IV
CONTUMACY
Laurent began by procuring lodgings at the farthest end of Borgerhout, near a railroad cut, not far from a siding used only for baggage cars. It was a corner of the suggestive region that he had formerly observed from the Dobouziez's garret. The urban agglomeration here degenerated into a suburb of doubtful character, sparsely sown with houses, as if the blocks had broken ranks, pot-houses of all kinds, pounds, the workshops of marble-cutters, figurists and knackers. Soot on the walls, grass between the cobblestones. For monuments: a gasometer whose huge iron bell moved up and down in its masonry cage, equipped with jointed arms: an abattoir towards which drovers led their unsuspicious flocks, and a despotic barracks that swallowed up no less passive victims; all dirty red buildings, of a blood-tinged color.
From hour to hour the whistle of locomotives, the horn of the crossing-guard and the factory clock echoed each other, or the bugles of pitiable conscripts were wedded with the death rattle of flocks of sheep. Out to the ramparts of the fortifications empty lots alternated with yards in which itchy dogs were rooting; embryonic gardens adjoined insipid cottages strayed
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