The Conquest of Plassans (Les Rougon-Macquart Book 4) (14 page)

The judge nodded his head as if in assent. The couple exchanged a thin smile, and Marthe was embarrassed in the face of these two appalling creatures, with their pale, ravaged faces, sick with worry, colluding so ably in this comedy of hypocritical resignation. Luckily she remembered her mother’s advice.

‘But I’d been counting on you,’ she said, in her most winning tones. ‘We shall have all these ladies, Madame Delangre, Madame Rastoil, Madame de Condamin; but, between you and me, these ladies will only be there nominally. I should be glad to find a most respectable, committed person who would take the project to heart, and I had thought that you would want to be that person… Just think how grateful Plassans will be to us if we bring such a project to fruition!’

‘That’s true, that’s true,’ murmured Madame Paloque, delighted by these blandishments.

‘And also you are wrong to say you don’t have any influence. It’s well known that Monsieur Paloque is very highly thought of at the sub-prefecture. Between ourselves he is expected to succeed Monsieur Rastoil. Don’t try to deny it; your merits are well known, you can’t hide them. And surely this is an excellent opportunity for Madame Paloque to come out of the shadows and show us what an intelligent and good-hearted woman she is.’

The judge was very nervous. He blinked at his wife.

‘Madame Paloque didn’t say no,’ he said.

‘No, that’s true,’ said the latter. ‘Since you truly need me, that is enough for me. Perhaps I’m doing something silly, I shall be giving myself a lot of trouble and never get any reward for it. Ask Monsieur Paloque about all the good we’ve done on the quiet. See where that has got us… Never mind, we are as we are, it can’t be helped. We shall be fools to the very end… Count on me, my dear Madame Mouret.’

The Paloques got up and Marthe took her leave, thanking them for their support. As she stopped a moment on the landing to pull
out the frill on her dress which had caught between the banisters and the steps, she could hear them speaking animatedly behind the door.

‘They are asking you because they need you,’ said the judge acidly. ‘You will be doing all the donkey work.’

‘Goodness!’ replied his wife. ‘Don’t you think they’ll pay for that along with everything else?’

When Marthe finally got home it was almost eight o’clock. Mouret had been waiting supper for more than half an hour. She was fearing some terrible scene. But when she changed and came downstairs she found her husband sitting astride a chair, tapping out the retreat with the tips of his fingers on the tablecloth. He was merciless in his teasing and mockery.

‘I thought you would be sleeping in a confessional tonight… Now you are a churchgoer you’ll have to tell me in advance, and I’ll have supper out when the priests invite you round.’

All through dinner he cracked jokes like that. Marthe suffered more than if he had been cross with her. Two or three times she threw him a beseeching look, she begged him to leave her alone. But it only made him worse. Octave and Désirée laughed, Serge kept quiet, taking his mother’s side. At dessert Rose, in a lather, came to say that Monsieur Delangre was there and wanted to speak to Madame.

‘Aha, so you are consorting with the Establishment now, as well, are you?’ Mouret mocked.

Marthe went to receive the mayor in the drawing room. Very charming—almost gallant—he told her he wouldn’t let another day go by before congratulating her on her noble idea. Madame Delangre was a little lacking in confidence and was wrong not to say yes straight away. He had come to tell Marthe on her behalf that she would be very flattered to be part of the committee of patron ladies for the Work of the Virgin. As for himself, he would contribute as much as he could to the success of a project that was so useful and so moral.

Marthe went with him as far as the door and while Rose was lifting the lamp to light the way, the mayor added:

‘Tell Monsieur Faujas I should be delighted to talk to him, if he would be so good as to call. Since he has seen an establishment of this sort in Besançon, he could give me valuable information. I would like the town to pay for the building at least. Goodbye, dear Madame. My compliments to Monsieur Mouret, I don’t want to disturb him.’

At eight, when the priest and his mother came downstairs, Mouret contented himself with the joking remark:

‘So you have carried off my wife today? Don’t ruin her, though, don’t make her into a saint.’

Then he threw himself into his game of cards. He had to take a terrible revenge on Madame Faujas, a revenge all the greater because of losing to her for the last three days. Marthe was at liberty to tell the priest about the progress she had made. She was happy as a little girl, still excited by the afternoon that she had spent out of her house. The priest made her go over some details again; he promised to go and see Monsieur Delangre, although he would have preferred to remain completely out of the picture.

‘You were wrong to mention my name straight away like that,’ he said to her brusquely, seeing her so excited and open with him. ‘But you are like all women, even the noblest causes are ruined when they get hold of them.’

