Preview: Part II, Chapter 23
Reading boundary
Start: There was a change on the village where the fountain fell
Stop after: able to calculate successfully.
The village beneath the château has changed: its people are thinner, its local authority weaker, and strangers now pass along its roads with new confidence. At noon, the road-mender shelters from hail with one such traveler.
Elemental imagery accompanies the changing responses of villagers, soldiers, and officials as old authority loses its force.