'Madame Paloque has not refused,' said he.

'No, certainly not,' interposed the latter. 'If you really stand in

need of me, that settles the matter. I dare say I am only committing

another piece of folly, and shall give myself a lot of trouble without

ever getting a word of thanks for it. Monsieur Paloque can tell you of

all the good works we've done without ever saying a word about them;

and you can see for yourself what they've brought us to. Well, well, we

can't change our natures, and I suppose we shall continue being dupes

to the end! You may count upon me, dear madame.'

The Paloques rose and Marthe took leave of them, thanking them for

their kindly interest. As she stopped for a moment on the landing to

liberate a flounce of her dress which had caught between the banisters

and the steps, she heard them talking with animation on the other side

of the door.

'They want to enlist you because they want to make use of you!' the

judge was saying in a bitter voice. 'You will be their beast of burden.'

'Of course!' replied his wife, 'but you may be sure that I'll make them

pay for it with the rest!'

When Marthe at last got back home, it was nearly eight o'clock. Mouret

had been waiting a whole half-hour for his dinner, and she was afraid

that there would be a terrible scene. But, when she had undressed and

come downstairs, she found her husband seated astride an overturned

chair, tranquilly beating a tattoo on the tablecloth with his fingers.

He was in a very teasing, bantering mood.

'Well,' said he, 'I had quite made up my mind that you were going to

spend the night in a confessional-box. Now that you have taken to going

to church, you had better give me notice when the priests invite you,

so that I can dine out.'

All through the dinner he indulged in witticisms of this kind, and

Marthe was more distressed by them than if he had openly stormed at

her. Two or three times she cast a glance at him as if beseeching him

to leave her in peace. But her looks only appeared to stimulate his

wit. Octave and Désirée laughed at it all, but Serge remained silent

and mentally took his mother's side. During dessert Rose came into the

room, looking quite scared, with the news that Monsieur Delangre had

called and wished to see madame.

'Hallo! have you begun to associate with the authorities as well?'

exclaimed Mouret in his sneering fashion.

Marthe went into the drawing-room to receive the mayor. With much

politeness the latter told her that he had felt unwilling to wait

until the morrow to congratulate her upon her charitable idea. Madame

Delangre was a little timid; she had done wrong in not immediately

promising her co-operation, and he had now come to say in her name that

she would be delighted to serve on the committee of lady patronesses

of the Home of the Virgin. As for himself, he would do all he could to

further the success of a scheme that would be so useful, so conducive

to morality.

Marthe accompanied him to the street-door; and there, as Rose held up

the lamp to light the footpath, the mayor added:

'Will you tell Abbé Faujas that I shall be glad to have a little

conversation with him, if he will kindly call on me? As he has had

experience of an establishment of this kind at Besançon, he will be

able to give me valuable information. I mean the town to pay for the

building, at any rate. Good-bye, dear madame. Give my best compliments

to Monsieur Mouret, whom I won't disturb.'

When Abbé Faujas came down with his mother at eight o'clock Mouret

merely said to him, with a laugh:

'So you walked my wife off to-day, eh? Well, don't spoil her for me too

much, and don't make a saint of her.'

Then he turned to his card-play. He was anxious to revenge himself on

Madame Faujas, who had defeated him three evenings in succession; and

so Marthe was left free to tell the Abbé of all she had done during

the day. She seemed full of child-like pleasure, and was still quite

excited with her afternoon. The priest made her repeat certain details,

and then promised to call on Monsieur Delangre, although he would have

preferred remaining altogether in the background.

'You did wrong to mention my name at all,' he said, when he saw her so

moved and yielding. 'But you are like all other women; the best causes

would be spoilt in your hands.'

She looked at him in surprise at this harsh exclamation, recoiling and

feeling that thrill of fear which she still occasionally experienced

in the presence of his cassock. It was as though iron hands were being

laid upon her shoulders and were forcing her into compliance with their

will. Every priest looks upon woman as an enemy; but when the Abbé saw

that she was hurt by his stern reproof he softened his voice and said:

'I think only of the success of your noble design. I am afraid that I

should compromise it if I myself were to appear in it. You know very

well that I am not a favourite in the town.'

Marthe, seeing him so humble, assured him that he was mistaken, and

that all the ladies had spoken of him in the highest terms. They knew

that he was supporting his mother, and that he led a quiet, retired

life worthy of the greatest praise. Then they talked over the great

scheme, dwelling on the smallest details of it, till eleven o'clock

struck. It was a delightful evening.

Mouret had caught a word or two of the talk every now and then between

the deals.

'And so,' he said, as they were going to bed, 'so you two are going to

stamp out vice? It's a fine invention.'

Three days later the committee of patronesses was formally constituted.

The ladies having elected Marthe as president, she, upon her mother's

advice which she had privately sought, immediately named Madame Paloque

treasurer. They both gave themselves a great deal of trouble in

directing circulars and looking after a host of other petty details.

In the meantime Madame de Condamin went from the Sub-Prefecture to

the Bishop's, and from the Bishop's to the houses of various other

influential persons, exhibiting some lovely toilettes, explaining

in her pretty fashion 'the happy idea that had occurred to her,'

and carrying off subscriptions and promises of assistance. Madame

Rastoil, on the other hand, told the priests who came to her house on

the Tuesday how she had formed a plan for rescuing unfortunate girls

from vice, and then contented herself with charging Abbé Bourrette to

inquire of the Sisters of Saint-Joseph if they would come and serve

in the projected refuge; while Madame Delangre confided to a little

company of functionaries that the town was indebted for the Home to her

husband, who had also kindly given the committee the use of a room

at the town-hall, where they could meet and deliberate at their ease.

Plassans was speedily excited by this pious turmoil, and soon nothing

but the Home of the Virgin was spoken of. A chorus of praise went up,

and the friends of each lady patroness made up little parties and

worked strenuously for the success of the undertaking. Within a week

subscriptions were opened in all three quarters of the town, and as

the 'Plassans Gazette' published lists of the subscriptions, a feeling

of pride was awakened, and the most notable families vied as to which

should be the most generous.

Amidst all the talk on the subject Abbé Faujas's name frequently

cropped up. Although each of the lady patronesses claimed the idea of

the refuge as her own, there was a prevailing belief that it was the

Abbé who had brought it with him from Besançon. Monsieur Delangre,

indeed, made an express statement to that effect at the meeting of

the municipal council when it was decided to purchase the building

which the diocesan architect had suggested as being best suited to the

requirements of the Home. On the previous evening the mayor had had

a lengthy conversation with the priest. They had shaken hands most

cordially on parting, and the mayor's secretary had even heard them

call each other 'my dear sir.' This brought about quite a revolution

in the Abbé's favour. From that time he had a group of partisans who

defended him against the attacks of his enemies.

Besides, the Mourets vouched for Abbé Faujas's respectability.

Supported by Marthe's friendship, recognised as the originator of a

good work, which he modestly refused to acknowledge as his own, he no

longer manifested in the streets that appearance of humility which had

led him to withdraw as much as possible from observation by keeping in

the shadow of the houses. He bravely showed his new cassock in the sun

and walked in the middle of the road. On his way from the Rue Balande

to Saint-Saturnin's he now had to return a great number of bows. One

Sunday Madame de Condamin stopped him after Vespers on the Place in

front of the Bishop's house and kept him talking with her there for a

good half-hour.

'Well, your reverence,' Mouret said to him with a laugh, 'you are quite

in the odour of sanctity now. One would scarcely have anticipated that

six months ago when I was the only one to say a good word for you! But

if I were you I shouldn't trust too much to it all; you still have the

Bishop's set against you.'

The priest lightly shrugged his shoulders. He knew quite well that

what hostility he still met with came from the clergy. Abbé Fenil kept

Monseigneur Rousselot trembling beneath his rough, hard will. However,

when the grand-vicar, about the end of March, left Plassans on a short

holiday, Abbé Faujas profited by his absence to make several calls

upon the Bishop. Abbé Surin, the prelate's private secretary, reported

that the 'wretched man' had been closeted for hours with his lordship,

who had manifested an atrocious temper after each interview. When Abbé

Fenil returned, Abbé Faujas discontinued his visits, and again drew

into the background. But the Bishop still showed himself very much

disturbed, and it was quite evident that something had occurred to

upset his careless mind. At a dinner which he gave to his clergy he

showed himself particularly friendly to Abbé Faujas, who was still only

a humble curate at Saint-Saturnin's. Abbé Fenil then kept his thin lips

more tightly closed than ever, but inwardly cursed his penitents when

they politely asked him how he was in health.

And now at last Abbé Faujas manifested complete serenity. He still led

a self-denying life, but he seemed permeated by a pleasant ease of

mind. One Tuesday evening he triumphed definitively. He was looking out

of the window of his room, enjoying the early warmth of springtide,

when Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies's guests came into the garden of the

Sub-Prefecture and bowed to him from a distance. Madame de Condamin was

there, and carried her familiarity so far as to wave her handkerchief

to him. Just at the same time, on the other side, some guests came to

sit on the rustic seats in front of the waterfall in Monsieur Rastoil's

grounds. Monsieur Delangre, who was leaning over the terrace of the

Sub-Prefecture, could see across Mouret's garden into the judge's

place, owing to the sloping character of the ground.

'You will see,' he said, 'they won't deign even to notice him.'

But he was wrong. For Abbé Fenil, having turned his head as though by

chance, took off his hat, whereupon all the other priests who happened

to be present did the same, and Abbé Faujas returned their salute.

Then, after slowly glancing over the two sets of guests on his right

and his left, he quitted his window, carefully drawing his white and

conventual-looking curtains.

IX

The month of April was very mild and warm, and in the evenings, after

dinner, the young Mourets went to amuse themselves in the garden.

Marthe and the priest, too, as they found the dining-room become very

close, also went out on to the terrace. They sat a few steps from the

open window, just outside the stream of light which the lamp cast upon

the tall box hedges. Hid there in the deepening dusk, they discussed

all the little details connected with the Home of the Virgin. This

constant discussion of charitable matters seemed to give a tone of

additional softness to their conversation. In front of them, between

Monsieur Rastoil's huge pear-trees and the dusky chestnuts of the

Sub-Prefecture, there was a large patch of open sky. The young people

sported about under the arbours, while every now and then the voices of

Mouret and Madame Faujas, who remained alone in the dining-room, deeply

absorbed in their game, could be heard raised in passing altercations.

Sometimes Marthe, full of tender emotion, a gentle languor that made

her words fall slowly from her lips, would check her speech as she

caught sight of the golden train of some shooting star, and smile as

she threw back her head a little and looked up at the heavens.

'There's another soul leaving purgatory and entering paradise!' she

murmured, while, as the priest kept silent, she added: 'How pretty they

are, those little beliefs! One ought to be able to remain a little

girl, your reverence.'

She no longer now mended the family linen in the evening. She would

have had to light a lamp on the terrace to see to do it, and she

preferred the gloom of the warm night, which seemed to thrill her with

peaceful happiness. Besides, she now went out every day, which fatigued

her, and when dinner was over she had not energy enough to take up her

needle. Rose had been obliged to undertake the mending, as Mouret was

beginning to complain that his socks were all in holes.

To tell the truth Marthe was really very much occupied. Besides the

committee meetings over which she presided, she had numerous other

things to attend to, visits to make, and superintendence duties to

exercise. She deputed much necessary writing and other little matters

to Madame Paloque; but she was so eager to see the Home actually

established, that she went off to the Faubourg, where the building

stood, three times a week, to make sure that the workmen were not

wasting their time. Whenever she thought that satisfactory progress was

not being made, she hurried to Saint-Saturnin's to find the architect,

and grumbled to him and begged him not to leave the men without his

supervision, growing quite jealous, indeed, of the work which was

being executed in the church, and saying that the chapel repairs were

being much too quickly pushed forward. Monsieur Lieutaud smiled at all

this, and assured her that everything would be completed within the

stipulated time. But Abbé Faujas likewise protested that sufficient

progress was not being made, and urged Marthe to give the architect no

peace, so she ended by going to Saint-Saturnin's every day.

