Chapter II: Part 2

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

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 think you were in the garden, sir, looking at the grapes in the arbour.'

This put Mouret into a very bad temper. He began to inveigh against priests. They were a set of mystery-mongers, a parcel of underhand schemers, with whom the devil himself would be at a loss. They affected such ridiculous prudery that no one had ever seen a priest wash his face. And then he wound up by expressing his sorrow that he had ever let his rooms to this Abbé, about whom he knew nothing at all.

'It is all your fault!' he exclaimed to his wife, as he got up from table.

Marthe was about to protest and remind him of their discussion on the previous day, but she raised her eyes and simply looked at him, saying nothing. Mouret, contrary to his usual custom, resolved to remain at home. He pottered up and down between the dining-room and the garden, poking about everywhere, pretending that nothing was in its place and that the house simply invited thieves. Then he got indignant with Serge and Octave, who had set off for the college, he said, quite half an hour too soon.

'Isn't father going out?' Désirée whispered in her mother's ear. 'He will worry us to death if he stays at home.'

Marthe hushed her. At last Mouret began to speak of a piece of business which he declared he must finish off during the day. And then he complained that he had never a moment to himself, and could never get a day's rest at home when he felt he wanted it. Finally he went away, quite distressed that he could not remain and see what happened.

When he returned in the evening he was all on fire with curiosity.

'Well, what about the Abbé?' he asked, without even giving himself time to take off his hat.

Marthe was working in her usual place on the terrace.

'The Abbé!' she repeated, with an appearance of surprise. 'Oh, yes! the Abbé--I've really seen nothing of him, but I believe he has got settled down now. Rose told me that some furniture had come.'

'That's just what I was afraid of!' exclaimed Mouret. 'I wanted to be here when it came; for, you see, the furniture is my security. I knew very well that you would never think of stirring from your chair. You haven't much of a head, my dear--Rose! Rose!'

The cook appeared in answer to his summons, and he forthwith asked her: 'There's some furniture come for the people on the second floor?'

'Yes, sir; it came in a little covered cart. I recognised it as Bergasse's; the second-hand dealer's. It wasn't a big load. Madame Faujas came on behind it. I dare say she had been giving the man who pushed it along a helping hand up the Rue Balande.'

'At any rate, you saw the furniture, I suppose? Did you notice what there was?'

'Certainly, sir. I had posted myself by the door, and it all went past me, which didn't seem to please Madame Faujas very much. Wait a moment and I'll tell you everything there was. First of all they brought up an iron bedstead, then a chest of drawers, then two tables and four chairs; and that was the whole lot of it. And it wasn't new either. I wouldn't have given thirty crowns for the whole collection.'

'But you should have told madame; we cannot let the rooms under such conditions. I shall go at once to talk to Abbé Bourrette about the matter.'

He was fuming with irritation, and was just setting off, when Marthe brought him to a sudden halt by saying:

'Oh! I had forgotten to tell you. They have paid me six months' rent in advance.'

'What! They have paid you?' he stammered out, almost in a tone of annoyance.

'Yes, the old lady came down and gave me this.'

She put her hand into her work-bag, and gave her husband seventy-five francs in hundred-sou-pieces, neatly wrapt up in a piece of newspaper. Mouret counted the money, and muttered:

'As long as they pay, they are free to stop. But they are strange folks, all the same. Everyone can't be rich, of course, but that is no reason why one should behave in this suspicious manner, when one's poor.'

'There is something else I have to tell you,' Marthe continued, as she saw him calm down. 'The old lady asked me if we were disposed to part with the folding-bed to her. I told her that we made no use of it, and that she was welcome to keep it as long as she liked.'

'You did quite right. We must do what we can to oblige them. As I told you before, what bothers me about these confounded priests is that one never can tell what they are thinking about, or what they are up to. Apart from that, you will often find very honourable men amongst them.'

The money seemed to have consoled him. He joked and teased Serge about his book on the Chinese missions, which the boy happened to be reading just then. During dinner he affected to feel no further curiosity about the tenants of the second floor; but, when Octave mentioned that he had seen Abbé Faujas leaving the Bishop's residence, he could not restrain himself. Directly the dessert was placed on the table he resumed his chatter of the previous evening, though after a time he began to feel a little ashamed of himself. His commercial pursuits had made him stolid and heavy, but he really had a keen mind; he was possessed of no little common sense and accuracy of judgment which often enabled him to pick out the truth from the midst of all the gossip of the neighbourhood.

