CHAPTER 10

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.'

[Pg 108]

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 fa?ade, 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[Pg 109] 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[Pg 110] 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 Besan?on 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[Pg 111] 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 Besan?on 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 Besan?on, 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,[Pg 112] 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:

[Pg 113]

'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 Besan?on?'

'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.

[Pg 114]

'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[Pg 115] 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[Pg 116] 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[Pg 117] 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.

[Pg 118]

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.

[Pg 119]

'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[Pg 120] 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.