ÉMILE ZOLA (continued 4)

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

She checked herself suddenly, for her husband was tugging at her dress. He did not want to have the Abbé's relations in the house, for he remembered in what terms Madame Faujas had spoken of her daughter and son-in-law.

'The rooms are very small,' he began; 'and Monsieur l'Abbé would be inconvenienced. It would be better for all parties that his sister should take lodgings somewhere else; there happen to be some rooms vacant just now at the Paloques' house, over the way.'

There was a dead pause in the conversation. The priest said nothing, but gazed up into the sky. Marthe thought he was offended, and she felt much distressed at her husband's bluntness. After a moment she could no longer endure the embarrassing silence. 'Well, it's settled then,' she said, without any attempt at skill in knitting the broken threads of the conversation together again, 'Rose shall help your mother to clean the rooms. My husband was only thinking about your own personal convenience; but, of course, if you wish it, it is not for us to prevent you from disposing of the rooms in any way you like.'

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

'I can't understand you at all!' he cried. 'When first I let the rooms to the Abbé, you were quite displeased, and seemed to hate the thought of having even so much as a cat brought into the house; and now I believe you would be perfectly willing for the Abbé to bring the whole of his relations, down to his third and fourth cousins. Didn't you feel me tugging at your dress? You might have known that I didn't want those people. They are not very respectable folks.'

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

'Who, indeed? It was Abbé Faujas himself. I overheard him one day while he was talking to his mother.'

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

'Well, it is sufficient that I do know. The sister is a heartless creature and her husband is a scamp. It's of no use your putting on that air of insulted majesty; those were their own words, and I'm inventing nothing. I don't want to have those people here, do you understand? The old lady herself was the first to object to her daughter coming here. The Abbé now seems to have changed his mind. I don't know what has led him to alter his opinion. It's some fresh mystery of his. He's going to make use of them somehow.'

Marthe shrugged her shoulders and allowed her husband to rail on. He told Rose not to clean the rooms, but Rose now only obeyed her mistress's orders. For five days his anger vented itself in bitter words and furious recriminations. In Abbé Faujas's presence he confined himself to sulking, for he did not dare to attack the priest openly. Then, as usual, he ended by submitting, and ceased to rail at the people who were coming. But he drew his purse-strings still tighter, isolated himself, shut himself up more and more in his own selfish existence. When the Trouches arrived one October evening, he merely exclaimed:

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

Abbé Faujas did not appear very desirous that his sister and brother-in-law should be seen on that occasion. His mother took up a position by the street-door, and as soon as she caught sight of them turning out of the Place of the Sub-Prefecture, she glanced uneasily behind her into the hall and the kitchen. Luck was, however, against her, for just as the Trouches arrived, Marthe, who was going out, came up from the garden, followed by her children.

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

Madame Faujas, who was generally so completely mistress of herself, could not suppress a slight show of confusion as she stammered a word or two of reply. For some moments they stood confronting and scrutinising each other in the hall. Mouret had hurriedly mounted the steps and Rose had taken up her position at the kitchen door.

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

Then, noticing the feeling of embarrassment which was keeping them all silent, she turned towards Trouche and added:

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

'Seventeen hours in the train,' Trouche replied, opening a toothless mouth. 'It is no joke that, in a third-class carriage, I can tell you. One gets pretty well shaken up inside.'

Then he laughed with a peculiar clattering of his jaws. Madame Faujas cast a very angry glance at him, and he began to fumble mechanically at his greasy overcoat, trying to fasten a button that was no longer there, and pressing to his thighs (doubtless in order to hide some stains) a couple of cardboard bonnet-boxes which he was carrying, one green and the other yellow. His red throat was perpetually gurgling beneath a twisted, ragged black neckcloth, over which appeared the edge of a dirty shirt. In his wrinkled face, which seemed to reek with vice, there glistened two little black eyes that rolled about incessantly, examining everybody and everything with an expression of astonishment and covetousness. They looked like the eyes of a thief studying a house to which he means to return in order to plunder it some night.

Mouret fancied that Trouche was examining the fastenings.

'That fellow,' he thought to himself, 'looks as though he were getting the patterns of the locks into his head!'

Olympe was conscious that her husband had made a vulgar remark. She was a tall, slight woman, fair and faded, with a flat plain face. She carried a little deal box and a big bundle tied up in a tablecloth.

'We have brought some pillows with us,' she said, glancing at the bundle. 'Pillows come in very usefully in a third-class carriage; they make one quite as comfortable as if one were travelling first-class. It is a great saving, going third, and it is of no use throwing money away, is it?'

'Certainly not,' Marthe replied, somewhat surprised by the appearance and language of the new-comers.

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

'It's the same thing with clothes,' said she; 'when I set off on a journey I put on my shabbiest things. I told Honoré that his old overcoat was quite good enough. And he has got his old work-day trousers on too, trousers that he's quite tired of wearing. You see I selected my worse dress; it is actually in holes, I believe. This shawl was mother's; I used to iron on it at home; and this bonnet I'm wearing is an old one that I only put on when I go to the wash-house; but it's quite good enough to get spoilt with the dust, isn't it, madame?'

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

Just at this moment a stern voice was heard from the top of the stairs, calling sharply: 'Well! now, mother!'

Mouret raised his head and saw Abbé Faujas leaning against the second-floor banisters, looking very angry, and bending over, at the risk of falling, to get a better view of what was going on in the passage. He had heard a sound of talking and had been waiting there for a moment or two in great impatience.

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

'Yes, yes, we are coming up,' answered Madame Faujas, trembling at the sound of her son's angry voice.

Then turning to the Trouches, she said:

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

But the Trouches did not seem to hear; they appeared quite satisfied to remain in the passage, and they looked about them with a well-pleased air, as though the house had just been presented to them.

'It is very nice, very nice indeed, isn't it, Honoré?' Olympe said. 'After what Ovide wrote in his letters we scarcely expected to find it so nice as this, did we? But I told you that we ought to come here, and that we should do better here, and I am right, you see.'

'Yes, yes, we ought to be very comfortable here,' Trouche murmured. 'The garden, too, seems a pretty big one.'

Then addressing Mouret, he inquired:

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

Before Mouret had time to reply, Abbé Faujas, who had come downstairs, cried out in thundering tones:

'Come, Trouche! Come, Olympe!'

They turned round; and when they saw him standing on the steps looking terribly angry, they fairly quailed and meekly followed him. The Abbé went up the stairs in front of them without saying another word, without even seeming to observe the presence of Mouret, who stood gazing after the singular procession. Madame Faujas smiled at Marthe to take away the awkwardness of the situation as she brought up the rear.

Marthe then went out, and Mouret, left to himself, lingered a moment or two in the passage. Upstairs, on the second floor, doors were being noisily banged. Then loud voices were heard, and presently there came dead silence.

'Has he locked them up separately, I wonder?' said Mouret to himself, with a laugh. 'Well, anyhow, they are not a nice family.'

On the very next day, Trouche, respectably dressed, entirely in black, shaven, and with his scanty hair carefully brushed over his temples, was presented by Abbé Faujas to Marthe and the lady patronesses. He was forty-five years of age, wrote a first-rate hand, and was said to have kept the books of a mercantile house for a long time. The ladies at once installed him as secretary. His duties were to represent the committee, and employ himself in certain routine work from ten till four in an office on the first floor of the Home. His salary was to be fifteen hundred francs.

'Those good people are very quiet, you see,' Marthe remarked to her husband a few days afterwards.

Indeed the Trouches made no more noise than the Faujases. Two or three times Rose asserted that she had heard quarrels between the mother and daughter, but the Abbé's grave voice had immediately restored peace. Trouche went out every morning punctually at a quarter to ten, and came back again at a quarter past four. He never went out in the evening. Olympe occasionally went shopping with Madame Faujas, but she was never seen to come down the stairs by herself.

The window of the room in which the Trouches slept overlooked the garden. It was the last one on the right, in front of the trees of the Sub-Prefecture. Big curtains of red calico, with a yellow border, hung behind the glass panes, making a strong contrast, when seen from outside, with the priest's white ones. The window was invariably kept closed. One evening when Abbé Faujas and his mother were out on the terrace with the Mourets, a slight involuntary cough was heard, and as the priest raised his head with an expression of annoyance, he caught sight of Olympe and her husband leaning out of the window. For a moment or two he kept his eyes turned upwards, thus interrupting his conversation with Marthe. At this the Trouches disappeared; and those below heard the window-catch being fastened.

'You had better go upstairs, I think, mother,' said the priest. 'I am afraid you may be catching cold out here.'

Madame Faujas wished them all good-night; and, when she had retired, Marthe resumed the conversation by asking in her kindly way:

'Is your sister worse? I have not seen her for a week.'

'She has great need of rest,' the priest curtly answered.

However, Marthe's sympathetic interest made her continue the subject.

'She shuts herself up too much,' said she; 'the fresh air would do her good. These October evenings are still quite warm. Why doesn't she ever come out into the garden? She has never set foot in it. You know that it is entirely at your disposal.'

The priest muttered a few vague words of excuse, and then Mouret, to increase his embarrassment, manifested still greater amiability than his wife's.

