stretched away showing double rows of those luminous
beads whose reverberation glimmered on the nearer frontages. On the left
were the houses of the Quai du Louvre, on the right the two wings of the
Institute, confused masses of monuments and buildings, which became lost
to view in the darkening gloom, studded with sparks. Then between those
cordons of burners, extending as far as the eye could reach, the bridges
stretched bars of lights, ever slighter and slighter, each formed of a
train of spangles, grouped together and seemingly hanging in mid-air.
And in the Seine there shone the nocturnal splendour of the animated
water of cities; each gas-jet there cast a reflection of its flame, like
the nucleus of a comet, extending into a tail. The nearer ones, mingling
together, set the current on fire with broad, regular, symmetrical fans
of light, glowing like live embers, while the more distant ones, seen
under the bridges, were but little motionless sparks of fire. But the
large burning tails appeared to be animated, they waggled as they spread
out, all black and gold, with a constant twirling of scales, in which
one divined the flow of the water. The whole Seine was lighted up by
them, as if some fete were being given in its depths--some mysterious,
fairy-like entertainment, at which couples were waltzing beneath the
river's red-flashing window-panes. High above those fires, above the
starry quays, the sky, in which not a planet was visible, showed a ruddy
mass of vapour, that warm, phosphorescent exhalation which every night,
above the sleep of the city, seems to set the crater of a volcano.

The wind blew hard, and Christine, shivering, her eyes full of tears,
felt the bridge move under her, as if it were bearing her away amid a
smash up of the whole scene. Had not Claude moved? Was he not climbing
over the rail? No; everything became motionless again, and she saw him
still on the same spot, obstinately stiff, with his eyes turned towards
the point of the Cite, which he could not see.

It had summoned him, and he had come, and yet he could not see it in
the depths of the darkness. He could only distinguish the bridges, with
their light framework standing out blackly against the sparkling water.
But farther off everything became confused, the island had disappeared,
he could not even have told its exact situation if some belated cabs
had not passed from time to time over the Pont-Neuf, with their lamps
showing like those