"But suppose the farmers charge him for the days you work, as if they had paid you?"
"To do that they must be rascals, and on the contrary they are honest men. You see, a man is what other men make him. Old Boisguilbault is never robbed, although nothing in the world would be easier; but as he neither worries nor pushes any one, no one has any occasion to deceive him or to take any more than belongs to him. He isn't like your father. He reckons and disputes and watches every one closely, and consequently his people steal from him, and always will: that's the kind of business he will do all his life."
Jean succeeded in diverting Emile's thoughts, and almost in consoling him. That upright, bold, decided character had an excellent influence over him, and he went to bed with a more tranquil mind, after receiving his promise that he would let him know on the following evening how Gilberte's people felt toward him. Jean was confident of his ability to open their eyes concerning his conduct and Monsieur Cardonnet's. Sorrow makes us weak and trustful, and when our courage fails us, we can find nothing better to do than place our fate in the hands of an energetic and resolute person. If he does not solve the embarrassing problems of our position so easily as he flatters himself that he can do, at all events the contact with him strengthens and revivifies us; his confidence insensibly passes into us and makes us capable of assisting ourselves.
"This peasant, whom my father despises," thought Emile as he fell asleep, "this poor, ignorant, simple-hearted man has done me more good than Monsieur de Boisguilbault did; and when I asked God for an adviser, a support, a savior, He sent the poorest and humblest of His servants to mark out my duty in two words. Oh! what force the truth has in the mouths of those men whose instincts are upright and pure! and how profitless is all our knowledge compared with that of the heart! Father! father! more than ever I feel that you are blinded, and the lesson I have received from this peasant condemns you more than all the rest."
Although mentally more tranquil, Emile had a sharp attack of fever in the night. Amid the violent upheavals of the mind, we forget to care for and preserve the body. We allow ourselves to be exhausted by hunger, surprised by cold and dampness, when we are reeking with perspiration or burning with fever. We do not feel the approach of physical disease, and when it has fastened itself upon us, there is a sort of relief from the change from mental suffering. At such times we flatter ourselves that we cannot be unhappy long without dying of it, and there is some comfort in believing oneself too weak to endure never-ending sorrow.
Monsieur de Boisguilbault expected his young friend all the following day, and he became exceedingly anxious at night, when he did not appear. The marquis had become deeply attached to Emile. While he did not express himself nearly so strongly as he felt, he could no longer do without his society. He was immensely grateful to the noble-hearted boy whom his cold and melancholy nature had never repelled, and who, after obstinately persisting in reading his heart, had religiously kept the promise he had made of being a devoted son to him. This dismal old man, who was reputed to be such a terrible bore, and who, through discouragement, exaggerated in his own mind his involuntary faults, had found a friend when he made up his mind that there was nothing left for him to do but to die alone and unregretted. Emile had almost reconciled him to life, and sometimes he abandoned himself to a sweet illusion of paternity, when he saw that young man make himself at home in his house, share his dismal amusements, arrange his library, turn the leaves of his books, ride his horses, and sometimes even attend to matters of business for him, in order to relieve him of a particularly tedious duty; in short, take his ease under his roof and in his company, as if nature and the habit of a whole lifetime had neutralized the difference in their ages and their tastes.
The old man had continued for a long time to have occasional fits of distrust, and he had tried to make Emile fit in with his curious misanthropic theories, but he had not succeeded. After he had passed three days trying to persuade himself that idleness or curiosity had brought him this new guest, with the thirst for serious conversation and philosophical discussion, when he saw that amiable face, expansive and ingenuous in its fearless expression, appear in his solitude, he felt that hope appeared with it, and he surprised himself in the very act of loving, at the risk of being more unhappy than ever when doubt returned. In a word, after passing his whole life, especially the last twenty years, in guarding against emotions which he deemed himself incapable of sharing, he fell under their dominion, and could not endure the thought of being deprived of them.
He wandered, in feverish agitation, through all the avenues of his park, waited at all the gates, sighing with every step, starting at the slightest sound, and at last, depressed beyond measure by that silence and that solitude, heart-broken at the thought that Emile was contending with a sorrow which he could not lighten, he went out into the road and turned in the direction of Gargilesse, still hoping to see a black horse coming toward him.
It very rarely happened that Monsieur de Boisguilbault ventured to make such a rash sortie from the park, and he could not make up his mind to follow the beaten roads lest he should fall in with some face with which he was not familiar. So he walked as the crow flies, through the fields, without, however, losing sight of the road on which Emile was likely to be. He walked slowly, at a pace which might have been characterized as uncertain, but which the prudence and circumspection which marked his most trivial movements made firmer than it appeared.
As he approached an arm of the stream which, after leaving his park, followed a winding course through the valley, he heard an axe, and the sound of several voices attracted his attention. It was his custom always to turn away from any sound which indicated the presence of man, and to make a détour to avoid meeting anybody, but he had something on his mind which led him at this time to adopt the contrary course. He had a passion for trees, if we may so express it, and did not allow his tenants to cut any down unless they were entirely dead. Therefore, the sound of an axe made him prick up his ears, and he could not resist the desire to go and see with his own eyes if his orders were disobeyed.