CHAPTER 2

An expression of annoyance passed over Mouret's face. He had not expected his tenant till the following morning at the earliest. He was just rising hastily from his seat when Abbé Faujas himself appeared at the door. He was a tall big man, with a square face, broad features, and a cadaverous complexion. Behind him, in the shadow, stood an elderly woman, who bore an astonishing resemblance to him, only that she was of smaller build and wore a less refined expression. When they saw the table laid for a meal, they both hesitated and stepped back discreetly, though without going away. The priest's tall black figure contrasted mournfully with the cheerfulness of the whitewashed walls.

'We must ask your pardon for disturbing you,' he said to Mouret. 'We have just left Abbé Bourrette's; he, no doubt, gave you notice of our coming!'

'Not at all!' Mouret exclaimed. 'The Abbé never behaves like other people. He always seems as though he had just come down from paradise. Only this morning, sir, he told me that you would not be here for another couple of days. Well, we must put you in possession of your rooms all the same.'

Abbé Faujas apologised. He spoke in a deep voice which fell very softly at the end of each sentence. He was extremely distressed, said he, to have arrived at such a moment. And when he had expressed his regret in a very few well-chosen words, he turned round to pay the porter who had brought his trunk. His large well-shaped hands drew from the folds of his cassock a purse of which only the steel rings could be seen. Keeping his head bent, he cautiously fumbled in it for a moment. Then, without anyone having[Pg 9] seen the piece of money which he had received, the porter went away, and the priest resumed in his refined way:

'I beg you, sir, sit down again. Your servant will show us the rooms, and will help me to carry this.'

As he spoke, he stooped to grasp one of the handles of his trunk. It was a small wooden trunk, bound at the edges with iron bands, and one of its sides seemed to have been repaired with a cross-piece of deal. Mouret looked surprised, and his eyes wandered off in search of other luggage, but he could see nothing excepting a big basket, which the elderly lady carried with both hands, holding it in front of her, and despite her fatigue obstinately determined not to put it down. From underneath the lid, which was a little raised, there peeped, amongst some bundles of linen, the end of a comb wrapped in paper and the neck of a clumsily corked bottle.

'Oh! don't trouble yourself with that,' said Mouret, just touching the trunk with his foot; 'it can't be very heavy, and Rose will be able to carry it up by herself.'

He was quite unconscious of the secret contempt which oozed out from his words. The elderly lady gave him a keen glance with her black eyes, and then let her gaze again fall upon the dining-room and the table, which she had been examining ever since her arrival. She kept her lips tightly compressed, while her eyes strayed from one object to another. She had not uttered a single word. Abbé Faujas consented to leave his trunk where it was. In the yellow rays of the sunlight which streamed in from the garden, his threadbare cassock looked quite ruddy; it was darned at the edges; and, though it was scrupulously clean, it seemed so sadly thin and wretched that Marthe, who had hitherto remained seated with a sort of uneasy reserve, now in her turn rose from her seat. The Abbé, who had merely cast a rapid glance at her, and had then quickly turned his eyes elsewhere, saw her leave her chair, although he did not appear to be watching her.

'I beg you,' he repeated, 'do not disturb yourselves. We should be extremely distressed to interfere with your dinner.'

'Very well,' said Mouret, who was hungry, 'Rose shall show you up. Tell her to get you anything you want, and make yourselves at home.'

Abbé Faujas bowed and was making his way to the staircase, when Marthe stepped up to her husband and whispered:

[Pg 10]

'But, my dear, you have forgotten——'

'What? what?' he asked, seeing her hesitate.

'There is the fruit, you know.'

'Oh! bother it all, so there is!' he exclaimed with an expression of annoyance.

And as Abbé Faujas stepped back and glanced at him questioningly, he added:

'I am extremely vexed, sir. Father Bourrette is a very worthy man, but it is a little unfortunate that you commissioned him to attend to your business. He hasn't got the least bit of a head. If we had only known of your coming, we should have had everything ready; but, as it is, we shall have to clear the whole place out for you. We have been using the rooms, you see; we have stowed all our crop of fruit, figs, apples and raisins, away on the floors upstairs.'

The priest listened with a surprise which all his politeness did not enable him to hide.

'But it won't take us long,' Mouret continued. 'If you don't mind waiting for ten minutes, Rose will get the rooms cleared for you.'

