Then, making an attack on the other cheek, which he rasped as with a nutmeg-grater, he fell foul of the farm. These latter-day gentlefolks were even worse than the nobles of old. Why, they had kept everything to themselves in the distribution of the land, made laws merely for their own advantage, and they lived only on the distress of poor folks. The others listened, constrained, yet inwardly pleased by his temerity, for they had the peasant's immemorial, unconquerable hatred of the landowner.
"It's a good thing we are among ourselves," muttered Macqueron, glancing uneasily at the schoolmaster. "I am on the Government side. So is our deputy, Monsieur de Chédeville, who is, they say, a friend of the Emperor's."
Lengaigne began furiously shaking his razor.
"And that's another pretty rogue of a fellow! Oughtn't a rich man like him, possessing more than two thousand acres of land over there towards Orgères, oughtn't he to make you a present of your road, instead of trying to wring coppers out of the village? The low beast!"
The grocer, alarmed this time, protested. "No, no. He's very straightforward, and not proud. But for him you wouldn't have had your tobacco-counter. What would you say if he took it away from you again?"
Abruptly calming down, Lengaigne went on scraping the other's chin. He had lost his temper and gone too far; his wife was right in saying that his ideas would play him false. At that moment a quarrel was heard to threaten between Bécu and Hyacinthe. The former was in an ill-tempered, pugnacious state of drunkenness, while the other, on the contrary, grim and overbearing though he was when sober, grew more and more maudlin with every glass of wine, subsiding into the genial meekness of a tipsy apostle. Add to this their radical difference of opinion: the poacher being a Republican—a Red, as people said—who boasted of having made the gentlefolks dance the rigadoon at Cloyes in '48; and the rural constable being a wild Bonapartist and worshipping the Emperor, with whom he pretended to be acquainted.
"I swear it! We had partaken of a red herring salad together, when he said to me: 'Not a word. I am the Emperor.' I knew him at a glance, because of his likeness on the five-franc pieces."
"Maybe! Anyhow, he's a low fellow, who beats his wife and never loved his mother!"
"Hold your tongue, in God's name! or I'll break your jaw for you!"
The quart bottle which Bécu was brandishing had to be taken from him; whilst Hyacinthe, with tearful eyes, sat awaiting the blow in cheerful resignation. Then they resumed their game, like brothers. Trump, trump, and trump!