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SUMS DEPOSITED WITH LAFFITTE
On the other hand, he remained as simple as on the first
day. He had gray hair, a serious eye, the sunburned complexion
of a laborer, the thoughtful visage of a philosopher.
He habitually wore a hat with a wide brim, and a long coat
of coarse cloth, buttoned to the chin. He fulfilled his duties
as mayor; but, with that exception, he lived in solitude.
He spoke to but few people.
He avoided polite attentions; he escaped quickly; he smiled
to relieve himself of the necessity of talking; he gave, in order
to get rid of the necessity for smiling, The women said of him,
"What a good-natured bear!"
His pleasure consisted in strolling in the fields.
He always took his meals alone, with an open book before him,
which he read.
He had a well-selected little library.
He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.
In proportion as leisure came to him with fortune, he seemed
to take advantage of it to cultivate his mind.
It had been observed that, ever since his arrival at M. sur
M.. his language had grown more polished, more choice, and more
gentle with every passing year.
He liked to carry a gun with him on his strolls, but he rarely
made use of it. When he did happen to do so, his shooting was
something so infallible as to inspire terror.
He never killed an inoffensive animal. He never shot at a
little bird.
Although he was no longer young, it was thought that he was
still prodigiously strong.
He offered his assistance to any one who was in need of it,
lifted a horse, released a wheel clogged in the mud, or stopped
a runaway bull by the horns.
He always had his pockets full of money when he went out;
but they were empty on his return. When he passed through a village,
the ragged brats ran joyously after him, and surrounded him like
a swarm of gnats.
It was thought that he must, in the past, have lived a country
life, since he knew all sorts of useful secrets, which he taught
to the peasants.
He taught them how to destroy scurf on wheat, by sprinkling
it and the granary and inundating the cracks in the floor with
a solution of common salt; and how to chase away weevils by hanging
up orviot in bloom everywhere, on the walls and the ceilings,
among the grass and in the houses.
He had "recipes" for exterminating from a field,
blight, tares, foxtail, and all parasitic growths which destroy
the wheat. He defended a rabbit warren against rats, simply by
the odor of a guinea-pig which he placed in it.
One day he saw some country people busily engaged in pulling
up nettles; he examined the plants, which were uprooted and already
dried, and said:
"They are dead.
Nevertheless, it would be a good thing to know how to make
use of them.
When the nettle is young, the leaf makes an excellent vegetable;
when it is older, it has filaments and fibres like hemp and flax.
Nettle cloth is as good as linen cloth. Chopped up, nettles
are good for poultry; pounded, they are good for horned cattle.
The seed of the nettle, mixed with fodder, gives gloss to
the hair of animals; the root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful
yellow coloring-matter. Moreover, it is an excellent hay, which
can be cut twice.
And what is required for the nettle?
A little soil, no care, no culture.
Only the seed falls as it is ripe, and it is difficult to
collect it.
That is all. With the exercise of a little care, the nettle
could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful.
It is exterminated.
How many men resemble the nettle!"
He added, after a pause:
"Remember this, my friends:
there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are
only bad cultivators."
The children loved him because he knew how to make charming
little trifles of straw and cocoanuts.
When he saw the door of a church hung in black, he entered:
he sought out funerals as other men seek christenings.
Widowhood and the grief of others attracted him, because of
his great gentleness; he mingled with the friends clad in mourning,
with families dressed in black, with the priests groaning around
a coffin. He seemed to like to give to his thoughts for text these
funereal psalmodies filled with the vision of the other world.
With his eyes fixed on heaven, he listened with a sort of
aspiration towards all the mysteries of the infinite, those sad
voices which sing on the verge of the obscure abyss of death.
He performed a multitude of good actions, concealing his agency
in them as a man conceals himself because of evil actions.
He penetrated houses privately, at night; he ascended staircases
furtively. A poor wretch on returning to his attic would find
that his door had been opened, sometimes even forced, during his
absence. The poor man made a clamor over it:
some malefactor had been there! He entered, and the first
thing he beheld was a piece of gold lying forgotten on some piece
of furniture.
The "malefactor" who had been there was Father Madeleine.
He was affable and sad.
The people said:
"There is a rich man who has not a haughty air.
There is a happy man who has not a contented air."
Some people maintained that he was a mysterious person, and
that no one ever entered his chamber, which was a regular anchorite's
cell, furnished with winged hour-glasses and enlivened by cross-bones
and skulls of dead men!
This was much talked of, so that one of the elegant and malicious
young women of M. sur M. came to him one day, and asked:
"Monsieur le Maire, pray show us your chamber. It is
said to be a grotto."
He smiled, and introduced them instantly into this "grotto."
They were well punished for their curiosity. The room was
very simply furnished in mahogany, which was rather ugly, like
all furniture of that sort, and hung with paper worth twelve sous.
They could see nothing remarkable about it, except two candlesticks
of antique pattern which stood on the chimney-piece and appeared
to be silver, "for they were hall-marked," an observation
full of the type of wit of petty towns.
Nevertheless, people continued to say that no one ever got
into the room, and that it was a hermit's cave, a mysterious retreat,
a hole, a tomb.
It was also whispered about that he had "immense"
sums deposited with Laffitte, with this peculiar feature, that
they were always at his immediate disposal, so that, it was added,
M. Madeleine could make his appearance at Laffitte's any morning,
sign a receipt, and carry off his two or three millions in ten
minutes.
In reality, "these two or three millions" were reducible,
as we have said, to six hundred and thirty or forty thousand francs.
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