This country Figaro was once
a dyer, and now possessed about seven or eight thousand francs a year,
a pretty house on the slope of the hill, a plump little wife, and
robust health. For ten years he had had nothing to do but take care of
his wife and his garden, marry his daughter, play whist in the
evenings, keep the run of all the gossip in the neighborhood, meddle
with the elections, squabble with the large proprietors, and order
good dinners; or else trot along the embankment to find out what was
going on in Tours, torment the cure, and finally, by way of dramatic
entertainment, assist at the sale of lands in the neighborhood of his
vineyards. In short, he led the true Tourangian life,--the life of a
little country-townsman. He was, moreover, an important member of the
bourgeoisie,--a leader among the small proprietors, all of them
envious, jealous, delighted to catch up and retail gossip and
calumnies against the aristocracy; dragging things down to their own
level; and at war with all kinds of superiority, which they deposited
with the fine composure of ignorance. Monsieur Vernier--such was the
name of this great little man--was just finishing his breakfast, with
his wife and daughter on either side of him, when Gaudissart entered
the room through a window that looked out on the Loire and the Cher,
and lighted one of the gayest dining-rooms of that gay land.
"Is this Monsieur Vernier himself?" said the traveller, bending his
vertebral column with such grace that it seemed to be elastic.
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