I have repeated the name of his office because he
was so very much more a Commissary than a man. The spirit of his
dignity had entered into him. He carried his corporation as if it
were something official. Whenever he insulted a common citizen it
seemed to him as if he were adroitly flattering the Government by a
side wind; in default of dignity he was brutal from an overweening
sense of duty. His office was a den, whence passers-by could hear
rude accents laying down, not the law, but the good pleasure of the
Commissary.
Six several times in the course of the day did M. Berthelini hurry
thither in quest of the requisite permission for his evening's
entertainment; six several times he found the official was abroad.
Leon Berthelini began to grow quite a familiar figure in the
streets of Castel-le-Gachis; he became a local celebrity, and was
pointed out as "the man who was looking for the Commissary." Idle
children attached themselves to his footsteps, and trotted after
him back and forward between the hotel and the office. Leon might
try as he liked; he might roll cigarettes, he might straddle, he
might cock his hat at a dozen different jaunty inclinations - the
part of Almaviva was, under the circumstances, difficult to play.
As he passed the market-place upon the seventh excursion the
Commissary was pointed out to him, where he stood, with his
waistcoat unbuttoned and his hands behind his back, to superintend
the sale and measurement of butter.
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