Chapter IV: Part 4

Abbé Faujas had considered it his duty to assume a very serious expression on being made the recipient of such confidences as these, and he even closed his eyes and seemed to hear nothing; while Monsieur de Condamin went on, as though in justification of himself:

'I allow myself to speak in this way of Delangre, as I know him so well. He is a wonderfully clever, pushing fellow. His father was a bricklayer, I believe. Fifteen years ago he used to take up the petty suits that other lawyers wouldn't be bothered with. Madame Rastoil extricated him from a condition of absolute penury; she supplied him even with wood in the winter-time to enable him to keep himself warm. It was through her influence that he won his first cases. It's worth mentioning that at that time Delangre had been shrewd enough to manifest no particular political proclivities; and so, in 1852, when people were looking out for a mayor, his name was at once thought of. He was the only man who could have been chosen without alarming one or other of the three divisions of the town. From that time everything has prospered with him, and he has a fine future before him. The only unfortunate part of the matter is that he doesn't get on very well with Péqueur; they are always wrangling about some silly trifles or other.'

He broke off as he saw the tall young man, with whom he had been chatting previously, come up to him again.

'Monsieur Guillaume Porquier,' he said, introducing him to the Abbé, 'the son of Doctor Porquier.'

Then, as Guillaume seated himself, he asked him with a touch of irony:

'Well! what did you see to admire over yonder?'

'Nothing at all, indeed!' replied the young man with a smile. 'I saw the Paloques. Madame Rougon always tries to hide them behind a curtain to prevent anything unpleasant happening. Paloque never takes his eyes off Monsieur Rastoil, hoping, no doubt, to kill him with suppressed terror. You know, of course, that the hideous fellow hopes to die presiding judge.'

They both laughed. The ugliness of the Paloques was a perpetual source of amusement amongst the little circle of officials. Porquier's son lowered his voice as he continued:

'I saw Monsieur Bourdeu, too. Doesn't it strike you that he's ever so much thinner since the Marquis de Lagrifoul's election? Bourdeu will never get over the loss of his prefecture; he had put all his Orleanist rancour at the service of the Legitimists in the hope that that course would lead him straight to the Chamber, where he would be able to win back that deeply-deplored prefecture. So he was horribly disgusted and hurt to find that instead of himself they chose the marquis, who is a perfect ass and hasn't the faintest notion of politics, whereas he, Bourdeu, is a very shrewd fellow.'

'That Bourdeu, with his tightly-buttoned frock-coat and broad-brimmed hat, is a most overbearing person,' said Monsieur de Condamin, shrugging his shoulders. 'If such people as he were allowed to have their own way they would turn France into a mere Sorbonne of lawyers and diplomatists, and would bore us all to death----Oh! by the way, Guillaume, I have been hearing about you. You seem to be leading a merry sort of life.'

'I?' exclaimed the young man with a smile.

'Yes, you, my fine fellow! and observe that I get my information from your father. He is much distressed about it: he accuses you of gambling and of staying out all night at the club and other places. Is it true that you have discovered a low café behind the gaol where you go with a company of scamps and play the devil's own game? I have even been told----'

Here Monsieur de Condamin, observing two ladies enter the room, began to whisper in Guillaume's ear, while the young man replied with affirmative signs and shook with suppressed laughter. Then he bent forward in turn and whispered to Monsieur de Condamin, and the pair of them, drawing close together with brightly glistening eyes, seemed to derive a prolonged enjoyment from this private story, which could not be told in the presence of ladies.

Abbé Faujas had remained where he was. He no longer listened to what was being said, but watched the many movements of Monsieur Delangre, who bustled about the green drawing-room trying to make himself extremely agreeable. The priest was so absorbed in his observations that he did not see Abbé Bourrette beckoning to him, so that the other had to come and touch his shoulder and ask him to follow. He then led him into the card-room with all the precaution of a man who has some very delicate communication to make.

'My dear friend,' he whispered, when they were alone in a quiet corner, 'it is excusable in you, as this is the first time you have been here, but I must warn you that you have compromised yourself very considerably by talking so long with the persons you have just left.'

Then, as Abbé Faujas looked at him with great surprise, he added:

'Those persons are not looked upon favourably. I myself am not passing any judgment upon them, and I don't want to repeat any scandal. I am simply warning you out of pure friendship, that's all.'

He was going away, but Abbé Faujas detained him, exclaiming hastily:

'You disquiet me, my dear Monsieur Bourrette; I beg of you to explain yourself. Without speaking any ill of anyone, you can surely be a little clearer.'

