'I am not a peasant,' he told his son. 'I am not one of those men you see
portrayed at the theatre in Paris, who buries his gold in a sock and never buys
a bonnet for his wife. I am a businessman who understands the modern world.'
From upstairs, Jacques could still hear his father's business murmur. It was
true that he was not a peasant, though his parents had been; true too, that he
was not the miser of the popular imagination, though partly because the amount
of gold he had to hoard was not great enough: forty years of dealing had brought
him a modest return, and perhaps, thought Jacques, this was why his father had
forbidden him to study any further. From the age of thirteen, he had been set to
work, looking after the properties, mending roofs and fences, clearing trees
while his father travelled to Quimper and Vannes to cultivate new acquaintances.
Jacques looked back to his table, not wanting to waste the light of the wax
candle he had begged from Tante Mathilde in place of the dingy ox-tallow which
was all his father would allow him. He took the blade and began, very carefully,
to make a shallow incision in the neck of a frog he had pinned, through its
splayed feet, to the untreated wood. He had never attempted the operation before
and was anxious not to damage what lay beneath the green skin, moist from the
saline in which he had kept it. The frog was on its front, and Jacques's blade
travelled smoothly up over the top of its head and stopped between the bulging
eyes. He then cut two semicircular flaps to join at the nape of the neck and
pushed back the pouches of peeled skin, with their pearls of eyes. Beneath his
delicate touch he could see now that there was little in the way of protection
for the exposed brain. He took out a magnifying glass.
What is a frog's fury? he thought, as he gazed at the tiny thinking organ his
knife had exposed. It was beautiful. What does it feel for its spawn or its mate
or the flash of water over its skin? The brain of an amphibian is a poor thing,
the Curé had warned him; he promised that soon he would acquire the head of a
cow from the slaughterhouse, and then they would have a more instructive time.
Yet Jacques was happy with his frog's brain. From the side of the table he took
two copper wires attached at the other end to a brass rod that ran through a
cork which was in turn used to seal a glass bottle coated inside and out with
foil.
'Jacques! Jacques! It's time for dinner. Come to the table!'
It was Tante Mathilde's voice; clearly Jacques had not heard the notary
depart. He set down the electrodes and blew out the candle, then crossed the
landing to the top of the almost-vertical wooden staircase and groped his way
down by the familiar indentations of the plaster wall. His grandmother came into
the parlour carrying a tureen of soup, which she placed on the table. Rebière
and his wife, known to Jacques as Tante Mathilde, were already sitting down.
Rebière drummed his knife impatiently on the wood while Grandmère ladled the
soup out with her shaking hand.
'Take a bowl out to . . .' Rebière jerked his head in the direction of the
door.
'Wait,' said Grand-mère. 'There's some rabbit, too.'
Rebière rolled his eyes with impatience as the old woman went out to the
scullery again and returned with a second bowl that she handed to Jacques. He
carried both dishes carefully to the door and took a lantern to light his way
out into the darkness, watching his feet on the shiny cobbles of the yard. At
the stable, he set down the food and pulled back the top half of the door; he
peered in by the light of the flame and felt his nostrils fill with a familiar
sensation.
'Olivier? Are you there? I've brought dinner. There's no bread again, but
there's soup and some rabbit. Olivier?'
There was a sudden noise from the horse, like the rumbling clatter of a laden
table being overturned, as she shifted in the stall.
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