Complete Works of Emile Zola (305 page)

They both worked on for ten long minutes without speak­ing. Désirée was taking immense pains to make a dress for her doll. Every few moments Marthe raised her head and glanced at the child with an expression in which sadness was mingled with affection. Seeing that the girl’s task seemed too much for her, she at last said:

‘Give it to me; I will put in the sleeves for you.’

As she took up the doll, two big lads of seventeen and eighteen came down the steps. They ran to Marthe and kissed her.

‘Don’t scold us, mother!’ cried Octave gaily. ‘I took Serge to listen to the band. There was such a crowd on the Cours Sauvaire!’

‘I thought you had been kept in at college,’ his mother said, ‘or I should have felt very uneasy.’

Désirée, now altogether indifferent to her doll, had thrown her arms round Serge’s neck, saying to him:

‘One of my birds has flown away! The blue one, the one you gave me!’

She was on the point of crying. Her mother, who had imagined this trouble to be forgotten, vainly tried to divert her thoughts by showing her the doll. The girl still clung to her brother’s arm and dragged him away with her, while repeating:

‘Come and let us look for it.’

Serge followed her with kindly complaisance and tried to console her. She led him to a little conservatory, in front of which there was a cage placed on a stand; and here she told him how the bird had escaped just as she was opening the door to prevent it from fighting with a companion.

‘Well, there’s nothing very surprising in that!’ cried Octave, who had seated himself on the balustrade of the terrace. ‘She is always interfering with them, trying to find out how they are made and what it is they have in their throats that makes them sing. The other day she was carry­ing them about in her pockets the whole afternoon to keep them warm.’

‘Octave!’ said Marthe, in a tone of reproach; ‘don’t tease the poor child.’

But Désirée had not heard him; she was explaining to Serge with much detail how the bird had flown away.

‘It just slipped out, you see, like that, and then it flew over yonder and lighted on Monsieur Rastoil’s big pear-tree. Next it flew off to the plum-tree at the bottom, came back again and went right over my head into the big trees belong­ing to the Sub-Prefecture, and I’ve never seen it since; no, never since.’

Her eyes filled with tears.

‘Perhaps it will come back again,
’
Serge ventured to say.

‘Oh! do you think so? I think I will put the others into a box, and leave the door of the cage open all night.’

Octave could not restrain his laughter, but Marthe called to Désirée:

‘Come and look here! come and look here!’

Then she gave her the doll. It was a magnificent one now. It had a stiff dress, a head made of a pad of calico, and arms of list sewn on at the shoulders. Désirée’s eyes lighted up with sudden joy. She sat down again upon the stool, and, forgetting all about the bird, began to kiss the doll and dandle it in her arms with childish delight.

Serge had gone to lean upon the balustrade near his brother, and Marthe had resumed her darning.

‘And so the band has been playing, has it?’ she asked.

‘It plays every Thursday,’ Octave replied. ‘You ought to have come to hear it, mother. All the town was there; the Rastoil girls, Madame de Condamin, Monsieur Paloque, the mayor’s wife and daughter — why didn’t you come too?’

Marthe did not raise her eyes, but softly replied as she finished darning a hole:

‘You know very well, my dears, that I don’t care about going out. I am quite contented here; and then it is necessary that someone should stay with Désirée.’

Octave opened his lips to reply, but he glanced at his sister and kept silent. He remained where he was, whistling softly and raising his eyes now towards the trees of the Sub-Prefec­ture, noisy with the twittering of the sparrows which were preparing to retire for the night — and now towards Monsieur Rastoil’s pear-trees behind which the sun was setting. Serge had taken a book out of his pocket and was reading it atten­tively. Soft silence brooded over the terrace as it lay there in the yellow light that was gradually growing fainter. Marthe continued darning, ever and anon glancing at her three children in the peaceful quiet of the evening.

‘Everyone seems to be late to-day,’ she said after a time. ‘It is nearly six o’clock, and your father hasn’t come home yet. I think he must have gone to Les Tulettes.’

‘Oh! then, no wonder he’s late!’ exclaimed Octave. ‘The peasants at Les Tulettes are never in a hurry to let him go when once they get hold of him. Has he gone there to buy some wine?’

‘I don’t know,’ Marthe replied. ‘He isn’t fond, you know, of talking to me about his business.’