'Well then,' replied the old priest, after a momentary hesitation, 'Doctor Porquier's son causes his worthy father the greatest distress, and sets the worst example to all the studious youth of Plassans. He left nothing but debts behind him in Paris, and here he is turning the whole town upside down. As for Monsieur de Condamin----'

Here he hesitated again, feeling embarrassed by the enormity of what he had to relate; then, lowering his eyes, he resumed:

'Monsieur de Condamin is very free in his conversation, and I fear that he is deficient in a sense of morality. He spares no one, and he scandalises every honourable person. Then--I really hardly know how to tell you--but he has contracted, it is said, a scarcely creditable marriage. You see that young woman there, who is not thirty years old, and who has such a crowd around her? Well, he brought her to Plassans one day from no one knows where. From the time of her arrival she has been all-powerful here. It is she who has got her husband and Doctor Porquier decorated. She has influential friends in Paris. But I beg of you not to repeat any of this. Madame de Condamin is very amiable and charitable. I go to her house sometimes, and I should be extremely distressed if I thought that she considered me an enemy of hers. If she has committed faults, it is our duty--is it not?--to help her to return to a better way of life. As for her husband, he is, between ourselves, a perfect scamp. Have as little as possible to do with him.'

Abbé Faujas gazed into the worthy Bourrette's eyes. He had just noticed that Madame Rougon was following their conversation from the distance with a thoughtful air.

'Wasn't it Madame Rougon who told you to come and give me this good advice?' he suddenly asked the old priest.

'How did you know that?' the latter exclaimed in great astonishment. 'She asked me not to mention her name, but since you have guessed it--Ah! she is a good, kind-hearted lady who would be much distressed to see a priest compromising himself in her house. She is unfortunately compelled to receive all sorts of persons.'

Abbé Faujas expressed his thanks, and promised to be more prudent in the future. The card-players had not taken any notice of the two priests, who returned into the big drawing-room, where Faujas was again conscious of hostile surroundings. He even experienced greater coldness and more silent contempt than before. The ladies pulled their dresses out of his way as though his touch would have soiled them, and the men turned away from him with sneering titters. He himself maintained haughty calmness and indifference. Fancying that he heard the word Besançon meaningly pronounced in a corner of the room where Madame de Condamin was holding her court, he walked straight up to the folks by whom she was surrounded; but, at his approach, there was a dead silence amongst them, and they all stared him in the face with eyes that gleamed with uncharitable curiosity. He felt quite sure that they had been talking about him, and repeating some disgraceful story. While he was still standing there, behind the Rastoil young ladies, who had not observed him, he heard the younger one ask her sister:

'What was it that this priest, of whom everyone is talking, did at Besançon?'

'I don't quite know,' the elder sister replied. 'I believe he nearly murdered his vicar in a quarrel they had. Papa also said that he had been mixed up in some great business speculation which turned out badly.'

'He's in the small room over there, isn't he? Somebody saw him just now laughing with Monsieur de Condamin.'

'Oh! then people do quite right to distrust him if he laughs with Monsieur de Condamin.'

This gossip of the two girls made perspiration start from Abbé Faujas's brows. He did not frown, but his lips tightened one upon the other, and his cheeks took an ashy tint. He seemed to hear the whole room talking of the priest whom he had tried to murder, and of the shady transactions in which he had been concerned.

Opposite him were Monsieur Delangre and Doctor Porquier, still looking very severe; Monsieur de Bourdeu's mouth pouted scornfully as he said something in a low voice to a lady; Monsieur Maffre, the justice of the peace, was casting furtive glances at him, as if he had piously resolved to examine him from a distance before condemning him; and at the other end of the room the two hideous Paloques craned out their malice-warped faces, in which shone a wicked joy at all the cruel stories that were being whispered about. Abbé Faujas slowly retired as he saw Madame Rastoil, who had been standing a few paces away, come up and seat herself between her two daughters, as though to keep them under the protection of her wing and shield them from his touch. He rested his elbow on the piano which he saw behind him, and there he stood with his head erect and his face as hard and silent as a face of stone. He felt that they were all in a plot to treat him as an outcast.

As he stood thus gazing at the company from under his partially lowered eyelids he suddenly gave a slight start, which he quickly suppressed. He had just caught sight of Abbé Fenil, leaning back in an easy-chair and smiling quietly behind a perfect wall of petticoats. The eyes of the two men met, and they gazed at each other for some moments with the fierce expression of duellists about to engage in mortal combat. Then there was a rustling of silk, and Abbé Fenil was hidden from sight by the ladies' gowns.

However, Félicité had contrived to reach the neighbourhood of the piano, and when she had succeeded in installing at it the elder of the Rastoil girls, who had a pleasant voice, and was able to speak to Abbé Faujas without being heard, she drew him towards one of the windows and asked:

'What have you done to Abbé Fenil?'

They talked together in very low tones. The priest at first feigned surprise, but when Madame Rougon had murmured a few words, accompanied by sundry shruggings of her shoulders, he seemed to become more open with her. They both smiled, and made a pretence of merely exchanging ordinary courtesies, but the glistening of their eyes spoke of something much more serious. The piano was silent for a moment, and then the elder Mademoiselle Rastoil began to sing 'La Colombe du Soldat,' which was a favourite song at that time.

'Your _début_ has been most unfortunate,' Félicité continued. 'You have quite set people against you, and I should advise you not to come here again for a considerable time. You must make yourself popular and a favourite, you understand. Any rash act would be fatal.'

Abbé Faujas seemed absorbed in thought.

'You say that it was Abbé Fenil who circulated these abominable stories?' he asked.

