A short distance away, the farmer himself, in despair but striving to retain his courage, watched the officers of the law who had taken their places at a table, and were preparing to begin the sale.
Monsieur Jarnouillard walked about, examining the different articles as they were brought from the house, and muttering with a shrug:
“Mon Dieu! what wretched stuff! I shall never get my money back. The wood is rotten; it will crumble to powder!”
Meanwhile Guillot approached his creditor, hat in hand, and said to him in a suppliant tone:
“Oh! monsieur, are you going to sell my house, too?”
“His house! that’s a pretty name for it! He calls this a house—a miserable hovel that will hardly hold together!”
“Such as it is, monsieur, it has sheltered me and my family; it came to me from my father, too, and I was fond of it.”
“What difference does all that make to me? It would have been better for me if it had come from the devil and had been built of hewn stone. Nobody’ll give anything for your hut.”
“If you don’t think anybody’ll give anything for it, monsieur, why do you have it sold?”
“Why? and what about the money you owe me? do you imagine I shall get it back from the sale of your furniture? Nice stuff, that is! You have taken me in, my good man; I am sold, trapped is the word.”