beheld the white endless roads, covered with layers of dust, as if
there had been a fall of snow. They paced them again and again in
their imagination, happy to hear the fancied creaking of their heavy
shoes. Then they cut across the fields, over the reddish-brown
ferruginous soil, careering madly on and on; and there was a sky of
molten lead above them, not a shadow anywhere, nothing but dwarf olive
trees and almond trees with scanty foliage. And then the delicious
drowsiness of fatigue on their return, their triumphant bravado at
having covered yet more ground than on the precious journey, the
delight of being no longer conscious of effort, of advancing solely by
dint of strength acquired, spurring themselves on with some terrible
martial strain which helped to make everything like a dream.

Already at that time Claude, in addition to his powder-flask and
cartridge-belt, took with him an album, in which he sketched little
bits of country, while Sandoz, on his side, always had some favourite
poet in his pocket. They lived in a perfect frenzy of romanticism,
winged strophes alternated with coarse garrison stories, odes were
flung upon the burning, flashing, luminous atmosphere that enwrapt
them. And when perchance they came upon a small rivulet, bordered by
half a dozen willows, casting grey shadows on the soil all ablaze with
colour, they at once went into the seventh heaven. They there by
themselves performed the dramas they knew by heart, inflating their
voices when repeating the speeches of the heroes, and reducing them to
the merest whisper when they replied as queens and love-sick maidens.
On such days the sparrows were left in peace. In that remote province,
amidst the sleepy stupidity of that small town, they had thus lived on
from the age of fourteen, full of enthusiasm, devoured by a passion
for literature and art. The magnificent scenarios devised by Victor
Hugo, the gigantic phantasies which fought therein amidst a ceaseless