Putois | Page 4

news of Putois. 'Dearest, didn't you tell him that I was
expecting him?'--'Yes! but he is strange, odd.'--'Oh, I know that kind. I

know your Putois by heart. But there is no workman so crazy as to
refuse to come to work at Montplaisir. My house is known, I think.
Putois must obey my orders, and quickly, dearest. It will be sufficient
to tell me where he lives; I will go and find him myself.' My mother
answered that she did not know where Putois lived, that no one knew
his house, that he was without hearth or home. 'I have not seen him
again, Madame. I believe he is hiding.' What better could she say?"
Madame Cornouiller heard her distrustfully; she suspected her of
misleading, of removing Putois from inquiry, for fear of losing him or
making him ask more. And she thought her too selfish. "Many
judgments accepted by the world that history has sanctioned are as well
founded as that."--"That is true," said Pauline.--"What is true?" asked
Zoe, half asleep.--"That the judgments of history are often false. I
remember, papa, that you said one day: 'Madame Roland was very
ingenuous to appeal to the impartiality of posterity, and not perceive
that, if her contemporaries were ill-natured monkeys, their posterity
would be also composed of ill-natured monkeys.'"--"Pauline," said
Mademoiselle Zoe severely, "what connection is there between the
story of Putois and this that you are telling us?"--"A very great one, my
aunt."--"I do not grasp it."--Monsieur Bergeret, who was not opposed
to digressions, answered his daughter: "If all injustices were finally
redressed in the world, one would never have imagined another for
these adjustments. How do you expect posterity to pass righteous
judgment on the dead? How question them in the shades to which they
have taken flight? As soon as we are able to be just to them we forget
them. But can one ever be just? And what is justice? Madame
Cornouiller, at least, was finally obliged to recognize that my mother
had not deceived her and that Putois was not to be found. However, she
did not give up trying to find him. She asked all her relatives, friends,
neighbors, servants, and tradesmen if they knew Putois, Only two or
three answered that they had never heard of him. For the most part they
believed they had seen him. 'I have heard that name,' said the cook, 'but
I cannot recall his face.'--'Putois! I must know him,' said the
street-sweeper, scratching his ear. 'But I cannot tell you who it is.' The
most precise description came from Monsieur Blaise, receiver of taxes,
who said that he had employed Putois to cut wood in his yard, from the

19th to the 28d of October, the year of the comet. One morning,
Madame Cornouiller, out of breath, dropped into my father's office. 'I
have seen Putois. Ah! I have seen him.'--'You believe it?'--'I am sure.
He was passing close by Monsieur Tenchant's wall. Then he turned into
the Rue des Abbesses, walking quickly. I lost him.'--'Was it really
he?'--'Without a doubt. A man of fifty, thin, bent, the air of a vagabond,
a dirty blouse.'--'It is true,'" said my father, "'that this description could
apply to Putois.'--'You see! Besides, I called him. I cried: "Putois!" and
he turned around.'--'That is the method,' said my father, 'that they
employ to assure themselves of the identity of evil-doers that they are
hunting for.'--'I told you that it was he! I know how to find him, your
Putois. Very well! He has a bad face. You had been very careless, you
and your wife, to employ him. I understand physiognomy, and though I
only saw his back, I could swear that he is a robber, and perhaps an
assassin. The rims of his ears are flat, and that is a sign that never
fails.'--'Ah! you noticed that the rims of his ears were flat?'--'Nothing
escapes me. My dear Monsieur Bergeret, if you do not wish to be
assassinated with your wife and your children, do not let Putois come
into your house again. Take my advice: have all your locks
changed.'--Well, a few days afterward, it happened that Madame
Cornouiller had three melons stolen from her vegetable garden. The
robber not having been found, she suspected Putois. The gendarmes
were called to Montplaisir, and their report confirmed the suspicions of
Madame Cornouiller. Bands of marauders were ravaging the gardens of
the countryside. But this time the robbery seemed to have been
committed by one man, and with singular dexterity. No trace of
anything broken, no footprints in the damp earth. The robber could be
no one but Putois. That was the opinion of the corporal, who knew all
about Putois, and had tried hard to put his hand on that bird. The