Perine's presence had a double aspect. The loneliness of the position
was so difficult for a man of his temperament to support, that he
welcomed it at times as a distraction, and these exercises of the
strange ingenuity of brain which she possessed, at the cost, as it
seemed, of all other intelligences, would very often interest and amuse
him. On the other hand she was quite as valuable as a grievance. If he
had no other fault to find with his wife, he could always blame her for
suffering the idiot girl to hang about the place, and the relief of this
was enormous. On the present occasion he contemplated her broad back
with displeasure.
"Wretched creature! There she sits, and will sit till Marie comes back;
I wonder what she thinks would happen to her if she were to look round?
Lucky for me if she pictures some terrible fate. What sort of confused
nonsense is running through her head now? Soup and Marie take a
prominent place, I wager. So precious hard up does one become in this
rat's hole, that I make her my problem as she makes the soup hers, poor
wretch! Yet, my excellent friend, Jean Didier, I would counsel you to
keep your compassion for yourself, for, believe me, you want it at least
as much. As much? Rather, a hundred times more! For she--she knows
nothing of the blessings she has missed, while I--Heavens, I know too
well! To be cooped up here, to see no one but Marie and this idiot; to
be aware that at any moment any thing, the merest trifle, might betray
me to death, or at least transportation to New California,--was ever man
so unhappy in this world!"
Jean, who had a turn for the melodramatic, tugged despairingly with both
hands at his hair, Perine, meanwhile, intent upon the soup, bent forward
and stirred it.
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