'Oh, he is much too wily to commit himself in such a way. He must just have faintly suggested them to his penitents. I don't know whether he has found you out, but he is certainly afraid of you. I am sure of that. And he will attack you in every possible way. The most unfortunate part of the matter is that he confesses the most important people in the town. It was he who secured the election of the Marquis de Lagrifoul.'

'I did wrong to come this evening,' the priest murmured.

Félicité bit her lips, then continued with animation:

'You did wrong to compromise yourself with such a man as that Condamin. I did what I thought was best. When the person whom you know of wrote to me from Paris I thought that I should be doing you a service by inviting you here. I imagined that you would be able to make it an opportunity for gaining friends. But, instead of doing what you could to make yourself popular, you have set everyone against you. Please excuse my freedom, but you really seem to be doing all you can to ensure your failure. You have committed nothing but mistakes: in going to lodge with my son-in-law, in persistently keeping yourself aloof from others, and in walking about in a cassock which makes the street-lads jeer at you.'

Abbé Faujas could not repress a movement of impatience. However, he merely replied:

'I will profit by your kind advice. Only, don't try to assist me; that would mar everything.'

'Yes, what you say is prudent,' replied the old lady. 'Only return here in triumph. One last word, my dear sir. The person in Paris is most anxious for your success, and it is for that reason that I am interesting myself in you. Well, then, don't make people frightened of you--shun you; be pleasant, and make yourself agreeable to the ladies. Remember that particularly. You must make yourself agreeable to the ladies if you want to get Plassans on your side.'

The elder Mademoiselle Rastoil had just finished her song with a final flourish, and the guests were softly applauding her. Madame Rougon left the Abbé to go and congratulate the singer. Then she took up a position in the middle of the room, and shook hands with the visitors who were beginning to retire. It was eleven o'clock. The Abbé was much vexed to find that the worthy Bourrette had taken advantage of the music to effect his escape. He had thought of leaving with him--a course which would have enabled him to make a respectable exit. Now, however, he would have to go away alone, which would be extremely prejudicial to him. It would be reported through the town in the morning that he had been turned out of the house. So he retired into a window-recess, whence he watched for an opportunity to effect an honourable retreat.

The room was emptying fast, however, and there were only a few ladies left. At last he noticed one who was very simply dressed; it was Madame Mouret, whose slightly waved hair made her look younger than usual. He looked with surprise at her tranquil face and her large, peaceful black eyes. He had not noticed her during the evening; she had quietly remained in the same corner without moving, vexed at wasting her time in this way, with her hands in her lap, doing nothing. While he was looking at her she rose to take leave of her mother.

It was one of Félicité's greatest delights to see the high society of Plassans leave her with profuse bows and thanks for her punch, her green drawing-room, and the pleasant evening they had spent there; and she thought how, formerly, these same fine folks had trampled her underfoot, whereas now the richest amongst them could not find sweet enough smiles for 'dear Madame Rougon.'

'Ah, madame!' murmured Maffre, the justice of the peace, 'one quite forgets the passage of time here.'

'You are the only pleasant hostess in all this uncivilised place,' whispered pretty Madame de Condamin.

'We shall expect you to dinner to-morrow,' said Monsieur Delangre; 'but you must take pot-luck, for we don't pretend to do as you do.'

Marthe was obliged to make her way through all this incense-offering crowd in order to reach her mother. She kissed her, and was about to retire, when Félicité detained her and looked around as if to trying to find someone. Then on catching sight of Abbé Faujas, she inquired, with a smile:

'Is your reverence a gallant man?'

The Abbé bowed.

'Well, then, I should be much obliged to you if you would escort my daughter home. You both live in the same house, and so it will not put you to any inconvenience. On the road there is a little bit of dark lane which is not very pleasant for a lady by herself.'

Marthe assured her mother, in her quiet way, that she was not a little girl, and in no wise felt afraid; but as Félicité insisted, saying that she should feel easier if her daughter had someone with her, she at last accepted the Abbé's escort. As the latter retired with her, Félicité, who accompanied them to the landing, whispered in the priest's ear, with a smile:

'Don't forget what I told you. You must make yourself agreeable to the ladies if you want Plassans to belong to you.'

VII

That same night Mouret, who was still awake when his wife returned home, plied her with questions in his desire to find out what had taken place at Madame Rougon's. She told him that everything had gone off as usual, and that she had noticed nothing out of the common. She just added that Abbé Faujas had walked home with her, but had merely spoken of commonplace matters. Mouret was very much vexed at what he called his wife's indolence.

'If anyone had committed suicide at your mother's,' he growled, as he angrily buried his head in his pillow, 'you would know nothing about it!'

When he came home to dinner the next day, he called to Marthe as soon as he caught sight of her: 'I was sure of it! I knew you had never troubled yourself to use your eyes! It's just like you! Sitting the whole evening in a room and never having the faintest notion of what was being said or done around you! Why, the whole town is talking about it! The whole town, do you hear? I couldn't go anywhere without somebody speaking to me about----'

'About what, my dear?' asked Marthe, in astonishment.

'About the fine success of Abbé Faujas, forsooth! He was turned out of the green drawing-room!'

