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 heavy enough to burst it. I kept saying to myself, "The apron will certainly go this time," but it didn't. It is made of good strong material, the same kind of material as I wear myself. We made at least ten journeys backwards and forwards, and I felt as though my arms would fall off, but she only grumbled, and complained that we were getting on very slowly. I really believe, begging your pardon for mentioning it, that I heard her swear.'
Mouret appeared to be greatly amused.
'And the beds?' he asked.
'The beds, she made them too. It was quite a sight to see her turn the mattress over. It seemed to weigh nothing, I can tell you; she just took hold of it at one end and tossed it into the air as though it had been a feather. And yet she was very careful and particular with it all. She tucked in the folding-bed as carefully as though she were preparing a baby's cradle. She couldn't have laid the sheets with greater devotion if the Infant Jesus Himself had been going to sleep there. She put three out of the four blankets upon the folding-bed. And it was just the same with the pillows; she kept none for herself, but gave both to her son.'
'She is going to sleep on the floor, then?'
'In a corner, just like a dog! She threw a mattress on the floor of the other room and said that she'd sleep there more soundly than if she were in paradise. I couldn't persuade her to do anything to make herself more comfortable. She says that she is never cold, and that her head is much too hard to make her at all afraid of lying on the floor. I have taken them some sugar and some water, as madame told me. Oh! they really are the strangest people!'
Then Rose brought in the remainder of the dinner. That evening the Mourets lingered over their meal. They discussed the new tenants at great length. In their life, which went on with all the even regularity of clock-work, the arrival of these two strangers was a very exciting event. They talked about it as they would have done of some catastrophe in the neighbourhood, going into all that minuteness of detail which helps one to while away long nights in the country. Mouret was especially fond of the chattering gossip of a little provincial town. During dessert, as he rested his elbows on the table in the cool dining-room, he repeated for the tenth time with the self-satisfied air of a happy man:
'It certainly isn't a very handsome present that Besançon has made to Plassans! Did you notice the back of his cassock when he turned round? I shall be very much surprised if he is much run after by the pious folks here. He is too seedy and threadbare; and the pious folks like nice-looking priests.'
'He has a very gentle voice,' said Marthe, indulgently.
'Not when he is angry, at any rate,' Mouret replied. 'Didn't you hear him when he burst out on finding that the rooms were not furnished? He's a stern man, I'll be bound; not one of the sort, I should think, to go lounging in confessional-boxes. I shall be very curious to see how he sets about his furnishing to-morrow. But as long as he pays me, I don't much mind anything else. If he doesn't, I shall apply to Abbé Bourrette. It was with him that I made the bargain.'
The Mourets were not a devout family. The children themselves made fun of the Abbé and his mother. Octave burlesqued the old lady's way of craning out her neck to see to the end of the rooms, a performance which made Désirée laugh. After a time, however, Serge, who was of a more serious turn of mind, stood up for 'those poor people.'
As a rule, precisely at ten o'clock, if he was not playing at piquet, Mouret took up his candlestick and went off to bed, but that evening, when eleven o'clock struck, he was not yet feeling drowsy. Désirée had fallen asleep, with her head lying on Marthe's knees. The two lads had gone up to their room; and Mouret, left alone with his wife, still went on chattering.
'How old do you suppose he is?' he suddenly asked.
'Who?' replied Marthe, who was now beginning to feel very sleepy.