'After all,' he said, as he went off to bed, 'one has no business to go prying into other people's affairs. The Abbé is quite at liberty to do as he pleases. It is getting wearisome to be always talking about these people, and I, for my part, shall say nothing more about them.'

A week passed away. Mouret had resumed his habitual life. He prowled about the house, lectured his children, and spent his afternoons away from home, amusing himself by transacting various bits of business, of which he never spoke; and he ate and slept like a man for whom life is an easy downhill journey, without any jolts or surprises of any kind. The whole place sank back into all its old monotony. Marthe occupied her accustomed seat on the terrace, with her little work-table in front of her. Désirée played by her side. The two lads came home at the usual time, and were as noisy as ever; and Rose, the cook, grumbled and growled at everyone; while the garden and the dining-room retained all their wonted sleepy calm.

'You see now,' Mouret often repeated to his wife, 'you were quite mistaken in thinking that our comfort would be interfered with, by our letting the second-floor. We are as quiet and happy as ever we were, and the house seems smaller and cosier.'

He occasionally raised his eyes towards the second-floor windows, which Madame Faujas had hung with thick cotton curtains, on the day after her arrival. These curtains were never drawn aside. There was a conventual look about their stern, cold folds, and they seemed to tell of deep, unbroken silence, cloistral stillness lurking behind them. At distant intervals the windows were set ajar, and allowed the high, shadowy ceilings to be seen between the snowy whiteness of the curtains. But it was all to no purpose that Mouret kept on the watch, he could never catch sight of the hand which opened or closed them, and he never even heard the grating of the window fastening. Never did a sound of human life come down from the second floor.

The first week was at an end and Mouret had not yet had another glimpse of Abbé Faujas. That man who was living in his house, without he ever being able to catch sight even of his shadow, began to affect him with a kind of nervous uneasiness. In spite of all the efforts he made to appear indifferent, he relapsed into his old questionings, and started an inquiry.

'Have you seen anything of him?' he asked his wife.

'I fancy I caught a glimpse of him yesterday, as he was coming in, but I am not sure. His mother always wears a black dress, and it might have been she that I saw.'

And as he continued to press her with questions, Marthe told him all she knew.

'Rose says that he goes out every day, and stays away a long time. As for his mother, she is as regular as a clock. She comes down at seven o'clock in the morning to go out and do her marketing. She has a big basket, which is always closed, and in which she must bring everything back with her, coal, bread, wine and provisions, for no tradesman ever calls with anything for them. They are very courteous and polite; and Rose says that they always bow to her when they meet her. But as a rule she does not even hear them come down the stairs.'

'They must go in for a funny sort of cooking up there,' said Mouret, to whom all these details conveyed none of the information he wanted.

On another evening, when Octave mentioned that he had seen Abbé Faujas entering Saint-Saturnin's, his father asked him about the priest's appearance, what effect he had made upon the passers-by, and what he could be going to do in the church.

'Ah! you are really much too curious!' cried the young man, with a laugh. 'He didn't look very fine in the sunshine with his rusty cassock, I can vouch for that much. I noticed, too, that, as he walked along, he kept in the shadow of the houses, which made his cassock look a little blacker. He didn't seem at all proud of himself, but hurried along with his head bent down. Two girls began to laugh as he crossed the Place. The Abbé raised his head and looked at them with an expression of great softness--didn't he, Serge?'

Thereupon Serge related how on several occasions, as he was returning from the college, he had at a distance followed the Abbé, who was on his way back from Saint-Saturnin's. He passed through the streets without speaking to anyone; he seemed to know nobody and to be rather hurt by the suppressed titters and jeers which he heard around him.

'Do they talk of him, then, in the town?' asked Mouret, whose interest was greatly aroused.

'No one has ever spoken to me about him,' Octave replied.

'Yes,' said Serge,' they do talk of him. Abbé Bourrette's nephew told me that he wasn't a favourite at the church. They are not fond of these priests who come from a distance; and besides he has such a miserable appearance. When people get accustomed to him, they will leave the poor man alone, but just at first it is only natural that he should attract notice.'

Marthe thereupon advised the two young fellows not to gratify any outsider's curiosity about the Abbé.

'Oh, yes! they may answer any questions,' Mouret exclaimed. 'Certainly nothing that we know of him could be likely to compromise him in any way.'

