Lousteau and de Banville (one as real as the other) have rhymed upon these benches.

The city tramples by without the railings to a lively measure; and within and about you, trees rustle, children and sparrows utter their small cries, and the statues look on forever.

Here, then, in a seat opposite the gallery entrance, I set to work on the events of the last night, to disengage (if it were possible) truth from fiction.
The house, by daylight, had proved to be six stories high, the same as ever.

I could find, with all my architectural experience, no room in its altitude for those interminable stairways, no width between its walls for that long corridor, where I had tramped at night.

And there was yet a greater difficulty.