shooting sparks which dart at times through embers.
A red lantern, on a level with the dam of the Mint, cast a streamlet of
blood, as it were, into the water. Something huge and lugubrious, some
drifting form, no doubt a lighter which had become unmoored, slowly
descended the stream amid the reflections. Espied for a moment, it was
immediately afterwards lost in the darkness. Where had the triumphal
island sunk? In the depths of that flow of water? Claude still gazed,
gradually fascinated by the great rushing of the river in the night. He
leant over its broad bed, chilly like an abyss, in which the mysterious
flames were dancing. And the loud, sad wail of the current attracted
him, and he listened to its call, despairing, unto death.

By a shooting pain at her heart, Christine this time realised that the
terrible thought had just occurred to him. She held out her quivering
hands which the wind was lashing. But Claude remained there, struggling
against the sweetness of death; indeed he did not move for another hour,
he lingered there unconscious of the lapse of time, with his eyes still
turned in the direction of the Cite, as if by a miracle of power they
were about to create light, and conjure up the island so that he might
behold it.

When Claude at last left the bridge, with stumbling steps, Christine had
to pass in front and run in order to be home in the Rue Tourlaque before
him.

XII

IT was nearly three o'clock when they went to bed that night, with the
bitter cold November wind blowing through their little room and the big
studio. Christine, breathless from her run, had quickly slipped between
the sheets so that he might not know that she had followed him; and
Claude, quite overcome, had taken his clothes off, one garment after
another, without saying a word. For long months they had been as
strangers; until then, however, she had never felt such a barrier
between them, such tomb-like coldness.

She struggled for nearly a quarter of an hour against the sleepiness
coming over her. She was very tired, and a kind of torpor numbed her;
still she would not give way, feeling anxious at leaving him awake. She
thus waited every night until he dozed off, so that she herself might
afterwards sleep in peace. But he had not extinguished the candle, he
lay there with his eyes open, fixed upon its flame. What could he be
thinking of? Had he remained in fancy over yonder in the black night,
amid the moist atmospher