noon
Then , again , there were pelting rains , which submerged it , hid it as with a huge curtain drawn from the sky to the earth ; storms , with lightning flashes which lent it a tawny hue , the opaque light of some cut-throat place half destroyed by the fall of the huge copper-coloured clouds ; and there were winds that swept over it tempestuously , sharpening its angles and making it look hard , bare , and beaten against the pale blue sky . Then , again , when the sunbeams broke into dust amidst the vapours of the Seine , it appeared steeped in diffused brightness , without a shadow about it , lighted up equally on every side , and looking as charmingly delicate as a cut gem set in fine gold . He insisted on beholding it when the sun was rising and transpiercing the morning mists , when the Quai de l'Horloge flushes and the Quai des Orfevres remains wrapt in gloom ; when , up in the pink sky , it is already full of life , with the bright awakening of its towers and spires , while night , similar to a falling cloak , slides slowly from its lower buildings . He beheld it also at noon , when the sunrays fall on it vertically , when a crude glare bites into it , and it becomes discoloured and mute like a dead city , retaining nought but the life of heat , the quiver that darts over its distant housetops . He beheld it , moreover , beneath the setting sun , surrendering itself to the night which was slowly rising from the river , with the salient edges of its buildings still fringed with a glow as of embers , and with final conflagrations rekindling in its windows , from whose panes leapt tongue-like flashes . But in presence of those twenty different aspects of the Cite , no matter what the hour or the weather might be , he ever came back to the Cite that he had seen the first time , at about four o'clock one fine September afternoon , a Cite all serenity under a gentle breeze , a Cite which typified the heart of Paris beating in the limpid atmosphere , and seemingly enlarged by the vast stretch of sky which a flight of cloudlets crossed . Claude spent his time under the Pont des Saints-Peres , which he had made his shelter , his home , his roof .