all the rest, so high that from this distance it might be taken for a
planet, the airy lighthouse of Etouville showed the way to Rouen across
the sand banks at the mouth of the great river.

Out on the deep water, the limitless water, darker than the sky, stars
seemed to have fallen here and there. They twinkled in the night haze,
small, close to shore or far away--white, red, and green, too. Most of
them were motionless; some, however, seemed to be scudding onward. These
were the lights of the ships at anchor or moving about in search of
moorings.

Just at this moment the moon rose behind the town; and it, too, looked
like some huge, divine pharos lighted up in the heavens to guide the
countless fleet of stars in the sky. Pierre murmured, almost speaking
aloud: "Look at that! And we let our bile rise for twopence!"

On a sudden, close to him, in the wide, dark ditch between the two
piers, a shadow stole up, a large shadow of fantastic shape. Leaning
over the granite parapet, he saw that a fishing-boat had glided in,
without the sound of a voice or the splash of a ripple, or the plunge
of an oar, softly borne in by its broad, tawny sail spread to the breeze
from the open sea.

He thought to himself: "If one could but live on board that boat, what
peace it would be--perhaps!"

And then again a few steps beyond, he saw a man sitting at the very end
of the breakwater.

A dreamer, a lover, a sage--a happy or a desperate man? Who was it? He