The Dryad

The steps were of cast iron, spiral-shaped, broad and comfortable; a lamp was burning below, and deeper down there was another. She found herself in a labyrinth of endless passages and halls crossing each other. Every street and lane in Paris could be seen there, as if reflected in a mirror. Their names could be read, and every house above had its number here, and its root, which led down under the hard, lonely walk that squeezed its way along the wide canal with its onward-rolling drainage. Above this was the aqueduct of fresh running water, and still higher gas pipes and telegraph wire hung like a network. Lamps shone in the distance, as if they were reflected images from the worldly city above. Now and then a rumbling could be heard overhead; it came from the heavy wagons crossing the bridges. Where was the Dryad?

You have heard of the catacombs; they are nothing compared with this underground world, this wonder of our times, the sewers of Paris! That was where the Dryad was, and not at the World's Fair on the Champ de Mars.

On all sides were heard exclamations of astonishment, wonder, and approval.

"Out of the deep here, " they said, "come health and long life for the thousands above. Our age is the age of progress, with all its blessings!"

That was the opinion of people, the talk of people, but not that of the scavengers who were born here and built their homes and lived here - the rats. From the cracks of an old stone wall the rats squeaked so loudly and distinctly that the Dryad could understand them. A big, old rat, whose tail had been bitten off, piped in a shrill voice of his feelings, his anguish, and the only idea in his mind; and his whole family approved of every word he said.

"I am disgusted by the miaow, the human miaow, the ignorant talk! Indeed, everything is very fine now, with gas and oil, but I don't eat such things. It has become so clean and light here that one is ashamed and doesn't know what one is ashamed of. I wish we lived in the good old days of the tallow candles; those times are not so far back - those romantic times, as people call them.