Sons of the Soil, Honoré de Balzac [epub read online books TXT] 📗

His nose, flattened at the end as if the finger of God intended to mark him, gave him a voice which came from his palate, like that of all persons disfigured by a disease which thickens the nasal passages, through which the air then passes with difficulty. His upper teeth overlapped each other, and this defect (which Lavater calls terrible) was all the more apparent because they were as white as those of a dog. But for a certain lawless and slothful good humor, and the free-and-easy ways of a rustic tippler, the man would have alarmed the least observing of spectators.

If the portraits of Tonsard, his inn, and his father-in-law take a prominent place in this history, it is because that place belongs to him and to the inn and to the family. In the first place, their existence, so minutely described, is the type of a hundred other households in the valley of Les Aigues. Secondly, Tonsard, without being other than the instrument of deep and active hatreds, had an immense influence on the struggle that was about to take place, being the friend and counsellor of all the complainants of the lower classes. His inn, as we shall presently see, was the rendezvous for the aggressors; in fact, he became their chief, partly on account of the fear he inspired throughout the valley--less, however, by his actual deeds than by those that were constantly expected of him. The threat of this man was as much dreaded as the thing threatened, so that he never had occasion to execute it.

Every revolt, open or concealed, has its banner. The banner of the marauders, the drunkards, the idlers, the sluggards of the valley des Aigues was the terrible tavern of the Grand-I-Vert. Its frequenters found amusement there,--as rare and much-desired a thing in the country as in a city. Moreover, there was no other inn along the country-road for over twelve miles, a distance which conveyances (even when laden) could easily do in three hours; so that those who went from Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes always stopped at the Grand-I-Vert, if only to refresh themselves. The miller of Les Aigues, who was also assistant-mayor, and his men came there. The grooms and valets of the general were not averse to Tonsard's wine, rendered attractive by Tonsard's daughters; so the Grand-I-Vert held subterraneous communication with the chateau through the servants, and knew immediately everything that they knew. It is impossible either by benefits or through their own self-interests, to break up the perpetual understanding that exists between the servants of a household and the people from whom they come. Domestic service is of the masses, and to the masses it will ever remain attached. This fatal comradeship explains the reticence of the last words of Charles the groom, as he and Blondet reached the portico of the chateau.


CHAPTER IV. ANOTHER IDYLL

"Ha! by my pipe, papa!" exclaimed Tonsard, seeing his father-in-law as the old man entered and supposing him in quest of food, "your stomach is lively this morning! We haven't anything to give you. How about that rope,--the rope, you know, you were to make for us? It is amazing how much you make over night and how little there is made in the morning! You ought long ago to have twisted the one that is to twist you out of existence; you are getting too costly for us."

The wit of a peasant or laborer is very Attic; it consists in speaking out his mind and giving it a grotesque expression. We find the same thing in a drawing-room. Delicacy of wit takes the place of picturesque vulgarity, and that is really all the difference there is.

"That's enough for the father-in-law!" said the old man. "Talk business; I want a bottle of the best."

So saying, Fourchon rapped a five-franc piece that gleamed in his hand on the old table at which he was seated,--which, with its coating of grease, its scorched black marks, its wine stains, and its gashes, was singular to behold. At the sound of coin Marie Tonsard, as trig as a sloop about to start on a cruise, glanced at her grandfather with a covetous look that shot from her eyes like a spark. La Tonsard came out of her bedroom, attracted by the music of metal.

"You are always rough to my poor father," she said to her husband, "and yet he has earned a deal of money this year; God grant he came by it honestly. Let me see that," she added, springing at the coin and snatching it from Fourchon's fingers.

"Marie," said Tonsard, gravely, "above the board you'll find some bottled wine. Go and get a bottle."

Wine is of only one quality in the country, but it is sold as of two kinds,--cask wine and bottled wine.

"Where did you get this, papa" demanded La Tonsard, slipping the coin into her pocket.

"Philippine! you'll come to a bad end," said the old man, shaking his head but not attempting to recover his money. Doubtless he had long realized the futility of a struggle between his daughter, his terrible son-in-law, and himself.

"Another bottle of wine for which you get five francs out of me," he added, in a peevish tone. "But it shall be the last. I shall give my custom to the Cafe de la Paix."

"Hold your tongue, papa!" remarked his fair and fat daughter, who bore some resemblance to a Roman matron. "You need a shirt, and a pair of clean trousers, and a hat; and I want to see you with a waistcoat. That's what I take the money for."

"I have told you again and again that such things would ruin me," said the old man. "People would think me rich and stop giving me anything."

The bottle brought by Marie put an end to the loquacity of the old man, who was not without that trait, characteristic of those whose tongues are ready to tell out everything, and who shrink from no expression of their thought, no matter how atrocious it may be.

