If he had been a real genius, rather than
a mere lively variation of the commonplace--a chicken that could never
burst its shell, a bird which could not quite break into song--he might
have made his biographer guess hard and futilely, as to what he would do
after having seen his wife's arms around the neck of another man than
himself--a man little more than a manual labourer, while he, Jean Jacques
Barbille, had come of the people of the Old Regime. As it was, this
magnate of St. Saviour's, who yesterday posed so sympathetically and
effectively in the Court at Vilray as a figure of note, did the quite
obvious thing: he determined to kill the master-carpenter from Laplatte.
There was no genius in that. When, from under the spreading beech-tree,
Jean Jacques saw his wife footing it back to her house with a light,
wayward step; when he watched the master-carpenter vault over a stone
fence five feet high with a smile of triumph mingled with doubt on his
face, he was too stunned at first to move or speak. If a sledge-hammer
strikes you on the skull, though your skull is of such a hardness that it
does not break, still the shock numbs activity for awhile, at any rate.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73