with comforting
reflections. Once separated from my persecutors by the whole depth of a
thicket inaccessible to cavalry, it would be an easy matter to gain a
sufficient advance upon them to be able to laugh at their fruitless
search. This last illusion vanished when, on reaching the limit of the
covered space, I discovered that the cursed troop had divided into two
squads, who were both waiting for me at the outlet. At the sight of me, a
fresh storm of shouts and laughter broke forth, and the hunting-horns
sounded in all directions. I became dizzy; I felt the forest whirling
around me; I rushed into the first path that offered itself to me, and my
flight assumed the character of a hopeless rout.
The implacable legion of hunters and huntresses did not fail to start on
my heels with renewed ardor and stupid mirth. I still recognized at their
head the lady with the waving blue plume, who distinguished herself by her
peculiar animosity, and upon whom I invoked with all my heart the most
serious accidents to which equestrianism may be subject. It was she who
encouraged her odious accomplices, when I had succeeded for a moment in
eluding the pursuit; she discovered me with infernal keen-sightedness,
pointed me out with the tip of her whip, and broke into a barbarous laugh
whenever she saw me resume my race through the bushes, blowing, panting,
desperate, absurd. I ran thus during a space of time of which I am unable
to form any estimate, accomplishing unprecedented feats of gymnastics,
tearing through the thorny brambles, sinking into the miry spots, leaping
over the ditches, bounding upon my feet with the elasticity of a panther,
galloping to the devil, without reason, without object, and without any
other hope but that of seeing the earth open beneath my feet.
At last, and surely by chance--for I had long since lost all topographical
notions--I discovered the ruins just ahead of me; with a last effort, I
cleared the open space that separates them from the forest; I ran through
the church as if I had been excommunicated, and I arrived panting before
the door of the mill. The miller and his wife were standing on the
threshold, attracted, doubtless, by the noise of the cavalcade that was
following close on my heels; they looked at me with an expression of
stupor; I tried in vain to find a few words of explanation to cast to them
as I ran by, and after incredible efforts of intelligence, I was only able
to murmur in a silly
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