Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
So I retorted that it was too bad, really; but, if the Caisse Territoriale would pay what they owe me, to wit my arrears of salary for four years, plus seven thousand francs advanced by me to the Governor to pay for carriages, newspapers, cigars and American drinks on the days the council met, I would go and eat like a Christian at the nearest cheap alehouse, and should not be reduced to cooking for myself, in the directors' room, a wretched stew which I owed to the public compassion of cooks.
The two ladies I have named, the Governor's wife, a little Corsican woman whose heavy eyebrows, white teeth and ruddy cheeks, dark in the lower part, make her look like a clean-shaved Auvergnat a clever creature by the way, and always laughing except when her husband looks at other women these with a few Levantines with diadems of gold or pearls, less resplendent than ours but in the same style, wives of upholsterers, jewellers, dealers who supply the household regularly, with shoulders as extensive as shop-fronts and dresses in which the material was not sparingly used; and lastly, several wives of clerks at the Caisse Territoriale, with rustling dresses and devil a sou in their pockets, such was the representation of the fair sex at that function, some thirty ladies lost among myriads of black coats; one might as well say that there were none at all there.
The trick was played. After extorting money so long from the shareholders, the Caisse Territoriale had been made to serve as a means of capturing the votes of the electors, "And now, Messieurs, here is one last detail with which I might well have begun, in order to spare you the distressing story of this electoral burlesque.
My guide, who has a holy horror of customs officers and gendarmes, remained at the top of the cliff, because of a small custom-house station on the shore, while I bent my steps toward a tall red building which reared its three stories aloft in that blazing solitude, the windows broken, the roof-tiles in confusion, and over the rotting door an immense sign: 'Caisse Territoriale.
I had just finished my humble morning meal, and, as my custom is, had bestowed the balance of my provisions in the safe in the directors' room, a magnificent safe with a secret lock, which has served as my pantry during the four years, or nearly that, of my employment in the Territoriale; suddenly the Governor enters the office, red as a turkey-cock, his eyes inflamed as if he were fresh from a feast, breathing noisily, and says to me in vulgar phrase, with his Italian accent: "There's a horrible smell here, Moussiou Passajon."
"That man, who comprises the whole staff of the Caisse Territoriale in Corsica, is Paganetti's foster-father, an ex-lighthouse-keeper who does not mind loneliness. The Governor leaves him there partly from charity, and also because an occasional letter from the Taverna quarry produces a good effect at meetings of shareholders.
He was going away, he was going to Tunis, very uneasy at the idea of leaving his poor Nabob in the midst of his bloodthirsty pack of pursuers; however, Mora's friendship reassured him somewhat, and, moreover, the journey was absolutely necessary. "And what about the Territoriale?" asked the old book-keeper, always recurring to his fixed idea. "How does that stand?
In a week the Schwalbach notes to be paid, that is to say eight hundred thousand francs, Moëssard's claim for damages he demanded a hundred thousand francs or would apply to the Chamber for authority to institute criminal process against him another more dangerous suit begun by the families of two little martyrs of Bethlehem against the founders of the establishment; and, in addition to all the rest, the complications of the Caisse Territoriale.
On one side the Work of Bethlehem, a powerful machine, pumping at regular intervals, with tremendous energy; the Caisse Territoriale, with marvellous power of suction, indefatigable in its operation, with triple and quadruple action, of several thousand horse-power; and the Schwalbach pump, and the Bois-l'Héry pump, and how many more; some of enormous size, making a great noise, with audacious pistons, others more quiet and reserved, with tiny valves, bearings skilfully oiled toy-pumps as delicately constructed as the probosces of insects whose thirst causes stings, and which deposit poison on the spot from which they suck their life; but all working with the same unanimity, and fatally certain to cause, if not an absolute drought, at all events a serious lowering of the level.
He had conceived the idea, if you please, of opening a patriotic subscription to erect a statue to General Paolo Paoli, a great man of his country. The Corsicans are not rich, but they are as vain as turkeys. So money poured into the Territoriale. But unfortunately it did not last.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking