He had one day heard a peasant who did not know him say: "Ah! he's some rich fellow, that fat old gentleman there.

He's no cause to worry about his dinner!" This was a remark which stung him to the heart, for he considered it cruel mockery to be only a poor devil while possessing the bulk and contented gravity of a millionaire.

When he shaved on Sundays in front of a small five-sou looking-glass hanging from the fastening of a window, he would often think that in a dress coat and white tie he would cut a far better figure at the Sub-Prefect's than such or such a functionary of Plassans.
This peasant's son, who had grown sallow from business worries, and corpulent from a sedentary life, whose hateful passions were hidden beneath naturally placid features, really had that air of solemn imbecility which gives a man a position in an official salon.

People imagined that his wife held a rod over him, but they were mistaken.

He was as self-willed as a brute.