Granville's estate

Chapter 97 Brumy Moon: Scavengers

For residents of the provinces, not falling asleep at eleven o'clock in the night is a behavior that is neither conducive to good sleep habits nor to the poor wallet-it often means that they have to spend unnecessary money. The money spent on lighting and heating could have been avoided in the next day's sun; and yet, for some wealthy and fashionable Parisian, at eleven o'clock, the night was just beginning!

Louis has always adhered to the work and rest of the provincial residents, so when the Durand family's carriage in which he was riding drove him out of the Durand Bank after Cabo's cab, he was very surprised to find him It’s like straying into the legendary city that never sleeps—from rue de la Taibe to the outskirts of Montmartre, where Louis has never set foot. This large area is the center of Paris, and the streetlights are naturally in the best condition and the brightest. The bright, pale and harsh streetlights in the Garrison and the Latin Quarter seem to have softened here; the Boulevard d’Andan, rue Tebes and the famous Rue Richelieu they passed along the way, although not as bright as in the daytime The grand occasion, but everywhere is still active like boiling lava.

This area is home to the largest number of cafés, banks, hotels, opera houses and jewelry stores in Paris, the most exclusive tailors, cane shops, perfume shops, and a thousand other high-end shops selling different goods.At this time, horse-drawn carriages waiting for the masters to come out were gathered in front of the theater where the show was being performed. Even though the show had already started, the ticket office was still crowded with many people. Looking around in the theater, hoping to be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the famous actors who will appear in the play tonight; in a magnificent cafe, people who come to have a late-night snack after having enough fun, or people who have been enjoying a sumptuous feast from six o'clock in the afternoon until now People, toasting to the short-lived friendship they met by chance; many banks have been dimmed, and their employees will flood into those magnificent marble buildings when they go to work the next day, but beside them Among the brightly lit jewelry stores, many attentive husbands (or lovers, who knows!) are accompanied by their whimsical wives to choose the most exquisite jewelry!

However, after their carriage turned into Charlo Street, it was almost visible to the naked eye, and the area became lonely.As the carriage continued to move, Louis found that the environment they were in was getting quieter and quieter. It seemed that they were only one street away, and the endless bustling and boiling restlessness were all blocked behind the invisible high wall.

Charlo Street adjacent to the central city is not a neighborhood for the poor. The road here is made of a mixture of stone slabs and asphalt. Due to disrepair, the carriage is a bit bumpy when driving on such a road; the road here There is a gutter for drainage on the edge of the house, and when their carriage passed an old baroque house with a protruding balcony, Louis found at least four or five people carrying rag bags gathered in the gutter in front of the house. The scavengers seem to be picking up something in the mud of the ditch.

"Oh!"

After the carriage passed by, Louis suddenly realized something, and hurriedly looked back through the window, and found that he was right—among the scavengers, there were at least three very thin children, each of them Clothes are ragged, and their stature is short enough to make one wonder if they are seven years old.

Among the scavengers squatting in the gutter was an adult scavenger in a dirty velveteen coat and carrying a long stick in his hand. He poked around with a seven-foot iron rod. For this impromptu group, dig up everything buried in the mud from the deepest part of the ditch, and take the scraps of copper and coins and put them in the pocket of his large velveteen coat; The scavenger carries a dirty cloth sack, the bottom of which has been soaked with sewage, and has a gas lamp strapped to his chest, which helps others better appreciate the value of various things, and thus has the right to former A scavenger scooped up rags, sacks, and animal bones of some value; while other children, carrying cloth sacks as ragged as their clothes, happily walked between the two An adult scavenger in a dirty velveteen coat was running around, picking up other things that even a scavenger would disdain—broken coals, dog poop, and broken rope.

Of course, at this time, Louis did not know that among the scavengers at the bottom of society, there were so many subdivided levels——these were only told to him by Karbo during a chat after a long time. He was only disturbed by the fact that he saw: above the Notre-Dame, next to the most prosperous district of Paris, a group of children-they were probably not as old as Louis when he entered the boarding school of Saint-Etienne. Few—in the cold winter, squatting in the sewage and silt, rummaging through garbage!

No matter how shocked Louis was by the scavengers he saw, it was impossible for the Durand family's carriage to stop in front of those smelly scavengers for him (not to mention, he didn't ask the carriage to stop); However, after the carriage drove a distance of tens of meters, the rental carriage that Cabo was riding in the front stopped suddenly, which forced the carriage that Louis was riding to also stop.

"Monsieur Farentin."

After the two carriages stopped one after another, Carbo jumped out of the rental carriage and walked to the window of Louis's carriage: "Did you see those people who were picking up trash in the ditch just now?"

