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The roofs are gone, except in a few instances where they have been restored; but the walls stand and many of the detached pillars stand too; and the pavements have endured well, so that the streets remain almost exactly as they were when this was a city of live beings instead of a tomb of dead memories, with deep groovings of chariot wheels in the flaggings, and at each crossing there are stepping stones, dotting the roadbed like punctuation marks.
A hot, disagreeable air struck me in the face; I heard a great noise of voices mingled with sinister laughs, accents of rage and low songs; I held myself immovable near the door, looking at the stone flaggings, daring neither to advance nor raise my eyes, believing that every one was looking at me.
On the double row of flaggings leading up to the summit of the bank, were two ant-like processions of Kentucky folk one, leisurely climbing townward with their bags and bundles, the other hurrying down with theirs to the boat, which was ringing its bell, blowing off steam, and in other ways creating an uproar which seemed to turn the heads of the negro roustabouts and draymen, who bustled around with a great chatter and much false motion.
When the sinister-looking cylinder struck the pavement it exploded, but instead of death and destruction the flaggings were strewn with egg-shells, coffee-grounds, and garbage. "I always did like that French chef," said Lawrence when he returned to the bridge, gasping for breath.
The accommodations, too, while they are comfortable and even luxurious for the poor creatures that have hitherto slept on ash-barrels and stone flaggings, are unfit for household pets that have slept on cushions, soft rugs, and milady's bed. There is a dog-house and a cat-house, sufficiently far apart that the occupants of one need not be disturbed by those of the other.
The street pavements, the flaggings of the quays and the boulevards, when first laid down, were a boon to him. If, for some extraordinary reason, you happen to be in the streets of Paris at half-past seven or eight o'clock of a winter's morning, and see through piercing cold or fog or rain a timid, pale young man loom up, cigarless, take notice of his pockets.
She examined the kitchen furtively, the flaggings, the beams, and the shining utensils; then her glance passed through the irregular windows which were left in the ancient opening, and she saw the garden clear to the trees by the Bishop's house, whose white shadows towered above the wall at the end, while at the left, as if astonished at finding itself there, stretched along the whole length of the alley the Cathedral, with its Romanesque windows in the chapels of its apses.
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