No one suspected that Petitbidois, behind those drooped eyelids, was revolving in an atmosphere of crowded harems. He was regarded merely as an eccentric employee of indifferent merit, and his post of deputy chief clerk was the highest he would ever reach. Well aware of this, he made it a rule never to show any zeal, except in special circumstances. It is true that in these cases his zeal was clothed with a spirit of vengeance directed against the whole human race—this being his second favorite occupation. Petitbidois would have liked to hold the reins of power. This being beyond his sphere, he utilized the small driblets of authority which came his way for the purpose of casting ridicule upon established law and order, by making it act as a sort of unintelligent and possibly malicious Providence. “The world is an idiotic place,” he would say, “so why worry? Life is just a lottery. Let us leave the decision to chance.”
Applying this doctrine to the business of the State, he had devised a system which “gave absurdity an opportunity of doing good.”
In a little café to which he constantly resorted, accompanied by one Couzinet, a forwarding clerk who worked under him, he would stake the decisions he was to make in the Minister’s name on the result of a game of cards. This absurdity gave a needed spice to games in which there would otherwise have been nothing at stake, both players being poor men.
So Clochemerle was played for. At the café they reviewed the situation together. Petitbidois, while examining the file, had taken a few notes.
“What would you do?” he asked Couzinet.
“What would I do? Oh, that’s quite simple. I would send a minute to the prefect instructing him to publish a statement in the local Press which would restore the situation. And tell him to go and see the mayor and curé if necessary, on the spot.”
“Well, what I am going to do is this. I’m going to send along a body of constabulary to attend to those Clochemerle people. Shall we settle it at piquet—a thousand points?”
“A thousand—that’s rather a lot. It’s getting late.”
“Well, let’s say eight hundred. My deal. Cut.”
Petitbidois won. The fate of Clochemerle had been decided. Twenty-four hours later, instructions were on their way to the Prefect of the Rhône. Twenty-four hours after that troops commanded by a certain Captain Tardivaux were marching on Clochemerle for the purpose of restoring peace and order.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Drama
THERE IS NOTHING in human affairs that is a true subject for ridicule. Beneath comedy lies the ferment of tragedy; the farcical is but a cloak for coming catastrophe.
As regards the events which are now about to take place, the historian could give an independent account of them, using his own judgment. He would not hesitate to do so if he saw no better means of enlightening the reader. But there happens to be a man who had a profound knowledge of these events, having been brought into close contact with them through his employment under the town council. This man is the rural constable Cyprien Beausoleil, a citizen of Clochemerle, where he carried out duties tending to the preservation of peace, always with good humor, and frequently with happy results to himself. It seems to us preferable to borrow his account, which is certainly superior to any that we could ourselves draw up, seeing that we have here a genuine witness, and one who has, of course, the local touch and manner. This latter is very necessary in the present case. Here, then, is Cyprien Beausoleil’s account. Let us listen to him as he speaks of the past with the dispassionate outlook induced by lapse of time, which restores events to their true proportions, and relegates the participants to their erstwhile obscurity.
“So there was Adèle Torbayon, suddenly losing all shame, and going about everywhere sighing, with her eyes all puffed up as though some one had biffed her in the face, and looking as if she was thinking of things you could easily guess at, like they all do, women, when love sends ’em a bit queer. Yes, she’d kept quiet for a long time, that woman, just running her business, but now she went clean mad over Hippolyte Foncimagne. A man like Arthur might quite well see nothing in it, but you couldn’t take a man like me in, who knows all the women in the town and the country around here. A country policeman, what with his uniform and being able to make police reports, and pretty ready with his tongue and his hands too if necessary, and always loitering about without seeming to notice anything but watching all the time, it doesn’t take him long to know lots about all the women, and to have a hold over ’em too, only if it’s the price of keeping his mouth shut, seeing there’d be a hell of a row if a man who wasn’t taken in by appearances took it into his head one fine day to give the whole show away!
“I’ve had a good time, I can tell you I have, seeing I was always watching them, and I knew just the right moment to turn up. The right moment, I say, because that’s everything with those silly donkeys (but nice, though). For a man who has a taste for ’em and knows their ways, it’s easy enough to spot the moment when to come along by chance.
