Her wrinkles form heavy moldings on her face, and the skin of chin and neck is so folded that it looks intestinal, while the crude light tinges it all with something like blood.
Now that the lamp is alight some items become visible of the dismal super-chaos in which we are walled up,--the piece of bed-ticking fastened with two nails across the bottom of the window, because of draughts; the marble-topped chest of drawers, with its woolen cover; and the door-lock, stopped with a protruding plug of paper.
The lamp is flaring, and as Mame does not know where to stand it among the litter, she puts it on the floor and crouches to regulate the wick.
There rises from the medley of the old lady, vividly variegated with vermilion and night, a jet of black smoke, which returns in parachute form.

Mame sighs, but she cannot check her continual talk.
"You, my lad, you who are so genteel when you like, and earn a hundred and eighty francs a month,--you're genteel, but you're short of good manners, it's that chiefly I find fault with you about.

So you spat on the window-pane; I'm certain of it.

May I drop dead if you didn't.
And you're nearly twenty-four! And to revenge yourself because I'd found out that you'd spat on the window, you told me to stop my jawing, for that's what you said to me, after all.

Ah, vulgar fellow that you are! The factory gentlemen are too kind to you.