Les Misérables
to-morrow morning?”
“Certainly not.”
“There is one thing to be said about that, you see, by taking
post-horses—Monsieur has his passport?”
“Yes.”
“Well, by taking post-horses, Monsieur cannot reach Arras before
to-morrow. We are on a crossroad. The relays are badly served, the
horses are in the fields. The season for ploughing is just beginning;
heavy teams are required, and horses are seized upon everywhere, from
the post as well as elsewhere. Monsieur will have to wait three or four
hours at the least at every relay. And, then, they drive at a walk.
There are many hills to ascend.”
“Come then, I will go on horseback. Unharness the cabriolet. Some one
can surely sell me a saddle in the neighborhood.”
“Without doubt. But will this horse bear the saddle?”
“That is true; you remind me of that; he will not bear it.”
“Then—”
“But I can surely hire a horse in the village?”
“A horse to travel to Arras at one stretch?”
“Yes.”
“That would require such a horse as does not exist in these parts. You
would have to buy it to begin with, because no one knows you. But you
will not find one for sale nor to let, for five hundred francs, or for
a thousand.”
“What am I to do?”
“The best thing is to let me repair the wheel like an honest man, and
set out on your journey to-morrow.”
“To-morrow will be too late.”
“The deuce!”
“Is there not a mail-wagon which runs to Arras? When will it pass?”
“To-night. Both the posts pass at night; the one going as well as the
one coming.”
“What! It will take you a day to mend this wheel?”
“A day, and a good long one.”
“If you set two men to work?”
“If I set ten men to work.”
“What if the spokes were to be tied together with ropes?”
“That could be done with the spokes, not with the hub; and the felly is
in a bad state, too.”
“Is there any one in this village who lets out teams?”
“No.”
“Is there another wheelwright?”
The stableman and the wheelwright replied in concert, with a toss of
the head.
“No.”
He felt an immense joy.
It was evident that Providence was intervening. That it was it who had
broken the wheel of the tilbury and who was stopping him on the road.
He had not yielded to this sort of first summons; he had just made
every possible effort to continue the journey; he had loyally and
scrupulously exhausted all means; he had been deterred neither by the
season, nor fatigue, nor by the expense; he had nothing with which to
reproach himself. If he went no further, that was no fault of his. It
did not concern him further. It was no longer his fault. It was not the
act of his own conscience, but the act of Providence.
He breathed again. He breathed freely and to the full extent of his
lungs for the first time since Javert’s visit. It seemed to him that
the hand of iron which had held his heart in its grasp for the last
twenty hours had just released him.
It seemed to him that God was for him now, and was manifesting Himself.
He said to himself that he had done all he could, and that now he had
nothing to do but retrace his steps quietly.
If his conversation with the wheelwright had taken place in a chamber
of the inn, it would have had no witnesses, no one would have heard
him, things would have rested there, and it is probable that we should
not have had to relate any of the occurrences which the reader is about
to peruse; but this conversation had taken place in the street. Any
colloquy in the street inevitably attracts a crowd. There are always
people who ask nothing better than to become spectators. While he was
questioning the wheelwright, some people who were passing back and
forth halted around them. After listening for a few minutes, a young
lad, to whom no one had paid any heed, detached himself from the group
and ran off.
At the moment when the traveller, after the inward deliberation which
we have just described, resolved to retrace his steps, this child
returned. He was accompanied by an old woman.
“Monsieur,” said the woman, “my boy tells me that you wish to hire a
cabriolet.”
These simple words uttered by an old woman led by a child made the
perspiration trickle down his limbs. He thought that he beheld the hand
which had relaxed its grasp reappear in the darkness behind him, ready
to seize him once more.
He answered:—
“Yes, my good woman; I am in search of a cabriolet which I can hire.”
And he hastened to add:—
“But there is none in the place.”
“Certainly there is,” said the old woman.
“Where?” interpolated the wheelwright.
“At my house,” replied the old woman.
He shuddered. The fatal hand had grasped him again.
The old woman really had in her shed a sort of basket spring-cart. The
wheelwright and the stable-man, in despair at the prospect of the
traveller escaping their clutches, interfered.
“It was a frightful old trap; it rests flat on the axle; it is an
actual fact that the seats were suspended inside it by leather thongs;
the rain came into it; the wheels were rusted and eaten with moisture;
it would not go much further than the tilbury; a regular ramshackle old
stage-wagon; the gentleman would make a great mistake if he trusted
himself to it,” etc., etc.
All this was true; but this trap, this ramshackle old vehicle, this
thing, whatever it was, ran on its two wheels and could go to Arras.
He paid what was asked, left the tilbury with the wheelwright to be
repaired, intending to reclaim it on his return, had the white horse
put to the cart, climbed into it, and resumed the road which he had
been travelling since morning.
At the moment when the cart moved off, he admitted that he had felt, a
moment previously, a certain joy in the thought that he should not go
whither he was now proceeding. He examined this joy with a sort of
wrath, and found it absurd. Why should he feel joy at turning back?
After all, he was taking this trip of his own free will. No one was
forcing him to it.
