Five or six houses built opposite one another compose the street; then
the line breaks, and they continue down the slopes and stairs leading to
the castle, in a sort of haphazard fashion.
In order to reach the castle, you first go up to the curtain, the wall
of which shuts out the view of the ocean from the houses below. Grass
grows between the cracked stones and the battlements. The rampart
continues around the whole island and is elevated by successive
platforms. When you have passed the watch-house, which is situated
between the two towers, you see a little straight flight of steps; when
you climb them, the roofs of the houses, with their dilapidated
chimneys, gradually grow lower and lower. You can see the washing hung
out to dry on poles fastened to the garret-windows, or a tiny garden
baking in the sun between the roof of one house and the ground-floor of
another, with its parched leeks drooping their leaves over the grey
soil; but the other side of the rock, the side that faces the ocean, is
barren and deserted, and so steep that the shrubs that grow there have a
hard time to remain where they are and look as if they were about to
topple over every minute.
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