She looked at him, taken by surprise at this unkind remark, and drew back, with the same fear she still sometimes felt when she saw him wearing his soutane. It seemed as if iron hands were pressing down on her shoulders and bending her. For each and every priest Woman is the enemy. When he saw that she had been upset by his over-severe admonition, he softened and murmured:

‘I’m only thinking of the success of your noble project. I’m afraid of compromising its outcome, if I get involved. You know I am not liked in the town.’

When she saw his humility, she assured him that he was wrong, that all the ladies had spoken of him in glowing terms. They knew he was looking after his mother, that he lived a quiet life, deserving of everyone’s praise. Then, till eleven, they chatted about the grand plan, going over it time and again in fine detail. It was a delightful evening.

Between two hands of cards Mouret had picked up a little of the conversation.

‘So,’ he said as they were going to bed, ‘the pair of you are going to wipe out Vice… A laudable scheme indeed.’

Three days later the committee of patron ladies was inaugurated. These ladies having elected Marthe as their president, she made haste to designate Madame Paloque treasurer, having secretly consulted her mother. Both made every effort, drafting circulars, busying themselves with a thousand domestic details. Meanwhile Madame
de Condamin went from the sub-prefect to the bishop and from the bishop to other influential people, graciously expounding the ‘blessed project she had conceived’, wearing her fancy clothes, garnering charitable donations and promises of support. As for Madame Rastoil, she piously told the priests she entertained on Tuesdays how the idea of saving so many poor children from a life of vice had come to her, at the same time contenting herself with giving Abbé Bourrette the responsibility for making overtures to the Sisters of Saint-Joseph, to ascertain whether they wanted to be of service to the project. Madame Delangre, for her part, confided to those who held public office that the town would owe this establishment to her husband, who had already graciously allowed the committee to meet and confer in a room in the town hall whenever they liked. Plassans was buzzing with this pious furore. Soon the talk was only of the Work of the Virgin. Then there was a veritable explosion of acclaim, with the friends of each patron lady joining in, and each group working for the good of the whole enterprise. Subscription lists covering the three districts were filled within a week. As the
Gazette de Plassans
published these lists, along with the amount of money donated, people’s pride was pricked and the most prominent families rivalled each other in their generosity.

In the meantime in the middle of all the fuss the name of Abbé Faujas frequently recurred. Although every patron lady claimed the original idea for herself, it was generally assumed the priest had brought this famous scheme with him from Besançon. And Monsieur Delangre made this quite plain in the town council session where they voted to buy the building the architect of the diocese had specified as being exactly right for establishing the Work of the Virgin. The mayor had had a very long conversation with the priest the previous day and they had separated after exchanging lengthy handshakes. The secretary of the town hall had even heard them calling each other ‘dear Monsieur’. That worked a revolution in the priest’s favour. From then on he had supporters who defended him against attacks by his enemies.

The Mourets moreover had conferred respectability upon Abbé Faujas. With Marthe as his patron, and being designated as the promoter of a charitable work whose paternity he modestly refused, he no longer had that self-effacing way of former days when he kept close to the walls as he walked along the street. He opened his new robe out
to the sun, and strode forth in the middle of the pavement. From the Rue Balande to the Rue Saturnin he already had to acknowledge numerous doffing caps. One Sunday Madame Condamin had stopped him as he was coming out of vespers on the Place de l’Évêché, and had kept him talking for a good half-hour.

‘Well, Monsieur l’Abbé,’ said Mouret with a laugh, ‘so you give off an odour of sanctity now… And to think that six months ago I was the only one to stick up for you!… However, in your shoes I would be careful. The bishop is still not on your side.’

The priest shrugged slightly. He was well aware that the hostility he still encountered came from the clergy. Abbé Fenil with his iron will had Monsignor Rousselot shaking in his shoes. Towards the end of March, as the head vicar was about to go on a little journey, Abbé Faujas appeared to be taking advantage of his absence to make several visits to the bishop. Abbé Surin, his private secretary, recounted that ‘this devilish fellow’ was closeted with Monsignor for hours at a time and the latter was in a terrible mood after these long conversations. When Abbé Fenil came back, Abbé Faujas ceased to visit, vanishing again when he was there. But the bishop was still worried; it was obvious that some catastrophe had occurred to disturb the usual carefree well-being he enjoyed as a priest. At a dinner he gave for his clergy he was particularly nice to Abbé Faujas, who was, after all, only a humble vicar of Saint-Saturnin. Abbé Fenil’s thin lips grew even thinner. He had to suppress his anger when the ladies who came to his confessional kindly asked after his health.

