It's barefaced
robbery, and though the peasant may kill himself with labor, he will soon
be left without even water to drink. Children indeed! No, no! There's
Antonin, of course, and for him we may just be able to provide. But I
assure you that I won't even make Antonin a peasant against his will! If
he takes to schooling and wishes to go to Paris, I shall tell him that
he's quite right, for Paris is nowadays the only chance for sturdy chaps
who want to make a fortune. So he will be at liberty to sell everything,
if he chooses, and try his luck there. The only thing that I regret is
that I didn't make the venture myself when there was still time."
Mathieu began to laugh. Was it not singular that he, a bourgeois with a
bachelor's degree and scientific attainments, should dream of coming back
to the soil, to the common mother of all labor and wealth, when this
peasant, sprung from peasants, cursed and insulted the earth, and hoped
that his son would altogether renounce it? Never had anything struck him
as more significant. It symbolized that disastrous exodus from the rural
districts towards the towns, an exodus which year by year increased,
unhinging the nation and reducing it to anaemia.
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