La Mignotte was more than three leagues away from the station, and Nana lost a good hour over the hire of a carriage, a huge, dilapidated calash, which rumbled slowly along to an accompaniment of rattling old iron. She had at once taken possession of the coachman, a little taciturn old man whom she overwhelmed with questions. Had he often passed by La Mignotte? It was behind this hill then? There ought to be lots of trees there, eh? And the house could one see it at a distance? The little old man answered with a succession of grunts. Down in the calash Nana was almost dancing with impatience, while Zoé, in her annoyance at having left Paris in such a hurry, sat stiffly sulking beside her. The horse suddenly stopped short, and the young woman thought they had reached their destination. She put her head out of the carriage door and asked: “Are we there, eh?” By way of answer the driver whipped up his horse, which was in the act of painfully climbing a hill. Nana gazed ecstatically at the vast plain beneath the gray sky where great clouds were banked up. “Oh, do look, Zoé! There’s greenery! Now, is that all wheat? Good lord, how pretty it is!” “One can quite see that Madame doesn’t come from the country,” was the servant’s prim and tardy rejoinder. “As for me, I knew the country only too well when I was with my dentist. He had a house at Bougival. No, it’s cold, too, this evening. It’s damp in these parts.” They were driving under the shadow of a wood, and Nana sniffed up the scent of the leaves as a young dog might. All of a sudden at a turn of the road she caught sight of the corner of a house among the trees. Perhaps it was there! And with that she began a conversation with the driver, who continued shaking his head by way of saying no. Then as they drove down the other side of the hill he contented himself by holding out his whip and muttering, “’Tis down there.” She got up and stretched herself almost bodily out of the carriage door. “Where is it? Where is it?” she cried with pale cheeks, but as yet she saw nothing. At last she caught sight of a bit of wall. And then followed a succession of little cries and jumps, the ecstatic behavior of a woman overcome by a new and vivid sensation. “I see it! I see it, Zoé! Look out at the other side. Oh, there’s a terrace with brick ornaments on the roof! And there’s a hothouse down there! But the place is immense. Oh, how happy I am! Do look, Zoé! Now, do look!”