Abbé Faujas then grew completely serene. He continued living his life of austerity, but became more charming and at ease. Then one Tuesday evening his triumph was put beyond doubt. He was at home, savouring the first warm air of spring at his window, when Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies’s guests walked down the garden and waved to him from a distance. One of them was Madame de Condamin who pushed familiarity so far as to wave her handkerchief. But at the same time across the way those visiting Monsieur Rastoil were sitting in front of the fountain on rustic benches. Monsieur Delangre was leaning against the terrace of the sub-prefecture, the slope permitting him to watch what was going on at the judge’s residence on the other side of the Mourets’ garden.

‘You’ll see, they won’t even deign to notice him,’ he murmured to himself.

He was wrong. Abbé Fenil, turning his head as if by chance, doffed his hat. All the priests there did likewise and Abbé Faujas acknowledged them in return. Then, looking at both parties to left and right in a leisurely fashion, he went away from the window, and closed his white curtains with a virtuous discretion.

CHAPTER 9

A
PRIL
was a mild month. In the evening after dinner the children left the dining room to go and play in the garden. As the heat was stifling at the back of the narrow room, Marthe and the priest later also went out on to the terrace. They sat a few feet away from the window, which was wide open, outside the harsh beam of the light on the tall box hedge. There they talked, as night came down, of a thousand matters concerning the Work of the Virgin. This constant concern with charity imparted a sweeter flavour still to their conversation. Up above, between the enormous pear trees of Monsieur Rastoil and the dark chestnuts of the sub-prefecture, stretched a wide expanse of sky. The children were running around under the arbour at the other end of the garden, while the raised voices of Mouret and Madame Faujas could be heard bickering in the dining room as, left alone, they concentrated on their game.

From time to time Marthe, languorous and brimming with an emotion that made the words linger on her lips, would pause, seeing the golden flare of a shooting star; she would throw her head back a little and look at the sky with a smile.

‘Another soul from Purgatory is on its way to Paradise,’ she murmured.

When the priest said nothing, she added:

‘Charming ideas, Monsieur l’Abbé, all these simple beliefs! If only we could stay children for ever.’

Now in the evenings she no longer mended the family’s linen. They ought to have had a lamp lit on the terrace, but she preferred the darkness, the deep warmth of the night, and it made her happy. In any case she went out nearly every day, and that tired her greatly. After dinner she did not even have enough energy to take up her needle. Rose had to set about mending the clothes, since Mouret said that all his socks had holes in.

Marthe was indeed very busy. Apart from the sessions on the committee she presided over, she had a host of worries, people to visit, to supervise. Of course she delegated to Madame Paloque some clerical tasks and some minor responsibilities, but she was so eager to see the project finally getting under way that she went into town two or
three times a week, to ensure the workers were giving of their best. As things always seemed to her to be progressing too slowly, she hurried to Saint-Saturnin to find the architect, and scold him, begging him not to leave his workmen unsupervised; she was even jealous of the operations he was carrying out in the chapel, and thought that the work there was coming on a great deal more rapidly than hers. Monsieur Lieutaud simply smiled and said everything would be finished at the time agreed.

Abbé Faujas also declared that nothing was being done. He urged her not to let the architect rest for a minute. So Marthe ended up going to Saint-Saturnin every day. She went in with her head full of figures, her thoughts busy with walls that had to be knocked down and rebuilt. The coolness of the church calmed her a little. She took the holy water, crossed herself automatically, in the same way as everyone else. The beadles got to recognize her and said hello. She herself became familiar with all the different chapels, the sacristy where she sometimes went to find Abbé Faujas, the long corridors, the little passage she had to take through the cloisters. After a month there wasn’t a corner of Saint-Saturnin she wasn’t familiar with. Occasionally she would have to wait for the architect. She sat down in a chapel apart, to draw breath after all her hurrying, rehearsing from memory the thousand requests she’d promised herself she would make to Monsieur Lieutaud. Then the great tremulous silence that emanated from the stained glass windows enveloped her and cast her into a vague and very sweet meditation. She was beginning to love the high arches, the stark bare walls, the altars decked with their cloths, the chairs arranged in regular rows. As soon as the padded door closed softly behind her, it was as if she had a sensation of supreme repose, forgetting the irritations of the world, her whole being annihilated in the peace of the earth.

‘It’s so nice at Saint-Saturnin!’ she let slip one evening in front of her husband, after a hot, thundery day.

‘Do you want us to go and sleep there?’ laughed Mouret.