An anxious expression appeared on the priest's cadaverous face.

'The rooms are furnished, are they not?' he asked.

'Not at all; there isn't a bit of furniture in them. We have never occupied them.'

Thereupon the Abbé lost his self-control, and his grey eyes flashed as he exclaimed with suppressed indignation:

'But I gave distinct instructions in my letter that furnished rooms were to be taken. I could scarcely bring my furniture along with me in my trunk.'

'Well, that just fits in with what I have been saying!' cried Mouret, in a louder voice. 'The way that Bourrette goes on is quite incredible. He certainly saw the apples when he came to look at the rooms, sir, for he took up one of them and remarked that he had rarely seen such fine fruit. He said that everything seemed quite suitable, that the rooms were all that was necessary, and he took them.'

Abbé Faujas was no longer listening to Mouret; his cheeks were flushed with anger. He turned round and stammered in a broken voice:

'Do you hear, mother? There is no furniture.'

The old lady, with her thin black shawl drawn tightly round her, had just been inspecting the ground-floor, stepping[Pg 11] furtively hither and thither, but without once putting down her basket. She had gone to the door of the kitchen and had scrutinised the four walls there, and then, standing on the steps that overlooked the terrace, she had taken in all the garden at one long, searching glance. But it was the dining-room that seemed more especially to interest her, and she was now again standing in front of the table laid for dinner, watching the steam of the soup rise, when her son repeated:

'Do you hear, mother? We shall have to go to the hotel.'

She raised her head without making any reply; but the expression of her whole face seemed to indicate a settled determination to remain in that house, with whose every corner she had already made herself acquainted. She shrugged her shoulders almost imperceptibly, and again her wandering eyes strayed from the kitchen to the garden and then from the garden to the dining-room.

Mouret, however, was growing impatient. As he saw that neither the mother nor her son seemed to make up their minds to leave the place, he said:

'We have no beds, unfortunately. True, there is, in the loft, a folding-bedstead, which perhaps, at a pinch, madame might make do until to-morrow. But I really don't know how Monsieur l'Abbé is to manage to sleep.'

Then at last Madame Faujas opened her lips. She spoke in a curt and somewhat hoarse voice:

'My son will take the folding-bedstead. A mattress on the floor, in a corner, will be quite sufficient for me.'

The Abbé signified his approval of this arrangement by a nod. Mouret was going to protest and try to think of some other plan, but, seeing the satisfied appearance of his new tenants, he kept silence and merely exchanged a glance of astonishment with his wife.

'To-morrow it will be light,' he said, with his touch of bourgeois banter, 'and you will be able to furnish as you like. Rose will go up and clear away the fruit and make the beds. Will you wait for a few minutes on the terrace? Come, children, take a couple of chairs out.'

Since the arrival of the priest and his mother, the young people had remained quietly seated at the table, curiously scrutinising the new-comers. The Abbé had not appeared to notice them, but Madame Faujas had stopped for a moment before each of them and stared them keenly in the face as though she were trying to pry into their young heads. As they[Pg 12] heard their father, they all three hastily rose and took some chairs out.

The old lady did not sit down; and when Mouret, losing sight of her, turned round to find out what had become of her, he saw her standing before a window of the drawing-room which was ajar. She craned out her neck and completed her inspection with all the calm deliberation of a person who is examining some property for sale. Just as Rose took up the little trunk, however, she went back into the passage, and said quietly:

'I will go up and help you.'

Then she went upstairs after the servant. The priest did not even turn his head; he was smiling at the three young people who still stood in front of him. In spite of the hardness of his brow and the stern lines about his mouth, his face was capable of expressing great gentleness, when such was his desire.

'Is this the whole of your family, madame?' he asked Marthe, who had just come up to him.

'Yes, sir,' she replied, feeling a little confused beneath the clear gaze which he turned upon her.

Looking again at her children, he continued:

'You've got two big lads there, who will soon be men—Have you finished your studies yet, my boy?'

It was to Serge that he addressed this question. Mouret interrupted the lad as he was going to reply.

'Yes, he has finished,' said the father; 'though he is the younger of the two. When I say that he has finished, I mean that he has taken his bachelor's degree, for he is staying on at college for another year to go through a course of philosophy. He is the clever one of the family. His brother, the elder, that great booby there, isn't up to much. He has been plucked twice already, but he still goes on idling his time away and larking about.'

