The huge pit in front of him was like a mineshaft. Down at the bottom was a great, open metal box of the kind used to keep out river water when the piers of a bridge are being built. Inside it, the men were using pickaxes and shovels to tear away the ground.

“They’re already below the level of the Seine,” his guide explained. “The committee chose the site, but when Monsieur Eiffel tested it, he found that the ground on the riverside was so wet it wouldn’t take the ordinary foundations.” He grinned. “Paris would have had its own Leaning Tower of Pisa, but five times higher.”

“Can the tower still be built?”

“Oh yes. It’ll have two dry foundations, and two deep ones like this.” He smiled. “But it’s lucky Eiffel knows how to build in rivers.”

For nearly three more months, Thomas continued to work in the store. Madame Michel was kind to him. He also noticed something else.

Her daughter was a sallow, yellow-haired girl named Berthe of about his own age. She seldom spoke at all, and moved about behind the counter at a languid pace that, secretly, almost drove Thomas mad.

So he was greatly astonished when, in May, his father announced: “The widow likes you.”

“I’m glad.”

“So does Berthe.” His father smiled. “She likes you a lot.”

“Are you sure?” And when his father nodded and grinned, he was forced to say: “The feeling’s not mutual.”

“You could do well there,” his father continued, as though Thomas hadn’t spoken. “She’ll inherit the store, you know … It’s a nice little business. Marry her and you’ll be set up for life.”

“I’d rather die,” said Thomas.

“A man’s got to eat,” said his father. “Your mother thinks it’s a good idea, too.”

It was the last Sunday in May and he’d gone for a stroll around Montmartre in the afternoon. The sun was out, and as he entered an intimate little square called the Place du Tertre, he saw that several painters had set up their easels there.

Attracted by the cheap rents and picturesque surroundings, artists had taken to living up on Montmartre since about the time he was born. He’d heard tales of Monsieur Renoir up at the Moulin, and it was quite normal to find a few painters out in the open with their easels on a sunny afternoon. Thomas walked through the square glancing at the canvases as he went, but without much interest. Most of the artists were painting the view from the square along the street to the building site of Sacré Coeur, where the scaffolding made a striking outline against the sky. But as he passed one of them, he noticed something different.