"Yes, monsieur, it is his fault. A man who started perhaps as low as I did, and who has gone ahead so fast, isn't an honest man."
"Nonsense! What are you talking about? Do you imagine that a man can't make a fortune without stealing?"
"I don't know anything about it, but I believe it. I know that you were born rich and that you are not rich now. I know that I was born poor and always shall be poor; and it's my opinion that if you'd gone off to some other country without paying your father's debts, and if I had made it my business to cheat and shave and scrape, we might both be riding in our carriages to-day. I beg your pardon, if I offend you!" added the peasant in a proud, uncompromising tone, addressing the young man, who gave very decided indications of painful excitement.
"Monsieur," said the châtelain, "it may be that you know Monsieur Cardonnet, that you are in his employ or are under some obligation to him. I beg you to pay no heed to what this worthy villager may say. He has exaggerated ideas on many subjects which he doesn't fully understand. You may be sure that he is neither malignant nor jealous at bottom, nor capable of inflicting the slightest injury on Monsieur Cardonnet."
"I attach little importance to his words," replied the young stranger. "I am simply astonished, monsieur le comte, that a man whom you honor with your esteem should take pleasure in blackening another man's reputation without having the slightest fact to allege against him and without knowing anything of his antecedents. I have already asked your guest for some information concerning this Monsieur Cardonnet, whom he seems to hate personally, and he refused to give me any explanation of his sentiments. I leave it to you: is it possible for one to base a just opinion on gratuitous imputations, and if you or I should form an opinion unfavorable to Monsieur Cardonnet, would not your guest have been guilty of an unworthy act?"
"You speak according to my heart and my mind, young man," replied Monsieur Antoine. "You," he added, turning to his rustic guest and striking the table angrily with his fist, while he looked at him with an expression in which affection and kindliness triumphed over displeasure, "you are wrong, and you will be good enough to tell us at once what grievance you have against the said Cardonnet, so that we can judge whether it has any force. If not, we shall consider that you have a soured mind and an evil tongue."
"I have nothing to say more than everybody knows," replied the peasant calmly, and with no sign of being intimidated by the sermon. "We see things and judge them as we see them; but as this young man doesn't know Monsieur Cardonnet," he added, with a penetrating glance at the traveller, "and since he is so anxious to know what sort of man he is, do you tell him yourself, Monsieur Antoine; and when you have given the main facts I will fill in the details. I will tell monsieur the cause and the effect, and he can judge for himself unless he has some better reason than mine for not saying what he thinks."
"All right, I agree," said Monsieur Antoine, who paid less attention than his companion to the young man's increasing agitation. "I will tell things as they are, and, if I go astray, I authorize Mère Janille, who has the memory and accuracy of an almanac, to interrupt and contradict me. As for you, you little rascal," he said, turning to the page in short jacket and wooden shoes, "try not to stare into the whites of my eyes so when I speak to you. Your fixed stare gives me the vertigo, and your wide-open mouth looks like a well that I may fall into. Well, what is it? what are you laughing at? Understand that a ne'er-do-well of your age should never presume to laugh in his master's presence. Stand behind me and behave as respectfully as Monsieur."
As he spoke, he pointed to his dog, and his manner was so serious and his voice so loud as he made the jest, that the traveller wondered if he were not subject to spasms of seignorial domination altogether out of keeping with his usual good-nature. But a glance at the boy's face was enough to convince him that it was simply a game to which he was well-used, for he cheerfully took his place beside the dog and began to play with him, without a trace of sulkiness or shame.
However, as Monsieur Antoine's manners were marked by an originality which could hardly be understood at the first meeting, the young man believed that he was beginning to grow light-headed by dint of much drinking, and he determined not to attach the least importance to what he was about to say. But it very rarely happened that the count lost his head, even after he had lost his legs, and he had resorted to his favorite pastime of bantering his neighbors only to divert the painful impression to which this discussion had given rise as between his guests.