CHAPTER 20

Abbé Faujas laid his hand on Marthe's shoulder. 'What are you doing here?' he asked. 'Why haven't you gone to bed? I told you that you were not to wait for me.'

She started up and stammered:

'I thought you would be back much earlier than this. I fell asleep. I dare say Rose will have got some tea ready.'

The priest called for the cook and rated her for not having made her mistress go to bed. He spoke in authoritative tones that admitted of no reply.

'Bring the tea for his reverence, Rose,' said Marthe.

'No, I don't want any tea,' the priest said with a show of vexation. 'Go to bed immediately. It is absurd. I can scarcely control myself. Show me a light, Rose.'

The cook went with him as far as the foot of the staircase.

'Your reverence knows that I am not to blame,' she said. 'Madame is very strange. Ill as she is, she can't stop for a single hour in her room. She can't keep from coming and going up and down, and fidgetting about merely for the sake of being on the move. She puts me out quite as much as anyone else; she is always in my way, preventing me from getting on with anything. Then she drops down on a chair and sits staring in front of her with a terrified look, as though she could see something horrible. I told her half a score of times at least, to-night, that you would be very angry with her for not going to bed; but she didn't even seem to hear what I said.'

The priest went upstairs without replying. As he passed the Trouches' room he stretched out his arm as though he was going to bang his fist on the door. But the singing had stopped, and he could tell from the sounds within that the visitors were about to take their departure, so he quickly stepped into his own room. Almost immediately afterwards Trouche went downstairs with a couple of men whom he had picked up in some low café, crying out on the staircase that[Pg 270] he knew how to behave himself and was going to see them home. Olympe leant over the banisters.

'You can fasten the doors,' she said to Rose. 'He won't be back before to-morrow morning.'

Rose, from whom she had not been able to conceal her husband's misconduct, expressed much pity for her, and growled as she fastened the doors:

'What fools women are to get married! Their husbands either beat them or go off after hussies. For my part, I'd very much rather keep as I am.'

When she went back into the dining-room she found her mistress again in a sort of melancholy stupor, with her eyes fixed upon the lamp. She shook her and made her go upstairs to bed. Marthe had become very timid. She said she saw great patches of light on the walls of her room at night-time, and heard violent blows at the head of her bed. Rose now slept near her, in a little dressing-room whence she hastened to calm her at the slightest uneasiness. That night she had not finished undressing herself before she heard Marthe groaning, and, on rushing into her room, she found her lying amidst the disordered bed-clothes, her eyes staring widely in mute horror, and her clenched fists pressed closely against her mouth to keep herself from shrieking. Rose was obliged to talk to her and soothe her as though she were a mere child, and even had to look behind the curtains and under the furniture, and assure her that she was mistaken, for there was really no one there. These attacks of terror ended in cataleptic seizures, when the unhappy woman lay back on her pillow, with her eyelids rigidly opened as though she were dead.

'It is the thought of the master that torments her,' Rose muttered, as she at last got into bed.

The next day was one of those when Doctor Porquier called. He came regularly twice a week to see Madame Mouret. He patted her hands and said to her with his amiable optimism:

'Oh! nothing serious will come of this, my dear lady. You still cough a little, don't you? Ah! it's a mere cold which has been neglected, but which we will cure with some syrups.'

But Marthe complained to him of intolerable pains in her back and chest, and kept her eyes upon him, as if trying to discover from his face and manner what he would not say in words.

[Pg 271]

'I am afraid of going mad!' she suddenly cried, breaking into a sob.

The doctor smilingly reassured her. The sight of him always caused her keen anxiety, she felt a sort of alarm of this gentle and agreeable man. She often told Rose not to admit him, saying that she was not ill, and had no need to have a doctor constantly to see her. Rose shrugged her shoulders, however, and ushered the doctor into the room. However, he had almost ceased speaking to Marthe about her ailments, and seemed to be merely making friendly calls upon her.

As he was going away, he met Abbé Faujas, who was returning from Saint-Saturnin's. The priest questioned him respecting Madame Mouret's condition.

'Science is sometimes quite powerless,' said the doctor gravely, 'but the goodness of Providence is inexhaustible. The poor lady has been sorely shaken, but I don't altogether give her up. Her chest is only slightly attacked as yet, and the climate here is favourable.'

Then he started a dissertation upon the treatment of pulmonary diseases in the neighbourhood of Plassans. He was preparing a pamphlet on the subject, not for publication, for he was too shrewd to wish to seem a savant, but for the perusal of a few intimate friends.

'I have weighty reasons,' he said in conclusion, 'for believing that the equable temperature, the aromatic flora, and the salubrious springs of our hills, are extremely effective for the cure of pulmonary complaints.'

The priest had listened to him with his usual stern expression.

'You are mistaken,' he said slowly, 'Plassans does not agree with Madame Mouret. Why not send her to pass the winter at Nice?'

'At Nice?' repeated the doctor, uneasily.

He looked at the priest for a moment, and then continued in his complacent way:

'Nice certainly would be very suitable for her. In her present condition of nervous excitement, a change of surroundings would probably have very beneficial results. I must advise her to make the journey. It is an excellent idea of yours, Monsieur le Curé.'

He bowed, parted from the Abbé, and made his way to Madame de Condamin, whose slightest headaches caused him[Pg 272] endless trouble and anxiety. At dinner, the next day, Marthe spoke of the doctor in almost violent terms. She swore that she would never allow him to visit her again.

