Séraphin Poudrier's life had changed considerably. Now that he was worth a fair amount on paper and in cash, was it wise to keep it all at home? Once upon a time the little purse represented to him a measurement of happiness; nowadays it weighed heavily on his soul. He found it a nuisance. The secret it contained, and the disaster it could cause if discovered, increased Séraphin's anxiety. He felt he was being spied on. He felt he was being observed. He was afraid of thieves. He was afraid of fire. He could die suddenly. At the silent but inevitable approach of nightfall especially, he was overcome by a terror. As the shadows filled the house, his torment assumed the characteristics of an incurable disease. He would wake up in a sweat, and would grope his way to the three sacks of oats. He would take the purse back to bed with him like a child, then, pressing it to his heart, would try to go back to sleep.

In the morning the illness would begin again, growing ever greater around him. At one point he thought he stared madness in the face. A curse weighed on his life, as forcefully as his passion had engulfed Donalda for a year and a day.

He remembered the springtimes of the past ten years, when he had made loans of between two and five hundred dollars amounting to two or three thousand dollars in total. This year, nothing. What did that mean? The month of May was coming to a close and no borrowers had turned up yet.

"Have they begun to avoid me, the old whingers?" he thought.

His intuition was rarely wrong. One Sunday after Mass he met his famously perennial debtor, Siméon Destreilles, who had owed him a thousand dollars for five years at ten percent interest. But as Destreilles had just inherited from one of his aunts, he was talking of repaying Poudrier the thousand dollars plus all interest to date.

"I'm not in any hurry. Take your time," Séraphin had said to him.

"This has dragged on long enough. I would like to pay you," Destreilles had answered.
All week the miser didn't leave the house, watching out for this awful debtor who wanted to repay his debts, but who fortunately never appeared.

"I hope the scoundrel doesn't come later. If he does, I'll see him coming and hide."

He tormented himself. He looked for a cure for all his seemingly increasing misfortunes. Would he find something that would put an end to his suffering? And he took refuge in his sin, more deeply than ever, like a drunkard extending his burning lips to cheap alcohol that will make him delirious. The closer he got to the sound of money, the more he suffered. He wanted to keep his money beside him always, closer than ever, nourishment for his metallic soul; but at the same time he wanted to eliminate the worry it caused. What hell! The slightest sound, around the house or in the distant fields, threw him into an impasse of contradictory ideas. Then he would tiptoe to the half open door, and after looking outside to satisfy himself that he wasn't in any danger, he would shut himself up once more in the kitchen, pacing and talking out loud, and trembling to see himself so rich yet so unhappy.

One time, one last time, the vision of the dead woman appeared before him.

"Ah, my Donalda," he said, "she was very useful. Without knowing it she protected my money. With her in the house I didn't worry. Now …."

And he felt the weight of the leather purse, heavier than ever. Where could he hide it? Was there nowhere on earth a place of perfect peace, an invisible spot, where he could rest his pain and enjoy his passion? For days and days this thought plagued him. What hell!

At last he made an important decision. At night he would sleep with the purse underneath him; during the day, if he were working around the outhouses, he would leave the four thousand seven hundred and fifty seven dollars in a sack of oats upstairs. If he had to leave the house he would take the money with him. Wasn't this the best thing to do? But he was still troubled. However much he didn't want to dwell upon his problems, it was too much for him.

"The gossip-mongers must have said something," he often thought, "and now the whole parish knows that I keep all my money here."

Why had Mathias' eldest son said him the other day, 'Aren't you being a bit stupid, M. Poudrier, taking your money out of the construction company?'? "Yes, why?"

And why had storekeeper Lacour, speaking to the smallholders but avoiding his, Poudrier's, eye, uttered these telling words, 'It's better to keep your money around the house. In other people's hands, these days you never know.'? "Yes, why?"

And he tried to remember what people he had met, what he had heard. Was everybody in the region talking about his money?

One night he felt a warm hand slide gently under the flannel blanket, a hand that suddenly grabbed hold of the leather purse. Almost at the same time he heard the sound of a man running down the stairs.

"My money!" cried Séraphin in a terrible voice, leaping out of bed as though he wanted to cut someone's throat.

Now he was trembling, like Donalda before she died. Confused by fear he banged against an old suitcase. Stumbling around in the attic, it was all he could do to light a candle. With shaking lips he repeated endlessly in a barely audible voice, "My money, my money …. m..m..m..my money!" He had difficulty breathing.