From that time forward, with the best faith in the world and without meaning the least harm, Mouret turned his sons into a couple of spies. He told Octave and Serge that they must repeat to him all that was said about the priest in the town, and he even instructed them to follow him whenever they came across him. But the information that was to be derived from such sources was quickly exhausted. The talk occasioned by the arrival of a strange curate in the diocese died away; the town seemed to have extended its pardon to the 'poor fellow,' who glided about in the shade in such a rusty old cassock, and its only apparent feeling for him now was one of disdain. The priest, on the other hand, always went straight to the cathedral and so returned from it, invariably passing through the same streets. Octave said, laughingly, that he was sure he counted the paving-stones.

Then Mouret bethought himself of enlisting the help of Désirée in the task of collecting information. In the evening he took her to the bottom of the garden and listened to her chatter about what she had done and what she had seen during the day, and he always tried to lead her on to the subject of the tenants of the second floor.

'Now, just listen to what I tell you,' he said to her one day. 'To-morrow, when the window is open, just throw your ball into the room, and then go up and ask for it.'

The next day the girl threw her ball into the room, but she had scarcely reached the steps of the house before the ball, returned by an invisible hand, bounced up from the terrace. Her father, who had reckoned on the child's taking ways leading to a renewal of the intercourse which had been interrupted since the day of the priest's arrival, now lost all hope. It was quite clear that the Abbé had made up his mind to keep to himself. This rebuff, however, only made Mouret's curiosity all the keener. He even condescended to go gossiping in corners with the cook, to the great displeasure of Marthe, who reproached him for his want of self-respect; but at this he became angry with her and defended himself by lies. However, as he felt that he was in the wrong, it was only in secret that he henceforth talked to Rose about the Faujases.

One morning she beckoned to him to follow her into the kitchen.

'Oh, sir!' she said, as she shut the door, 'I have been watching for you to come down from your room for more than an hour.'

'Have you found out something then?'

'Well, you shall hear. Yesterday evening I was chatting with Madame Faujas for more than an hour!'

Mouret felt a thrill of joy. He sat down on an old tattered rush-bottom chair, in the midst of the dirty cloths and vegetable parings left from the previous day, and exclaimed:

'Go along! make haste!'

'Well,' continued the cook, 'I was at the street-door saying good-night to Monsieur Rastoil's servant, when Madame Faujas came downstairs to empty a pail of dirty water in the gutter. Instead of immediately going back again, without even turning her head, as she generally does, she stopped there for a moment to look at me. Then it struck me that she wanted to speak to me, and I said to her that it had been a beautiful day, and that it would be good for the grapes. She said, "Yes, yes," in an unconcerned sort of way, just like a woman who has no land and has no interest in such matters. But she put down her pail and made no attempt to go away; she even came and leant against the wall beside me--'

'Well! well! what did she say to you?' cried Mouret, tortured by his impatience.

'Well, of course, you understand I wasn't silly enough to begin to question her. She would have gone straight off if I had. Without seeming to intend anything, I suggested things to her which I thought might set her talking. The Curé[3] of Saint-Saturnin's, that worthy Monsieur Compan, happened to pass by, and I told her he was very ill and wasn't long for this world, and that there would be great difficulty in filling his place at the cathedral. She was all ears at once, I can tell you. She even asked me what was the matter with Monsieur Compan. Then, going on from one thing to another, I gradually got talking about our bishop. Monseigneur Rousselot was a most excellent and worthy man, I told her. She did not know his age, so I told her that he was sixty, very delicate also, and that he let himself be led by the nose. There is a good deal of talk about the vicar-general, Monsieur Fenil, who is all powerful with the bishop. The old lady was quite interested in that, and she would have stayed out in the street all night, listening.'

An expression of desperation passed over Mouret's face. 'But what you're telling me is what you said yourself,' he cried. 'What was it that she said? That's what I want to hear.'

'Wait a little and let me finish,' Rose replied very calmly. 'I was gradually gaining my purpose. To win her confidence, I ended by talking to her about ourselves. I told her that you were Monsieur François Mouret, a retired merchant from Marseilles, and that you had managed in fifteen years to make a fortune out of wines and oils and almonds. I added that you had preferred to come and settle down and live on your means in Plassans, a quiet town, where your wife's relations lived. I even contrived to let her know, too, that madame was your cousin, that you were forty years old and that she was thirty-seven, and that you lived very happily together; in fact, I told her all about you. She seemed to be very much interested, and kept saying, "Yes, yes," in her deliberate way; and, when I stopped for a moment, she nodded her head as though to tell me she was listening and that I might go on. So we went on talking in this way, with our backs against the wall, like a couple of old friends, till it was quite dark.'

