General Fiction

On leaving the Maisons-Laffitte station, the train, emerging from beneath the tunnel that follows the platform, passes over a little bridge and enters the forest; in winter, one sees through the leafless trees a few houses scattered along the line, and, in the distance, the hazy silhouette of the old abbey, rising solemnly in the midst of the desolation of the park, where the naked branches of chestnuts and oaks form a web of black lace against the gray sky.