a war: however, there's a chance."

As he spoke he was leading Germinie down the street.

"Where are you taking me?" said she.

"To mother's, of course--so that you two can make up and put an end to
all this nonsense."

"After what she said to me? Never!"

And Germinie pushed Jupillon's arm away.

"Well, if that's the way it is, good-bye."

And Jupillon raised his cap.

"Shall I write to you from the regiment?"

Germinie was silent, hesitating, for a moment. Then she said, abruptly:
"Come on!" and, motioning to Jupillon to walk beside her, she turned
back up the street.

And so they walked along, side by side, without a word. They reached a
paved road that stretched out as far as the eye could see, between two
lines of lanterns, between two rows of gnarled trees that held aloft
handfuls of bare branches and cast their slender, motionless shadows on
high blank walls. There, in the keen air, chilled by the evaporation of
the snow, they walked on and on for a long time, burying themselves in
the vague, infinite, unfamiliar depths of a street that follows the
same wall, the same trees, the same lanterns, and leads on to the same
darkness beyond. The damp, heavy air that they breathed smelt of sugar
and tallow and carrion. From time to time a vivid flash passed before
their eyes: it was the lantern of a butcher's cart that shone upon
slaughtered cattle and huge pieces of bleeding meat thrown upon the back
of a white horse; the light upon the flesh, amid the darkness, resembled
a purple conflagration, a furnace of blood.

"Well! have you reflected?" said Jupillon. "This little Avenue Trudaine
isn't a very cheerful place, do you know?"

"Come on," Germinie replied.

And, without another word, she set out again at the same fierce, jerky
gait, agitated by all the tumult raging in her heart. Her thoughts were
expressed in her gestures. Her feet went astray, madness attacked her
hands. At times her shadow, seen from behind, reminded one of a woman
from La Salpetriere. Two or three passers-by stopped for a moment and
looked after her; then, remembering that they were in Paris, passed on.

Suddenly she stopped, and with the gesture of one who has made a
desperate resolution, she said: "Ah! my God! another pin in the
cushion!--Let us go!"

And she took Jupillon's arm.

"Oh! I know very well," said Jupillon, when they were near the creamery,
"my mother wasn't fair to you. You see, the woman has been too virtuous
a