Et le soir, quand je rentrais de promenade et pensais au moment où il faudrait tout à l’heure dire bonsoir à ma mère et ne plus la voir, il était au contraire si doux, dans la journée finissante, qu’il avait l’air d’être posé et enfoncé comme un coussin de velours brun sur le ciel pâli qui avait cédé sous sa pression, s’était creusé légèrement pour lui faire sa place et refluait sur ses bords; et les cris des oiseaux qui tournaient autour de lui semblaient accroître son silence, élancer encore sa flèche et lui donner quelque chose d’ineffable. →
And in the evening, as I came in from my walk and thought of the approaching moment when I must say good night to my mother and see her no more, the steeple was by contrast so kindly, there at the close of day, that I would imagine it as being laid, like a brown velvet cushion, against--as being thrust into the pallid sky which had yielded beneath its pressure, had sunk slightly so as to make room for it, and had correspondingly risen on either side; while the cries of the birds wheeling to and fro about it seemed to intensify its silence, to elongate its spire still further, and to invest it with some quality beyond the power of words.