An unnamed narrator sits in a London coffee-house on an autumn evening, his body and mind having recently recovered from a brief bout of illness. Feeling unusually attentive and curious, he begins to pass the time by watching the crowd of people passing by the coffee-house window. At first, he observes the endless crowd as a whole, but then he starts focusing on the individual people in the throng and sorting them into categories in his mind. He notices small details in the clothing and mannerisms of the people he watches, allowing him to deduce their occupations, personalities, social standings, and so on. He spots people of seemingly every social class in the city, from respectable clerks and merchants to pickpockets, peddlers, beggars, young girls returning from work, and everyone in between.
Eventually, the narrator spies someone in the midst of the crowd who seems impossible to categorize. This person—a feeble old man—wears a bizarre expression on his face that captures the narrator’s attention and ignites his imagination. The old man’s face seems to portray many contradictory feelings at once. The expression is almost indescribable, combining fear, joy, guilt, triumph, malice, despair, and much more, all in a single confusing countenance. Fascinated, and feeling sure that the old man must be harboring some dark secret or terrible crime, the narrator leaves the coffee-house and follows the stranger through the crowd, taking care not to be noticed.
The narrator follows the old man through the streets for hours as the night wears on. The old man’s erratic behavior during this pursuit only makes him appear more mysterious and suspicious. He seems to wander aimlessly throughout London, never taking any notice of the people around him, including the narrator. His clothes appear filthy, but they seem to be made of a beautiful material, and he’s carrying what the narrator assumes to be either a dagger or a diamond. He wanders through crowds, streets, and alleyways in various parts of town all night long, still followed and watched by the increasingly curious narrator. This pursuit continues until night falls on the following day.
At last, the narrator is too tired to continue. He steps in front of the old man and faces him directly, but the old man ignores him and walks past him, resuming his mysterious journey through the streets. The narrator gives up hope of learning anything about the old man, calling him “the man of the crowd” and “the type and the genius of deep crime.” The old man is never alone in the city’s mass of humanity, but he’s alone in holding onto whatever he’s hiding from the world. The narrator ends his pursuit with more questions than answers, wondering if it’s a blessing that some secrets are too terrible to ever reveal themselves.