Marthe was hurt. The idea of it being a purely physical well-being that she felt in the church struck her as unseemly. After that, whenever she went to Saint-Saturnin she was vaguely worried and, trying to remain unaffected by it, entered the church in the way she entered the vast rooms in the town hall; but in spite of herself she was shaken to the core. She suffered, but she returned willingly to her suffering.

Abbé Faujas seemed to be unaware of the slow awakening that was animating her being more and more each day. He remained for her a man who was very busy and obliging; God didn’t enter into it and nor did his priestly character ever intrude. However, occasionally she disturbed him when he was in the middle of conducting a funeral. He came in a surplice, chatted for a moment standing between two pillars, bringing with him a vague scent of incense and candle wax. It was often a bill for a mason or something required by the carpenter. He pointed out the exact figures and went off to attend to the dead man, while she lingered in the empty nave, where a beadle was extinguishing the candles. When Abbé Faujas bowed before the high altar as he crossed the church with her, she had got into the habit of bowing as well, at first through simple respect. Then this gesture became automatic and she made this gesture even when she was by herself. Until that point, the bow was the only sign of devotion she gave. Two or three times she arrived without realizing on days of great ceremony; but when she heard the sound of the organ and saw the church full, she escaped in a panic and didn’t dare cross the threshold.

‘Well!’ Mouret asked her often, in his jeering way. ‘When will you be taking First Communion?’

He continued to bombard her with his jokes. She never responded; she fixed her eyes on him, eyes in which there blazed a little flame whenever he went too far. Gradually he grew more embittered and couldn’t find it in him to jeer. After a month he got cross.

‘You are crazy to get mixed up with the damned clergy!’ he grumbled, on the days he found his supper wasn’t ready. ‘You’re always out these days, we can’t keep you at home for a minute… I shouldn’t care, if we all weren’t suffering because of it. But my underwear isn’t mended, the table’s not even laid at seven o’clock, Rose doesn’t listen to us any more, the house is upside down.’

And he picked up a cloth that was on the floor, tightened a forgotten bottle of wine, wiped away the dust on the furniture with his fingers, whipping up his anger more and more as he raised his voice:

‘Next thing I know I’ll be sweeping the floor, if you ask me, and putting on an apron!… I swear you wouldn’t mind if I did! You’d let me do the housework, and you wouldn’t even notice. Do you realize I’ve spent two hours this morning tidying this cupboard? No, my dear wife, it can’t carry on like this.’

At other times disputes broke out on the subject of the children.
When he came home, Mouret had found Désirée ‘filthy as a little pig’ on her own in the garden, stretched out flat in front of an ants’ hole, to see what the ants were doing in the soil.

‘It’s a good thing you are not sleeping away from home!’ he bawled at his wife, as soon as he saw her. ‘Come and look at your daughter. I told her not to change her dress, so that you can see just what a spectacle she is!’

The little girl was in floods of tears as her father twirled her round and round.

‘What do you think? A pretty sight, isn’t she?… That’s what children get up to when you leave them on their own. She’s not to blame, it’s not her fault. You said you didn’t want to leave her for five minutes, she would set the house alight… Well yes, if she does that, it will all go up in smoke and serve you right.’

Then, when Rose had taken Désirée off, he went on at her for hours:

‘You live for other people’s children now. You can’t look after your own. And for good reason… Oh, how stupid you are! Going out of your way for a lot of little hussies who make fun of you and carry on in every corner of the ramparts! Go and take a walk one evening on the Mail! You’ll see them with their skirts up over their heads, these little tarts you are placing under the protection of the Virgin…’

He paused for breath and went on:

‘At least take care of Désirée before you go and pick girls up out of the gutter. She’s got holes in her frock as big as fists. One of these days we shall find her in the garden with some limb broken… Not to mention Octave or Serge, although I should like to know you are at home when they get back from school. But they invent devilish tricks too. Yesterday they cracked two paving stones in the terrace letting off firecrackers… I’m telling you that if you don’t stay at home we shall find the house in ruins one of these days.’

Marthe apologized briefly. She had to go out. Mouret, with his jocular common sense, had spoken the truth. The household was going to the bad. This place where the sun had once gone down on blessed peace and quiet was becoming noisy, abandoned, full of unruly children, paternal bad temper, and maternal indifference. In the evenings at supper everyone ate badly and picked fights. Rose did what she liked. The cook was in any case on Madame’s side.

Things got so bad that Mouret complained bitterly about Marthe
when he met his mother-in-law, although he sensed the pleasure he caused the old lady when he recounted his domestic problems to her.

‘You astonish me,’ said Félicité with a smile. ‘Marthe used to be afraid of you. I even thought she was too weak and obedient. A woman must not be afraid of her husband.’

