And the crowd flowed on ever
amidst the same sonorous wave of sound. The march past, which did not
really last more than a few minutes, seemed to the young people to be
interminable.
Truly, Miette was but a child. She had turned pale at the approach of
the band, she had wept for the loss of love, but she was a brave child,
whose ardent nature was easily fired by enthusiasm. Thus ardent emotions
had gradually got possession of her, and she became as courageous as
a youth. She would willingly have seized a weapon and followed the
insurgents. As the muskets and scythes filed past, her white teeth
glistened longer and sharper between her red lips, like the fangs of
a young wolf eager to bite and tear. And as she listened to Silvere
enumerating the contingents from the country-side with ever-increasing
haste, the pace of the column seemed to her to accelerate still more.
She soon fancied it all a cloud of human dust swept along by a tempest.
Everything began to whirl before her. Then she closed her eyes; big hot
tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Silvere's eyelashes were also moist. "I don't see the men who left
Plassans this afternoon," he murmured.
He tried to distinguish the end of the column, which was still hidden by
the darkness. Suddenly he cried with joyous exultation: "Ah, here they
are! They've got the banner--the banner has been entrusted to them!"
Then he wanted to leap from the slope in order to join his companions.
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