THE TWO CARRIAGES.
It is the evening of the day on which Mdlle.de Cardoville prevented the sewing-girl's suicide.It strikes eleven; the night is dark; the wind blows with violence, and drives along great black clouds, which completely hide the pale lustre of the moon.A hackney-coach, drawn by two broken-winded horses, ascends slowly and with difficulty the slope of the Rue Blanche, which is pretty steep near the barrier, in the part where is situated the house occupied by Djalma.
The coach stops.The coachman, cursing the length of an interminable drive "within the circuit," leading at last to this difficult ascent, turns round on his box, leans over towards the front window of the vehicle, and says in a gruff tone to the person he is driving: "Come! are we almost there? From the Rue de Vaugirard to the Barriere Blanche, is a pretty good stretch, I think, without reckoning that the night is so dark, that one can hardly see two steps before one--and the street-lamps not lighted because of the moon, which doesn't shine, after all!"
"Look out for a little door with a portico-drive on about twenty yards beyond--and then stop close to the wall," answered a squeaking voice, impatiently, and with an Italian accent.
"Here is a beggarly Dutchman, that will make me as savage as a bear?"
muttered the angry Jehu to himself.Then he added: "Thousand thunders! I tell you that I can't see.How the devil can I find out your little door?"
"Have you no sense? Follow the wall to the right, brush against it, and you will easily find the little door.It is next to No.50.If you do not find it, you must be drunk," answered the Italian, with increased bitterness.
The coachman only replied by swearing like a trooper, and whipping up his jaded horses.Then, keeping close to the wall, he strained his eyes in trying to read the numbers of the houses, by the aid of his carriage-
lamps.
After some moments, the coach again stopped."I have passed No.50, and here is a little door with a portico," said the coachman."Is that the one?"
"Yes," said the voice."Now go forward some twenty yards, and then stop."
"Well! I never--"
"Then get down from your box, and give twice three knocks at the little door we have just passed--you understand me?--twice three knocks."
"Is that all you give me to drink?" cried the exasperated coachman.
"When you have taken me back to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where I live, you shall have something handsome, if you do but manage matters well."
"Ha! now the Faubourg Saint-Germain! Only that little bit of distance!"
said the driver, with repressed rage."And I who have winded my horses, wanted to be on the boulevard by the time the play was out.Well, I'm blowed!" Then, putting a good face on his bad luck, and consoling himself with the thought of the promised drink-money, he resumed: "I am to give twice three knocks at the little door?"
"Yes; three knocks first--then pause--then three other knocks.Do you understand?"
"What next?"
"Tell the person who comes, that he is waited for, and bring him here to the coach."
"The devil burn you!" said the coachman to himself, as he turned round on the box, and whipped up his horses, adding: "this crusty old Dutchman has something to do with Free-masons, or, perhaps, smugglers, seeing we are so near the gates.He deserves my giving him in charge, for bringing me all the way from the Rue de Vaugirard."
At twenty steps beyond the little door, the coach again stopped, and the coachman descended from the box to execute the orders he had received.
Going to the little door, he knocked three times; then paused, as he had been desired, and then knocked three times more.The clouds, which had hitherto been so thick as entirely to conceal the disk of the moon, just then withdrew sufficiently to afford a glimmering light, so that when the door opened at the signal, the coachman saw a middle-sized person issue from it, wrapped in a cloak, and wearing a colored cap.
This man carefully locked the door, and then advanced two steps into the street."They are waiting for you," said the coachman; "I am to take you along with me to the coach."
Preceding the man with the cloak, who only answered him by a nod, he led him to the coach-door, which he was about to open, and to let down the step, when the voice exclaimed from the inside: "It is not necessary.
The gentleman may talk to me through the window.I will call you when it is time to start."
"Which means that I shall be kept here long enough to send you to all the devils!" murmured the driver."However, I may as well walk about, just to stretch my legs."
So saying, he began to walk up and down, by the side of the wall in which was the little door.Presently he heard the distant sound of wheels, which soon came nearer and nearer, and a carriage, rapidly ascending the slope, stopped on the other side of the little garden-door.
"Come, I say! a private carriage!" said the coachman."Good horses those, to come up the Rue Blanche at a trot."
The coachman was just making this observation, when, by favor of a momentary gleam of light, he saw a man step from the carriage, advance rapidly to the little door, open it, and go in, closing it after him.
"It gets thicker and thicker!" said the coachman."One comes out, and the other goes in."
So saying, he walked up to the carriage.It was splendidly harnessed, and drawn by two handsome and vigorous horses.The driver sat motionless, in his great box-coat, with the handle of his whip resting on his right knee.
"Here's weather to drive about in, with such tidy dukes as yours, comrade!" said the humble hackney-coachman to this automaton, who remained mute and impassible, without even appearing to know that he was spoken to.
