A few steps further on he stopped again, looking out at the roads.  On the right, above Sainte-Adresse, the two electric lights of Cape la Heve, like monstrous twin Cyclops, shot their long and powerful beams across the sea.  Starting from two neighbouring centres, the two parallel shafts of light, like the colossal tails of two comets, fell in a straight and endless slope from the top of the cliff to the uttermost horizon.  Then, on the two piers, two more lights, the children of these giants, marked the entrance to the harbour; and far away on the other side of the Seine others were in sight, many others, steady or winking, flashing or revolving, opening and shutting like eyes—­the eyes of the ports—­yellow, red, and green, watching the night-wrapped sea covered with ships; the living eyes of the hospitable shore saying, merely by the mechanical and regular movement of their eye-lids:  “I am here.  I am Trouville; I am Honfleur; I am the Andemer River.”  And high above 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 went forward, curious to see the face of this lonely individual, and he recognised his brother.

“What, is it you, Jean?”

“Pierre!  You!  What has brought you here?”

“I came out to get some fresh air.  And you?”

Jean began to laugh.

“I too came out for fresh air.”  And Pierre sat down by his brother’s side.

“Lovely—­isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, lovely.”

He understood from the tone of voice that Jean had not looked at anything.  He went on: