Complete Works of Emile Zola (341 page)

‘He will fall, I’m sure,’ exclaimed the master-tanner, who had risen from his seat that he might keep Mouret longer in view.

When Mouret got to the end of the Cours Sauvaire, and passed in front of the Young Men’s Club, he was again greeted with the low laughs which had followed him since he had set foot out of doors. He could distinctly see Séverin Rastoil, who was standing at the door of the club, pointing him out to a group of young men. Clearly, he thought, it was him­self who was thus providing sport for the town. He bent his head and was seized with a kind of fear, which he could not explain to himself, as he hastily stepped past the houses. Just as he was about to turn into the Rue Canquoin, he heard a noise behind him, and, turning his head, he saw three lads following him; two of them were big, impudent-looking boys, while the third was a very little one, with a serious face. The latter was holding in his hand a dirty orange which he had picked out of the gutter. Mouret made his way along the Rue Canquoin, and then, crossing the Place des Récollets, he reached the Rue de la Banne. The lads were still following him.

‘Do you want your ears pulled?’ he called out, suddenly stepping up to them.

They dashed on one side, shouting and laughing, and made their escape on their hands and knees. Mouret turned very red, realising that he was an object of ridicule. He felt a perfect fear of crossing the Place of the Sub-Prefecture, and passing in front of the Rougons’ windows with a following of street-arabs, whom he could hear, increasing in numbers and boldness, behind him. As he went on, he was obliged to step out of his way to avoid his mother-in-law, who was returning from vespers with Madame de Condamin.

‘Wolf! Wolf!’ cried the lads.

Mouret, with perspiration breaking out on his brow, and his feet stumbling against the flagstones, overheard old Madame Rougon say to the wife of the conservator of rivers and forests:

‘See! there he is, the scoundrel! It is disgraceful; we can’t tolerate it much longer.’

Thereupon Mouret could no longer restrain himself from setting off at a run. With swinging arms and a look of distraction upon his face, he rushed into the Rue Balande while some ten or a dozen street-arabs dashed after him. It seemed to him as though all the shopkeepers of the Rue de la Banne, the market-women, the promenaders of the Cours, the young men from the club, the Rougons, the Condamins — all the people of Plassans, in fact — were surging onwards behind his back, breaking out into laughs and jeers, as he sped up the hilly street. The lads stamped and slid over the pavement, making indeed as much noise in that usually quiet neighbourhood as a pack of hounds might have made.

‘Catch him!’ they screamed.

‘Hie! What a scarecrow he looks in that overcoat of his!’

‘Some of you go round by the Rue Taravelle, and then you’ll nab him!’

‘Cut along! cut along as hard as you can go!’

Mouret, now quite frantic, made a desperate rush towards his door, but his foot slipped and he tumbled upon the footpavement, where he lay for a few moments, utterly overcome. The lads, afraid lest he should kick out at them, formed a circle around and vented screams of triumph, while the smallest of them, gravely stepping forward, threw the rotten orange at Mouret. It flattened itself against his left eye. He rose up with difficulty, and went in to his house without attempting to wipe himself. Rose was forced to come out with a broom and drive the young ragamuffins away.

From that Sunday forward all Plassans was convinced that Mouret was a lunatic who ought to be placed under restraint. The most surprising statements were made in support of this belief. It was said, for instance, that he shut himself up for days together in a perfectly empty room which had not been touched with a broom for a whole year; and those who circulated this story vouched for its truth, as they had it, they said, from Mouret’s own cook. The accounts differed as to what he did in that empty room. The cook said that he pretended to be dead, a statement which thrilled the whole neighbourhood with horror. The market-people firmly believed that he kept a coffin concealed in the room, laid himself at full length in it, with his eyes open and his hands upon his breast, and remained like that from morning till night.

‘The attack had been threatening him for a long time past,’ Olympe remarked in every shop she entered. ‘It was brooding in him; he had for a long time been very melan­choly and low-spirited, hiding in out-of-the-way corners, just like an animal, you know, that feels ill. The very first day I set foot in the house I said to my husband, “The landlord seems to be in a bad way.” His eyes were quite yellow and he had such a queer look about him. Afterwards he went on in the strangest way; he had all sorts of extraordinary whims and crotchets. He used to count every lump of sugar, and lock everything up, even the bread. He was so dreadfully miserly that his poor wife hadn’t even a pair of boots to put on. Ah! poor thing, she has a dreadful time of it, and I pity her from the bottom of my heart. Imagine the life she leads with a madman who can’t even behave decently at table! He throws his napkin away in the middle of dinner, and stalks off, looking stupefied, after having made a horrible mess in his plate. And such a temper he has, too! He used to make the most terrible scenes just because the mustard pot wasn’t in its right place. But now he doesn’t speak at all, though he glares like a wild beast, and springs at people’s throats without uttering a word. Ah! I could tell you some strange stories, if I liked.’

When she had thus excited her listeners’ curiosity, and they began to press her with questions, she added:

‘No, no; it is no business of mine. Madame Mouret is a perfect saint, and bears her suffering like a true Christian. She has her own ideas on the matter, and one must respect them. But, would you believe it, he tried to cut her throat with a razor!’

