Page 280 - les-miserables

as he mounted, throve, invitations rained down upon him.
‘Society’ claimed him for its own. The prim little drawing-
rooms on M. sur M., which, of course, had at first been
closed to the artisan, opened both leaves of their folding-
doors to the millionnaire. They made a thousand advances
to him. He refused.
This time the good gossips had no trouble. ‘He is an ig-
norant man, of no education. No one knows where he came
from. He would not know how to behave in society. It has
not been absolutely proved that he knows how to read.’
When they saw him making money, they said, ‘He is a
man of business.’ When they saw him scattering his mon-
ey about, they said, ‘He is an ambitious man.’ When he
was seen to decline honors, they said, ‘He is an adventur-
er.’ When they saw him repulse society, they said, ‘He is a
brute.’
In 1820, five years after his arrival in M. sur M., the
services which he had rendered to the district were so daz-
zling, the opinion of the whole country round about was so
unanimous, that the King again appointed him mayor of
the town. He again declined; but the prefect resisted his re-
fusal, all the notabilities of the place came to implore him,
the people in the street besought him; the urging was so
vigorous that he ended by accepting. It was noticed that the
thing which seemed chiefly to bring him to a decision was
the almost irritated apostrophe addressed to him by an old
woman of the people, who called to him from her thresh-
old, in an angry way: ‘A good mayor is a useful thing. Is he
drawing back before the good which he can do?’

280 Les Miserables