'It is he who is making me ill,' she exclaimed. 'This very afternoon he has been advising me to go off on a journey.'

'And I entirely agree with him in that,' declared Abbé Faujas, folding his napkin.

She fixed her eyes upon him, and turned very pale as she murmured in a low voice:

'What! Do you also want to send me away from Plassans? Oh! I should die in a strange land far away from all my old associations, and far away from those I love.'

The priest had risen from his seat, and was about to leave the dining-room. He stepped towards her, and said with a smile:

'Your friends only think of what is good for your health. Why are you so rebellious?'

'Oh! I don't want to go! I don't want to go!' she cried, stepping back from him.

There was a short contest between them. The blood rushed to the Abbé's cheeks, and he crossed his arms, as though to withstand a temptation to strike Marthe. She was leaning against the wall, in despair at her weakness. Then, quite vanquished, she stretched out her hands, and stammered:

'I beseech you to allow me to remain here. I will do whatever you tell me.'

Then, as she burst into sobs, the Abbé shrugged his shoulders and left the room, like a husband fearing an outbreak of tears. Madame Faujas, who was tranquilly finishing her dinner, had witnessed the scene and continued eating. She let Marthe cry on undisturbed.

'You are extremely unreasonable, my dear child,' she said after a time, helping herself to some more sweetmeats. 'You will end by making Ovide quite detest you. You don't know how to treat him. Why do you refuse to go away from home, if it is necessary for your health? We should look after the house for you, and you would find everything all right and in its place when you came back.'

Marthe was still sobbing, and did not seem to hear what Madame Faujas said.

'Ovide has so much to think about,' the old lady continued.[Pg 273] 'Do you know that he often works till four o'clock in the morning? When you cough all through the night, it disturbs him very much, and distracts his thoughts. He can't work any longer, and he suffers more than you do. Do this for Ovide's sake, my dear child; go away, and come back to us in good health.'

Then Marthe raised her face, red with weeping, and throwing all her anguish into one cry, she wailed: 'Oh! Heaven lies!'

During the next few days no further pressure was brought to bear upon Madame Mouret to induce her to make the journey to Nice. She grew terribly excited at the least reference to it. She refused to leave Plassans with such a show of determination that the priest himself recognised the danger of insisting upon the scheme. In the midst of his triumph she was beginning to cause him terrible anxiety and embarrassment. Trouche declared, with his snigger, that it was she who ought to have been sent the first to Les Tulettes. Ever since Mouret had been taken off, she had secluded herself in the practice of the most rigid religious practices, and refrained from ever mentioning her husband's name, praying indeed that she might be rendered altogether oblivious of the past. But she still remained restless, and returned from Saint-Saturnin's with even a keener longing for forgetfulness than she had had when she went thither.

'Our landlady is going it finely,' Olympe said to her husband when she came home one evening. 'I went with her to church to-day, and I had to pick her up from the flag-stones. You would laugh if I told you all the things that she vomited out against Ovide. She is quite furious with him; she says that he has no heart, and that he has deceived her in promising her a heap of consolations. And you should hear her rail, too, against the Divinity. Ah! it's only your pious people who talk so badly of religion! Anyone would think, to hear her, that God had cheated her of a large sum of money. Do you know, I really believe that her husband comes and haunts her at night.'

Trouche was much amused by this gossip.

'Well, she has herself to blame for that,' he said. 'If that old joker Mouret was put away, it was her own doing. If I were Faujas, I should know how to arrange matters, and I would make her as gentle and content as a sheep. But Faujas is an ass, and you will see that he will make a mess of[Pg 274] the business. Your brother, my dear, hasn't shown himself sufficiently pleasant to us for me to help him out of the bother. I shall have a rare laugh the day our landlady makes him take the plunge.'

'Ovide certainly looks down upon women too much,' declared Olympe.

Then Trouche continued in a lower tone:

'I say, you know, if our landlady were to throw herself down some well with your noodle of a brother, we should be the masters, and the house would be ours. We should be able to feather our nest nicely then. It would be a splendid ending to it all, that!'

Since Mouret's departure, the Trouches also had invaded the ground-floor of the house. Olympe had begun by complaining that the chimneys upstairs smoked, and she had ended by persuading Marthe that the drawing-room, which had hitherto been unoccupied, was the healthiest room in the house. Rose was ordered to light a big fire there, and the two women spent their days in endless talk, before the huge blazing logs. It was one of Olympe's dreams to be able to live like this, handsomely dressed and lolling on a couch in the midst of an elegantly furnished room. She even persuaded Marthe to have the drawing-room re-papered, to buy some new furniture and a fresh carpet for it. Then she felt that she was a lady. She came downstairs in her slippers and dressing-gown, and talked as though she were the mistress of the house.

'That poor Madame Mouret,' she would say, 'has so much worry that she has asked me to help her, and so I devote a little of my time to assisting her. It is really a kindness to do so.'

She had, indeed, quite succeeded in winning the confidence of Marthe, who, from sheer lassitude, handed over to her the petty details of the household management. It was Olympe who kept the keys of the cellar and the cupboards, and paid the tradesmen's bills as well. She had been deliberating for a long time as to how she should manage to make herself equally free in the dining-room. Trouche, however, dissuaded her from attempting to carry out that design. They would no longer be able to eat and drink as they liked, he said; they would not even dare to drink their wine unwatered, or to ask a friend to come and have coffee. Then Olympe declared that at any rate she would bring their share of the dessert[Pg 275] upstairs. She crammed her pockets with sugar, and she even carried off candle-ends. For this purpose, she made some big canvas pockets, which she fastened under her skirt, and which it took her a good quarter of an hour to empty every evening.