Octave listened to his father's reproaches with a smile, while Serge bent his head beneath his praises. Faujas seemed to be studying them for a moment in silence, and then, going up to Désirée and putting on an expression of gentle tenderness, he said to her:

'Will you allow me, mademoiselle, to be your friend?'

She made no reply but, half afraid, hastened to hide her face against her mother's shoulder. The latter, instead of making her turn round again, pressed her more closely to her, clasping an arm around her waist.

[Pg 13]

'Excuse her,' she said with a touch of sadness, 'she hasn't a strong head, she has remained quite childish. She is an "innocent," we do not trouble her by attempting to teach her. She is fourteen years old now, and as yet she has only learned to love animals.'

Désirée's confidence returned to her with her mother's caresses, and she lifted up her head and smiled. Then she boldly said to the priest:

'I should like you very much to be my friend; but you must promise me that you will never hurt the flies. Will you?'

And then, as every one about her began to smile, she added gravely:

'Octave crushes them, the poor flies! It is very wicked of him.'

Abbé Faujas sat down. He seemed very much tired. He yielded for a moment or two to the cool quietness of the terrace, glancing slowly over the garden and the neighbouring trees. The perfect calmness and solitude of this quiet corner of the little town seemed somewhat to surprise him.

'It is very pleasant here,' he murmured.

Then he relapsed into silence, and seemed lost in reverie. He started slightly as Mouret said to him with a laugh:

'If you will allow us, sir, we will now go back to our dinner.'

And then, catching a glance from his wife, Mouret added:

'You must sit down with us and have a plate of soup. It will save you the trouble of having to go to the hotel to dine. Don't make any difficulty, I beg.'

'I am extremely obliged to you, but we really don't require anything,' the Abbé replied in tones of extreme politeness, which allowed of no repetition of the invitation.

The Mourets then returned to the dining-room and seated themselves round the table. Marthe served the soup and there was soon a cheerful clatter of spoons. The young people chattered merrily, and Désirée broke into a peal of ringing laughter as she listened to a story which her father, who was now in high glee at having at last got to his dinner, was telling. In the meantime, Abbé Faujas, whom they had quite forgotten, remained motionless upon the terrace, facing the setting sun. He did not even turn his head, he seemed to hear nothing of what was going on behind him. Just as the sun was disappearing he took off his hat as if overcome[Pg 14] by the heat. Marthe, who was sitting with her face to the window, could see his big bare head with its short hair that was already silvering about the temples. A last red ray lighting up that stern soldier-like head, on which the tonsure lay like a cicatrised wound from the blow of a club; then the ray faded away and the priest, now wrapped in shadow, seemed nothing more than a black silhouette against the ashy grey of the gloaming.

Not wishing to summon Rose, Marthe herself went to get a lamp and brought in the first dish. As she was returning from the kitchen, she met, at the foot of the staircase, a woman whom she did not at first recognise. It was Madame Faujas. She had put on a cotton cap and looked like a servant in her common print gown, with a yellow kerchief crossed over her breast and knotted behind her waist. Her wrists were bare, she was quite out of breath with the work she had been doing, and her heavy laced boots clattered on the flooring of the passage.

'Ah! you've got all put right now, have you, madame?' Marthe asked with a smile.

'Oh, yes! it was a mere trifle and was done directly,' Madame Faujas replied.

She went down the steps that led to the terrace, and called in a gentler tone:

'Ovide, my child, will you come upstairs now? Everything is quite ready.'

She was obliged to go and lay her hand upon her son's shoulder to awaken him from his reverie. The air was growing cool, and the Abbé shivered as he got up and followed his mother in silence. As he passed before the door of the dining-room which was all bright with the cheerful glow of the lamp and merry with the chatter of the young folks, he peeped in and said in his flexible voice:

'Let me thank you again, and beg you to excuse us for having so disturbed you. We are very sorry——'

'No! no!' cried Mouret, 'it is we who are sorry and distressed at not being able to offer you better accommodation for the night.'

The priest bowed, and Marthe again met that clear gaze of his, that eagle glance which had affected her before. In the depths of his eyes, which were generally of a melancholy grey, flames seemed to gleam at times like lamps carried behind the windows of slumbering houses.

