When the moon shone, its rays glided between the trunks of the trees, and phantoms seemed to flit along the river-side in white robes.

Miette felt no nervousness, however, only an indefinable emotion as she followed the play of the shadows.

As she went onward with slower motion, the calm water, which the moon converted into a bright mirror, rippled at her approach like a silver-broidered cloth; eddies widened and lost themselves amid the shadows of the banks, under the hanging willow branches, whence issued weird, plashing sounds.

At every stroke she perceived recesses full of sound; dark cavities which she hastened to pass by; clusters and rows of trees, whose sombre masses were continually changing form, stretching forward and apparently following her from the summit of the bank.

And when she threw herself on her back, the depths of the heavens affected her still more.