'There! there's something for a rainy day,' she said, as she bundled a stock of provisions into a box, which she then pushed under the bed. 'If we happen to fall out with our landlady, we shall have something to keep us going for a time. I must bring up some pots of preserves and some salt pork.'

'There is no need to make a secret of it,' said Trouche. 'If I were you, I should make Rose bring them up, as you are the mistress.'

Trouche had made himself master of the garden. For a long time past he had envied Mouret as he had watched him pruning his trees, gravelling his walks, and watering his lettuces; and he had indulged in a dream of one day having a plot of ground of his own, where he might dig and plant as he liked. So, now that Mouret was no longer there, he took possession of the garden, planning all kinds of alterations in it. He began by condemning the vegetables. He had a delicate soul, he said, and he loved flowers. But the labour of digging tired him out on the second day, and a gardener was called in, who dug up the beds under his directions, threw the vegetables on to the dung-heap, and prepared the soil for the reception of p?onies, roses and lilies, larkspurs and convolvuli, and cuttings of geraniums and carnations. Then an idea occurred to Trouche. It struck him that the tall sombre box plants, which bordered the beds, had a mournful appearance, and he meditated for a long time about pulling them up.

'You are quite right,' said Olympe, whom he consulted on the matter. 'They make the place look like a cemetery. For my part, I should much prefer an edging of cast-iron made to resemble rough wood. I will persuade the landlady to have it done. Anyhow, pull up the box.'

The box was accordingly pulled up. A week later the gardener came and laid down the cast-iron edging. Trouche also removed several fruit-trees which interfered with the view, had the arbour painted afresh a bright green, and ornamented the fountain with rock-work. Monsieur Rastoil's cascade greatly excited his envy, but he contented himself for[Pg 276] the time by choosing a place where he would construct a similar one, 'if everything should go on all right.'

'This will make our neighbours open their eyes,' he said in the evening to his wife. 'They will see that there is a man of taste here now. In the summer, when we sit at the window, we shall have a delightful view, and the garden will smell deliciously.'

Marthe let him have his own way and gave her consent to all the plans that were submitted to her, and in the end he gave over even consulting her. It was solely Madame Faujas that the Trouches had to contend against, and she continued to dispute possession of the house with them very obstinately. It was only after a battle royal with her mother that Olympe had been able to take possession of the drawing-room. Madame Faujas had all but won the day on that occasion. It was the priest's fault if she had not proved victorious.

'That hussy of a sister of yours says everything that is bad of us to the landlady,' Madame Faujas perpetually complained. 'I can see through her game. She wants to supplant us and to get everything for herself. She is trying to settle herself down in the drawing-room like a fine lady, the slut!'

The priest however paid no attention to what his mother said; he only broke out into sharp gestures of impatience at her complaints. One day he got quite angry and exclaimed:

'I beg of you, mother, do leave me in peace. Don't talk to me any more about Olympe or Trouche. Let them go and hang themselves, if they like.'

'But they are seizing the whole house, Ovide. They are perfect rats. When you want your share, you will find that they have gnawed it all away. You are the only one who can keep them in check.'

He looked at his mother with a faint smile.

'You love me very much, mother,' said he, 'and I forgive you. Make your mind easy; I want something very different from the house. It isn't mine, and I only keep what I gain. You will be very proud when you see my share. Trouche has been useful to me, and we must shut our eyes a little.'

Madame Faujas was then obliged to beat a retreat; but she did so with very bad grace. The absolute disinterestedness of her son made her, with her material baser desires and careful economical nature, quite desperate. She would have[Pg 277] liked to lock the house up so that Ovide might find it ready in perfect order for his occupation whenever he might want it. The Trouches, with their grasping ways, caused her all the torment and despair felt by a miser who is being preyed upon by strangers. It was exactly as though they were wasting her own substance, fattening upon her own flesh, and reducing herself and her beloved son to penury and wretchedness. When the Abbé forbade her to oppose the gradual invasion of the Trouches, she made up her mind that she would at any rate save all she could from the hands of the spoilers, and so she began pilfering from the cupboards, just as Olympe did. She also fastened big pockets underneath her skirts, and had a chest which she filled with all the things she collected together—provisions, linen, and miscellaneous articles.

'What is that you are stowing away there, mother?' the Abbé asked one evening as he went into her room, attracted by the noise which she made in moving the chest.

She began to stammer out a reply, but the priest understood it all at a glance, and flew into a violent rage.

'It is too shameful!' he said. 'You have turned yourself into a thief, now! What would the consequences be if you were to be detected? I should be the talk of the whole town!'

'It is all for your sake, Ovide,' she murmured.

'A thief! My mother a thief! Perhaps you think that I thieve, too, that I have come here to plunder, and that my only ambition is to lay my hands upon whatever I can! Good heavens! what sort of an opinion have you formed of me? We shall have to separate, mother, if we do not understand each other better than this.'

This speech quite crushed the old woman. She had remained on her knees in front of the chest, and she sank into a crouching position upon the floor, very pale and almost choking, and stretching out her hands beseechingly. When she was able to speak, she wailed out:

'It is for your benefit, my child, for yours only, I swear. I have told you before that they are taking everything; your sister crams everything into her pockets. There will be nothing left for you, not even a lump of sugar. But I won't take anything more, since it makes you angry, and you will let me stay with you, won't you? You will keep me with you, won't you?'

