ystem of ropes and beams, which held it slightly slanting against the
wall in a cheerful light. And backwards and forwards in front of the
big white surface rolled the steps, looking like an edifice, like the
scaffolding by means of which a cathedral is to be reared.

But when everything was ready, Claude once more experienced misgivings.
An idea that he had perhaps not chosen the proper light in which to
paint his picture fidgeted him. Perhaps an early morning effect would
have been better? Perhaps, too, he ought to have chosen a dull day, and
so he went back to the Pont des Saint-Peres, and lived there for another
three months.

The Cite rose up before him, between the two arms of the river, at all
hours and in all weather. After a late fall of snow he beheld it wrapped
in ermine, standing above mud-coloured water, against a light slatey
sky. On the first sunshiny days he saw it cleanse itself of everything
that was wintry and put on an aspect of youth, when verdure sprouted
from the lofty trees which rose from the ground below the bridge. He
saw it, too, on a somewhat misty day recede to a distance and almost
evaporate, delicate and quivering, like a fairy palace. Then, again,
there were pelting rains, which submerged it, hid it as with a huge
curtain drawn from the sky to the earth; storms, with lightning flashes
which lent it a tawny hue, the opaque light of some cut-throat place
half destroyed by the fall of the huge copper-coloured clouds; and there
were winds that swept over it tempestuously, sharpening its angles and
making it look hard, bare, and beaten against the pale blue sky. Then,
again, when the sunbeams broke into dust amidst the vapours of the
Seine, it appeared steeped in diffused brightness, without a shadow
about it, lighted up equally on every side, and looking as charmingly
delicate as a cut gem set in fine gold. He insisted on beholding it when
the sun was rising and transpiercing the morning mists, when the Quai
de l'Horloge flushes and the Quai des Orfevres remains wrapt in gloom;
when, up in the pink sky, it is already full of life, with the bright
awakening of its towers and spires, while night, similar to a falling
cloak, slides slowly from its lower buildings. He beheld it also at
noon, when the sunrays fall on it vertically, when a crude glare bites
into it, and it becomes discoloured and mute like a dead city, retaining
nought but the life of heat, the quiver that darts over its distant