"Never, never shall this sergeant enter my house! It is abominable! A
quiet man like myself, who has never harmed any one, and who asks
nothing but peace!"
While I was speaking, Sorle, on her way to market, with her basket on
her arm, came down, and asked what was the matter.
"Listen, Madame Sorle," said Burguet to her; "be more reasonable than
your husband! I can understand his indignation, and yet for all that,
when a thing is inevitable we must submit to it. Frichard dislikes
you; he is secretary of the mayoralty; he distributes the billets for
quartering soldiers according to a list. Very well; he sends you
Sergeant Trubert, a violent, bad man, I allow, but he needs lodging as
well as the others. To everything which I have said in your favor,
Frichard has always replied: 'Moses is rich. He has sent away his boys
to escape conscription. He ought to pay for them.' The mayor, the
governor, everybody thinks he is right. So, you see, I tell you as a
friend, the more resistance you make, so much the more the sergeant
will affront you, and Frichard laugh at you, and there will be no help
for it. Be reasonable!"
I was still more angry on finding that I owed these misfortunes to
Frichard. I would have exclaimed, but my wife laid her hand on my arm,
and said:
"Let me speak, Moses. Monsieur Burguet is right, and I am much obliged
to him for telling us beforehand. Frichard has a spite against us.
Very well; he must pay for it all, and we will settle with him by and
by. Now, when is the sergeant coming?"
"At noon," replied Burguet.
"Very well," said my wife; "he has a right to lodging, fire, and
candles. We can't dispute that; but Frichard shall pay for it all."
She was pale, and I listened, for I saw that she was right.
"Be quiet, Moses," she said to me afterward, "and don't say a word; let
me manage it."
"This is what I had to say to you," said Burguet, "it is an abominable
trick of Frichard's. I will see, by and by, if it is possible to rid
you of the sergeant. Now I must go back to my post."
Sorle had just started for the market. Burguet pressed my hand, and as
the peasants grew more impatient in their cries, I had to go back to my
scales.
I was full of rage. I sold that day more than two hundred francs'
worth of iron, but my indignation against Frichard, and my fear of the
sergeant, took away all pleasure in anything. I might have sold ten
times more without feeling any better.
"Ah! the rascal!" I said to myself; "he gives me no rest. I shall have
no peace in this city."
As the clock struck twelve the market closed, and people went away by
the French gate. I shut up my shop and went home, thinking to myself:
"Now I shall be nothing in my own house; this Trubert is going to rule
everything. He will look down upon us as if we were Germans or
Spaniards."
I was in despair. But in the midst of my despair on the staircase, I
suddenly perceived an odor of good things from the kitchen, and I went
up in surprise, for I smelt fish and roast, as if it were a feast day.