Her only answer was a shriek; for a fresh flash of lightning had
almost blinded her, and this time the tragic city had seemed to her to
be spattered with blood. An immense chasm had been revealed, the two
arms of the river stretching far away amidst the lurid flames of a
conflagration. The smallest details had appeared: the little closed
shutters of the Quai des Ormes, and the two openings of the Rue de la
Masure, and the Rue du Paon-Blanc, which made breaks in the line of
frontages; then near the Pont Marie one could have counted the leaves
on the lofty plane trees, which there form a bouquet of magnificent
verdure; while on the other side, beneath the Pont Louis Philippe, at
the Mail, the barges, ranged in a quadruple line, had flared with the
piles of yellow apples with which they were heavily laden. And there
was also the ripple of the water, the high chimney of the floating
washhouse, the tightened chain of the dredger, the heaps of sand on
the banks, indeed, an extraordinary agglomeration of things, quite a
little world filling the great gap which seemed to stretch from one
horizon to the other. But the sky became dark again, and the river
flowed on, all obscurity, amid the crashing of the thunder.

'Thank heaven it's over. Oh, heaven! what's to become of me?'

Just then the rain began to fall again, so stiffly and impelled by so
strong a wind that it swept along the quay with the violence of water
escaping through an open lock.

'Come, let me get in,' said Claude; 'I can stand this no longer.'

Both were getting drenched. By the flickering light of the gas lamp at
the corner of the Rue de la Femme-sans-Tete the young man could see
the water dripping from the girl's dress, which was clinging to her