I
At the time that the new city, together with its splendid street of Cannobierre, is, about eleven o’clock at night, plunging into deep, bourgeois slumber—at that time the old city comes to life.
The old city is a capricious, odd network of crooked, narrow little streets, through which it would be impossible even for a one horse cab to drive. What inconceivable stench, filth and darkness reign in this involved cloaka! All sorts of domestic refuse, swill, greens, oyster-shells—everything is dumped on the street, or simply thrown out of the window. And it is not at all a rare sight to see in the street some swarthy lad or girl of six or seven paying the debt to nature in one of those poses that Teniers, Van Braouveur, and Teniers the Younger (Teneers) used to depict with such naive art on their canvases. There are in the old city such bylanes, narrow, dark even in the daytime, that one has to run through them, stopping one’s nose with the fingers and holding the breath.
And so, when night comes on, the old city comes to life. Nearer the central streets it is still somewhat respectable; but, as the port draws nearer, as the streets sink down—the old city becomes gayer and more unrestrained. To the right and left there is nothing but little taverns, gayly illuminated from within. There are sounds of music from everywhere. Sailors and cabin-boys, in fives and sixes, walk along the streets, holding one another around waists and necks—French, Italian, Greek, English, Russian. … The bars are crowded to overflowing. … Tobacco smoke; absinthe; and cursing in all the tongues of the terrestrial globe. …
Of course, both Baedekers and people in the know will warn you that it is dangerous to go into the port even in the daytime. For that reason, quite naturally, we set out for it at night; and once more, for the hundreth time, I reiterate that all Baedekers lie; and that the most charming, peaceful and simple of folks are sailors, a trifle under the weather. We enter a low-ceiled, stuffy tavern and modestly ask for some lemonade and ice—the nights are sultry now, and we are afflicted by thirst, and there is no better remedy in the world for quenching it. Immediately two crudely daubed young damsels sit down near me and my comrade, and, under the table, each lays her leg upon that of her neighbor. This is a special coquetry of the sea. They demand various drinks from us. We willingly submit—for, surely, the bon ton of the place must be sustained. A quarter of an hour elapses. Our ladies perceive that we do not at all belong to that tribe of people who are buffeted for two or three months at a time in the midst of the stormy sea, without seeing a single woman during all that time. They beg for pin-money. Five francs not only pacify them, but even enrapture them, and they trustingly tell us of certain secret phases of their life. From boatswains and captains, especially those who are rather elderly, they take two or three francs; from sailors, a franc—and sometimes even fifty centimes. Right above, over the bar, there are several labyrinthine corridors, with stall-like rooms to the right and left. A momentary love or its simulacrum—and man and woman have gone their different directions. Is it much a sailor wants?
“But there’s one bad thing about it, monsieur,” says the lanky Henrietta gravely, “sometimes they drink too much whisky-and-soda, and then they start in to fight. That’s very unpleasant, dangerous, and troublesome for us. And it’s nothing else but whisky-and-soda that knocks them off their feet or drives them crazy. However, absinthe will also turn the trick.”