In the very heart of all this stir and uproar, was the common
madhouse; a low, contracted, miserable building, looking straight upon
the street, without the smallest screen or courtyard; where chattering
madmen and mad-women were peeping out, through rusty bars, at the
staring faces below, while the sun, darting fiercely aslant into their
little cells, seemed to dry up their brains, and worry them, as if
they were baited by a pack of dogs.
We were pretty well accommodated at the Hotel du Paradis, situated
in a narrow street of very high houses, with a hairdresser's shop
opposite, exhibiting in one of its windows two full-length waxen
ladies, twirling around and around: which so enchanted the hairdresser
himself, that he and his family sat in armchairs, and in cool
undresses, on the pavement outside, enjoying the gratification of the
passers-by, with lazy dignity. The family had retired to rest when we
went to bed, at midnight; but the hairdresser (a corpulent man, in
drab slippers) was still sitting there, with his legs stretched out
before him, and evidently couldn't bear to have the shutters put up.
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