When the nights were dry and
clear, and puffs of wind raised the hoar frost beneath their footsteps
and fell on their faces like taps from a switch, they refrained from
sitting down. They walked quickly to and fro, wrapped in the pelisse,
their cheeks blue with cold, and their eyes watering; and they laughed
heartily, quite quivering with mirth, at the rapidity of their
march through the freezing atmosphere. One snowy evening they amused
themselves with making an enormous snowball, which they rolled into
a corner. It remained there fully a month, which caused them fresh
astonishment each time they met in the path. Nor did the rain frighten
them. They came to see each other through the heaviest downpours, though
they got wet to the skin in doing so. Silvere would hasten to the spot,
saying to himself that Miette would never be mad enough to come; and
when Miette arrived, he could not find it in his heart to scold her.
In reality he had been expecting her. At last he sought some shelter
against the inclement weather, knowing quite well that they would
certainly come out, however much they might promise one another not to
do so when it rained. To find a shelter he only had to disturb one of
the timber-stacks; pulling out several pieces of wood and arranging them
so that they would move easily, in such wise that he could displace and
replace them at pleasure.
From that time forward the lovers possessed a sort of low and narrow
sentry-box, a square hole, which was only big enough to hold them
closely squeezed together on a beam which they had left at the bottom
of the little cell.
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