Page:The Works of Honoré de Balzac Volume 29.djvu/77

Rh structure; but if travelers carried any luggage, it had to lie in the bottom of the coach, a narrow, box-like hole shaped like a pair of bellows, where their feet and legs were already cramped for room. The original color of the body and the wheels offered an insoluble enigma to the attention of passengers. Two leather curtains, unmanageable in spite of their long service, protected the sufferers from wind and weather. The driver, seated in front on a rickety bench, as in the wretchedest chaises about Paris, was perforce included in the conversation, by reason of his peculiar position among his victims, biped and quadruped. There were fantastic resemblances between the vehicle and some decrepit old man who has come through so many bronchial attacks and apoplectic seizures that Death seems to respect him. It went complainingly, and creaked at every other moment. Like a traveler overtaken by heavy slumber, it lurched backwards and forwards, as if it would fain have resisted the strenuous efforts of the little Breton horses that dragged it over a tolerably uneven road. This relic of a bygone time held three passengers; their conversation had been interrupted at Ernée while the horses were changed, and was now resumed as they left the place.

"What makes you think that the Chouans will show themselves out here?" asked the driver. "They have just told me at Ernée that the commandant Hulot had not yet left Fougères."

"It's all very well for you, friend," said the youngest of the three; "you risk nothing but your own skin. If you were known as a good patriot and carried three hundred crowns about you, as I do, you wouldn't take things so easily."

"In any case, you are very imprudent," said the driver, shaking his head.

"You may count your sheep and yet the wolf will get them," said the second person. He was dressed in black, looked about forty years of age, and seemed to be a recteur thereabouts. His double chin and florid complexion