After an exchange of courtesies Haudouin brought the Green Mare out into the yard. The Emperor expressed his admiration, and being moved by the colour green to bucolic reverie he added a few phrases regarding the simplicity of country customs, at the same time eyeing Mme. Haudouin’s corsage. In that farmyard heavy with the scent of dung she appeared to him a picture of robust grace, enriched with a hint of ready fecundity which quickened his pulses. And indeed she was still a good-looking farmer’s wife who scarcely showed her forty years. The Prefect was a man of ambition, and since he was also served by a penetrating intelligence he readily perceived what was passing through his Sovereign’s mind. Pretending to be fascinated by Haudouin’s conversation, he drew him a little to one side, and in order to gain further time promised him a seat on the Regional Council at the next election. The Emperor in the meantime was addressing himself to Mme. Haudouin, who in response to a suggestion thrown out so to speak at random, replied with the artlessness and modesty of the pure in heart:
“Sire, the moon is at the full.”
Baffled but nevertheless charmed by this evidence of her closeness to Nature, the Emperor resolved to reward her for having caught his fancy and accordingly endorsed the promise made by the Prefect to her husband. When he returned to his coach the people of Claquebue accorded him a magnificent ovation, subsequently lighting a large bonfire to which they consigned the rest of the old men. The site of this notable holocaust came to be known as the Champ-Brule, and the corn grew there exceptionally well.
Thenceforward Claquebue led a more healthy and vigorous life. The men ploughed deeper furrows, the women spiced their cookery with a nicer judgment, the youths chased the girls and each man prayed for the downfall of his neighbour. The Haudouin family set an example in all this which inspired widespread admiration. With a thrust of his shoulder, Haudouin drove the wall of his house as far as the road and installed a dining-room, equipped with a dinner-service and an extending table, which had the whole village gaping in astonishment. Since the Emperor’s gaze had rested on her bosom his wife no longer milked cows but kept a maidservant and did lace-work instead.
Haudouin, the official candidate, became a regional councillor and had no difficulty in also becoming Mayor of Claquebue. His business prospered greatly, and in consequence of the Imperial visit, the tale of which had spread throughout the region, he came to be regarded at the horse and cattle fairs as in some sort the official horse-coper. In matters under dispute he was appealed to as an arbitrator.
Alphonse, the eldest of the three Haudouin sons, derived no benefit from these changes since he had been conscripted for seven years military service. He was in a cavalry regiment, and little news was heard of him. The family looked to him to become a sergeant, but he had to re-enlist in order to do so. He said that the cavalry were not like the infantry, where anyone can win promotion.
Honore, the second son, fell in love with Adelaide Mouchet, a thin girl with dark eyes who came of a family notorious for its poverty. Although Haudouin strongly opposed the match, Honore stood firm, and the thunder of their disputes rattled the windows of Claquebue for two years. When he came of age Honore married his Adelaide and went to live with her in a neighbouring village where he hired himself out as a day-labourer. He refused to return to his father’s house until due apology had been made, and the good man was obliged to submit to this ignominy in order to spare himself the humiliation of seeing his son lead a life of squalor within half a league of Claquebue. Honore then resumed his proper calling of farmer and horse-trader under the paternal roof. He was an honest and lighthearted youth who knew his business but was as lacking in ambition as he was in guile: one might see at a glance that he would never become one of those horse-copers who breed green mares. His father was grieved by this but had nevertheless a weakness for the young man, who genuinely loved their trade. Mme. Haudouin, on the other hand, preferred Alphonse, the sergeant, because of his uniform and his free-and-easy manners. She sent him five francs every Easter and at the Feast of Saint-Martin, concealing the fact from her husband.
Despite their personal predilections, Haudouin and his wife lavished an especial care upon their youngest son,
Ferdinand. His father had sent him to the Imperial College at Saint-Alargelon. Not wishing him to enter his own business, he hoped to make him a veterinary surgeon. Ferdinand in his sixteenth year was a taciturn, pertinacious youth with a long, bony face and a narrow, sugar-loaf skull. FIis instructors thought well of him, but he was not loved by his schoolfellows, and it fell to him to be nicknamed “rubber-bum,” a chance which may suffice to cause a man for the rest of his life to hanker after public recognition, honours and money.
On a certain spring morning there occurred at the Hau-douins’ house a notable event of which at the time no one appreciated the true significance. Mme. Haudouin, while seated with her lace-work at the dining-room window, saw a young man enter the yard. He wore a floppy hat and he carried a painter’s paraphernalia on his back.
“I happened to be passing,” he said, “and so I thought I wmuld ask permission to have a look at your green mare. I should like to see what I can make of her.”
The maidservant showed him the way to the stable. He chucked her under the chin, as was still customary in those days, and she giggled, reminding him that he had come to see the mare.
“It really is green,” said the painter, studying it.
Being exceptionally endowed with imaginative sensibility, he thought at first of painting it red, but Haudouin came along while he was still considering the matter.
“If you want to paint my mare,” he said with his customary good sense, “paint her green. Otherwise no one will recognise her.”
The mare was led out into the pasture and the painter set to work. But in the course of the afternoon Mme. Haudouin, passing that way, espied a deserted easel. Investigating the matter further, she was shocked to find the painter helping the maidservant to her feet in the middle of a field of barley which was already grown high. She was justly incensed: the wretched girl ran risk enough of being put in the family way by the master of the house, without going to outsiders. The painter was sent about his business, his canvas was confiscated, and Mme. Haudouin resolved to keep a close eye on the servant’s figure. The picture which was destined to perpetuate the memory of the Green Alare was hung above the chimney-piece in the dining-room, between the portrait of the Emperor and that- of Canrobert.
Two years later the mare fell ill, wasted away for a month and then died. Haudouin’s youngest son was not yet sufficiently instructed in the veterinary science to be able to name the malady that had carried it off. Haudouin scarcely regretted the loss, since the animal had become a nuisance to him. Sightseers had continued to invade his stable, and when one is in politics one cannot refuse to exhibit one’s green mare even to persons of the most trifling consequence.
While his youngest son pursued his studies Haudouin methodically added to his fortune. He lent money on mortgage to the local farmersfas though he were'doing them a service, in a bluff and hearty‘manner which caused them to overlook the usurious rates'the charged. Asnhe grew older he felt a desire to enjoy his riches, but laboriously, as he had acquired them. He wanted his pleasures to have a specific money value, and in the name of self-indulgence he added the sum of thirty-five francs to his monthly budget. In spite of himself he so economised on this supplementary allowance that in the end he was obliged to devote the unexpended balance to the purchase of Government bonds. He was mortified by this but nothing could prevent it: each time he furnished himself with the modest sum needed to enable him to go to Valbuisson and pay his respects to a lady known as La Satinee, he ended by rewarding her with the improvisation of some small business transaction which profited them both. His real happiness lay in being rich and being known to be rich; and his greatest pleasure was to sit in front of his house and contemplate the thatched roof of the Malorets, which he could see five hundred yards away emerging from a cluster of trees. Between the two families there existed a hatred that was almost flawless, owing nothing to jealousy or to any difference of opinion. Never had a cross word been exchanged between them, or even a sharp one. The Haudouins had never sought to exploit the rumours current in Claquebue concerning the incestuous habits of the Maloret family. They uttered courteous salutations when they met, and did not even try to avoid speaking to one another. It was a very pure hatred which seemed to achieve its fulfilment in the mere fact of existing. All that happened was that now and then at mealtimes Haudouin would be plunged into meditation and would be heard to murmur to himself: “Those swine. .” All the family knew that he was referring to the Malorets.