'That's just what I was saying this morning,' he began. 'Monsieur l'Abbé's sister might very well bring her sewing out here in the sun in the afternoons, instead of keeping herself shut in upstairs. Anyone would think that she daren't even show herself at the window. She isn't frightened of us, I hope! We are not such terrible people as all that! And Monsieur Trouche, too, he hurries up the stairs, four steps at a time. Tell them to come and spend an evening with us now and then. They must be frightfully dull up in that room of theirs, all alone.'

The Abbé did not seem to be in the humour that evening to submit to his landlord's pleasantry. He looked him straight in the face, and said very bluntly:

'I am much obliged to you, but there is little probability of their accepting your invitation. They are tired in the evening, and they go to bed. And, besides, that is the best thing they can do.'

'Just as they like, my dear sir,' replied Mouret, vexed by the Abbé's rough manner.

When he was alone again with Marthe, he said to her: 'Does the Abbé, I wonder, think he can persuade us that the moon is made of green cheese? It's quite clear that he is afraid that those scamps he has taken in will play him some bad trick or other. Didn't you see how sharply he kept his eye on them this evening when he caught sight of them at the window? They were spying out at us up there. There will be a bad end to all this!'

Marthe was now living in a state of blessed calm. She no longer felt troubled by Mouret's raillery; the gradual growth of faith within her filled her with exquisite joy, she glided softly and slowly into a life of pious devotion, which seemed to lull her with a sweet restfulness. Abbé Faujas still avoided speaking to her of God. He remained merely a friend, simply exercising influence over her by his grave demeanour and the vague odour of incense exhaled by his cassock. On two or three occasions when she was alone with him she had again broken out into fits of nervous sobbing, without knowing why, but finding a happiness in thus allowing herself to weep. On each of these occasions the Abbé had merely taken her hands in silence, calming her with his serene and authoritative gaze. When she wanted to tell him of her strange attacks of sadness, or her secret joys, or her need of guidance, he smiled and hushed her, telling her that these matters were not his concern, and that she must speak of them to Abbé Bourrette. Then she retired completely within herself and remained trembling; while the priest seemed to assume still colder reserve than before, and strode away from her like some unheeding god at whose feet she wished to pour out her soul in humiliation.

Marthe's chief occupation now was attending the various religious services and works in which she took part. In the vast nave of Saint-Saturnin's she felt perfectly happy; it was there that she experienced the full sweetness of that purely physical restfulness which she sought. She there forgot everything: it was like an immense window open upon another life, a life that was wide and infinite, and full of an emotion which thrilled and satisfied her. But she still felt some fear of the church, and she went there with a feeling of uneasy bashfulness, and a touch of nervous shame, that made her glance behind her as she passed through the doorway, to see if anyone was watching her. Then, once inside, she abandoned herself, everything around her seemed to assume a melting softness, even the unctuous voice of Abbé Bourrette, who, after he had confessed her, sometimes kept her on her knees for a few minutes longer, while he spoke to her about Madame Rastoil's dinners or the Rougons' last reception.

Marthe often returned home in a condition of complete prostration. Religion seemed to break her down. Rose had become all-powerful in the house. She scolded Mouret, found fault with him because he dirtied too much linen, and let him have his dinner at her own hours. She even tried to convert him.

'Madame does quite right to live a Christian life,' said she. 'You will be damned, sir, you will, and it will only be right, for you are not a good man at heart, no, you are not! You ought to go with your wife to mass next Sunday morning.'

Mouret shrugged his shoulders. He let things take their own course, and sometimes even did a bit of house-work himself, taking a turn or two with the broom when he thought that the dining-room looked particularly dusty. The children gave him most trouble. It was vacation-time, and, as their mother was scarcely ever at home, Désirée and Octave—who had again failed in his examination for his degree—turned the place upside down. Serge was poorly, kept his bed, and spent whole days in reading in his room. He had become Abbé Faujas's favourite, and the priest lent him books. Mouret thus spent two dreadful months, at his wits' end how to manage his young folks. Octave was a special trouble to him, and as he did not feel inclined to keep him at home till the end of the vacation, he determined that he should not again return to college, but should be sent to some business-house at Marseilles.

'Since you won't look after them at all,' he said to Marthe, 'I must find some place or other to put them in. I am quite worn out with them all, and I won't have them at home any longer. It's your own fault if it causes you any grief. Octave is quite unbearable. He will never pass his examination, and it will be much better to teach him at once how to gain his own living instead of letting him idle his time away with a lot of good-for-nothings. One meets him roaming all over the town.'

Marthe was very much distressed. She seemed to awake from a dream on hearing that one of her children was about to leave her. She succeeded in getting the departure postponed for a week, during which she remained more at home, and resumed her active life. But she quickly dropped back again into her previous state of listless languor; and on the day that Octave came to kiss her, telling her that he was to leave for Marseilles in the evening, she had lost all strength and energy, and contented herself with giving him some good advice.

Mouret came back from the railway station with a very heavy heart. He looked about him for his wife, and found her in the garden, crying under the arbour. Then he gave vent to his feelings.

'There! that's one the less!' he exclaimed. 'You ought to feel glad of it. You will be able to go prowling about the church now as much as you like. Make your mind easy, the other two won't be here long. I shall keep Serge with me as he is a very quiet lad and is rather young as yet to go and read for the bar; but if he's at all in your way, just let me know, and I will free you of him at once. As for Désirée, I shall send her to her nurse.'

Marthe went on weeping in silence.

'But what would you have?' he continued. 'You can't be both in and out. Since you have taken to keeping away from home, your children have become indifferent to you. That's logic, isn't it? Besides it is necessary to find room for all the people who are now living in our house. It isn't nearly big enough, and we shall be lucky if we don't get turned out of doors ourselves.'

He had raised his eyes as he spoke, and was looking at the windows of the second-floor. Then, lowering his voice, he added:

'Don't go on crying in that ridiculous way! They are watching you. Don't you see those eyes peeping between the red curtains? They are the eyes of the Abbé's sister; I know them well enough. You may depend on seeing them there all day long. The Abbé himself may be a decent fellow, but as for those Trouches, I know they are always crouching behind their curtains like wolves waiting to spring on one. I feel quite certain that if the Abbé didn't prevent them, they would come down in the night to steal my pears. Dry your tears, my dear; you may be quite sure that they are enjoying our disagreement. Even though they have been the cause of the boy's going away, that is no reason why we should let them see what a trouble his departure has been to us both.'

His voice broke, and he himself seemed on the point of sobbing. Marthe, quite heart-broken, deeply touched by his last words, was prompted to throw herself into his arms. But they were afraid of being observed; and besides they felt as if there were some obstacle between them that prevented them from coming together. So they separated, while Olympe's eyes still glistened between the red curtains upstairs.

XI

One morning Abbé Bourrette made his appearance, his face betokening the greatest distress. As soon as he caught sight of Marthe on the steps, he hurried up to her and, seizing her hands and pressing them, he stammered:

'Poor Compan! it is all over with him! he is dying! I am going upstairs, I must see Faujas at once.'

When Marthe showed him his fellow priest, who, according to his wont, was walking to and fro at the bottom of the garden, reading his breviary, he ran up to him, tottering on his short legs. He tried to speak and tell the other the sad news, but his grief choked him, and he could only throw his arms round Abbé Faujas's neck, while sobbing bitterly.

'Hullo! what's the matter with the two parsons?' cried Mouret, who had hastily rushed out of the dining-room.

'The Curé of Saint-Saturnin's is dying,' Marthe replied, showing much distress.

Mouret assumed an expression of surprise, and, as he went back into the house, he murmured:

'Pooh! that worthy Bourrette will manage to console himself to-morrow when he is appointed Curé in the other's place. He counts on getting the post; he told me so.'

Abbé Faujas disengaged himself from the old priest's embrace, quietly closed his breviary, and listened to the sad news with a grave face.

'Compan wants to see you,' said Abbé Bourrette in a broken voice; 'he will not last the morning out. Oh! he has been a dear friend to me! We studied together. He is anxious to say good-bye to you. He has been telling me all through the night that you were the only man of courage in the diocese. For more than a year now he has been getting weaker and weaker, and not a single Plassans priest has dared to go and grasp his hand; while you, a stranger, who scarcely knew him, you have spent an afternoon with him every week. The tears came into his eyes just now as he was speaking of you; you must lose no time, my friend.'

Abbé Faujas went up to his room for a moment, while Abbé Bourrette paced impatiently and hopelessly about the passage; and then at last they set off together. The old priest wiped his brow and swayed about on the road as he talked in disconnected fashion:

'He would have died like a dog without a single prayer being said for him if his sister had not come and told me about him at eleven o'clock last night. She did quite right, the dear lady, though he did not want to compromise any of us, and even would have foregone the last sacraments. Yes, my friend, he was dying all alone, abandoned and deserted, he who had so high a mind, and who has only lived to do good!'

