Complete Works of Emile Zola (329 page)

‘A beautiful day, isn’t it, gentlemen?’ said Olympe, who had turned pale beneath her brother’s gaze.

The Abbé abruptly dragged the justice of the peace into the lane; where he quickly got rid of him.

‘He is furious!’ murmured Olympe. ‘Well, so much the worse; we had better stay where we are now. If we go back upstairs, he will think we are afraid of him. I’ve had quite enough of this kind of thing, and you will see what I will say to him.’

She made Trouche seat himself on one of the chairs which Rose had brought out a short time previously, and when the Abbé returned he found them tranquilly settled there. He fastened the bolts of the little door, glanced quickly around to assure himself that the trees screened them from observation, and then came up close to the Trouches, saying in a muffled voice:

‘You forget our agreement. You undertook to remain in your own rooms.’

‘It was too hot up there,’ Olympe replied. ‘We are not committing any crime by coming down here to get a little fresh air.’

The priest was on the point of exploding, but his sister, still quite pale from the effort she had made in resisting him, added in a peculiar tone:

‘Don’t make a noise, now! There are some people over there, and you might do yourself harm.’

Then both the Trouches laughed slightly. The Abbé fixed his eyes upon them with a terrible expression, but without speaking.

‘Sit down,’ said Olympe. ‘You want an explanation, don’t you? Well, you shall have one. We are tired of imprisoning ourselves. You are living here in clover; the house seems to belong to you, and so does the garden. So much the better, indeed; we are delighted to see how well things appear to be going with you, but you mustn’t treat us as dirt beneath your feet. You have never thought of bringing me up a single bunch of grapes; you have given us the most wretched of the rooms; you hide us away and are ashamed of us; you shut us up as though we had the plague. You must understand that it can’t go on any longer!’

‘I am not the master here,’ replied Abbé Faujas. ‘You must address yourselves to Monsieur Mouret if you want to strip his garden.’

The Trouches exchanged a fresh smile.

‘We don’t want to pry into your affairs,’ Olympe con­tinued. ‘We know what we know, and that is sufficient for us. But all this proves what a bad heart you have. Do you think that if we were in your position we shouldn’t invite you to come and take your share in the good things that were going?’

‘What is it that you want me to do?’ demanded the Abbé. ‘Do you suppose that I am rolling in wealth? You know what sort of a room I occupy myself; it is more scantily furnished than your own. The house isn’t mine, and I can’t give it you.’

Olympe shrugged her shoulders. She silenced her husband who was beginning to speak, and then calmly continued:

‘Everyone has his own ideas of life. If you had millions you wouldn’t buy a strip of carpet for your bedside; you would spend them all in some foolish scheme or other. We, on the other hand, like to be comfortable. Dare you say that if you had a fancy for the handsomest furniture in the house and for the linen and food and anything else it contains, you couldn’t have them this very evening? Well, in such circumstances a good brother would think of his relations, and wouldn’t leave them in wretchedness and squalor as you leave us!’

Abbé Faujas looked keenly at the Trouches. They were both swaying backwards and forwards on their chairs.

‘You are a pair of ungrateful people,’ he said after a moment’s silence. ‘I have already done a great deal for you. You have me to thank for the food that you eat now. I still have letters of yours, Olympe, letters in which you beseech me to rescue you from your misery by bringing you over to Plassans. Now that you are here and your livelihood is assured, you break out into fresh demands.’

‘Stuff!’ Trouche impudently interrupted. ‘You sent for us here because you wanted us. I have learned to my cost not to believe in anyone’s fine talk. I have allowed my wife to speak, but women can never come to the point. In two words, my good friend, you are making a mistake in keeping us cooped up like dogs, who are only brought out in the hour of danger. We are getting weary of it, and we shall perhaps end by doing something foolish. Confound it all! give us a little liberty. Since the house isn’t yours and you despise all luxury, what harm can it do you if we make ourselves com­fortable?
We shan’t eat the walls!’

‘Of course!’ exclaimed Olympe, ‘it’s only natural that we should rebel against being constantly locked up. We will take care to do nothing to prejudice you. You know that my husband only requires the least sign from you. Go your own way, and you may depend upon us; but let us go ours. Is that understood, eh?’

