and walked up the hills. They began to feel uneasy, because they
expected to have luncheon in Totes and now there was hardly any
possibility of getting there before night. Each was watching to
find an inn on the road, when the coach foundered in a snow-drift,
and it took two hours to extricate it.

Appetites grew and spirits fell; no road-house, no wine dealer could
be discovered, the approach of the Prussians and the passage of
the starving French troops having frightened away all the trades-people.

The men went to the farmhouses by the roadside to look for food
but they did not even find bread, for the suspicious peasants had
hidden away their reserve of provisions for fear of being pillaged
by the soldiers who, having nothing to eat, were taking forcibly
what they discovered.

Toward one o'clock in the afternoon Loiseau announced that positively
he felt a big hollow in his stomach. All of them had been suffering
like him for a long time, and the violent craving for food, growing
steadily had killed off the conversations.

From time to time one of them yawned, another imitated him instantly;
and each, in turn, according to his character, manners and social
position, opened his mouth noisily or modestly holding his hand
before the gaping hole from which breath steamed out.

Boule de Suif stooped several times as if looking for something under
her petticoats. She hesitated a second, looked at her neighbors
and the straightened herself up quietly. Faces were pale and drawn.
Loiseau said that he would pay one thousand francs for a knuckle