At last, worn out by wandering for two hours, and finding no shelter
against ourselves, we sat down near a small bridge across a stream; a
little apart, as if the very sound of each other's breathing had been
painful, or as if we had wished instinctively to conceal from one
another the suppressed sobs which were bursting from our hearts. We
long watched abstractedly the green and slimy water as it was slowly
swept beneath the narrow arch of the bridge. It carried along on its
surface sometimes the white petals of the lily, and sometimes an empty
and downy bird's nest which the wind had blown from a tree. We soon saw
the body of a poor little swallow, turned on its back, and with
extended wings, floating down. It had, doubtless, been drowned when
skimming over the water before its wings were strong enough to bear it
on the surface; it reminded us of the swallow which had one day fallen
at our feet, from the top of the dismantled tower of the old castle on
the borders of the lake, and which had saddened us as an omen.
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