Trash art

Il fait grand froid. Samedi, rue Chomel, j'ai croisé l'étrange objet ci-dessous.

Il y en a qui ont besoin plusieurs années de Beaux-Arts pour obtenir ça. Mais quand c'est rapide et spontané, c'est vraiment de l'art. Qu'y avait-il dans cette poubelle ? Je ne néglige pas la piste offerte par Dickens au chapitre 32 de Bleak House :

They advance slowly, looking at all these things. The cat remains where they found her, still snarling at the something on the ground, before the fire and between the two chairs. What is it? Hold up the light.
Here is a small burnt patch of flooring; here is the tinder from a little bundle of burnt paper, but not so light as usual, seeming to be steeped in something; and here is — is it the cinder of a small charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes, or is it coal? O Horror, he IS here! and this, from which we run away, striking out the light and overturning one another into the street, is all that represents him.
Help, help, help! come into this house for Heaven's sake!
Plenty will come in, but none can help. The Lord Chancellor of that Court, true to his title in his last act, has died the death of all Lord Chancellors in all Courts, and of all authorities in all places under all names soever, where false pretences are made, and where injustice is done. Call the death by any name Your Highness will, attribute it to whom you will, or say it might have been prevented how you will, it is the same death eternally — inborn, inbred, engendered in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that only — Spontaneous Combustion, and none other of all the deaths that can be died.