[Pg 278]

Abbé Faujas refused to make any promises until she had restored everything she had taken to its place. For nearly a week he himself superintended the secret restoration of the contents of the chest. He watched his mother fill her pockets, and waited till she came back upstairs again to take a fresh load. For prudential reasons he allowed her to make only two journeys backwards and forwards every evening. The old woman felt as though her heart was breaking as she restored each article to its former place. She did not dare to cry, but her eyelids were swollen with tears of regret, and her hands trembled even more than they had done when they were ransacking the cupboards. However, what afflicted her more than anything else was to see that as soon as she had restored each article to its rightful position, Olympe followed in her wake and took possession of it. The linen, the provisions, and the candle-ends, merely passed from one pocket to another.

'I won't take anything more downstairs,' she exclaimed to her son, growing rebellious at this unforeseen result of her restorations. 'It isn't the least good, for your sister only walks off with everything directly I put it back. The hussy! I might just as well give her the chest at once! She must have got a nice little hoard together! I beseech you, Ovide, let me keep what still remains. Our landlady will be none the worse off for it, because she will lose it anyhow.'

'My sister is what she is,' the priest replied tranquilly; 'but I wish my mother to be an honest woman. You will help me much more by not committing such actions.'

She was forced to restore everything, and from that time forward she harboured fierce hatred against the Trouches, Marthe, and the whole establishment. She often said that the day would come when she should have to defend Ovide against everybody.

The Trouches were now reigning in all sovereignty. They completed the conquest of the house, and made their way into every corner of it. The Abbé's own rooms were the only ones they respected. It was only before him that they trembled. But even his presence in the house did not prevent them from inviting their friends, and indulging in debauches till two o'clock in the morning. Guillaume Porquier came with parties of mere youths. Olympe, notwithstanding her thirty-seven years, then simpered and put on girlish airs; and flirted with more than one of the college[Pg 279] lads. The house was becoming a perfect paradise to her. Trouche sniggered and joked about it when they were alone together.

'Well,' she said, quite tranquilly, 'you do as you like, don't you? We are both free to do as we please, you know.'

Trouche had, as a matter of fact, all but brought his pleasant life to an abrupt conclusion. There had been an unpleasant affair at the Home of the Virgin in connection with one of the girls there. One of the Sisters of St. Joseph had complained of Trouche to Abbé Faujas. He had thanked her for telling him, and had impressed upon her that the cause of religion would suffer by such a scandal. So the affair was hushed up, and the lady patronesses never had the faintest suspicion of it. Abbé Faujas, however, had a terrible scene with his brother-in-law, whom he assailed in Olympe's presence, so that his wife might have a weapon against him, and be able to keep him in check.

The Trouches had been troubled for a long time past by another matter. Notwithstanding their life of clover, although they were provided with so many things out of Marthe's cupboards, they had got terribly into debt in the neighbourhood. Trouche squandered his salary away in cafés, and Olympe wasted the money which she drew out of Marthe's pockets by indulging in all sorts of silly fancies. As for the necessaries of life, they made a point of getting these upon credit. There was one account which made them particularly uneasy, that of a pastrycook in the Rue de la Banne, which amounted to more than a hundred francs, for the pastrycook was a rough, blunt sort of man, who had threatened to lay the whole matter before Abbé Faujas. The Trouches thus long lived in a state of alarm, but when the bill was actually presented to him Abbé Faujas paid it without a word, and even forgot to address any reproaches to them on the subject. The priest seemed to be above all those sordid little matters, and went on living a gloomy and rigid life in this house that was given up to pillage, without appearing conscious of the gradual ruin which was falling upon it. Everything, indeed, was crumbling away around him, while he continued to advance straight towards the goal of his ambition. He still camped like a soldier in his big bare room, indulging in no comforts, and showing annoyance when any were pressed upon him. Since he had become the master of Plassans, he had dropped back into complete carelessness as to his appearance.[Pg 280] His hat became rusty, his stockings muddy; his cassock, which his mother mended every morning, looked just like the pitiful, worn-out rag which he had worn when he first came to Plassans.

'Pooh! it is very good yet,' he used to say, when anyone hazarded a timid remark about it.

He made a display of it, walked about the streets in it, carrying his head loftily, and altogether unheeding the curious glances which were cast at him. There was no bravado in the matter; he was simply following his natural inclinations. Now that he believed that he need no longer lay himself out to please, he fell back into all his old disdain for mere appearance. It was his triumph to sit down just as he was, with his tall, clumsy body, rough, blunt manner and torn clothes, in the midst of conquered Plassans.

Madame de Condamin, distressed by the strong smell which emanated from his cassock, one day gently took him to task about his appearance.

'Do you know,' she said to him, laughing, 'that the ladies are beginning to detest you? They say that you now never take the least trouble over your toilet. Once upon a time, when you took your handkerchief out of your pocket, it was just as though there were a choir-boy swinging a thurible behind you.'

The priest looked greatly astonished. He was quite unaware of any change in himself. Then Madame de Condamin, drawing a little nearer to him, said in a friendly tone:

'Will you let me speak quite frankly to you, my dear Curé? It is really a mistake on your part to be so negligent of your appearance. You scarcely shave, and you never comb your hair; it is as rough and tumbled as though you had been fighting. I can assure you that all this has a very bad effect. Madame Rastoil and Madame Delangre told me yesterday that they could scarcely recognise you. You are really compromising your success.'

