Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [112]
If his conversation with the wheelwright had taken place in a room of the inn, it would have had no witnesses, nobody would have heard it, the matter would have rested there, and it is probable that we should not have had to relate any of the events which follow, but that conversation occurred in the street. Every colloquy in the street inevitably gathers a circle. There are always people who ask nothing better than to be spectators. While he was questioning the wheelwright, some of the passers-by had stopped around them. After listening for a few minutes, a young boy whom no one had noticed, had separated from the group and ran away.
At the instant the traveller, after the internal deliberation which we have just indicated, was making up his mind to go back, this boy returned. He was accompanied by an old woman.
“Monsieur,” said the woman, “my boy tells me that you are anxious to hire a cabriolet.”
This simple speech, uttered by an old woman who was brought there by a boy, made the sweat pour down his back. He thought he saw the hand he was but now freed from reappear in the shadow behind him, all ready to seize him again.
He paid what was asked, left the tilbury to be mended at the blacksmith’s against his return, had the white horse harnessed to the carriole, got in, and resumed the route he had followed since morning.
The moment the carriole started, he acknowledged that he had felt an instant before a certain joy at the thought that he should not go where he was going. He examined that joy with a sort of anger, and thought it absurd. Why should he feel joy at going back? After all, he was making a journey of his own accord, nobody forced him to it.
And certainly, nothing could happen which he did not choose to have happen.
He whipped up the horse and started away at a quick trot.
He had lost a good deal of time at Hesdin, he wished to make it up. The little horse was plucky, and pulled enough for two; but it was February, it had rained, the roads were bad. And then, it was no longer the tilbury. The carriole ran hard, and was very heavy. And besides there were many steep hills.
Twilight was falling just as the children coming out of school beheld our traveller entering Tinques. It is true that the days were still short. He did not stop at Tinques. As he was driving out of the village, a worker who was repairing the road, raised his head and said:
“Your horse is very tired.”
The poor beast, in fact, was not going faster than a walk.
“Are you going to Arras?” added the countryman.
“Yes.”
“If you go at this rate, you won’t get there very early.”
He stopped his horse and asked the countryman:
“How far is it from here to Arras?”
“Near seventeen miles.”
“How is that? the post route only counts thirteen.”
“Ah!” replied the workman, “then you don’t know that the road is being repaired. You will find it cut off a quarter of an hour from here. There’s no means of going further.”
“Really!”
“You will take the left, the road that leads to Carency, and cross the river; when you are at Camblin, you will turn to the right; that is the road from Mont Saint-Eloy to Arras.”
“But it is night, I shall lose my way.”
“You are not from these parts?”
“No.”
“Besides, they are all cross-roads.”
“Stop, monsieur,” the worker continued, “do you want some advice? Your horse is tired; go back to Tinques. There is a good inn there. Sleep there. You can go on to Arras to-morrow.”
“I must be there to-night-this evening!”
“That is another matter. Then go back all the same to that inn, and hire an extra horse. The boy who will go with the horse will guide you through the cross-roads.”
He followed the road worker’s advice, retraced his steps, and a half hour afterwards he again passed the same place, but at a full trot, with a good extra horse. A stable-boy, who called himself a postillion, was sitting upon the shaft of the carriole.
He felt, however, that he was losing time. It was now quite dark.
They took the side road. The road became frightful. The carriole tumbled from one rut to the other. He said to the