Claude's Confession by Émile Zola

Winter is here: the air in the morning becomes fresher, and Paris puts on her mantle of fog. This is the season of social soirées. Chilly lips search for kisses; lovers, driven from the country, take refuge beneath the mansardes, and, huddling together before the hearth, enjoy, amid the noise of the rain, their eternal spring.

As for me, I live in sadness: I have the winter without the spring, without a sweetheart. My garret, away up a damp staircase, is large and irregular; the corners lose themselves in the gloom, the bare and slanting walls make of the chamber a sort of corridor which stretches out in the form of a bier. The wretched furniture, the narrow planks, ill fitted and painted a horrible red color, crack funereally when they are touched. Shreds of faded damask hang from the canopy of the bed, and the curtainless window opens upon a huge black wall, never changing and always repulsive.