The way down was by a cellar-stair lighted by a small lamp with a sputtering wick darkening the chimney with smoke; having safely reached the bottom, he turned to the left in the darkness; here and there, at an angle, a floating wick threw a ruddy light on the circuit which he made in alternate light and shade, till at last he had some notion of the general outline of the crypt. Its plan would be fairly represented by the nave of a wheel whence the spokes radiated in every direction, joining the outer circle or tyre. From the circular path in which he found himself passages diverged like the sticks of a fan, and at the end little fogged glass windows were visible, looking almost bright in the opaque blackness of the walls. And by following the curve of the corridor, Durtal came to a green baize door which he pushed open. He found himself in the side aisle of a nave ending in a semicircle, where there was a high altar. To the right and left two little recesses formed the arms or transept of a small cross. The centre aisle, forming a low nave, had chairs on either side, leaving a narrow space to give access to the altar. It was scarcely possible to see; the sanctuary was lighted only by tiny lamps from the roof in little saucers of lurid orange or dull gold. An extraordinarily mild atmosphere prevailed in this underground structure, which was also full of a singular perfume in which a musty odour of hot wax mingled with a suggestion of damp earth. But this was only the background, the canvas, so to speak, of the perfume, and was lost under the embroidery of fragrance which covered it, the faded gold, as it were, of oil in which long kept aromatic herbs had been steeped, and old, old incense powder dissolved. It was a weird and mysterious vapour, as strange as the crypt itself, which, with its furtive lights and breadths of shadow, was at once penitential and soothing. Durtal went up the broader aisle to the left arm of the cross and sat down; the tiny transept had its little altar, with a Greek cross in relief against a purple disk. Overhead the enormous curve of the vaulting hung heavy, and so low that a man could touch it by stretching an arm; it was as black as the mouth of a chimney, and scorched by the fires that had consumed the cathedrals built above it. Presently the clap-clap of sabots became audible, and then the smothered footfall of nuns; there was silence but for sneezing and nose-blowing stifled by pocket-handkerchiefs, and then all was still.