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Updated: April 30, 2025
They sat down to table at midday and the soup was poured at once into the plates. All faces had already brightened up; mouths opened to utter loud jokes and eyes were laughing with knowing winks. They were going to amuse themselves and no mistake. The door opened, and old Amable appeared.
Old Amable was afraid of the cure through the apprehension of death which he felt drawing nigh; he had not much fear of God, nor of the Devil, nor of Hell, nor of Purgatory, of which he had no conception, but he dreaded the priest, who represented to him burial, as one might fear the doctors through horror of diseases.
Why, sir, if it was not that I, Amable Poussette, was good friend there, I don't know, I don't know, m'sieu, how they get along 'tall! Those Archambault all bad peep all bad together; the old woman, the old man, the girl, the boy all the same, sure." "Who pays them? You?" "No, m'sieu; do better things with my monee." "But they don't believe in the corvée, surely?" "It is like this."
Then, she saw after the house, washed the plates and wiped the table, while the man quietly took off his clothes. Then he slipped into the dark and hollow bed in which she had slept with Césaire. The yard door reopened, old Amable again presented himself. As soon as he had come in, he looked round on every side with the air of an old dog on the scent. He was in search of Victor Lecoq.
Not understanding what she meant, he took the candle in order to find out, and in the midst of the foliage lit up from below, he saw old Amable hanged high up by the neck with a stable-halter. A ladder was fixed at the trunk of the apple tree. Victor rushed to look for a bill-hook, climbed up the tree, and cut the halter.
Then he sat down on a chair by the dead man's side. Some of the neighbors arrived, called out and knocked. He did not hear them. One of them broke the glass of the window and jumped into the room. Others followed. The door was opened again and Celeste reappeared, all in tears, with swollen face and bloodshot eyes. Then old Amable, vanquished, without uttering a word, climbed back to his loft.
Victor replied in an indifferent tone: "Don't bother yourself. He'll come back when he's tired." Then she saw after the house, washed the plates and wiped the table, while the man quietly took off his clothes. Then he slipped into the dark and hollow bed in which she had slept with Cesaire. The yard gate opened and old Amable again appeared.
And the hands of the sick man seemed dead under the dingy sheets. Celeste watched him with restless activity, made him take physic, applied blisters to him, went back and forth in the house, while old Amable remained at the edge of his loft, watching at a distance the gloomy cavern where his son lay dying. He did not come near him, through hatred of the wife, sulking like an ill-tempered dog.
"My dear Beaudesert," said my father, "when Saint Amable, patron saint of Riom, in Auvergne, went to Rome, the sun waited upon him as a servant, carried his cloak and gloves for him in the heat, and kept off the rain, if the weather changed, like an umbrella.
In his engagement he figures as Amable Grignon, of the Parish of Green Bay, Upper Canada, and he receives $400 "and found in tobacco and shoes and two doges," besides "the usual equipment given to clerks." He afterwards returned to a post on the Wisconsin river.
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