Then Miette gently led him on, and they resumed their walk.
“You dearly love your Republic?” the girl asked, essaying a joke. “Do you love me as much?”
Her smile was not altogether free from a tinge of bitterness. She was thinking, perhaps, how easily Silvère abandoned her to go and scour the country-side. But the lad gravely replied: “You are my wife, to whom I have given my whole heart. I love the Republic because I love you. When we are married we shall want plenty of happiness, and it is to procure a share of that happiness that I’m going way to-morrow morning. You surely don’t want to persuade me to remain at home?”
“Oh, no!” cried the girl eagerly. “A man should be brave! Courage is beautiful! You must forgive my jealousy. I should like to be as strong-minded as you are. You would love me all the more, wouldn’t you?”
After a moment’s silence she added, with charming vivacity and ingenuousness: “Ah, how willingly I shall kiss you when you come back!”
This outburst of a loving and courageous heart deeply affected Silvère. He clasped Miette in his arms and printed several kisses on her cheek. As she laughingly struggled to escape him, her eyes filled with tears of emotion.
All around the lovers the country still slumbered amid the deep stillness of the cold. They were now half-way down the hill. On the top of a rather lofty hillock to the left stood the ruins of a windmill, blanched by the moon; the tower, which had fallen in on one side, alone remained. This was the limit which the young people had assigned to their walk. They had come straight from the Faubourg without casting a single glance at the fields between which they passed. When Silvère had kissed Miette’s cheek, he raised his head and observed the mill.
“What a long walk we’ve had!” he exclaimed. “See—here is the mill. It must be nearly half-past nine. We must go home.”
But Miette pouted. “Let us walk a little further,” she implored; “only a few steps, just as far as the little cross-road, no farther, really.”
Silvère smiled as he again took her round the waist. Then they continued to descend the hill, no longer fearing inquisitive glances, for they had not met a living soul since passing the last houses. They nevertheless remained enveloped in the long pelisse, which seemed, as it were, a natural nest for their love. It had shrouded them on so many happy evenings! Had they simply walked side by side, they would have felt small and isolated in that vast stretch of country, whereas, blended together as they were, they became bolder and seemed less puny. Between the folds of the pelisse they gazed upon the fields stretching on both sides of the road, without experiencing that crushing feeling with which far-stretching callous vistas oppress the human affections. It seemed to them as though they had brought their house with them; they felt a pleasure in viewing the country-side as from a window, delighting in the calm solitude, the sheets of slumbering light, the glimpses of nature vaguely distinguishable beneath the shroud of night and winter, the whole of that valley indeed, which while charming them could not thrust itself between their close-pressed hearts.