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"You take the second street to the left and then the first to the right. It is number fifteen." "Thank you, old man. There is something for you." "Thank you, sir." And Varajou went out of the cafe, repeating, "Second to the left, first to the right, number 15." But at the end of a few seconds he thought, "second to the left yes. But on leaving the cafe must I walk to the right or the left?
His daughter had married Padoie, a former treasury clerk, who had just been appointed tax collector at Vannes. Varajou, on leaving the train, had some one direct him to the house of his brother-in-law, whom he found in his office arguing with the Breton peasants of the neighborhood. Padoie rose from his seat, held out his hand across the table littered with papers, murmured, "Take a chair.
Froze! Froze! Twelve. Ha! Wasn't I right?" Varajou ordered: "A demi-tasse and a small decanter of brandy, the best." Then he sat down and waited for it. He was accustomed to spending his evenings off duty with his companions, amid noise and the smoke of pipes. This silence, this quiet, exasperated him. He began to drink; first the coffee, then the brandy, and asked for another decanter.
When Varajou saw that he would have to spend the evening tete-a-tete with his sister, endure her reproaches, listen to her sermons, without even a glass of liqueur to help him to swallow these remonstrances, he felt that he could not stand the torture, and declared that he was obliged to go to the police station to have something attended to regarding his leave of absence.
Padoie, a little moralist, a devotee, and always cross; but he needed money, needed it very badly, and he remembered that, of all his relations, the Padoies were the only ones whom he had never approached on the subject. Pere Varajou, formerly a horticulturist at Angers, but now retired from business, had closed his purse strings to his scapegrace son and had hardly seen him for two years.
In the damp dining-room with the paper peeling from the walls near the floor, he saw a soup tureen on a round table without any table cloth, on which were also three melancholy soup-plates. M. and Mme. Padoie entered the room at the same time as Varajou.
And then two gentlemen appeared in evening dress, and wearing the ribbon of an order. Padoie rushed up to them. "Oh, judge he is crazy, he is crazy. He was sent to us as a convalescent. You can see that he is crazy." Varajou was sitting up now, and not being able to understand it all, he guessed that he had committed some monstrous folly.
I will be at liberty in a moment," sat down again and resumed his discussion. The peasants did not understand his explanations, the collector did not understand their line of argument. He spoke French, they spoke Breton, and the clerk who acted as interpreter appeared not to understand either. It lasted a long time, a very long time. Varajou looked at his brother-in-law and thought: "What a fool!"
I will be at liberty in a moment," sat down again and resumed his discussion. The peasants did not understand his explanations, the collector did not understand their line of argument. He spoke French, they spoke Breton, and the clerk who acted as interpreter appeared not to understand either. It lasted a long time, a very long time. Varajou looked at his brother-in-law and thought: "What a fool!"
"You take the second street to the left and then the first to the right. It is number fifteen." "Thank you, old man. There is something for you." "Thank you, sir." And Varajou went out of the cafe, repeating, "Second to the left, first to the right, number 15." But at the end of a few seconds he thought, "second to the left yes. But on leaving the cafe must I walk to the right or the left?
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