Mouret bounced from his chair in angry indignation.

'What!' he cried, 'is that all? She led you on to gossip to her for an hour, and she herself told you nothing!'

'When it got dark, she said to me: "The air is becoming quite chilly." And then she took up her pail and went back upstairs.'

'You are nothing but an idiot! That old woman up there is more than a match for half a score such as you. Ah! they'll be laughing finely now that they have wormed out of you all that they wanted to know about us. Do you hear me, Rose? I tell you that you are nothing but an idiot!'

The old cook waxed very indignant, and began to bounce excitedly up and down the kitchen, knocking the pots and pans about noisily, and crumpling up the dusters and flinging them down.

'It was scarcely worth your while, sir,' she hissed, 'to come into my kitchen to call me insulting names. You had better take yourself off. What I did, I did to please you. If madame finds us here together talking about those people, she will be angry with me, and quite rightly, because it is wrong for us to be doing so. And after all, I couldn't drag words from the old lady's lips if she wasn't willing to talk. I did as any one else would have done under the same circumstances. I talked and told her about your affairs, and it was no fault of mine that she didn't tell me about hers. Go and ask her about them yourself, since you are anxious to know about them. Perhaps you won't make such an idiot of yourself as I have done.'

She had raised her voice, and was talking so loudly that Mouret thought it would be more prudent to retire, and he did so, closing the kitchen door after him, in order to prevent his wife from hearing the servant. But Rose immediately pulled it open again, and cried after him down the passage:

'I shall bother myself about it no longer; do you hear? You may get somebody else to do your underhand business for you!'

Mouret was quite vanquished. He showed some irritation at his defeat, and tried to console himself by saying that those second-floor tenants of his were mere nobodies. Gradually he succeeded in making this opinion of his that of his acquaintances, and then that of the whole town. Abbé Faujas came to be looked upon as a priest without means and without ambition, who was completely outside the pale of the intrigues of the diocese. People imagined that he was ashamed of his poverty, that he was glad to perform any unpleasant duties in connection with the cathedral, and tried to keep himself in obscurity as much as possible. There was only one matter of curiosity left in connection with him, and that was the reason of his having come to Plassans from Besançon. Queer stories were circulated about him, but they all seemed very improbable. Mouret himself, who had played the spy over his tenants simply for amusement and in order to pass the time, just as he would have played a game at cards or bowls, was even beginning to forget that he had a priest living in his house, when an incident occurred which revived all his curiosity.

One afternoon as he was returning home, he saw Abbé Faujas going up the Rue Balande in front of him. Mouret slackened his pace and examined the priest at his leisure. Although Abbé Faujas had been lodging in his house for a month, this was the first time that he had thus seen him in broad daylight. The Abbé still wore his old cassock, and he walked slowly, with his hat in his hand and his head bare in spite of the chilly air. The street, which was a very steep one, with the shutters of its big, bare houses always closed, was quite deserted. Mouret, who quickened his pace, was at last obliged to walk on tip-toes for fear lest the priest should hear him and make his escape. But as they neared Monsieur Rastoil's house, a group of people turning out of the Place of the Sub-Prefecture entered it. Abbé Faujas made a slight détour to avoid these persons. He watched the door close, and then, suddenly stopping, he turned round towards his landlord, who was now close up to him.

'I am very glad to have met you,' said he, with all his wonted politeness, 'otherwise I should have ventured to disturb you this evening. The last time it rained, the wet came through the ceiling of my room, and I should much like to show it you.'

Mouret remained standing in front of him, and stammered in confusion that he was entirely at the Abbé's service. Then, as they went indoors together, he asked him at what time he should go to look at the ceiling.

'Well, I should like you to come at once,' the Abbé replied, 'if it wouldn't be troubling you too much.'

Mouret went up the stairs after him so excited that he almost choked, while Rose followed them with her eyes from the kitchen doorway quite dazed with astonishment.

IV

When Mouret reached the second floor he was more perturbed than a youth at his first assignation. The unexpected satisfaction of his long thwarted desires, and the hope of seeing something quite extraordinary, almost prevented him from breathing. Abbé Faujas slipped the key which he carried, and which he quite concealed in his big fingers, into the lock without making the faintest noise, and the door opened as silently as if it had been hung upon velvet hinges. Then the Abbé, stepping back, mutely motioned to Mouret to enter.

