wall, and said to him on the
high road: "Let us have a race! I'm sure you won't catch me."

However, if the young man dreamt like this of the glorification of his
sweetheart, he also showed such passion for justice that he often made
her weep on speaking to her about her father. In spite of the softening
effect which Silvere's friendship had had upon her, she still at times
gave way to angry outbreaks of temper, when all the stubbornness and
rebellion latent in her nature stiffened her with scowling eyes and
tightly-drawn lips. She would then contend that her father had done
quite right to kill the gendarme, that the earth belongs to everybody,
and that one has the right to fire a gun when and where one likes.
Thereupon Silvere, in a grave voice, explained the law to her as he
understood it, with strange commentaries which would have startled the
whole magistracy of Plassans. These discussions took place most often in
some remote corner of the Sainte-Claire meadows. The grassy carpet of a
dusky green hue stretched further than they could see, undotted even by
a single tree, and the sky seemed colossal, spangling the bare horizon
with the stars. It seemed to the young couple as if they were being
rocked on a sea of verdure. Miette argued the point obstinately; she
asked Silvere if her father should have let the gendarme kill him, and
Silvere, after a momentary silence, replied that, in such a case, it
was better to be the victim than the murderer, and that it was a great
misfortune for anyone to kill a fellow man, even in legitimate defence.
The law was something holy to him, and the judges had done right in
sending Chantegreil to the galleys. At this the girl grew angry, and
almost struck her sweetheart, crying out that he was as heartless as the
rest. And as he still firmly defended his ideas of justice, she finished
by bursting into sobs, and stammering that he was doubtless ashamed
of her, since he was always reminding her of her father's crime. These
discussions ended in tears, in mutual emotion. But although the child
cried, and acknowledged that she was perhaps wrong, she still retained
deep within her a wild resentful temper. She once related, with hearty
laughter, that she had seen a gendarme fall off his horse and break his
leg. Apart from this, Miette only lived for Silvere. When he asked her
about her uncle and cousin, she replied that "She did not know;" and
if he pressed her, fearing that they were making h