Free The Catalans: A Novel by Patrick O'Brian

do not suppose you know much, my poor Alain, cooped up in that nasty laboratory with germs—very like a monk. I wish you had had a vocation; it would have suited you admirably well, and it might have been very valuable to have another cleric in the family. However, I dare say you had some knowledge of the state of affairs under the Third Republic.”
    “Yes. Politics stank.”
    “They were unclean. You should not have said ‘stank’ to me, Alain.”
    “I beg your pardon: unclean.”
    “But we are not concerned with judging them. Clean or unclean, they were intricate : and now they are just the same, only more intricate. Influence depends on a thousand combinations, ten thousand little points—the innumerable right contacts and relations, the always having been influential, the being respected by a great many people. Until this began, Xavier had all that. He was respected by a great many people, and the reason why he was respected was not only because of his money, or the family’s money, nor because of his clean hands—though that was important—but chiefly for his astuteness. He was known far beyond the region as an astute lawyer, excellent at a settlement out of court; an astute man of business, placing the family’s money to great advantage; and as an astute politician, able to manage and combine conflicting interests and to conduct the election campaigns to the admiration of all. It is their respect for his astuteness that enables him to get what he wants from Paris without paying too much for it—which increases their respect, of course. But what happens to his astuteness if he is taken in by a chit of a village girl and a family of impecunious grocers? Drawn into a marriage that would make even the simplest mountain peasant laugh? An immoral liaison with the girl would shock and displease many of his clients and some of his right-wing political associates; it would certainly damage him, but it would not greatly affect the majority of the electors: marriage with her would be totally different. Such a marriage! No: ridicule still kills in this country, and his reputation for astuteness and all his prestige would vanish directly in a great howl of derision. Politically he would sink like a stone. Already I don’t know how much harm has been done: six months ago he could appoint our deputy; now I am by no means sure that he could be certain of having a man elected to the departmental council. In six months’ time, if this goes on, they will be laughing in his face at a municipal meeting and making the sign of horns behind his back. Then where will we be? Where will Gaudérique’s appointment in Africa be? Will your people feel so sure of their laboratory’s subsidy?
    “But if I were to try to explain all these things to you there would never be an end.” She was growing hoarse, but she could not resist adding, “Just think of one single instance—Xavier’s interest with the right-wing, old-fashioned Church party: I have been a great help to him there, and I still am; but I could not uphold him for a moment, even the bishop could not, if he were to marry a divorced Protestant. Think of it: think of the Church influence lost. You know what it is, even in these miserable days, and even in an atheistic province like this. But there really will be no end if I go on, and my throat is hurting already from talking so much.”
    “You must try to come down to our base world, Alain,” she said a little later, pouring him out a glass of wine. “We must deal with things as they are.”
    Alain drank half his wine, and remained staring gravely at what was left. “Yes,” he said, nodding at the glass, “of course it is quite impossible. I only thought . . . This is very good rancio: is it ours?”
    “It is Xavier’s, from the Puig d’en Calbo. You know, Alain, if Xavier were to marry that girl, and she were to make him leave her the vineyard at the Puig d’en Calbo (which she certainly would try to do, to