Plassans

“ About the middle of February a deplorable occurrence threw Plassans into dismay. It was discovered that a number [Pg 81] of young girls, scarcely more than children, had fallen into evil courses while loafing about the streets, and it was even rumoured that some persons of high position in the town would be compromised. For a week Marthe was very painfully affected by this discovery, which caused the greatest sensation. She was acquainted with one of the unfortunate girls, who was the niece of her cook, Rose; and she could not think of the poor little creature without shuddering. ”

“ And your poor mother nearly died of fright. Everybody who has been here while you have been ill, those ladies and gentlemen, they all said to me as I let them out, "It is a good riddance for Plassans." A place is always on the alert when a man like that is free to go about as he likes.'
Marthe listened to this stream of words with dilated eyes and pale face. She had let her spoon fall from her hand, and she gazed out of the window in front of her as though some dreadful vision rising from behind the fruit-trees in the garden was filling her with terror.
'Les Tulettes! ”

“ One last word, my dear sir. The person in Paris is most anxious for your success, and it is for that reason that I am interesting myself in you. Well, then, don't make people frightened of you—shun you; be pleasant, and make yourself agreeable to the ladies. Remember that particularly. You must make yourself agreeable to the ladies if you want to get Plassans on your side.'
The elder Mademoiselle Rastoil had just finished her song with a final flourish, and the guests were softly applauding her. Madame Rougon left the Abbé to go and congratulate [Pg 67] the singer. ”

“ I still have letters of yours, Olympe, letters in which you beseech me to rescue you from your misery by bringing you over to Plassans. Now that you are here and your livelihood is assured, you break out into fresh demands.'
'Stuff!' Trouche impudently interrupted. 'You sent for us here because you wanted us. I have learned to my cost not to believe in anyone's fine talk. I have allowed my wife to speak, but women can never come to the point. In two words, my good friend, you are making a mistake in keeping us cooped up like dogs, who are only brought out in the hour of danger. ”

“ Overthrow yourself, if you like; I wash my hands of you. I assisted you, not for your own sake, but to please our friends in Paris. They wrote to me and asked me to pilot you, and I did so. But understand this, I will never allow you to come the master over me. It's all very well for little Péqueur, and simple Rastoil, but we are not at all afraid of you, and we mean to remain the masters. My husband conquered Plassans before you did, and I warn you that we shall keep our conquest.'
From that day forward there was great coldness between the Rougons and Abbé Faujas. ”

“ She herself certainly had no great affection for Plassans, against which she owed a grudge for forty years' wretchedness, and which had been bursting with jealousy of her ever since the Coup d'État.
'It is I who wear the cassock,' she said sometimes, with a smile; 'you carry yourself like a gendarme, my dear Curé.'
The priest showed himself particularly assiduous in his attendance at the Young Men's Club. He listened with an indulgent air to the young men talking politics, and told them, with a shake of his head, that honesty was all that was necessary. ”

“ Péqueur used to chaff me, Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies, our sub-prefect; you know him, don't you? Well, then I crossed the Cours Sauvaire, and took rooms on the Place. At Plassans, you must know, the people have no existence, and the aristocracy are a dreadful lot that it's quite impossible to get on with; the only tolerable folks are a few parvenus, some delightful persons who are ready to incur any expense in entertaining their official acquaintances. ”

“ It was a Tuesday, the day of the weekly dinner. Finally Bourrette entered Monsieur Rastoil's house, and Faujas went off in his quiet fashion to his own rooms. Mouret stood for awhile thinking. What could be Abbé [Pg 49] Faujas's reason for refusing to go to Monsieur Rastoil's? All the clergy of Saint-Saturnin's dined there, Abbé Fenil, Abbé Surin, and all the others. There was not a single priest in Plassans who had not enjoyed the fresh air by the fountain in the garden there. The new curate's refusal to go seemed a very extraordinary thing. ”

