The Devils Pool | Page 8

to be able to
put his hand on the one that suits him."
"True, father: there are some good girls in our village. There's Louise
and Sylvaine and Claudie and Marguerite--any one you please, in fact."
"Softly, softly, my boy, all those girls are too young or too poor--or too
pretty; for we must think of that, too, my son. A pretty woman isn't
always as steady as a plainer one."
"Do you want me to take an ugly one, pray?" said Germain, a little
disturbed.
"No, not ugly, for you will have other children by her, and there's
nothing so sad as to have ugly, puny, unhealthy children. But a woman
still in her prime, in good health and neither ugly nor pretty, would do
your business nicely."
"It is easy to see," said Germain, smiling rather sadly, "that to get such
a one as you want we must have her made to order; especially as you
don't want her to be poor, and rich wives aren't easy to get, especially
for a widower."
"Suppose she was a widow herself, Germain? what do you say to a
widow without children, and a snug little property?"

"I don't know of any just now in our parish."
"Nor do I, but there are other places."
"You have some one in view, father; so tell me at once who it is."

IV
GERMAIN, THE CUNNING PLOUGHMAN
"Yes, I have some one in view," replied Père Maurice. "It's one
Léonard, widow of one Guérin, who lives at Fourche."
"I don't know the woman or the place," replied Germain, resigned, but
becoming more and more depressed.
"Her name is Catherine, like your deceased wife's."
"Catherine? Yes, I shall enjoy having to say that name: Catherine! And
yet, if I can't love her as well as I loved the other, it will cause me more
pain than pleasure, for it will remind me of her too often."
"I tell you that you will love her: she's a good creature, a woman with a
big heart; I haven't seen her for a long time, she wasn't a bad-looking
girl then; but she is no longer young, she is thirty-two. She belongs to a
good family, all fine people, and she has eight or ten thousand francs in
land which she would be glad to sell, and buy other land where she
goes to live; for she, too, is thinking of marrying again, and I know that,
if her disposition should suit you, she wouldn't think you a bad match."
"So you have arranged it all?"
"Yes, subject to the judgment of you two; and that is what you must ask
each other after you are acquainted. The woman's father is a distant
relation of mine and has been a very close friend. You know him, don't
you--Père Léonard?"

"Yes, I have seen him talking with you at the fairs, and at the last one
you breakfasted together: is this what you were talking about at such
length?"
"To be sure; he watched you selling your cattle and thought you did the
business very well, that you were a fine-appearing fellow, that you
seemed active and shrewd; and when I told him all that you are and
how well you have behaved to us during the eight years we've lived and
worked together, without ever an angry or discontented word, he took it
into his head that you must marry his daughter; and the plan suits me,
too, I confess, considering the good reputation she has, the integrity of
her family, and what I know about their circumstances."
"I see, Père Maurice, that you think a little about worldly goods."
"Of course I think about them. Don't you?"
"I will think about them, if you choose, to please you; but you know
that, for my part, I never trouble myself about what is or is not coming
to me in our profits. I don't understand about making a division, and my
head isn't good for such things. I know about the land and cattle and
horses and seed and fodder and threshing. As for sheep and vines and
gardening, the niceties of farming, and small profits, all that, you know,
is your son's business, and I don't interfere much in it. As for money,
my memory is short, and I prefer to yield everything rather than dispute
about thine and mine. I should be afraid of making a mistake and
claiming what is not due me, and if matters were not simple and clear, I
should never find my way through them."
"So much the worse, my son, and that's why I would like you to have a
wife with brains to take my place when I am no longer here. You have
never been willing to look