There was no one in the lonely neighborhood of the cottage who
could furnish any information as to the cause of its being thus
deserted. I conjectured from the heaps of fagots which remained in the
yard, from the hens and pigeons which returned of themselves to roost
in the room, or on the roof, and from the stacks of hay and straw which
stood untouched in the orchard, that the family had gone to gather in a
late harvest in the high chalets of the mountain, and had not yet come
down again.
The solitude of which I had thus taken possession was sad; not so sad,
however, as the presence of the indifferent in a spot that was sacred
in my eyes. I must have controlled before them my looks, my voice, my
gestures, and the impressions that assailed me. I resolved to pass the
night there, and brought up a bundle of fresh straw, which I spread on
the floor, on the same spot where Julie had slept her death-like sleep.
Resting my gun against the wall, I then took out of my knapsack some
bread and a goat cheese that I had bought at Seyssel to support me on
the road, and went out to eat my supper on a green platform above the
ruins of the Abbey, by the side of the spring which flows and stops
alternately, like the intermittent breathing of the mountain.
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