THE COMMISSION IN LUNACY 311

If on a rainy day some foot-passenger takes refuge under
the long vault, with projecting lime-washed beams, which
leads from the door to the staircase, he will hardly fail to
pause and lock at the picture presented by the interior of
this house. To the left is a square garden-plot, allowing of not
more than four long steps in each direction, a garden of black
son, with trellises bereft of vines, and where, in default of
vegetation under the shade of two trees, papers collect, old
rags, potsherds, bits of mortar fallen from the roof ; a barren
ground, where time has shed on the walls, and on the trunks
and branches of the trees, a powdery deposit like cold soot.
The two parts of the house, set at a right angle, derive light
from this garden-court shut in by two adjoining houses built
on wooden piers, decrepit and ready to fall, where on each
floor some grotesque evidence is to be seen of the craft pur-
sued by the lodger within. Here long poles are hung with
immense skeins of dyed worsted put out to dry; there, on
ropes, dance clean- washed shirts ; higher up, on a shelf, vol-
umes display their freshly marbled edges; women sing, hus-
bands whistle, children shout; the carpenter saws his planks,
a copper-turner makes the metal screech; all kinds of indus-
tries combine to produce a noise which the number of instru-
ments renders distracting.