The priest gave a laugh of defiance, as he shook his powerful unkempt head.

'Now that the battle is won,' he merely replied, 'they must put up with my hair being uncombed.'

Plassans had, indeed, to put up with him with his hair uncombed. The once seemingly flexible priest was now transformed into a stern, despotic master who bent all wills[Pg 281] to his own. His face, which had again become cadaverous in hue, shone with eyes like an eagle's, and he raised his big hands as though they were filled with threats and chastisements. The town was positively terrified on beholding the master it had imposed upon itself, with his shabby, dirty clothing and unkempt hair. The covert alarm of the women only tended, however, to strengthen his power. He was stern and harsh to his penitents, but not one of them dared to leave him. They came to him in fear and trembling, in which they found some touch of painful pleasure.

'I was wrong, my dear,' Madame de Condamin confessed to Marthe, 'in wanting him to perfume himself. I am growing accustomed to him, and even prefer him as he is. He is indeed a man!'

Abbé Faujas was supreme at the Bishop's. Since the elections he had left Monseigneur Rousselot only a show of authority. The Bishop lived amidst his beloved books in his study, where the Abbé, who administered the diocese from an adjoining room, virtually kept him prisoner, only allowing him to see those persons whom he could fully trust. The clergy trembled before this absolute master. The old white-headed priests bent before him with all humility and surrender of personal will. Monseigneur Rousselot, when he was alone with Abbé Surin, often wept silent tears. He regretted the impetuous mastery of Abbé Fenil, who had, at any rate, intervals of affectionate softness, whereas now, under Abbé Faujas's rule, he felt a relentless, ceaseless pressure. However, he would smile again and resign himself, saying with a sort of pleasant self-satisfaction:

'Come, my child, let us get to work. I must not complain, for I am now leading the life which I always dreamed of—a life of perfect solitude amongst my books.'

Then he sighed, and continued in a lower tone:

'I should be quite happy if I were not afraid of losing you, my dear Surin. He will end by not tolerating your presence here any longer. I thought that he looked at you very suspiciously yesterday. Always agree with him, I beseech you; take his side and don't spare me. Ah me! I have only you left now.'

Two months after the elections Abbé Vial, one of the Bishop's grand-vicars, went to settle at Rome. Abbé Faujas stepped into his place as a matter of course, although it had been promised long ago to Abbé Bourrette. He did not even[Pg 282] promote the latter to the living of Saint-Saturnin's which he vacated, but preferred to it a young ambitious priest whom he had made a tool of his own.

'His lordship would not hear of you,' he said curtly to Abbé Bourrette when he met him.

When the poor old priest stammered out that he would go and see the Bishop, and ask for an explanation, Abbé Faujas added more gently:

'His lordship is too unwell to see you. Trust yourself in my hands; I will plead your cause for you.'

From his first appearance in the Chamber in Paris Monsieur Delangre had voted with the majority. Plassans was conquered for the Empire. Abbé Faujas almost seemed actuated by a feeling of revenge in the rough way in which he treated the prudent townspeople. He again closed the little doors that led into the Impasse des Chevillottes, and compelled Monsieur Rastoil and his friends to enter the Sub-Prefecture by the official door facing the Place. When he appeared at the sub-prefect's friendly gatherings, the guests showed themselves very humble in his presence. So great was the fascination he exercised, and so great the fear he inspired, that even when he was not present nobody dared to make the slightest equivocal remark concerning him.

'He is a man of the greatest merit,' declared Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies, who now counted on being promoted to a prefecture.

'A very remarkable man, indeed,' chimed in Doctor Porquier. All the company nodded their heads approvingly till Monsieur de Condamin, who began to feel irritated by this eulogistic unanimity, amused himself by putting them into embarrassment.

'Well, he hasn't a pleasant temper, anyway,' said he.

This remark had a chilling effect upon the company. Each was afraid that his neighbour might be in the terrible Abbé's pay.

'The grand-vicar has an excellent heart,' Monsieur Rastoil prudently remarked; 'but, like all great minds, he appears at first sight to be a little stern.'

'It is just so with me; I am very easy to get on with, but I have always had the reputation of being a hard, stern man,' exclaimed Monsieur de Bourdeu, who had become reconciled with the party again after a long private interview which he had had with Abbé Faujas.

[Pg 283]

Then, wishing to put everyone at ease again, the presiding judge exclaimed:

'Have you heard that there is a probability of a bishopric for the grand-vicar?'

At this they brightened up. Monsieur Maffre expressed the opinion that it would be of Plassans itself that Abbé Faujas would become bishop, after the retirement of Monseigneur Rousselot, whose health was very feeble.

'Everyone would gain by it,' said Abbé Bourrette guilelessly. 'Illness has embittered his lordship; I know that our excellent Faujas has made the greatest efforts to persuade him out of certain unjust prejudices which he entertains.'

'He is very fond of you,' asserted Judge Paloque, who had just received his decoration; 'my wife has heard him complain of the way in which you are neglected.'

When Abbé Surin was present, he, too, joined in the general chorus; but, although he had a mitre in his pocket, to use the expression of the priests of the diocese, the success of Abbé Faujas made him uneasy. He looked at him in his pretty way, and, calling to mind the Bishop's prediction, tried to discover the weak point which would bring that colossus toppling in the dust.