With candle in hand, he walked like a madman around this room where Donalda had died. His shadow moved over the walls, sometimes even ahead of him, as though another miser was helping him look for the money. Reaching the bed, he noticed the purse on the floor where it had fallen when he was asleep. A sigh of relief and joy escaped from his breast. In order to recover from such a shock, he sat down for a moment on the side of the bed. He heard the clock strike two. Then he tried to go back to sleep after tying the purse strings round his right wrist, lying face down. At half past three, unable to close his eyes, he decided to get up.

With great care he hid the purse in one of the sacks of oats. Not being hungry he didn't know what to do, so he went to sit outside on the doorstep. Dawn was heralding the day over the summit of the mountain. The breeze was gently blowing pockets of mist over the river. Stretched like a cloth between the four points of the compass, silence filled the space, and despite the pleasure that this morning in May promised, things weighed heavily on Séraphin Poudrier. Was he going to end up losing sleep because of this infuriating money? Was he going to end up living a life of terror and working in a state of exhaustion? Would he end up dying because of this gold which had cost him so much hard work, physical suffering, sacrifices and worries?

The miser sank into his thoughts while the dawn rose at last over the fields of flowers. Suddenly the first song of a blackbird was heard, and the pastoral symphony unwound its rhythms of light and sound over the plains. Under the morning sun the rapids, shrouded in a silver dust, still carried masses of logs, and you could hear the terrible crash from the bottom of the waterfall, and the distant rumble of wagons on the stony ground. The water was in spate, submerging the low ground and snapping the tops off the alders which the wind carried from one bank to the other. At one point it looked as though the river would engulf the bridge, especially as the logs kept knocking against its weak supports and piles.

The sunlight fell on the green pastures, so warm that it seemed like the height of summer. Poudrier didn't notice such richness. He didn't understand the beauty freely bestowed by God on all living things. Wearily, he went back inside. He was hungry, but he didn't light the stove. He made do with eating the rest of the cold soup with two buckwheat pancakes, and drank a large cup of water.

The sun obstinately continued to light up the kitchen.

"I'm really late," said Séraphin.

And he went off to milk the cows near the gate. He patted them, felt their flanks to see how thin they were. He found however that the two Jerseys were in good shape.

"What fine cows," he thought. "They've already brought me quite a bit, and they're going to earn more for me this summer."

These words did not take the red haired man into account. He was just counting the money that the animals represented. Their calves were most sought after. Their milk was rich, and the dairy paid him an excellent price. He worked out that the two young cows would make money for ten more years.

"I wouldn't sell these two for five hundred dollars," he said. "Especially as each of them will give me a fine calf every spring. They're thoroughbreds."

And he let the animals into the field. Leaning on the fence with his straw hat stuck on the back of his head, he stared vacantly at the grazing animals with gently swaying tails, reaching out for the fresh grass.

"These two Jerseys are the two finest cows in the parish", he repeated on his way to the kitchen to prepare the milk.

Séraphin didn't always take the milk to the dairy himself. Usually he watched out for Alexis and gave him the two churns. On his return his cousin brought him a piece of card on which the dairyman had written the weight of fat. Every month the dairy settled up with Séraphin. This way Poudrier saved time and wear and tear on his horse and cart. And it didn't put Alexis out at all, for he always gave in with good grace to all the wishes and whims of the miser, especially since Donalda's death, believing that Séraphin was suffering and very depressed.
But this morning, contrary to habit, Alexis didn't come.

"Is he ill?" Séraphin asked himself. "Has he already passed without me seeing him? Or maybe there's been an accident?"

He waited till half past eight. His cousin's horse never appeared over the hill. Finally he decided to take the milk himself. When the cart was ready he loaded the two churns, went to get the leather purse from one of the sacks of oats, stuck it inside his trousers with the strings tied firmly to his braces, and climbed aboard.

The weather was hot. As he proceeded through the marsh in the ravine, an army of mosquitoes attacked Séraphin and his horse with a fury that reminded him of the hard times of colonisation.

"Good grief!" cried the miser. "Won't you leave me alone?"

As a result the horse stopped completely. And Séraphin tried to squash the mosquitoes by desperately waving his straw hat.