'Indeed he wasn't! I saw nothing of the kind.'

'Haven't I told you that you never see anything? Do you know what the Abbé did at Besançon? He either murdered a priest or committed forgery! They are not quite certain which it was. However, they seem to have given him a nice reception! He turned quite green. Well, it's all up with him now!'

Marthe bent her head and allowed her husband to revel in the priest's discomfiture. Mouret was delighted.

'I still stick to my first idea,' he said; 'your mother and he have got some underhand plot together. I hear that she showed him the greatest civility. It was she, wasn't it, who asked him to accompany you home? Why didn't you tell me so?'

Marthe shrugged her shoulders without replying.

'You are the most provoking woman in the world!' her husband cried. 'All these little details are of the greatest importance. Madame Paloque, whom I have just met, told me that she and several other ladies had lingered behind to see how the Abbé would effect his departure, and that your mother availed herself of you to cover the parson's retreat. Just try to remember, now, what he said to you as he walked home with you.'

He sat down by his wife's side with his keen, questioning little eyes fixed upon her.

'Really,' said she quietly, 'he only talked to me about the trifling commonplace matters such as anyone might have talked of. He spoke about the cold, which was very sharp, and about the quietness of the town at night-time, and I think he mentioned the pleasant evening he had passed.'

'Ah, the hypocrite! Didn't he ask you any questions about your mother or her guests?'

'No. The Rue de la Banne is only a very short distance, you know, and it didn't take us three minutes. He walked by my side without offering me his arm, and he took such long strides that I was almost obliged to run. I don't know why folks should all be so bitter against him. He doesn't seem very well off, and he was shivering, poor man, in that threadbare old cassock of his.'

Mouret was not without pity and sympathy.

'Ah! he must have done,' he said; 'he can't feel very warm now that the frost has come.'

'I'm sure we have nothing to complain of in his conduct,' Marthe continued. 'He is very punctual in his payments, and he makes no noise and gives no trouble. Where could you find a more desirable tenant?'

'Nowhere, I grant you. What I was saying just now was to show you what little attention you pay, wherever you go, to what takes place around you. I know the set your mother receives too well to attach much weight to anything that happens in the green drawing-room: it's a perpetual source of lies and the most ridiculous stories. I don't suppose for a moment that the Abbé ever murdered anyone any more than that he was ever a bankrupt; and I told Madame Paloque that people ought to see that their own linen was clean before they found fault with that of others. I hope she took the hint to herself.'

This was a fib on Mouret's part, for he had said nothing of the kind to Madame Paloque; but Marthe's pity had made him feel rather ashamed of the delight which he had manifested at the Abbé's troubles. On the following days he went entirely over to the priest's side, and whenever he happened to meet any people whom he detested, Monsieur de Bourdeu, Monsieur Delangre, and Doctor Porquier, he launched out into warm praises of the Abbé just for the pleasure of astonishing and annoying them. The Abbé, said he, was a man of great courage and perfect guilelessness, but extremely poor, and some very base-minded person must have originated the calumnies about him. Then he went on to have a rap at the Rougons' guests, whom he called hypocrites, canting humbugs and stuck-up idiots, who were afraid of a man of real virtue. In a short time he had quite made the Abbé's quarrel his own, and availed himself of it to attack both the Rastoil gang and the gang of the Sub-Prefecture as well.

'Isn't it pitiable?' he sometimes said to his wife, forgetting that she had heard him tell a very different story, 'isn't it pitiable to see a lot of people who stole their money no one knows where, leaguing so bitterly against a poor man just because he hasn't got twenty francs to spare to buy a cart-load of firewood? Such conduct quite disgusts me! I'm quite willing to be surety for him. I ought to know what he does and what sort of a man he is, since he lives in my house; and so I'm not slack in telling them the truth, I give them all they deserve when I meet them. And I won't content myself with that, either. I want the Abbé to be my friend, and I mean to walk out with him arm-in-arm along the promenade to let people know that I'm not afraid of being seen with him, rich and well thought of as I am! I hope, too, that you will show all the kindness and consideration to these poor people that you can.'

Marthe smiled quietly. She was delighted at the friendly disposition her husband was now manifesting towards their lodgers. Rose was ordered to show them every civility; she was even told that she might volunteer to do Madame Faujas' shopping for her on wet mornings. The latter, however, always declined the cook's services, though she no longer manifested that silent stiffness of demeanour which she had shown during the earlier days of her residence in the house. One morning, as she met Marthe, who was coming down from an attic which was used as a store-room for the fruit, she stopped and talked to her for a moment, and even unbent so far as to accept a couple of magnificent pears. Those pears were the beginning of a closer intimacy between them.

Abbé Faujas, too, did not now glide so hurriedly up and down the stairs as he had been wont to do. Almost every day, when Mouret heard the rustling of the priest's cassock as he came down, he hastened to the foot of the staircase and told the Abbé that it would give him great pleasure to walk part of the way with him. He had also thanked him for the little service he had done his wife, skilfully questioning him at the time to find out if he intended again calling on the Rougons. The Abbé had smiled and freely confessed that he was not fitted for society. This had delighted Mouret, who felt quite certain that he had had some influence in bringing about his lodger's decision. He even began to dream of preventing all future intercourse with the green drawing-room and of keeping him altogether to himself. So, when Marthe told him one evening that Madame Faujas had accepted a couple of pears, he looked upon this as a fortunate circumstance which would facilitate the execution of his designs.