Then there was another interval of silence. In the dining-room, the window of which opened on to the terrace, old Rose had just begun to lay the table with much angry clattering of crockery and plate. She seemed to be in a very bad temper, and banged the chairs about while breaking into snatches of grumbling and growling. At last she went to the street door, and, craning out her head, reconnoitred the square in front of the Sub-Prefecture. After some minutes’ waiting, she came to the terrace-steps and cried:

‘Monsieur Mouret isn’t coming home to dinner, then?’

‘Yes, Rose, wait a little longer,’ Marthe replied quietly.

‘Everything is getting burned to cinders! There’s no sense in it all. When master goes off on those rounds he ought to give us notice! Well, it’s all the same to me; but your dinner will be quite uneatable.’

‘Ah! do you really think so, Rose?’ asked a quiet voice just behind her. ‘We will eat it, notwithstanding.’

It was Mouret who had just arrived.
1
Rose turned round, looked her master in the face, and seemed on the point of breaking into some angry exclamation; but at the sight of his unruffled countenance, in which twinkled an expression of merry banter, she could not find a word to say, and so she retired. Mouret made his way to the terrace, where he paced about without sitting down. He just tapped Désirée lightly on the cheek with the tips of his fingers, and the girl greeted him with a responsive smile. Marthe raised her eyes, and when she had glanced at her husband she began to fold up her work.

‘Aren’t you tired?’ asked Octave, looking at his father’s boots, which were white with dust.

‘Yes, indeed, a little,’ Mouret replied, without, however, saying anything more about the long journey which he had just made on foot.

Then in the middle of the garden he caught sight of a spade and a rake, which the children had forgotten there. ‘Why are the tools not put away?’ he cried. ‘I have spoken about it a hundred times. If it should come on to rain they would be completely rusted and spoilt.’

He said no more on the subject, but stepped down into the garden, picked up the spade and rake himself, and put them carefully away inside the little conservatory. As he came up to the terrace again his eyes searched every comer of the walks to see if things were tidy there.

‘Are you learning your lessons?’ he asked, as he passed Serge, who was still poring over his book.

‘No, father,’ the boy replied; ‘this is a book that Abbé Bourrette has lent me. It is an account of the missions in China.’

Mouret stopped short in front of his wife.

‘By the way,’ said he, ‘has anyone been here?’

‘No, no one, my dear,’ replied Marthe with an appearance of surprise.

He seemed on the point of saying something further, but appeared to change his mind, and continued pacing up and down in silence. Then, going to the steps, he cried out:

‘Well, Rose, what about this dinner of yours which is getting burnt to cinders?’

‘Oh, indeed! there is nothing ready for you now!’ shouted the cook in an angry voice from the other end of the passage. ‘Everything is cold. You will have to wait, sir.’

Mouret smiled in silence and winked with his left eye, as he glanced at his wife and children. He seemed to be very much amused by Rose’s anger. Then he occupied himself in examining his neighbour’s fruit-trees.

‘It is surprising what splendid pears Monsieur Rastoil has got this year,’ he remarked.

Marthe, who had appeared a little uneasy for the last few minutes, seemed as though she wanted to say something. At last she made up her mind to speak, and timidly inquired,

‘Were you expecting someone to-day, my dear?’

‘Yes and no,’ he replied, beginning to pace the terrace again.

‘Perhaps you have let the second floor?’

‘Yes, indeed, I have let it.’

Then, as the silence became a little embarrassing, he added, in his quiet way, ‘This morning, before starting for Les Tulettes, I went up to see Abbé Bourrette. He was very pressing, and so I agreed to his proposal. I know it won’t please you; but, if you will only think the matter over for a little, you will see that you are wrong, my dear. The second floor was of no use to us, and it was only going to ruin. The fruit that we store in the rooms there brings on dampness which makes the paper fall from the walls. By the way, now that I think of it, don’t forget to remove the fruit the first thing to-morrow. Our tenant may arrive at any moment.’

‘We were so free and comfortable, all alone in our own house,’ Marthe ventured to say, in a low tone.

‘Oh, well!’ replied Mouret, ‘we shan’t find a priest in our way. He will keep to himself, and we shall keep to our­selves. Those black-gowned gentlemen hide themselves when they want to swallow even a glass of water. You know that I’m not very partial to them myself. A set of lazybones for the most part! And yet what chiefly decided me to let the floor was that I had found a priest for a tenant. One is quite sure of one’s money with them, and they are so quiet that one can’t even hear them go in and out.’