‘Well yes!’ cried Mouret, in despair. ‘She would have buried herself in the ground to avoid a quarrel. One look was enough. She did everything I asked. Now, quite the opposite. Even if I shout at her she does exactly what she pleases. She doesn’t say anything, it’s true, doesn’t defy me, but it will come to that…’

Hypocritically Félicité responded:

‘I’ll speak to Marthe if you like. But she might be hurt. This sort of thing should remain between a man and his wife… I’m not worried by it: you will no doubt be able to recover the domestic harmony you so prided yourself on.’

Mouret, eyes cast down, shook his head. He went on:

‘No, no, I know what it’ll be like. I’ll shout and shan’t get anywhere. I am weak as a child underneath… People are wrong to suppose I’ve always wielded the stick with my wife. If she’s often done as I wanted it’s because she didn’t care, it was all the same to her whether she did one thing or another. She may seem placid, but she’s very obstinate… Well, I shall try to win her round.’

Then, looking up again:

‘I shouldn’t have told you all that; don’t mention it to anyone, will you?’

Next day when Marthe went to see her mother, the latter said to her stiffly:

‘You are wrong, my dear, to behave like that towards your husband… I saw him yesterday, he is very cross with you. I know he is ridiculous in many ways but that’s no reason to let your marriage suffer.’

Marthe stared at her mother.

‘Oh, so he’s complaining about me,’ she said shortly. ‘He should hold his tongue at least. I don’t complain about him.’

And she changed the subject. But Madame Rougon brought her back to talking about her husband, by asking for news of Abbé Faujas.

‘Do you think perhaps Mouret doesn’t like the abbé and is sulking about him?’

Marthe was taken by surprise.

‘What an idea!’ she said. ‘Why ever do you think my husband
doesn’t like Abbé Faujas? He’s never said anything to me which could make me suppose that. He hasn’t said anything to you either, has he?… No, you are mistaken. If his mother didn’t come down for her game of piquet he would go up to their room and fetch them.’

And it was true that Mouret never said a word against Abbé Faujas. Sometimes his sarcasm was a little too forceful. He included him in the teasing remarks he was torturing his wife with, about religion. But that was all.

One morning he shouted to Marthe as he was shaving:

‘I say, my love, if you ever go to confession, make the abbé your confessor. Then at least we’ll keep your sins in the family.’

Abbé Faujas took confession on Tuesdays and Fridays. Those days Marthe avoided going to Saint-Saturnin, saying she didn’t want to bother him. But it was more that she was avoiding the awkward embarrassment she felt when she found him in his surplice, in that muslin garment that gave off the faint odour of the sacristy. One Friday she accompanied Madame de Condamin to see how far they had progressed with the buildings for the Work of the Virgin. The workers were just finishing the façade. Madame de Condamin exclaimed in indignation, finding the decoration paltry and without distinction. They should have put two slim columns with an ogive, something both youthful and religious, a piece of architecture that would be a fitting tribute to the committee of patron ladies. Marthe, unsure, gradually came round to her point of view, and finally admitted that it did not look very nice. Then, at the insistence of her companion, she promised to have a word that very day with Monsieur Lieutaud. To keep her promise, she went by way of the cathedral on her way home. It was four o’clock, the architect had just left. When she asked for Abbé Faujas, a sacristan answered that he was taking confession in the Sainte-Aurélie chapel. Only then did she remember what day it was, and murmured that she wouldn’t wait. But as she was leaving, she walked past the Sainte-Aurélie chapel and thought it was possible the priest had seen her. The truth was that she felt overcome by a strange debility. She sat outside the chapel against the grille. She did not move.

The sky was grey, the twilight slowly pervaded the church. In the already-dark aisles gleamed the starry flicker of a lamp, the gold base of a chandelier, the silver gown of a Virgin. And entering the great nave, a pale ray of light was fading on the polished oak of the pews
and the stalls. Marthe had never until then experienced such a sense of deliverance. Her legs felt as if they were broken; her hands were so heavy she had to clasp them together on her lap in order not to feel the pain of their weight on her arms. She allowed herself to drift into a dreamlike state in which she could still see and hear, but all very gently and sweetly. The slight noises which echoed through the vault, a chair falling, the steps of someone arriving late to her devotions, filled her with tenderness, and took on a musical sonority that went straight to her heart. The last reflections of daylight, the shadows, creeping up and covering the pillars like dust sheets, took on for her the delicate and changing nuances of shot silk; her whole being went into a delicious swoon and in those depths she felt her soul melt, and die. Then everything around her was extinguished. She found perfect bliss in something ineffable.