She went thither with her brain full of figures, or absorbed in

thinking of walls that had to be pulled down and rebuilt. The

chilliness of the church cooled her excitement a little. She dipped

her fingers in the holy water and crossed herself, by way of doing

as others did. The vergers grew to know her and bow to her, and she

herself became quite familiar with the different chapels and the

sacristy, whither she sometimes had to go in search of Abbé Faujas,

and the wide corridor and low cloisters through which she had to pass.

At the end of a month there was not a corner in Saint-Saturnin's which

she did not know. Sometimes she had to wait for the architect, and

then she would sit down in some retired chapel and rest after her

hurried walk, recapitulating in her mind the host of things which

she wanted to impress upon Monsieur Lieutaud. The deep, palpitating

silence which surrounded her, and the dim religious light falling from

the stained-glass windows, gradually plunged her into a vague, soft

reverie. She began to love the lofty arches and the solemn bareness of

the walls, the altars draped in protecting covers, and the chairs all

arranged in order. As soon, indeed, as the padded doors swung to behind

her, she began to experience a feeling of supreme restfulness, she

forgot all the weary cares of the world, and perfect peace permeated

her being.

'Saint-Saturnin's is such a pleasant place,' she said in an unguarded

moment one evening before her husband, after a close, sultry day.

'Would you like us to go and sleep there?' Mouret asked, with a laugh.

Marthe felt hurt. The feeling of purely physical happiness which

she experienced in the church began to distress her as being

something wrong; and it was with a slight feeling of trouble that she

thenceforward entered Saint-Saturnin's, trying to force herself to

remain indifferent and uninfluenced by her surroundings, just as she

would have been in the big rooms at the town hall. But in spite of

herself she was deeply, distressfully affected. It was, however, a

distress to which she willingly returned.

Abbé Faujas manifested no consciousness of the slow awakening which

every day went on within her. He still retained with her the demeanour

of a busy, obliging man, putting heaven on one side. He never showed

anything of the priest. Sometimes, however, she would disturb him as

he was going to read the burial office; and he would then speak to

her for a moment between a couple of pillars in his surplice which

exhaled a vague odour of incense and wax tapers. It was frequently a

mere bricklayer's bill or some carpenter's claim that they spoke about,

and the priest would just tell her the exact figures and then hurry

away to attend to the funeral; she remaining there, lingering in the

empty nave, while one of the vergers was extinguishing the candles.

As Faujas, when he crossed the church with her, bowed before the high

altar, she had acquired the habit of doing likewise, at first out of

a feeling of mere propriety. But afterwards the action had become

mechanical, and she now bowed when she was quite alone. Hitherto this

act of reverence had been her only sign of devotion. Two or three times

she had come to the church on days of high ceremonial of which she

had not previously been aware: but when she saw the church was full

of worshippers and heard the pealing of the organ, she hurried off,

thrilled with sudden fear and not daring to cross the threshold.

'Well!' Mouret would frequently ask her with his sniggering laugh,

'when do you mean to take your first communion?'

He was perpetually teasing her, but she never replied, simply fixing

upon him the gaze of her eyes, in which a passing brightness glistened

when he went too far. By degrees he became more bitter, he was tired of

mocking at her; and at the end of a month he quite lost his temper.

'What sense is there in going and mixing yourself up with a lot of

priests?' he would growl at times when his dinner was not ready when

he wanted it. 'You are always away from home now, there's no keeping

you in the house for an hour at a time! I shouldn't mind it myself, if

everything weren't going to pieces here. I never get any of my things

mended, the table is not even laid by seven o'clock, there's no making

anything out of Rose, and the whole place is left to rack and ruin.'

He picked up a house-cloth that was lying about, locked up a bottle

of wine that had been left out, and began to wipe the dust off the

furniture with his fingers, working himself up to a higher pitch of

anger as he cried: 'There'll soon be nothing left for me to do but to

take up a broom and put an apron on! You would see me do it without

disturbing yourself, I know! I might do all the work of the house

without your being any the wiser for it indeed! Do you know that I

spent a couple of hours this morning in putting this cupboard in order?

No, no, things can't go on any longer in this way!'

At other times there was a disturbance about the children. Once when

Mouret came home he found Désirée 'wallowing like a young pig' in the

garden, lying on her stomach before an ant-hole, and trying to find out

what the ants might be doing in the ground.

'We may be very thankful, I'm sure, that you don't sleep away from the

house as well!' he cried as soon as he caught sight of his wife. 'Come

and look at your daughter! I wouldn't let her change her dress because

I wished that you might see what a pretty sight she is.'

The girl cried bitterly while her father kept turning her round.

'Look at her now! Isn't she a nice spectacle? This is the way children

go on when they are left to themselves! It isn't her fault, poor little

innocent! At one time you couldn't leave her alone for five minutes:

she would be getting into the fire, you said! Well, I expect she will

be getting into the fire now, and everything will be burnt up, and then

there'll be an end of it all!'

When Rose had taken Désirée away, he continued: 'You live now simply

for other people's children. You don't give a moment to your own! What

a goose you must be to go knocking yourself up for a parcel of hussies

who only laugh at you! Go and walk about the ramparts any evening and

you will see something of the conduct of those impudent creatures whom

you talk of putting under the protection of the Virgin!'

He stopped to take breath and then went on again:

'At all events see that Désirée is properly taken care of before you go

picking up girls from the gutter! There are holes as big as my fist in

her dress. One of these days we shall be finding her in the garden with

a leg or an arm broken. I don't say anything about Octave or Serge,

though I should much prefer your being at home when they come back from

college. They are up to all kinds of diabolical tricks. Only yesterday

they split a couple of flag-stones on the terrace by letting off

crackers. I tell you that if you don't keep yourself at home we shall

find the whole house blown to bits one of these days!'

Marthe said a few words in self-defence. She had been obliged to

go out, she urged. There was no doubt that Mouret, who possessed

an ample fund of common sense, in spite of his proclivities for

teasing and jeering, was right. The house was getting into a most

unsatisfactory state. That once quiet spot indeed, where the sun had

set so peacefully, was becoming uproarious, left to look after itself,

suffering from the children's noisiness, the father's bursts of temper,

and the mother's careless, indifferent lassitude. In the evening, at

table, they dined badly and quarrelled amongst themselves. Rose did

just what she liked, and she, by the way, was of opinion that her

mistress was quite in the right.

Matters came to such a pass at last that Mouret, happening to meet

his mother-in-law, complained to her bitterly of Marthe's conduct,

although he was quite aware of the pleasure he afforded the old lady by

revealing to her the troubles of his home.

'You astonish me extremely!' Félicité replied with a smile. 'Marthe

always seemed to me to be afraid of you, and I considered her even too

yielding and obedient. A woman ought not to tremble before her husband.'

'Ah, yes, indeed!' cried Mouret, with a hopeless look, 'once upon

a time she would have sunk into the ground to avoid a quarrel; a

mere glance was sufficient to make her do everything I desired. But

that's all quite altered now. I may remonstrate and shout as much as

I like, she still goes her own way. She doesn't reply, she hasn't as

yet got to flying out at me, but that will come as well, I dare say,

by-and-by.'

Félicité then answered with some hypocrisy:

'I will speak to Marthe if you like. But it might, perhaps, hurt her if

I did. Matters of this kind are better kept between husband and wife. I

don't feel very uneasy about them; I've no doubt that you'll soon get

back again all the quiet peacefulness which you used to be so proud of.'

Mouret shook his head with downcast eyes.

'No! no!' he said; 'I know myself too well. I can make a noise, but

it does no good. In reality I am as weak as a child. People are quite

wrong in supposing that I gained my own way with my wife by force.

She has generally done what I wanted her to do, because she was quite

indifferent about everything, and would as soon do one thing as

another. Mild as she looks, she is very obstinate, I can tell you.

Well, I must try to make the best of it.'

Then, raising his eyes, he added:

'It would have been better if I had said nothing about all this to you;

but you won't mention it to anyone, will you?'

When Marthe went to see her mother the next day, the latter received

her with some show of coldness, and exclaimed:

'It is wrong of you, my dear, to show yourself so neglectful of your

husband. I saw him yesterday and he is quite angry about it. I am well

aware that he often behaves in a very ridiculous manner, but that does

not justify you in neglecting your home.'

Marthe fixed her eyes upon her mother.

'Ah! he has been complaining about me!' she said curtly. 'The least he

could do would be to keep silent, for I never complain about him.'

Then she began to talk of other matters, but Madame Rougon brought her

back to the subject of her husband by inquiring after Abbé Faujas.

'Perhaps Mouret isn't very fond of the Abbé, and finds fault with you

in consequence. Is that the case, do you think?'

Marthe showed great surprise.

'What an idea!' she exclaimed. 'What makes you think that my husband

does not like Abbé Faujas? He has certainly never said anything to me

which would lead me to imagine such a thing. He hasn't said anything to

you, has he? Oh no! you are quite mistaken. He would go up to their

rooms to fetch them if the mother didn't come down to have her game of

cards with him.'

Mouret, indeed, never complained in any way about Abbé Faujas. He joked

with him a little bluntly sometimes, and occasionally brought his name

into the teasing banter with which he tormented his wife, but that was

all.

One morning, as he was shaving, he said to Marthe:

'I'll tell you what, my dear; if ever you go to confession, take the

Abbé for your director, and then your sins will, at any rate, be kept

amongst ourselves.'

Abbé Faujas heard confessions on Tuesdays and Fridays, on which days

Marthe used to avoid going to Saint-Saturnin's. She alleged that she

did not want to disturb him; but she was really under the influence of

that timid uneasiness which disquieted her whenever she saw him in his

surplice redolent of the mysterious odours of the sacristy. One Friday,

she went with Madame de Condamin to see how the works at the Home of

the Virgin were getting on. The men were just finishing the frontage.

Madame de Condamin found fault with the ornamentation, which, said she,

was extremely mean and characterless. At the entrance there ought to

have been two slender columns with a pointed arch, something at once

light and suggestive of religion, something that would be a credit to

the committee of lady patronesses. Marthe hesitated for a time, but she

gradually admitted that the place looked very mean as it was. Then as

the other pressed her, she promised to speak to Monsieur Lieutaud on

the subject that very day. In order that she might keep her promise,

she went to the cathedral before returning home. It was four o'clock

when she got there, and the architect had just left. When she asked for

Abbé Faujas, a verger told her that he was confessing in the chapel

of Saint Aurelia. Then for the first time she recollected what day it

was, and replied that she could not wait. But as she passed the chapel

of Saint Aurelia on her way out, she thought that the Abbé might,

perhaps, have already caught sight of her. The truth was that she felt

singularly faint, and so she sat down outside the chapel, near the

railing. And there she remained.

The sky was grey, and the church was steeped in twilight. Here and

there in the aisles, already shrouded in darkness, gleamed a lamp, or

some gilt candelabrum, or some Virgin's silver robe; and a pale ray

filtered through the great nave and died away on the polished oak of

the stalls and benches. Marthe had never before felt so completely

overcome. Her legs seemed to have lost all their strength, and her

hands were so heavy that she clasped them across her knees to save

herself from having to support their weight. She allowed herself to

drift into drowsiness, in which she still continued to hear and see,

but in a very soft subdued fashion. The slight sounds wafted along

beneath the vaulted roof, the falling of a chair, the slow step of some

worshipper, all filled her with emotion, assumed a musical tone which

thrilled her to the heart; while the last glimmers of daylight and the

dusky shadows that crept up the pillars like covers of crape, assumed

in her eyes all the delicate tints of shot silk. She gradually fell

into a state of exquisite languor, in which she seemed to melt away and

die. Everything around her then vanished, and she was thrilled with

perfect happiness in her strange, trance-like condition.

