A dry cold made vivid the sombre January weather.

Under her veil Therese joyfully inhaled the wind which swept on the hardened soil a dust white as salt.
She was glad to wander freely among unknown things.

She liked to see the stony landscape which the clearness of the air made distinct; to walk quickly and firmly on the quay where the trees displayed the black tracery of their branches on the horizon reddened by the smoke of the city; to look at the Seine.

In the sky the first stars appeared.
"One would think that the wind would put them out," she said.
He observed, too, that they scintillated a great deal.

He did not think it was a sign of rain, as the peasants believe.