Mingled with these actual objects were the spiritual forces of which the city was full, and which were to Luc fully as potent as the things he saw; the air was full of an extraordinary inspiration, as if every man who had struggled and thought and died in Paris had left some part of his aspirations behind to enrich the city.
A wonderful gorgeous history was held in the stones of the ancient buildings, in the holy glooms of the churches, in the crooked lines of the famous streets; her children bloomed and faded, but the city itself was imperishable, a thing never to be touched with decay.
No one once loving this city could ever love another so well.
Luc found the immortal charm of Paris enwrapping him with a sad power; she was the cradle of all the glory of the Western world, the epitome of all that man had achieved in this his last civilization; she had seen all his passions burn themselves out and live again. But as yet Luc was on her threshold, unadmitted, unnoticed.
None of his three letters had been answered. The truth of M. de Biron’s advice was being proved every day: he was neither wanted nor heeded; there was no place ready for him nor any hand held out to welcome. Yet Luc, leaning against the heavy parapet and listening to the steady sound of the passing footsteps, watching the deep eddies of the water and the grey outlines of the buildings, felt no discouragement; he measured his soul against even the mighty city, and found it sufficient.
Last night he had walked past the hotel from which the Countess Carola had written. There had been a festival within; all the windows were lit, and the courtyard was blocked with carriages.
Luc had smiled to think of her dancing behind those walls—what if he had come into her presence and asserted his claim to friendship based on that march of horror from Prague?
He had not entered her mansion, nor did he think of waiting on her; why he could not tell, save that all his life he had shrunk from putting his dreams to the test of actuality: and he had dreams about the Countess Carola, visions of her and pleasant imaginings, but no knowledge; he did not care to alter this delicate attitude towards the only woman who had ever interested him. No visions clouded his remembrance of Clémence de Séguy: she stood out in his mind, clear-cut and definite; he thought he knew her perfectly, to the bottom of her simple soul.
She was pleasant to think on; he conjured up her picture now, rosy, enveloped in a multitude of frills and ribbons—the grey city seemed the greyer by contrast.
Then the mighty currents of the river swept away her picture as a rose-leaf is swept away by a torrent, and the swish of it against the ancient bridge beat on the heart of Luc the three words: endeavour—achievement—fame.