The Money Master, Volume 2.

The narrative resumes thirteen years later in a rural parish, centering on Jean Jacques Barbille, a resourceful but vain local entrepreneur who runs mills, farms, a sawmill and other businesses while cultivating a self-fashioned philosophical persona. Neighbors and officials, including the Clerk of the Court and a visiting judge, debate his successes, temperament, and unstable domestic life with his spirited Spanish wife, Carmen, and their adored child. The story unfolds episodically through community observation and courtroom reminiscence, exploring themes of ambition, social reputation, practical kindness, and the tension between grand ideas and limited human insight.