The passage, the court,--by night all these familiar things surround me even while they hide themselves.

A vague light still hovers in the sky.

Crillon's prismatic shop gleams like a garnet in the bosom of the night, behind the riotous disorder of his buckets.

There I can see Crillon,--he never seems to stop,--filing something, examining his work close to a candle which flutters like a butterfly ensnared, and then, reaching for the glue-pot which steams on a little stove.

One can just see his face, the engrossed and heedless face of the artificer of the good old days; the black plates of his ill-shaven cheeks; and, protruding from his cap, a vizor of stiff hair.
He coughs, and the window-panes vibrate.
In the street, shadow and silence.