The green path remains virginal, unknown to others who see nought but the wood-yard crowded with timber and grey with dust.

In the morning and afternoon, when the sun is warm, the whole place swarms with life.

Above all the turmoil, above the ragamuffins playing among the timber, and the gipsies kindling fires under their cauldrons, the sharp silhouette of the sawyer mounted on his beam stands out against the sky, moving to and fro with the precision of clockwork, as if to regulate the busy activity that has sprung up in this spot once set apart for eternal slumber.

Only the old people who sit on the planks, basking in the setting sun, speak occasionally among themselves of the bones which they once saw carted through the streets of Plassans by the legendary tumbrel.
When night falls the Aire Saint-Mittre loses its animation, and looks like some great black hole.

At the far end one may just espy the dying embers of the gipsies' fires, and at times shadows slink noiselessly into the dense darkness.