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The carpet round his chair was littered with cigarette-ends and with the early editions of the morning papers. An open telegram lay upon the table. "What do you think of this, Watson?" he asked, tossing it across. It was from Norwood, and ran as follows: Important fresh evidence to hand. McFarlane's guilt definitely established. Advise you to abandon case. "This sounds serious," said I.
He was one of the institutions of the Latin Quarter, one of the least admirable. He haunted the Boulevard St. Michel, hung round the cafés, begged of the passing stranger, picked up cigarette-ends, and would, at a pinch, run errands, or do odd jobs.
There is no mistaking the nature of this cavalcade: the long vista of glowing cigarette-ends tells an unmistakable tale. These are artillery waggons, returning empty from replenishing the batteries; scattering homely jests like hail, and proceeding, wherever possible, at a hand-gallop. He is a cheery soul, the R.A. driver, but his interpretation of the rules of the road requires drastic revision.
He saw innumerable carafes and basins and beds, the wall-paper whistling, the rats scuttling, and lines of cigarette-ends, black and yellow, moving in trails like worms across the boards. All men like worms, like ants, like rats and the gleaming water trickling interminably down the high black wall.
There is that smell, too, which a Russian hotel alone, of all the hostelries in the world, can produce, a smell of damp and cabbage soup, of sunflower seeds and cigarette-ends, of drainage and patchouli, of, in some odd way, the sea and fish and wet pavements.
When the bugle blew and the electric lights suddenly ceased to glow, leaving the hut in a darkness broken only by the dim shapes of the windows and the red of cigarette-ends, many of us still had to complete our undressing. We became adepts at doing this in the dark and so disposing of the articles of our attire that they could be instantly retrieved in the morning.
In one wicker-chair the wicker daubed with royal-red enamel lay a banjo; in another was curled a sleeping terrier indubitable mother of the puppy outside. Near the door stood a piano with a comic opera score on the music-rest, open at No. 12, "I'm a Cheery Fusileery O!" and on its rosewood top an ash-tray full of cigarette-ends and a shaded lamp the base of which needed wiping.
Close by on two arm-chairs lay heaps of crumpled feminine garments. Petticoats and sleeves with rumpled lace and flounces were trailing on the carpet, on which here and there lay bits of white tape, cigarette-ends, and the papers of caramels. . . . Under the bed the toes, pointed and square, of slippers of all kinds peeped out in a long row.
When at last Ivanoff, growling, had gone out into the courtyard, the room to Yourii seemed horribly dreary and deserted. There was a mist over everything; only the dirty table-cloth, with its green radish-stalks, empty beer-glasses and cigarette-ends danced before his eyes, as he sat there, huddled-up and forlorn. Afterwards, he remembered, Ivanoff came back, and with him was Sanine.
The orderly now entered treading clumsily in his heavy boots. He had come to light the lamp, and during the process of striking matches and jingling the glass shade, Sarudine and Volochine were silent. As the flame of the lamp rose, only their glittering eyes and the glowing cigarette-ends could be seen.
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