Opposite, rose the great reddish mass of trees on the islands. The two
sombre brown banks, patched with grey, were like a couple of broad bands
stretching towards the horizon. The water and sky seemed as if cut from
the same whitish piece of material. Nothing looks more painfully calm
than an autumn twilight. The sun rays pale in the quivering air, the old
trees cast their leaves. The country, scorched by the ardent beams of
summer, feels death coming with the first cold winds. And, in the sky,
there are plaintive sighs of despair. Night falls from above, bringing
winding sheets in its shade.

The party were silent. Seated at the bottom of the boat drifting with
the stream, they watched the final gleams of light quitting the tall
branches. They approached the islands. The great russety masses grew
sombre; all the landscape became simplified in the twilight; the Seine,
the sky, the islands, the slopes were naught but brown and grey patches
which faded away amidst milky fog.

Camille, who had ended by lying down on his stomach, with his head over
the water, dipped his hands in the river.

"The deuce! How cold it is!" he exclaimed. "It would not be pleasant to
go in there head foremost."

Laurent did not answer. For an instant he had been observing the two
banks of the river with uneasiness. He advanced his huge hands to his
knees, tightly compressing his lips. Therese, rigid and motionless, with
her head thrown slightly backward, waited.

The skiff was about to enter a small arm of the river, that was sombre
and narrow, penetrating between two islands. Behind one of these islands