It was perfect. Bataille was complimented, and went off with his box
on his back. They all agreed that the painter had great ability, and
if circumstances had been favorable would doubtless have been a great
artist.
Julien, by way of economy, had introduced great reforms which
necessitated making some changes. The old coachman had been made
gardener, Julien undertaking to drive himself, having sold the
carriage horses to avoid buying feed for them. But as it was necessary
to have some one to hold the horses when he and his wife got out of
the carriage, he had made a little cow tender named Marius into a
groom. Then in order to get some horses, he introduced a special
clause into the Couillards' and Martins' leases, by which they were
bound to supply a horse each, on a certain day every month, the date
to be fixed by him; and this would exempt them from their tribute of
poultry.
So the Couillards brought a big yellow horse, and the Martins a small
white animal with long, unclipped coat, and the two were harnessed up
together. Marius, buried in an old livery belonging to old Simon, led
the carriage up to the front door.
Julien, looking clean and brushed up, looked a little like his former
self; but his long beard gave him a common look in spite of all. He
looked over the horses, the carriage, and the little groom, and seemed
satisfied, the only really important thing to him being the newly
painted escutcheon.
The baroness came down leaning on her husband's arm and got into the
carriage. Then Jeanne appeared. She began to laugh at the horses,
saying that the white one was the son of the yellow horse; then,
perceiving Marius, his face buried under his hat with its cockade, his
nose alone preventing it from covering his face altogether, his hands
hidden in his long sleeves, and the tail of his coat forming a skirt
round his legs, his feet encased in immense shoes showing in a comical
manner beneath it, and then when he threw his head back so as to see,
and lifted up his leg to walk as if he were crossing a river, she
burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
The baron turned round, glanced at the little bewildered groom and he,
too, burst out laughing, calling to his wife: "Look at Ma-Ma-Marius!
Is he not comical? Heavens, how funny he looks!"
The baroness, looking out of the carriage window, was also convulsed,
so that the carriage shook on its springs.
But Julien, pale with anger, asked: "What makes you laugh like that?
Are you crazy?"
Jeanne, quite convulsed and unable to stop laughing, sat down on the
doorstep; the baron did the same, while, in the carriage, spasmodic
sneezes, a sort of constant chuckling, told that the baroness was
choking. Presently there was a motion beneath Marius' livery. He had,
doubtless, understood the joke, for he was shaking with laughter
beneath his hat.
Julien darted forward in exasperation. With a box on the ear he sent
the boy's hat flying across the lawn; then, turning toward his
father-in-law, he stammered in a voice trembling with rage: "It seems
to me that you should be the last to laugh. We should not be where we
are now if you had not wasted your money and ruined your property.
Whose fault is it if you are ruined?"