The Bachelors Read Online Free PDF Page A

of them was tempted to ask her, 'Let's see now, are you the intelligent one?'
    The 'love-birds' had two brothers. The elder, Octave, was at the time of their marriage a young man of twenty, who had just become an employee of Latty's Bank, of Paris, because he was a close friend of the chairman's son. The younger, Élie, was the most promising of all the Coëtquidans. He was studying political science, for which he was quite unsuited, since he disliked society and was always buried in his books and papers.
    His daughters married, the old Baron de Coëtquidan went back to his château at Trenel, near Saint-Pol-de-Léon. He had insisted, at the time of the weddings, that the Coantrés, in return for an allowance, should keep Élie with them until he got married, since he was so engrossed in his books and so well known as 'a bit of an eccentric' that he was considered incapable of looking after himself. M. de Coantré pulled a face, but was obliged to acquiesce. M. de Coëtquidan had chosen Angèle for this wedding present because she was to remain in Paris, where Élie had to stay because of his studies, whereas the Piagnes were going to live at Lorient.
    M. de Coëtquidan, who had married at the age of fifty-five, was now eighty. It was malevolence that kept him alive, for malevolence, like alcohol, is a preservative. After a certain age, every biting word uttered, every anonymous letter posted, every calumny spread abroad wins you another few months from the tomb, because it stimulates your vitality. This can also be seen among animals: a particularly cruel hen, a stubborn horse or a vicious dog will live longer than its fellows. M. de Coëtquidan was extremely pretentious; the way he said 'people like us' was enough to make you want to guillotine him on the spot. At Trenel he sank into the melancholy dotage of those without the prospect of constant promotion in the Legion of Honour to buttress their old age. He was wedded to an old copy of Tout-Paris which he covered with mysterious notes concerning all the families he knew. Wherever he opened it this sacred book provided food for profound reflection — just as the believer, wherever he opens the Gospel, is said to find an answer to what he seeks.
    M. de Coëtquidan's other activities were more humdrum. It was he who wielded the feather-duster, chopped the wood, lit the fire and did the cooking, for he had made himself so detested that no one would work for him. By increasing their wages, he might perhaps have kept his staff, but that would have meant surrender. Continually creating a desert around him, and persecuting the few who ventured into it, he reached a point where even the tradesmen refused to come up to the château. Nobody now called but the postman, who arrived panting and footsore, for M. de Coëtquidan had taken out a subscription to Le Temps with the sole intention of forcing this excellent man to walk sixteen kilometres daily from the post office to the château and back. Abandoned by the tradesmen, who were delighted to forgo his money at the thought of leaving him at death's door, M. de Coëtquidan lived on fruit from his orchard and biscuits and cakes which he had sent to him by the makers, and would have died of this régime had not Mme Angèle discovered it by chance and sent him a manservant, with enormous wages, who left forthwith because M. de Coëtquidan had given him orders and he only accepted requests. M. de Coëtquidan would have had to fall back on the biscuits if his other daughter, succumbing to the lure of martyrdom, had not come to live at Trenel. Food restored M. de Coëtquidan's faculties: he proceeded to paint a set of plates with the arms of all the provinces of France as they were in '89.
    Eventually the old rogue had a stroke, and died after three days.
    Five years later M. de Piagnes died, as a result of an accident in the arsenal at Lorient. Mme de Piagnes, a childless widow, went to live in Paris with her brother Octave, who had