of giving pic-
turesque details of the odours which met his nostril. With
a fierce delight in his own realism he described the wom-
an who had opened the door for him. She was dark, small,
and fat, quite young, with black hair that seemed always on
the point of coming down. She wore a slatternly blouse and
no corsets. With her red cheeks, large sensual mouth, and
shining, lewd eyes, she reminded you of the Bohemienne
in the Louvre by Franz Hals. She had a flaunting vulgar-
ity which amused and yet horrified. A scrubby, unwashed
baby was playing on the floor. It was known that the slut
deceived Cronshaw with the most worthless ragamuffins of
the Quarter, and it was a mystery to the ingenuous youths
who absorbed his wisdom over a cafe table that Cronshaw
with his keen intellect and his passion for beauty could ally
himself to such a creature. But he seemed to revel in the
coarseness of her language and would often report some
phrase which reeked of the gutter. He referred to her ironi-
cally as la fille de mon concierge. Cronshaw was very poor.
He earned a bare subsistence by writing on the exhibitions
of pictures for one or two English papers, and he did a cer-
tain amount of translating. He had been on the staff of an
English paper in Paris, but had been dismissed for drunk-
enness; he still however did odd jobs for it, describing sales
at the Hotel Drouot or the revues at music-halls. The life
of Paris had got into his bones, and he would not change
it, notwithstanding its squalor, drudgery, and hardship, for
any other in the world. He remained there all through the
year, even in summer when everyone he knew was away,

Of Human Bondage