The Outsider

Like many of his countrymen, the sere old peasant Pierre Talabard nursed a deep and lifelong distrust of all that exists beyond the confines of his 37-acre farm in the Allier, 200 miles south of Paris. He worked the rich soil on which he was born 63 years ago, hid what little money he possessed under his mattress, and left the farm only rarely, to stand in silence while his ruddy-cheeked wife Louise haggled with some neighbor over the sale of a family calf. Pierre's distrust of the outside world was in no way softened when, three years ago, his half-witted daughter Marie-Helene went to a dance in the nearby village and got herself with child. "L'idiote," the neighbors used to cry as Marie walked her fatherless baby girl along the country roads.

Nevertheless, it was a stranger, a shiftless young wayfarer named Jean Sigot, who offered Farmer Talabard a way out of his difficulty. A jobless 19-year-old who had scraped acquaintance with Marie at another dance,. Jean magnanimously offered to marry Marie in return for work and a permanent home at the Talabard farm. Old Pierre leaped at the offer, and the pair were married in April 1952.

Conference. The marriage was something short of idyllic. At the village cafe, Jean was soon telling new friends that Pierre was a stingy old miser and Marie a homely, stupid wench whom he had only married in order to get her farm. Farmer Pierre shook his fist and swore that his son-in-law was a lazy good-for-nothing. "Someday," replied Jean, "I'm going to walk out on you, but before I go, I'm going to burn down your filthy farm."

Two months later, at harvest time when Jean announced that he had got a job as a dishwasher in a summer resort hotel at Vichy, twelve miles away, and would take Marie with him, Pierre called his wife and daughter into conference. "We have to remove him," the old peasant announced. Out of a cupboard he took an old revolver. But the cartridges were duds. "Let's stab him in the belly," Pierre suggested. It was finally agreed that the deed should be done with a shotgun, and that Marie-Helene should take the blame--for, as Louise told her husband: "You are too busy with the harvest, and I have to look after the cows."

Confession. On the night of Aug. 8, Jean got back late from Vichy and crept into bed with his wife. Pierre entered their room, gripping his shotgun. Marie slipped out of bed. Pierre fired. The first shot fractured Jean's shoulder. "You're crazy!" Jean shouted, but a second shot silenced him forever. Next day, Pierre bicycled to the local barber shop, got a shave and a haircut, then went to the police station and reported calmly that his daughter had just killed her husband. The gendarmes, when they got to the Talabard farm, handed Marie the shotgun and asked her to fire it. She did not even know how to hold it. Wearily, Louise confessed the truth: it was Pierre who had done the shooting.

Last week a jury of farmers in the town of Moulins heard Pierre tell how his victim was "no good for our farm ... He ate too much and worked too little." They were very understanding when it came to the verdict: ten years for mother Louise, as the brain of the plot, seven for Pierre for doing the shooting, and five years for poor, simple-minded Marie-Helene.

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