Page 410 - les-miserables

o’clock in the morning.
That night the wagon which was descending to M. sur
M. by the Hesdin road, collided at the corner of a street, just
as it was entering the town, with a little tilbury harnessed
to a white horse, which was going in the opposite direction,
and in which there was but one person, a man enveloped
in a mantle. The wheel of the tilbury received quite a vio-
lent shock. The postman shouted to the man to stop, but the
traveller paid no heed and pursued his road at full gallop.
‘That man is in a devilish hurry!’ said the postman.
The man thus hastening on was the one whom we have
just seen struggling in convulsions which are certainly de-
serving of pity.
Whither was he going? He could not have told. Why was
he hastening? He did not know. He was driving at random,
straight ahead. Whither? To Arras, no doubt; but he might
have been going elsewhere as well. At times he was conscious
of it, and he shuddered. He plunged into the night as into a
gulf. Something urged him forward; something drew him
on. No one could have told what was taking place within
him; every one will understand it. What man is there who
has not entered, at least once in his life, into that obscure
cavern of the unknown?
However, he had resolved on nothing, decided nothing,
formed no plan, done nothing. None of the actions of his
conscience had been decisive. He was, more than ever, as he
had been at the first moment.
Why was he going to Arras?
He repeated what he had already said to himself when

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