good reason for objecting. Nothing would go right here if I were
absent. You may have seen in me the mother of a family watchful to
protect her young from the hawk that is hovering over them; a weighty
task, indeed, but harder still are the cares imposed upon me by
Monsieur de Mortsauf, whose constant cry, as he follows me about is,
'Where is Madame?' I am Jacques' tutor and Madeleine's governess; but
that is not all, I am bailiff and steward too. You will understand
what that means when you come to see, as you will, that the working of
an estate in these parts is the most fatiguing of all employments. We
get small returns in money; the farms are cultivated on shares, a
system which needs the closest supervision. We are obliged ourselves
to sell our own produce, our cattle and harvests of all kinds. Our
competitors in the markets are our own farmers, who meet consumers in
the wine-shops and determine prices by selling first. I should weary
you if I explained the many difficulties of agriculture in this
region. No matter what care I give to it, I cannot always prevent our
tenants from putting our manure upon their ground, I cannot be ever on
the watch lest they take advantage of us in the division of the crops;
neither can I always know the exact moment when sales should be made.
So, if you think of Monsieur de Mortsauf's defective memory, and the
difficulty you have seen me have in persuading him to attend to
business, you can understand the burden that is on my shoulders, and
the impossibility of my laying it down for a single day. If I were
absent we should be ruined. No one would obey Monsieur de Mortsauf. In
the first place his orders are conflicting; then no one likes him; he
finds incessant fault, and he is very domineering. Moreover, like all
men of feeble mind, he listens too readily to his inferiors. If I left
the house not a servant would be in it in a week's time. So you see I
am attached to Clochegourde as those leaden finals are to our roof. I
have no reserves with you. The whole country-side is still ignorant of