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

It no longer wore, however, the same aspect. It was still brilliant
with gas; but the rain fell fiercely, and there were few persons to be
seen. The stranger grew pale. He walked moodily some paces up the once
populous avenue, then, with a heavy sigh, turned in the direction of
the river, and, plunging through a great variety of devious ways, came
out, at length, in view of one of the principal theatres. It was about
being closed, and the audience were thronging from the doors. I saw
the old man gasp as if for breath while he threw himself amid the
crowd; but I thought that the intense agony of his countenance had, in
some measure, abated. His head again fell upon his breast; he appeared
as I had seen him at first. I observed that he now took the course
in which had gone the greater number of the audience but, upon the
whole, I was at a loss to comprehend the waywardness of his actions.
As he proceeded, the company grew more scattered, and his old
uneasiness and vacillation were resumed. For some time he followed
closely a party of some ten or twelve roisterers; but from this number
one by one dropped off, until three only remained together, in a
narrow and gloomy lane, little frequented. The stranger paused, and,
for a moment, seemed lost in thought; then, with every mark of
agitation, pursued rapidly a route which brought us to the verge of
the city, amid regions very different from those we had hitherto
traversed. It was the most noisome quarter of London, where every
thing wore the worst impress of the most deplorable poverty, and of
the most desperate crime. By the dim light of an accidental lamp,
tall, antique, worm-eaten, wooden tenements were seen tottering to
their fall, in directions so many and capricious, that scarce the
semblance of a passage was discernible between them. The paving-stones
lay at random, displaced from their beds by the rankly-growing
grass. Horrible filth festered in the dammed-up gutters. The whole
atmosphere teemed with desolation. Yet, as we proceeded, the sounds of
human life revived by sure degrees, and at length large bands of the
most abandoned of a London populace were seen reeling to and fro.
The spirits of the old man again flickered up, as a lamp which is near
its death-hour. Once more he strode onward with elastic tread.
Suddenly a corner was turned, a blaze of light burst upon our sight,
and we stood before one of the huge suburban temples of
Intemperance- one of the palaces of the fiend, Gin.
It was now nearly daybreak; but a number of wretched inebriates
still pressed in and out of the flaunting entrance. With a half shriek
of joy the old man forced a passage within, resumed at once his
original bearing, and stalked backward and forward, without apparent
object, among the throng. He had not been thus long occupied, however,
before a rush to the doors gave token that the host was closing them
for the night. It was something even more intense than despair that
I then observed upon the countenance of the singular being whom I
had watched so pertinaciously. Yet he did not hesitate in his
career, but, with a mad energy, retraced his steps at once, to the
heart of the mighty London. Long and swiftly he fled, while I followed
him in the wildest amazement, resolute not to abandon a scrutiny in
which I now felt an interest all-absorbing. The sun arose while we