[Pg 15]

'The priest's not at all shamefaced,' Mouret remarked jestingly, when the mother and son had retired.

'I don't think they are very well off,' Marthe replied.

'Well, at any rate, he isn't carrying Peru about with him in that box of his,' Mouret exclaimed. 'And it's light enough! Why, I could have raised it with the tip of my little finger!'

But he was interrupted in his flow of chatter by Rose, who had just come running down the stairs to relate the extraordinary things she had witnessed.

'Well, she is a wonderful creature, indeed!' she cried, posting herself in front of the table at which the family were eating. 'She's sixty-five at least, but she doesn't show it at all, and she bustles about, and works like a horse!'

'Did she help you to remove the fruit?' Mouret asked, with some curiosity.

'Yes, indeed, she did, sir! She carried it away in her apron, in loads heavy enough to burst it. I kept saying to myself, "The apron will certainly go this time," but it didn't. It is made of good strong material, the same kind of material as I wear myself. We made at least ten journeys backwards and forwards, and I felt as though my arms would fall off, but she only grumbled, and complained that we were getting on very slowly. I really believe, begging your pardon for mentioning it, that I heard her swear.'

Mouret appeared to be greatly amused.

'And the beds?' he asked.

'The beds, she made them too. It was quite a sight to see her turn the mattress over. It seemed to weigh nothing, I can tell you; she just took hold of it at one end and tossed it into the air as though it had been a feather. And yet she was very careful and particular with it all. She tucked in the folding-bed as carefully as though she were preparing a baby's cradle. She couldn't have laid the sheets with greater devotion if the Infant Jesus Himself had been going to sleep there. She put three out of the four blankets upon the folding-bed. And it was just the same with the pillows; she kept none for herself, but gave both to her son.'

'She is going to sleep on the floor, then?'

'In a corner, just like a dog! She threw a mattress on the floor of the other room and said that she'd sleep there more soundly than if she were in paradise. I couldn't persuade her to do anything to make herself more comfortable.[Pg 16] She says that she is never cold, and that her head is much too hard to make her at all afraid of lying on the floor. I have taken them some sugar and some water, as madame told me. Oh! they really are the strangest people!'

Then Rose brought in the remainder of the dinner. That evening the Mourets lingered over their meal. They discussed the new tenants at great length. In their life, which went on with all the even regularity of clock-work, the arrival of these two strangers was a very exciting event. They talked about it as they would have done of some catastrophe in the neighbourhood, going into all that minuteness of detail which helps one to while away long nights in the country. Mouret was especially fond of the chattering gossip of a little provincial town. During dessert, as he rested his elbows on the table in the cool dining-room, he repeated for the tenth time with the self-satisfied air of a happy man:

'It certainly isn't a very handsome present that Besan?on has made to Plassans! Did you notice the back of his cassock when he turned round? I shall be very much surprised if he is much run after by the pious folks here. He is too seedy and threadbare; and the pious folks like nice-looking priests.'

'He has a very gentle voice,' said Marthe, indulgently.

'Not when he is angry, at any rate,' Mouret replied. 'Didn't you hear him when he burst out on finding that the rooms were not furnished? He's a stern man, I'll be bound; not one of the sort, I should think, to go lounging in confessional-boxes. I shall be very curious to see how he sets about his furnishing to-morrow. But as long as he pays me, I don't much mind anything else. If he doesn't, I shall apply to Abbé Bourrette. It was with him that I made the bargain.'

The Mourets were not a devout family. The children themselves made fun of the Abbé and his mother. Octave burlesqued the old lady's way of craning out her neck to see to the end of the rooms, a performance which made Désirée laugh. After a time, however, Serge, who was of a more serious turn of mind, stood up for 'those poor people.'

As a rule, precisely at ten o'clock, if he was not playing at piquet, Mouret took up his candlestick and went off to bed, but that evening, when eleven o'clock struck, he was not yet feeling drowsy. Désirée had fallen asleep, with her head lying on Marthe's knees. The two lads had gone up to their[Pg 17] room; and Mouret, left alone with his wife, still went on chattering.

'How old do you suppose he is?' he suddenly asked.

'Who?' replied Marthe, who was now beginning to feel very sleepy.

