and
its crowd of labourers. Do you see the idea--it's Paris at work--all
those brawny fellows displaying their bare arms and chests? Then on
the other side I have the swimming-baths--Paris at play--and some skiff
there, no doubt, to occupy the centre of the composition; but of that
I am not as yet certain. I must feel my way. As a matter of course, the
Seine will be in the middle, broad, immense.'

While talking, he kept on indicating outlines with his pencil,
thickening his strokes over and over again, and tearing the paper in
his very energy. She, in order to please him, bent over the sketch,
pretending to grow very interested in his explanations. But there was
such a labyrinth of lines, such a confusion of summary details, that she
failed to distinguish anything.

'You are following me, aren't you?'

'Yes, yes, very beautiful indeed.'

'Then I have the background, the two arms of the rivet with their quays,
the Cite, rising up triumphantly in the centre, and standing out against
the sky. Ah! that background, what a marvel! People see it every day,
pass before it without stopping; but it takes hold of one all the same;
one's admiration accumulates, and one fine afternoon it bursts forth.
Nothing in the world can be grander; it is Paris herself, glorious in
the sunlight. Ah! what a fool I was not to think of it before! How many
times I have looked at it without seeing! However, I stumbled on it
after that ramble along the quays! And, do you remember, there's a dash
of shadow on that side; while here the sunrays fall quite straight. The
towers are yonder; the spire of the Sainte-Chapelle tapers upward, as
slim as a needle pointing to the sky. But no, it's more to the right.
Wait, I'll show you.'

He began again, never wearying, but constantly retouching the sketch,
and adding innumerable little characteristic details which his painter's
eye had noticed; here the red signboard of a distant shop vibrated in
the light; closer by was a greenish bit of the Seine, on whose surface
large patches of oil seemed to be floating; and then there was the
delicate tone of a tree, the gamut of greys supplied by the house
frontages, and the luminous cast of the sky. She complaisantly approved
of all he said and tried to look delighted.

But Jacques once again forgot what he had been told. After long
remaining silent before his book, absorbed in the contemplation of a
wood-cut depicting a black cat, he began to hum some words of h