"I saw it, Carbo." Louis said, feeling a little stuffy in his chest: "If I'm not mistaken, there are several very young children there, and they stepped in the sewage of the ditch. "

"Yes, sir, there are many such scavengers in Paris." Carbo said, and he glanced in the direction of those scavengers: "Sir, I think you can give some candies to those children, I think they I would be very happy to receive such a gift. These people may not be able to find a five-centim copper coin after digging through the mud all day. For them, sugar and candy are rare things that cannot be eaten normally. .”

"I'd love to do that."

For the suggestion made by Karbo, Louis naturally agrees very much-in fact, he still wants to give the three scavenger children a few francs alms, but after touching his pockets, he remembered that he The franc box containing pocket money had been taken away by Callister long ago, and the sapphire franc box given to him by the viscount did not contain coins.

"The streets here are so bad they'll stain your shoes. You don't need to get out of the carriage, let me take care of it."

Carbo prevented Louis from getting out of the carriage, and he took the marzipan basket full of assorted candies from Louis through the carriage window (Louis hesitated when giving the basket I finally decided to hand it over to the viscount’s attendant for disposal), and then carefully stepped on the broken stone road to a place where Louis in the carriage could see it, but would not be smelly from the scavengers. When I arrived at Louis' place, I waved to the children who scavenged.

As early as when their carriage stopped, the scavengers had noticed the movement here. For these people, anyone who had the money to take a carriage—whether it was a rented carriage or a private carriage—was undoubtedly a sign. So they might get a generous handout; so Kabo beckoned, and the scavengers immediately galloped over like wild horses, but the two adult scavengers were killed because they could not leave behind the heavy harvest. fell behind.

"Hey, Kabo boy, don't let these dirty guys get your clothes dirty!"

Seeing the scavengers rushing over, the coachman of the Durand family couldn't help yelling at Cabo. He drove the carriage away from Cabo, as if he was afraid that those scavengers would take his carriage away at the same time. Dirty as well.

"My lord, what are your orders!"

After the coachman struggled, those children had already run to Kabo, and the one who ran in front was a child with brown curly hair and bare feet. He looked about eight or nine years old, with his head raised, very Looking excitedly at the candy basket in Carbo's hand.

"What were you doing in the ditch just now?" Carbo asked, even though he was mentally prepared, he still had to take a step back because of the stench of these children.

"We are digging the mud in the ditch, sir, and I picked up a big bone, at least I can get a centimetre from the person who boiled the bone!"

A scavenger answered first, and he triumphantly held up a large pale bone in his hand to show Karbo, which looked thicker than the slender wrist of the scavenger.

"I picked up a piece of white cloth today, a whole piece of white cloth, sir, a complete piece of cloth!"

The curly brown-haired scavenger was obviously unhappy to be outdone by his peers, and like a soldier yearning for recognition, he desperately emphasized his merits: "Mine can be replaced by at least two centimes, sir, white cloth is rare Yes! We usually only find soiled rags, which cost a centime a pound."

"I picked up some dog shit that I could sell to the leather man, but only enough to buy me a few potatoes," whispered the last scavenger, carrying a broken bag nearly up to his heels. Cloth bag, the original color of the bag is no longer visible: "The leather men can use dog poop to remove the lime from the leather, but they hate doing it, so they only give me the lowest price."

"I'm glad you all got something," Carbo said, reaching out and grabbing a handful of candy from the basket, then reaching straight out, letting the candy fall freely into the mouth of the eagerly stretched children. Hands, lest he himself come into contact with these scavengers who just came out of the gutter: "This is a gift from the gentleman in the carriage over there, I hope you will not forget his gift when you eat them. "

The marzipan carefully made by the skilled chefs of the Chevre restaurant fell into the hands of the scavengers, and a few pieces fell directly to the ground and got dusty because they were not caught, but it is obvious that it is important for daily life. For the scavengers who are accompanied by mud, this is not a big deal, and the candies that fell on the ground were quickly scrambled for each other.

"What is this?"

After the scramble, these scavengers finally had time to observe what they got. The scavenger who picked up the big bone looked at the candies in his hand in amazement. He put them in the palm of his hand and looked over and over again. Look, and tried to put a square candy in his mouth, and after a while, he shouted: "Medicine! This is the kind of medicine that my youngest brother took before he died!"

"This is not medicine!"

The curly brown-haired scavenger was obviously more knowledgeable than the other two companions. He took a bite of the piece of pine nut praline, chewed it, and immediately stuffed all the candies he got into his mouth Li, vaguely told his companions: "I've tasted this, it's sugar!"