Then Bourrette became silent; but after a few moments he resumed again in a different voice:

'Do you think that Fenil will ever forgive me for this? Never, I expect! When Compan saw me bringing the viaticum, he was unwilling to let me anoint him and told me to go away. Well, well! it's all over with me now, and I shall never be Curé! But I am glad that I did it, and that I haven't let Compan die like a dog. He has been at war with Fenil for thirty years, you know. When he took to his bed he said to me, "Ah! it's Fenil who is going to carry the day! Now that I am stricken down he will get the better of me!" So think of it! That poor Compan, whom I have seen so high-spirited and energetic at Saint-Saturnin's! Little Eusèbe, the choir-boy, whom I took to ring the viaticum bell, was quite embarrassed when he found where we were going. He kept looking behind him at each tinkle, as if he was afraid that Fenil would hear it.'

Abbé Faujas, who was stepping along quickly with bent head and a preoccupied air, kept perfectly silent, and did not even seem to hear what his companion was saying.

'Has the Bishop been informed?' he suddenly asked.

But Abbé Bourrette in his turn now appeared to be buried in thought and made no reply; however, just as they reached Abbé Compan's door he said to his companion:

'Tell him that we met Fenil and that he bowed to us. It will please him, for he will then think that I shall be appointed Curé.'

They went up the stairs in silence. The Curé's sister came to the landing, and on seeing them burst into tears. Then she stammered between her sobs:

'It is all over! He has just passed away in my arms. I was quite alone with him. As he was dying, he looked round him and murmured, "I must have the plague since they have all deserted me." Ah! gentlemen he died with his eyes full of tears.'

They went into the little room where Abbé Compan, with his head resting on his pillow, seemed to be asleep. His eyes had remained open, and tears yet trickled down his white sad face. Then Abbé Bourrette fell upon his knees, sobbing and praying, with his face pressed to the counterpane. Abbé Faujas at first remained standing, gazing at the dead man; and after having knelt for a moment, he quietly went away. Abbé Bourrette was so absorbed in his grief that he did not even hear his colleague close the door.

Abbé Faujas went straight to the Bishop's. In Monseigneur Rousselot's ante-chamber he met Abbé Surin, carrying a bundle of papers.

'Do you want to speak to his lordship?' asked the secretary, with his never-failing smile. 'You have come at an unfortunate time. His lordship is so busy that he has given orders that no one is to be admitted.'

'But I want to see him on a very urgent matter,' quietly said Abbé Faujas. 'You can at any rate let him know that I am here; and I will wait, if it is necessary.'

'I am afraid that it would be useless for you to wait. His lordship has several people with him. It would be better if you came again to-morrow.'

But the Abbé took a chair, and just as he was doing so the Bishop opened the door of his study. He appeared much vexed on seeing his visitor, whom at first he pretended not to recognise.

'My son,' he said to Surin, 'when you have arranged those papers, come to me immediately; there is a letter I want to dictate to you.'

Then turning to the priest, who remained respectfully standing, he said:

'Ah! is it you, Monsieur Faujas? I am very glad to see you. Perhaps you want to say something to me? Come into my study; you are never in the way.'

Monseigneur Rousselot's study was a very large and rather gloomy room, in which a great wood fire was kept burning in the summer as well as the winter. The heavy carpet and curtains kept out all the air, and the room was like a warm bath. The Bishop, like some dowager shutting herself up from the world, detesting all noise and excitement, lived a chilly life there in his armchair, committing to Abbé Fenil the care of his diocese. He delighted in the classics, and it was said that he was secretly making a translation of Horace. He was equally fond of the little verses of the Anthology, and broad quotations occasionally escaped from his lips, quotations which he enjoyed with the naïveté of a learned man who cares nothing for the modesty of the vulgar.

'There is no one here, you see,' said he, sitting down before the fire; 'but I don't feel very well to-day, and I gave orders that nobody was to be admitted. Now you can tell me what you have to say; I am quite at your service.'

His general expression of amiability was tinged with a kind of vague uneasiness, a sort of resigned submission. When Abbé Faujas had informed him of the death of Abbé Compan, he rose from his chair, apparently both distressed and alarmed.

'What!' he cried, 'my good Compan dead! and I was not able to bid him farewell! No one gave me any warning! Ah, my friend, you were right when you gave me to understand that I was no longer master here. They abuse my kindness.'

'Your lordship knows,' said Abbé Faujas, 'how devoted I am to you. I am only waiting for a sign from you.'

The Bishop shook his head as he murmured:

'Yes, yes; I remember the offer you made to me. You have an excellent heart; but what an uproar there would be, if I were to break with Abbé Fenil! I should have my ears deafened for a whole week! And yet if I could feel quite sure that you could really rid me of him, if I was not afraid that at a week's end he would come back and crush your neck under his heel——'

Abbé Faujas could not repress a smile. Tears were welling from the Bishop's eyes.

'Yes, I am afraid, I am afraid,' the prelate resumed, as he again sank down into his chair. 'I don't feel equal to it yet. It is that miserable man who has killed Compan and has kept his death agony a secret from me so that I might not go and close his eyes. He is capable of the most terrible things. But, you see, I like to live in peace. Fenil is very energetic and he renders me great services in the diocese. When I am no longer here, matters will perhaps be better ordered.'

He grew calmer again and his smile returned.

'Besides, everything is going on satisfactorily at present, and I don't see any immediate difficulty. We can wait.'

Abbé Faujas sat down, and calmly resumed:

'No doubt: but still you will have to appoint a Curé for Saint-Saturnin's in succession to the Abbé Compan.'

Monseigneur Rousselot lifted his hands to his temples with an expression of hopelessness.

'Indeed, you are right!' he ejaculated. 'I had forgotten that. Poor Compan doesn't know in what a hole he has put me, by dying so suddenly without my having had any warning. I promised you that place, didn't I?'

The Abbé bowed.

'Well, my friend, you will save me by letting me take back my word. You know how Fenil detests you. The success of the Home of the Virgin has made him quite furious, and he swears that he will prevent you from making the conquest of Plassans. I am talking to you quite openly, you see. Recently, when reference was made to the appointment of a Curé for Saint-Saturnin's, I let your name fall. But Fenil flew into a frightful rage and I was obliged to promise that I would give the place to a friend of his, Abbé Chardon, whom you know, and who is really a very worthy man. Now, my friend, do this much for me, and give up that idea. I will make you whatever recompense you like to name.'

The priest's face wore a grave expression. After a short interval of silence during which he seemed to be taking counsel of himself, he spoke:

'You know very well, my lord,' he said, 'that I am quite without personal ambition. I should much prefer to lead a life of privacy, and it would be a great relief to me to give up this appointment. But I am not my own master, I feel bound to satisfy those patrons of mine who take an interest in me. I trust that your lordship will reflect very seriously before taking a step which you would probably regret afterwards.'

Although Abbé Faujas spoke very humbly, the Bishop was not unconscious of the menace which his words veiled. He rose from his chair and took a few steps about the room, a prey to the painful perplexity.

'Well, well,' he said, lifting his hands, 'here's trouble and no mistake, for a long time. I should much have preferred to avoid all these explanations, but, since you insist, I must speak frankly. Well, my dear sir, Abbé Fenil brings many charges against you. As I think I told you before, he must have written to Besançon and learnt all the vexatious stories you know of. You have certainly explained those matters to me, and I am quite aware of your merits and of your life of penitence and solitude; but what can I do? Fenil has weapons against you and he uses them ruthlessly. I often don't know what to say in your defence. When the Minister requested me to receive you into my diocese, I did not conceal from him that your position would be a difficult one; but he continued to press me and said that that was your affair, and so in the end I consented. But you must not come to-day and ask me to do what is impossible.'

Abbé Faujas had not lowered his head during the Bishop's remarks. He now raised it still higher as he looked the prelate straight in the face and said in his sharp voice:

'You have given me your promise, my lord.'

'Certainly, certainly,' the Bishop replied. 'That poor Compan was getting weaker every day and you came and confided certain matters to me, and I then made the promise to you. I don't deny it. Listen to me, I will tell you everything, so that you may not accuse me of wheeling round like a weathercock. You asserted that the Minister was extremely desirous for you to be appointed Curé of Saint-Saturnin's. Well, I wrote for information on the subject, and a friend of mine went to the Ministry in Paris. They almost laughed in his face there, and they told him that they didn't even know you. The Minister absolutely denies that he is your supporter, do you hear? If you wish it, I will read you a letter in which he makes some very stern remarks about you.'

He stretched his arm towards a drawer, but Abbé Faujas rose to his feet without taking his eyes off him, and smiled with mingled irony and pity.

'Ah, my lord! my lord!' said he.

Then, after a moment's silence, as though he were unwilling to enter into further explanations, he said:

'I give your lordship back your promise; but believe that in all this I was working more for your own advantage than for mine. By-and-by, when it will be too late, you will call my warnings to mind.'

He stepped towards the door, but the Bishop laid his hand upon him and brought him back, saying with an expression of uneasiness:

'What do you mean? Explain yourself, my dear Monsieur Faujas. I know very well that I have not been in favour at Paris since the election of the Marquis de Lagrifoul. But people know me very little if they suppose that I had any hand in the matter. I don't go out of my study twice a month. Do you imagine that they accuse me of having brought about the marquis's return?'

