uch triumphal
sunsets as behind the cupola of the Institute. It is there one sees
Paris retiring to rest in all her glory. At each of their walks the
aspect of the conflagration changed; fresh furnaces added their glow to
the crown of flames. One evening, when a shower had surprised them, the
sun, showing behind the downpour, lit up the whole rain cloud, and upon
their heads there fell a spray of glowing water, irisated with pink
and azure. On the days when the sky was clear, however, the sun, like a
fiery ball, descended majestically in an unruffled sapphire lake; for a
moment the black cupola of the Institute seemed to cut away part of it
and make it look like the waning moon; then the globe assumed a violet
tinge and at last became submerged in the lake, which had turned
blood-red. Already, in February, the planet described a wider curve, and
fell straight into the Seine, which seemed to seethe on the horizon as
at the contact of red-hot iron. However, the grander scenes, the vast
fairy pictures of space only blazed on cloudy evenings. Then, according
to the whim of the wind, there were seas of sulphur splashing against
coral reefs; there were palaces and towers, marvels of architecture,
piled upon one another, burning and crumbling, and throwing torrents of
lava from their many gaps; or else the orb which had disappeared, hidden
by a veil of clouds, suddenly transpierced that veil with such a press
of light that shafts of sparks shot forth from one horizon to the other,
showing as plainly as a volley of golden arrows. And then the twilight
fell, and they said good-bye to each other, while their eyes were still
full of the final dazzlement. They felt that triumphal Paris was the
accomplice of the joy which they could not exhaust, the joy of ever
resuming together that walk beside the old stone parapets.

One day, however, there happened what Claude had always secretly feared.
Christine no longer seemed to believe in the possibility of meeting
anybody who knew her. In fact, was there such a person? She would always
pass along like this, remaining altogether unknown. He, however, thought
of his own friends, and at times felt a kind of tremor when he fancied
he recognised in the distance the back of some acquaintance. He was
troubled by a feeling of delicacy; the idea that somebody might stare at
the girl, approach them, and perhaps begin to joke, gave him intolerable
worry. And that very evening, as she was close beside