In the heart of New Orleans stands a large four-story brick building,
that has so stood for about three-quarters of a century. Its rooms are
rented to a class of persons occupying them simply for lack of activity
to find better and cheaper quarters elsewhere. With its gray stucco
peeling off in broad patches, it has a solemn look of gentility in rags,
and stands, or, as it were, hangs, about the corner of two ancient
streets, like a faded fop who pretends to be looking for employment.
Under its main archway is a dingy apothecary-shop. On one street is the
bazaar of a _modiste en robes et chapeaux_ and other humble shops; on
the other, the immense batten doors with gratings over the lintels,
barred and bolted with masses of cobwebbed iron, like the door of a
donjon, are overhung by a creaking sign (left by the sheriff), on which
is faintly discernible the mention of wines and liquors. A peep through
one of the shops reveals a square court within, hung with many lines of
wet clothes, its sides hugged by rotten staircases that seem vainly
trying to clamber out of the rubbish.
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