The cotton curtains at the two windows were so thick that the room lay in a pale, chalky dimness like the half-light of a convent cell. It was a very large room, with a lofty ceiling, and a quiet, neat wall-paper of a faded yellow. Mouret ventured forward, advancing with short steps over the tiled floor, which was as smooth and shiny as a mirror, and so cold that he seemed to feel a chill through the soles of his boots. He glanced furtively around him and examined the curtainless iron bedstead, the sheets of which were so straightly stretched that it looked like a block of white stone lying in the corner. The chest of drawers, stowed away at the other end of the room, a little table in the middle, and two chairs, one before each window, completed the furniture. There was not a single paper on the table, not an article of any kind on the chest of drawers, not a garment hanging against the walls. Everything was perfectly bare except that over the chest of drawers there was suspended a big black wooden crucifix, looking like a dark splotch amidst the bare greyness of the room.

'Come this way, sir, will you?' said the Abbé. 'It is in this corner that the ceiling is stained.'

But Mouret did not hurry, he was enjoying himself. Although he saw none of the extraordinary things that he had vaguely expected to see, there seemed to him to be a peculiar odour about the room. It smelt of a priest, he thought; of a man with different ways from other men. But it vexed him that he could see nothing on which he might base some hypothesis carelessly left on any of the pieces of furniture or in any corner of the apartment. The room was just like its provoking occupant, silent, cold, and inscrutable. He was extremely surprised, too, not to find any appearance of poverty as he had expected. On the contrary, the room produced upon him much the same impression as he had felt when he had once entered the richly furnished drawing-room of the prefect of Marseilles. The big crucifix seemed to fill it with its black arms.

Mouret felt, however, that he must go and look at the corner which Abbé Faujas was inviting him to inspect.

'You see the stain, don't you?' asked the priest. 'It has faded a little since yesterday.'

Mouret rose upon tip-toes and strained his eyes, but at first he could see nothing. When the Abbé had drawn back the curtains, he was able to distinguish a slight damp-stain.

'It's nothing very serious,' he said.

'Oh, no! but I thought it would be better to tell you of it. The wet must have soaked through near the edge of the roof.'

'Yes, you are right; near the edge of the roof.'

Mouret made no further remark; he was again examining the room, now clear and distinct in the full daylight. It looked less solemn than before, but it remained as taciturn as ever. There was not even a speck of dust lying about to tell aught of the Abbé's life.

'Perhaps,' continued the priest, 'we may be able to discover the place from the window. Just wait a moment.'

He proceeded to open the window, but Mouret protested against him troubling himself any further, saying that the workmen would easily be able to find the leak.

'It is no trouble at all, I assure you,' replied the Abbé with polite insistence. 'I know that landlords like to know how matters are going on. Inspect everything, I beg of you. The house is yours.'

As he spoke these last words he smiled, a thing he did but rarely; and then as Mouret and himself leaned over the rail that crossed the window, and turned their eyes towards the guttering, he launched out into various technical details, trying to account for the appearance of the stain.

'I think there has been a slight depression of the tiles, perhaps even a breakage; unless, indeed, that crack which you can see up there in the cornice extends into the retaining-wall.'

'Yes, yes, that is very possible,' Mouret replied; 'but I must confess, Monsieur l'Abbé, that I really don't understand anything about these matters. However, the masons will see to it.'

The priest said nothing further on the subject, but quietly remained where he was, gazing out upon the garden beneath him. Mouret, who was leaning by his side, thought it would be impolite to hurry away. He was quite won over when his tenant, after an interval of silence, said to him in his soft voice:

'You have a very pretty garden, sir.'

'Oh! it's nothing out of the common,' replied Mouret. 'There used to be some fine trees which I was obliged to cut down, for nothing would grow in their shade, and we have to pay attention to utility, you know. This plot is quite large enough for us and keeps us in vegetables all through the season.'

The Abbé seemed surprised, and asked Mouret for details. The garden was an old-fashioned country garden, surrounded with arbours, and divided into four regular square plots by tall borders of box. In the middle was a shallow basin, but there was no fountain. Only one of the squares was devoted to flowers. In the other three, which were planted at their edges with fruit-trees, one saw some magnificent cabbages, lettuces, and other vegetables. The paths of yellow gravel were kept extremely neat.

'It is a little paradise,' said Abbé Faujas.

