Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir etre seul.--LA BRUYERE

It was well said of a certain German book that ''--it does not permit itself to be read. There
are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men
die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly
confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes--die with
despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the
hideousness of mysteries which will not to be
revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes
up a burthen so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only
into the grave. And thus the essence of all crime is undivulged.
Not long ago, about the closing in of an evening in autumn, I
sat at the large bow window of the D---- Coffee House in London.
For some months I had been ill in health, but was now convalescent,
and, with returning strength, found myself in one of those happy
moods which are so precisely the converse of --moods of
the keenest appetency, when the film from the mental vision
departs--the --and the intellect, electrified,
surpasses as greatly its everyday condition, as does the vivid yet
candid reason of Leibnitz, the mad and flimsy rhetoric of Gorgias.
Merely to breathe was enjoyment; and I derived positive pleasure
even from many of the legitimate sources of pain. I felt a calm
but inquisitive interest in everything. With a cigar in my mouth
and a newspaper in my lap, I had been amusing myself for the
greater part of the afternoon, now in poring over advertisements,
now in observing the promiscuous company in the room, and now in
peering through the smoky panes into the street.
This latter is one of the principal thoroughfares of the city,
and had been very much crowded during the whole day. But, as the
darkness came on, the throng momently increased; and, by the time
the lamps were well lighted, two dense and continuous tides of
population were rushing past the door. At this particular period
of the evening I had never before been in a similar situation, and
the tumultuous sea of human heads filled me, therefore, with a
delicious novelty of emotion. I gave up, at length, all care of
things within the hotel, and became absorbed in contemplation of
the scene without.
At first my observations took an abstract and generalizing
turn. I looked at the passengers in masses, and thought of them in
their aggregate relations. Soon, however, I descended to details,
and regarded with minute interest the innumerable varieties of
detail, dress, air, gait, visage, and expression of countenance.
By far the greater number of those who went by had a satisfied
business-like demeanour, and seemed to be thinking only of making
their way through the press. Their brows were knit, and their eyes
rolled quickly; when pushed against by fellow-wayfarers 
they evinced no symptom of impatience, but adjusted their clothes
and hurried on. Others, still a numerous class, were restless in
their movements, had flushed faces, and talked and gesticulated to
themselves, as if feeling in solitude on account of the very
denseness of the company around. When impeded in their progress,
these people suddenly ceased muttering, but redoubled their
gesticulations, and awaited, with an absent and overdone smile upon
the lips, the course of the persons impeding them. If jostled,
they bowed profusely to the jostlers, and appeared overwhelmed with
confusion.-- There was nothing very distinctive about these two
large classes beyond what I have noted. Their habiliments belonged
to that order which is pointedly termed the decent. They were
undoubtedly noblemen, merchants, attorneys, tradesmen, stock-
jobbers--the Eupatrids and the commonplaces of society--men of
leisure and men actively engaged in affairs of their own--
conducting business upon their own responsibility. They did not
greatly excite my attention.
The tribe of clerks was an obvious one; and here I discerned
two remarkable divisions. There were the junior clerks of flash
houses--young gentlemen with tight coats, bright boots, well-oiled
hair, and supercilious lips. Setting aside a certain dapperness of
carriage, which may be termed for want of a better
word, the manner of these persons seemed to me an exact fac-simile
of what had been the perfection of about twelve or
eighteen months before. They wore the cast-off graces of the
gentry;--and this, I believe, involves the best definition of the
class.
The division of the upper clerks of staunch firms, or of the
'steady old fellows', it was not possible to mistake. These were
known by their coats and pantaloons of black or brown, made to sit
comfortably, with white cravats and waistcoats, broad solid-looking
shoes, and thick hose or gaiters.-- They had all slightly bald
heads, from which the right ears, long used to pen-holding, had an
odd habit of standing off on end. I observed that they always
removed or settled their hats with both hands, and wore watches,
with short gold chains of a substantial and ancient pattern.
Theirs was the affectation of respectability;--if indeed there be
an affectation so honourable.
