s she had said too, life was so
delightful in that big workroom; it was so pleasant to be all together,
and to labour in common at the same work of health and truth. Ashamed as
Pierre was of doing nothing, anxious as he was to occupy his mind and
fingers, he had first taken an interest in Antoine's engraving, asking
why he should not try something of the kind himself. However, he felt
that he lacked the necessary gift for art. Then, too, he recoiled from
Francois' purely intellectual labour, for he himself had scarcely emerged
from the harrowing study of conflicting texts. Thus he was more inclined
for manual toil like that of Thomas. In mechanics he found precision and
clearness such as might help to quench his thirst for certainty. So he
placed himself at the young man's orders, pulled his bellows and held
pieces of mechanism for him. He also sometimes served as assistant to
Guillaume, tying a large blue apron over his cassock in order to help in
the experiments. From that time he formed part of the work-shop, which
simply counted a worker the more.

One afternoon early in April, when they were all busily engaged there,
Marie, who sat embroidering at the table in front of Mere-Grand, raised
her eyes to the window and suddenly burst into a cry of admiration: "Oh!
look at Paris under that rain of sunlight!"

Pierre drew near; the play of light was much the same as that which he
had witnessed at his first visit. The sun, sinking behind some slight
purple clouds, was throwing down a hail of rays and sparks which on all
sides rebounded and leapt over the endless stretch of roofs. It might
have been thought that some great sower, hidden amidst the glory of the
planet, was scattering handfuls of golden grain from one horizon to the
other.

Pierre, at sight of it, put his fancy into words: "It is the sun sowing
Paris with grain for a future harvest," said he. "See how the expanse
looks like ploughed land; the brownish houses are like soil turned up,
and the streets are deep and straight like furrows."

"Yes, yes, that's true," exclaimed Marie gaily. "The sun is sowing Paris
with grain. See how it casts the seed of light and health right away to
the distant suburbs! And yet, how singular! The rich districts on the
west seem steeped in a ruddy mist, whilst the good seed falls in golden
dust over the left bank and the populous districts eastward. It is there,
is it not, that the crop will spring up?"

They had all drawn nea