'There are several disadvantages, all the same,' replied Mouret, who felt extremely delighted at hearing his ground so highly praised. 'You will have noticed, for instance, that we are on a slope, and that the gardens hereabouts are on different levels. Monsieur Rastoil's is lower than mine, which, again, is lower than that of the Sub-Prefecture. The consequence is that the rain often does a great deal of damage. Then, too, a still greater disadvantage is that the people in the Sub-Prefecture overlook me, and the more so now that they have made that terrace which commands my wall. It is true that I overlook Monsieur Rastoil's garden, but that is very poor compensation I can assure you, for a man who never troubles himself about his neighbour's doings.'

The priest seemed to be listening out of mere complaisance, just nodding his head occasionally but making no remarks. He followed with his eyes the motions of his landlord's hand.

'And there is still another inconvenience,' continued Mouret, pointing to a path that skirted the bottom of the garden. 'You see that little lane between the two walls? It is called the Impasse des Chevillottes, and leads to a cart-entrance to the grounds of the Sub-Prefecture. Well, all the neighbouring properties have little doors giving access to the lane, and there are all sorts of mysterious comings and goings. For my part, being a family man with children, I fastened my door up with a couple of stout nails.'

He looked at the Abbé and winked, hoping that the priest would question him about the mysterious comings and goings to which he had just alluded. But Abbé Faujas seemed quite unconcerned; he merely glanced at the alley without showing any curiosity on the subject. Then he again gazed placidly upon the Mourets' garden. Marthe was in her customary place near the edge of the terrace, hemming napkins. She had raised her head on first hearing voices, and then had resumed her work again, full of surprise at seeing her husband at one of the second-floor windows in the company of the priest. She now appeared to be quite unconscious of their presence. Mouret, however, had raised his voice from a sort of instinctive braggartism, proud of being able to show his wife that he had at last made his way into that room which had so persistently been kept private. The Abbé, on his side, every now and then let his calm eyes rest upon the woman, though all that he could see of her was the back of her bent neck and her black coil of hair.

They were both silent again, and Abbé Faujas still seemed disinclined to leave the window. He now appeared to be examining their neighbour's flower beds. Monsieur Rastoil's garden was arranged in the English fashion, with little walks and grass plots broken by small flower-beds. At the bottom there was a circular cluster of trees, underneath which a table and some rustic chairs were set.

'Monsieur Rastoil is very wealthy,' resumed Mouret, who had followed the direction of the Abbé's eyes. 'His garden costs him a large sum of money. The waterfall--you can't see it from here, it is behind those trees--ran away with more than three hundred francs. There isn't a vegetable about the place, nothing but flowers. At one time the ladies even talked of cutting down the fruit-trees; but that would have really been wicked, for the pear-trees are magnificent specimens. Well, I suppose a man has a right to lay out his ground so as to please his own fancy, if he can afford to do so.'

Then, as the Abbé still continued silent, he continued: 'You know Monsieur Rastoil, don't you? Every morning, from eight o'clock till nine, he walks about under his trees. He is a heavy man, rather short, bald, and clean shaven, with a head as round as a ball. He completed his sixtieth year at the beginning of last August, I believe. He has been president of our civil tribunal for nearly twenty years. Folks say he is a very good fellow, but I see very little of him. "Good-morning," and "Good-evening," that's about all that ever passes between us.'

He stopped speaking as he saw several people coming down the steps of the neighbouring house and making their way towards the clump of trees.

'Ah, yes!' he resumed, lowering his voice, 'to-day's Tuesday. There is a dinner party at the Rastoils'.

The Abbé had not been able to restrain a slight start, and had then bent forward to see better. Two priests who were walking beside a couple of tall girls seemed particularly to interest him.

'Do you know who those gentlemen are?' Mouret inquired.

And, when the priest only replied by a vague gesture, he added:

'They were crossing the Rue Balande just as we met each other. The taller and younger one, the one who is walking between Monsieur Rastoil's two daughters, is Abbé Surin, our bishop's secretary. He is said to be a very amiable young man. The old one, who is walking a little behind, is one of our grand-vicars, Abbé Fenil. He is at the head of the seminary. He is a terrible man, flat and sharp, like a sabre. I wish he would turn round so that you might see his eyes. I am quite surprised that you don't know those gentlemen.'

'I go out very little,' said the Abbé, 'and there is no house in the town that I visit.'

'Ah! that isn't right. You must often feel very dull. To do you justice, Monsieur l'Abbé, you are certainly not of an inquisitive disposition. Just fancy! you've been here a month now, and you didn't even know that Monsieur Rastoil had a dinner-party every Tuesday! Why, it's right before your eyes there from this window!'

