les! That
wasn't the Justice that inspired me. What haunted my mind was the other
Justice, the one that the lowly and the sufferers await, the one who
alone can some day set a little order and happiness among us. And I
pictured her like that, quite bare, quite simple, and very lofty. She is
the sun as it were, a sun all beauty, harmony and strength; for justice
is only to be found in the sun which shines in the heavens for one and
all, and bestows on poor and rich alike its magnificence and light and
warmth, which are the source of all life. And so my figure, you see, has
her hands outstretched as if she were offering herself to all mankind,
greeting it and granting it the gift of eternal life in eternal beauty.
Ah! to be beautiful and strong and just, one's whole dream lies in that."

Jahan relighted his pipe and burst into a merry laugh. "Well, I think the
good woman carries herself upright.... What do you fellows say?"

His visitors highly praised his work. Pierre for his part was much
affected at finding in this artistic conception the very idea that he had
so long been revolving in his mind--the idea of an era of Justice rising
from the ruins of the world, which Charity after centuries of trial had
failed to save.

Then the sculptor gaily explained that he had prepared his model there
instead of at home, in order to console himself a little for his big
dummy of an angel, the prescribed triteness of which disgusted him. Some
fresh objections had been raised with respect to the folds of the robe,
which gave some prominence to the thighs, and in the end he had been
compelled to modify all of the drapery.

"Oh! it's just as they like!" he cried; "it's no work of mine, you know;
it's simply an order which I'm executing just as a mason builds a wall.
There's no religious art left, it has been killed by stupidity and
disbelief. Ah! if social or human art could only revive, how glorious to
be one of the first to bear the tidings!"

Then he paused. Where could the youngsters, Antoine and Lise, have got
to, he wondered. He threw the door wide open, and, a little distance
away, among the materials littering the waste ground, one could see
Antoine's tall figure and Lise's short slender form standing out against
the immensity of Paris, which was all golden amidst the sun's farewell.
The young man's strong arm supported Lise, who with this help walked
beside him without feeling any fatigue. Slender and graceful, like a girl