Then it seemed to him that the church also was shaking, moving, becoming endued with animation, that it was alive; that each of the great columns was turning into an enormous paw, which was beating the earth with its big stone spatula, and that the gigantic cathedral was no longer anything but a sort of prodigious elephant, which was breathing and marching with its pillars for feet, its two towers for trunks and the immense black cloth for its housings.
Alors il lui sembla que l’église aussi s’ébranlait, remuait, s’animait, vivait, que chaque grosse colonne devenait une patte énorme qui battait le sol de sa large spatule de pierre, et que la gigantesque cathédrale n’était plus qu’une sorte d’éléphant prodigieux qui soufflait et marchait avec ses piliers pour pieds, ses deux tours pour trompes et l’immense drap noir pour caparaçon.