Ed. Ballantyne, t. II, lettre CCCCVI

3. T. II, p. 687 : « The other seven seemed to hâve been but just up, risen perhaps from their customers in the forehouse, and their nocturnal orgies, with faces, three and four of them, that had run, the paint lying in streaky seams not half blowzed off, discovering coarse, wrinkled skins; the hair of some of them of divers colours. obliged to the blacklead comb where black was affected; the artificial jet, however, yielding apace to the natural brindle; that of others plastered with oil and powder; the oil predominating....

Cependant, la moribonde se débat, « couvrant le lit tout défait de sa large et repoussante carcasse », tordant ses larges mains, « roulant de gros yeux enflammés », « sa coiffure rapiécée à demi tombée, rejetée sur ses oreilles grasses et sur son cou charnu; ses lèvres livides toutes desséchées,.... son large menton s'agitant convulsivement, sa bouche toute ouverte, par suite de la contraction de la peau du front... fendant, en quelque sorte, sa figure en deux; et, dans cette bouche, sa grosse langue roulant de façon hideuse; haletante, soufflant comme pour respirer; tandis que ses seins en forme de soufflets, diversement colorés, s'élèvent tour à tour jusqu'à son menton, puis disparaissent, dans la violence de ses soupirs convulsifs1. »

On lui parle de mourir. « Mourir, avez-vous dit, monsieur?... Mourir!... Je ne veux pas, je ne puis

They were ail slip-shod; stockingless some; only under petticoated ail; their gowns, made lo cover straddling hoops, hanging trollopy, and tangling about their heels, but haslily wrapt round them, as soon as I came up stairs And half of them (unpadded, shoulder-bent, pallid-lipt, limber-jointed wretches) appearing, from a blooming nineteen or twenty perhaps over-night, haggard, well-worn strumpets of thirtyeight or fôrty. »

1. « Behold her, then, spreading the whole troubled bed with her huge, quaggy carcase; her mill-post arms held up; her broad hands clenched wilh violence; her big eyes gagglind, and flaming-red as \ve may suppose those of a salamander; her matted grizzly hair, made irreverend by her wickedness (herclouted headdress being half off, spread about her fat ears and brawny neck); her livid lips parched, and working violently; her broad cliin in convulsive motion; her wide mouth, by reason of the contraction of her forehead (which seemed to be half-lost in its own frighful furrows) splitting her face, as it were, inlo two parts; and her huge tongue hideously rolling in it : heaving, pulïing as ifforbreath; her bellows-shaped and various-coloured breasts ascending by turns to her chin, and descending out of sight, wilh Ihe violence of her gaspings. »