The sound of a voice awoke her from this state of ecstasy.

'I am very sorry,' said Abbé Faujas; 'I saw you, but I could not get

away.'

She then appeared to wake up with a start. She looked at him. He was

standing before her in the dying light, in his surplice. His last

penitent had just left, and the empty church seemed to be growing still

more solemn.

'You want to speak to me?' he asked.

Marthe made an effort to recall her thoughts.

'Yes,' she murmured; 'but I can't remember now. Ah yes! it is about the

frontage, which Madame de Condamin thinks too mean. There ought to be

two columns instead of that characterless flat door. And up above one

might put a pointed arch filled with stained glass. It would look very

pretty. You understand what I mean, don't you?'

He gazed at her very gravely with his hands crossed over his surplice,

and his head inclined towards her; and she, still seated, without

strength to rise to her feet, went on stammering confusedly, as though

she had been taken unawares in a sleep which she could not shake off.

'It would entail additional expense, of course; but we might have

columns of soft stone with a very simple moulding. We might speak about

it to the master mason, and he will tell us how much it would cost. But

we had better pay him his last account first. It is two thousand one

hundred and odd francs, I think. We have the money in hand; Madame

Paloque told me so this morning. There will be no difficulty about

that, Monsieur l'Abbé.'

She lowered her head, as though she felt oppressed by the gaze that

was bent upon her. When she raised it again and met the priest's eyes,

she clasped her hands together, after the manner of a child seeking

forgiveness, and she burst into sobs. The priest allowed her to weep,

still standing in silence in front of her. Then she fell on her knees

before him, weeping behind her hands, with which she covered her face.

'Get up, I pray you,' said Abbé Faujas gently. 'It is before God that

you should go and kneel.'

He helped her to rise and he sat down beside her. They talked together

for a long time in low tones. The night had now fully fallen, and

the lamps set golden specks gleaming through the black depths of the

church. The murmur of their voices alone disturbed the silence in front

of the chapel of Saint Aurelia. From the priest streamed a flood of

words after each of Marthe's weak broken answers. When at last they

rose, he seemed to be refusing her some favour which she was seeking

with persistence. And leading her towards the door, he raised his voice

as he said:

'No! I cannot, I assure you I cannot. It would be better for you to

take Abbé Bourrette.'

'I am in great need of your advice,' Marthe murmured, beseechingly. 'I

think that with your help everything would be easy to me.'

'You are mistaken,' he replied, in a sterner voice. 'On the contrary, I

fear that my direction would be prejudicial to you to begin with. Abbé

Bourrette is the priest you want, I assure you. Later on, I may perhaps

give you a different reply.'

Marthe obeyed the priest's injunctions, and on the morrow the

worshippers at Saint-Saturnin's were surprised to see Madame Mouret

kneel before Abbé Bourrette's confessional. Two days later nothing

but this conversion was spoken of in Plassans. Abbé Faujas's name was

pronounced with subtle smiles by certain people, but on the whole the

impression was a good one and in favour of the Abbé. Madame Rastoil

complimented Madame Mouret in full committee, and Madame Delangre

professed to see in the matter a first blessing vouchsafed by God who

rewarded the lady patronesses for their good work by touching the

heart of the only one amongst them who had not conformed with the

requirements of religion. Madame de Condamin, taking Marthe aside,

said to her:

'You have done right, my dear. What you have done is a necessity for a

woman; and, besides, as soon as one begins to go about a little, it is

necessary to go to church.'

The only matter of astonishment was her choice of Abbé Bourrette. That

worthy man almost entirely confined himself to hearing the confessions

of young girls. The ladies found him 'so very uninteresting.' On the

Thursday at the Rougons' reception, before Marthe's arrival, the matter

was talked over in a corner of the green drawing-room, and it was

Madame Paloque with her waspish tongue who summed up the matter.

'Abbé Faujas has done quite right in not keeping her himself,' said

she, with a twist of her mouth that made her still more hideous

than usual; 'Abbé Bourrette is very successful in saving souls and

appearances also.'

When Marthe came that evening her mother stepped forward to welcome

her, and kissed her affectionately with some ostentation before the

company. She herself had made her peace with God on the morrow of the

Coup d'État. She was of opinion that Abbé Faujas might now venture to

return to the green drawing-room; but he excused himself, making a

pretext of his work and his love of privacy. Madame Rougon then fancied

that he was planning a triumphal return for the following winter. The

Abbé's success was certainly on the increase. For the first few months

his only penitents had come from the vegetable-market held behind the

cathedral, poor hawkers, to whose dialect he had quietly listened

without always being able to understand it; but now, especially since

all the talk there had been in connection with the Home of the Virgin,

he had a crowd of well-to-do citizens' wives and daughters dressed

in silk kneeling before his confessional-box. When Marthe quietly

mentioned that he would not receive her amongst his penitents, Madame

de Condamin was seized with a sudden whim, and deserted her director,

the senior curate of Saint-Saturnin's, who was greatly distressed

thereby, to transfer the guardianship of her soul to Abbé Faujas. Such

a distinction as this gave the latter a firm position in Plassans

society.

When Mouret learned that his wife now went to confession, he merely

said to her:

'You have been doing something wrong lately, I suppose, since you find

it necessary to go and tell all your affairs to a parson?'

In the midst of all this pious excitement he seemed to isolate himself

and shut himself up in his own narrow and monotonous life still

further. When his wife reproached him for complaining to her mother, he

answered:

'Yes, you are right; it was wrong of me. It is foolish to give people

any pleasure by telling them of one's troubles. However, I promise you

that I won't give your mother this satisfaction a second time. I have

been thinking matters over, and the house may topple down on our heads

before I'll go whimpering to anyone again.'

From that time he never made any disparaging remarks about the

management of the house or scolded his wife in the presence of

strangers, but professed himself, as formerly, the happiest of men.

This effort of sound sense cost him little, for he saw that it would

tend to his comfort, which was the object of his constant thoughts. He

even exaggerated his assumption of the part of a contented methodical

citizen who took pleasure in living. Marthe only became aware of his

impatience by his restless pacing up and down. For whole weeks he

refrained from teasing or fault-finding as far as she was concerned,

while upon Rose and his children he constantly poured forth his

jeers, scolding them too from morning till night for the slightest

shortcomings.

Previously he had only been economical, now he became miserly.

'There is no sense in spending money in the way we are doing,' he

grumbled to Marthe. 'I'll be bound you are giving it all to those

young hussies of yours. But it's quite sufficient for you to waste

your time over them. Listen to me, my dear. I will give you a hundred

francs a month for housekeeping, and if you will persist in giving

money to girls who don't deserve it, you must save it out of your dress

allowance.'

He kept firmly to his word, and the very next month he refused to let

Marthe buy a pair of boots on the pretext that it would disarrange

his accounts, and that he had given her full notice and warning. One

evening his wife found him weeping bitterly in their bedroom. All her

kindness of heart was aroused, and she clasped him in her arms and

besought him to tell her what distressed him. But he roughly tore

himself away from her and told her that he was not crying at all, but

simply had a bad headache. It was that, said he, which made his eyes

red.

'Do you think,' he exclaimed, 'that I am such a simpleton as you are to

cry?'

She felt much hurt. The next day Mouret affected great gaiety; but

some days afterwards, when Abbé Faujas and his mother came downstairs

after dinner, he refused to play his usual game of piquet. He did not

feel clear-headed enough for it, he said. On the next few nights he

made other excuses, and so the games were broken off, and everyone

went out on the terrace. Mouret seated himself in front of his wife

and the Abbé, doing all he could to speak as much and as frequently as

possible; while Madame Faujas sat a few yards away in the gloom, quite

silent and still, with her hands upon her knees, like one of those

legendary figures keeping guard over a treasure with the stern fidelity

of a crouching dog.

'Fine evening!' Mouret used to say every night. 'It is much pleasanter

here than in the dining-room. It is very wise of you to come out and

enjoy the fresh air. Ah! there's a shooting-star! Did your reverence

see it? I've heard say that it's Saint Peter lighting his pipe up

yonder.'

He laughed, but Marthe kept quite grave, vexed by his attempts at

pleasantry, which spoilt her enjoyment of the expanse of sky that

spread between Monsieur Rastoil's pear-trees and the chestnuts of the

Sub-Prefecture. Sometimes he would pretend to be unaware that she

conformed with the requirements of religion, and he would take the Abbé

aside and tell him that he relied on him to effect the salvation of the

whole house. At other times he could never begin a sentence without

saying in a bantering tone, 'Now that my wife goes to confession--'

Then having grown tired of this subject, he began to listen to what

was being said in the neighbouring gardens, trying to catch the faint

sounds of voices which rose in the calm night air, as the distant

noises of Plassans were hushed.

'Ah! those are the voices of Monsieur de Condamin and Doctor Porquier!'

he said, straining his ear towards the Sub-Prefecture. 'They are making

fun of the Paloques. Did you hear Monsieur Delangre saying in his

falsetto, "Ladies, you had better come in, the air is growing cool"?

Don't you think that little Delangre always talks as though he had

swallowed a reed-pipe?'

Then he turned his head towards the Rastoils' garden.

'They haven't anyone there to-night,' he said; 'I can't hear anything.

Ah, yes! those big geese the daughters are by the waterfall. The elder

one talks just as though she were gobbling pebbles. Every evening they

sit there jabbering for a good hour. They can't want all that time to

tell each other about the matrimonial offers they have had. Ah! they

are all there! There's Abbé Surin, with a voice like a flute; and Abbé

Fenil, who would do for a rattle on Good Friday. There are sometimes

a score of them huddled together, without stirring a finger, in that

garden. I believe they all go there to listen to what we say.'

While he went chattering on in this manner Abbé Faujas and Marthe

merely spoke a few words, chiefly in reply to his questions. Generally

they sat apart from him with their faces raised to the sky and their

eyes gazing into space. One evening Mouret fell asleep. Then, inclining

their heads towards each other, they began to talk in subdued tones;

while some few yards away, Madame Faujas, with her hands upon her

knees, her eyes wide open and her ears on the strain, yet never seeing

or hearing anything, seemed to be keeping watch for them.

X

The summer passed away, and Abbé Faujas seemed in no hurry to derive

any advantage from his increasing popularity. He still kept himself in

seclusion at the Mourets', delighting in the solitude of the garden,

to which he now came down during the day-time. He read his breviary as

he slowly walked with bent head up and down the green arbour at the

far end. Sometimes he would close his book, still further slacken his

steps, and seem to be buried in deep reverie. Mouret, who used to watch

him, at last became impatient and irritated at seeing that black figure

walking to and fro for hours together behind his fruit-trees.

'One has no privacy left,' he muttered. 'I can't lift my eyes now

without catching sight of that cassock. He is like a crow, that fellow

there, with his round eyes that always seem to be on the look-out for

something. I don't believe in his fine disinterested airs.'

It was not till early in September that the Home of the Virgin was

completed. In the provinces workmen are painfully slow; though it

must be stated that the lady patronesses had twice upset Monsieur

Lieutaud's designs in favour of ideas of their own. When the committee

took possession of the building they rewarded the architect for the

complaisance he had manifested by lavishing the highest praises upon

him. Everything seemed to them perfectly satisfactory. The rooms were

large, the communications were excellent, and there was a courtyard

planted with trees and embellished with two small fountains. Madame de

Condamin was particularly charmed with the façade, which was one of her

own ideas. Over the door, the words 'Home of the Virgin' were carved in

gold letters on a slab of black marble.

