This evening we remained longer than usual in the kitchen. I helped Marianne to make up her accounts. She did not succeed in getting them straight. I have noticed that, like all trusted persons, she pinches here, and steals there, all that she can. She even has tricks that astonish me; but she has to make her accounts square with them. Sometimes she gets lost in her figures, which embarrasses her greatly with Madame, who is very quick to find out anything wrong in them. Joseph is becoming a little more human with us. Now, from time to time, he condescends to speak to me. This evening, for instance, he did not go as usual to see the sacristan, his intimate friend. And, while Marianne and I were working, he read the "Libre Parole." That is his newspaper. He does not admit that any other is fit to read. I have noticed that several times, while reading, he looked at me with a new expression in his eyes.
The reading finished, Joseph saw fit to tell me what his political opinions are. He is weary of the republic, which is ruining and disgracing him. He wants a sword.
"As long as we do not have a sword, and a very red one, there will be nothing done," said he.
He is for religion ... because ... in short ... well ... he is for religion.
"Until religion shall have been restored in France, as we used to have it; until everybody is obliged to go to mass and to confession,—there will be nothing done, my God!"
He has hung up in his harness-room portraits of the pope and of Drumont; in his chamber, that of Déroulède; in the little seed-room those of Guérin and General Mercier,—terrible fellows, patriots, real Frenchmen! He preciously collects all the anti-Jewish songs, all the colored portraits of the generals, all the caricatures of the circumcised. For Joseph is violently anti-Semitic. He belongs to all the religious, military, and patriotic societies of the department. He is a member of the "Anti-Semitic Youth" of Rouen, a member of the "Anti-Jewish Old Age" of Louviers, and a member also of an infinite number of groups and sub-groups, such as the "National Cudgel," the "Norman Alarm-Bell," the "Bayados du Vexin," etc. When he speaks of the Jews, there are sinister gleams in his eyes, and his gestures show bloodthirsty ferocity. And he never goes to town without a club.
"As long as there is a Jew left in France, there is nothing done."
And he adds:
"Ah! my God! if I were in Paris, I would kill and burn and gut these cursed sheenies. There is no danger that the traitors will come to live at Mesnil-Roy. They know very well what they are about, these mercenaries!"