"The gentleman who ate too many pears?"
"Yes, mamzelle. It isn't very large, but there's only the husband and wife; no children and no servants; Madame Jarnouillard does all the work. But people say they've got enough, that they're rich; and what makes 'em think so is that Monsieur Jarnouillard lends money to people who are hard up and are able to pay it back—who have chattels and land, as he says. If you haven't got those things, there's no danger of his accommodating you; and anyway he charges interest that makes you shudder!"
"The man's a usurer then, is he?"
"Faith! I can't say as to that. They say that he used to be a tradesman in Paris, with a shop on Quai des Lunettes. I don't know what kind of lunettes—spectacles—he sold, but he must have made a good thing out of it. They ain't liked hereabout, and yet people are very glad to have 'em here; because those who get into difficulty, who need money to pay their rent or to take up a note, go to see Monsieur Jarnouillard, and he lends 'em the money—provided he can make a pretty profit out of it. Still, they're people who don't put on any airs, and the Lord only knows what they live on. The wife buys one mutton cutlet for herself and her husband. Bless me! but they're miserly! they eat crusts of bread, old roosters, and fish the husband catches in the Marne; in fact, he's been arrested twice for fishing without a permit. In summer he tries to catch birds with birdlime; they eat whatever he catches; but when they dine out they near kill themselves with indigestion; and besides that, Madame Droguet's maid tells me that they stuff their pockets with things from the table. Ha! ha! that gives them a royal feast the next day. But you understand that all I'm telling you is just gossip; I don't bear those people any grudge; I don't want anything of 'em.—Tutu—tutu—turlututu."
"Ah! my dear Agathe!" said Honorine in a low tone, "people are no more generous in the country than in the city, and he would be bitterly disappointed who should go into the country to live, in the hope of finding purer morals, more agreeable relations, more sincere friendships, and more obliging neighbors! No, men are the same everywhere; but their failings, their vices show more plainly in small places than in the large cities. The only thing one can be certain of having in the country is pure air."
"There's Guillot's house!" said the gardener, halting in front of a wretched hovel of earth and stones, the roof of which was in such bad condition in several places that when it rained the occupants were but partially sheltered.
There was a small garden, hardly separated from the fields by a scrubby hedge of elder-bushes, at the right of the hovel, and in it a few stunted trees shading cabbages and potatoes. Everything was growing haphazard in the little enclosure, which seemed in as wretched a condition as the house.
The two women entered a large room, which was not floored either with flags or boards. It was used as a kitchen, and also as a bedroom, for there was a dilapidated cot in one corner. On the walls, innocent of paper, hung divers kitchen utensils; there were also shelves, upon which were dishes, mainly earthen bowls.
A large walnut buffet, several chairs without seats, some stools and a table composed all the furniture of that room, which, moreover, was not very clean and presented an appearance of wretchedness that made the heart ache.
And yet that hovel sheltered a whole family: Guillot the farmer, his wife and four children, the eldest of whom was only eleven, while the youngest still lay in his mother's arms, and another, two years old, still dragged at her skirts.