The forest presented a tragic desolation. A silent tempest had installed
itself therein, placing everything in violent unnatural positions. Not a
single tree still preserved its upright form and abundant foliage as in
the days of peace. The groups of pines recalled the columns of ruined
temples. Some were still standing erect, but without their crowns, like
shafts that might have lost their capitals; others were pierced like the
mouthpiece of a flute, or like pillars struck by a thunderbolt. Some had
splintery threads hanging around their cuts like used toothpicks.
A sinister force of destruction had been raging among these beeches,
spruce and oaks. Great tangles of their cut boughs were cluttering the
ground, as though a band of gigantic woodcutters had just passed by. The
trunks had been severed a little distance from the ground with a clean
and glistening stroke, as though with a single blow of the axe. Around
the disinterred roots were quantities of stones mixed with sod, stones
that had been sleeping in the recesses of the earth and had been brought
to the surface by explosions.
At intervals--gleaming among the trees or blocking the roadway with an
importunity which required some zigzagging--was a series of pools, all
alike, of regular geometrical circles. To Desnoyers, they seemed like
sunken basins for the use of the invisible Titans who had been hewing
the forest.
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