Before her she saw a flame in the air, a flashing light high up on a
tower. The beacon light shone from the goal of her longing, shone from
the red lighthouse tower of the Fata Morgana of the Champ de Mars.
Thither she was carried by the wind. She circled round the tower;
the workmen thought it was a butterfly that had come too early, and
that now sank down dying.

The moon shone bright, gas-lamps spread light around, through
the halls, over the all-world's buildings scattered about, over the
rose-hills and the rocks produced by human ingenuity, from which
waterfalls, driven by the power of "Master Bloodless," fell down.
The caverns of the sea, the depths of the lakes, the kingdom of the
fishes were opened here. Men walked as in the depths of the deep pond,
and held converse with the sea, in the diving-bell of glass. The water
pressed against the strong glass walls above and on every side. The
polypi, eel-like living creatures, had fastened themselves to the
bottom, and stretched out arms, fathoms long, for prey. A big turbot
was making himself broad in front, quietly enough, but not without
casting some suspicious glances aside. A crab clambered over him,
looking like a gigantic spider, while the shrimps wandered about in
restless haste, like the butterflies and moths of the sea.

In the fresh water grew water-lilies, nymphaea, and reeds; the
gold-fishes stood up below in rank and file, all turning their heads
one way, that the streaming water might flow into their mouths. Fat
carps stared at the glass wall with stupid eyes. They knew that they
were here to be exhibited, and that they had made the somewhat
toilsome journey hither in tubs filled with water; and they thought
with dismay of the land-sickness from which they had suffered so
cruelly on the railway.

They had come to see the Exhibition, and now contemplated it
from their fresh or salt-water position. They looked attentively at
the crowds of people who passed by them early and late. All the
nations in the world, they thought, had made an exhibition of their
inhabitants, for the edification of the soles and haddocks, pike and
carp, that they might give their opinions upon the different kinds.

"Those are scaly animals" said a little slimy Whiting. "They put
on different scales two or three times a day, and they emit sounds
which they call speaking. We don't put on scales, and we make
ourselves understood in an easier way, simply by twitching the corners