During the time I was writing the notes of my journal, I was also
scrutinizing the joiner.
The excesses of his youth and the labour of his manhood have deeply
marked his face; his hair is thin and gray, his shoulders stooping,
his legs shrunken and slightly bent. There seems a sort of weight in
his whole being. His very features have an expression of sorrow and
despondency. He answered my questions by monosyllables, and like a
man who wishes to avoid conversation. From whence is this dejection,
when one would think he had all he could wish for? I should like to
know!
_Ten o'clock_.--Michael is just gone down stairs to look for a tool
he has forgotten. I have at last succeeded in drawing from him the
secret of his and Genevieve's sorrow. Their son Robert is the cause
of it.
Not that he has turned out ill after all their care--not that he is
idle or dissipated; but both were in hopes he would never leave them
any more. The presence of the young man was to have renewed and made
glad their lives once more; his mother counted the days, his father
prepared everything to receive their dear associate in their toils,
and at the moment when they were thus about to be repaid for all
their sacrifices, Robert had suddenly informed them that he had just
engaged himself to a contractor at Versailles.
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