“Wasn’t I lucky!” she would gleefully exclaim.  “We might walk a long way without finding such a good hiding-place.”

The thick grass muffled the noise of their footsteps.  They were steeped in gloom, shut in between two black walls, and only a strip of dark sky, spangled with stars, was visible above their heads.  And as they stepped along, pacing this path which resembled a dark stream flowing beneath the black star-sprent sky, they were often thrilled with undefinable emotion, and lowered their voices, although there was nobody to hear them.  Surrendering themselves as it were to the silent waves of night, over which they seemed to drift, they recounted to one another, with lovers’ rapture, the thousand trifles of the day.

At other times, on bright nights, when the moonlight clearly outlined the wall and the timber-stacks, Miette and Silvere would romp about with all the carelessness of children.  The path stretched out, alight with white rays, and retaining no suggestion of secrecy, and the young people laughed and chased each other like boys at play, at times venturing even to climb upon the piles of timber.  Silvere was occasionally obliged to frighten Miette by telling her that Justin might be watching her from over the wall.  Then, quite out of breath, they would stroll side by side, and plan how they might some day go for a scamper in the Sainte-Claire meadows, to see which of the two would catch the other.

Their growing love thus accommodated itself to dark and clear nights.  Their hearts were ever on the alert, and a little shade sufficed to sweeten the pleasure of their embrace, and soften their laughter.  This dearly-loved retreat—­so gay in the moonshine, so strangely thrilling in the gloom—­seemed an inexhaustible source of both gaiety and silent emotion.  They would remain there until midnight, while the town dropped off to sleep and the lights in the windows of the Faubourg went out one by one.

They were never disturbed in their solitude.  At that late hour children were no longer playing at hide-and-seek behind the piles of planks.  Occasionally, when the young couple heard sounds in the distance—­the singing of some workmen as they passed along the road, or conversation coming from the neighbouring sidewalks—­they would cast stealthy glances over the Aire Saint-Mittre.  The timber-yard stretched out, empty of all, save here and there some falling shadows.  On warm evenings they sometimes caught glimpses of loving couples there, and of old men sitting on the big beams by the roadside.  When the evenings grew colder, all that they ever saw on the melancholy, deserted spot was some gipsy fire, before which, perhaps, a few black shadows passed to and fro.  Through the still night air words and sundry faint sounds were wafted to them, the “good-night” of a townsman shutting his door, the closing of a window-shutter, the deep striking of a clock, all the parting sounds of a provincial town retiring to rest.  And when Plassans was slumbering, they might still hear the quarrelling of the gipsies and the crackling of their fires, amidst which suddenly rose the guttural voices of girls singing in a strange tongue, full of rugged accents.