“Well, then, there was Adèle as though she’d suddenly gone clean off her nut, always stargazing, so she couldn’t hardly do her figures and you might almost leave the inn without paying. A woman who goes forgetting everything like that—so different from what you’re accustomed to see in this part of the country, where they’re always scraping and piling up the cash—well, you needn’t scratch your head over it any more: she’s fair caught, she’s got it badly, and no mistake about it. I’m speaking of course for women like Adèle and Judith, for example, women who mean business, hot stuff and no half measures about them, and not those simpering humbugs, those sort of icicles that you don’t want to have anything to do with, like some I know. Women aren’t made to work with their heads, that’s my opinion, and when they do, they’re no use for anything else. They’re always wanting in one thing, and that cleverness of theirs is out of place, that’s what I say! As for women, sir, I’ve talked to ’em, I’ve listened to ’em, I’ve held ’em, I’ve done what I liked with ’em—by the dozen. It’s bound to happen with all the opportunities a country policeman gets, when there’s that awful stormy weather that we get here in Beaujolais and they’re all alone at home. It seems to push ’em into your arms, in a manner of speaking. Now you take a tip from me, sir: if you like peace and quiet in your home, you choose a nice soft woman a bit heavy in her build, one of those plump ones who’re ready to faint when you touch them, and sometimes even when you only look as if you were going to. As far as noise and fuss goes, it’s better for ’em to give tongue at night than in the day, and better they should do it because they’re feeling happy than because they’re just spiteful and nasty. Take this as a general rule: you can tell a good woman by what she’s like in bed. You seldom find a woman who behaves well there who hasn’t got some good points about her. If her nerves get the better of her, just do your best with her: that chases all the devils away, better than Ponosse’s holy-water sprinkler does. She’s like a lamb after that, and agrees with you every time. Isn’t that right?
“Adèle, at the time I’m speaking of, was in fine form, up to her tricks with more than one, I can tell you. She’d only to let herself be seen around a little for all the men in Clochemerle to come along to the inn for drinks. In fact it was that, strictly speaking, that made Arthur a rich man. He’d only to let his wife be ogled by other men and he’d always have the place full, and that meant a fine lot of cash in the till every evening. He pretended not to see that Adèle got pawed about a little. It didn’t make him jealous, because he didn’t let her go out much, so it was impossible for her to get up to any real mischief. And what’s more, Arthur was a tall, strong fellow; he could hoist a full cask onto a cart without a grunt. And a little undersized fellow he could have held up at arm’s length. People kept the right side of him, I can tell you.
“Seeing Adèle all changed like that, so that she’d stopped all her joking with the customers, and made mistakes in giving them their change—giving them too much—that put me on her tracks. I’d always thought she was
a lively customer, that woman, for all those quiet ways of hers. But no one ever said she’d been a bad wife for Arthur. It doesn’t take long, you know, to go off the rails, that sort of thing doesn’t, for the clever girls, when it takes ’em that way, they always find the best way of tackling it, if it’s only five minutes here and five minutes there. Well, when I saw all that change that’d come over Adèle, I said to myself, ‘That Arthur,’ I said, ‘he’s for it now!’ And in some ways I was rather pleased about it, thinking of what was only fair. It isn’t fair now—is it?—when there are two or three real fine women in a town, for the same men to have ’em all to themselves, while the other fellows are only having a thin time with scraggy women with no juice about ’em at all! So there was me starting to look around for the lucky man who’d managed to get hold of Adèle. Well, it didn’t take me long to see what was up. I’d only to watch how Adèle gloated over Foncimagne with melting looks, and the way she had of smiling at him slowly and never noticing anyone else, and hanging over him when she served him and almost touching his head with her bosom, and forgetting everyone so she shouldn’t lose a crumb of that young rascal so long as he was there. Women in that sort of state give the whole show away without saying a word, twenty times a day: love comes oozing out of their bodies like sweat under their arms. And there’s no denying this either, all the men near them, it stirs ’em up properly as soon as ever they notice it. ‘Well,’ I said to myself when I saw that sort of funny business, ‘there’s going to be a bust-up one of those fine days!’ Not so much on account of Arthur, I thought, as Judith on the other side of the road, seeing that she’d never give away the tiniest crumb of any cake she had, and as for Hippolyte, he was her own pet sugarplum.
