4 (5)
THE POSTAL SERVICE from Arras to M—sur M—was still performed at this time by the little mail waggons dating from the empire. These mail waggons were two-wheeled cabriolets lined with buckskin, hung upon jointed springs, and having but two seats, one for the driver, the other for the traveller. The wheels were armed with those long threatening hubs which keep other vehicles at a distance, and which are still seen upon the roads of Germany. The letters were carried in a huge oblong box placed behind the cabriolet and forming a part of it. This box was painted black and the cabriolet yellow.
These vehicles, which nothing resembles today, were indescribably misshapen and clumsy, and when they were seen from a distance crawling along some road in the horizon, they were like those insects called, I think, termites, which with a slender body draw a great train behind. They went, however, very fast. The mail that left Arras every night at one o‘clock, after the passing of the dispatches from Paris, arrived at M—sur M—a little before five in the morning.
That night the mail that came down into M—sur M—by the road from Hesdin, at the turn of a street just as it was entering the city, clipped a little tilbury drawn by a white horse, which was going in the opposite direction, and in which there was only one person, a man wrapped in a cloak. The wheel of the tilbury received a very severe blow. The courier cried out to the man to stop, but the traveller did not listen and kept on his way at a rapid trot.
“There is a man in a devilish hurry!” said the courier.
The man who was in such a hurry was he whom we have seen struggling in such pitiable convulsions.
Where was he going? He could not have said. Why was he in haste? He did not know. He went forward as if randomly. Whither? To Arras, doubtless; but perhaps he was going elsewhere also. At moments he felt this, and he shuddered. He plunged into that darkness as into a yawning gulf. Something pushed him, something drew him on. What was happening within him, no one could describe, but all will understand. What man has not entered, at least once in his life, into this dark cavern of the unknown?
But he had resolved upon nothing, decided nothing, determined nothing, done nothing. None of the acts of his conscience had been final. He was more than ever as if at the first moment.
Why was he going to Arras?
He repeated what he had already said to himself when he engaged the cabriolet of Scaufflaire, that, whatever might be the result, there could be no objection to seeing with his own eyes, and judging of the circumstances for himself; that it was even prudent, that he ought to know what took place; that he could decide nothing without having observed and scrutinised; that in the distance every little thing seems a mountain; that after all, when he should have seen this Champmathieu, some wretch probably, his conscience would be very much reconciled to letting him go to the galleys in his place; that it was true that Javert would be there, and Brevet, Chenildieu, Cochepaille, former convicts who had known him; but surely they would not recognise him; bah! what an idea! that Javert was a hundred miles off the track; that all conjectures and all suppositions were fixed upon this Champmathieu, and that nothing is so stubborn as suppositions and conjectures; that there was, therefore, no danger.
That it was no doubt a dark hour, but that he should get through it; that after all he held his destiny, evil as it might be, in his own hand; that he was master of it. He clung to that thought.
In reality, to tell the truth, he would have preferred not to go to Arras.
Still he was on the way.
Although absorbed in thought, he whipped up his horse, which trotted away at that regular and sure full trot that gets over seven miles an hour.
Progressively as the tilbury went forward, he felt something within him which shrank back.
At daybreak he was in the open country, the city of M—sur M—was a long way behind. He saw the horizon growing lighter; he beheld, without seeing them, all the frozen figures of a winter dawn pass before his eyes. Morning as well as evening has its spectres. He did not see them, but, unawares, and by a kind of insight which was almost physical, those black outlines of trees and hills added to the tumultuous state of his soul an indescribable gloom and apprehension.
Every time he passed one of the isolated houses that stood here and there by the side of the road, he said to himself: “But yet, there are people there who are sleeping!”
The trotting of the horse, the rattling of the harness, the wheels upon the pavement, made a gentle, monotonous sound. These things are charming when one is joyful, and mournful when one is sad.
It was broad day when he arrived at Hesdin. He stopped before an inn to let his horse breathe and to have some oats given him.
This horse was, as Scaufflaire had said, of that small breed of the Boulonnais which has too much head, too much belly, and not enough neck, but which has an open chest, a large rump, fine and slender legs, and a firm foot, a homely race, but strong and sound. The excellent animal had made twelve miles in two hours, without breaking a sweat.
He did not get out of the tilbury. The stable-boy who brought the oats stooped down suddenly and examined the left wheel.
“Have you gone far so?” said the man.
He answered, almost without breaking up his train of thought:
“Why?”
“Have you come far?” said the boy.
“Twelve miles from here.”
“Ah!”
“Why do you say: ah?”
The boy stooped down again, was silent a moment, with his eye fixed on the wheel, then he rose up saying:
“To think that this wheel has just come twelve miles, that is possible, but it is very sure that it won’t go a half mile now.”
He sprang down from the tilbury.
“What are you saying, my friend?”
“I say that it is a miracle that you have come twelve miles without tumbling, you and your horse, into some ditch on the way. Look for yourself.”
The wheel in fact was badly damaged. The collision with the mail waggon had broken two spokes and loosened the hub so that the nut no longer held.
“My friend,” said he to the stable-boy, “is there a wheelwright here?”
“Certainly, monsieur.”
“Do me the favour to go for him.”
“There he is, close by. Hallo, Master Bourgaillard!”
Master Bourgaillard the wheelwright was on his own door-step. He came and examined the wheel, and made such a grimace as a surgeon makes at the sight of a broken leg.
“Can you mend that wheel on the spot?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“When can I start again?”
“To-morrow.”
“To-morrow!”
“It is a good day’s work. Is monsieur in a great hurry?”
“A very great hurry. I must leave in an hour at the latest.”
“Impossible, monsieur.”
“I will pay whatever you like.”
“Impossible.”
“Well! in two hours.”
“Impossible to-day. There are two spokes and a hub to be repaired. Monsieur cannot start again before to-morrow.”
He felt an immense joy.
It was evident that Providence was involved. It was Providence that had broken the wheel of the tilbury and stopped him on his way. He had not yielded to this sort of first summons; he had made all possible efforts to continue his journey; he had faithfully and scrupulously exhausted every means, he had shrunk neither before the season, nor from fatigue, nor from expense; he had nothing for which to reproach himself. If he went no further, it no longer concerned him. It was now not his fault; it was, not the act of his conscience, but the act of Providence.
apHe breathed. He breathed freely and with a full chest for the first time since Javert’s visit. It seemed to him that the iron hand which had gripped his heart for twenty hours was relaxed.
It appeared to him that now God was for him, was manifestly for him.
He said to himself that he had done all that he could, and that now he had only to retrace his steps, tranquilly.
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 postillion:
“Keep up a trot, and double drink-money.”
In one of the jolts the whiffle-tree broke.
aq“Monsieur,” said the postillion, “the whiffle-tree is broken; I do not know how to harness my horse now, this road is very bad at night, if you will come back and stop at Tinques, we can be at Arras early to-morrow morning.”
He answered: “Have you a piece of string and a knife?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
He cut off the limb of a tree and made a whiffle-tree of it.
This was another loss of twenty minutes; but they started off at a gallop.
The plain was dark. A low fog, thick and black, was creeping over the hill-tops and floating away like smoke. There were glimmering flashes from the clouds. A strong wind, which came from the sea, made a sound all around the horizon like the moving of furniture. Everything that he caught a glimpse of had an attitude of terror. How all things shudder under the terrible breath of night!
The cold penetrated him. He had not eaten since the evening before. He recalled vaguely to mind his other night adventure in the great plain near D—, eight years before; and it seemed yesterday to him.