'Yes, I am afraid so,' the priest curtly replied.

'But it is quite absurd! I have never interfered in politics; I live amongst my beloved books. It was Fenil who did it all. I told him a score of times that he would end by compromising me in Paris.'

He checked himself and blushed slightly at having allowed these last words to escape him. Abbé Faujas sat down again and said in a deep voice:

'My lord, by those words you have condemned your vicar-general. I have never said otherwise than you have just said. Do not continue to make common cause with him or he will lead you into serious trouble. I have friends in Paris, whatever you may believe. I know that the Marquis de Lagrifoul's election has strongly predisposed the Government against you. Rightly or wrongly, they believe that you are the sole cause of the opposition movement which has manifested itself in Plassans, where the Minister, for special reasons, is most anxious to have a majority. If the Legitimist candidate should again succeed at the next election, it would be very awkward, and I should be considerably alarmed for your comfort.'

'But this is abominable!' cried the unhappy Bishop, rocking himself in his chair; 'I can't prevent the Legitimist candidate from being returned! I haven't got the least influence, and I never mix myself up in these matters at all. Really, there are times when I feel that I should like to shut myself up in a monastery. I could take my books with me, and lead a quiet, peaceful life there. It is Fenil who ought to be Bishop instead of me. If I were to listen to Fenil, I should get on the very worst terms with the Government. I should hearken only to Rome, and tell Paris to mind its own business. But that is not my nature, and I want to die in peace. The Minister, then, you say, is enraged with me?'

The priest made no reply. Two creases which appeared at the corners of his mouth gave his face an expression of silent scorn.

'Really,' continued the Bishop, 'if I thought it would please him if I were to appoint you Curé of Saint-Saturnin's, I would try to manage it. But I can assure you that you are mistaken. You are but little in the odour of sanctity.'

Abbé Faujas made a hasty movement of his hands, as he broke out impatiently:

'Have you forgotten that calumnies are circulated about me, and that I came to Plassans in a threadbare cassock? When they send a compromised man to a post of danger, they deny all knowledge of him till the day of triumph. Help me to succeed, my lord, and then you will see that I have friends in Paris.'

Then, as the Bishop, surprised to find in a priest such a bold adventurer, continued to gaze at him in silence, Faujas lapsed into a less assertive manner and continued:

'These, however, are suppositions, and what I mean is, that I have much to be pardoned. My friends are waiting to thank you till my position is completely established.'

Monseigneur Rousselot kept silence for a moment longer. He was a man of sharp understanding, and he had gained a knowledge of human failings from books. He was conscious of his own yielding character, and he was even a little ashamed of it; but he consoled himself for it by judging men for what they were worth. In the life of a learned epicurean, which he led, there were times when he felt supreme disdain for the ambitious men about him, who fought amongst themselves for a few stray shreds of his power.

'Well,' he said, with a smile, 'you are a pertinacious man, my dear Monsieur Faujas, and since I have made you a promise I will keep it. Six months ago, I confess, I should have been afraid of stirring up all Plassans against me, but you have succeeded in making yourself liked, and the ladies of the town often speak to me about you in very eulogistic terms. In appointing you Curé of Saint-Saturnin's, I am only paying the debt which we owe you for the Home of the Virgin.'

The Bishop had recovered his usual pleasant amiability and charming manner. Just at this moment Abbé Surin put his handsome head through the doorway.

'No, my child,' said the Bishop to him, 'I shall not dictate that letter to you. I have no further need of you, and you can go.'

'Abbé Fenil is here,' muttered the young priest.

'Oh, very well, let him wait!'

Monseigneur Rousselot winced slightly; but he spoke to his secretary with an almost ludicrous expression of decision, and looked at Abbé Faujas with a glance of intelligence.

'See! go out this way,' he said to him, as he opened a door that was hidden behind a curtain.

He kept the priest standing on the threshold for a moment, and continued to look at him with a smile on his face.

'Fenil will be furious,' said he; 'but you will promise to defend me against him if he is too hard upon me! I am making him your enemy, I warn you of that. I am counting upon you, too, to prevent the re-election of the Marquis de Lagrifoul. Ah! it is upon you that I am leaning now, my dear Monsieur Faujas.'

He waved his white hand to the Abbé, and then returned with an appearance of perfect unconcern to the warmth of his study. The priest had remained bowing, feeling surprised at the quite feminine ease with which the Bishop changed his master and yielded to the stronger side. And only now did he begin to feel that Monseigneur Rousselot had been secretly laughing at him, even as he laughed at Abbé Fenil in that downy armchair of his where he read his Horace.

About ten o'clock on the following Thursday, just when the fashionable folks of Plassans were treading on each other's toes in the Rougons' green drawing-room, Abbé Faujas appeared at the door. He looked tall and majestic, there was a bright colour on his cheeks, and he wore a delicate cassock that glistened like satin. His face was still grave, though there was a slight smile upon it, just the pleasant turn of the lips that was necessary to light up his stern countenance with a ray of cheerfulness.

'Ah! here is the dear Curé!' Madame de Condamin gaily exclaimed.

The mistress of the house eagerly hastened up to him; she grasped one of his hands within both her own, and drew him into the middle of the room, with wheedling glances and a gentle swaying of her head.

'This is a surprise! a very pleasant surprise!' she cried. 'It's an age since we have seen you! Is it only when good fortune visits you that you can remember your friends?'

Abbé Faujas bowed with easy composure. All around him there was a flattering ovation, a buzzing of enthusiastic women. Madame Delangre and Madame Rastoil did not wait till he came up to them, but hastened to congratulate him upon his appointment, which had been officially announced that morning. The mayor, the justice of the peace, and even Monsieur de Bourdeu, all stepped up to him and shook his hand heartily.

'Ah, he's a fine fellow and will go a long way!' Monsieur de Condamin murmured into Doctor Porquier's ear. 'I scented him from the first day I saw him. That grimacing old Madame Rougon and he tell no end of lies. I have seen him slipping in here at dusk half a score of times. They must be mixed up in some queer things together.'

Doctor Porquier was terribly afraid of being compromised by Monsieur de Condamin, so he hurried away from him, and came like the others to grasp Abbé Faujas's hand, although he had never previously spoken to him.

The priest's triumphal entry was the great event of the evening. He had now seated himself and was hemmed in by a triple circle of petticoats. He talked with charming good nature on all sorts of subjects, but avoided replying to any hints or allusions. When Félicité directly questioned him, he merely said that he should not occupy the parsonage, as he preferred remaining in the lodgings where he had found himself so comfortable for nearly three years. Marthe was present among the other ladies, and was, as usual, extremely reserved. She had only just smiled at the Abbé, watching him from a distance, and looking the while a little pale and rather weary and uneasy. When he signified his intention of not quitting the Rue Balande, she blushed and rose to go into the small drawing-room as if she felt incommoded by the heat. Madame Paloque, beside whom Monsieur de Condamin had seated himself, said to him quite loud enough to be heard:

'It's very decorous, isn't it? She certainly might refrain from making assignations with him here, since they have the whole day to themselves!'

Only Monsieur de Condamin laughed; everyone else received the sally very coldly. Then Madame Paloque, recognising that she had made a mistake, tried to turn the matter off as a joke. Meantime in the corners of the room the guests were discussing Abbé Fenil. Great curiosity was manifested as to whether he would put in an appearance. Monsieur de Bourdeu, who was one of his friends, said with an air of authority that he was indisposed—a statement which was received by the company with discreet smiles. Everyone was quite aware of the revolution that had taken place at the Bishop's. Abbé Surin gave the ladies some very interesting details of the terrible scene that had taken place between his lordship and the grand-vicar. The latter, on getting the worst of the struggle, had caused it to be reported that he was confined to his room by an attack of gout. But the fight was not over, and Abbé Surin hinted that a good deal more would happen yet, a remark which was whispered about the room with many little exclamations, shakings of heads and expressions of surprise and doubt. For the moment, at any rate, Abbé Faujas was carrying everything before him and so the fair devotees sunned themselves pleasantly in the rays of the rising luminary.

About the middle of the evening Abbé Bourrette arrived. Conversation ceased and people looked at him with curiosity. They all knew that he had expected to be appointed Curé of Saint-Saturnin's himself. He had taken over the Abbé Compan's duties during the latter's long illness, and he had a lien upon the appointment. He lingered for a moment by the door, a little out of breath and with blinking eyes, without being aware of the interest which his appearance excited. Then, catching sight of Abbé Faujas, he eagerly hastened up to him, and seizing both his hands with a show of much pleasure exclaimed:

'Ah! my dear friend, let me congratulate you! I have just come from your rooms, where your mother told me that you were here. I am delighted to see you.'

Abbé Faujas had risen from his seat, and notwithstanding his great self-control, he seemed annoyed, taken by surprise, as it were, by this unexpected display of affection.

'Yes,' he murmured, 'I felt bound to accept his lordship's offer in spite of my lack of merit. I refused it, indeed, at first, mentioning the names of several more deserving priests than myself. I mentioned your own name.'

