Hugo will not describe the two women's obedience in his own voice. He transcribes a letter Baptistine writes on 16 December to Madame the Vicomtess de Boischevron, the friend of her childhood. Magloire has stripped the whitewashed paper. Under it are beams and a ceiling once painted and gilded. The drawing-room, empty of furniture, is used for spreading linen. Baptistine's chamber has Telemachus being knighted by Minerva, Romans, a whole train. Magloire will revarnish it into a museum. Two attic pier-tables would cost two crowns of six francs each to regild. Better to give the money to the poor; they are ugly besides. She would prefer a round table of mahogany.
She is always very happy. Her brother gives all he has to the poor and sick. They are cramped. The country is trying in winter. They are almost comfortably lighted and warmed, and those are great treats. The door is never fastened. Whoever chooses walks at once into his room. He fears nothing, even at night. That is his sort of bravery, he says. Last year he went alone into a country of robbers, was thought dead, and came back with Embrun's jewels, saying this is the way I have been robbed. She scolded him a little, only while the carriage made a noise so that no one might hear. At first she told herself no danger would stop him; he is terrible. Now she signals Magloire not to oppose him, carries Magloire off, prays, and falls asleep. If anything happened to him it would be the end of her. The devil may pass through; the good God dwells here. She still answers a royalist genealogy about the Faux family, sends love to Sylvanie, notes that she grows thinner every day, and in a postscript reports a five-year-old asking about knee-caps and a little brother dragging a broom and saying Hu.
Hugo says the two women mould themselves to the Bishop with that special feminine genius which comprehends the man better than he comprehends himself. He does grand things without seeming to suspect it. They tremble, but they let him alone. Magloire may remonstrate in advance, never at the time nor afterwards. At certain moments, without his mentioning it, they feel he is acting as a bishop, and they become two shadows in the house. If obedience consisted in disappearing, they disappeared. They no longer watch over him. They confide him to God. Baptistine has said her brother's end would prove her own. Magloire did not say this, but she knew it.
Coming Up in Chapter 10
Later than the letter, the town treats a former member of the Convention as almost a monster. He lives in a valley three-quarters of an hour from D, where the path has vanished under grass. The Bishop looks at a clump of trees and says there is a soul yonder which is lonely.