There were many individuals of dashing appearance, whom I easily understood as belonging to the race of swell pick-
pockets, with which all great cities are infested. I watched these
gentry with much inquisitiveness, and found it difficult to imagine
how they should ever be mistaken for gentlemen by gentlemen
themselves. Their voluminousness of wristband, with an air of
excessive frankness, should betray them at once.
The gamblers, of whom I described not a few, were still more
easily recognizable. They wore every variety of dress, from that
of the desperate thimble-rig bully, with velvet waistcoat, fancy
neckerchief, gilt chains, and filigreed buttons, to that of the
scrupulously inornate clergyman than which nothing could be less
liable to suspicion. Still all were distinguished by a certain
sodden swarthiness of complexion, a filmy dimness of eye, and
pallor and compression of lip. There were two other traits,
moreover, by which I could always detect them;--a guarded lowness
of tone in conversation, and a more than ordinary extension of the
thumb in a direction at right angles with the fingers.-- Very
often, in company with these sharpers, I observed an order of men
somewhat different in habits, but still birds of a kindred feather.
They may be defined as the gentlemen who live by their wits. They
seem to prey upon the public in two battalions--that of the dandies
and that of the military men. Of the first grade the leading
features are long locks and smiles; of the second frogged coats and
frowns.
Descending in the scale of what is termed gentility, I found
darker and deeper themes for speculation. I saw Jew pedlars, with
hawk eyes flashing from countenances whose every other feature wore
only an expression of abject humility; sturdy professional street
beggars scowling upon mendicants of a better stamp, whom despair
alone had driven forth into the night for charity; feeble and
ghastly invalids, upon whom death had placed a sure hand, and who
sidled and tottered through the mob, looking every one beseechingly
in the face, as if in search of some chance consolation, some lost
hope; modest young girls returning from long and late labour to a
cheerless home, and shrinking more tearfully than indignantly from
the glance of ruffians, whose direct contact, even, could not be
avoided; women of the town of all kinds and of all ages--the
unequivocal beauty in the prime of her womanhood, putting
one in mind of the statue in Lucian, with the surface of Parthian
marble, and the interior filled with filth--the loathsome and
utterly lost leper in rags--the wrinkled, bejewelled, and paint-
begrimed beldame, making a last effort at youth--the mere child of
immature form, yet, from long association, an adept in the dreadful
coquetries of her trade, and burning with a rabid ambition to be
ranked the equal of her elders in vice; drunkards innumerable and
indescribable--some in shreds and patches, reeling, inarticulate,
with bruised visage and lack-lustre eyes--some in whole although
filthy garments, with a slightly-unsteady swagger, thick sensual
lips, and hearty-looking rubicund faces--others clothed in
materials which had once been good, and which even now were
scrupulously well brushed--men who walked with a more than
naturally firm and springy step, but whose countenances were
fearfully pale, whose eyes hideously wild and red, and who clutched
with quivering fingers, as they strode through the crowd, at every
object which came within their reach; beside these, pie-men,
porters, coal-heavers, sweeps; organ-grinders, monkey-exhibitors,
and ballad-mongers, those who vended with those who sang; ragged
artisans and exhausted labourers of every description, and all full
of a noisy and inordinate vivacity which jarred discordantly upon
the ear, and gave an aching sensation to the eye.
As the night deepened, so deepened to me the interest of the
scene; for not only did the general character of the crowd
materially alter (its gentler features retiring in the gradual
withdrawal of the more orderly portion of the people, and its
harsher ones coming out into bolder relief, as the late hour
brought forth every species of infamy from its den), but the rays
of the gas-lamps, feeble at first in their struggle with the dying
day, had now at length gained ascendancy, and threw over everything
a fitful and garish lustre. All was dark yet splendid--as that
ebony to which has been likened the style of Tertullian.
The wild effects of the light enchained me to an examination
of individual faces; and although the rapidity with which the world
of light flitted before the window, prevented me from casting more
than a glance upon each visage, still it seemed that, in my then
peculiar mental state, I could frequently read, even in that brief interval of a glance, the history of long years.
With my brow to the glass, I was thus occupied in scrutinizing
the mob, when suddenly there came into view a countenance (that of
a decrepit old man, some sixty-five or seventy years of age)--a
countenance which at once arrested and absorbed my whole attention,
on account of the absolute idiosyncrasy of its expression.