'Haven't they really got a fire on the second floor this bitterly cold weather?' he asked, in Rose's presence.

'No, indeed, sir,' replied the cook, who understood that the question was meant for herself; 'they couldn't very well have one, for I've never seen the least bit of wood taken upstairs, unless indeed they're burning their four chairs or Madame Faujas manages to carry up the wood in her basket.'

'It is not right of you to talk in that way, Rose,' said Marthe. 'The poor things must be shivering with cold in those big rooms.'

'I should think so, indeed,' exclaimed Mouret; 'there were several degrees of frost last night and there was considerable fear felt about the olive-trees. The water in our jug upstairs was frozen. This room of ours here is a small one, however, and very warm.'

The doors and windows of the dining-room were provided with pads, so that no draught could find its way through any crevice, and a big earthenware stove made the place as warm as a bakehouse. During the winter evenings the young people read or played round the table, while Mouret made his wife play piquet till bed-time, which, by the way, was perfect torture to her. For a long time she had refused to touch the cards, saying that she did not know a single game, but at last he had taught her piquet, and she had then been forced to resign herself to her fate.

'Don't you think,' Mouret continued, 'that we really ought to ask the Faujases to come and spend the evenings here? They would at any rate be warm for two or three hours; and they would be company for us, too, and make us feel more lively. Ask them, and I don't think they'll refuse.'

The next day Marthe met Madame Faujas in the hall and gave the invitation, which the old lady at once accepted, both for herself and her son.

'I'm surprised she didn't make some little demur about coming,' said Mouret. 'I fancied that they would have required more pressing. But the Abbé is beginning to understand that he does wrong in living like a wild beast.'

In the evening Mouret took care that the table was cleared in good time, and he set out a bottle of sweet wine and a plateful of little cakes. Although he was not given to being lavish, he was anxious to show that the Rougons were not the only people who knew how things ought to be done. The tenants of the second floor came downstairs about eight o'clock. Abbé Faujas was wearing a new cassock, at the sight of which Mouret was so much surprised that he could only stammer a few words in answer to the priest's courtesies.

'Indeed, Monsieur l'Abbé, all the honour is for us. Come, children, put some chairs here.'

They all took their seats round the table. The room was uncomfortably warm, for Mouret had crammed the stove as full as possible in order to let his guests see that he made no account of a log more or less. Abbé Faujas made himself very pleasant, fondling Désirée and questioning the two lads about their studies. Marthe, who was knitting some stockings, raised her eyes every now and then in surprise at the flexible tones of that strange voice which she was not accustomed to hear sounding in the monotonous quietness of the dining-room. She looked at the priest's powerful face and square-cut features, and then bent her head again, without trying to hide the interest she took in this man who was so strong and kindly and whom she knew to be so poor. As for Mouret, he uncouthly stared at the new cassock, and could not restrain himself from saying, with a sly smile:

'You needn't have troubled to dress to come here, Monsieur l'Abbé. We don't go in for ceremony, as you know very well.'

Marthe blushed, while the priest gaily related that he had bought the cassock that very day. He had kept it on, he said, to please his mother, who thought that he looked finer than a king in it.

'Don't you, mother?' he asked the old lady.

Madame Faujas nodded without taking her eyes off her son. She was sitting opposite to him, gazing at him in the bright lamplight with an air of ecstasy.

They began to talk of various matters, and Abbé Faujas seemed to throw off his gloomy coldness. He still remained grave, but it was with a pleasant, good-natured gravity. He listened attentively to Mouret, replied to his most insignificant remarks, and seemed to take an interest in his gossip. His landlord explained to him the manner in which the family lived, and finished his account by saying:

'We spend our evenings in the way you see, always as quietly as this. We never invite anyone, as we are always more comfortable by ourselves. Every evening I have a game at piquet with my wife. It is a very old habit of ours, and I could scarcely go to sleep without it.'

'Pray don't let us interfere with it!' cried Abbé Faujas. 'I beg that you won't in any way depart from your usual habits on our account.'

'Oh dear no! I am not a monomaniac about it, and it won't kill me to go without it for once.'

The priest insisted for a time, but, when he saw that Marthe declined to play with even greater determination than her husband, he turned towards his mother, who had been sitting silent with her hands folded in front of her, and said:

'Mother, you have a game with Monsieur Mouret.'

She looked keenly into her son's eyes, while Mouret still continued to refuse, and declared that he did not want to break up the party. However, when the priest told him that his mother was a good player he gave way.

'Is she, indeed?' he said. 'Then, if madame really wishes it, and no one objects----'

'Come along, mother, and have a game!' said Abbé Faujas in a more decided tone.

'Certainly,' she replied, 'I shall be delighted; but I shall have to change my place.'

