Il les consulte d’instinct en s’éveillant et y lit en une seconde le point de la terre qu’il occupe, le temps qui s’est écoulé jusqu’à son réveil; mais leurs rangs peuvent se mêler, se rompre.

He consults instinct when awake and reads instantly the point of land he occupies, the time that elapsed when he awoke; but their ranks [the circle referred to in the last sentence] mingle, the rupture.

Moncrieff’s translation,

Instinctively, when he awakes, he looks to these, and in an instant reads off his own position on the earth’s surface and the amount of time that has elapsed during his slumbers; but this ordered procession is apt to grow confused, and to break its ranks.