Mouret laughed slightly. He was forming a rather contemptuous opinion of the Abbé. Then in confidential tones he went on:

'You see that tall old man who is with Madame Rastoil--the thin one I mean, with broad brims to his hat? Well, that is Monsieur de Bourdeu, the former prefect of the Drôme, a prefect who was turned out of office by the revolution of 1848. He's another one that you don't know, I'll be bound. But Monsieur Maffre there, the justice of the peace, that white-headed old gentleman who is coming last, with Monsieur Rastoil, don't you know him? Well, that is really inexcusable. He is an honorary canon of Saint-Saturnin's! Between ourselves, he is accused of having killed his wife by his harshness and miserliness.'

Mouret stopped short, looked the Abbé in the face and said abruptly, with a smile:

'I beg your pardon, but I am not a very devout person, you know.'

The Abbé again waved his hand with that vague gesture which did duty as an answer and saved him the necessity of making a more explicit reply.

'No, I am not a very devout person,' Mouret repeated smilingly. 'But everyone should be left free, is it not so? The Rastoils, now, are a religious family. You must have seen the mother and daughters at Saint-Saturnin's. They are parishioners of yours. Ah! those poor girls! The elder, Angéline, is fully twenty-six years old, and the other, Aurélie, is getting on for twenty-four. And they're no beauties either, quite yellow and shrewish-looking. The parents won't let the younger one marry before her sister; but I dare say they'll both end by finding husbands somewhere, if only for the sake of their dowries. Their mother there, that fat little woman who looks as innocent and mild as a sheep, has given poor Rastoil some pretty experiences.'

He winked his left eye, a common habit of his whenever he indulged in any pleasantry approaching broadness. The Abbé lowered his eyes, as if waiting for Mouret to go on, but, as the latter remained silent, he raised them again and watched the people in the garden as they seated themselves round the table under the trees.

At last Mouret resumed his explanatory remarks.

'They will stay out there, enjoying the fresh air, till dinner-time,' said he. 'It is just the same every Tuesday. That Abbé Surin is a great favourite. Look how he is laughing there with Mademoiselle Aurélie. Ah! Abbé Fenil has observed us. What eyes he has! He isn't very fond of me, you know, as I've had a dispute with a relation of his. But where has Abbé Bourrette got to? We haven't seen anything of him, have we? It is very extraordinary. He never misses Monsieur Rastoil's Tuesdays. He must be ill. You know him, don't you? What a worthy man he is! A most devoted servant of God!'

Abbé Faujas was no longer listening. His eyes were constantly meeting those of Abbé Fenil, whose scrutiny he bore with perfect calmness, never once diverting his glance. He was even leaning more fully against the iron rail, and his eyes seemed to have grown bigger.

'Ah! here come the young people!' resumed Mouret as three young men arrived on the scene. 'The oldest one is Rastoil's son; he has just been called to the Bar. The two others are the sons of Monsieur Maffre; they are still at college. By-the-by, I wonder why those young scamps of mine haven't come back yet.'

At that very moment Octave and Serge made their appearance on the terrace. Leaning against the balustrade they began to tease Désirée, who had just sat down by her mother's side. However, when the young folks caught sight of their father at the second-floor window, they lowered their voices and quietly laughed.

'There you see all my little family!' said Mouret complacently. 'We stay at home, we do; and we have no visitors. Our garden is a closed paradise, which the devil can't enter to tempt us.'

He smiled as he spoke, for he was really amusing himself at the Abbé's expense. The latter had slowly brought his eyes to bear upon the group formed by his landlord's family under the window. He gazed down there for a moment; then looked round upon the old-fashioned garden with its beds of vegetables edged with borders of box; then again turned his eyes towards Monsieur Rastoil's pretentious grounds; and last of all, as though he wanted to get the plan of the whole surroundings into his head, directed his attention to the garden of the Sub-Prefecture. There was nothing to be seen here but a large central lawn, a gently undulating carpet of grass, with clusters of evergreen shrubs, and some tall thickly-foliaged chestnut trees which gave a park-like appearance to this patch of ground hemmed in by the neighbouring houses.

Abbé Faujas glanced under the chestnut-trees, and at last remarked:

'These gardens are quite lively. There are some people, too, in the one on the left.' Mouret raised his eyes.