'Oh! there will be no difficulty about that,' said Mouret, who was quite charmed. 'You had better take your son's seat, and perhaps Monsieur l'Abbé will be good enough to sit next to my wife. Madame can sit next to me. There! that will do capitally.'

The priest, who had at first been opposite to Marthe on the other side of the table, was thus placed next to her. They sat quite apart by themselves, the two players having drawn their chairs close together to engage in their struggle. Octave and Serge had just gone up to their room. Désirée was sleeping with her head on the table after her usual custom. When ten o'clock struck, Mouret, who had lost the first game, did not feel inclined to go to bed but asked for his revenge. Madame Faujas consulted her son with a glance, and then in her tranquil fashion began to shuffle the cards. The Abbé had merely exchanged a few words with Marthe. On this the first evening that he spent in the dining-room he only spoke of commonplace topics; the household, the price of victuals at Plassans, and the anxieties which children caused. Marthe replied with a show of interest, looking up every now and then with her bright glance, and importing into the conversation some of her own sedate good sense.

It was nearly eleven o'clock when Mouret threw down the cards with some slight irritation.

'I have lost again!' he said. 'I haven't had a single good card all the evening. Perhaps I shall have better luck to-morrow. We shall see you again, I hope, madame?'

And when Abbé Faujas began to protest that they could not think of abusing the Mourets' kindness by disturbing them in this way every evening, he continued:

'But you are not disturbing us at all, you are giving us pleasure. Besides, I have been defeated, and I'm sure that madame can't refuse me another game.'

When the priest and his mother had accepted the invitation and had gone upstairs again, Mouret showed some ill-temper and began to excuse himself for having lost. He seemed quite annoyed about it.

'The old woman isn't as good a player as I am, I'm sure,' he said to his wife; 'but she has got such eyes! I could really almost fancy she was cheating, upon my word I could! Well! we shall see what happens to-morrow.'

From that time the Faujases came down regularly every day to spend the evening with the Mourets. There were tremendous battles between the old lady and her landlord. She seemed to play with him, to let him win just frequently enough to prevent him from being altogether discouraged, and this made him fume with suppressed anger, for he prided himself on his skill at piquet. He used to indulge in dreams of beating her night after night for weeks in succession without ever letting her win a single game; while she ever preserved wonderful coolness, her square peasant-like face remaining quite expressionless as with her big hands she threw down the cards with all the regularity of a machine. From eight o'clock till bed-time they would remain seated at their end of the table, quite absorbed in their game and never moving.

At the other end, near the stove, Abbé Faujas and Marthe were left entirely to themselves. The Abbé felt a masculine and priestly disdain for woman, and in spite of himself this disdain often made itself manifest in some slightly harsh expression. On these occasions Marthe was affected by a strange feeling of anxiety. She raised her eyes with one of those sudden thrills of alarm which cause people to cast a hurried glance behind them, half expecting to see some concealed enemy raising his hand to strike. At other times, on catching sight of the Abbé's cassock, she would check herself suddenly in the midst of a laugh, and would relapse into silence, quite confused, astonished at finding herself talking so freely to a man who was so different from other men. It was a long time before there was any real intimacy between them.

Abbé Faujas never directly questioned Marthe about her husband, or her children, or her house; but, nevertheless, he gradually made himself acquainted with every detail of their history and manner of life. Every evening, while Mouret and Madame Faujas were contending furiously one against the other, he contrived to learn some new fact. Upon one occasion he remarked that the husband and wife were surprisingly alike.

'Yes,' Marthe answered with a smile, 'when we were twenty years old we used to be taken for brother and sister; and, indeed, it was a little owing to that circumstance that we got married. People used to joke us about it, and were continually making us stand side by side, and saying what a fine couple we should make. The likeness was so striking that worthy Monsieur Compan, though he knew us quite well, hesitated to marry us.'

'But you are cousins, are you not?' the priest asked.

'Yes,' she replied, with a slight blush, 'my husband is a Macquart, and I am a Rougon.'

Then she kept silence for a moment or two, feeling ill at ease, for she was sure that the priest knew the history of her family which was so notorious at Plassans. The Macquarts were an illegitimate branch of the Rougons.

'The most singular part of it,' she resumed, to conceal her embarrassment, 'is, that we both resemble our grandmother. My husband's mother transmitted the likeness to him, while in me it has sprung up again after a break, passing my father by.'

Then the Abbé cited a similar instance in his own family. He had a sister, he said, who was the living image of her mother's grandfather. The likeness in this case had leapt over two generations. His sister, too, closely resembled the old man in her character and habits, even in her gestures and the tone of her voice.

'It was just the same with me when I was a little girl; I often heard people say of me,' remarked Marthe, '"She's Aunt Dide all over again!" The poor woman is now at Les Tulettes. She never had a strong head. For my part, in growing older, I have become less excitable and stronger, but I remember that when I was a child I hadn't good health at all. I used to have attacks of giddiness, and my head was filled with the strangest fancies. I often laugh now when I think of the extraordinary things I used to do.'

'And your husband?'

