gable among branches of chestnut trees?

At a point where sluices rustle, it is bathed by a torrent, that
Olhagarray house, antique and large, among antique chestnut trees.
Around, the red soil is denuded and furrowed by the waters of the
mountain; enormous roots are interlaced in it like monstrous gray
serpents; and the entire place, overhung on all sides by the Pyrenean
masses, is rude and tragic.

But two young girls are there, seated in the shade; with blonde hair and
elegant little pink waists; astonishing little fairies, very modern in
the midst of the ferocious and old scenes.--They rise, with cries of
joy, to meet the visitors.

It would have been better, evidently, to enter the house and salute the
old people. But the boys say to themselves that they have not been seen
coming, and they prefer to sit near their sweethearts, by the side of
the brook, on the gigantic roots. And, as if by chance, the two couples
manage not to bother one another, to remain hidden from one another by
rocks, by branches.

There then, they talk at length in a low voice, Arrochkoa with
Pantchika, Ramuntcho with Gracieuse. What can they be saying, talking so
much and so quickly?

Although their accent is less chanted than that of the highland, which
astonished them yesterday, one would think they were speaking scanned
stanzas, in a sort of music, infinitely soft, where the voices of the
boys seem voices of children.

What are they saying to one another, talking so much and so quickly,
beside this torrent, in this harsh ravine, under the heavy sun of noon?
What they are saying has not much sense; it is a sort of murmur special
to lovers, something like the special song of the swallows at nesting
time. It is childish, a tissue of incoherences and repetitions. No, what
they are saying has not much sense--unless it be what is most sublime in
the world, the most profound and truest things which may be expressed
by terrestrial words.--It means nothing, unless it be the eternal and
marvellous hymn for which alone has been created the language of men and
beasts, and in comparison with which all is empty, miserable and vain.

The heat is stifling in the depth of that gorge, so shut in from all
sides; in spite of the shade of the chestnut trees, the rays, that the
leaves sift, burn still. And this bare earth, of a reddish color, the
extreme oldness of this nearby house, the antiquity of these trees, give
to the surroundings, while the love