Then the little one, abashed, at once became very quiet, and relapsed into gloomy stillness, with his lustreless eyes fixed on his potatoes, which, however, he did not eat.

Claude made a show of stuffing himself with cheese, while Christine, quite grieved, offered to fetch some cold meat from a ham and beef shop; but he declined, and prevented her going by words that pained her still more.  Then, the table having been cleared, they all sat round the lamp for the evening, she sewing, the little one turning over a picture-book in silence, and Claude drumming on the table with his fingers, his mind the while wandering back to the spot whence he had come.  Suddenly he rose, sat down again with a sheet of paper and a pencil, and began sketching rapidly, in the vivid circle of light that fell from under the lamp-shade.  And such was his longing to give outward expression to the tumultuous ideas beating in his skull, that soon this sketch did not suffice for his relief.  On the contrary, it goaded him on, and he finished by unburthening his mind in a flood of words.  He would have shouted to the walls; and if he addressed himself to his wife it was because she happened to be there.

’Look, that’s what we saw yesterday.  It’s magnificent.  I spent three hours there to-day.  I’ve got hold of what I want—­something wonderful, something that’ll knock everything else to pieces.  Just look!  I station myself under the bridge; in the immediate foreground I have the Port of St. Nicolas, with its crane, its lighters which are being unloaded, and its crowd of labourers.  Do you see the idea—­it’s Paris at work—­all those brawny fellows displaying their bare arms and chests?  Then on the other side I have the swimming-baths—­Paris at play—­and some skiff there, no doubt, to occupy the centre of the composition; but of that I am not as yet certain.  I must feel my way.  As a matter of course, the Seine will be in the middle, broad, immense.’

While talking, he kept on indicating outlines with his pencil, thickening his strokes over and over again, and tearing the paper in his very energy.  She, in order to please him, bent over the sketch, pretending to grow very interested in his explanations.  But there was such a labyrinth of lines, such a confusion of summary details, that she failed to distinguish anything.

‘You are following me, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, yes, very beautiful indeed.’

’Then I have the background, the two arms of the rivet with their quays, the Cite, rising up triumphantly in the centre, and standing out against the sky.  Ah! that background, what a marvel!  People see it every day, pass before it without stopping; but it takes hold of one all the same; one’s admiration accumulates, and one fine afternoon it bursts forth.  Nothing in the world can be grander; it is Paris herself, glorious in the sunlight.  Ah! what a fool I was not to think of it before!  How many times I have looked at it without seeing!  However, I stumbled on it after that ramble along the quays!  And, do you remember, there’s a dash of shadow on that side; while here the sunrays fall quite straight.  The towers are yonder; the spire of the Sainte-Chapelle tapers upward, as slim as a needle pointing to the sky.  But no, it’s more to the right.  Wait, I’ll show you.’