Anything even remotely resembling that expression I had never seen
before. I well remember that my first thought, upon beholding it,
was that Retszch, had he viewed it, would have greatly preferred it
to his own pictural incarnations of the fiend. As I endeavoured,
during the brief minute of my original survey, to form some
analysis of the meaning conveyed, there arose confusedly and
paradoxically within my mind, the ideas of vast mental power, of
caution, of penuriousness, of avarice, of coolness, of malice, of
blood-thirstiness, of triumph, of merriment, of excessive terror,
of intense--of extreme despair. I felt singularly aroused,
startled, fascinated. 'How wild a history,' I said to myself, 'is
written within that bosom!' Then came a craving desire to keep the
man in view--to know more of him. Hurriedly putting on an
overcoat, and seizing my hat and cane, I made my way into the
street, and pushed through the crowd in the direction which I had
seen him take; for he had already disappeared. With some little
difficulty I at length came within sight of him, approached, and
followed him closely, yet cautiously, so as not to attract his
attention.
I had now a good opportunity of examining his person. He was
short in stature, very thin, and apparently very feeble. His
clothes, generally, were filthy and ragged; but as he came, now and
then, within the strong glare of a lamp, I perceived that his
linen, although dirty, was of beautiful texture; and my vision
deceived me, or, through a rent in a closely-buttoned and evidently
second-handed which enveloped him, I caught a
glimpse both of a diamond and of a dagger. These observations
heightened my curiosity, and I resolved to follow the stranger
whithersoever he should go.
It was now fully nightfall, and a thick humid fog hung over
the city, soon ending in a settled and heavy rain. This change of
weather had an odd effect upon the crowd, the whole of which was at once put into new commotion, and overshadowed by a
world of umbrellas. The waver, the jostle, and the hum increased
in a tenfold degree. For my own part I did not much regard the
rain--the lurking of an old fever in my system rendering the
moisture somewhat too dangerously pleasant. Tying a handkerchief
about my mouth, I kept on. For half an hour the old man held his
way with difficulty along the great thoroughfare; and I here walked
close at his elbow through fear of losing sight of him. Never once
turning his head to look back, he did not observe me. By and by,
he passed into a cross street, which, although densely filled with
people, was not quite so much thronged as the main one he had
quitted. Here a change in his demeanour became evident. He walked
more slowly and with less object than before--more hesitatingly.
He crossed and re-crossed the way repeatedly without apparent aim;
and the press was still so thick, that, at every such movement, I
was obliged to follow him closely. The street was a narrow and
long one, and his course lay within it for nearly an hour, during
which the passengers had gradually diminished to about that number
which is ordinarily seen at noon in Broadway near the Park--so vast
a difference is there between a London populace and that of the
most frequented American city. A second turn brought us into a
square, brilliantly lighted, and, overflowing with life. The old
manner of the stranger reappeared. His chin fell upon his breast,
while his eyes rolled wildly from under his knit brows, in every
direction, upon those who hemmed him in. He urged his way steadily
and perseveringly. I was surprised, however, to find, upon his
having made the circuit of the square, that he turned and retraced
his steps. Still more was I astonished to see him repeat the same
walk several times--once nearly detecting me as he came round with
a sudden movement.
In this exercise he spent another hour, at the end of which we
met with far less interruption from passengers than at first. The
rain fell fast; the air grew cool; and the people were retiring to
their homes. With a gesture of impatience, the wanderer passed
into a by-street comparatively deserted. Down this, some quarter
of a mile long, he rushed with an activity I could not have dreamed
of seeing in one so aged, and which put me to much trouble in
pursuit. A few minutes brought us to a large and busy bazaar, with the localities of which the stranger appeared well
acquainted, and where his original demeanour again became apparent,
as he forced his way to and fro, without aim, among the host of
buyers and sellers.
During the hour and a half, or thereabouts, which we passed in
this place, it required much caution on my part to keep him within
reach without attracting his observation. Luckily I wore a pair of
caoutchouc over-shoes, and could move about in perfect silence. At
no moment did he see that I watched him. He entered shop after
shop, priced nothing, spoke no word, and looked at all objects with
a wild and vacant stare. I was now utterly amazed at his
behaviour, and firmly resolved that we should not part until I had
satisfied myself in some measure respecting him.