“ They will certainly have recourse to one of some kind or other; they will do their best somehow to effect the conquest of Plassans.'
He turned his eyes upon the Abbé, at whom he had ceased to look for the last few moments, and he suddenly checked himself as he caught sight of the priest's eager face, his glistening eyes, and his ears that seemed to have grown bigger. All Mouret's bourgeois prudence then reasserted itself, and he felt that he had said too much. So he hastily added:
'But, after all, I really know nothing about it. People tell so many ridiculous stories. ”

“ The Trouches on their side had resumed their Tuesday watchings behind their curtains, while Madame Faujas and Rose craned their heads from the doorway [Pg 209] and admired the graceful manner in which his reverence received the chief people of Plassans.
'Ah, madame!' said the cook, 'it is very easy to see that he is a distinguished man. Look at him bowing to the sub-prefect. I admire his reverence the most; though, indeed, the sub-prefect is a fine man. Why do you never go into the garden to them? ”

“ He has been telling me all through the night that you were the only man of courage in the diocese. For more than a year now he has been getting weaker and weaker, and not a single Plassans priest has dared to go and grasp his hand; while you, a stranger, who scarcely knew him, you have spent an afternoon with him every week. The tears came into his eyes just now as he was speaking of you; you must lose no time, my friend.'
Abbé Faujas went up to his room for a moment, while Abbé Bourrette paced impatiently and hopelessly about the passage ”

“ They remained talking together the whole morning. Abbé Faujas persuaded the Bishop to undertake a visitation of his diocese, and said he would go with him and prompt him as to [Pg 252] what he should say. It would be necessary to summon all the rural deans so that the priests of the smallest villages might receive their instructions. There would be no difficulty in all this, for the clergy would act as they were told. The most delicate task would be in Plassans itself, in the district of Saint-Marc. ”

“ Marthe thought the idea an admirable one, and she gradually became so prepossessed in its favour that she could talk of nothing else than the necessity of founding a similar institution at Plassans.
'We might put it under the patronage of the Virgin,' Abbé Faujas suggested. 'But there are such difficulties in the way! You have no idea of the trouble there is in effecting the least good work! ”

“ He belongs to no party, and we could all unite in supporting him. I am no fonder of the Empire than you are, but it would be childish to go on sending deputies to the Chamber for no other purpose than to obstruct and rail at the government. Plassans is suffering from such tactics. What we want is a man with a good head for business, a local man who can look after the interests of the place.'
'Hot! Hot!' now cried Aurélie in her fluty voice. ”

“ You would scarcely fancy here that you were in Plassans. It is the only pleasant and amusing drawing-room in the whole place, because it is the only one where all shades of opinion elbow one another. Péqueur, too, has very pleasant assemblies. It must cost the Rougons a lot of money, and they haven't the public purse behind them like Péqueur has ”

“ For a moment, though Guillaume had reached out his hand, he prevented him from taking it, but then he allowed him to have it, laughing loudly the while. The paper proved to be a most detailed statement by Doctor Porquier with respect to the mental condition of François Mouret, householder, of Plassans.
'Are they going to shut him up, then?' asked Guillaume, handing back the paper.
'That's no business of yours, my boy,' replied Trouche, who had now become distrustful again. 'This paper here is for his wife. I am merely a friend who is glad to do a [Pg 247] service. She will act as she pleases. ”

“ Think what gratitude Plassans would owe us if we could only bring such an undertaking to a successful issue!'
'Of course, of course!' Madame Paloque murmured, quite delighted at Marthe's insinuating words.
'I am sure you are wrong in fancying that you are without power to assist us. It is very well known that Monsieur Paloque is a favourite at the Sub-Prefecture; and between ourselves I may say that he is intended to succeed Monsieur Rastoil. Ah, now! don't try to depreciate yourselves; your [Pg 90] merits are known, and it is no use your trying to hide them. ”

“ From the very horizon, from the distant rocks, the ploughed land, the meadows, the copses, the smallest bits of brushwood, human voices seemed to come. The great amphitheatre, extending from the river to Plassans, the gigantic cascade over which the bluish moonlight flowed, was as if filled with innumerable invisible people cheering the insurgents; and in the depths of the Viorne, along the waters streaked with mysterious metallic reflections, there was not a dark nook but seemed to conceal human beings, who took up each refrain with yet greater passion. ”

