The following text is adapted from Guy de Maupassant’s 1884 short story “A Recollection,” from the collection Guy de Maupassant Short Stories (translated by Albert M.C. McMaster et al. in 1903). The narrator is taking a boat down the Seine river from Paris, France, to the surrounding countryside.

I took up a position in the bows [front of the boat], standing up and looking at the quays, the trees, the houses and the bridges disappearing behind us. And suddenly I perceived the great viaduct of Point du Jour which blocked the river. It was the end of Paris, the beginning of the country, and behind the double row of arches the Seine, suddenly spreading out as though it had regained space and liberty, became all at once the peaceful river which flows through the plains, alongside the wooded hills, amid the meadows, along the edge of the forests.