Abbé Faujas had bent his head; he remained silent for a moment, and then, raising his eyes, and avoiding a direct reply, he said:

‘Listen to what I say. If ever you do anything to hamper me, I swear to you that I will send you away to starve in a garret on the straw.’

Then he went back into the house, leaving them under the arbour. From that time the Trouches went down into the garden almost every day, but they conducted themselves with considerable discretion, and refrained from going there at the times when the priest was talking with the guests from the neighbouring gardens.

The following week Olympe complained so much of the room she was occupying that Marthe kindly offered her Serge’s, which was now at liberty. The Trouches then kept both rooms. They slept in the young man’s old bedchamber, from which not a single article of furniture had been removed, and turned the other apartment into a sort of drawing-room, for which Rose found them some old velvet-covered furniture in the lumber-room. Olympe, in great delight, ordered a rose-coloured dressing-gown from the best maker in Plassans.

Mouret, who had forgotten that Marthe had asked his permission to let the Trouches have Serge’s room, was quite surprised to find them there one evening. He had gone up to look for a knife which he thought his son must have left in one of the drawers, and, as he entered the room, he saw Trouche trimming with this very knife a switch which he had just cut from one of the pear-trees in the garden. Thereupon he apologised and went downstairs.

CHAPTER XIV

During the public procession on the Feast of Corpus Christi, when Monseigneur Rousselot came down the steps of the magnificent altar, set up through the generosity of Madame de Condamin on the Place of the Sub-Prefecture, close to the very door of the small house she occupied, it was noticed with much surprise by the spectators that the Bishop abruptly turned his back upon Abbé Faujas.

‘Ah! has there been some disagreement between them!’ exclaimed Madame Rougon, who was looking out of her drawing-room window.

‘Didn’t you know about it?’ asked Madame Paloque, who was leaning over by the old lady’s side. ‘It has been the talk of the town since yesterday. Abbé Fenil has been restored to favour.’

Monsieur de Condamin, who was standing behind the ladies, began to laugh. He had made his escape from his own house, saying that it smelt like a church.

‘Do you attach any importance to such trifles?’ said he. ‘The Bishop is merely an old weathercock, turning one way or the other according as Faujas or Fenil blows against him; to-day it is one of them, to-morrow it will be the other. They have quarrelled and made it up again half a score times already. Before three days are over, you will see that Faujas will be the pet again.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ exclaimed Madame Paloque; ‘it is serious this time. It seems that Abbé Faujas has caused his lordship a great deal of worry. It appears that he formerly preached some sermons which excited great displeasure at Rome. I can’t explain the matter quite clearly, but I know that the Bishop has received reproachful letters from Borne, in which he is recommended to be on his guard. It is said that Abbé Faujas is simply a political agent.’

‘Who says so?’ asked Madame Rougon, blinking her eyes as though to see the procession, which was then passing through the Rue de la Banne, more distinctly.

‘I heard it said, but I really don’t remember by whom,’ the judge’s wife replied carelessly.

Then she retired, saying that one would be able to get a better view from the side-window. Monsieur de Condamin, however, took the vacant place by Madame Rougon, and whispered in the old lady’s ear:

‘I have already twice seen her going to Abbé Fenil’s. They have some plot or other in hand, I’m sure. Abbé Faujas must have trodden somehow or other on that viper of a woman, and she’s trying to bite him. If she were not so ugly I would do her the service of telling her that her hus­band will never be presiding judge.’

‘Why? I don’t understand,’ murmured the old lady, with a guileless expression.

Monsieur de Condamin looked at her curiously, and then began to smile.

The last two gendarmes in the procession had just dis­appeared round the corner of the Cours Sauvaire, and the few guests whom Madame Rougon had invited to witness the blessing of the altar returned into the drawing-room, where they chatted for a moment about the Bishop’s graciousness and the new banners of the different congregations, and especially the one belonging to the girls of the Home of the Virgin, which had attracted much attention. The ladies were loud in their praises, and Abbé Faujas’s name was mentioned every moment in the most eulogistic terms.

