On the way he asked the driver for some information about La Trappe, but the peasant knew nothing. "I often go there," he said, "but never enter, the carriage stays at the gate, so you see I can tell you nothing."
They went for an hour rapidly through the lanes, and the peasant saluted a roadmaker with his whip, and said to Durtal,
"They say that the eminets eat their bellies."
And as Durtal asked what he meant,
"They are idle dogs, they lie all the summer on their bellies in the shade."
And he said no more.
Durtal thought of nothing; he digested and smoked, dizzy with the rumbling of the carriage.
At the end of another hour they came into the heart of the forest.
"Are we near?"
"Oh, not yet!"