wool, as far as the willows and birches by the
river. The distance from the last elms to the bridge is scarcely three
hundred yards. The lovers took a good quarter of an hour to cover that
space. At last, however slow their gait, they reached the bridge, and
there they stopped.

The road to Nice ran up in front of them, along the opposite slope of
the valley. But they could only see a small portion of it, as it takes a
sudden turn about half a mile from the bridge, and is lost to view among
the wooded hills. On looking round they caught sight of the other end
of the road, that which they had just traversed, and which leads in
a direct line from Plassans to the Viorne. In the beautiful winter
moonlight it looked like a long silver ribbon, with dark edgings traced
by the rows of elms. On the right and left the ploughed hill-land showed
like vast, grey, vague seas intersected by this ribbon, this roadway
white with frost, and brilliant as with metallic lustre. Up above, on a
level with the horizon, lights shone from a few windows in the Faubourg,
resembling glowing sparks. By degrees Miette and Silvere had walked
fully a league. They gazed at the intervening road, full of silent
admiration for the vast amphitheatre which rose to the verge of the
heavens, and over which flowed bluish streams of light, as over the
superposed rocks of a gigantic waterfall. The strange and colossal
picture spread out amid deathlike stillness and silence. Nothing could
have been of more sovereign grandeur.

Then the young people, having leant against the parapet of the bridge,
gazed beneath them. The Viorne, swollen by the rains, flowed on with a
dull, continuous sound. Up and down stream, despite the darkness which
filled the hollows, they perceived the black lines of the trees growing
on the banks; here and there glided the moonbeams, casting a trail of
molten metal, as it were, over the water, which glittered and danced
like rays of light on the scales of some live animal. The gleams darted
with a mysterious charm along the gray torrent, betwixt the vague
phantom-like foliage. You might have thought this an enchanted valley,
some wondrous retreat where a community of shadows and gleams lived a
fantastic life.

This part of the river was familiar to the lovers; they had often come
here in search of coolness on warm July nights; they had spent hours
hidden among the clusters of willows on the right bank, at the spot
where the meadows of Sa