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 ............