even the stones of the roads, would complete and explain us. In sum,
the grand whole, without low or high, or clean or unclean, such as it
indeed is in reality. It is certainly to science that poets and
novelists ought to address themselves, for it is the only possible
source of inspiration to-day. But what are we to borrow from it? How
are we to march in its company? The moment I begin to think about that
sort of thing I feel that I am floundering. Ah, if I only knew, what a
series of books I would hurl at the heads of the crowd!'

He also became silent. The previous winter he had published his first
book: a series of little sketches, brought from Plassans, among which
only a few rougher notes indicated that the author was a mutineer, a
passionate lover of truth and power. And lately he had been feeling
his way, questioning himself while all sorts of confused ideas
throbbed in his brain. At first, smitten with the thought of
undertaking something herculean, he had planned a genesis of the
universe, in three phases or parts; the creation narrated according to
science; mankind supervening at the appointed hour and playing its
part in the chain of beings and events; then the future--beings
constantly following one another, and finishing the creation of the
world by the endless labour of life. But he had calmed down in
presence of the venturesome hypotheses of this third phase; and he was
now looking out for a more restricted, more human framework, in which,
however, his vast ambition might find room.

'Ah, to be able to see and paint everything,' exclaimed Claude, after
a long interval. 'To have miles upon miles of walls to cover, to
decorate the railway stations, the markets, the municipal offices,
everything that will be built, when architects are no longer idiots.
Only strong heads and strong muscles will be wanted, for there will be