“Let us get some little idea of what these people are like,” thought Marius, “and in what condition they are.”

He climbed upon the commode, put his eye to the crevice, and looked.

The Wild Man in His Lair

Cities, like forests, have their caverns in which all the most wicked and formidable creatures which they contain conceal themselves. Only, in cities, that which thus conceals itself is ferocious, unclean, and petty, that is to say, ugly; in forests, that which conceals itself is ferocious, savage, and grand, that is to say, beautiful. Taking one lair with another, the beast’s is preferable to the man’s. Caverns are better than hovels.

What Marius now beheld was a hovel.