And the lumbering machine set out. It went down the Rue Grand-Pont, crossed the Place des Arts, the Quai Napoleon, the Pont Neuf, and stopped short before the statue of Pierre Corneille.
The decrepit animal would never pull the hill. The slope had always seemed so slight, so gradual, in days when she galloped up it on her fleet-footed mare.
A farmer loaned him an old horse for the long trip to the party. The house was filled with farmers and their wives, red-faced daughters and clean, washed sons.
They couldn't be more than fifteen miles from home, but at the rate this old nag traveled it would take all day, for she would have to stop frequently to rest him.