midnight
Close beside a huge and sinewy brute of an Auvergnat , whose coarse , bestial features and massive bull 's head were fitter for a galley-slave than a soldier , were the lithe , exquisite limbs and the oval , delicate face of a man from the Valley of the Rhone . Beneath a canopy of flapping , tawny wild-beast skins , the spoils of his own hands , was flung the torso of one of the splendid peasants of the Sables d'Olonne ; one steeped so long in blood and wine and alcohol that he had forgotten the blue , bright waves that broke on the western shores of his boyhood 's home , save when he muttered thirstily in his dreams of the cool sea , as he was muttering now . Next him , curled , dog-like , with its round , black head meeting its feet , was a wiry frame on which every muscle was traced like network , and the skin burned black as jet under twenty years of African sun . The midnight streets of Paris had seen its birth , the thieves ' quarter had been its nest ; it had no history , it had almost no humanity ; it was a perfect machine for slaughter , no more -- who had ever tried to make it more ? Further on lay , sleeping fitfully , a boy of scarcely more than seventeen , with rounded cheeks and fair , white brow like a child 's , whose uncovered chest was delicate as a girl 's , and through whose long , brown lashes tears in his slumber were stealing as his rosy mouth murmured , `` Mere ! Mere ! Pauvre mere ! ''