Page 412 - les-miserables

At daybreak he was in the open country; the town of M.
sur M. lay far behind him. He watched the horizon grow
white; he stared at all the chilly figures of a winter’s dawn
as they passed before his eyes, but without seeing them. The
morning has its spectres as well as the evening. He did not
see them; but without his being aware of it, and by means of
a sort of penetration which was almost physical, these black
silhouettes of trees and of hills added some gloomy and sin-
ister quality to the violent state of his soul.
Each time that he passed one of those isolated dwellings
which sometimes border on the highway, he said to himself,
‘And yet there are people there within who are sleeping!’
The trot of the horse, the bells on the harness, the wheels
on the road, produced a gentle, monotonous noise. These
things are charming when one is joyous, and lugubrious
when one is sad.
It was broad daylight when he arrived at Hesdin. He halt-
ed in front of the inn, to allow the horse a breathing spell,
and to have him given some oats.
The horse belonged, as Scaufflaire had said, to that small
race of the Boulonnais, which has too much head, too much
belly, and not enough neck and shoulders, but which has
a broad chest, a large crupper, thin, fine legs, and solid
hoofs—a homely, but a robust and healthy race. The excel-
lent beast had travelled five leagues in two hours, and had
not a drop of sweat on his loins.
He did not get out of the tilbury. The stableman who
brought the oats suddenly bent down and examined the left
wheel.

412 Les Miserables