'Oh! he takes after his father, a journeyman hatter, a careful, prudent man. I should say that when we were young, though we were so much alike in face, it was quite a different matter as to our dispositions; however, as time has gone on, we have grown to resemble each other very much. We were so quiet and happy in our business at Marseilles! The fifteen years I spent there taught me to find happiness in my own home, in the midst of my children.'

Abbé Faujas noticed a touch of bitterness in her tone every time that he led her to speak on this subject. She was certainly happy, as she said; but he fancied that he could detect traces of old rebellion in her nervous nature, that was now calmed by the approach of her fortieth year. He imagined a little drama for himself, in which this husband and wife, who were so much alike, were considered by their relations to be made for each other, and were thus forced into marriage, whereas, in reality, they were of different and antagonistic temperaments. Then his mind dwelt upon the fatal outcome of a monotonous life, the wearing away of character by the daily cares of business, the soporific effect of fifteen years' fortune-making upon this couple, who were now living upon that fortune in a sleepy corner of a little town. To-day, though they were both still young, there seemed to be nothing but the ashes left of their former selves. The Abbé cleverly tried to discover whether Marthe was resigned to her existence, and he found her full of common sense.

'I am quite contented with my home,' she said; 'my children are all that I want. I was never much given to gaiety; I only felt a little dull at times. I dare say I should have been better if I had had some mental occupation, but I was never able to find one. And perhaps, after all, it's as well I didn't, for I should very likely have split my head. I could never even read a novel without giving myself a frightful headache, and for nights afterwards all the characters would dance about in my brain. Needlework is the only thing which never fatigues me, so I stay at home and keep out of the way of noise and chatter, and all the frivolous follies which weary me.'

She paused every now and then to glance at Désirée, who was still sleeping with her head upon the table, and smiling in her innocent way.

'Poor child!' she murmured. 'She can't even do any needlework. She gets dizzy directly. She is fond of animals, and that's all she's capable of. When she goes to stay with her nurse, as she does every now and then, she spends all her time in the poultry-yard, and she comes back to me with rosy cheeks and as strong and well as possible.'

Marthe often spoke of Les Tulettes, manifesting as she did so a lurking fear of insanity, and Abbé Faujas thus became aware of a strange dread haunting this peaceful home. Marthe loved her husband with a sober, unimpassioned love, but there was mingled with her affection for him considerable fear of his jokes and pleasantries, his perpetual teasing. She was hurt, too, by his selfishness, and the loneliness in which he left her; she felt a vague grudge against him for the quietude in which she lived--that very manner of life which she said made her happy. When she spoke of him, she said:

'He is very good to us. You've heard him, I dare say, get angry sometimes, but that arises from his passion for seeing everything in order, which he often carries to an almost ridiculous extent. He gets quite vexed if he sees a flower-pot a little out of place in the garden, or a plaything lying about on the floor; but in other matters he does quite right in pleasing himself. I know he is not very popular, because he has managed to accumulate some money, and still continues to do a good stroke of business every now and then; but he only laughs at what people say about him. They say nasty things, too, of him in connexion with me. They say that he is a miser, and won't let me go out anywhere, and even deprives me of boots. But all that is quite untrue. I am entirely free. He certainly prefers to see me here when he comes home, instead of finding that I am always off somewhere, paying calls and walking on the promenade. But he knows quite well what my tastes are. What, indeed, should I go out for?'

As she defended Mouret against the gossip of Plassans, Marthe's voice assumed a sudden animation, as though she felt the need of defending him quite as much from the secret accusations which arose within her own mind; and she kept reverting with nervous uneasiness to the subject of society life. She seemed to seek a refuge within the little dining-room and the old-fashioned garden with its box borders, as if everything else filled her with vague alarm, and made her doubtful of her strength, apprehensive of some possible catastrophe. Then she would smile at her fears, and shrug her shoulders as she resumed her knitting or the mending of some old skirt; and Abbé Faujas would see before him only a cold, reserved housewife, with listless face and inanimate eyes, who filled the house with a scent as of clean linen, and of blossoms gathered in the shade.

Two months passed away in this manner. Abbé Faujas and his mother had become quite a part of the Mourets' family life. They all had their recognised places every evening at the table, just as the lamp had its place; and the same intervals of silence were broken night after night by the same remarks from the card-players and the same subdued converse of the priest and Marthe. When Madame Faujas had not given him too tremendous a beating Mouret found his lodgers 'extremely nice people.'

All that curiosity of his, born of idleness, waned before the interest and occupation that the nightly parties afforded him, and he no longer played the spy upon the Abbé, whom he declared to be a very good fellow, now that he knew him better.

'Oh, don't bother me with your stories!' he used to exclaim to those who attacked Abbé Faujas. 'You get hold of a pack of nonsense and put absurd interpretations upon facts that admit of the simplest explanation. I know all about him. He very kindly comes and spends his evenings with us; but he's not a man to make himself cheap, and I can quite understand that people don't like him for it and accuse him of pride.'

