It even happened
occasionally that one of them would go and hide behind the piles of
timber, and assail Miette and Silvere with boyish jeers. The fear of
being surprised amidst that general awakening of life as the season
gradually grew warmer, tinged their meetings with anxiety.
Then, too, they began to stifle in the narrow lane. Never had it
throbbed with so ardent a quiver; never had that soil, in which the
last bones left of the former cemetery lay mouldering, sent forth such
oppressive and disturbing odours. They were still too young to relish
the voluptuous charm of that secluded nook which the springtide filled
with fever. The grass grew to their knees, they moved to and fro with
difficulty, and certain plants, when they crushed their young shoots,
sent forth a pungent odour which made them dizzy. Then, seized with
strange drowsiness and staggering with giddiness, their feet as
though entangled in the grass, they would lean against the wall, with
half-closed eyes, unable to move a step. All the soft languor from the
skies seemed to penetrate them.
With the petulance of beginners, impatient and irritated at this sudden
faintness, they began to think their retreat too confined, and decided
to ramble through the open fields. Every evening came fresh frolics.
Miette arrived with her pelisse; they wrapped themselves in it, and
then, gliding past the walls, reached the high-road and the open
country, the broad fields where the wind rolled with full strength,
like the waves at high tide.
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