The gentlemen of the party, it should be said, had had their desires satisfied; that is, excepting Monsieur de Bourdeu and Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies, who were still waiting for the marks of the government's favour. These two were, consequently, the warmest partisans of Abbé Faujas. The others, to tell the truth, would have been glad to rebel, if they had dared. They were growing secretly weary of the continual gratitude which was exacted from them by their master, and they ardently wished that some strong, bold hand would effect their deliverance. One day Madame Paloque, with an affectation of indifference inquired:

'What has become of Abbé Fenil? I haven't seen or heard of him for an age.'

There was profound silence. Monsieur de Condamin was the only one present capable of venturing upon such dangerous ground. They all looked at him.

'Oh!' he said quietly, 'I believe he shuts himself up at his place at Les Tulettes.'

Madame de Condamin added with an ironical smile:

'He can sleep quietly now. His career is over; he will take no part again in the affairs of Plassans.'

[Pg 284]

There was only Marthe who remained a real obstacle in Abbé Faujas's path. He felt that she was escaping him more and more each day. He stiffened his will and called up all his forces as priest and man to bend her, without succeeding in moderating the flame which he had fanned into life. She was striving to reach the logical end of her passionate longings, and insisted upon forcing her way further and further into the peace and ecstasy and perfect self-forgetfulness of divine happiness. It was bitter pain and anguish to her to be, as it were, walled in and prevented from reaching that threshold of light, of which she fancied she caught a glimpse, though it seemed to be ever receding from her reach. She shivered and trembled now at Saint-Saturnin's in the coldness and the gloom amidst which she had once felt such thrills of delight. The peals of the organ no longer stirred her with a tremor of voluptuous joy; the white clouds of incense no longer lulled her into sweet mystic dreams; the gleaming chapels and the sacred pyxes that flashed like stars, the chasubles with their sheen of gold and silver, all now seemed pale and wan to her eyes that were dull and dim with tears. Like a damned soul yearning after Paradise, she threw up her arms in bitter desperation and besought the love that denied itself to her, sobbing and wailing:

'My God, my God! why hast Thou forsaken me?'

Bowed down with shame, hurt, as it were, by the cold silence of the vaulted roof, Marthe left the church, burning with the anger of a scorned woman. She had wild dreams of pouring out her blood, and she writhed madly at her impotence to do more than to pray, at being unable to spring at a single bound into the arms of God. And when she returned home, she felt that her only hope was in Abbé Faujas. It was he alone that could make her God's. He had revealed to her the initiatory joys; he must now tear aside the whole veil. But the priest fell into a passion with her and treated her roughly, refusing to hear her so long as she was not on her knees before him, humble and unresisting like a corpse. She listened to him, standing upright, sustained by an impulse of revolt that thrilled her whole being, as she vented upon him the bitterness that came of her deceived yearnings, and accused him of the base treachery which was torturing her.

Old Madame Rougon often thought it was her duty to intervene between the Abbé and her daughter, as she had formerly done between the latter and Mouret. Marthe having[Pg 285] told her of her troubles, she spoke to the priest like a mother-in-law desiring the happiness of her children and doing her best to restore peace in their home.

'Well,' she said to him with a smile, 'can't you manage to live in peace? Marthe is constantly complaining and you seem to be perpetually grieving her. I know very well that women are exacting, but you must confess that you are a little wanting in consideration. I am extremely distressed by what occurs; it would be so easy for you to arrange matters pleasantly! Do, I beg of you, my dear Abbé, be a little more gentle with her.'

She also scolded him in a friendly fashion for his slovenly appearance. She could see, with her shrewd feminine intelligence, that he was abusing his victory. Then she began to make excuses for her daughter. The dear child, she said, had suffered a great deal, and her nervous sensitiveness required most careful treatment; but she had an excellent disposition and an affectionate nature which a clever man might mould after his own wishes. One day, however, when she was thus showing him how he might make Marthe what he liked, Abbé Faujas grew weary of her perpetual advice.

'No, no!' he cried, 'your daughter is mad; she bores me to death. I won't have anything more to do with her. I would pay the fellow well who would free me of her.'

Madame Rougon looked him keenly in the face and tightly pressed her lips.

'Listen to me, my friend,' she said after a short silence; 'you are wanting in tact, and that will prove your ruin. Overthrow yourself, if you like; I wash my hands of you. I assisted you, not for your own sake, but to please our friends in Paris. They wrote to me and asked me to pilot you, and I did so. But understand this, I will never allow you to come the master over me. It's all very well for little Péqueur, and simple Rastoil, but we are not at all afraid of you, and we mean to remain the masters. My husband conquered Plassans before you did, and I warn you that we shall keep our conquest.'

From that day forward there was great coldness between the Rougons and Abbé Faujas. When Marthe again came to complain to her mother, the latter said to her very plainly:

'Your Abbé is only making a fool of you. If I were in your place I shouldn't hesitate to tell him a few plain truths. To begin with, he has been disgustingly dirty for a long time[Pg 286] past, and I can't understand how you can bear to take your meals at the same table with him.'

Madame Rougon had, in truth, hinted at a very ingenious plan to her husband, by which the Abbé should be ousted, and they themselves should reap the reward of his success. Now that the town voted properly, Rougon, who had not cared to risk the conduct of the campaign, was quite able to keep it in the proper path. The green drawing-room would become all the more influential, and Félicité began to await developments with that crafty patience to which she owed her fortune.