On the occasion of the opening of the Home there was a very affecting

ceremony. The Bishop, attended by the Chapter, came in person to

install the Sisters of Saint Joseph, who had been authorised to work

the institution. A troop of some fifty girls of from eight to fifteen

years of age had been collected together from the streets of the old

quarter of the town, and all that had been required from the parents to

obtain admission for their children had been a declaration that their

avocations necessitated their absence from home during the entire day.

Monsieur Delangre made a speech which was much applauded. He explained

at considerable length, and in a magnificent style, the details and

arrangements of this new refuge, which he called 'the school of virtue

and labour, where young and interesting creatures would be kept safe

from wicked temptations.' A delicate allusion, towards the end of the

speech, to the real promoter of the Home, Abbé Faujas, attracted much

notice. The Abbé was present amongst the other priests, and his fine,

grave face remained perfectly calm and tranquil when all eyes were

turned upon him. Marthe blushed on the platform, where she was sitting

in the midst of the lady patronesses.

When the ceremony was over, the Bishop expressed a desire to inspect

the building in every detail; and, notwithstanding the evident

annoyance of Abbé Fenil, he sent for Abbé Faujas, whose big black eyes

had never for a moment quitted him, and requested him to be good enough

to act as his guide, adding aloud with a smile, that he was sure he

could not find a better one. This little speech was circulated amongst

the departing spectators, and in the evening all Plassans commented

upon the Bishop's favourable demeanour towards Abbé Faujas.

The lady patronesses had reserved for themselves one of the rooms

in the Home. Here they provided a collation for the Bishop, who ate

a biscuit and drank two sips of Malaga, while saying a polite word

or two to each of them. This brought the pious festival to a happy

conclusion, for both before and during the ceremony there had been

heart-burnings and rivalries among the ladies, whom the delicate

praises of Monseigneur Rousselot quite restored to good humour. When

they were left to themselves, they declared that everything had gone

off exceedingly well, and they profusely praised the Bishop. Madame

Paloque alone looked sour. The prelate had somehow forgotten her when

he was distributing his compliments.

'You were quite right,' she said in a fury to her husband, when she got

home again; 'I have just been made a convenience in that silly nonsense

of theirs. It's a fine idea, indeed, to bring all those corrupt hussies

together. I have given up all my time to them, and that big simpleton

of a Bishop, who trembles before his own clergy, can't even say thank

you. Just as if that Madame de Condamin had done anything, indeed.

She is far too much occupied in showing off her dresses! Ah! we know

quite enough about her, don't we? The world will hear something about

her one of these days that will surprise it a little! Thank goodness,

we've nothing to conceal. And that Madame Delangre and Madame Rastoil,

too--well, it wouldn't be difficult to tell tales about them that

would cover them with blushes! And they never stirred out of their

drawing-rooms, they haven't taken half the trouble about the matter

that I have! Then there's that Madame Mouret, with her pretence of

managing the whole business, though she really did nothing but hang on

to the cassock of her Abbé Faujas! She's another hypocrite of whom we

shall hear some pretty things one of these days! And yet they could all

get a polite speech, while there wasn't a word for me! I'm nothing but

a mere convenience, they treat me like a dog! But things sha'n't go on

like this, Paloque, I tell you. The dog will turn and bite them before

long!'

From that time forward Madame Paloque showed herself much less

accommodating. She became very irregular in her secretarial work, and

declined to perform any duties that she did not fancy, till at last

the lady patronesses began to talk of employing a paid secretary.

Marthe mentioned these worries to Abbé Faujas and asked him if he could

recommend a suitable man.

'Don't trouble yourself to look for anyone,' he said, 'I dare say I can

find you a fit person. Give me two or three days.'

For some time past he had been frequently receiving letters bearing the

Besançon postmark, They were all in the same handwriting, a large, ugly

hand. Rose, who took them up to him, remarked that he seemed vexed at

the mere sight of the envelopes.

'He looks quite put out,' she said. 'You may depend upon it that it's

no great favourite of his who writes to him so often.'

Mouret's old curiosity was roused by this correspondence. One day he

took up one of the letters himself with a pleasant smile, telling the

Abbé, as an excuse for his own appearance, that Rose was not in the

house. The Abbé probably saw through Mouret's cunning, for he assumed

an expression of great pleasure, as though he had been impatiently

expecting the letter. But Mouret did not allow himself to be deceived

by this piece of acting, he stayed outside the door on the landing and

glued his ear to the key-hole.

'From your sister again, isn't it?' asked Madame Faujas, in her hard

voice. 'Why does she worry you in that way?'

There was a short silence, after which came a sound of paper being

roughly crumpled, and the Abbé said, with evident displeasure:

'It's always the same old story. She wants to come to us and bring her

husband with her, so that we may get him a situation somewhere. She

seems to think that we are wallowing in gold. I'm afraid they will be

doing something rash--perhaps taking us by surprise some fine morning.'

'No, no! we can't do with them here, Ovide!' his mother replied. 'They

have never liked you; they have always been jealous of you. Trouche is

a scamp and Olympe is quite heartless. They would want everything for

themselves, and they would compromise you and interfere with your work.'

Mouret was too much excited by the meanness of the act he was

committing to be able to hear well, and, besides, he thought that one

of them was coming to the door, so he hurried away. He took care

not to mention what he had done. A few days later Abbé Faujas, in

his presence, while they were all out on the terrace, gave Marthe a

definite reply respecting the Secretaryship at the Home.

'I think I can recommend you a suitable person,' he said, in his calm

way. 'It is a connection of my own, my brother-in-law, who is coming

here from Besançon in a few days.'

Mouret became very attentive, while Marthe appeared delighted.

'Oh, that is excellent!' she exclaimed. 'I was feeling very much

bothered about finding a suitable person. You see, with all those young

girls, we must have a person of unexceptionable morality, but of course

a connection of yours--'

'Yes, yes,' interrupted the priest; 'my sister had a little hosiery

business at Besançon, which she has been obliged to give up on account

of her health; and now she is anxious to join us again, as the doctors

have ordered her to live in the south. My mother is very much pleased.'

'I'm sure she must be,' said Marthe. 'I dare say it grieved you very

much to have to separate, and you will be very glad to be together

again. I'll tell you what you must do. There are a couple of rooms

upstairs that you don't use; why shouldn't your sister and her husband

have them? They have no children, have they?'

'No, there are only their two selves. I had, indeed, thought for a

moment of giving them those two rooms; but I was afraid of displeasing

you by bringing other people into your house.'

'Not at all, I assure you. You are very quiet people.'

She checked herself suddenly, for her husband was tugging at her dress.

He did not want to have the Abbé's relations in the house, for he

remembered in what terms Madame Faujas had spoken of her daughter and

son-in-law.

'The rooms are very small,' he began; 'and Monsieur l'Abbé would be

inconvenienced. It would be better for all parties that his sister

should take lodgings somewhere else; there happen to be some rooms

vacant just now at the Paloques' house, over the way.'

There was a dead pause in the conversation. The priest said nothing,

but gazed up into the sky. Marthe thought he was offended, and she felt

much distressed at her husband's bluntness. After a moment she could

no longer endure the embarrassing silence. 'Well, it's settled then,'

she said, without any attempt at skill in knitting the broken threads

of the conversation together again, 'Rose shall help your mother to

clean the rooms. My husband was only thinking about your own personal

convenience; but, of course, if you wish it, it is not for us to

prevent you from disposing of the rooms in any way you like.'

Mouret was quite angry when he again found himself alone with his wife.

'I can't understand you at all!' he cried. 'When first I let the rooms

to the Abbé, you were quite displeased, and seemed to hate the thought

of having even so much as a cat brought into the house; and now I

believe you would be perfectly willing for the Abbé to bring the whole

of his relations, down to his third and fourth cousins. Didn't you feel

me tugging at your dress? You might have known that I didn't want those

people. They are not very respectable folks.'

'How do you know that?' cried Marthe, annoyed by this accusation. 'Who

told you so?'

'Who, indeed? It was Abbé Faujas himself. I overheard him one day while

he was talking to his mother.'

She looked at him keenly; and he blushed slightly beneath her gaze as

he stammered:

'Well, it is sufficient that I do know. The sister is a heartless

creature and her husband is a scamp. It's of no use your putting

on that air of insulted majesty; those were their own words, and

I'm inventing nothing. I don't want to have those people here, do

you understand? The old lady herself was the first to object to her

daughter coming here. The Abbé now seems to have changed his mind.

I don't know what has led him to alter his opinion. It's some fresh

mystery of his. He's going to make use of them somehow.'

Marthe shrugged her shoulders and allowed her husband to rail on.

He told Rose not to clean the rooms, but Rose now only obeyed her

mistress's orders. For five days his anger vented itself in bitter

words and furious recriminations. In Abbé Faujas's presence he confined

himself to sulking, for he did not dare to attack the priest openly.

Then, as usual, he ended by submitting, and ceased to rail at the

people who were coming. But he drew his purse-strings still tighter,

isolated himself, shut himself up more and more in his own selfish

existence. When the Trouches arrived one October evening, he merely

exclaimed:

'The deuce! they don't look a nice couple. What faces they have!'

Abbé Faujas did not appear very desirous that his sister and

brother-in-law should be seen on that occasion. His mother took up a

position by the street-door, and as soon as she caught sight of them

turning out of the Place of the Sub-Prefecture, she glanced uneasily

behind her into the hall and the kitchen. Luck was, however, against

her, for just as the Trouches arrived, Marthe, who was going out, came

up from the garden, followed by her children.

'Ah! there you all are!' she said, with a pleasant smile.

Madame Faujas, who was generally so completely mistress of herself,

could not suppress a slight show of confusion as she stammered a

word or two of reply. For some moments they stood confronting and

scrutinising each other in the hall. Mouret had hurriedly mounted the

steps and Rose had taken up her position at the kitchen door.

'You must be very glad to be together again,' said Marthe, addressing

Madame Faujas.

Then, noticing the feeling of embarrassment which was keeping them all

silent, she turned towards Trouche and added:

'You arrived by the five o'clock train, I suppose? How long were you in

getting here from Besançon?'

'Seventeen hours in the train,' Trouche replied, opening a toothless

mouth. 'It is no joke that, in a third-class carriage, I can tell you.

One gets pretty well shaken up inside.'

Then he laughed with a peculiar clattering of his jaws. Madame Faujas

cast a very angry glance at him, and he began to fumble mechanically

at his greasy overcoat, trying to fasten a button that was no longer

there, and pressing to his thighs (doubtless in order to hide some

stains) a couple of cardboard bonnet-boxes which he was carrying, one

green and the other yellow. His red throat was perpetually gurgling

beneath a twisted, ragged black neckcloth, over which appeared the edge

of a dirty shirt. In his wrinkled face, which seemed to reek with vice,

there glistened two little black eyes that rolled about incessantly,

examining everybody and everything with an expression of astonishment

and covetousness. They looked like the eyes of a thief studying a house

to which he means to return in order to plunder it some night.

Mouret fancied that Trouche was examining the fastenings.

'That fellow,' he thought to himself, 'looks as though he were getting

the patterns of the locks into his head!'

Olympe was conscious that her husband had made a vulgar remark. She

was a tall, slight woman, fair and faded, with a flat plain face. She

carried a little deal box and a big bundle tied up in a tablecloth.

'We have brought some pillows with us,' she said, glancing at the

bundle. 'Pillows come in very usefully in a third-class carriage; they

make one quite as comfortable as if one were travelling first-class.

It is a great saving, going third, and it is of no use throwing money

away, is it?'

'Certainly not,' Marthe replied, somewhat surprised by the appearance

and language of the new-comers.

