Read Online The Catalans: A Novel by Patrick O'Brian - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Patrick O'Brian
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long talk with Dominique and Thérèse Pou-naou. She had not consulted me, of course: and of course all she accomplished was to put ideas into their heads and to set them on. They may not be very intelligent (though they are certainly cleverer than your Aunt Marinette) but they know enough to come in out of the rain, or to try to pick up a piece of gold if they see it lying in the gutter. And of course, her stupid, interfering visit came back to Xavier’s ears almost as soon as she had left.
“It was some time after that, quite a long time, that Xavier asked me whether I remembered asking him about the relations of a lawyer and his female client. I said that I did, and I knew that he was going to say something horribly unpleasant; but then he said ‘There is nothing in the code of the profession, nothing whatsoever, that prevents a lawyer from marrying his client.’ At that horrible word marriage, Alain, I really thought I was going to faint. I have never done so except once, at the Roubaix station when I was a girl, but I remembered the feeling again immediately. But, however, I sat down, and it passed off.”
Alain was about to make some remark, or at least a sympathetic noise, when she went on. “In another man it might just have been a rash fling, almost meaningless—but you know Xavier. He had been vexed, no doubt, by the family meeting that day. We were all gathered here, and he must have seen the others arriving: even if he did not see them, he must have heard them. The house sounded as if it had been filled with parrots. Thomas began screeching in Catalan, as he always does when he is excited, and I went out into the garden, and, my dear, the noise was terrible, even there. It frightened the cats.”
Aunt Margot had lived for fifty years among the Catalans, but like a true Frenchwoman she spoke no word of their language, remained impenetrably sealed against its daily influence; and she had raised the standard of spoken French in the family to a high pitch of correctness. Only her brother-in-law Thomas—the backward Thomas Menjé-Pé—still lapsed into barbarisms in her presence, and even, under great stress, into his native idiom.
“Upon my word,” said Alain, shifting uneasily in his chair, “I must say that I sympathize with Xavier for being angry. As far as I can gather from the others, they all seem to have had a go at him at one time or another, and every single one of them has had the same brilliant idea of attacking the girl, assuring him that she is practically a whore and that he is a fool. No: I would not be at all surprised if he did not marry her out of hand, merely to vex his relations. And after all, would it be such an unmixed disaster, this marriage?”
“Oh, Alain! You have quite a good brain, and yet you can ask me a question like that. Would you be pleased? Were you pleased when first you heard of it?”
“Well, no; I was not. In fact, I thought it was a grave misfortune. I still think it would be most undesirable, but I do not quite see it in the same awful light as you do. Tell me, Aunt Margot, just what is so disastrous about it? This is supposed to be a democratic country—and it is the most truly democratic that I have ever seen, even counting England and America—but even if it were not, we Roiges are not so very different from the Fajals. After all, my great-grandfather worked his vineyards just like any other peasant, and probably he fished in the same boat as Madeleine Pou-naou’s great-grandfather. I dare say they were cousins.”
“Oh dear, Alain: I am really too old to be attacked now with fine romantic theories. What you say is very noble and quite true; but it has no bearing on the matter in hand, has it, my dear? So you will forgive me if I do not tell you how I know that two and two make four. There is just one aspect of the disaster that I will touch upon: you know something about Xavier’s political interests in the region, do you not?”
“Yes.”
“I
“It was some time after that, quite a long time, that Xavier asked me whether I remembered asking him about the relations of a lawyer and his female client. I said that I did, and I knew that he was going to say something horribly unpleasant; but then he said ‘There is nothing in the code of the profession, nothing whatsoever, that prevents a lawyer from marrying his client.’ At that horrible word marriage, Alain, I really thought I was going to faint. I have never done so except once, at the Roubaix station when I was a girl, but I remembered the feeling again immediately. But, however, I sat down, and it passed off.”
Alain was about to make some remark, or at least a sympathetic noise, when she went on. “In another man it might just have been a rash fling, almost meaningless—but you know Xavier. He had been vexed, no doubt, by the family meeting that day. We were all gathered here, and he must have seen the others arriving: even if he did not see them, he must have heard them. The house sounded as if it had been filled with parrots. Thomas began screeching in Catalan, as he always does when he is excited, and I went out into the garden, and, my dear, the noise was terrible, even there. It frightened the cats.”
Aunt Margot had lived for fifty years among the Catalans, but like a true Frenchwoman she spoke no word of their language, remained impenetrably sealed against its daily influence; and she had raised the standard of spoken French in the family to a high pitch of correctness. Only her brother-in-law Thomas—the backward Thomas Menjé-Pé—still lapsed into barbarisms in her presence, and even, under great stress, into his native idiom.
“Upon my word,” said Alain, shifting uneasily in his chair, “I must say that I sympathize with Xavier for being angry. As far as I can gather from the others, they all seem to have had a go at him at one time or another, and every single one of them has had the same brilliant idea of attacking the girl, assuring him that she is practically a whore and that he is a fool. No: I would not be at all surprised if he did not marry her out of hand, merely to vex his relations. And after all, would it be such an unmixed disaster, this marriage?”
“Oh, Alain! You have quite a good brain, and yet you can ask me a question like that. Would you be pleased? Were you pleased when first you heard of it?”
“Well, no; I was not. In fact, I thought it was a grave misfortune. I still think it would be most undesirable, but I do not quite see it in the same awful light as you do. Tell me, Aunt Margot, just what is so disastrous about it? This is supposed to be a democratic country—and it is the most truly democratic that I have ever seen, even counting England and America—but even if it were not, we Roiges are not so very different from the Fajals. After all, my great-grandfather worked his vineyards just like any other peasant, and probably he fished in the same boat as Madeleine Pou-naou’s great-grandfather. I dare say they were cousins.”
“Oh dear, Alain: I am really too old to be attacked now with fine romantic theories. What you say is very noble and quite true; but it has no bearing on the matter in hand, has it, my dear? So you will forgive me if I do not tell you how I know that two and two make four. There is just one aspect of the disaster that I will touch upon: you know something about Xavier’s political interests in the region, do you not?”
“Yes.”
“I
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