This was the name they had given to the Pavilion Sully, which lifts its enormous bulk between the Louvre courtyard and the Cour du Carrousel. It was the culminating-point of the roof. But the excursion was impossible in full daylight; they would have been seen from below; by night no one could see them.
They passed through their wilderness and, following the roof on the other side, came to the foot of the pavillon. There, in the shadow of a chimney as big as a tower, iron steps had been placed along the dome from bottom to top, and an iron rod at the side served as a hand-rail.
“En route!” said Phil.
The ascent, which was at first straight up, curved little by little over the round dome; then there was again a straight-up ascent along the crown of the dome; and when this was passed they were at the top. Helia followed without difficulty—it was nothing for her.
They were on their Himalaya. To right and left opened the abysses of the courtyards below, and on every side the immense roofs with their humps and turrets and projections stood out black as ebony against the glow of Paris. Lights sparkled above and below—in the heavens and from the city, which seemed another heaven at their feet.
La Villette, the Trocadéro, Montrouge, and the Bastille lighted up their constellations. The Champs-Élysées stretched out like a comet. Montmartre shone palely along the horizon like a far-off nebula; the great circle of the boulevards belted the city with a Milky Way. High up among the stars the Eiffel Tower lifted its torch, like the pole-star.
“How grand it all is!” said Helia. She was on the wide parapet, and her hair, loosened as she climbed up, floated in the wind; her breast rose and fell as she caught her breath again. A thousand broken lights came to them where they stood amid the stars. You might have said they were Youth and Love in the center of the universe.
“How beautiful you are!” said Phil.
“Let us go down,” said Helia.
But as they climbed down there was a sudden cry. A rusty step yielded under Phil’s weight, and, letting go the hand-rail, he glided toward the abyss.