two o'clock in the afternoon, Mathieu
set out for the mill. But certain complications, a tragic drama, which
he could not possibly foresee, awaited him there. For years now a
stubborn struggle had been going on between Lepailleur and his wife with
respect to Antonin. While the farmer had grown more and more exasperated
with his son's idleness and life of low debauchery in Paris, the latter
had supported her boy with all the obstinacy of an illiterate woman,
who was possessed of a blind faith in his fine handwriting, and felt
convinced that if he did not succeed in life it was simply because he
was refused the money necessary for that purpose. In spite of her sordid
avarice in some matters, the old woman continued bleeding herself for
her son, and even robbed the house, promptly thrusting out her claws and
setting her teeth ready to bite whenever she was caught in the act, and
had to defend some twenty-franc piece or other, which she had been on
the point of sending away. And each time the battle began afresh, to
such a point indeed that it seemed as if the shaky old mill would some
day end by falling on their heads.

Then, all at once, Antonin, a perfect wreck at thirty-six years of age,
fell seriously ill. Lepailleur forthwith declared that if the scamp had
the audacity to come home he would pitch him over the wheel into the
water. Antonin, however, had no desire to return home; he held the
country in horror and feared, too, that his father might chain him up
like a dog. So his mother placed him with some people of Batignolles,
paying for his board and for the attendance of a doctor of the district.
This had been going on for three months or so, and every fortnight La
Lepailleur went to see her son. She had done so the previous Thursday,
and on the Sunday evening she received a telegram summoning her to
Batignolles again. Thus, on the morning of the day when Mathieu repaired
to the mill, she had once more gone to Paris after a frightful quarrel
with her husband, who asked if their good-for-nothing son ever meant to
cease fooling them and spending their money, when he had not the courage
even to turn a spit of earth.

Alone in the mill that morning Lepailleur did not cease storming. At the
slightest provocation he would have hammered his plough to pieces, or
have rushed, axe in hand, and mad with hatred, on the old wheel by way
of avenging his misfortunes. When he saw Mathieu come in he believed in
some act of bravado,