The Conquest of Plassans (La Conquête de Plassans). Emile Zola

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      'Clearly so. What were they doing?'

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

      'But what were they eating?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III

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      Mouret spent the whole of the next morning in playing the spy on his new tenant. This espionage would now enable him to fill up the idle hours which he had hitherto spent in pottering about the house, in putting back into their proper places any articles which he happened to find lying about, and in picking quarrels with his wife and children. Henceforth he would have an occupation, an amusement which would relieve the monotony of his everyday life. As he had often said, he was not partial to priests, and yet Abbé Faujas, the first one who had entered into his existence, excited in him an extraordinary amount of interest. This priest brought with him a touch of mystery and secrecy that was almost disquieting. Although Mouret was a strong-minded man and professed himself to be a follower of Voltaire, yet in the Abbé's presence he felt the astonishment and uneasiness of a common bourgeois.

      Not a sound came from the second floor. Mouret stood on the staircase and listened eagerly; he even ventured to go to the loft. As he hushed his steps while passing along the passage, a pattering of slippers behind the door filled him with emotion. But he did not succeed in making any new discovery, so he went down into the garden and strolled into the arbour at the end of it, there raising his eyes and trying to look through the windows in order to find out what might be going on in the rooms. But he could not see even the Abbé's shadow. Madame Faujas, in the absence of curtains, had, as a makeshift, fastened some sheets behind the windows.

      At lunch Mouret seemed quite vexed.

      'Are they dead upstairs?' he said, as he cut the children's bread. 'Have you heard them move, Marthe?'

      'No, my dear; but I haven't been listening.'

      Rose thereupon cried out from the kitchen: 'They've been gone ever so long. They must be far enough away now if they've kept on at the same pace.'

      Mouret summoned the cook and questioned her minutely.

      'They went out, sir: first the mother, and then the priest. They walked so softly that I should never have known anything about it if their shadows had not fallen across the kitchen floor when they opened the street door. I looked out into the street to see where they were going, but they had vanished. They must have gone off in a fine hurry.'

      'It is very surprising. But where was I at the time?'

      'I СКАЧАТЬ