Abbé Bourrette blinked, and taking Abbé Faujas aside he said to him in low tones:

'His lordship has told me all about it. Fenil, it seems, would not hear of me. He would have set the whole diocese in a blaze if I had been appointed. Those were his very words. My crime is having closed poor Compan's eyes. He demanded, as you know, the appointment of Abbé Chardon, a pious man, no doubt, but not of sufficient reputation. Fenil counted on reigning at Saint-Saturnin's in his name. It was then that his lordship determined to give you the place and checkmate him. I am quite avenged, and I am delighted, my dear friend. Did you know the full story?'

'No, not in all its details.'

'Well, it is all just as I have told you, I can assure you. I have the facts from his lordship's own lips. Between ourselves, he has hinted to me of a very sufficient recompense. The deputy vicar-general, Abbé Vial, has for a long time been desirous of settling in Rome, and his place will be vacant, you understand. But don't say anything about this. I wouldn't take a big sum of money for my day's work.'

He continued pressing both Abbé Faujas's hands, while his broad face beamed with satisfaction. The ladies around them were smiling and looking at them in surprise. But the worthy man's joy was so frank and unreserved that it communicated itself to all in the green drawing-room, where the ovation in the new Curé's honour took a more familiar and affectionate turn. The ladies grouped themselves together and spoke of the cathedral organ which wanted repairing, and Madame de Condamin promised a magnificent altar for the procession on the approaching festival of Corpus Christi.

Abbé Bourrette was sharing in the general triumph when Madame Paloque, craning out her hideous face, touched him on the shoulder and murmured in his ear:

'Your reverence won't, I suppose, hear confessions to-morrow in Saint-Michael's chapel?'

The priest, while taking Abbé Compan's duty, had occupied the confessional in Saint-Michael's chapel, which was the largest and most convenient in the church and was specially reserved for the Curé. He did not at first understand the force of Madame Paloque's remark, and he looked at her, again blinking his eyes.

'I ask you,' she continued, 'if you will resume your old confessional in the chapel of the Holy Angels, to-morrow.'

He turned rather pale and remained silent for a moment longer. Then he bent his gaze to the floor, and a slight shiver coursed down his neck, as though he had received a blow from behind. And, seeing that Madame Paloque was still there staring at him, he stammered out:

'Certainly; I shall go back to my old confessional. Come to the chapel of the Holy Angels, the last one on the left, on the same side as the cloisters. It is very damp, so wrap yourself up well, dear madame, wrap yourself up well.'

Tears rose to his eyes. He was filled with regretful longing for that handsome confessional in the chapel of Saint-Michael, into which the warm sun streamed in the afternoon just at the time when he heard confessions. Until now he had felt no sorrow at relinquishing the cathedral to Abbé Faujas; but this little matter, this removal from one chapel to another, affected him very painfully; and it seemed to him that he had missed the goal of his life. Madame Paloque told him in her loud voice that he appeared to have grown melancholy all at once, but he protested against this assertion and tried to smile and look cheerful again. However he left the drawing-room early in the evening.

Abbé Faujas was one of the last to go. Rougon came up to him to offer his congratulations and they remained talking earnestly together on a couch. They spoke of the necessity of religious feeling in a wisely ordered state. Each lady, on retiring from the room, made a low bow as she passed in front of them.

'You know, Monsieur le Curé,' said Félicité graciously, 'that you are my daughter's cavalier.'

The priest rose from his seat. Marthe was waiting for him at the door. When they got out into the street, they seemed as if blinded by the darkness, and crossed the Place of the Sub-Prefecture without exchanging a word; but in the Rue Balande, as they stood in front of the house, Marthe touched the priest's arm at the moment when he was about to insert the key in the lock.

'I am so very pleased at your success,' she said to him, in a tone of great emotion. 'Be kind to me to-day, and grant me the favour which you have hitherto refused. I assure you that Abbé Bourrette does not understand me. It is only you who can direct and save me.'

He motioned her away from him, and, when he had opened the door and lighted the little lamp which Rose had left at the foot of the staircase, he went upstairs, saying to her gently as he did so:

'You promised me to be reasonable—well, I will think over what you have asked. We will talk about it.'

Marthe did not retire to her own room until she had heard the priest close his door on the upper floor. While she was undressing and getting into bed she paid no attention whatever to Mouret, who, half asleep, was retailing to her at great length some gossip that was being circulated in the town. He had been to his club, the Commercial Club, a place where he rarely set foot.

'Abbé Faujas has got the better of Abbé Bourrette,' he repeated for the tenth time as he slowly rolled his head upon the pillow. 'Poor Abbé Bourrette! Well, never mind! it's good fun to see those parsons devouring one another. The other day when they were hugging each other in the garden—you remember it, don't you?—anyone would have thought that they were brothers. Ah! they rob each other even of their very penitents. But why don't you say anything, my dear? You don't agree with me, eh? Or is it because you are going to sleep? Well, well, good-night then, my dear.'

He fell asleep, still muttering disjointed words, while Marthe, with widely opened eyes, stared up into the air and followed over the ceiling, faintly illumined by the night-light, the pattering of the Abbé's slippers while he was retiring to rest.

XII

At the return of summer Abbé Faujas and his mother again came downstairs to enjoy the fresh air on the terrace. Mouret had become very cross-grained. He declined the old lady's invitations to play piquet and sat swaying himself about on a chair. Seeing him yawn, without making any attempt to conceal how bored he was feeling, Marthe said to him:

'Why don't you go to your club, my dear?'

He now went there more frequently than he had been used to do. When he returned he found his wife and the Abbé still in the same place on the terrace, while Madame Faujas, a few yards away from them, preserved the demeanour of a blind and dumb guardian.

When anyone in the town spoke to Mouret of the new Curé he still continued to sound his praises. Faujas, said he, was decidedly a superior sort of man, and he himself had never felt any doubt of his great abilities. Madame Paloque could never succeed in drawing a hostile word from him on the subject of the priest, in spite of the malicious way in which she would ask him after his wife in the midst of his remarks about Abbé Faujas. Old Madame Rougon had no better success in her attempts to unveil the secret troubles which she thought she could detect beneath Mouret's outward show of cheerfulness. She laid all sorts of traps for him as she watched his face with her sharp shrewd smile; but that inveterate chatterer, whose tongue was a regular town-crier's bell, now showed the greatest reserve when any reference was made to his household.

'So your husband has become reasonable at last?' Félicité remarked to her daughter one day. 'He leaves you free.'

Marthe looked at her mother with an air of surprise.

'I have always been free,' she said.

'Ah! my dear child, I see that you don't want to say anything against him. You told me once that he looked very unfavourably upon Abbé Faujas.'

'Nothing of the kind, I assure you! You must have imagined it. My husband is upon the best terms with Abbé Faujas. There is nothing whatever to make them otherwise.'

Marthe was much astonished at the persistence with which everybody seemed to imagine that her husband and the Abbé were not good friends. Frequently at the committee-meetings at the Home of the Virgin the ladies put questions to her which made her quite impatient. She was really very happy and contented, and the house in the Rue Balande had never seemed pleasanter to her than it did now. Abbé Faujas had given her to understand that he would undertake her spiritual direction as soon as he should be of opinion that Abbé Bourrette was no longer sufficient, and she lived in this hope, her mind full of simple joy, like a girl who is promised some pretty religious pictures if she keeps good. Every now and then indeed she felt as though she were becoming a child again; she experienced a freshness of feeling and child-like impulses that filled her with gentle emotion. One day, in the spring-time, as Mouret was pruning his tall box plants, he found her sitting at the bottom of the garden beneath the young shoots of the arbour with her eyes streaming with tears.

'What is the matter, my dear?' he asked anxiously.

'Nothing,' she said, with a smile, 'nothing at all, really; I am very happy, very.'

He shrugged his shoulders, and went on delicately cutting the box plants into an even line. He took considerable pride in having the neatest trimmed hedges in the neighbourhood. Marthe had wiped her eyes, but she soon began to weep again, feeling a choking heart-rending sensation at the scent of the severed verdure. She was forty years old now, and it was for her past-away youth that she was weeping.

Since his appointment as Curé of Saint-Saturnin's, Abbé Faujas had shown a dignity which seemed to increase his stature. He carried his breviary and his hat with an air of authority, which he had exhibited at the cathedral in such wise as to ensure himself the respect of the clergy. Abbé Fenil, having sustained another defeat on two or three matters of detail, now seemed to have left his adversary free to do as he pleased. Abbé Faujas, however, was not foolish enough to make any indiscreet use of his triumph, but showed himself extremely supple. He was quite conscious that Plassans was still far from being his; and so, though he stopped every now and then in the street to shake hands with Monsieur Delangre, he merely exchanged passing salutations with Monsieur de Bourdeu, Monsieur Maffre, and the other guests of Monsieur Rastoil. A large section of society in the town still looked upon him with suspicion. They found fault with him for the want of frankness in his political opinions. In their estimation he ought to explain himself, declare himself in favour of one party or another. But the Abbé only smiled and said that he belonged to 'the honest men's party,' a reply which spared him a more explicit declaration. Moreover he showed no haste or anxiety, but continued to keep aloof till the drawing-rooms should open their doors to him of their own accord.

