that he did not tell himself these things in simple fashion, but became lost in perfect social mysticism; imagining rehabilitation in the form of an apotheosis in which he pictured Miette seated on a throne, at the end of the Cours Sauvaire, while the whole town prostrated itself before her, entreating her pardon and singing her praises.  Happily he forgot all these fine things as soon as Miette jumped over the wall, and said to him on the high road:  “Let us have a race!  I’m sure you won’t catch me.”

However, if the young man dreamt like this of the glorification of his sweetheart, he also showed such passion for justice that he often made her weep on speaking to her about her father.  In spite of the softening effect which Silvere’s friendship had had upon her, she still at times gave way to angry outbreaks of temper, when all the stubbornness and rebellion latent in her nature stiffened her with scowling eyes and tightly-drawn lips.  She would then contend that her father had done quite right to kill the gendarme, that the earth belongs to everybody, and that one has the right to fire a gun when and where one likes.  Thereupon Silvere, in a grave voice, explained the law to her as he understood it, with strange commentaries which would have startled the whole magistracy of Plassans.  These discussions took place most often in some remote corner of the Sainte-Claire meadows.  The grassy carpet of a dusky green hue stretched further than they could see, undotted even by a single tree, and the sky seemed colossal, spangling the bare horizon with the stars.  It seemed to the young couple as if they were being rocked on a sea of verdure.  Miette argued the point obstinately; she asked Silvere if her father should have let the gendarme kill him, and Silvere, after a momentary silence, replied that, in such a case, it was better to be the victim than the murderer, and that it was a great misfortune for anyone to kill a fellow man, even in legitimate defence.  The law was something holy to him, and the judges had done right in sending Chantegreil to the galleys.  At this the girl grew angry, and almost struck her sweetheart, crying out that he was as heartless as the rest.  And as he still firmly defended his ideas of justice, she finished by bursting into sobs, and stammering that he was doubtless ashamed of her, since he was always reminding her of her father’s crime.  These discussions ended in tears, in mutual emotion.  But although the child cried, and acknowledged that she was perhaps wrong, she still retained deep within her a wild resentful temper.  She once related, with hearty laughter, that she had seen a gendarme fall off his horse and break his leg.  Apart from this, Miette only lived for Silvere.  When he asked her about her uncle and cousin, she replied that “She did not know;” and if he pressed her, fearing that they were making her too unhappy at the Jas-Meiffren, she simply answered that she worked hard, and that nothing had changed.  She believed, however, that Justin had at last found out what made her sing in the morning, and filled her eyes with delight.  But she added:  “What does it matter?  If ever he comes to disturb us we’ll receive him in such a way that he won’t be in a hurry to meddle with our affairs any more.”