The sun sank and the forests around Chantilly grew vague and deep. White
statues stood by the roadside, and among the trees chateaux with closed
eyes slept through the winter. Every tree hung down beneath its load of
snow; the telephone wires drooped like worsted threads across the road.

Fanny, who had left Julien at his new billets in Chantilly, drove on
alone to the little village on the Oise which was to be her home. It was
not long before she could make out the posts and signals of the railway
on her left, and the river appeared in a broad band below her. The moon
rose, and in the river the reeds hung head downwards, staring up at the
living reeds upon the bank.

"PRECY."

It gleamed upon a signpost, and turning down a lane on the left she came
on a handful of unlighted cottages, and beyond them a single village
street, soundless and asleep. A chemist's shop full of coloured glasses
was lit from within by a single candle; upon the step the chemist stood,
a skull cap above his large, pitted face.

Somewhere in the shuttered village a roof already sheltered her
companions, but before looking for them she drew up and gazed out beyond
the river and the railway line to where the moon was slowly lighting
hill after hill. But the spectral summer town which she sought was
veiled in the night.