The room which Marius occupied had a broken-brick flooring, but in this one people walked on the old plaster of the hovel, grown black under the feet. Upon this uneven flooring, in which the dust was, so to speak, incrusted, and which bad but one virginity, that of the broom, were capriciously grouped constellations of old shoes, boots, and frightful rags; this room, however, had a chimney, and for this reason was let at forty francs a year. There was something of everything in this fire-place,--a chafing-dish, a pot, some broken planks, rags hanging from nails, a bird-cage, ashes, and even a little fire, for two logs were smoking there sadly. A thing which augmented the horror of this garret was the fact of its being large; it had angles, nooks, black holes under the roof, bays, and promontories. Hence came frightful inscrutable corners, in which it seemed as if spiders large as a fist, woodlice as large as a foot, and possibly some human monsters, must lurk. One of the beds was near the door, the other near the window, but the ends of both ran down to the mantel-piece, and faced Marius. In a corner near the hole through which Marius was peeping, a colored engraving in a black wood frame, under which was written in large letters, THE DREAM, hung against the wall. It represented a sleeping woman and a sleeping child, the child lying on the woman's knees, an eagle in the clouds with a crown in its beak, and the woman removing the crown from the child's head, without awaking it, however; in the background Napoleon, surrounded by a glory, was leaning against a dark blue column with a yellow capital, that bore the following inscription:-- MARINGO AUSTERLITS IENA WAGRAMME ELOT