Gazing upon this dismal city, Helene reflected that she really knew nothing of Henri.  She felt strong and brave now that his image no longer pursued her.  A rebellious impulse stirred her soul to reject the mastery which this man had gained over her within a few weeks.  No, she did not know him.  She knew nothing of him, of his actions or his thoughts; she could not even have determined whether he possessed talent.  Perhaps he was even more lacking in qualities of the heart than of the mind.  And thus she gave way to every imagining, her heart full of bitterness, ever finding herself confronted by her ignorance, that barrier which separated her from Henri, and checked her in her efforts to know him.  She knew nothing, she would never know anything.  She pictured him, hissing out those burning words, and creating within her the one trouble which had, till now, broken in on the quiet happiness of her life.  Whence had he sprung to lay her life desolate in this fashion?  She suddenly thought that but six weeks before she had had no existence for him, and this thought was insufferable.  Angels in heaven! to live no more for one another, to pass each other without recognition, perhaps never to meet again!  In her despair she clasped her hands, and her eyes filled with tears.

Then Helene gazed fixedly on the towers of Notre-Dame in the far distance.  A ray of light from between two clouds tinged them with gold.  Her brain was heavy, as though surcharged with all the tumultuous thoughts hurtling within it.  It made her suffer; she would fain have concerned herself with the sight of Paris, and have sought to regain her life-peace by turning on that sea of roofs the tranquil glances of past days.  To think that at other times, at the same hour, the infinitude of the city—­in the stillness of a lovely twilight—­had lulled her into tender musing!

At present Paris was brightening in the sunshine.  After the first ray had fallen on Notre-Dame, others had followed, streaming across the city.  The luminary, dipping in the west, rent the clouds asunder, and the various districts spread out, motly with ever-changing lights and shadows.  For a time the whole of the left bank was of a leaden hue, while the right was speckled with spots of light which made the verge of the river resemble the skin of some huge beast of prey.  Then these resemblances varied and vanished at the mercy of the wind, which drove the clouds before it.  Above the burnished gold of the housetops dark patches floated, all in the same direction and with the same gentle and silent motion.  Some of them were very large, sailing along with all the majestic grace of an admiral’s ship, and surrounded by smaller ones, preserving the regular order of a squadron in line of battle.  Then one vast shadow, with a gap yawning like a serpent’s mouth, trailed along, and for a while hid Paris, which it seemed ready to devour.  And when it had reached the far-off horizon, looking no larger than a worm, a gush of light streamed from a rift in a cloud, and fell into the void which it had left.  The golden cascade could be seen descending first like a thread of fine sand, then swelling into a huge cone, and raining in a continuous shower on the Champs-Elysees district, which it inundated with a splashing, dancing radiance.  For a long time did this shower of sparks descend, spraying continuously like a fusee.