Les Misérables Volume II Book 4 Chapter 1 - Master Gorbeau

In which a melancholy and forgotten quarter of Paris, marked by the decaying Gorbeau house, is revealed with all its sombre details and haunted by the spectres of its grim surroundings, standing as a mute witness to the borderland between madness and despair. The slow encroachment of modernity is hinted at, as the old streets tremble before the advance of railways and the promise of change, underscoring the transient nature of human dwellings against the inexorable march of time.