Marthe still appeared distressed. She looked round her at the happy home basking in the sun’s farewell, at the garden which was now growing greyer with shadows, and at her three children. And she thought of all the happiness which this little spot held for her.

‘And do you know anything about this priest?’ she asked.

‘No; but Abbé Bourrette has taken the floor in his own name, and that is quite sufficient. Abbé Bourrette is an honourable man. I know that our tenant is called Faujas, Abbé Faujas, and that he comes from the diocese of Besançon. He didn’t get on very well with his vicar there, and so he has been appointed curate here at Saint-Saturnin’s. Perhaps he knows our bishop, Monseigneur Rousselot. But all this is no business of ours, you know; and it is to Abbé Bourrette that I am trusting in the whole matter.’

Marthe, however, did not seem to share her husband’s confidence, but continued to stand out against him, a thing which seldom happened.

‘You are right,’ she said, after a moment’s silence, ‘Abbé Bourrette is a worthy man. But I recollect that when he came to look at the rooms he told me that he did not know the name of the person on whose behalf he was commissioned to rent them. It was one of those commissions which are undertaken by priests in one town for those in another. I really think that you ought to write to Besançon and make some inquiries as to what sort of a person it is that you are about to introduce into your house.’

Mouret was anxious to avoid losing his temper; he smiled complacently.

‘Well, it isn’t the devil, anyhow. Why, you’re trembling all over! I didn’t think you were so superstitious. You surely don’t believe that priests bring ill luck, as folks say. Neither, of course, do they bring good luck. They are just like other men. But, when we get this Abbé here, you’ll see if I’m afraid of his cassock!’

‘No, I’m not superstitious; you know that quite well,’ replied Marthe. ‘I only feel unhappy about it, that’s all.’

He took his stand in front of her, and interrupted her with a sharp motion of his hand.

‘There! there! that will do,’ said he. ‘I have let the rooms; don’t let us say anything more about the matter.’

Then, in the bantering tones of a
bourgeois
who thinks he has done a good stroke of business, he added:

‘At any rate one thing is certain, and that is that I am to get a hundred and fifty francs rent; and we shall have those additional hundred and fifty francs to spend on the house every year.’

Marthe bent her head and made no further protestations except by vaguely swinging her hands and gently closing her eyes as though to prevent the escape of the tears which were already swelling beneath her eyelids. Then she cast a furtive glance at her children, who had not appeared to hear any­thing of her discussion with their father. They were, indeed, accustomed to scenes of this sort in
which Mouret, with his bantering nature, delighted to indulge.

‘You can come in now, if you would like something to eat,’ said Rose in her crabby voice, as she came to the steps.

‘Ah, that’s right! Come along, children, to your soup!’ cried Mou­ret gaily, without appearing to retain any trace of temper.

The whole family rose. But Désirée’s grief seemed to revive at the sight of everyone stirring. She threw her arms round her father’s neck and stammered:

‘Oh, papa, one of my birds has flown away!’

‘One of your birds, my dear? Well, we’ll catch it again.
’

Then he began to caress and fondle her, but she insisted that he, also, should go and look at the cage. When he brought her back again Marthe and her two sons were already in the dining-room. The rays of the setting sun, streaming in through the window, lighted up the porcelain plates, the children’s plated mugs, and the white cloth. The room was warm and peaceful with its green background of garden.

But just as Marthe, upon whom the tranquillity of the scene had had a soothing effect, was smilingly removing the cover from the soup-tureen, a noise was heard in the passage.

Then Rose rushed into the room with a scared look and stammered:

‘Monsieur l’Abbé Faujas has come!’

CHAPTER II

An expression of annoyance passed over Mouret’s face. He had not expected his tenant till the following morning at the earliest. He was just rising hastily from his seat when Abbé Faujas himself appeared at the door. He was a tall big man, with a square face, broad features, and a cadaverous complexion. Behind him, in the shadow, stood an elderly woman, who bore an astonishing resemblance to him, only that she was of smaller build and wore a less refined expres­sion. When they saw the table laid for a meal, they both hesitated and stepped back discreetly, though without going away. The priest’s tall black figure contrasted mournfully with the cheerfulness of the white-washed walls.