F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 55
bring licentiousness to our homes, but we turn a deaf ear to the
cries of poverty, and we gloat over the sale of men.
The sickly gaslight throws a sicklier glare over the narrow, unpaved
streets. The city is on a frolic, a thing not uncommon with it.
Lithe and portly-figured men, bearing dominos in their hands,
saunter along the sidewalk, now dangling ponderous watch-chains,
then flaunting highly-perfumed cambrics--all puffing the fumes of
choice cigars. If accosted by a grave wayfarer--they are going to
the opera! They are dressed in the style of opera-goers. And the
road to the opera seems the same as that leading to the house of the
old hostess. A gaily-equipped carriage approaches. We hear the loud,
coarse laughing of those it so buoyantly bears, then there comes
full to view the glare of yellow silks and red satins, and doubtful
jewels-worn by denizens from whose faded brows the laurel wreath
hath fallen. How shrunken with the sorrow of their wretched lives,
and yet how sportive they seem! The pale gaslight throws a
spectre-like hue over their paler features; the artificial crimson
with which they would adorn the withered cheek refuses to lend a
charm to features wan and ghastly. The very air is sickly with the
odor of their cosmetics. And with flaunting cambrics they bend over
carriage sides, salute each and every pedestrian, and receive in
return answers unsuited to refined ears. They pass into the dim
vista, but we see with the aid of that flickering gas, the shadow of
that polluting hand which hastens life into death.
Old Mr. McArthur, who sits smoking his long pipe in the door of his
crazy-looking curiosity shop, (he has just parted company with the
young theologian, having assured him he would find a place to stow
Tom Swiggs in,) wonders where the fashionable world of Charleston
can be going? It is going to the house of the Flamingo. The St.
Cecilia were to have had a ball to-night; scandal and the greater
attractions here have closed its doors.
A long line of carriages files past the door of the old hostess. An