On the day when her mother told her that the Abbé was only making a fool of her, Marthe again repaired to Saint-Saturnin's resolved upon a last supreme appeal. She remained in the deserted church for two hours, pouring out her soul in prayer, waiting longingly for the ecstasy that came not, and torturing herself with her search for consolation. Impulses of deep humility stretched her prostrate upon the flag-stones, momentary thrills of rebellion made her start up again with her teeth clenched, while her whole being, wildly racked and strained, broke down at not being able to grasp or kiss aught save the aching void of her own passion. When she rose and left the church the sky seemed black to her; she was not conscious of the pavement beneath her feet; the narrow streets left upon her the impression of some immense lonely wilderness. She threw her hat and shawl upon the dining-room table and went straight upstairs to Abbé Faujas's room.

The Abbé sat buried in thought, at his little table. His pen had fallen from his fingers. He opened the door, still full of his thoughts, but when he saw Marthe standing before him, very pale, and with the light of deep resolution burning in her eyes, he made a gesture of anger.

'What do you want?' he asked. 'Why have you come upstairs? Go down again and wait for me, if you have anything to say to me.'

She pushed him aside and entered the room without speaking a word.

The priest hesitated for a moment, struggling against the influence which was prompting him to raise his hand against her. He remained standing in front of her, without closing the door that was wide open.

'What do you want?' he repeated. 'I am busy.'

[Pg 287]

Then Marthe closed the door, and having done so, drew nearer to the Abbé and said to him:

'I want to speak to you.'

She sat down and looked about the room, at the narrow bed, the shabby chest of drawers, and at the big black wooden crucifix, the sight of which, as it stood out conspicuously on the bare wall, gave her a passing thrill. A freezing silence seemed to fall from the ceiling. The grate was quite empty; there was not even a pinch of ashes in it.

'You will take cold,' said the priest in a calmer voice. 'Let us go downstairs, I beg you.'

'No; I want to speak to you,' said Marthe again.

Then, clasping her hands together like a penitent making her confession, she continued:

'I owe you much. Before you came, I was without a soul. It was you who willed that I should be saved. It is through you that I have known the only joys of my life. You are my saviour and my father. For these last five years I have only lived through you and for you.'

Her voice broke down and she almost slipped upon her knees. The priest stopped her with a gesture.

'And now, to-day,' she cried, 'I am suffering and have need of your help. Listen to me, father. Do not withdraw from me. You cannot abandon me thus. I tell you that God does not listen to me any longer. I do not feel His presence any longer. Have pity upon me, I beseech you. Advise me, lead me to those divine graces whose first joys you made me know; teach me what I should do to cure myself, and ever advance in the love of God.'

'You must pray,' said the priest gravely.

'I have prayed; I have prayed for hours with my head buried in my hands, trying to lose myself in every word of adoration, and yet I have not received consolation. I have not felt the presence of God.'

'You must pray and pray again, pray continually, pray until God is moved by your prayers and descends to you.'

She looked at him in anguish.

'Then there is nothing but prayer?' she asked. 'You cannot give me any help?'

'No; none at all,' he replied roughly.

She threw up her trembling hands in a burst of desperation, her breast heaving with anger. But she restrained herself, and she stammered:

[Pg 288]

'Your heaven is fast closed. You have led me on so far only to crush me against a wall. I was very peaceful, you will remember, when you came. I was living quietly at home here, without a single desire or curiosity. It was you who awoke me with words that stirred and roused my heart. It was you who made me enter upon a fresh youth. Oh! you cannot tell what joys you brought me at first! It was like sweet soft warmth thrilling my whole being. My heart woke up within me. I was filled with mighty hopes. Sometimes, when I reflected that I was forty years old, it all seemed foolish to me, and I smiled, and then I defended myself, for I felt so happy in it all. Now I want the promised happiness. I am growing weary of the desire for it, a desire that burns me and tortures me. I have no time to lose, now that my health has broken down, and I don't want to find myself deceived and duped. There must be something more; tell me that there is something more.'

Abbé Faujas stood quite impassive, letting this flood of words pass without reply.

'Ah! So there is nothing else! there is nothing else!' she continued, in a burst of indignation; 'then you have deceived me! Down there on the terrace, on those star-lit evenings, you promised me heaven, and I believed your promises. I sold myself, and gave myself up. I was quite mad during those first transports of prayer. To-day the bargain holds no longer. I shall return to my old ways, and resume my old peaceful quiet. I will turn everybody out of the house, and make it as it used to be; I will again sit in my old corner on the terrace, and mend the linen. Needlework never wearies me. And I will have Désirée back to sit beside me on her little stool. She used to sit there, the dear innocent, and laugh and make dolls——'

Then she burst into a fit of sobbing:

'I want my children! They were my safeguard. Since they left I have lost my head, I have done things that I ought not to have done. Why did you take them from me? They went away from me one by one, and the house became like a strange house to me. My heart was no longer wrapped up in it, I was glad when I left it for an afternoon; and when I came back in the evening, I seemed to have fallen amongst strangers. The very furniture seemed cold and unfriendly. I quite hated the house. But I will go and fetch them again, the poor darlings. Everything will become[Pg 289] as it used to be directly they return. Oh! if I could only sink down again into my old sleepy quiet!'

She was growing more and more excited. The priest tried to calm her by a method which he had often before found efficacious.

'Be calm, my dear lady, be calm,' he said, trying to take her hands, and hold them between his own.

'Don't touch me!' she cried, recoiling from him. 'I don't want you to do so. When you hold me I am as weak as a child. The warmth of your hands takes all my resolution and strength away. The trouble would only begin again to-morrow; for I cannot go on living like this, and you only assuage me for an hour.'