Olympe now came forward and went on talking in an ingratiating way.

'It's the same thing with clothes,' said she; 'when I set off on a

journey I put on my shabbiest things. I told Honoré that his old

overcoat was quite good enough. And he has got his old work-day

trousers on too, trousers that he's quite tired of wearing. You see I

selected my worse dress; it is actually in holes, I believe. This shawl

was mother's; I used to iron on it at home; and this bonnet I'm wearing

is an old one that I only put on when I go to the wash-house; but it's

quite good enough to get spoilt with the dust, isn't it, madame?'

'Certainly, certainly,' replied Marthe, trying to force a smile.

Just at this moment a stern voice was heard from the top of the stairs,

calling sharply: 'Well! now, mother!'

Mouret raised his head and saw Abbé Faujas leaning against the

second-floor banisters, looking very angry, and bending over, at the

risk of falling, to get a better view of what was going on in the

passage. He had heard a sound of talking and had been waiting there for

a moment or two in great impatience.

'Come, mother, come!' he cried again.

'Yes, yes, we are coming up,' answered Madame Faujas, trembling at the

sound of her son's angry voice.

Then turning to the Trouches, she said:

'Come along, my children, we must go upstairs. Let us leave madame to

attend to her business.'

But the Trouches did not seem to hear; they appeared quite satisfied to

remain in the passage, and they looked about them with a well-pleased

air, as though the house had just been presented to them.

'It is very nice, very nice indeed, isn't it, Honoré?' Olympe said.

'After what Ovide wrote in his letters we scarcely expected to find it

so nice as this, did we? But I told you that we ought to come here, and

that we should do better here, and I am right, you see.'

'Yes, yes, we ought to be very comfortable here,' Trouche murmured.

'The garden, too, seems a pretty big one.'

Then addressing Mouret, he inquired:

'Do you allow your lodgers to walk in the garden, sir?'

Before Mouret had time to reply, Abbé Faujas, who had come downstairs,

cried out in thundering tones:

'Come, Trouche! Come, Olympe!'

They turned round; and when they saw him standing on the steps looking

terribly angry, they fairly quailed and meekly followed him. The Abbé

went up the stairs in front of them without saying another word,

without even seeming to observe the presence of Mouret, who stood

gazing after the singular procession. Madame Faujas smiled at Marthe to

take away the awkwardness of the situation as she brought up the rear.

Marthe then went out, and Mouret, left to himself, lingered a moment

or two in the passage. Upstairs, on the second floor, doors were being

noisily banged. Then loud voices were heard, and presently there came

dead silence.

'Has he locked them up separately, I wonder?' said Mouret to himself,

with a laugh. 'Well, anyhow, they are not a nice family.'

On the very next day, Trouche, respectably dressed, entirely in black,

shaven, and with his scanty hair carefully brushed over his temples,

was presented by Abbé Faujas to Marthe and the lady patronesses. He

was forty-five years of age, wrote a first-rate hand, and was said to

have kept the books of a mercantile house for a long time. The ladies

at once installed him as secretary. His duties were to represent the

committee, and employ himself in certain routine work from ten till

four in an office on the first floor of the Home. His salary was to be

fifteen hundred francs.

'Those good people are very quiet, you see,' Marthe remarked to her

husband a few days afterwards.

Indeed the Trouches made no more noise than the Faujases. Two or three

times Rose asserted that she had heard quarrels between the mother and

daughter, but the Abbé's grave voice had immediately restored peace.

Trouche went out every morning punctually at a quarter to ten, and came

back again at a quarter past four. He never went out in the evening.

Olympe occasionally went shopping with Madame Faujas, but she was never

seen to come down the stairs by herself.

The window of the room in which the Trouches slept overlooked the

garden. It was the last one on the right, in front of the trees of

the Sub-Prefecture. Big curtains of red calico, with a yellow border,

hung behind the glass panes, making a strong contrast, when seen from

outside, with the priest's white ones. The window was invariably kept

closed. One evening when Abbé Faujas and his mother were out on the

terrace with the Mourets, a slight involuntary cough was heard, and

as the priest raised his head with an expression of annoyance, he

caught sight of Olympe and her husband leaning out of the window. For

a moment or two he kept his eyes turned upwards, thus interrupting his

conversation with Marthe. At this the Trouches disappeared; and those

below heard the window-catch being fastened.

'You had better go upstairs, I think, mother,' said the priest. 'I am

afraid you may be catching cold out here.'

Madame Faujas wished them all good-night; and, when she had retired,

Marthe resumed the conversation by asking in her kindly way:

'Is your sister worse? I have not seen her for a week.'

'She has great need of rest,' the priest curtly answered.

However, Marthe's sympathetic interest made her continue the subject.

'She shuts herself up too much,' said she; 'the fresh air would do her

good. These October evenings are still quite warm. Why doesn't she ever

come out into the garden? She has never set foot in it. You know that

it is entirely at your disposal.'

The priest muttered a few vague words of excuse, and then Mouret, to

increase his embarrassment, manifested still greater amiability than

his wife's.

'That's just what I was saying this morning,' he began. 'Monsieur

l'Abbé's sister might very well bring her sewing out here in the sun

in the afternoons, instead of keeping herself shut in upstairs. Anyone

would think that she daren't even show herself at the window. She isn't

frightened of us, I hope! We are not such terrible people as all that!

And Monsieur Trouche, too, he hurries up the stairs, four steps at a

time. Tell them to come and spend an evening with us now and then. They

must be frightfully dull up in that room of theirs, all alone.'

The Abbé did not seem to be in the humour that evening to submit to his

landlord's pleasantry. He looked him straight in the face, and said

very bluntly:

'I am much obliged to you, but there is little probability of their

accepting your invitation. They are tired in the evening, and they go

to bed. And, besides, that is the best thing they can do.'

'Just as they like, my dear sir,' replied Mouret, vexed by the Abbé's

rough manner.

When he was alone again with Marthe, he said to her: 'Does the Abbé, I

wonder, think he can persuade us that the moon is made of green cheese?

It's quite clear that he is afraid that those scamps he has taken in

will play him some bad trick or other. Didn't you see how sharply he

kept his eye on them this evening when he caught sight of them at the

window? They were spying out at us up there. There will be a bad end to

all this!'

Marthe was now living in a state of blessed calm. She no longer felt

troubled by Mouret's raillery; the gradual growth of faith within her

filled her with exquisite joy, she glided softly and slowly into a life

of pious devotion, which seemed to lull her with a sweet restfulness.

Abbé Faujas still avoided speaking to her of God. He remained merely

a friend, simply exercising influence over her by his grave demeanour

and the vague odour of incense exhaled by his cassock. On two or three

occasions when she was alone with him she had again broken out into

fits of nervous sobbing, without knowing why, but finding a happiness

in thus allowing herself to weep. On each of these occasions the Abbé

had merely taken her hands in silence, calming her with his serene and

authoritative gaze. When she wanted to tell him of her strange attacks

of sadness, or her secret joys, or her need of guidance, he smiled

and hushed her, telling her that these matters were not his concern,

and that she must speak of them to Abbé Bourrette. Then she retired

completely within herself and remained trembling; while the priest

seemed to assume still colder reserve than before, and strode away from

her like some unheeding god at whose feet she wished to pour out her

soul in humiliation.

Marthe's chief occupation now was attending the various religious

services and works in which she took part. In the vast nave of

Saint-Saturnin's she felt perfectly happy; it was there that she

experienced the full sweetness of that purely physical restfulness

which she sought. She there forgot everything: it was like an immense

window open upon another life, a life that was wide and infinite, and

full of an emotion which thrilled and satisfied her. But she still felt

some fear of the church, and she went there with a feeling of uneasy

bashfulness, and a touch of nervous shame, that made her glance behind

her as she passed through the doorway, to see if anyone was watching

her. Then, once inside, she abandoned herself, everything around her

seemed to assume a melting softness, even the unctuous voice of Abbé

Bourrette, who, after he had confessed her, sometimes kept her on her

knees for a few minutes longer, while he spoke to her about Madame

Rastoil's dinners or the Rougons' last reception.

Marthe often returned home in a condition of complete prostration.

Religion seemed to break her down. Rose had become all-powerful in the

house. She scolded Mouret, found fault with him because he dirtied too

much linen, and let him have his dinner at her own hours. She even

tried to convert him.

'Madame does quite right to live a Christian life,' said she. 'You will

be damned, sir, you will, and it will only be right, for you are not a

good man at heart, no, you are not! You ought to go with your wife to

mass next Sunday morning.'

Mouret shrugged his shoulders. He let things take their own course, and

sometimes even did a bit of house-work himself, taking a turn or two

with the broom when he thought that the dining-room looked particularly

dusty. The children gave him most trouble. It was vacation-time, and,

as their mother was scarcely ever at home, Désirée and Octave--who had

again failed in his examination for his degree--turned the place upside

down. Serge was poorly, kept his bed, and spent whole days in reading

in his room. He had become Abbé Faujas's favourite, and the priest lent

him books. Mouret thus spent two dreadful months, at his wits' end how

to manage his young folks. Octave was a special trouble to him, and

as he did not feel inclined to keep him at home till the end of the

vacation, he determined that he should not again return to college, but

should be sent to some business-house at Marseilles.

'Since you won't look after them at all,' he said to Marthe, 'I must

find some place or other to put them in. I am quite worn out with them

all, and I won't have them at home any longer. It's your own fault if

it causes you any grief. Octave is quite unbearable. He will never pass

his examination, and it will be much better to teach him at once how to

gain his own living instead of letting him idle his time away with a

lot of good-for-nothings. One meets him roaming all over the town.'

Marthe was very much distressed. She seemed to awake from a dream on

hearing that one of her children was about to leave her. She succeeded

in getting the departure postponed for a week, during which she

remained more at home, and resumed her active life. But she quickly

dropped back again into her previous state of listless languor; and on

the day that Octave came to kiss her, telling her that he was to leave

for Marseilles in the evening, she had lost all strength and energy,

and contented herself with giving him some good advice.

Mouret came back from the railway station with a very heavy heart. He

looked about him for his wife, and found her in the garden, crying

under the arbour. Then he gave vent to his feelings.

'There! that's one the less!' he exclaimed. 'You ought to feel glad of

it. You will be able to go prowling about the church now as much as you

like. Make your mind easy, the other two won't be here long. I shall

keep Serge with me as he is a very quiet lad and is rather young as yet

to go and read for the bar; but if he's at all in your way, just let me

know, and I will free you of him at once. As for Désirée, I shall send

her to her nurse.'

Marthe went on weeping in silence.

'But what would you have?' he continued. 'You can't be both in and

out. Since you have taken to keeping away from home, your children

have become indifferent to you. That's logic, isn't it? Besides it is

necessary to find room for all the people who are now living in our

house. It isn't nearly big enough, and we shall be lucky if we don't

get turned out of doors ourselves.'

He had raised his eyes as he spoke, and was looking at the windows of

the second-floor. Then, lowering his voice, he added:

'Don't go on crying in that ridiculous way! They are watching you.

Don't you see those eyes peeping between the red curtains? They are

the eyes of the Abbé's sister; I know them well enough. You may depend

on seeing them there all day long. The Abbé himself may be a decent

fellow, but as for those Trouches, I know they are always crouching

behind their curtains like wolves waiting to spring on one. I feel

quite certain that if the Abbé didn't prevent them, they would come

down in the night to steal my pears. Dry your tears, my dear; you may

be quite sure that they are enjoying our disagreement. Even though they

have been the cause of the boy's going away, that is no reason why we

should let them see what a trouble his departure has been to us both.'

His voice broke, and he himself seemed on the point of sobbing. Marthe,

quite heart-broken, deeply touched by his last words, was prompted to

throw herself into his arms. But they were afraid of being observed;

and besides they felt as if there were some obstacle between them that

prevented them from coming together. So they separated, while Olympe's

eyes still glistened between the red curtains upstairs.