A loud-toned clock struck eleven, and the company were fast
deserting the bazaar. A shop-keeper, in putting up a shutter,
jostled the old man, and at the instant I saw a strong shudder come
over his frame. He hurried into the street, looked anxiously
around him for an instant, and then ran with incredible swiftness
through many crooked and people-less lanes, until we emerged once
more upon the great thoroughfare whence we had started--the street
of the D----- Hotel. It no longer wore, however, the same aspect.
It was still brilliant with gas; but the rain fell fiercely, and
there were few persons to be seen. The stranger grew pale. He
walked moodily some paces up the once populous avenue, then, with
a heavy sigh, turned in the direction of the river, and, plunging
through a great variety of devious ways, came out, at length, in
view of one of the principal theatres. It was about being closed,
and the audience were thronging the doors. I saw the old man gasp
as if for breath while he threw himself amid the crowd; but I
thought that the intense agony of his countenance had, in some
measure, abated. His head again fell upon his breast; he appeared
as I had seen him at first. I observed that he now took the course
in which had gone the greater number of the audience--but, upon the
whole, I was at a loss to comprehend the waywardness of his
actions.
As he proceeded, the company grew more scattered, and his old
uneasiness and vacillation were resumed. For some time he followed
closely a party of some ten or twelve roisterers; but from 
this number one by one dropped off, until three only remained
together, in a narrow and gloomy lane little frequented. The
stranger paused, and, for a moment, seemed lost in thought, then,
with every mark of agitation, pursued rapidly a route which brought
us to the verge of the city, amid regions very different from those
we had hitherto traversed. It was the most noisome quarter of
London, where everything wore the worst impress of the most
deplorable poverty, and of the most desperate crime. By the dim
light of an accidental lamp, tall, antique, worm-eaten, wooden
tenements were seen tottering to their fall, in directions so many
and capricious that scarce the semblance of a passage was
discernible between them. The paving-stones lay at random,
displaced from their beds by the rankly-growing grass. Horrible
filth festered in the dammed-up gutters. The whole atmosphere
teemed with desolation. Yet, as we proceeded, the sounds of human
life revived by sure degrees, and at length large bands of the most
abandoned of a London populace were seen reeling to and fro. The
spirits of the old man again flickered up, as a lamp which is near
its death-hour. Once more he strode onward with elastic tread.
Suddenly a corner was turned, a blaze of light burst upon our
sight, and we stood before one of the huge suburban temples of
Intemperance--one of the palaces of the fiend, Gin.
It was now nearly daybreak; but a number of wretched
inebriates still pressed in and out of the flaunting entrance.
With a half shriek of joy the old man forced a passage within,
resumed at once his original bearing, and stalked backward and
forward, without apparent object, among the throng. He had not
been thus long occupied, however, before a rush to the doors gave
token that the host was closing them for the night. It was
something even more intense than despair that I then observed upon
the countenance of the singular being whom I had watched so
pertinaciously. Yet he did not hesitate in his career, but, with
a mad energy, retraced his steps at once, to the heart of the
mighty London. Long and swiftly he fled, while I followed him in
the wildest amazement, resolute not to abandon a scrutiny in which
I now felt an interest all-absorbing. The sun arose while we
proceeded, and, when we had once again reached the most thronged
part of the populous town, the street of the D----- Hotel,
it presented an appearance of human bustle and activity scarcely
inferior to what I had seen on the evening before. And here, long,
amid the momently increasing confusion, did I persist in my pursuit
of the stranger. But, as usual, he walked to and fro, and during
the day did not pass from out the turmoil of that street. And, as
the shades of the second evening came on, I grew wearied unto
death, and, stopping fully in front of the wanderer, gazed at him
steadfastly in the face. He noticed me not, but resumed his solemn
walk, while I, ceasing to follow, remained absorbed in
contemplation. 'This old man,' I said at length, 'is the type and
the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. . It will be in vain to follow; for I shall learn
no more of him, nor of his deeds. The worst heart of the world is
a grosser book than the , and perhaps it is but
one of the great mercies of God that .'