of battle.
Then one vast shadow, with a gap yawning like a serpent's mouth,
trailed along, and for a while hid Paris, which it seemed ready to
devour. And when it had reached the far-off horizon, looking no larger
than a worm, a gush of light streamed from a rift in a cloud, and fell
into the void which it had left. The golden cascade could be seen
descending first like a thread of fine sand, then swelling into a huge
cone, and raining in a continuous shower on the Champs-Elysees
district, which it inundated with a splashing, dancing radiance. For a
long time did this shower of sparks descend, spraying continuously
like a fusee.

Ah, well! this love was her fate, and Helene ceased to resist. She
could battle no longer against her feelings. And in ceasing to
struggle she tasted immeasurable delight. Why should she grudge
herself happiness any longer? The memory of her past life inspired her
with disgust and aversion. How had she been able to drag on that cold,
dreary existence, of which she was formerly so proud? A vision rose
before her of herself as a young girl living in the Rue des
Petites-Maries, at Marseilles, where she had ever shivered; she saw
herself a wife, her heart's blood frozen in the companionship of a big
child of a husband, with little to take any interest in, apart from the
cares of her household; she saw herself through every hour of her life
following the same path with the same even tread, without a trouble to
mar her peace; and now this monotony in which she had lived, her heart
fast asleep, enraged her beyond expression. To think that she had
fancied herself happy in thus following her path for thirty years, her
passions silent, with naught but the pride of virtue to fill the blank
in her existence. How she had cheated herself with her integrity and
nice honor, which had girt her round with the empty joys of piety! No,
no; she had had enough of it; she wished to live! And an awful spirit
of ridicule woke within her as she thought of the behests of reason.
Her reason, forsooth! she felt a contemptuous pity for it; during all
the years she had lived it had brought her no joy to be compared with
that she had tasted during the past hour. She had denied the
possibility of stumbling, she had been vain and idiotic enough to
think that she would go on to the end without her foot once tripping
against a stone. Ah, well! to-day she almost longed to fall. Oh that
she might disappear, after tasting for one m