he could, not without enlarging the rents in his rags.

He left the garden in the same manner, but backwards, being obliged,
in order to keep the dog respectful, to have recourse to that manoeuvre
with his stick which masters in that sort of fencing designate as la
rose couverte.

When he had, not without difficulty, repassed the fence, and found
himself once more in the street, alone, without refuge, without shelter,
without a roof over his head, chased even from that bed of straw and
from that miserable kennel, he dropped rather than seated himself on a
stone, and it appears that a passer-by heard him exclaim, "I am not even
a dog!"

He soon rose again and resumed his march. He went out of the town,
hoping to find some tree or haystack in the fields which would afford
him shelter.

He walked thus for some time, with his head still drooping. When he felt
himself far from every human habitation, he raised his eyes and gazed
searchingly about him. He was in a field. Before him was one of those
low hills covered with close-cut stubble, which, after the harvest,
resemble shaved heads.

The horizon was perfectly black. This was not alone the obscurity of
night; it was caused by very low-hanging clouds which seemed to rest
upon the hill itself, and which were mounting and filling the whole
sky. Meanwhile, as the moon was about to rise, and as there was still
floating in the zenith a remnant of the brightness of twilight, these
clouds formed at the summit of the sky a sort of whitish arch, whence a
gleam of light fell upon the earth.

The earth was thus better lighted than the sky, which produces a
particularly sinister effect, and the hill, whose contour was poor and
mean, was outlined vague and wan against the gloomy horizon. The whole
effect was hideous, petty, lugubrious, and narrow.

There was nothing in the field or on the hill except a deformed tree,
which writhed and shivered a few paces distant from the wayfarer.

This man was evidently very far from having those delicate habits of
intelligence and spirit which render one sensible to the mysterious
aspects of things; nevertheless, there was something in that sky,
in that hill, in that plain, in that tree, which was so profoundly
desolate, that after a moment of immobility and revery he turned back
abruptly. There are instants when nature seems hostile.

He retraced his steps; the gates of D---- were closed. D----, which had
sustained sieges during the wars