Mouret greatly enjoyed being the only person in Plassans who could boast of knowing Abbé Faujas, and he even somewhat abused this advantage. Every time he met Madame Rougon he put on an air of triumph and made her understand that he had stolen her guest from her, while the old lady contented herself with smiling quietly. With his intimate acquaintances Mouret extended his confidences further, and remarked that those blessed priests could do nothing like other people. Then he gave them a string of little details, and told them in what manner the Abbé drank, how he talked to women, and how he always kept his knees apart without ever crossing his legs, and other trifling matters which the vague alarm that his free-thinking mind experienced in the presence of his guest's long, mystic-looking cassock made him notice.

The evenings passed away one after another, and at last the first days of February came round. In all the conversations between himself and Marthe Abbé Faujas had to all appearance carefully avoided the subject of religion. She had once remarked to him, almost lightly:

'No, Monsieur l'Abbé, I am not a very religious woman, and I seldom go to church. At Marseilles I was always too busy, and now I am too indolent to go out. And then I must confess to you that I wasn't brought up with religious ideas. My mother used to tell me that God would come to us quite as well at home.'

The priest bowed his head without making any reply, and seemed to signify that he would rather not discuss religious matters under such circumstances. One evening, however, he drew a picture of the unexpected comfort which suffering souls find in religion. They were talking of a poor woman whom troubles of every sort had driven to suicide.

'She did wrong to despair,' said the priest in his deep voice. 'She was ignorant of the comfort and consolation to be found in prayer. I have often seen heart-broken, weeping women come to us, and they have gone away again filled with a resignation that they had vainly sought elsewhere, and glad to live; and this had come from their falling upon their knees and tasting the blessedness of humiliating themselves before God in some quiet corner of the church. They came back there, they forgot their troubles, and became God's entirely.'

Marthe listened with a thoughtful expression to these remarks of the priest, whose last words fell in a gradually softening voice that seemed to breathe of superhuman felicity.

'Yes, it must be a blessed thing,' she murmured, as though she were speaking to herself. 'I have thought about it sometimes, but I have always felt afraid.'

If the Abbé seldom referred to such matters as this, he frequently spoke on the subject of charity. Marthe was very tender-hearted, and tears rose to her eyes at the slightest tale of trouble. It seemed to please the priest to see her so moved to pity; and every evening he told her some fresh story of sorrow, and kept her constantly excited with compassion. She would let her work fall, and clasp her hands as, with a sad, pitying face, she gazed into his eyes and listened to him as he recounted heart-rending details of how some poor persons had died of starvation, or how others had been goaded by misery into committing base crimes. At these times she fell completely under his influence, and he might have done what he willed with her.

About the middle of February a deplorable occurrence threw Plassans into dismay. It was discovered that a number of young girls, scarcely more than children, had fallen into evil courses while loafing about the streets, and it was even rumoured that some persons of high position in the town would be compromised. For a week Marthe was very painfully affected by this discovery, which caused the greatest sensation. She was acquainted with one of the unfortunate girls, who was the niece of her cook, Rose; and she could not think of the poor little creature without shuddering.

'It is a great pity,' said Abbé Faujas to her one evening, 'that there isn't a Home at Plassans on the model of the one at Besançon.'

Then, in reply to Marthe's pressing questions, the Abbé explained to her the constitution of this Home. It was a sort of refuge for girls from eight to fifteen years of age, the daughters of working men, whose parents were obliged to leave them alone during the day while they themselves went to their employment. During the day-time these girls were set to do needlework, and in the evening they were sent back to their parents, the latter having then returned home from their work. By this system the children were brought up out of the reach of vice and in the midst of good examples. Marthe thought the idea an admirable one, and she gradually became so prepossessed in its favour that she could talk of nothing else than the necessity of founding a similar institution at Plassans.

'We might put it under the patronage of the Virgin,' Abbé Faujas suggested. 'But there are such difficulties in the way! You have no idea of the trouble there is in effecting the least good work! What is quite essential to the success of such a scheme as this is some woman with a motherly heart, full of zeal and absolutely devoted to the work.'

Marthe lowered her head and looked at Désirée, who was asleep by her side, and she felt tears welling from beneath her eyelids. She made inquiries as to the steps that it would be necessary to take for founding such a Home, the cost of erecting it, and the annual expenses.

'Will you help me?' she suddenly asked the priest one evening.

Abbé Faujas gravely took her hand and held it within his own for a moment, telling her that she had one of the fairest souls he had ever known. He would willingly do what he could, he assured her, but he should rely altogether upon her, for the assistance that he himself would be able to give would be small. It would be for her to form a committee of the ladies of the town, to collect subscriptions, and to take upon herself, in a word, all the delicate and onerous duties which are connected with an appeal to the charity of the public. He appointed a meeting with her for the following day at Saint-Saturnin's to introduce her to the diocesan architect, who would be able to tell her much better than he himself could do about the expenses that would have to be incurred.

Mouret was very gay that evening when they went to bed. He had not allowed Madame Faujas to win a single game.

'You seem quite pleased about something to-night, my dear,' he said to his wife. 'Did you see what a beating I gave the old lady downstairs?'

Then as he observed Marthe taking a silk dress out of her wardrobe, he asked her with some surprise if she intended to go out in the morning. He had not heard anything of the conversation in the dining-room between his wife and the priest.