As Fouan and Hyacinthe were standing before the closed barrier at the level-crossing just outside Cloyes, waiting for a train to pass, they were joined by Buteau and Lise, who drove up in their cart. A violent quarrel immediately broke out between the two brothers, and they hurled volleys of filthy abuse at each other till the gate was opened; Buteau, as his horse carried him away down the hill on the other side, even turned round, his blouse puffed out by the wind, and hurled behind him a volley of insults which he would have done better to keep to himself.
"Go along with you, you worthless fellow, I am supporting your father!" roared Hyacinthe with all his might, making a speaking-trumpet of his two hands.
Fouan felt very unhappy when he reached Monsieur Baillehache's office in the Rue Grouaise, and the more so as it was full of clients, people who were taking advantage of market-day to transact their business. The old man and his son had to wait for nearly two hours. The scene recalled to Fouan's mind that Saturday when he had decided upon the division of the property. It would have been better if he had hanged himself rather than done that. When the notary at last received them, and the signature had to be affixed, the old man took out his spectacles and wiped them; but his tearful eyes fogged the glasses, and his hand trembled so much that it was necessary to place his fingers on the very spot where he was to inscribe his name, which he proceeded to do, making a lot of blots. It tried him so much that he was now perspiring and trembling, and glancing about him in dazed confusion, just as though he had been undergoing a surgical operation, as if he were a man who, after having a leg amputated, looks about him for the severed limb. Monsieur Baillehache administered a severe lecture to Hyacinthe, and then dismissed them both with a dissertation upon the law. The division of property, so he declared, was immoral, and it would certainly be one day made illegal, to prevent it from over-riding the system of inheritance.
After leaving the notary's, Fouan contrived to give his son the slip in the crowd in the Rue Grande, just by the door of "The Jolly Ploughman." Hyacinthe, indeed, played into his father's hands, and quietly smiled to himself, for he felt quite sure what the old man's purpose was. Fouan at once made his way to the Rue Beaudonnière, where, in a bright-looking house, with a courtyard and garden, lived Monsieur Hardy, the tax-collector, a stout, jovial person, with a florid face and a carefully-trimmed black beard. He was greatly feared by the peasants, who accused him of upsetting them with his threats. He received his visitors in a narrow office, cut atwain by a balustrade, on one side of which he himself sat, while those who came to see him remained on the other. There were frequently a dozen people there at once, standing crowded together. At the present moment, however, Buteau, who had just come in, happened to be the only person there.
Buteau could never make up his mind to pay his taxes promptly and at once. When he received the demand-note in March he got into a bad temper for a week, and stormed angrily, and in turn, at the land-tax, the head-tax, the tax on personal property, and that on doors and windows. His greatest wrath, however, was poured out upon the growing increase in the total amount, which got more and more every year. Then he waited till he was served with a free summons. This gave him an additional week. Then he paid a twelfth part of the taxes every month, whenever he went to market; and every month all the old torture of mind began over again. He felt quite ill on the eve of paying an instalment, and he went off with his money in as miserable a frame of mind as though he were going to execution. Oh, that damnable government! It robbed everybody!
"Ah, is that you?" Monsieur Hardy exclaimed, cheerily, at sight of him. "I'm glad to see you here, for I was just going to put you to the expense of a summons!"
"That would have capped the business!" snarled Buteau. "But you must understand that I'm not going to pay those six francs increase on the property-tax. It's really most unjust!"
The collector began to laugh.
"What, are you going to begin all that discussion over again? It is always the same old story every month. I have already explained to you that it is obvious that the planting of your meadow by the Aigre must have increased your income. Oh, we know very well what we are about, I can assure you!"
Buteau, however, boiled over with angry remonstrances. His income was increasing in a pretty sort of way, forsooth! His meadow had once measured a couple of acres, but the river had altered its course and robbed him of a great slice of his land, and yet he still was forced to pay the tax on two acres! Was that justice?