Or else, while the moneyed captives (including B. and
Cummings) were waiting their turn to enter the bureau de M. le
Gestionnaire, or even were ascending the stairs with a _planton_ behind
them, en route to Mecca, along the hall would come five or six women
staggering and carrying huge pails full to the brim of everyone knew
what; five or six heads lowered, ill-dressed bodies tense with effort,
free arms rigidly extended from the shoulder downward and outward in a
plane at right angles to their difficult progress and thereby helping to
balance the disconcerting load--all embarrassed, some humiliated, others
desperately at ease--along they would come under the steady sensual gaze
of the men, under a gaze which seemed to eat them alive ... and then one
of them would laugh with the laughter which is neither pitiful nor
terrible, but horrible....
And BANG! would a door fly open, and ROAR! a well-dressed animal about
five feet six inches in height, with prominent cuffs and a sportive tie,
the altogether decently and neatly clothed thick-built figure squirming
from top to toe with anger, the large head trembling and white-faced
beneath a flourishing mane of coarse blackish bristly perhaps hair, the
arm crooked at the elbow and shaking a huge fist of pinkish
well-manicured flesh, the distinct, cruel, brightish eyes sprouting from
their sockets under bushily enormous black eyebrows, the big, weak,
coarse mouth extended almost from ear to ear, and spouting invective, the
soggily brutal lips clinched upward and backward, showing the huge
horse-like teeth to the froth-shot gums--
And I saw once a little girl eleven years old scream in terror and drop
her pail of slops, spilling most of it on her feet; and seize it in a
clutch of frail child's fingers, and stagger, sobbing and shaking, past
the Fiend--one hand held over her contorted face to shield her from the
Awful Thing of Things--to the head of the stairs, where she collapsed,
and was half-carried, half-dragged by one of the older ones to the floor
below while another older one picked up her pail and lugged this and her
own hurriedly downward.
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