There was no one around the Bristol Mail except for the coachman and the postilion, who were strapping down a chest and two leather bags between the rear springs. The curtains of the coupé were drawn. Herman climbed onto the top deck. After leaving London on the Eton Road, right away the four horses broke into full gallop. The meadowlands were covered with frost. It was only through thousands of iridescent scintillations, like peacock feathers, that you saw the dense greenery of the grasses. Huge groves of sycamores loomed out from the blueness of the mist; they advanced, rearing massive limbs, shrank away from the road and the coach, and retreated across the fields. The coachman’s whip tore shreds of smoke from the trees, and the horses’ steam flowed and rolled onto the shoulders of the road. The two lead horses galloped, heads down, straining at the bit, legs rounded as though they were rolling up balls of wool; the two wheel horses, noses in the air, shook their manes and whinnied.

The sun was already up when they encountered the first tilbury on its way to London. They saw it turning into the high road from a dirt track. The driver was a short, dark-haired man, very erect, in a tight-fitting jacket and a hunting scarf—which you could see from thirty yards away—wound three times around his scrawny neck. He was endeavoring to get his horse to break into a gallop, without compromising his own upright bearing or his poise. He passed at full speed alongside the carriage. The postilion slapped his thighs in appreciation. The coachman took the opportunity to pass him the reins and warm his own hands, by banging them together inside his thick mittens; then he took hold of the reins again and promptly let the team know he was back in charge.

It was becoming clear that the countryside had awakened before London. They encountered the first market-bound cart. It was sticking to the middle of the road: a wide, slow vehicle, drawn by three horses in tandem. The postilion grabbed hold of his hunting horn and started demanding room to pass, bawling at the cart with long fanfares. Finally, as they were bearing down on top of the cart at full gallop, he stood up on his seat. Leaning forward, he puffed his cheeks out big enough to make his eyes pop. The farmers leapt down to grab on to the bit of their lead horse, and the whole rig pulled slowly off into the field on the left, at the very moment when the Mail coach passed, without slowing, heeling over to the right. The coachman remained motionless, in his thick, fur-lined mantle, his mittens, and the prodigious layer of red fat that padded his hide. All he did was blow steam out past his whiskers. The postilion bemoaned the insufferable task to which he was obliged to devote his earthly existence; he proclaimed it to the entire world, including Herman, in words made inaudible by the rumbling of the iron wheels.