At first starting all went well. The weather was beautiful. I had placed a bundle of hay in the cart, and although Colaquet’s eyelids were still swollen from the bite, he managed to take us tolerably straight—he had so often made this journey, carrying bundles of linen to the riverside. In spite of the slight jolting, I found the drive delightful. Not the point of a helmet nor the glitter of a gun-barrel to be seen. Only, on arriving at Champrosay, the deep silence that had so impressed me in the woods appeared still more striking. The peasants’ cottages hardly seemed to me the same: no pigeons on the roofs, the doors closed, and the courtyards deserted. The silent belfry of the little church, with its defaced dial, stood above like a faithful guardian. Farther on, all the villas along the road, their grounds extending to the forest, were also carefully shut up. Their summer wealth of flowers continued to bloom, and, under the shade of the clipped trees, the yellow sandy paths were but lightly strewn with a few dead leaves. Nothing could give a more vivid idea of sudden departure and flight than the sight of these deserted houses, decked out as usual behind their high iron gates. There seemed still a kind of quiver and warmth of life; and at times, at the turn of the path, visions rose up in my mind of straw hats, upraised parasols, and of goats tethered on the grass-plots in their accustomed place. [Picture: Colaquet managed to take us tolerably straight] What, however, really seemed deathlike was the road, the highroad to Corbeil, that I had left so full of life, with a continual flow of vans, mail-coaches, market-gardeners’ carts, perambulating poultry-yards full of cackle and prattle; carriages borne along through the whirlwind of their own speed, on which float, even in the calmest weather, the veils and ribbons of the occupants; and the tall waggons laden with fresh hay and scythes and pitchforks, casting long shadows across the road. And now nothing and no one. In the filled-up ruts the dust has the still look of fallen snow, and the two wheels of my spring-cart glide on noiselessly. At the end of the village the farm appears in the distance, closed, and silent from the foot of its walls to the highest tile of its tall dark roof. Has Goudeloup also taken flight? . . . Here I am before the gateway. I knock—I call. A window above the dairy opens cautiously, and I see the cunning, somewhat unkempt head of the farmer appear, with his untrimmed beard, and his small round, suspicious eyes hidden under bushy eyebrows. —Ah! it is you, Mr. Robert . . . Wait a moment. I am coming down. [Picture: Goudeloup appears at a window] Together we enter the little, low room where the carters, harvesters, and threshers usually come in the evening to receive their day’s pay. In a corner I perceive two loaded guns.