“ The priest lightly shrugged his shoulders. He knew quite well that what hostility he still met with came from the clergy. Abbé Fenil kept Monseigneur Rousselot trembling beneath his rough, hard will. However, when the grand-vicar, about the end of March, left Plassans on a short holiday, Abbé Faujas profited by his absence to make several calls upon the Bishop. Abbé Surin, the prelate's private secretary, reported that the 'wretched man' had been closeted for hours with his lordship, who had manifested an atrocious temper after each interview. ”

“ He spares no one, and he scandalises every honourable person. Then—I really hardly know how to tell you—but he has contracted, it is said, a scarcely creditable marriage. You see that young woman there, who is not thirty years old, and who has such a crowd around her? Well, he brought her to Plassans one day from no one knows where. From the time of her arrival she has been all-powerful here. It is she who has got her husband and Doctor Porquier decorated. She has influential friends in Paris. But I beg of you not to repeat any of this. Madame de Condamin is very amiable and charitable. ”

“ She wished to die. Her thoughts flew back to the old well and the broken hayrakes at Plassans.
"The young girl looked fresh, fair, innocent 'Heloise!' murmured Silvere. The children exchanged a long, clinging kiss. It seemed to unite their souls.
"The young girl was swooning. Her head sank on the young man's shoulder. There was nothing in space except these warm kisses on her neck. Silvere enfolded her. 'Ah, my God!'"
"Say, young fellow," said a youth with a tilted cigar to the clerk with a blonde moustache, "where th'll is Billie Carcart's joint round here? Know?" ”

“ Monsieur de Bourdeu was drawing a face on the gravel of the walk with the tip of his walking-stick.
'Yes,' he said, carelessly, 'I have heard these things mentioned. But it is very unlikely that a minister of religion would allow himself to play such a part; and besides, to the honour of Plassans, I think it may be said that he would have failed completely. There is no one here who could be bought.'
'Oh! it's all stuff and nonsense, that!' cried the presiding judge, shrugging his shoulders. 'A town can't be turned inside out like an old coat. ”

“ Then they asked her what ladies had consented to join the committee. The mention of Madame de Condamin's name left them silent, but when they learned that Madame Rougon had excused herself from joining, they became more amiable.
Madame Delangre had received Marthe in her husband's private room. She was a pale little woman whose dissoluteness had remained a matter of legend in Plassans.
'Indeed,' she ended by saying, 'there is nothing I should [Pg 88] like to see better. It would be a school of virtue for the youth of the working-classes, and it would be the means of saving many weak souls. ”

“ Then Rougon began to protest. Jules had the most promising future before him, said he; they would simply ruin his career. But the Marchioness made a gesture of impatience, and began to explain her reasons with more animation than her husband had shown. 'It is not for us, Monsieur Rougon, to judge you,' said she, 'but there are certain traditions in our family. Jules must not be mixed up in any abominable persecution of the Church. Everyone at Plassans is amazed already. We should embroil ourselves with the whole nobility of the neighbourhood.'
Rougon at once understood what was amiss. ”

“ The funniest part of the business is that Delangre himself didn't get on very well with his wife about the same time; and people say that the father of his daughter is an artist very well known in Plassans.'
Abbé Faujas had considered it his duty to assume a very serious expression on being made the recipient of such confidences as these, and he even closed his eyes and seemed to [Pg 61] hear nothing; while Monsieur de Condamin went on, as though in justification of himself:
'I allow myself to speak in this way of Delangre, as I know him so well. He is a wonderfully clever, pushing fellow. ”

“ At sixty years of age Pascal was so fresh and vigorous that, though his hair and beard were white, he might have been mistaken for a young man with powdered locks. He had lived for seventeen years at La Souleiade, near Plassans, with his niece Clotilde and his old servant Martine, having amassed a little fortune, which was sufficient for his needs. He had devoted his life to the study of heredity, finding typical examples in his own family. He brought up Clotilde without imposing on her his own philosophic creed, even allowing Martine to take her to church regularly. ”