'No, my friend, not now; later on we will see about it,' he said to Abbé Bourrette, who had been pressing him to pay a visit to Monsieur Rastoil.

He was known to have refused two invitations to the Sub-Prefecture, and the Mourets were still the only people with whom he continued intimate. There he was, as it were, occupying a post of observation between two hostile camps. On Tuesdays, when the two sets of guests assembled in the gardens on his right and left, he took up his position at his window and watched the sunset in the distance behind the forests of the Seille, and then, before withdrawing, he lowered his eyes and replied with as much amiability to the bows of Monsieur Rastoil's guests as to those of the Sub-Prefect's. His intercourse with his neighbours as yet went no further than this.

On Tuesday, however, he went down into the garden. He was quite at home now in Mouret's grounds and no longer confined himself to pacing up and down beneath the arbour as he read his breviary. All the walks and beds seemed to belong to him; his cassock glided blackly past all the greenery. On that particular Tuesday, as he made a tour of the garden, he caught sight of Monsieur Maffre and Madame Rastoil below him and bowed to them; and then as he passed below the terrace of the Sub-Prefecture, he saw Monsieur de Condamin leaning there in company with Doctor Porquier. After an exchange of salutations, the priest was turning along the path, when the doctor called to him.

'Just a word, your reverence, I beg.'

Then he asked him at what time he could see him the following day. This was the first occasion on which any one of the two sets of guests had spoken to the priest from one garden to the other. The doctor was in great trouble however. His scamp of a son had been caught in a gambling den behind the gaol in company with other worthless characters. The most distressing part of the matter was that Guillaume was accused of being the leader of the band, and of having led Monsieur Maffre's sons, much younger than himself, astray.

'Pooh!' said Monsieur de Condamin with his sceptical laugh; 'young men must sow their wild oats. What a fuss about nothing! Here's the whole town in a state of perturbation because some young fellows have been caught playing baccarat and there happened to be a lady with them!'

The doctor seemed very much shocked at this.

'I want to ask your advice,' he said, addressing himself to the priest. 'Monsieur Maffre came to my house boiling over with anger, and assailed me with the bitterest reproaches, crying out that it was all my fault, as I had brought my son up badly. I am extremely distressed and troubled about it. Monsieur Maffre ought to know me better. I have sixty years of stainless life behind me.'

He went on wailing, dwelling upon the sacrifices that he had made for his son and expressing his fears that he would lose his practice in consequence of the young man's misconduct. Abbé Faujas, standing in the middle of the path, raised his head and gravely listened.

'I shall be only too glad if I can be of any service to you,' he said kindly. 'I will see Monsieur Maffre and will let him understand that his natural indignation has carried him too far. I will go at once and ask him to appoint a meeting with me for to-morrow. He is over there, on the other side.'

The Abbé crossed the garden and went towards Monsieur Maffre, who was still there with Madame Rastoil. When the justice of the peace found that the priest desired an interview with him, he would not hear of his taking any trouble about it, but put himself at his disposition, saying that he would do himself the honour of calling upon him the next day.

'Ah! Monsieur le Curé,' Madame Rastoil then remarked, 'let me compliment you upon your sermon last Sunday. All the ladies were much affected by it, I assure you.'

The Abbé bowed and crossed the garden again in order to reassure Doctor Porquier. Then he continued slowly pacing about the walks till nightfall, without taking part in any further conversations, but ever hearing the merriment of the groups of guests on his right hand and his left.

When Monsieur Maffre appeared the next day, Abbé Faujas was watching a couple of men who were at work repairing the fountain in the garden. He had expressed a desire to see the fountain play again, for the empty basin, said he, had such a melancholy appearance. At first Mouret had not seemed very willing to have anything done, alleging the probability of accidents with Désirée, but Marthe had prevailed upon him to let the repairs be executed upon the understanding that the basin should be protected by a railing.

'Monsieur le Curé,' said Rose, 'the justice of the peace wishes to see you.'

Abbé Faujas hastened indoors. He wanted to take Monsieur Maffre up to his own room on the second floor, but Rose had already opened the drawing-room door.

'Go in,' she said; 'aren't you at home here? It is useless to make the justice go up two flights of stairs. If you had only told me this morning, I would have given the room a dusting.'

As she closed the door upon the Abbé and the magistrate, after opening the shutters, Mouret called her into the dining-room.

'That's right, Rose,' he cried, 'you had better give my dinner to your priest this evening, and if he hasn't got sufficient blankets of his own upstairs you can take mine off my bed.'

The cook exchanged a meaning glance with Marthe, who was working by the window, waiting till the sunshine should leave the terrace. Then, shrugging her shoulders, she said:

'Ah! sir, you have never had a charitable heart!'

She took herself off, while Marthe continued sewing without raising her head. For the last few days she had, with feverish energy, again applied herself to her needlework. She was embroidering an altar-frontal as a gift for the cathedral. The ladies were desirous of giving a complete set of altar furniture. Madame Rastoil and Madame Delangre had undertaken to present the candlesticks, and Madame de Condamin had ordered a magnificent silver crucifix from Paris.

Meantime, in the drawing-room, Abbé Faujas was gently remonstrating with Monsieur Maffre, telling him that Doctor Porquier was a religious man and a person of the highest integrity, and that no one could be more pained than he by his son's deplorable conduct. The magistrate listened with a sanctimonious air, and his heavy features and big prominent eyes assumed quite an ecstatic expression at certain pious remarks which the priest uttered in a very moving manner. He allowed that he had been rather too hasty, and declared that he was willing to make every apology as his reverence thought he had been in the wrong.

'You must send your own sons to me,' said the priest, 'and I will talk to them.'

Monsieur Maffre shook his head with a slight sneering laugh.

'Oh! you needn't be afraid about them, Monsieur le Curé. The young scamps won't play any more tricks. They have been locked up in their rooms for the last three days with nothing but bread and water. If I had had a stick in my hand when I found out what they had been doing, I should have broken it across their backs.'

The Abbé looked at him and recollected how Mouret had accused him of having killed his wife by harshness and avarice; then, with a gesture of protest, he added:

'No, no; that is not the way to treat young men. Your elder son, Ambroise, is twenty years old and the younger is nearly eighteen, isn't he? They are no longer children, remember. You must allow them some amusements.'

The magistrate remained silent with surprise.

'Then you would let them go on smoking and allow them to frequent cafés?' he said, presently.

'Well,' replied the priest, with a smile. 'I think that young men should be allowed to meet together to talk and smoke their cigarettes and even to play a game of billiards or chess. They will give themselves every license if you show no tolerance. Only remember that it is not to every café that I should be willing for them to go. I should like to see a special one provided for them, a sort of club, as I have seen done in several towns.'

Then he unfolded a complete scheme for such a club. Monsieur Maffre gradually seemed to appreciate it. He nodded his head as he said:

'Capital, capital! It would be a worthy pendant to the Home of the Virgin. Really, Monsieur le Curé, we must put such a splendid idea as this into execution.'

'Well, then,' the priest concluded, as he accompanied Monsieur Maffre to the door, 'since you approve of the plan, just advocate it among your friends. I will see Monsieur Delangre, and speak to him about it. We might meet in the cathedral on Sunday after vespers and come to some decision.'

On the Sunday, Monsieur Maffre brought Monsieur Rastoil with him. They found Abbé Faujas and Monsieur Delangre in a little room adjoining the sacristy. The gentlemen displayed great enthusiasm in favour of the priest's idea, and the institution of a young men's club was agreed upon in principle. There was considerable discussion, however, as to what it should be called. Monsieur Maffre was strongly desirous that it should be known as the Guild of Jesus.

'Oh, no! no!' the priest impatiently cried at last. 'You would get scarcely anyone to join, and the few members would only be jeered at. There must be no attempt to tack religion on to the business; indeed, I intend that we should leave religion outside its doors altogether. All we want to do is to win the young people over to our side by providing them with some innocent recreation; that is all.'

The justice of the peace gazed at the priest with such an expression of astonishment and anxiety that Monsieur Delangre was obliged to bend his head to conceal a smile, while he slyly pulled the Abbé's cassock. Then the priest went on in a calmer voice:

'I am sure, gentlemen, that you do not feel any distrust of me, and I ask you to leave the management of the matter in my hands. I propose to adopt some very simple name, such a one, for instance, as the Young Men's Club, which fully expresses all that is required.'

Monsieur Rastoil and Monsieur Maffre bowed, although this title seemed to them a little weak. They next spoke of nominating the Curé as president of a provisional committee.

'I fancy,' said Monsieur Delangre, glancing at the priest, 'that this suggestion will scarcely meet with his reverence's approbation.'

'Oh dear, no!' the Abbé exclaimed, slightly shrugging his shoulders. 'My cassock would frighten the timid and lukewarm away. We should only get the pious young people, and it is not for them that we are going to found our club. What we want is to gather in the wanderers; to win converts, in a word; isn't that so?'

'Clearly,' replied the presiding judge.

