MERTON, SURREY.



HIS MASTERPIECE



I

CLAUDE was passing in front of the Hotel de Ville, and the clock was
striking two o'clock in the morning when the storm burst forth. He had
been roaming forgetfully about the Central Markets, during that
burning July night, like a loitering artist enamoured of nocturnal
Paris. Suddenly the raindrops came down, so large and thick, that he
took to his heels and rushed, wildly bewildered, along the Quai de la
Greve. But on reaching the Pont Louis Philippe he pulled up, ragefully
breathless; he considered this fear of the rain to be idiotic; and so
amid the pitch-like darkness, under the lashing shower which drowned
the gas-jets, he crossed the bridge slowly, with his hands dangling by
his side.

He had only a few more steps to go. As he was turning on to the Quai
Bourbon, on the Isle of St. Louis, a sharp flash of lightning
illumined the straight, monotonous line of old houses bordering the
narrow road in front of the Seine. It blazed upon the panes of the
high, shutterless windows, showing up the melancholy frontages of the
old-fashioned dwellings in all their details; here a stone balcony,
there the railing of a terrace, and there a garland sculptured on a
frieze. The painter had his studio close by, under the eaves of the