But I had to get out of that fix somehow or other. My adventure became hourly more ridiculous. What was the meaning of all this? What comedy was I playing? Was I being made a fool of? I was furious. The would-be secrets I had fancied I scented now seemed to me mere childishness caused by weariness and the dark. The thing was to get away—to get away at once.
Raging and without reflection I made the contact which set the car going, and the 80 horse-power engine started to work in the bonnet with the humming of a hive of bees. I seized the starting lever—and then a great guffaw of laughter made me turn round.
With his cap over his ears, in blouse of blue, and with his letter-bag on his shoulder, hilarious and triumphant, a postman came on the scene.
“Ha, ha! I told you last night that you would lose your way,” said he in a drawling voice.
I recognized my villager of Grey-l’Abbaye, and bad temper prevented me answering him.
“It’s to Fonval you want to go, is it?” he went on.
I cursed Fonval in some very profane language in which I consigned it and its inhabitants to the Devil.
“Because,” went on the postman, “if you are going there, I’ll show you the way. I am taking the letters there. But make haste, I have double load to-day; for this is Monday and I don’t come on Sunday.”
While saying this, he had drawn his letters from his bag, and was arranging them in his hand.
“Show me that,” I cried sharply, “Yes, that yellow envelope.”