XI

One morning Abbé Bourrette made his appearance, his face betokening the

greatest distress. As soon as he caught sight of Marthe on the steps,

he hurried up to her and, seizing her hands and pressing them, he

stammered:

'Poor Compan! it is all over with him! he is dying! I am going

upstairs, I must see Faujas at once.'

When Marthe showed him his fellow priest, who, according to his wont,

was walking to and fro at the bottom of the garden, reading his

breviary, he ran up to him, tottering on his short legs. He tried to

speak and tell the other the sad news, but his grief choked him, and

he could only throw his arms round Abbé Faujas's neck, while sobbing

bitterly.

'Hullo! what's the matter with the two parsons?' cried Mouret, who had

hastily rushed out of the dining-room.

'The Curé of Saint-Saturnin's is dying,' Marthe replied, showing much

distress.

Mouret assumed an expression of surprise, and, as he went back into the

house, he murmured:

'Pooh! that worthy Bourrette will manage to console himself to-morrow

when he is appointed Curé in the other's place. He counts on getting

the post; he told me so.'

Abbé Faujas disengaged himself from the old priest's embrace, quietly

closed his breviary, and listened to the sad news with a grave face.

'Compan wants to see you,' said Abbé Bourrette in a broken voice; 'he

will not last the morning out. Oh! he has been a dear friend to me! We

studied together. He is anxious to say good-bye to you. He has been

telling me all through the night that you were the only man of courage

in the diocese. For more than a year now he has been getting weaker and

weaker, and not a single Plassans priest has dared to go and grasp his

hand; while you, a stranger, who scarcely knew him, you have spent an

afternoon with him every week. The tears came into his eyes just now as

he was speaking of you; you must lose no time, my friend.'

Abbé Faujas went up to his room for a moment, while Abbé Bourrette

paced impatiently and hopelessly about the passage; and then at last

they set off together. The old priest wiped his brow and swayed about

on the road as he talked in disconnected fashion:

'He would have died like a dog without a single prayer being said

for him if his sister had not come and told me about him at eleven

o'clock last night. She did quite right, the dear lady, though he did

not want to compromise any of us, and even would have foregone the

last sacraments. Yes, my friend, he was dying all alone, abandoned and

deserted, he who had so high a mind, and who has only lived to do good!'

Then Bourrette became silent; but after a few moments he resumed again

in a different voice:

'Do you think that Fenil will ever forgive me for this? Never, I

expect! When Compan saw me bringing the viaticum, he was unwilling

to let me anoint him and told me to go away. Well, well! it's all

over with me now, and I shall never be Curé! But I am glad that I did

it, and that I haven't let Compan die like a dog. He has been at war

with Fenil for thirty years, you know. When he took to his bed he

said to me, "Ah! it's Fenil who is going to carry the day! Now that

I am stricken down he will get the better of me!" So think of it!

That poor Compan, whom I have seen so high-spirited and energetic at

Saint-Saturnin's! Little Eusèbe, the choir-boy, whom I took to ring the

viaticum bell, was quite embarrassed when he found where we were going.

He kept looking behind him at each tinkle, as if he was afraid that

Fenil would hear it.'

Abbé Faujas, who was stepping along quickly with bent head and a

preoccupied air, kept perfectly silent, and did not even seem to hear

what his companion was saying.

'Has the Bishop been informed?' he suddenly asked.

But Abbé Bourrette in his turn now appeared to be buried in thought and

made no reply; however, just as they reached Abbé Compan's door he said

to his companion:

'Tell him that we met Fenil and that he bowed to us. It will please

him, for he will then think that I shall be appointed Curé.'

They went up the stairs in silence. The Curé's sister came to the

landing, and on seeing them burst into tears. Then she stammered

between her sobs:

'It is all over! He has just passed away in my arms. I was quite alone

with him. As he was dying, he looked round him and murmured, "I must

have the plague since they have all deserted me." Ah! gentlemen he died

with his eyes full of tears.'

They went into the little room where Abbé Compan, with his head resting

on his pillow, seemed to be asleep. His eyes had remained open, and

tears yet trickled down his white sad face. Then Abbé Bourrette fell

upon his knees, sobbing and praying, with his face pressed to the

counterpane. Abbé Faujas at first remained standing, gazing at the dead

man; and after having knelt for a moment, he quietly went away. Abbé

Bourrette was so absorbed in his grief that he did not even hear his

colleague close the door.

Abbé Faujas went straight to the Bishop's. In Monseigneur Rousselot's

ante-chamber he met Abbé Surin, carrying a bundle of papers.

'Do you want to speak to his lordship?' asked the secretary, with

his never-failing smile. 'You have come at an unfortunate time. His

lordship is so busy that he has given orders that no one is to be

admitted.'

'But I want to see him on a very urgent matter,' quietly said Abbé

Faujas. 'You can at any rate let him know that I am here; and I will

wait, if it is necessary.'

'I am afraid that it would be useless for you to wait. His lordship

has several people with him. It would be better if you came again

to-morrow.'

But the Abbé took a chair, and just as he was doing so the Bishop

opened the door of his study. He appeared much vexed on seeing his

visitor, whom at first he pretended not to recognise.

'My son,' he said to Surin, 'when you have arranged those papers, come

to me immediately; there is a letter I want to dictate to you.'

Then turning to the priest, who remained respectfully standing, he said:

'Ah! is it you, Monsieur Faujas? I am very glad to see you. Perhaps you

want to say something to me? Come into my study; you are never in the

way.'

Monseigneur Rousselot's study was a very large and rather gloomy room,

in which a great wood fire was kept burning in the summer as well as

the winter. The heavy carpet and curtains kept out all the air, and

the room was like a warm bath. The Bishop, like some dowager shutting

herself up from the world, detesting all noise and excitement, lived a

chilly life there in his armchair, committing to Abbé Fenil the care

of his diocese. He delighted in the classics, and it was said that he

was secretly making a translation of Horace. He was equally fond of

the little verses of the Anthology, and broad quotations occasionally

escaped from his lips, quotations which he enjoyed with the naïveté of

a learned man who cares nothing for the modesty of the vulgar.

'There is no one here, you see,' said he, sitting down before the fire;

'but I don't feel very well to-day, and I gave orders that nobody was

to be admitted. Now you can tell me what you have to say; I am quite at

your service.'

His general expression of amiability was tinged with a kind of vague

uneasiness, a sort of resigned submission. When Abbé Faujas had

informed him of the death of Abbé Compan, he rose from his chair,

apparently both distressed and alarmed.

'What!' he cried, 'my good Compan dead! and I was not able to bid him

farewell! No one gave me any warning! Ah, my friend, you were right

when you gave me to understand that I was no longer master here. They

abuse my kindness.'

'Your lordship knows,' said Abbé Faujas, 'how devoted I am to you. I am

only waiting for a sign from you.'

The Bishop shook his head as he murmured:

'Yes, yes; I remember the offer you made to me. You have an excellent

heart; but what an uproar there would be, if I were to break with Abbé

Fenil! I should have my ears deafened for a whole week! And yet if I

could feel quite sure that you could really rid me of him, if I was

not afraid that at a week's end he would come back and crush your neck

under his heel----'

Abbé Faujas could not repress a smile. Tears were welling from the

Bishop's eyes.

'Yes, I am afraid, I am afraid,' the prelate resumed, as he again

sank down into his chair. 'I don't feel equal to it yet. It is that

miserable man who has killed Compan and has kept his death agony

a secret from me so that I might not go and close his eyes. He is

capable of the most terrible things. But, you see, I like to live in

peace. Fenil is very energetic and he renders me great services in

the diocese. When I am no longer here, matters will perhaps be better

ordered.'

He grew calmer again and his smile returned.

'Besides, everything is going on satisfactorily at present, and I don't

see any immediate difficulty. We can wait.'

Abbé Faujas sat down, and calmly resumed:

'No doubt: but still you will have to appoint a Curé for

Saint-Saturnin's in succession to the Abbé Compan.'

Monseigneur Rousselot lifted his hands to his temples with an

expression of hopelessness.

'Indeed, you are right!' he ejaculated. 'I had forgotten that. Poor

Compan doesn't know in what a hole he has put me, by dying so suddenly

without my having had any warning. I promised you that place, didn't I?'

The Abbé bowed.

'Well, my friend, you will save me by letting me take back my word. You

know how Fenil detests you. The success of the Home of the Virgin has

made him quite furious, and he swears that he will prevent you from

making the conquest of Plassans. I am talking to you quite openly, you

see. Recently, when reference was made to the appointment of a Curé for

Saint-Saturnin's, I let your name fall. But Fenil flew into a frightful

rage and I was obliged to promise that I would give the place to a

friend of his, Abbé Chardon, whom you know, and who is really a very

worthy man. Now, my friend, do this much for me, and give up that idea.

I will make you whatever recompense you like to name.'

The priest's face wore a grave expression. After a short interval of

silence during which he seemed to be taking counsel of himself, he

spoke:

'You know very well, my lord,' he said, 'that I am quite without

personal ambition. I should much prefer to lead a life of privacy, and

it would be a great relief to me to give up this appointment. But I

am not my own master, I feel bound to satisfy those patrons of mine

who take an interest in me. I trust that your lordship will reflect

very seriously before taking a step which you would probably regret

afterwards.'

Although Abbé Faujas spoke very humbly, the Bishop was not unconscious

of the menace which his words veiled. He rose from his chair and took a

few steps about the room, a prey to the painful perplexity.

'Well, well,' he said, lifting his hands, 'here's trouble and no

mistake, for a long time. I should much have preferred to avoid all

these explanations, but, since you insist, I must speak frankly. Well,

my dear sir, Abbé Fenil brings many charges against you. As I think

I told you before, he must have written to Besançon and learnt all

the vexatious stories you know of. You have certainly explained those

matters to me, and I am quite aware of your merits and of your life of

penitence and solitude; but what can I do? Fenil has weapons against

you and he uses them ruthlessly. I often don't know what to say in your

defence. When the Minister requested me to receive you into my diocese,

I did not conceal from him that your position would be a difficult one;

but he continued to press me and said that that was your affair, and so

in the end I consented. But you must not come to-day and ask me to do

what is impossible.'

Abbé Faujas had not lowered his head during the Bishop's remarks. He

now raised it still higher as he looked the prelate straight in the

face and said in his sharp voice:

'You have given me your promise, my lord.'

'Certainly, certainly,' the Bishop replied. 'That poor Compan was

getting weaker every day and you came and confided certain matters to

me, and I then made the promise to you. I don't deny it. Listen to me,

I will tell you everything, so that you may not accuse me of wheeling

round like a weathercock. You asserted that the Minister was extremely

desirous for you to be appointed Curé of Saint-Saturnin's. Well, I

wrote for information on the subject, and a friend of mine went to the

Ministry in Paris. They almost laughed in his face there, and they told

him that they didn't even know you. The Minister absolutely denies that

he is your supporter, do you hear? If you wish it, I will read you a

letter in which he makes some very stern remarks about you.'

He stretched his arm towards a drawer, but Abbé Faujas rose to his feet

without taking his eyes off him, and smiled with mingled irony and pity.

'Ah, my lord! my lord!' said he.

Then, after a moment's silence, as though he were unwilling to enter

into further explanations, he said:

'I give your lordship back your promise; but believe that in all this I

was working more for your own advantage than for mine. By-and-by, when

it will be too late, you will call my warnings to mind.'

