The Conquest of Plassans (La Conquête de Plassans). Emile Zola
Table of Contents
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 whitewashed walls.
'We must ask your pardon for disturbing you,' he said to Mouret. 'We have just left Abbé Bourrette's; he, no doubt, gave you notice of our coming!'
'Not at all!' Mouret exclaimed. 'The Abbé never behaves like other people. He always seems as though he had just come down from paradise. Only this morning, sir, he told me that you would not be here for another couple of days. Well, we must put you in possession of your rooms all the same.'
Abbé Faujas apologised. He spoke in a deep voice which fell very softly at the end of each sentence. He was extremely distressed, said he, to have arrived at such a moment. And when he had expressed his regret in a very few well-chosen words, he turned round to pay the porter who had brought his trunk. His large well-shaped hands drew from the folds of his cassock a purse of which only the steel rings could be seen. Keeping his head bent, he cautiously fumbled in it for a moment. Then, without anyone having seen the piece of money which he had received, the porter went away, and the priest resumed in his refined way:
'I beg you, sir, sit down again. Your servant will show us the rooms, and will help me to carry this.'
As he spoke, he stooped to grasp one of the handles of his trunk. It was a small wooden trunk, bound at the edges with iron bands, and one of its sides seemed to have been repaired with a cross-piece of deal. Mouret looked surprised, and his eyes wandered off in search of other luggage, but he could see nothing excepting a big basket, which the elderly lady carried with both hands, holding it in front of her, and despite her fatigue obstinately determined not to put it down. From underneath the lid, which was a little raised, there peeped, amongst some bundles of linen, the end of a comb wrapped in paper and the neck of a clumsily corked bottle.
'Oh! don't trouble yourself with that,' said Mouret, just touching the trunk with his foot; 'it can't be very heavy, and Rose will be able to carry it up by herself.'
He was quite unconscious of the secret contempt which oozed out from his words. The elderly lady gave him a keen glance with her black eyes, and then let her gaze again fall upon the dining-room and the table, which she had been examining ever since her arrival. She kept her lips tightly compressed, while her eyes strayed from one object to another. She had not uttered a single word. Abbé Faujas consented to leave his trunk where it was. In the yellow rays of the sunlight which streamed in from the garden, his threadbare cassock looked quite ruddy; it was darned at the edges; and, though it was scrupulously clean, it seemed so sadly thin and wretched that Marthe, who had hitherto remained seated with a sort of uneasy reserve, now in her turn rose from her seat. The Abbé, who had merely cast a rapid glance at her, and had then quickly turned his eyes elsewhere, saw her leave her chair, although he did not appear to be watching her.
'I beg you,' he repeated, 'do not disturb yourselves. We should be extremely distressed to interfere with your dinner.'
'Very well,' said Mouret, who was hungry, 'Rose shall show you up. Tell her to get you anything you want, and make yourselves at home.'
Abbé Faujas bowed and was making his way to the staircase, when Marthe stepped up to her husband and whispered:
'But, my dear, you have forgotten——'
'What? what?' he asked, seeing her hesitate.
'There is the fruit, you know.'
'Oh! bother it all, so there is!' he exclaimed with an expression of annoyance.
And as Abbé Faujas stepped back and glanced at him questioningly, he added:
'I am extremely vexed, sir. Father Bourrette is a very worthy man, but it is a little unfortunate that you commissioned him to attend to your business. He hasn't got the least bit of a head. If we had only known of your coming, we should have had everything ready; but, as it is, we shall have to clear the whole place out for you. We have been using the rooms, you see; we have stowed all our crop of fruit, figs, apples and raisins, away on the floors upstairs.'
The priest listened with a surprise which all his politeness did not enable him to hide.
'But it won't take us long,' Mouret continued. 'If you don't mind waiting for ten minutes, Rose will get the rooms cleared for you.'
An anxious expression appeared on the priest's cadaverous face.
'The rooms are furnished, are they not?' he asked.
'Not at all; there isn't a bit of furniture in them. We have never occupied them.'
Thereupon the Abbé lost his self-control, and his grey eyes flashed as he exclaimed with suppressed indignation:
'But I gave distinct instructions in my letter that furnished rooms were to be taken. I could scarcely bring my furniture along with me in my trunk.'
'Well, that just fits in with what I have been saying!' cried Mouret, in a louder voice. 'The way that Bourrette goes on is quite incredible. He certainly saw the apples when he came to look at the rooms, sir, for he took up one of them and remarked that he had rarely seen such fine fruit. He said that everything seemed quite suitable, that the rooms were all that was necessary, and he took them.'
Abbé Faujas was no longer listening to Mouret; his cheeks were flushed with anger. He turned round and stammered in a broken voice:
'Do you hear, mother? There is no furniture.'
The old lady, with her thin black shawl drawn tightly round her, had just been inspecting the ground-floor, stepping furtively hither and thither, but without once putting down her basket. She had gone to the door of the kitchen and had scrutinised the four walls there, and then, standing on the steps that overlooked the terrace, she had taken in all the garden at one long, searching glance. But it was the dining-room that seemed more especially to interest her, and she was now again standing in front of the table laid for dinner, watching the steam of the soup rise, when her son repeated:
'Do you hear, mother? We shall have to go to the hotel.'
She raised her head without making any reply; but the expression of her whole face seemed to indicate a settled determination to remain in that house, with whose every corner she had already made herself acquainted. She shrugged her shoulders almost imperceptibly, and again her wandering eyes strayed from the kitchen to the garden and then from the garden to the dining-room.
Mouret, however, was growing impatient. As he saw that neither the mother nor her son seemed to make up their minds to leave the place, he said:
'We have no beds, unfortunately. True, there is, in the loft, a folding-bedstead, which perhaps, at a pinch, madame might make do until to-morrow. But I really don't know how Monsieur l'Abbé is to manage to sleep.'
Then at last Madame Faujas opened her lips. She spoke in a curt and somewhat hoarse voice:
'My son will take the folding-bedstead. A mattress on the floor, in a corner, will be quite sufficient for me.'
The Abbé signified his approval of this arrangement by a nod. Mouret was going to protest and try to think of some other plan, but, seeing the satisfied appearance of his new tenants, he kept silence and merely exchanged a glance of astonishment with his wife.
'To-morrow it will be light,' he said, with his touch of bourgeois banter, 'and you will be able to furnish as you like. Rose will go up and clear away the fruit and make the beds. Will you wait for a few