...of foreboding

This time everybody around him kept silent. Even Burle up there at his window understood, and the others understood without being told. Their muffled heartbeats came faster. They remembered the night before that smelled of too much corn. Yes, too much corn. And what disgust they had felt to smell that corn, and to see the children in the women's arms, and to see the young girls still brimming with pleasure.... To be aware of all that and at the same time to watch those handsome young men going away to the moaning of the horses.

[To The Slaughterhouse, Giono, J.]