He stepped towards the door, but the Bishop laid his hand upon him and

brought him back, saying with an expression of uneasiness:

'What do you mean? Explain yourself, my dear Monsieur Faujas. I know

very well that I have not been in favour at Paris since the election

of the Marquis de Lagrifoul. But people know me very little if they

suppose that I had any hand in the matter. I don't go out of my study

twice a month. Do you imagine that they accuse me of having brought

about the marquis's return?'

'Yes, I am afraid so,' the priest curtly replied.

'But it is quite absurd! I have never interfered in politics; I live

amongst my beloved books. It was Fenil who did it all. I told him a

score of times that he would end by compromising me in Paris.'

He checked himself and blushed slightly at having allowed these last

words to escape him. Abbé Faujas sat down again and said in a deep

voice:

'My lord, by those words you have condemned your vicar-general. I have

never said otherwise than you have just said. Do not continue to make

common cause with him or he will lead you into serious trouble. I have

friends in Paris, whatever you may believe. I know that the Marquis de

Lagrifoul's election has strongly predisposed the Government against

you. Rightly or wrongly, they believe that you are the sole cause of

the opposition movement which has manifested itself in Plassans, where

the Minister, for special reasons, is most anxious to have a majority.

If the Legitimist candidate should again succeed at the next election,

it would be very awkward, and I should be considerably alarmed for your

comfort.'

'But this is abominable!' cried the unhappy Bishop, rocking himself

in his chair; 'I can't prevent the Legitimist candidate from being

returned! I haven't got the least influence, and I never mix myself

up in these matters at all. Really, there are times when I feel that

I should like to shut myself up in a monastery. I could take my books

with me, and lead a quiet, peaceful life there. It is Fenil who ought

to be Bishop instead of me. If I were to listen to Fenil, I should get

on the very worst terms with the Government. I should hearken only

to Rome, and tell Paris to mind its own business. But that is not my

nature, and I want to die in peace. The Minister, then, you say, is

enraged with me?'

The priest made no reply. Two creases which appeared at the corners of

his mouth gave his face an expression of silent scorn.

'Really,' continued the Bishop, 'if I thought it would please him if I

were to appoint you Curé of Saint-Saturnin's, I would try to manage it.

But I can assure you that you are mistaken. You are but little in the

odour of sanctity.'

Abbé Faujas made a hasty movement of his hands, as he broke out

impatiently:

'Have you forgotten that calumnies are circulated about me, and that I

came to Plassans in a threadbare cassock? When they send a compromised

man to a post of danger, they deny all knowledge of him till the day of

triumph. Help me to succeed, my lord, and then you will see that I have

friends in Paris.'

Then, as the Bishop, surprised to find in a priest such a bold

adventurer, continued to gaze at him in silence, Faujas lapsed into a

less assertive manner and continued:

'These, however, are suppositions, and what I mean is, that I have much

to be pardoned. My friends are waiting to thank you till my position is

completely established.'

Monseigneur Rousselot kept silence for a moment longer. He was a man of

sharp understanding, and he had gained a knowledge of human failings

from books. He was conscious of his own yielding character, and he was

even a little ashamed of it; but he consoled himself for it by judging

men for what they were worth. In the life of a learned epicurean,

which he led, there were times when he felt supreme disdain for the

ambitious men about him, who fought amongst themselves for a few stray

shreds of his power.

'Well,' he said, with a smile, 'you are a pertinacious man, my dear

Monsieur Faujas, and since I have made you a promise I will keep it.

Six months ago, I confess, I should have been afraid of stirring up

all Plassans against me, but you have succeeded in making yourself

liked, and the ladies of the town often speak to me about you in very

eulogistic terms. In appointing you Curé of Saint-Saturnin's, I am only

paying the debt which we owe you for the Home of the Virgin.'

The Bishop had recovered his usual pleasant amiability and charming

manner. Just at this moment Abbé Surin put his handsome head through

the doorway.

'No, my child,' said the Bishop to him, 'I shall not dictate that

letter to you. I have no further need of you, and you can go.'

'Abbé Fenil is here,' muttered the young priest.

'Oh, very well, let him wait!'

Monseigneur Rousselot winced slightly; but he spoke to his secretary

with an almost ludicrous expression of decision, and looked at Abbé

Faujas with a glance of intelligence.

'See! go out this way,' he said to him, as he opened a door that was

hidden behind a curtain.

He kept the priest standing on the threshold for a moment, and

continued to look at him with a smile on his face.

'Fenil will be furious,' said he; 'but you will promise to defend me

against him if he is too hard upon me! I am making him your enemy,

I warn you of that. I am counting upon you, too, to prevent the

re-election of the Marquis de Lagrifoul. Ah! it is upon you that I am

leaning now, my dear Monsieur Faujas.'

He waved his white hand to the Abbé, and then returned with an

appearance of perfect unconcern to the warmth of his study. The priest

had remained bowing, feeling surprised at the quite feminine ease with

which the Bishop changed his master and yielded to the stronger side.

And only now did he begin to feel that Monseigneur Rousselot had been

secretly laughing at him, even as he laughed at Abbé Fenil in that

downy armchair of his where he read his Horace.

About ten o'clock on the following Thursday, just when the fashionable

folks of Plassans were treading on each other's toes in the Rougons'

green drawing-room, Abbé Faujas appeared at the door. He looked tall

and majestic, there was a bright colour on his cheeks, and he wore a

delicate cassock that glistened like satin. His face was still grave,

though there was a slight smile upon it, just the pleasant turn of the

lips that was necessary to light up his stern countenance with a ray of

cheerfulness.

'Ah! here is the dear Curé!' Madame de Condamin gaily exclaimed.

The mistress of the house eagerly hastened up to him; she grasped one

of his hands within both her own, and drew him into the middle of the

room, with wheedling glances and a gentle swaying of her head.

'This is a surprise! a very pleasant surprise!' she cried. 'It's an age

since we have seen you! Is it only when good fortune visits you that

you can remember your friends?'

Abbé Faujas bowed with easy composure. All around him there was a

flattering ovation, a buzzing of enthusiastic women. Madame Delangre

and Madame Rastoil did not wait till he came up to them, but hastened

to congratulate him upon his appointment, which had been officially

announced that morning. The mayor, the justice of the peace, and even

Monsieur de Bourdeu, all stepped up to him and shook his hand heartily.

'Ah, he's a fine fellow and will go a long way!' Monsieur de Condamin

murmured into Doctor Porquier's ear. 'I scented him from the first day

I saw him. That grimacing old Madame Rougon and he tell no end of lies.

I have seen him slipping in here at dusk half a score of times. They

must be mixed up in some queer things together.'

Doctor Porquier was terribly afraid of being compromised by Monsieur

de Condamin, so he hurried away from him, and came like the others to

grasp Abbé Faujas's hand, although he had never previously spoken to

him.

The priest's triumphal entry was the great event of the evening. He had

now seated himself and was hemmed in by a triple circle of petticoats.

He talked with charming good nature on all sorts of subjects, but

avoided replying to any hints or allusions. When Félicité directly

questioned him, he merely said that he should not occupy the parsonage,

as he preferred remaining in the lodgings where he had found himself

so comfortable for nearly three years. Marthe was present among the

other ladies, and was, as usual, extremely reserved. She had only just

smiled at the Abbé, watching him from a distance, and looking the

while a little pale and rather weary and uneasy. When he signified his

intention of not quitting the Rue Balande, she blushed and rose to go

into the small drawing-room as if she felt incommoded by the heat.

Madame Paloque, beside whom Monsieur de Condamin had seated himself,

said to him quite loud enough to be heard:

'It's very decorous, isn't it? She certainly might refrain from

making assignations with him here, since they have the whole day to

themselves!'

Only Monsieur de Condamin laughed; everyone else received the sally

very coldly. Then Madame Paloque, recognising that she had made a

mistake, tried to turn the matter off as a joke. Meantime in the

corners of the room the guests were discussing Abbé Fenil. Great

curiosity was manifested as to whether he would put in an appearance.

Monsieur de Bourdeu, who was one of his friends, said with an air of

authority that he was indisposed--a statement which was received by

the company with discreet smiles. Everyone was quite aware of the

revolution that had taken place at the Bishop's. Abbé Surin gave the

ladies some very interesting details of the terrible scene that had

taken place between his lordship and the grand-vicar. The latter, on

getting the worst of the struggle, had caused it to be reported that

he was confined to his room by an attack of gout. But the fight was

not over, and Abbé Surin hinted that a good deal more would happen

yet, a remark which was whispered about the room with many little

exclamations, shakings of heads and expressions of surprise and doubt.

For the moment, at any rate, Abbé Faujas was carrying everything before

him and so the fair devotees sunned themselves pleasantly in the rays

of the rising luminary.

About the middle of the evening Abbé Bourrette arrived. Conversation

ceased and people looked at him with curiosity. They all knew that he

had expected to be appointed Curé of Saint-Saturnin's himself. He had

taken over the Abbé Compan's duties during the latter's long illness,

and he had a lien upon the appointment. He lingered for a moment by

the door, a little out of breath and with blinking eyes, without being

aware of the interest which his appearance excited. Then, catching

sight of Abbé Faujas, he eagerly hastened up to him, and seizing both

his hands with a show of much pleasure exclaimed:

'Ah! my dear friend, let me congratulate you! I have just come from

your rooms, where your mother told me that you were here. I am

delighted to see you.'

Abbé Faujas had risen from his seat, and notwithstanding his great

self-control, he seemed annoyed, taken by surprise, as it were, by this

unexpected display of affection.

'Yes,' he murmured, 'I felt bound to accept his lordship's offer in

spite of my lack of merit. I refused it, indeed, at first, mentioning

the names of several more deserving priests than myself. I mentioned

your own name.'

Abbé Bourrette blinked, and taking Abbé Faujas aside he said to him in

low tones:

'His lordship has told me all about it. Fenil, it seems, would not

hear of me. He would have set the whole diocese in a blaze if I had

been appointed. Those were his very words. My crime is having closed

poor Compan's eyes. He demanded, as you know, the appointment of Abbé

Chardon, a pious man, no doubt, but not of sufficient reputation. Fenil

counted on reigning at Saint-Saturnin's in his name. It was then that

his lordship determined to give you the place and checkmate him. I am

quite avenged, and I am delighted, my dear friend. Did you know the

full story?'

'No, not in all its details.'

'Well, it is all just as I have told you, I can assure you. I have the

facts from his lordship's own lips. Between ourselves, he has hinted

to me of a very sufficient recompense. The deputy vicar-general, Abbé

Vial, has for a long time been desirous of settling in Rome, and his

place will be vacant, you understand. But don't say anything about

this. I wouldn't take a big sum of money for my day's work.'

He continued pressing both Abbé Faujas's hands, while his broad

face beamed with satisfaction. The ladies around them were smiling

and looking at them in surprise. But the worthy man's joy was so

frank and unreserved that it communicated itself to all in the green

drawing-room, where the ovation in the new Curé's honour took a more

familiar and affectionate turn. The ladies grouped themselves together

and spoke of the cathedral organ which wanted repairing, and Madame

de Condamin promised a magnificent altar for the procession on the

approaching festival of Corpus Christi.

Abbé Bourrette was sharing in the general triumph when Madame Paloque,

craning out her hideous face, touched him on the shoulder and murmured

in his ear:

'Your reverence won't, I suppose, hear confessions to-morrow in

Saint-Michael's chapel?'

The priest, while taking Abbé Compan's duty, had occupied the

confessional in Saint-Michael's chapel, which was the largest and most

convenient in the church and was specially reserved for the Curé. He

did not at first understand the force of Madame Paloque's remark, and

he looked at her, again blinking his eyes.

'I ask you,' she continued, 'if you will resume your old confessional

in the chapel of the Holy Angels, to-morrow.'

