L'avant-dernier chapitre d' Oliver Twist commence ainsi :
The court was paved, from floor to roof, with human faces. Inquisitive and eager, eyes peered from every inch of space. From the rail before the dock, away into the sharpest angle of the smallest corner in the galleries, all looks were fixed upon one man -- Fagin. Before him and behind: above, below, on the right and on the left: he seemed to stand surrounded by a firmament, all bright with gleaming eyes.
Le tribunal rend son verdict. Fagin est condamné à mort. La muraille faite de visages et la nuit faite d'yeux cèdent la place aux murs réels de la prison, à l'obscurité de la cellule. Quelques journées sans jour passent.
Enfin, dans le dernier paragraphe, on franchit la porte vers l'extérieur ; dehors le jour se lève : cependant la foule est rassemblée à nouveau et, si les ténèbres ne sont plus tout autour, à la périphérie, elles sont toujours là, au centre :
Day was dawning when they again emerged. A great multitude had already assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing cards to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarelling, joking. Everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects in the centre of all--the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus of death.