David Séchard—Kolb

David Séchard—Kolb is a relationship of earned trust between David and the Alsatian worker who serves in his household and printing business. Its meaning is made concrete in a series of practical choices: Kolb works hard without demanding more than his expenses, gives up savings when David’s family is in danger, and helps conceal David when creditors threaten his freedom. The bond stands against a surrounding world in which commercial and legal dealings turn obligations into instruments of pressure.

Work and the Measure of Trust

Kolb’s loyalty first appears in the contrast between his conduct and that of Cérizet, a young worker David had trained and employed. Eve Séchard points out the difference through the men’s handling of the printing business: Kolb walks twenty leagues in a day, spends fifteen or twenty sous, and brings back seven, eight, or sometimes nine francs from selling sheets, asking only to have his expenses repaid. She insists that even the offer of a thousand écus would not persuade him to interfere with a press or inspect the materials David discards. Cérizet, by contrast, gathers those discarded materials and examines them while working for David’s commercial rivals.

David initially refuses to believe that Cérizet’s conduct signals disloyalty. He remembers having formed the young man and taught him the trade, and responds with the humility of a master who feels responsible for him. Kolb’s steadfastness is therefore not simply one item in a household account: it throws into relief David’s difficulty in recognizing betrayal, and the difference between a relationship grounded in dependable conduct and one sustained by the history David wishes to believe in. When financial troubles deepen, David says that Kolb is like himself. His confidence is personal as well as practical: he trusts Kolb with the information and decisions on which the household’s safety depends.

The Household’s Financial Crisis

The relationship becomes more consequential against a background of dwindling resources. David had already faced a painful choice when Lucien needed money: he had only two thousand francs left, half of which was indispensable to keep the printing house operating. Giving Lucien a thousand francs meant risking the couple’s bread and security. Eve agreed to work to replace the sum. This earlier strain shows the household’s resources were limited well before David’s later attempt to keep his invention and business out of creditors’ hands.

By the time David is preparing for the possibility of debt imprisonment, the household is reduced to Marion, Kolb, Eve Séchard, and Eve’s mother. David tells Petit-Claud that the end of Cérizet’s lease of the printing business had brought on their small financial troubles. He also explains that he is working not for his own comfort but for Lucien and his wife. Petit-Claud warns him to trust no one casually, even urging him to test Kolb. David does not retreat from his confidence: he agrees to the test, but continues to declare that Kolb is as trustworthy as himself.

That trust is soon answered with a concrete sacrifice. Marion and Kolb come to the couple with eleven hundred francs in savings between them, offering the money because they believe it could not be in better hands than Eve’s. David tells Kolb to deposit a thousand francs with the lawyer and obtain a receipt, while the household keeps the remaining hundred. The detail matters: the gift is not an abstract expression of affection but nearly all of the two workers’ saved funds, placed at risk during a crisis in which David’s creditors are pressing their claims.

Concealment and Escape

As the pursuit intensifies, David instructs Kolb to say nothing about his plans, his absences, or anything he might bring back. He anticipates that others may try to buy Kolb’s information, naming sums as high as thousands or tens of thousands of francs. Kolb answers with a pledge of silence. David also assigns him errands involving herbs that must be gathered without being seen, tying Kolb’s reliability to the secrecy surrounding David’s work and movements.

When an order denouncing debt imprisonment arrives, David tells his family that from the next day he will be able to leave only at night. The prospect of hiding feels dishonorable to Eve and her mother, while Kolb and Marion are alarmed for a master they have long regarded as too guileless to defend himself. Kolb proposes using himself as a decoy: he will leave with David and draw the watchers after them, giving Eve an opportunity to reach Basine Clerget without being followed. The plan turns loyalty into coordinated action, with each member of the household accepting a distinct risk.

David and Kolb hear the pursuers’ whistles as they leave and lead them toward the lower part of the town, to the Porte Palet, where horses are hired. Kolb takes David up behind him and urges him to hold fast. He mocks the watchers as they follow, while the horse carries the two men into the countryside quickly enough to prevent the pursuers from following or discovering their destination. Kolb’s physical protection and quick execution of the plan make possible David’s disappearance; this is not merely a promise of allegiance but a dangerous intervention carried out in the open.

Significance of the Bond

The contrast between Kolb’s conduct and the financial machinery directed against David gives their relationship its larger significance. The account of the returned bill details charges and commissions added to a protested debt, showing how a claim can grow through procedures that are formally legal yet burdensome to the debtor. Against this system of calculated extraction, Kolb and Marion freely entrust their savings to the household, and Kolb risks his own safety to shield David. Their help is not presented as a commercial bargain: it rests on confidence, service, and reciprocal care.

David’s later willingness to accept an arrangement with the Cointet brothers, even though they will benefit from his invention, is consistent with his stated desire for peace and a life without the pursuit of gain. The surviving account does not make Kolb a negotiator in that settlement, but it places the relationship within the household whose security David is trying to recover. Across the crisis, Kolb remains the person David names as trustworthy, and he proves that trust through labor, money, silence, and the ride that carries David beyond the watchers’ reach.