Winter is here: the air in the morning becomes fresher, and Paris puts on her mantle of fog. This is the season of social soirées. Chilly lips search for kisses; lovers, driven from the country, take refuge beneath the mansardes, and, huddling together before the hearth, enjoy, amid the noise of the rain, their eternal spring. As for me, I live in sadness: I have the winter without the spring, without a sweetheart. My garret, away up a damp staircase, is large and irregular; the corners lose themselves in the gloom, the bare and slanting walls make of the chamber a sort of corridor which stretches out in the form of a bier. The wretched furniture, the narrow planks, ill fitted and painted a horrible red color, crack funereally when they are touched. Shreds of faded damask hang from the canopy of the bed, and the curtainless window opens upon a huge black wall, never changing and always repulsive. In the evening, when the wind shakes the door and the walls are dimly outlined by the flame of my lamp, I feel a sad and icy weariness press upon me. I pause before the expiring fire on the hearth, before the ugly brown roses on the wall paper, before the faïence vases in which the last flowers have faded, and I imagine I hear everything complain of solitude and poverty. This complaint is heart-rending. The entire mansarde demands of me laughter, the riches of its sisters. The hearth exacts a huge, joyous blaze; the vases, forgetting the snow, sigh for fresh roses; the very air speaks to me of flaxen hair and white shoulders. I listen and cannot help feeling sorrowful. I have no chandelier to suspend from the ceiling, no carpet to hide the irregular and broken planks. And, when my chamber refuses to smile save upon a beautiful white curtain, upon plain but shining furniture, I grow more sorrowful still because I cannot satisfy it. Then it seems to me more deserted and miserable than ever: the wind comes in colder gusts, the gloom grows denser; the dust gathers in heaps on the floor, the wall paper tears showing the plaster. There is a general pause, and, in the silence, I hear the sobs of my heart.