Paris 4 (Pages 189 - 236)

 SPOILERS!!!

Thomas Gascon and Edith see each other regularly. On Christmas Day he is invited to join her family and he accepts. There is plenty of food and drink, and the old women who live in the premises and are not bedridden are also there. When lunch is over and Edith and Thomas are left alone, she tells her about how redecorating the room of the old lady who died recently when Thomas and Luc took her out as Mr Ney wants to have a new tenant. Edith volunteers to show  him, and it is in the room where she lets him make love to her for the first time.

Edith realises that she is pregnant weeks later, but she only tells her aunt, and Adeline tells her that the only thing she can do is have the baby adopted or get rid of it. Edith needs time and wants to tell Thomas, but she knows he will want to marry, and she is not sure she wants that. She thinks Thomas is nice. 

One Sunday Edith and Thomas meet Thomas's Italian colleague Pepe and his girlfriend, Ann. They drink more than usual, and Pepe and Thomas are tipsy and behave in a daring way. When they approach the site where the Eiffel Tower stands, both Thomas and Pepe decide to sneak inside and climb to the first platform. Edith begs them not to do anything stupid, but she is ignored. When Pepe reaches the platform, he starts to sing, and when he finishes, Edith urges him to take a bow and leave. And it is when he takes the bow that he loses his balance and falls to his death.

Thomas quickly tells Edith to go and call Mr Ney and stay behind. Some half an hour later Mr Ney comes with a policeman, and Thomas is asked some questions but not where he was when Pepe fell. Later Mr Ney tells him that Mr Eiffel is in the know but he is eager to keep the matter between wraps because that publicity could ruin the whole project. That night Edith loses the baby she was expecting, and she finally tells Thomas, who is shocked.

When Thomas goes to work on Monday, the foreman warns him not to say a word, and then Mr Eiffel calls him and says that he won't fire him, but as a punishment he won't have his name engraved on the tower with the others. Thomas accepts the punishment, but when the Eiffel Tower is open, Luc shows him where his name was.

In the last part of this long chapter Aunt Adeline keeps telling Edith that now that she is not pregnant, she should leave Thomas as she could have better men. However, Edith is confused. And then Thomas asks her to marry him. What will she say? 

In the next chapter it is 1462 and in a bad-reputed inn there is Jean Le Sourd, surrounded by villains. A stooped man with a tonsure gives him a pendant. Then a nobleman appears. It is Guy de Cygne, a descendant of Roland de Cygne, and he has come to look for the pendant which belonged to his grandmother. He recognises the man who stole it, but Jean vows for him, and Cygne realises that he may not get out of the tavern alive.