"How cold and dismal is such _rococo_!" thought Durtal. He knelt down on a chair, and by degrees his impressions underwent a change. This holy place, saturated with prayer, seemed to let its ice melt and grow balmy. It was as though visions percolated through the gate of the cloister and shed warm puffs of air in the place. A sense of warmth of soul stole over him, of being at home in this solitude. The only astonishing thing was to hear, in such remote seclusion, the whistling of trains and the rumbling of engines. Durtal went out before Madame Bavoil had finished the rosary. Standing in the doorway, he saw, just opposite, the cathedral in profile, but with only one spire, the old belfry being hidden by the new. Under a cloudy sky it stood massively solid, green and grey, with its roof of oxidized copper, and the pumice-stone hue of the tower. "It is stupendous!" said Durtal to himself, recalling the various aspects it could assume according to the season and the hour, as the colour of its complexion varied. "The whole effect under a clear sky is silvery grey, and if the sun lights it up it turns pale golden yellow; seen from near, its skin is like a nibbled biscuit, a siliceous limestone eaten into holes; at other times, when the sun is setting, it turns crimson and appears like some vast and exquisite shrine, all rose colour and green; and in the twilight it is blue, and seems to evaporate into violet. "And those porches!" he went on. "That of the royal front is the least variable; it remains of a cinnamon-brown half-way up, of a dull pumice-grey as it rises; that on the south side, more eaten into by lichens, is wearing green, while the arches on the north, with their stones like concrete full of shells, suggest to the fancy a sea-grotto left high and dry." "Well, our friend, are you dreaming?" said Madame Bavoil, tapping him on the shoulder. "This Carmelite convent you see is a very austere house," said she, "and as you may suppose, grace abounds;" and when Durtal murmured,-- "What a contrast between this dead spot and the railway that runs past it, always in a stir!" she exclaimed,-- "Do you suppose that anywhere else you will find, side by side, such an image of the contemplative life and the active life?"