A deep shadow passed over her face as she continued:

'No! I am damned now! I shall never love my home again. And if the children come, they would ask for their father—Oh! it is that which is killing me! I shall never be forgiven till I have confessed my crime to a priest.'

Then she fell upon her knees.

'I am a guilty woman. That is why God turns His face from me.'

Abbé Faujas tried to make her rise from her knees.

'Be silent!' he cried loudly. 'I cannot hear your confession here. Come to Saint-Saturnin's to-morrow.'

'Father,' she said entreatingly, 'have pity upon me. To-morrow I shall not have the strength for it.'

'I forbid you to speak,' he cried more violently than before. 'I won't listen to anything; I shall turn my head away and close my ears.'

He stepped backward and crossed his arms, trying to check the confession that was on Marthe's lips. They looked at each other for a moment in silence, with the lurking anger that came from their conscious complicity.

'It is not a priest who listens to you,' said the Abbé in a huskier voice. 'Here there is only a man to judge and condemn you.'

At this she rose from her knees, and continued feverishly: 'A man! I prefer it, for I am not confessing; I am simply telling you of my wrong-doing. After the children had gone, I allowed their father to be put away too. He had never struck me, the unhappy man. It was I myself who was mad.... Oh, you cannot guess what frightful nightmares overwhelmed me and made me hurl myself upon the floor.[Pg 290] All hell seemed to be racking my brain with its torments. He, poor man, with his chattering teeth, excited my pity. It was he who was afraid of me. When you had left the room he dared not venture near me; he passed the night on a chair.'

Again did Abbé Faujas try to stop her.

'You are killing yourself,' he exclaimed. 'Don't stir up these recollections. God will take count of your sufferings.'

'It was I who sent him to Les Tulettes,' she continued, silencing the priest with an energetic gesture. 'You all told me that he was mad. Oh, the unendurable life I have led! I have always been terrified by the thought of madness. When I was quite young, I used to feel as though my skull were being opened and my head were being emptied. I seemed to have a block of ice within my brow. Ah! I felt that awful coldness again, and I was perpetually in fear of going mad. They took my husband away. I let them take him. I didn't know what I was doing. But, ever since that day, I have been unable to close my eyes without seeing him over yonder. It is that which makes me behave so strangely, which roots me for hours to the same spot, with my eyes wide open. I know the place; I can see it. My uncle Macquart showed it to me. It is as gloomy as a prison, with its black windows.'

She seemed to be choking. She raised her handkerchief to her lips, and when she took it away again it was spotted with blood. The priest, with his arms rigidly crossed in front of him, waited till the attack was over.

'You know it all, don't you?' she resumed, in stammering accents. 'I am a miserable guilty woman, I sinned for you. But give me life, give me happiness, I entreat you!'

'You lie,' said the priest slowly. 'I know nothing; I was ignorant that you were guilty of that wickedness.'

She recoiled, clasping her hands, stammering, and gazing at him with a look of terror. And at last, utterly unable to restrain herself, she broke out wildly and recklessly:

'Hear me, Ovide, I love you, and you know that I do, do you not? I have loved you, Ovide, since the first day you came here. I refrained from telling you so, for I saw it displeased you; but I knew quite well that you were gaining my whole heart. Then it was that I emptied the house for your sake. I dragged myself on my knees, and became your slave. You surely cannot go on being cruel for ever. Now[Pg 291] that I am ill and abandoned, and my heart is broken and my head seems empty, you surely cannot reject me. It is true that we have said nothing openly before; but surely my love spoke to you, and your silence made answer. Oh! I love you, Ovide, I love you, and it is killing me.'

She burst into another fit of sobbing. Abbé Faujas had braced himself up to his full height. He stepped towards Marthe and poured out upon her all his scorn of woman.

'Oh, miserable creature!' he said. 'I hoped that you would be reasonable, and that you would never lower yourself to the shame of uttering all that vileness. Ah! it is the eternal struggle of evil against will. You are the temptation from below that leads men to base back-sliding and final overthrow. The priest has no worse enemy than such as you; you ought to be driven from the churches as impure and accursed!'

'I love you, Ovide,' she again stammered; 'I love you; help me.'

'I have already come too near you,' the priest continued. 'Go away and depart from me; you are Satan! I will beat you if it be necessary to force the evil spirit from your body.'

She sank into a crouching posture against the wall, silent with terror at the priest's threatening fist. Her hair became unloosened, and a long white lock fell over her brow. As she looked about the room for a refuge, she espied the big black crucifix, and she still had strength left to stretch her hands towards it with a passionate gesture.

'Do not implore the Cross!' cried the priest in wild anger. 'Jesus lived chastely, and it was that which enabled Him to die.'

At that same moment Madame Faujas came into the room, carrying on her arm a big provision basket. She put it down at once on seeing her son so wrathful, and threw her arms around him.

'Ovide, my child, calm yourself,' she said, as she caressed him.

Then, turning upon the cowering Marthe an annihilating glance, she cried:

'Can you never leave him at peace? Are you not ashamed of yourself? Go downstairs; it is quite impossible for you to remain here. This is no place for such as you!'

Marthe did not move. Madame Faujas had to lift her up and push her towards the door. The old woman stormed at[Pg 292] her, charging her with having waited till she had gone out, and making her promise that she would never again come upstairs to make such scenes. And finally she banged the door violently behind her.

Marthe went on, reeling down the stairs. She had ceased sobbing, and kept repeating to herself:

'Fran?ois will come back again; Fran?ois will turn them all out into the street.'