'Oh, yes!' he said unconcernedly, 'it's like that every afternoon. They are the friends of Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies, our sub-prefect. In the summer-time they meet in the evenings in the same way round the basin on the left, which you can't see from here. Ah! so Monsieur de Condamin has got back! That fine old man there, who is so well preserved and has such a bright colour; he is our conservator of rivers and forests; a jovial old fellow, who is constantly to be seen, gloved and tightly breeched, on horseback. And the tales he can tell, too! He doesn't belong to this neighbourhood, and he has lately married a very young woman. However, that's fortunately no business of mine!'

He bent his head again as he heard Désirée, who was playing with Serge, break out into one of her childish laughs. But the Abbé, whose face was now slightly flushed, recalled his attention by asking:

'Is that the sub-prefect, that fat gentleman with the white tie?'

This question seemed to amuse Mouret exceedingly.

'Oh, no!' he replied, with a laugh. 'It is very evident that you don't know Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies. He isn't forty yet; he's a tall, handsome, very distinguished-looking young man. That fat gentleman is Doctor Porquier, the fashionable medical man of Plassans. He is a very well-to-do man, I can assure you, and he has only one trouble, his son Guillaume. Do you see those two people sitting on the bench with their backs towards us? They are Monsieur Paloque, the assistant judge, and his wife. They are the ugliest couple in the town. It is difficult to say which is the worse-looking, the husband or the wife. Fortunately they have no children.'

Mouret began to laugh more loudly; he was growing excited, and kept on striking the window-rail.

'I can never look at the assemblies in those grounds,' he continued, motioning with his head, first towards Monsieur Rastoil's garden and then towards the sub-prefect's, 'without being highly amused. You don't take any interest in politics, Monsieur l'Abbé, or I could tell you some things which would tickle you immensely. Rightly or wrongly, I myself pass for a republican. Business matters take me a good deal about the country; I am a friend of the peasantry, and people have even talked about proposing me for the Council-General--in short, I am a well-known man. Well, on my right here, at Monsieur Rastoil's, we have the cream of the Legitimists, and on the left, at the Sub-Prefecture, we have the big-wigs of the Empire. And so, you see, my poor old-fashioned garden, my little happy nook, lies between two hostile camps. I am continually afraid lest they should begin throwing stones at each other, for the stones, you see, might very well fall into my garden.'

Mouret appeared to be quite delighted with this witticism and drew closer to the Abbé, like some old gossip who is just going to launch out into a long story.

'Plassans is a very curious place from a political point of view. The Coup d'État succeeded here because the town is conservative. But first of all it is Legitimist and Orleanist; so much so, indeed, that at the outset of the Empire it wanted to dictate conditions. As its claims were disregarded, the town grew annoyed and went over to the opposition; yes, Monsieur l'Abbé, to the opposition. Last year we elected for our deputy the Marquis de Lagrifoul, an old nobleman of mediocre abilities, but one whose election was a very bitter pill for the Sub-Prefecture.--Ah, look! there is Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies! He is with the mayor, Monsieur Delangre.'

The Abbé glanced keenly in the direction indicated by Mouret. The sub-prefect, a very dark man, was smiling beneath his waxed moustaches. He was irreproachably dressed, and preserved a demeanour which suggested both that of a fashionable officer and that of a good-natured diplomatist. The mayor was by his side, talking and gesticulating rapidly. He was a short man, with square shoulders, and a sunken face that was rather Punch-like in appearance. He seemed to be garrulously inclined.

'Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies,' continued Mouret, 'had felt so confident of the return of the official candidate that the result of the election nearly made him ill. It was very amusing. On the evening of the election, the garden of the Sub-Prefecture remained as dark and gloomy as a cemetery, while in the Rastoils' grounds there were lamps and candles burning under the trees, and joyous laughter and a perfect uproar of triumph. Our people don't let things be seen from the street, but they throw off all restraint and give full vent to their feelings in their gardens. Oh, yes! I see singular things sometimes, though I don't say anything about them.'

He checked himself for a moment, as though he was unwilling to say more, but his gossiping propensities were too strong for him.

'I wonder what course they will now take at the Sub-Prefecture?' he continued. 'They will never get their candidate elected again. They don't understand the people about here, and besides they are very weak. I was told that Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies was to have had a prefecture if the election had gone off all right. Ah! he will remain a sub-prefect for a long time yet, I imagine! What stratagem will they devise, I wonder, to overthrow the Marquis? They will certainly have recourse to one of some kind or other; they will do their best somehow to effect the conquest of Plassans.'