“Well, it happened just as I knew it would, and it didn’t take long either. That Judith, she tumbled to what was happening at once, and there she was, stuck in front of her door all day long, with black looks on her face, and shooting nasty glances over towards the inn, so that you were expecting her every minute to come over and tear the other woman’s eyes out. Then at last, what does she do but send over that Toumignon of hers to ask if anyone had seen her beloved Foncimagne. After that she starts shouting about in her shop that Adèle was this and Adèle was that, and that she’d go over one morning and tell her what a shameless woman she was. And she kicked up such a devil of a row that the whole town got to hear of it, and it came to Adèle’s ears and pretty near to Arthur’s too; and then he got suspicious and started saying that when people tried to steer clear of him he never let ’em escape, and that that was the end of them, and he brought up the old story of the man he’d done in with a blow of his fist when the fellow was coming back one night on foot from Villefranche. And so the end of it was that Hippolyte, who was being threatened by Judith and Arthur, both of ’em, got scared and went and took a room in the lower town, leaving Adèle all upset like as if she was a widow. And there was Judith opposite, crowing over her, and going off into Lyons twice a week instead of once, and doing more bicycling than ever. But Hippolyte, he sang a bit small. And Adèle couldn’t hide her red eyes. And the whole town was watching the affair and keeping an eye on every little dodge those three were up to.
“The whole truth came out later, just as I’d guessed it would, and it was Hippolyte’s fault. One day when he’d had a bit too much, he couldn’t help shouting around the place that he’d got off with Adèle. But it hardly ever happens that men don’t go giving details about those sort of things sooner or later. Once it’s over and done with, they’ve still got the pleasure of being able to go bragging about and making other men envious, that is, when the lady’s worth it, as Adèle certainly was.
“All that happened three weeks before the troops arrived at Clochemerle. During those weeks Adèle’d got over it a bit, but her pride had had a nasty knock. Then she got into bad habits again with Foncimagne, and she’d no difficulty in carrying on with them, seeing that she’d got him handy, in a room upstairs. With the back entrance through the yard he could slip in there at any time. As for bad habits, take it all in all, p’raps they’re what makes life more pleasant than anything else. And there’s this too—when it’s late in life that you get to want someone, you want ’em terrible. When you look at Adèle you can see pretty well what I mean. And Arthur, I don’t doubt, had slowed up the pace a lot, as always happens with married couples, seeing it’s always the same dish. If you’re forever eating turkey and truffles, you get to think no more of it than if it was only boiled beef. As soon as a woman settles down into the ordinary humdrum, it’s harder to get going with her. Just the mere notion of finding something new, even if it sometimes doesn’t amount to much, seeing that that sort of thing’s always pretty much the same, it sends us all of a dither—I’m speaking for us men—because for women it’s different. So long as you give ’em all they want, they aren’t curious about other men. But it very seldom happens that they do get all they want, in the long run, and they can’t stop worrying about it, because when all’s said and done they’ve nothing more important to think about. It was like that for Adèle, not a doubt of it. She was like a lovely mare that’s neyer had oats and then gorges herself with them, and then gets left without ’em. She was too starved, that woman was, day in day out. And then this happening when she was about thirty-five, think of the jolt it must have given her. It sent her queer, and you can’t be surprised.
