No one can imagine, unless he happens to squint and to have two legitimate children, what ambitions three years of misery and love had developed in this young man, who squinted both in mind and vision, and whose happiness halted, as it were, on one leg.The chief cause of secret evil deeds and hidden meanness is, perhaps, an incompleted happiness.Man can better bear a state of hopeless misery than those terrible alternations of love and sunshine with continual rain.If the body contracts disease, the mind contracts the leprosy of envy.In petty minds that leprosy becomes a base and brutal cupidity, both insolent and shrinking; in cultivated minds it fosters anti-social doctrines, which serve a man as footholds by which to rise above his superiors.May we not dignify with the title of proverb the pregnant saying, "Tell me what thou hast, and I will tell thee of what thou art thinking"?
Though Adolphe loved his wife, his hourly thought was: "I have made a mistake; I have three balls and chains, but I have only two legs.I ought to have made my fortune before I married.I could have found an Adeline any day; but Adeline stands in the way of my getting a fortune now."
Adolphe had been to see his relation Gaubertin three times in three years.A few words exchanged between them let Gaubertin see the muck of a soul ready to ferment under the hot temptations of legal robbery.
He warily sounded a nature that could be warped to the exigencies of any plan, provided it was profitable.At each of the three visits Sibilet grumbled at his fate.
"Employ me, cousin," he said; "take me as a clerk and make me your successor.You shall see how I work.I am capable of overthrowing mountains to give my Adeline, I won't say luxury, but a modest competence.You made Monsieur Leclercq's fortune; why won't you put me in a bank in Paris?"
"Some day, later on, I'll find you a place," Gaubertin would say;
"meantime make friends and acquaintance; such things help."
Under these circumstances the letter which Madame Soudry hastily dispatched brought Sibilet to Soulanges through a region of castles in the air.His father-in-law, Sarcus, whom the Soudrys advised to take steps in the interest of his daughter, had gone in the morning to see the general and to propose Adolphe for the vacant post.By advice of Madame Soudry, who was the oracle of the little town, the worthy man had taken his daughter with him; and the sight of her had had a favorable effect upon the Comte de Montcornet.
"I shall not decide," he answered, "without thoroughly informing myself about all applicants; but I will not look elsewhere until I have examined whether or not your son-in-law possesses the requirements for the place." Then, turning to Madame Sibilet he added, "The satisfaction of settling so charming a person at Les Aigues--"
"The mother of two children, general," said Adeline, adroitly, to evade the gallantry of the old cuirassier.
All the general's inquiries were cleverly anticipated by the Soudrys, Gaubertin, and Lupin, who quietly obtained for their candidate the influence of the leading lawyers in the capital of the department, where a royal court held sessions,--such as Counsellor Gendrin, a distant relative of the judge at Ville-aux-Fayes; Baron Bourlac, attorney-general; and another counsellor named Sarcus, a cousin thrice removed of the candidate.The verdict of every one to whom the general applies was favorable to the poor clerk,--"so interesting," as they called him.His marriage had made Sibilet as irreproachable as a novel of Miss Edgeworth's, and presented him, moreover, in the light of a disinterested man.
The time which the dismissed steward remained at Les Aigues until his successor could be appointed was employed in creating troubles and annoyances for his late master; one of the little scenes which he thus played off will give an idea of several others.
The morning of his final departure he contrived to meet, as it were accidentally, Courtecuisse, the only keeper then employed at Les Aigues, the great extent of which really needed at least three.
"Well, Monsieur Gaubertin," said Courtecuisse, "so you have had trouble with the count?"
"Who told you that?" answered Gaubertin."Well, yes; the general expected to order us about as he did his cavalry; he didn't know Burgundians.The count is not satisfied with my services, and as I am not satisfied with his ways, we have dismissed each other, almost with fisticuffs, for he raged like a whirlwind.Take care of yourself, Courtecuisse! Ah! my dear fellow, I expected to give you a better master."
"I know that," said the keeper, "and I'd have served you well.Hang it, when friends have known each other for twenty years, you know! You put me here in the days of the poor dear sainted Madame.Ah, what a good woman she was! none like her now! The place has lost a mother."
"Look here, Courtecuisse, if you are willing, you might help us to a fine stroke."
"Then you are going to stay here? I heard you were off to Paris."
"No; I shall wait to see how things turn out; meantime I shall do business at Ville-aux-Fayes.The general doesn't know what he is dealing with in these parts; he'll make himself hated, don't you see?
I shall wait for what turns up.Do your work here gently; he'll tell you to manage the people with a high hand, for he begins to see where his crops and his woods are running to; but you'll not be such a fool as to let the country-folk maul you, and perhaps worse, for the sake of his timber."
"But he would send me away, dear Monsieur Gaubertin, he would get rid of me! and you know how happy I am living there at the gate of the Avonne."
"The general will soon get sick of the whole place," replied Gaubertin; "you wouldn't be long out even if he did happen to send you away.Besides, you know those woods," he added, waving his hand at the landscape; "I am stronger there than the masters."
This conversation took place in an open field.
"Those 'Arminac' Parisian fellows ought to stay in their own mud,"
said the keeper.