'Very well, then, it will be better for us to keep ourselves in the background, myself especially. What I propose is this: your son, Monsieur Rastoil, and yours, Monsieur Delangre, will alone come forward. It must appear as if they themselves had formed the idea of this club. Send them to me in the morning, and I will talk the matter over at length with them. I already have a suitable building in my mind and a code of rules quite prepared. Your two sons, Monsieur Maffre, will naturally be enrolled at the head of the list of members.'

The presiding judge seemed flattered at the part assigned to his son; and so matters were arranged in this way, notwithstanding the resistance of the justice of the peace, who had hoped to win some personal distinction from the founding of the club. The next day Séverin Rastoil and Lucien Delangre put themselves in communication with Abbé Faujas. Séverin was a tall young man of five-and-twenty, with a badly shaped skull and a dull brain, who had just been called to the bar, thanks to the position which his father held. The latter was anxiously dreaming of making him a public prosecutor's assessor, despairing of his ever succeeding in winning any practice for himself. Lucien, on the other hand, was short and sharp-eyed, had a crafty mind, and pleaded with all the coolness of an old practitioner, although he was a year younger than Séverin. The 'Plassans Gazette' spoke of him as a future light of the bar. It was more particularly to him that the Abbé gave the minutest instructions as to his scheme. As for young Rastoil he simply went fussing about, bursting with importance. In three weeks the Young Men's Club was founded and opened.

There was at that time beneath the church of the Minimes, situated at the end of the Cours Sauvaire, a number of very large rooms and an old monastery refectory, which were no longer put to any use. This was the place that Abbé Faujas had thought of for the club, and the clergy of the parish very willingly allowed him to use the rooms. One morning, when the provisional committee of the Young Men's Club had set workmen going in this cellar-like place, the citizens of Plassans were quite astounded to see what appeared to be a café being fitted up under the church. Five days afterwards there was no longer any room for doubt on the point. The place was certainly going to be a café. Divans were being brought thither, with marble-topped tables, chairs, two billiard-tables, and even three crates of crockery and glass. An entrance was contrived at the end of the building, as far as possible from the doorway of the church, and great crimson curtains, genuine restaurant-curtains, were hung behind the glass panes. You descended five stone steps, and on opening the door found yourself in a large hall; to the right of which there was a smaller one and a reading-room, while in a square room at the far end were placed the two billiard-tables. They were exactly beneath the high altar.

'Well, my poor boys,' said Guillaume Porquier one day to Monsieur Maffre's two sons, whom he had met on the Cours, 'so they are going to make you serve at mass between your games at bézique.'

However, Ambroise and Alphonse besought him not to speak to them in public, as their father had threatened to send them to sea if they continued to associate with him.

When the first astonishment was over, the Young Men's Club proved a great success. Monseigneur Rousselot accepted the honorary presidency, and even visited it in person one evening, attended by his secretary, Abbé Surin. Each of them drank a glass of currant-syrup in the smaller room, and the glass which his lordship used was preserved with great respect upon a sideboard. The Bishop's visit is still talked of with much emotion at Plassans, and it brought about the adherence of all the fashionable young men of the town. It was soon considered very bad style not to belong to the Young Men's Club.

Guillaume Porquier, however, used to prowl about the entrance, sniggering like a young wolf who dreams of making his way into a sheep-fold. Notwithstanding all the fear they had of their father, Monsieur Maffre's sons quite worshipped this shameless young man who regaled them with stories of Paris, and entertained them at secret little parties in the suburbs. They had got into the habit of meeting him regularly every Saturday evening at nine o'clock near a certain seat on the Mall. They slipped away from the club and sat gossiping till eleven, concealed beneath the dark shade of the plane-trees. On these occasions Guillaume always twitted them about the evenings they spent underneath the church of the Minimes.

'It is very kind of you,' he, would say, 'to let yourselves be led by the nose. The verger gives you glasses of sugar and water as though he were administering the communion to you, doesn't he?'

'Nothing of the sort! you are quite mistaken, I assure you,' Ambroise exclaimed. 'You might fancy you were in the Café du Cours, or the Café de France, or the Café des Voyageurs. We drink beer, or punch, or madeira, whatever we like, whatever is drunk in other places.'

Guillaume continued jeering however.

'Well, I shouldn't like to go drinking their dirty stuff,' he said. 'I should be afraid that they had mixed some drug with it to make me go to confession. I suppose you amuse yourselves by playing at hot-cockles and puss-in-the-corner!'

The young Maffres gaily laughed at his pleasantries, but they took care to undeceive him. They told him that even cards were allowed, and that there was no flavour of a church about the place at all. The club was extremely pleasant, there were very comfortable couches, and mirrors all over.

'Well,' said Guillaume, 'you'll never make me believe that you can't hear the organ when there is an evening service at the church. It would make me swallow my coffee the wrong way only to know that there was a baptism, or a marriage, or a funeral going on over my cup.'

'Well, there's something in that,' Alphonse allowed. 'Only the other day, while I was playing at billiards with Séverin in the day-time, we could distinctly hear a funeral going on. It was the funeral of the butcher's little girl, the butcher at the corner of the Rue de la Banne. That fellow Séverin is a big jackass, he tried to frighten me by telling me that the whole funeral would fall through on our heads.'

'Ah well! it must be a very pleasant place, that club of yours!' cried Guillaume. 'I wouldn't set foot in it for all the money in the world! I'd as soon go and drink my coffee in a sacristy.'

The truth of the matter was that Guillaume felt very much vexed that he did not belong to the Young Men's Club. His father had forbidden him to offer himself for election, fearing that he would be rejected. At last, however, the young man grew so annoyed about the matter that he sent in an application to be allowed to join the club, without mentioning what he had done to his people. The question was a very serious one. The committee which elected the members then comprised the young Maffres amongst its number, and Lucien Delangre was its president and Séverin Rastoil its secretary. These young men felt terribly embarrassed. While they did not dare to grant Guillaume's application, they were unwilling to do anything to hurt the feelings of Doctor Porquier, so worthy and irreproachable a person, one, too, who was so completely trusted by all the fashionable ladies. At last Ambroise and Alphonse begged Guillaume not to press his application, giving him to understand that he had no chance of being admitted.

'You are a couple of pitiful poltroons!' he replied to them. 'Do you suppose that I care a fig about joining your brotherhood? I was only amusing myself. I wanted to see if you would have the courage to vote against me. I shall have a good laugh when those hypocrites bang the door in my face. As for you, my good little boys, you can go and amuse yourselves where you like; I shall never speak to you again.'

The young Maffres, in great consternation, then besought Lucien Delangre to try to arrange matters in such a way as would prevent any unpleasantness. Lucien submitted the difficulty to his usual adviser, Abbé Faujas, for whom he had conceived a genuine disciple's admiration. The Abbé came to the Young Men's Club every afternoon from five o'clock till six. He walked through the big room with a pleasant smile, nodding and sometimes stopping for a few minutes at one of the tables to chat with some of the young men. However, he never accepted anything to drink, not even a glass of water. Afterwards he passed into the reading-room, and, taking a seat at the long table covered with a green cloth, he attentively pored over the newspapers which the club received, the Legitimist organs of Paris and the neighbouring departments. Occasionally he made a rapid note in a little pocket-book. Then he went quietly away, again smiling at the members who were present, and shaking hands with them. On some occasions, however, he remained for a longer time to watch a game at chess, or chat merrily about all kinds of matters. The young men, who were extremely fond of him, used to say that when he talked no one would take him for a priest.

When the mayor's son told him of the embarrassment which Guillaume's application had caused the committee, Abbé Faujas promised to arrange the affair; and next morning he went to see Doctor Porquier, to whom he related everything. The doctor was aghast. His son, he cried, was determined to kill him with distress by dishonouring his grey hairs. What could be done now? Even if the application were withdrawn, the shame and disgrace would be none the less. The priest then advised him to send Guillaume away for two or three months to an estate which he possessed a few leagues from Plassans, and undertook to charge himself with the further conduct of the affair. As soon as Guillaume had left the town, the committee postponed the consideration of his application, saying that there was no occasion for haste in the matter, as the applicant was absent and that a decision could be taken later on.

Doctor Porquier heard of this solution from Lucien Delangre one afternoon when he was in the garden of the Sub-Prefecture. He immediately hastened to the terrace. It was the hour when Abbé Faujas read his breviary. Doctor Porquier caught sight of him under the Mourets' arbour.

'Ah, Monsieur le Curé!' he cried, 'how can I thank you? I should like very much to shake hands with you.'

'The wall is rather high,' said the priest, looking at it with a smile.

But Doctor Porquier was an effusive individual who did not allow himself to be discouraged by obstacles.

'Wait a moment!' he cried. 'If you will allow me, Monsieur le Curé, I will come round.'

Then he disappeared. The Abbé, still smiling, slowly bent his steps towards the little door which opened into the Impasse des Chevillottes. The doctor was already gently knocking at it.

'Ah! this door is nailed up,' said the priest. 'One of the nails is broken though. If I had any sort of a tool, there would be no difficulty in getting the other one out.'

