At the Clerambaults no one minded him very much.  Madame Clerambault was so easy-going that she rather liked being pushed about in this way, and as for the children, they knew that these scoldings were sweetened by little presents; so they pocketed the presents and let the rest go by.

The conduct of Leo Camus towards his brother-in-law had varied with time.  When his sister had married Clerambault, Camus had not hesitated to find fault with the match; an unknown poet did not seem to him “serious” enough.  Poetry—­unknown poetry—­is a pretext for not working; when one is “known,” of course that is quite another thing; Camus held Hugo in high esteem, and could even recite verses from the “Chatiments,” or from Auguste Barbier.  They were “known,” you see, and that made all the difference....  Just at this time Clerambault himself became “known,” Camus read about him one day in his favourite paper, and after that he consented to read Clerambault’s poems.  He did not understand them, but he bore them no ill will on that account.  He liked to call himself old-fashioned, it made him feel superior, and there are many in the world like him, who pride themselves on their lack of comprehension.  For we must all plume ourselves as we can; some of us on what we have, others on what we have not.

Camus was willing to admit that Clerambault could write.  He knew something of the art himself,—­and his respect for his brother-in-law increased in proportion to the “puffs” he read in the papers, and he liked to chat with him.  He had always appreciated his affectionate kind-heartedness, though he never said so, and what pleased also in this great poet, for great he was now, was his manifest incapacity, and practical ignorance of business matters; on this ground Camus was his superior, and did not hesitate to show it.  Clerambault had a simple-hearted confidence in his fellow-man, and nothing could have been better suited to Camus’ aggressive pessimism, which it kept in working order.  The greater part of his visits was spent in reducing Clerambault’s illusions to fragments, but they had as many lives as a cat, and every time he came it had to be done over again.  This irritated Camus, but secretly pleased him for he needed a pretext constantly renewed to think the world bad, and men a set of imbeciles.  Above all he had no mercy on politicians; this Government employee hated Governments, though he would have been puzzled to say what he would put in their places.  The only form of politics that he understood was opposition.  He suffered from a spoiled life and thwarted nature.  He was a peasant’s son and born to raise grapes, or else to exercise his authoritative instincts over the field labourers, like a watch-dog.  Unfortunately, diseases of the vines interfered and also the pride of a quill-driver; the family moved to town, and now he would have felt it a derogation to return to his real nature, which was too much atrophied, even if he had wished it.  Not having found his true place in society, he blamed the social order, serving it, as do millions of functionaries, like a bad servant, an underhand enemy.