'Who? Why, the Abbé, of course! Between forty and forty-five, eh? He's a fine strapping fellow. It's a pity for him to wear a cassock! He would have made a splendid carbineer.'

Then, after an interval of silence, he vented aloud the reflections which were exercising his mind:

'They arrived by the quarter to seven train. They can only have just had time to call on Abbé Bourrette before coming here. I'll wager that they haven't dined! That is quite clear. We should certainly have seen them if they had gone out to the hotel. Ah, now! I should very much like to know where they can have had anything to eat.'

Rose had been lingering about the dining-room for the last few moments, waiting for her master and mistress to go to bed in order that she might be at liberty to fasten the doors and windows.

'I know where they had something to eat,' she said. And as Mouret turned briskly towards her, she added: 'Yes, I had gone upstairs again to see if there was anything they wanted. As I heard no sound, I didn't venture to knock at the door, but I looked through the key-hole.'

'Why, that was very improper of you, very improper,' Marthe interrupted, severely. 'You know very well, Rose, that I don't approve of anything of that kind.'

'Leave her alone and let her go on!' cried Mouret, who, under other circumstances, would have been very angry with the inquisitive woman. 'You peeped through the key-hole, did you?'

'Yes, sir; I thought it was the best plan.'

'Clearly so. What were they doing?'

'Well, sir, they were eating. I saw them sitting on one corner of the folding-bedstead and eating. The old lady had spread out a napkin. Every time that they helped themselves to some wine, they corked the bottle again and laid it down against the pillow.'

'But what were they eating?'

'I couldn't quite tell, sir. It seemed to me like the remains of some pastry wrapped up in a newspaper. They[Pg 18] had some apples as well—little apples that looked good for nothing.'

'They were talking, I suppose? Did you hear what they said?'

'No, sir, they were not talking. I stayed for a good quarter of an hour watching them, but they never said anything. They were much too busy eating!'

Marthe now rose, woke Désirée, and made as though she were going off to bed. Her husband's curiosity vexed her. He, too, at last made up his mind to go off upstairs, while old Rose, who was a pious creature, went on in a lower tone:

'The poor, dear man must have been frightfully hungry. His mother handed him the biggest pieces and watched him swallow them with delight. And now he'll sleep in some nice white sheets; unless, indeed, the smell of the fruit keeps him awake. It isn't a pleasant smell to have in one's bedroom, that sour odour of apples and pears. And there isn't a bit of furniture in the whole room, nothing but the bed in the corner! If I were he, I should feel quite frightened, and I should keep the light burning all night.'

Mouret had taken up his candlestick. He stood for a moment in front of Rose, and summed up the events of the evening like a genuine bourgeois who has met with something unusual: 'It is extraordinary!'

Then he joined his wife at the foot of the staircase. She got into bed and fell asleep, while he still continued listening to the slightest sounds that proceeded from the upper floor. The Abbé's room was immediately over his own. He heard the window of it being gently opened, and this greatly excited his curiosity. He raised his head from his pillow, and strenuously struggled against his increasing drowsiness in his anxiety to find out how long the Abbé would remain at the window. But sleep was too strong for him, and he was snoring noisily before he had been able to detect the grating sound which the window-fastening made when it was closed.

Up above, Abbé Faujas was gazing, bare-headed, out of his window into the black night. He lingered there for a long time, glad to find himself at last alone, absorbed in those thoughts which gave his brow such an expression of sternness. Underneath him, he was conscious of the tranquil slumber of the family whose home he had been sharing for the last few hours; the calm, easy breathing of the children and their mother Marthe, and the heavy, regular respiration of Mouret.[Pg 19] There was a touch of scorn in the way in which the priest stretched out his muscular neck, as he raised his head to gaze upon the town that lay slumbering in the distance. The tall trees in the garden of the Sub-Prefecture formed a mass of gloomy darkness, and Monsieur Rastoil's pear-trees thrust up scraggy, twisted branches, while, further away, there was but a sea of black shadow, a blank nothingness, whence not a sound proceeded. The town lay as tranquilly asleep as an infant in its cradle.

Abbé Faujas stretched out his arms with an air of ironic defiance, as though he would have liked to circle them round Plassans, and squeeze the life out of it by crushing it against his brawny chest. And he murmured to himself:

'Ah! to think that the imbeciles laughed at me this evening, as they saw me going through their streets!'