He glanced round him and caught sight of a spade. Then, after he had drawn back the bolts with a slight effort, he opened the door, and stepped out into the alley, where Doctor Porquier overwhelmed him with thanks and compliments. As they walked along, talking, Monsieur Maffre, who happened at the time to be in Monsieur Rastoil's garden, opened a little door that was hidden away behind the presiding judge's waterfall. The gentlemen were much amused to find themselves all three in this deserted little lane.

They remained there for a few moments, and, as they took leave of the Abbé, the magistrate and the doctor poked their heads inside the Mourets' garden, looking about them with curiosity.

Mouret, however, who was putting stakes to his tomatoes, raised his head and caught sight of them. He was fairly lost in astonishment.

'Hallo! so they've made their way in here!' he muttered. 'The Curé now only has to bring in both gangs!'

XIII

Serge was now nineteen years of age. He occupied a small room on the second floor, opposite the priest's, and there led an almost cloistered life, spending much time in reading.

'I shall have to throw those old books of yours into the fire,' Mouret said to him angrily. 'You'll end by making yourself ill and having to take to your bed.'

The young man was, indeed, of such a nervous temperament, that the slightest imprudence made him poorly, as though he were a young girl, and thus he was frequently confined to his room for two or three days together. At these times Rose inundated him with herb tea, and whenever Mouret went upstairs to shake him up a little, as he called it, the cook, if she happened to be there, would turn her master out of the room, crying out at him:

'Leave the poor dear alone! Can't you see that you are killing him with your rough ways? It isn't after you that he takes: he is the very image of his mother; and you'll never be able to understand either the one or the other of them.'

Serge smiled. After he had left college his father, seeing him so delicate, had hesitated to send him to Paris to read for the bar there. He would not hear, however, of a provincial faculty; Paris, he felt sure, was necessary for a young man who wanted to climb to a high position. He tried, indeed, to instil ambitious ideas into the lad, telling him that many with much weaker wits than his own, his cousins, the Rougons, for instance, had attained to great distinction. Every time that the young man seemed to grow more robust, his father settled that he should leave home early the following month; but his trunk was never packed, for Serge was always catching a fresh cold, and then his departure would be again postponed.

On each of these occasions Marthe contented herself with saying in her gentle, indifferent way:

'He isn't twenty yet. It's really not prudent to send so young a lad to Paris; and, besides, he isn't wasting his time here; you even think that he studies too much.'

Serge used to accompany his mother to mass. He was very piously minded, very gentle and grave. Doctor Porquier had recommended him to take a good deal of exercise, and he had become enthusiastically fond of botany, going off on long rambles to collect specimens which he spent his afternoons in drying, mounting, classifying and naming. It was about this time that he struck up a great friendship with Abbé Faujas. The Abbé himself had botanised in earlier days, and he gave Serge much practical advice for which the young man was very grateful. They also lent each other books, and one day they went off together to try to discover a certain plant which the priest said he thought would be found in the neighbourhood. When Serge was ill, his neighbour came to see him every morning, and sat and talked for a long while at his bedside. At other times, when the young man was well, it was he who went and knocked at Abbé Faujas's door, as soon as he heard him stirring in his room. They were only separated by a narrow landing, and they ended by almost living together.

In spite of Marthe's unruffled tranquillity and Rose's angry glances, Mouret still often indulged in bursts of anger.

'What can the young scamp be after up there?' he would growl. 'Whole days pass without my catching more than a glimpse of him. He never seems to stir from the Abbé; they are always talking together in some corner or other. He shall be off to Paris at once. He's as strong as a Turk. All those ailments of his are mere shams, excuses to get himself petted and coddled. You needn't both of you look at me in that way; I don't mean to let the priest make a hypocrite of the boy.'

Then he began to keep a watch over his son, and when he thought that he was in Faujas's room he called for him angrily.

'I would rather he went to the bad!' he cried one day in a fit of rage.

'Oh, sir!' said Rose, 'it is abominable to say such things.'

'Well, indeed I would! And I'll put him in the way myself one of these days, if you irritate me much more with these parsons of yours!'

Serge naturally joined the Young Men's Club, though he went there but little, preferring the solitude of his own room. If it had not been for Abbé Faujas, whom he sometimes met there, he would probably never have set foot in the place. The Abbé taught him to play chess in the reading-room. Mouret, on learning that the lad met the priest at the café, swore that he would pack him off by the train on the following Monday. His luggage was indeed got ready, and quite seriously this time, but Serge, who had gone out to spend a last day in the open country, returned home drenched to the skin by a sudden downpour of rain. He was obliged to go to bed, shivering with fever. For three weeks he hung between life and death; and then his convalescence lasted for two long months. At the beginning of it he was so weak that he lay with his head on the pillow and his arms stretched over the sheets, as motionless as if he were simply a wax figure.

'It is your fault, sir!' cried the cook to Mouret. 'You will have it on your conscience if the boy dies.'

While his son continued in danger, Mouret wandered silently about the house, plunged in gloomy melancholy, his eyes red with crying. He seldom went upstairs, but paced up and down the passage to intercept the doctor as he went away. When he was told that Serge was at length out of danger, he glided quietly into the lad's room and offered his help. But Rose turned him away. They had no occasion for him, she said, and the boy was not yet strong enough to bear his roughness. He had much better go and attend to his business instead of getting in the way there. Mouret then remained in complete loneliness downstairs, more melancholy and unoccupied than ever. He felt no inclination for anything, said he. As he went along the passage, he often heard on the second floor the voice of Abbé Faujas, who spent whole afternoons by Serge's bedside, now that he was growing better.

'How is he to-day, Monsieur l'Abbé?' Mouret asked the priest timidly, as he met the latter going down into the garden.

'Oh, fairly well; but it will be a long convalescence, and very great care will be required.'

The priest tranquilly read his breviary, while the father, with a pair of shears in his hand, followed him up and down the garden walks, trying to renew the conversation and to get more detailed information about his boy. As his son's convalescence progressed, he remarked that the priest scarcely ever left Serge's room. He had gone upstairs several times in the women's absence, and he had always found the Abbé at the young man's bedside, talking softly to him, and rendering him all kinds of little services, sweetening his drink, straightening his bed-clothes, or getting him anything he happened to want. There was a hushed murmur throughout the house, a solemn calm which gave quite a conventual character to the second floor. Mouret seemed to smell incense, and could almost fancy sometimes, as he heard a muttering of voices, that they were saying mass upstairs.

'What can they be doing?' he wondered. 'The youngster is out of danger now; they can't be giving him extreme unction.'

Serge himself caused him much disquiet. He looked like a girl as he lay in bed in his white night-dress. His eyes seemed to have grown larger; there was a soft ecstatic smile upon his lips, which still played there even amidst his keenest pangs of suffering. Mouret no longer ventured to say anything about Paris; his dear sick boy seemed too girlish and tender for such a journey.

One afternoon he went upstairs, carefully hushing the sound of his steps. The door was ajar, and he saw Serge sitting in an easy chair in the sunshine. The young fellow was weeping with his eyes turned upward, and his mother stood sobbing in front of him. They both turned as they heard the door open, but they did not wipe away their tears. As soon as Mouret entered the room, the invalid said to him in his feeble voice:

'I have a favour to ask you, father. Mother says that you will be angry and will refuse me permission, though it would fill me with joy—I want to enter the Seminary.'

He clasped his hands together with a sort of feverish devotion.

'You! you!' exclaimed Mouret.

He looked at Marthe, who turned away her head. Then saying nothing further, he walked to the window, returned, and sat down mechanically by the bedside, as though overwhelmed by the blow.

'Father,' resumed Serge, after a long silence, 'in my nearness to death I have seen God, and I have sworn to be His. I assure you that all my happiness is centred in that. Believe me that it is so, and do not cause me grief.'

Mouret, looking very mournful, with his eyes lowered, still kept silence. At last, with an expression of utter hopelessness, he murmured:

'If I had the least particle of courage, I should wrap a couple of shirts in a handkerchief and go away.'

Then he rose from his seat, went to the window and drummed on the panes with his fingers; and when Serge again began to implore him, he said very quietly:

'Very well, my boy; be a priest.'

Immediately afterwards he left the room.

The next day, without the least warning to anyone, he set off for Marseilles, where he spent a week with his son Octave. But he came back looking careworn and aged. Octave had afforded him very little consolation. He had found the young man leading a fast life, overwhelmed with debts and in all sorts of scrapes. However, Mouret did not say a word about these matters. He began to lead a perfectly sedentary existence, and no longer made any of those good strokes of business, those fortunate purchases of standing crops, in which he had formerly taken such pride. Rose noticed that he maintained almost unbroken silence, and that he even avoided saluting Abbé Faujas.

'Do you know that you are not very polite?' she boldly said to him one day. 'His reverence the Curé has just gone past, and you turned your back upon him. If you behave in this way because of the boy, you are under a great mistake. The Curé was quite against his going to the Seminary, and I often heard him talking to him against it. This house is getting a very cheerful place, indeed, now! You never speak a word, even to madame, and when you have your meals, anyone would think that it was a funeral that was going on. For my part, sir, I'm beginning to feel that I've had quite enough of it.'