"Then you don't want to tell where you filched that money?" said Tonsard. "We might go and get more where that came from,--the rest of us."

He was making a snare, and as he finished it the ferocious innkeeper happened to glance at his father-in-law's trousers, and there he spied a raised round spot which clearly defined a second five-franc piece.

"Having become a capitalist I drink your health," said Pere Fourchon.

"If you choose to be a capitalist you can be," said Tonsard; "you have the means, you have! But the devil has bored a hole in the back of your head through which everything runs out."

"Hey! I only played the otter trick on that young fellow they have got at Les Aigues. He's from Paris. That's all there is to it."

"If crowds of people would come to see the sources of the Avonne, you'd be rich, Grandpa Fourchon," said Marie.

"Yes," he said, drinking the last glassful the bottle contained, "and I've played the sham otter so long, the live otters have got angry, and one of them came right between my legs to-day; Mouche caught it, and I am to get twenty francs for it."

"I'll bet your otter is made of tow," said Tonsard, looking slyly at his father-in-law.

"If you will give me a pair of trousers, a waistcoat, and some list braces, so as not to disgrace Vermichel on the music stand at Tivoli (for old Socquard is always scolding about my clothes), I'll let you keep that money, my daughter; your idea is a good one. I can squeeze that rich young fellow at Les Aigues; may be he'll take to otters."

"Go and get another bottle," said Tonsard to his daughter. "If your father really had an otter, he would show it to us," he added, speaking to his wife and trying to touch up Fourchon.

"I'm too afraid it would get into your frying-pan," said the old man, winking one of his little green eyes at his daughter. "Philippine has already hooked my five-franc piece; and how many more haven't you bagged under pretence of clothing me and feeding me? and now you say that my stomach is too lively, and that I go half-naked."

"You sold your last clothes to drink boiled wine at the Cafe de la Paix, papa," said his daughter, "though Vermichel tried to prevent it."

"Vermichel! the man I treated! Vermichel is incapable of betraying my friendship. It must have been that lump of old lard on two legs that he is not ashamed to call his wife!"

"He or she," replied Tonsard, "or Bonnebault."

"If it was Bonnebault," cried Fourchon, "he who is one of the pillars of the place, I'll--I'll--Enough!"

"You old sot, what has all that got to do with having sold your clothes? You sold them because you did sell them; you're of age!" said Tonsard, slapping the old man's knee. "Come, do honor to my drink and redden up your throat! The father of Mam Tonsard has a right to do so; and isn't that better than spending your silver at Socquard's?"

"What a shame it is that you have been fifteen years playing for people to dance at Tivoli and you have never yet found out how Socquard cooks his wine,--you who are so shrewd!" said his daughter; "and yet you know very well that if we had the secret we should soon get as rich as Rigou."

Throughout the Morvan, and in that region of Burgundy which lies at its feet on the side toward Paris, this boiled wine with which Mam Tonsard reproached her father is a rather costly beverage which plays a great part in the life of the peasantry, and is made by all grocers and wine-dealers, and wherever a drinking-shop exists. This precious liquor, made of choice wine, sugar, and cinnamon and other spices, is preferable to all those disguises or mixtures of brandy called ratafia, one-hundred-and-seven, brave man's cordial, black currant wine, vespetro, spirit-of-sun, etc. Boiled wine is found throughout France and Switzerland. Among the Jura, and in the wild districts trodden only by a few special tourists, the innkeepers call it, on the word of commercial travellers, the wine of Syracuse. Excellent it is, however, and their guests, hungry as hounds after ascending the surrounding peaks, very gladly pay three and four francs a bottle for it. In the homes of the Morvan and in Burgundy the least illness or the slightest agitation of the nerves is an excuse for boiled wine. Before and after childbirth the women take it with the addition of burnt sugar. Boiled wine has soaked up the property of many a peasant, and more than once the seductive liquid has been the cause of marital chastisement.

"Ha! there's no chance of grabbing that secret," replied Fourchon, "Socquard always locks himself in when he boils his wine; he never told how he does it to his late wife. He sends to Paris for his materials."

"Don't plague your father," cried Tonsard; "doesn't he know? well, then, he doesn't know! People can't know everything!"

Fourchon grew very uneasy on seeing how his son-in-law's countenance softened as well as his words.

"What do you want to rob me of now?" he asked, candidly.

"I?" said Tonsard, "I take none but my legitimate dues; if I get anything from you it is in payment of your daughter's portion, which you promised me and never paid."

Fourchon, reassured by the harshness of this remark, dropped his head on his breast as though vanquished and convinced.

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