The breathing of that beast of prey was in my ear always; his fierce heart panted close against mine; he never stirred in his lair but I felt him: I knew he waited only for sun-down to bound ravenous from his ambush.
I had hoped we might reach Villette ere night set in, and that thus I might escape the deeper embarrassment which obscurity seems to throw round a first arrival at an unknown bourne; but, what with our slow progress and long stoppages--what with a thick fog and small, dense rain--darkness, that might almost be felt, had settled on the city by the time we gained its suburbs.
I know we passed through a gate where soldiers were stationed--so much I could see by lamplight; then, having left behind us the miry Chaussee, we rattled over a pavement of strangely rough and flinty surface.

At a bureau, the diligence stopped, and the passengers alighted.

My first business was to get my trunk; a small matter enough, but important to me.

Understanding that it was best not to be importunate or over-eager about luggage, but to wait and watch quietly the delivery of other boxes till I saw my own, and then promptly claim and secure it, I stood apart; my eye fixed on that part of the vehicle in which I had seen my little portmanteau safely stowed, and upon which piles of additional bags and boxes were now heaped.

One by one, I saw these removed, lowered, and seized on.
I was sure mine ought to be by this time visible: it was not.