And assuredly nothing would happen except what he should choose.
As he left Hesdin, he heard a voice shouting to him: “Stop! Stop!” He
halted the cart with a vigorous movement which contained a feverish and
convulsive element resembling hope.
It was the old woman’s little boy.
“Monsieur,” said the latter, “it was I who got the cart for you.”
“Well?”
“You have not given me anything.”
He who gave to all so readily thought this demand exorbitant and almost
odious.
“Ah! it’s you, you scamp?” said he; “you shall have nothing.”
He whipped up his horse and set off at full speed.
He had lost a great deal of time at Hesdin. He wanted to make it good.
The little horse was courageous, and pulled for two; but it was the
month of February, there had been rain; the roads were bad. And then,
it was no longer the tilbury. The cart was very heavy, and in addition,
there were many ascents.
He took nearly four hours to go from Hesdin to Saint-Pol; four hours
for five leagues.
At Saint-Pol he had the horse unharnessed at the first inn he came to
and led to the stable; as he had promised Scaufflaire, he stood beside
the manger while the horse was eating; he thought of sad and confusing
things.
The inn-keeper’s wife came to the stable.
“Does not Monsieur wish to breakfast?”
“Come, that is true; I even have a good appetite.”
He followed the woman, who had a rosy, cheerful face; she led him to
the public room where there were tables covered with waxed cloth.
“Make haste!” said he; “I must start again; I am in a hurry.”
A big Flemish servant-maid placed his knife and fork in all haste; he
looked at the girl with a sensation of comfort.
“That is what ailed me,” he thought; “I had not breakfasted.”
His breakfast was served; he seized the bread, took a mouthful, and
then slowly replaced it on the table, and did not touch it again.
A carter was eating at another table; he said to this man:—
“Why is their bread so bitter here?”
The carter was a German and did not understand him.
He returned to the stable and remained near the horse.
An hour later he had quitted Saint-Pol and was directing his course
towards Tinques, which is only five leagues from Arras.
What did he do during this journey? Of what was he thinking? As in the
morning, he watched the trees, the thatched roofs, the tilled fields
pass by, and the way in which the landscape, broken at every turn of
the road, vanished; this is a sort of contemplation which sometimes
suffices to the soul, and almost relieves it from thought. What is more
melancholy and more profound than to see a thousand objects for the
first and the last time? To travel is to be born and to die at every
instant; perhaps, in the vaguest region of his mind, he did make
comparisons between the shifting horizon and our human existence: all
the things of life are perpetually fleeing before us; the dark and
bright intervals are intermingled; after a dazzling moment, an eclipse;
we look, we hasten, we stretch out our hands to grasp what is passing;
each event is a turn in the road, and, all at once, we are old; we feel
a shock; all is black; we distinguish an obscure door; the gloomy horse
of life, which has been drawing us halts, and we see a veiled and
unknown person unharnessing amid the shadows.
Twilight was falling when the children who were coming out of school
beheld this traveller enter Tinques; it is true that the days were
still short; he did not halt at Tinques; as he emerged from the
village, a laborer, who was mending the road with stones, raised his
head and said to him:—
“That horse is very much fatigued.”
The poor beast was, in fact, going at a walk.
“Are you going to Arras?” added the road-mender.
“Yes.”
“If you go on at that rate you will not arrive very early.”
He stopped his horse, and asked the laborer:—
“How far is it from here to Arras?”
“Nearly seven good leagues.”
“How is that? the posting guide only says five leagues and a quarter.”
“Ah!” returned the road-mender, “so you don’t know that the road is
under repair? You will find it barred a quarter of an hour further on;
there is no way to proceed further.”
“Really?”
“You will take the road on the left, leading to Carency; you will cross
the river; when you reach Camblin, you will turn to the right; that is
the road to Mont-Saint-Éloy which leads to Arras.”
“But it is night, and I shall lose my way.”
“You do not belong in these parts?”
“No.”
“And, besides, it is all crossroads; stop! sir,” resumed the
road-mender; “shall I give you a piece of advice? your horse is tired;
return to Tinques; there is a good inn there; sleep there; you can
reach Arras to-morrow.”
“I must be there this evening.”
“That is different; but go to the inn all the same, and get an extra
horse; the stable-boy will guide you through the crossroads.”
He followed the road-mender’s advice, retraced his steps, and, half an
hour later, he passed the same spot again, but this time at full speed,
with a good horse to aid; a stable-boy, who called himself a postilion,
was seated on the shaft of the cariole.
Still, he felt that he had lost time.
Night had fully come.
They turned into the crossroad; the way became frightfully bad; the
cart lurched from one rut to the other; he said to the postilion:—
“Keep at a trot, and you shall have a double fee.”
In one of the jolts, the whiffle-tree broke.
“There’s the whiffle-tree broken, sir,” said the postilion; “I don’t
know how to harness my horse now; this road is very bad at night; if
you wish to return and sleep at Tinques, we could be in Arras early
to-morrow morning.”
He replied, “Have you a bit of rope and a knife?”
“Yes, sir.”