"The Man of the Crowd" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

and a more than ordinary extension of the thumb in a direction at
right angles with the fingers. Very often, in company with these
sharpers, I observed an order of men somewhat different in habits, but
still birds of a kindred feather. They may be defined as the gentlemen
who live by their wits. They seem to prey upon the public in two
battalions- that of the dandies and that of the military men. Of the
first grade the leading features are long locks and smiles; of the
second, frogged coats and frowns.
Descending in the scale of what is termed gentility, I found
darker and deeper themes for speculation. I saw Jew pedlars, with hawk
eyes flashing from countenances whose every other feature wore only an
expression of abject humility; sturdy professional street beggars
scowling upon mendicants of a better stamp, whom despair alone had
driven forth into the night for charity; feeble and ghastly
invalids, upon whom death had placed a sure hand, and who sidled and
tottered through the mob, looking every one beseechingly in the
face, as if in search of some chance consolation, some lost hope;
modest young girls returning from long and late labor to a cheerless
home, and shrinking more tearfully than indignantly from the glances
of ruffians, whose direct contact, even, could not be avoided; women
of the town of all kinds and of all ages- the unequivocal beauty in
the prime of her womanhood, putting one in mind of the statue in
Lucian, with the surface of Parian marble, and the interior filled
with filth- the loathsome and utterly lost leper in rags- the
wrinkled, bejewelled, and paint-begrimed beldame, making a last effort
at youth- the mere child of immature form, yet, from long association,
an adept in the dreadful coquetries of her trade, and burning with a
rabid ambition to be ranked the equal of her elders in vice; drunkards
innumerable and indescribable- some in shreds and patches, reeling,
inarticulate, with bruised visage and lack-lustre eyes- some in
whole although filthy garments, with a slightly unsteady swagger,
thick sensual lips, and hearty-looking rubicund faces- others
clothed in materials which had once been good, and which even now were
scrupulously well brushed-men who walked with a more than naturally
firm and springy step, but whose countenances were fearfully pale, and
whose eyes were hideously wild and red; and who clutched with
quivering fingers, as they strode through the crowd, at every object
which came within their reach; beside these, pic-men, porters,
coal-heavers, sweeps; organ-grinders, monkey-exhibitors, and
ballad-mongers, those who vended with those who sang; ragged
artizans and exhausted laborers of every description, and all full
of a noisy and inordinate vivacity which jarred discordantly upon
the ear, and gave an aching sensation to the eye.
As the night deepened, so deepened to me the interest of the
scene; for not only did the general character of the crowd
materially alter (its gentler features retiring in the gradual
withdrawal of the more orderly portion of the people, and its
harsher ones coming out into bolder relief, as the late hour brought
forth every species of infamy from its den), but the rays of the
gas-lamps, feeble at first in their struggle with the dying day, had