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Updated: May 15, 2025
The sagacity of a savage, which Michaud's new occupation had developed among his faculties, joined to an acquaintance with the passions and interests of Blangy, enabled him partially to understand a third idyll in the Greek style, which poor villagers like Tonsard, and middle-aged rich men like Rigou, translate freely to use the classic word in the depths of their country solitudes.
His nature was of that essentially wrangling quality to which a life without enemies seems dull and objectless, the nature, in short, of a litigant, or a policeman. If it had not been for the presence of the sheriff's officer, he would have seized Tonsard and the bundle of wood at the Grand-I-Vert, snapping his fingers at the law on the inviolability of a man's domicile.
If I wasn't a Burgundian I'd be a Spaniard! It's God's own wine! the pope says mass with it Hey! I'm young again! Say, Courtecuisse! if your wife were only here we'd be young together. Don't tell me! Spanish wine is worth a dozen of boiled wine. Let's have a revolution if it's only to empty the cellars!" "But what's your news, papa?" said Tonsard.
You all sell yourselves to Rigou for gold; and if you don't sell him your daughters, at any rate you sell him your honor, and it's wrong." "Just see what a position Courtecuisse is in," said Tonsard. "See what a position I am in," replied Pere Niseron; "but I sleep in peace; there are no thorns in my pillow."
Madame Tonsard established the wine-shop of the Grand-I-Vert, her first customers being the servants of Les Aigues and the keepers and huntsmen. Gaubertin, formerly steward to Mademoiselle Laguerre, one of La Tonsard's chief patrons, gave her several puncheons of excellent wine to attract custom.
Laroche, an old laborer, possessed absolutely nothing; he was not, like Tonsard, hot-blooded and vicious, his motive power was a cold, dull hatred; he toiled in silence with a sullen face; work was intolerable to him, but he had to work to live; his features were hard and their expression repulsive.
"Ought to have stayed in the army, a swaggerer like that," said Tonsard; "he is only fit to deal with enemies. I wish he would come and ask me my name. He may call himself a veteran of the young guard, but I know very well that if I measured spurs with him, I'd keep my feathers up longest." "Look here!" said Mam Tonsard to Vermichel, "when are the notices for the ball at Soulanges coming out?
"Come, let's be off and find out what's going on at Conches; they are not so patient over there as we are." "Come on," said Laroche, who was none too steady on his legs. "If I don't exterminate one of two of those fellows may I lose my name." "You!" said Tonsard, "you'd let them put the whole district in prison; but I if they dare to touch my old mother, there's my gun and it never misses."
Are one hundred days' work nothing? It has cost me three hundred francs, and the land is all stones." But that speech never got beyond the regions of his own class. Tonsard built his house himself, picking up the materials here and there as he could, getting a day's work out of this one and that one, gleaning in the rubbish that was thrown away, often asking for things and always obtaining them.
They told him of Vatel's attack on the old woman, talking all at once after the fashion of country-people. "If she didn't cut the tree, Vatel was wrong; but if she did cut it, you have done two bad actions," said Pere Niseron. "Take some wine," said Tonsard, offering a full glass to the old man. "Shall we start?" said Vermichel to the sheriff's officer.
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