ccasionally, when the young couple heard sounds in the distance--the
singing of some workmen as they passed along the road, or conversation
coming from the neighbouring sidewalks--they would cast stealthy glances
over the Aire Saint-Mittre. The timber-yard stretched out, empty of
all, save here and there some falling shadows. On warm evenings they
sometimes caught glimpses of loving couples there, and of old men
sitting on the big beams by the roadside. When the evenings grew colder,
all that they ever saw on the melancholy, deserted spot was some gipsy
fire, before which, perhaps, a few black shadows passed to and fro.
Through the still night air words and sundry faint sounds were wafted to
them, the "good-night" of a townsman shutting his door, the closing of a
window-shutter, the deep striking of a clock, all the parting sounds of
a provincial town retiring to rest. And when Plassans was slumbering,
they might still hear the quarrelling of the gipsies and the crackling
of their fires, amidst which suddenly rose the guttural voices of girls
singing in a strange tongue, full of rugged accents.

But the lovers did not concern themselves much with what went on in the
Aire Saint-Mittre; they hastened back into their own little privacy, and
again walked along their favourite retired path. Little did they care
for others, or for the town itself! The few planks which separated them
from the wicked world seemed to them, after a while, an insurmountable
rampart. They were so secluded, so free in this nook, situated though it
was in the very midst of the Faubourg, at only fifty paces from the Rome
Gate, that they sometimes fancied themselves far away in some hollow of
the Viorne, with the open country around them. Of all the sounds
which reached them, only one made them feel uneasy, that of the clocks
striking slowly in the darkness. At times, when the hour sounded, they
pretended not to hear, at other moments they stopped short as if to
protest. However, they could not go on for ever taking just another
ten minutes, and so the time came when they were at last obliged to say
good-night. Then Miette reluctantly climbed upon the wall again. But all
was not ended yet, they would linger over their leave-taking for a
good quarter of an hour. When the girl had climbed upon the wall, she
remained there with her elbows on the coping, and her feet supported
by the branches of the mulberry-tree, which served her as a ladder.
Silvere, perc