He turned rather pale and remained silent for a moment longer. Then he

bent his gaze to the floor, and a slight shiver coursed down his neck,

as though he had received a blow from behind. And, seeing that Madame

Paloque was still there staring at him, he stammered out:

'Certainly; I shall go back to my old confessional. Come to the chapel

of the Holy Angels, the last one on the left, on the same side as the

cloisters. It is very damp, so wrap yourself up well, dear madame, wrap

yourself up well.'

Tears rose to his eyes. He was filled with regretful longing for that

handsome confessional in the chapel of Saint-Michael, into which the

warm sun streamed in the afternoon just at the time when he heard

confessions. Until now he had felt no sorrow at relinquishing the

cathedral to Abbé Faujas; but this little matter, this removal from one

chapel to another, affected him very painfully; and it seemed to him

that he had missed the goal of his life. Madame Paloque told him in

her loud voice that he appeared to have grown melancholy all at once,

but he protested against this assertion and tried to smile and look

cheerful again. However he left the drawing-room early in the evening.

Abbé Faujas was one of the last to go. Rougon came up to him to offer

his congratulations and they remained talking earnestly together on a

couch. They spoke of the necessity of religious feeling in a wisely

ordered state. Each lady, on retiring from the room, made a low bow as

she passed in front of them.

'You know, Monsieur le Curé,' said Félicité graciously, 'that you are

my daughter's cavalier.'

The priest rose from his seat. Marthe was waiting for him at the

door. When they got out into the street, they seemed as if blinded

by the darkness, and crossed the Place of the Sub-Prefecture without

exchanging a word; but in the Rue Balande, as they stood in front of

the house, Marthe touched the priest's arm at the moment when he was

about to insert the key in the lock.

'I am so very pleased at your success,' she said to him, in a tone of

great emotion. 'Be kind to me to-day, and grant me the favour which

you have hitherto refused. I assure you that Abbé Bourrette does not

understand me. It is only you who can direct and save me.'

He motioned her away from him, and, when he had opened the door

and lighted the little lamp which Rose had left at the foot of the

staircase, he went upstairs, saying to her gently as he did so:

'You promised me to be reasonable--well, I will think over what you

have asked. We will talk about it.'

Marthe did not retire to her own room until she had heard the priest

close his door on the upper floor. While she was undressing and getting

into bed she paid no attention whatever to Mouret, who, half asleep,

was retailing to her at great length some gossip that was being

circulated in the town. He had been to his club, the Commercial Club, a

place where he rarely set foot.

'Abbé Faujas has got the better of Abbé Bourrette,' he repeated for

the tenth time as he slowly rolled his head upon the pillow. 'Poor

Abbé Bourrette! Well, never mind! it's good fun to see those parsons

devouring one another. The other day when they were hugging each other

in the garden--you remember it, don't you?--anyone would have thought

that they were brothers. Ah! they rob each other even of their very

penitents. But why don't you say anything, my dear? You don't agree

with me, eh? Or is it because you are going to sleep? Well, well,

good-night then, my dear.'

He fell asleep, still muttering disjointed words, while Marthe, with

widely opened eyes, stared up into the air and followed over the

ceiling, faintly illumined by the night-light, the pattering of the

Abbé's slippers while he was retiring to rest.

XII

At the return of summer Abbé Faujas and his mother again came

downstairs to enjoy the fresh air on the terrace. Mouret had become

very cross-grained. He declined the old lady's invitations to play

piquet and sat swaying himself about on a chair. Seeing him yawn,

without making any attempt to conceal how bored he was feeling, Marthe

said to him:

'Why don't you go to your club, my dear?'

He now went there more frequently than he had been used to do. When he

returned he found his wife and the Abbé still in the same place on the

terrace, while Madame Faujas, a few yards away from them, preserved the

demeanour of a blind and dumb guardian.

When anyone in the town spoke to Mouret of the new Curé he still

continued to sound his praises. Faujas, said he, was decidedly a

superior sort of man, and he himself had never felt any doubt of his

great abilities. Madame Paloque could never succeed in drawing a

hostile word from him on the subject of the priest, in spite of the

malicious way in which she would ask him after his wife in the midst of

his remarks about Abbé Faujas. Old Madame Rougon had no better success

in her attempts to unveil the secret troubles which she thought she

could detect beneath Mouret's outward show of cheerfulness. She laid

all sorts of traps for him as she watched his face with her sharp

shrewd smile; but that inveterate chatterer, whose tongue was a regular

town-crier's bell, now showed the greatest reserve when any reference

was made to his household.

'So your husband has become reasonable at last?' Félicité remarked to

her daughter one day. 'He leaves you free.'

Marthe looked at her mother with an air of surprise.

'I have always been free,' she said.

'Ah! my dear child, I see that you don't want to say anything against

him. You told me once that he looked very unfavourably upon Abbé

Faujas.'

'Nothing of the kind, I assure you! You must have imagined it. My

husband is upon the best terms with Abbé Faujas. There is nothing

whatever to make them otherwise.'

Marthe was much astonished at the persistence with which everybody

seemed to imagine that her husband and the Abbé were not good friends.

Frequently at the committee-meetings at the Home of the Virgin the

ladies put questions to her which made her quite impatient. She was

really very happy and contented, and the house in the Rue Balande had

never seemed pleasanter to her than it did now. Abbé Faujas had given

her to understand that he would undertake her spiritual direction

as soon as he should be of opinion that Abbé Bourrette was no longer

sufficient, and she lived in this hope, her mind full of simple joy,

like a girl who is promised some pretty religious pictures if she

keeps good. Every now and then indeed she felt as though she were

becoming a child again; she experienced a freshness of feeling and

child-like impulses that filled her with gentle emotion. One day, in

the spring-time, as Mouret was pruning his tall box plants, he found

her sitting at the bottom of the garden beneath the young shoots of the

arbour with her eyes streaming with tears.

'What is the matter, my dear?' he asked anxiously.

'Nothing,' she said, with a smile, 'nothing at all, really; I am very

happy, very.'

He shrugged his shoulders, and went on delicately cutting the box

plants into an even line. He took considerable pride in having the

neatest trimmed hedges in the neighbourhood. Marthe had wiped her eyes,

but she soon began to weep again, feeling a choking heart-rending

sensation at the scent of the severed verdure. She was forty years old

now, and it was for her past-away youth that she was weeping.

Since his appointment as Curé of Saint-Saturnin's, Abbé Faujas had

shown a dignity which seemed to increase his stature. He carried his

breviary and his hat with an air of authority, which he had exhibited

at the cathedral in such wise as to ensure himself the respect of the

clergy. Abbé Fenil, having sustained another defeat on two or three

matters of detail, now seemed to have left his adversary free to do as

he pleased. Abbé Faujas, however, was not foolish enough to make any

indiscreet use of his triumph, but showed himself extremely supple.

He was quite conscious that Plassans was still far from being his;

and so, though he stopped every now and then in the street to shake

hands with Monsieur Delangre, he merely exchanged passing salutations

with Monsieur de Bourdeu, Monsieur Maffre, and the other guests of

Monsieur Rastoil. A large section of society in the town still looked

upon him with suspicion. They found fault with him for the want of

frankness in his political opinions. In their estimation he ought to

explain himself, declare himself in favour of one party or another. But

the Abbé only smiled and said that he belonged to 'the honest men's

party,' a reply which spared him a more explicit declaration. Moreover

he showed no haste or anxiety, but continued to keep aloof till the

drawing-rooms should open their doors to him of their own accord.

'No, my friend, not now; later on we will see about it,' he said to

Abbé Bourrette, who had been pressing him to pay a visit to Monsieur

Rastoil.

He was known to have refused two invitations to the Sub-Prefecture, and

the Mourets were still the only people with whom he continued intimate.

There he was, as it were, occupying a post of observation between two

hostile camps. On Tuesdays, when the two sets of guests assembled in

the gardens on his right and left, he took up his position at his

window and watched the sunset in the distance behind the forests of the

Seille, and then, before withdrawing, he lowered his eyes and replied

with as much amiability to the bows of Monsieur Rastoil's guests as to

those of the Sub-Prefect's. His intercourse with his neighbours as yet

went no further than this.

On Tuesday, however, he went down into the garden. He was quite at

home now in Mouret's grounds and no longer confined himself to pacing

up and down beneath the arbour as he read his breviary. All the walks

and beds seemed to belong to him; his cassock glided blackly past all

the greenery. On that particular Tuesday, as he made a tour of the

garden, he caught sight of Monsieur Maffre and Madame Rastoil below

him and bowed to them; and then as he passed below the terrace of the

Sub-Prefecture, he saw Monsieur de Condamin leaning there in company

with Doctor Porquier. After an exchange of salutations, the priest was

turning along the path, when the doctor called to him.

'Just a word, your reverence, I beg.'

Then he asked him at what time he could see him the following day. This

was the first occasion on which any one of the two sets of guests had

spoken to the priest from one garden to the other. The doctor was in

great trouble however. His scamp of a son had been caught in a gambling

den behind the gaol in company with other worthless characters. The

most distressing part of the matter was that Guillaume was accused of

being the leader of the band, and of having led Monsieur Maffre's sons,

much younger than himself, astray.

'Pooh!' said Monsieur de Condamin with his sceptical laugh; 'young men

must sow their wild oats. What a fuss about nothing! Here's the whole

town in a state of perturbation because some young fellows have been

caught playing baccarat and there happened to be a lady with them!'

The doctor seemed very much shocked at this.

'I want to ask your advice,' he said, addressing himself to the

priest. 'Monsieur Maffre came to my house boiling over with anger, and

assailed me with the bitterest reproaches, crying out that it was all

my fault, as I had brought my son up badly. I am extremely distressed

and troubled about it. Monsieur Maffre ought to know me better. I have

sixty years of stainless life behind me.'

He went on wailing, dwelling upon the sacrifices that he had made for

his son and expressing his fears that he would lose his practice in

consequence of the young man's misconduct. Abbé Faujas, standing in the

middle of the path, raised his head and gravely listened.

'I shall be only too glad if I can be of any service to you,' he said

kindly. 'I will see Monsieur Maffre and will let him understand that

his natural indignation has carried him too far. I will go at once and

ask him to appoint a meeting with me for to-morrow. He is over there,

on the other side.'

The Abbé crossed the garden and went towards Monsieur Maffre, who was

still there with Madame Rastoil. When the justice of the peace found

that the priest desired an interview with him, he would not hear of his

taking any trouble about it, but put himself at his disposition, saying

that he would do himself the honour of calling upon him the next day.

'Ah! Monsieur le Curé,' Madame Rastoil then remarked, 'let me

compliment you upon your sermon last Sunday. All the ladies were much

affected by it, I assure you.'

The Abbé bowed and crossed the garden again in order to reassure

Doctor Porquier. Then he continued slowly pacing about the walks till

nightfall, without taking part in any further conversations, but ever

hearing the merriment of the groups of guests on his right hand and his

left.

When Monsieur Maffre appeared the next day, Abbé Faujas was watching a

couple of men who were at work repairing the fountain in the garden. He

had expressed a desire to see the fountain play again, for the empty

basin, said he, had such a melancholy appearance. At first Mouret had

not seemed very willing to have anything done, alleging the probability

of accidents with Désirée, but Marthe had prevailed upon him to let the

repairs be executed upon the understanding that the basin should be

protected by a railing.

'Monsieur le Curé,' said Rose, 'the justice of the peace wishes to see

you.'

Abbé Faujas hastened indoors. He wanted to take Monsieur Maffre up

to his own room on the second floor, but Rose had already opened the

drawing-room door.

'Go in,' she said; 'aren't you at home here? It is useless to make

the justice go up two flights of stairs. If you had only told me this

morning, I would have given the room a dusting.'

As she closed the door upon the Abbé and the magistrate, after opening

the shutters, Mouret called her into the dining-room.