king of a whip and a man's voice shouting:
"Ho! Ho! Here's the post! Here's the post!"

The horse stopped in front of the door, hunched its back, stretched its
neck, opened its mouth, disclosed its teeth, spread its hind legs and
rose on its hocks.

The animal was lean and tall, and had a moth-eaten mane, rough hoofs and
loose shoes; a seton bobbed up and down on its breast. Lost in a saddle
that swallowed him up, supported at the back by a valise and in front by
the mail-bag, which was passed through the saddle-bow, its rider sat
huddled on it like a monkey. His small face, adorned with straggling
blond whiskers and as wrinkled and rough as a winter apple, was hidden
by a large oil-cloth hat lined with felt; a sort of gray coutil coat was
drawn up to his hips and bagged around his stomach, while his trousers
stopped at the knees and disclosed his bare legs reddened by the rubbing
of the stirrup-straps, and his blue hose, which hung over his shoes. The
harness was held together with strings, the rider's clothes had been
mended with threads of different colours; all sorts of patches and all
kinds of spots, torn linen, greasy leather, dried mud, recent dust,
hanging straps, bright rags, a dirty man and a mangy horse, the former
sickly and perspiring, the latter consumptive and almost spent; the one
with his whip and the other with its bells--all this formed but one
object which had the same colour and movement and executed almost the
same gestures, which served the same purpose, the conducting of the
Auray post.

After another hour, when all the packages and commissions had been
attended to and we had waited for several passengers who were to come,
we finally left the inn and went aboard. At first there was nothing but
a confused mass of people and luggage, oars that caused us to stumble,
sails that dropped on our heads, men falling over each other and not
knowing where to go; then everything quieted down, each one found his
nook, the luggage was put in the bottom of the boat, the sailors got on
the benches, and the passengers seated themselves as best they could.

There was no breeze and the sails clung limply to the masts. The heavy
boat hardly moved over the almost motionless sea, which swelled and
subsided with the gentle rhythm of a sleeping breast.

Leaning against one of the gunwales, we gazed at the water, which was as
blue and calm as the sky, and listened to the splashing of the oars;
sitting in the shadow