“Then after that, as I was saying, the troops came along to Clochemerle, about a hundred lusty young fellers, like a match and tinder they were, seeing that all those strapping young devils were thinking of nothing but skirts and what was underneath ’em. All the women felt themselves being stared at and started thinking of all that vim and go that was lying idle and wasted in the cantonments. Now I’m going to tell you something about the way I look at certain things. When soldiers come along, it sends the women crazy. People say it’s the sight of the uniform that has that effect on ’em. But what I think is, it’s more seeing a big crowd of men as hale and hearty and active as you could wish, and looking at the women so as to stir them up properly—then there’s the ideas they’ve got about soldiers. Always eager for a little love, they think soldiers are, and quick in taking every advantage they can, without so much as by y’r leave. Yes, rape any minute, that’s what gets their blood up. I reckon it’s their great-great-grandmothers are responsible: they had some rough handling when the marauding armies passed through the countryside. So it’s easy to see how this idea of soldiers stirs up a whole crowd of feelings that are usually lying deep down inside ’em. There’s lots of women who’d be only too glad not to be asked any questions, so as to be saved regrets and heartburnings afterwards, and to be able to say, ‘It wasn’t my fault.’ That’s what always makes ’em dreamylike when they catch sight of soldiers, thinking how one of those daredevils might chuck himself at them suddenly, and only just imagining it makes ’em hot all over. When men and women start having a good look at each other, as happens when a regiment’s passing through, that means a lot of husbands given the go-by in those women’s heads! If everything that went on in their minds actually happened, there’d be a devil of a dirty mix-up all around—a regular merry-go-round it’d be, ain’t I right, sir?
“Well, as soon as I saw those hundred or so gay young dogs had settled themselves down at Clochemerle, it won’t be long before there are ructions, said I. There was everyone ogling each other, brazen or otherwise, men and women together, the women without saying exactly what they were thinking and the men saying it too plain, and much too loud to please the husbands, who don’t care two straws about their wives as a rule, but get to like them again as soon as anyone pays ’em a bit of attention—that’s a well-known fact. The women were feeling all set up already, merely knowing that the men were after them: some of the gloomy ones even started singing.
“All this meeting and mixing couldn’t go on and nothing further come of it. People began to talk and talk—saying much more than what had really happened, that’s
quite certain. If some fine, strapping wench got made up to more than the others or had more compliments than they did, the jealous creatures soon started calling her names and accusing her of dreadful behavior in dark corners in coach sheds and cellars. But all the same, there were some pretty lively goings-on everywhere, and sometimes it was the women who’d had nothing said about them. It isn’t always those who do the most talking that behave the worst, not by any means: with them it’s all words, while the ones who play fast and loose don’t need ’em. The women who got most talked about were the ones who were putting up N.C.O.’s, because it’s generally supposed that the stripe makes things more elegant and nice. That just shows how you find vanity poking in everywhere. People were saying all over Clochemerle that Marcel le Barodet wasn’t losing any opportunities with the young lieutenant she had there always shut up in her house. But you couldn’t blame her, really, seeing she was a war widow, and if you look at it one way it was a sort of compensation she’d well earned, and didn’t do nobody any harm and gave pleasure to two people. Judith’s shop was crammed full of men, and she’s always been one for stirring them up. But so far as she was concerned there was nothing doing: her Hippolyte would always be the handsomest man that ever was.
“The woman who really interested me most was Adèle, who’d got Captain Tardivaux staying in her house, and he was the most important person in the town when you think of the authority he’d got, and the novelty of him. After the shame of having been given the chuck by Foncimagne in a way that the whole town knew about it, Adèle wasn’t her usual self at all, and a captain arriving at the inn was the very thing to buck her up. A captain—well, that was rather fine, and decidedly better than Foncimagne, who was only just a lawyer’s clerk, not much to boast of. As for the captain, I saw right away what he was up to. He’d started by making for the Beaujolais Stores, like everyone does when they first come to the town. When he found it wasn’t that side of the street he came back again along the other, and then planted himself near the window as though he was a sort of Government department all to himself, but it was really to have a good stare at Adèle, and get busy with the matter in hand—no need to say what that was. He kept his eyes on her all the time, that dirty foreigner did. It shamed all the rest of us, because Adèle belongs to the town. If one of our women goes wrong with a man in the town, there’s nothing amiss in that: it only means another pair of men, one of ’em made happy and the other left in the lurch, and if fellows started being too severe when these things happen, how could they ever get opportunities for themselves in these small towns where everyone knows everybody else? But when you see one of our own women being unfaithful to her husband with a stranger—well, that’s hard to stomach. It makes us Clochemerle people look as if we was a lot of real milksops, just standing by while the hussy has a hell of a good time on her own.
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