‘He is clearly a saint!’ sniggered Madame Paloque to Monsieur de Condamin, who had taken a seat near her. Then, bending forward towards him, she added: ‘I could not speak openly before Madame Rougon, you know, but there is a great deal of talk about Abbé Faujas and Madame Mouret. I dare say those unpleasant reports have reached the Bishop’s ears.’

‘Madame Mouret is a charming woman, and extremely winning notwithstanding her forty years,’ was all that Monsieur de Condamin said in reply.

‘Oh, yes! she is very charming, very charming, indeed,’ murmured Madame Paloque, whose face turned quite green with spleen.

‘Extremely charming,’ persisted the conservator of rivers and forests. ‘She is at the age of genuine passion and great happiness. You ladies are given to judging each other unfavourably.’

Thereupon he left the drawing-room, chuckling over Madame Paloque’s suppressed rage.

The town was now indeed taking an absorbing interest in the continual struggle that went on between Abbé Faujas and Abbé Fenil for influence over the Bishop. It was a ceaseless combat, like the struggles of a couple of buxom housekeepers for the affection of an old dotard. The Bishop smiled knowingly; he had discovered how to maintain a kind of equilibrium between these opposing forces which he pitted one against the other, amused at seeing them over­thrown in turn, and securing peace for himself by accepting the services of the one who temporarily gained the upper hand. To the dreadful stories which were told him to the detriment of his favourites, he paid but little attention, for he knew that the rival Abbés were capable of accusing each other of murder.

‘They are getting worse, my child,’ the Bishop said, in one of his expansive moments to Abbé Surin. ‘I fancy that in the end Paris will carry the day, and Rome will get the worst of it; but I am not quite sure, and I shall leave them to wear each other out. When one has made an end of the other, things will be settled — By the way, just read me the third Ode of Horace; I’m afraid I’ve translated one of the lines rather badly.’

On the Tuesday after the public procession the weather was lovely. Laughter was heard both in the garden of the Rastoils and in that of the Sub-Prefect, and numerous guests were sitting under the trees. Abbé Faujas read his breviary in the Mourets’ garden after his usual custom, while slowly walking up and down beside the tall hedges of box. For some days past he had kept the little door that led to the lane bolted; he was indeed coquetting with his neighbours and keeping aloof, in order that he might make them more anxious to see him. Possibly too he had noticed a slight coldness in their manner after his last misunderstanding with the Bishop, and the abominable reports that his enemies had circulated against him.

About five o’clock, just as the sun was sinking, Abbé Surin proposed a game of shuttlecock to Monsieur Rastoil’s daughters. He was very clever at it himself; and, notwith­standing the approach of their thirtieth year, both Angéline and Aurélie were immensely fond of games. When the servant brought the battledores, Abbé Surin, looking about him for a shady spot, for the garden was still bright with the last rays of the sun, was struck with an idea of which the young ladies cordially approved.

‘Shall we go and play in the Impasse des Chevillottes?’ he asked. ‘We shall be shaded by the chestnut-trees there, and have more room.’

They left the garden and started a most delightful game in the lane. The two girls began, and Angéline was the first who failed to keep the shuttlecock going. Abbé Surin, who took her place, handed his battledore with professional skill and ease. Having tucked his cassock between his legs, he sprang backwards and forwards and sideways without cessation. His battledore caught the shuttlecock as it reached the ground and sent it flying, now to a surprising height, and now straight ahead like a bullet; and at times made it describe the most graceful curves. As a rule he preferred to be pitted against poor players, who, as they struck the shuttlecock at random, or, to use his own phrase, without any rhythm, brought all the skilful agility of his own play into exercise. Mademoiselle Aurélie, however, played a fair game. She vented a little cry like a swallow’s every time she struck a blow with the battledore, and she laughed distractedly when the shuttlecock alighted on the young Abbé’s nose. Gathering up her skirts, she waited for its return, or leaped backward with a great rustling of petticoats when he vengefully gave it a smarter blow than usual. At last the shuttlecock fell into her hair, and she almost toppled over upon her back. This greatly amused them all. Angéline now took her sister’s place; and every time that Abbé Faujas raised his eyes from his breviary as he paced the Mourets’ garden, he saw the white feathers of the shuttlecock skimming above the wall like a big butterfly.