The Conquest of Plassans (La Conquête de Plassans). Emile Zola
Come, children, take a couple of chairs out.'
Since the arrival of the priest and his mother, the young people had remained quietly seated at the table, curiously scrutinising the new-comers. The Abbé had not appeared to notice them, but Madame Faujas had stopped for a moment before each of them and stared them keenly in the face as though she were trying to pry into their young heads. As they heard their father, they all three hastily rose and took some chairs out.
The old lady did not sit down; and when Mouret, losing sight of her, turned round to find out what had become of her, he saw her standing before a window of the drawing-room which was ajar. She craned out her neck and completed her inspection with all the calm deliberation of a person who is examining some property for sale. Just as Rose took up the little trunk, however, she went back into the passage, and said quietly:
'I will go up and help you.'
Then she went upstairs after the servant. The priest did not even turn his head; he was smiling at the three young people who still stood in front of him. In spite of the hardness of his brow and the stern lines about his mouth, his face was capable of expressing great gentleness, when such was his desire.
'Is this the whole of your family, madame?' he asked Marthe, who had just come up to him.
'Yes, sir,' she replied, feeling a little confused beneath the clear gaze which he turned upon her.
Looking again at her children, he continued:
'You've got two big lads there, who will soon be men—Have you finished your studies yet, my boy?'
It was to Serge that he addressed this question. Mouret interrupted the lad as he was going to reply.
'Yes, he has finished,' said the father; 'though he is the younger of the two. When I say that he has finished, I mean that he has taken his bachelor's degree, for he is staying on at college for another year to go through a course of philosophy. He is the clever one of the family. His brother, the elder, that great booby there, isn't up to much. He has been plucked twice already, but he still goes on idling his time away and larking about.'
Octave listened to his father's reproaches with a smile, while Serge bent his head beneath his praises. Faujas seemed to be studying them for a moment in silence, and then, going up to Désirée and putting on an expression of gentle tenderness, he said to her:
'Will you allow me, mademoiselle, to be your friend?'
She made no reply but, half afraid, hastened to hide her face against her mother's shoulder. The latter, instead of making her turn round again, pressed her more closely to her, clasping an arm around her waist.
'Excuse her,' she said with a touch of sadness, 'she hasn't a strong head, she has remained quite childish. She is an "innocent," we do not trouble her by attempting to teach her. She is fourteen years old now, and as yet she has only learned to love animals.'
Désirée's confidence returned to her with her mother's caresses, and she lifted up her head and smiled. Then she boldly said to the priest:
'I should like you very much to be my friend; but you must promise me that you will never hurt the flies. Will you?'
And then, as every one about her began to smile, she added gravely:
'Octave crushes them, the poor flies! It is very wicked of him.'
Abbé Faujas sat down. He seemed very much tired. He yielded for a moment or two to the cool quietness of the terrace, glancing slowly over the garden and the neighbouring trees. The perfect calmness and solitude of this quiet corner of the little town seemed somewhat to surprise him.
'It is very pleasant here,' he murmured.
Then he relapsed into silence, and seemed lost in reverie. He started slightly as Mouret said to him with a laugh:
'If you will allow us, sir, we will now go back to our dinner.'
And then, catching a glance from his wife, Mouret added:
'You must sit down with us and have a plate of soup. It will save you the trouble of having to go to the hotel to dine. Don't make any difficulty, I beg.'
'I am extremely obliged to you, but we really don't require anything,' the Abbé replied in tones of extreme politeness, which allowed of no repetition of the invitation.
The Mourets then returned to the dining-room and seated themselves round the table. Marthe served the soup and there was soon a cheerful clatter of spoons. The young people chattered merrily, and Désirée broke into a peal of ringing laughter as she listened to a story which her father, who was now in high glee at having at last got to his dinner, was telling. In the meantime, Abbé Faujas, whom they had quite forgotten, remained motionless upon the terrace, facing the setting sun. He did not even turn his head, he seemed to hear nothing of what was going on behind him. Just as the sun was disappearing he took off his hat as if overcome by the heat. Marthe, who was sitting with her face to the window, could see his big bare head with its short hair that was already silvering about the temples. A last red ray lighting up that stern soldier-like head, on which the tonsure lay like a cicatrised wound from the blow of a club; then the ray faded away and the priest, now wrapped in shadow, seemed nothing more than a black silhouette against the ashy grey of the gloaming.
Not wishing to summon Rose, Marthe herself went to get a lamp and brought in the first dish. As she was returning from the kitchen, she met, at the foot of the staircase, a woman whom she did not at first recognise. It was Madame Faujas. She had put on a cotton cap and looked like a servant in her common print gown, with a yellow kerchief crossed over her breast and knotted behind her waist. Her wrists were bare, she was quite out of breath with the work she had been doing, and her heavy laced boots clattered on the flooring of the passage.
'Ah! you've got all put right now, have you, madame?' Marthe asked with a smile.
'Oh, yes! it was a mere trifle and was done directly,' Madame Faujas replied.
She went down the steps that led to the terrace, and called in a gentler tone:
'Ovide, my child, will you come upstairs now? Everything is quite ready.'
She was obliged to go and lay her hand upon her son's shoulder to awaken him from his reverie. The air was growing cool, and the Abbé shivered as he got up and followed his mother in silence. As he passed before the door of the dining-room which was all bright with the cheerful glow of the lamp and merry with the chatter of the young folks, he peeped in and said in his flexible voice:
'Let me thank you again, and beg you to excuse us for having so disturbed you. We are very sorry——'
'No! no!' cried Mouret, 'it is we who are sorry and distressed at not being able to offer you better accommodation for the night.'
The priest bowed, and Marthe again met that clear gaze of his, that eagle glance which had affected her before. In the depths of his eyes, which were generally of a melancholy grey, flames seemed to gleam at times like lamps carried behind the windows of slumbering houses.
'The priest's not at all shamefaced,' Mouret remarked jestingly, when the mother and son had retired.
'I don't think they are very well off,' Marthe replied.
'Well, at any rate, he isn't carrying Peru about with him in that box of his,' Mouret exclaimed. 'And it's light enough! Why, I could have raised it with the tip of my little finger!'
But he was interrupted in his flow of chatter by Rose, who had just come running down the stairs to relate the extraordinary things she had witnessed.
'Well, she is a wonderful creature, indeed!' she cried, posting herself in front of the table at which the family were eating. 'She's sixty-five at least, but she doesn't show it at all, and she bustles about, and works like a horse!'
'Did she help you to remove the fruit?' Mouret asked, with some curiosity.
'Yes, indeed, she did, sir! She carried it away in her apron, in loads