The story she told was always the same, but it never failed to produce a great effect. Fists were clenched, and women talked of strangling Mouret. If any incredulous person shook his head, he was put to confusion by a summons to explain the dreadful scenes which took place every night. Only a madman, people said, was capable of flying in that way at his wife’s throat the moment she went to bed. There was a spice of mystery in the affair which helped materially to spread the story about the town. For nearly a month the rumours went on gaining strength. Yet, in spite of Olympe’s tragical gossipings, peace had been restored at the Mourets’ and the nights now passed in quietness. Marthe exhibited much nervous impatience when her friends, without openly speaking on the subject, advised her to be very careful.

‘You will only go your own way, I suppose,’ said Rose. ‘Well, you’ll see, he will begin again, and we shall find you murdered one of these fine mornings.’

Madame Rougon now ostentatiously called at the house every other day. She entered it with an air of extreme uneasiness, and, as soon as the door was opened, she asked Rose:

‘Well! has anything happened to-day?’ Then, as soon as she caught sight of her daughter, she kissed her, and threw her arms round her with a great show of affection, as though she had been afraid that she might not find her alive. She passed the most dreadful nights, she said; she trembled at every ring of the bell, imagining that it was the signal of the tidings of some dreadful calamity; and she no longer had any pleasure in living. When Marthe told her that she was in no danger whatever she looked at her with an expression of admiration, and exclaimed:

‘You are a perfect angel! If I were not here to look after you, you would allow yourself to be murdered without raising even a sigh. But make yourself easy; I am watching over you, and am taking all precautions. The first time your husband raises his little finger against you, he will hear from me.’

She did not explain herself any further. The truth of the matter was that she had visited every official in Plassans, and had in this way confidentially related her daughter’s troubles to the mayor, the sub-prefect, and the presiding judge of the tribunal, making them promise to observe absolute secrecy about the matter.

‘It is a mother in despair who tells you this,’ she said with tears in her eyes. ‘I am giving the honour and reputation of my poor child into your keeping. My husband would take to his bed if there were to be a public scandal, but I can’t wait till there is some fatal catastrophe. Advise me, and tell me what I ought to do.’

The officials showed her the greatest sympathy and kind­ness. They did their best to reassure her, they promised to keep a careful watch over Madame Mouret without in any way letting it be known, and to take some active step at the slightest sign of danger. In her interviews with Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies and Monsieur Rastoil, she drew their especial attention to the fact that, as they were her son-in-law’s immediate neighbours, they would be able to interfere at once in the event of anything going wrong.

This story of a lunatic in his senses, who awaited the stroke of midnight to become mad, imparted much interest to the meetings of the guests in Mouret’s garden. They showed great alacrity in going to greet Abbé Faujas. The priest came downstairs at four o’clock, and did the honours of the arbour with much urbanity, but in talking he persisted in keep­ing in the background, merely nodding in answer to what was said to him. For the first few days, only indirect allusions were made to the drama which was being acted in the house, but one Tuesday Monsieur Maffre, who was gazing at it with an uneasy expression, fixing his eyes upon one of the windows of the first floor, ventured to ask:

‘That is the room, isn’t it?’

Then, in low tones, the two parties began to discuss the strange story which was exciting the neighbourhood. The priest made some vague remarks: it was very sad, and much to be regretted, said he, and then he pitied everybody, without venturing to say anything more explicit.

‘But you, Doctor,’ asked Madame de Condamin of Doctor Porquier, ‘you who are the family doctor, what do you think about it all?’

Doctor Porquier shook his head for some time before making any reply. He at first affected a discreet reserve.

‘It is a very delicate matter,’ he muttered. ‘Madame Mouret is not robust, and as for Monsieur Mouret — ‘

‘I have seen Madame Rougon,’ said the sub-prefect.
‘
She is very uneasy.’

‘Her son-in-law has always been obnoxious to her,’ Monsieur de Condamin exclaimed bluntly. ‘I met Mouret myself at the club the other day, and he gave me a beating at piquet. He seemed to me to be as sensible as ever. The good man
was never a Solomon, you know.’

‘I have not said that he is mad, in the common interpre­tation of the word,’ said the doctor, thinking that he was being attacked: ‘but neither will I say that I think it prudent to allow him to remain at large.’

This statement caused considerable emotion, and Monsieur Rastoil instinctively glanced at the wall which separated the two gardens. Every face was turned towards the doctor,

‘I once knew,’ he continued, ‘a charming lady, who kept up a large establishment, giving dinner-parties, receiving the most distinguished members of society, and showing much sense and wit in her conversation. Well, when that lady retired to her bedroom, she locked herself in, and spent a part of the night in crawling round the room on her hands and knees, barking like a dog. The people in the house long imagined that she really had a dog in the room with her. This lady was an example of what we doctors call lucid madness.’

Abbé Surin’s face was wreathed with twinkling smiles as he glanced at Monsieur Rastoil’s daughters, who appeared much amused by this story of a fashionable lady turning herself into a dog. Doctor Porquier blew his nose very gravely.

‘I could give you a score of other similar instances,’ he continued, ‘of people who appeared to be in full possession of their senses, and who yet committed the most extravagant actions as soon as they found themselves alone.’

‘For my part,’ said Abbé Bourrette, ‘I once had a very strange penitent. She had a mania for killing flies, and could never see one without feeling an irresistible desire to capture it. She used to keep them at home strung upon knitting needles. When she came to confess, she would weep bitterly and accuse herself of the death of the poor creatures, and believe that she was damned. But I could never correct her of the habit.’

This story was very well received, and even Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies and Monsieur Rastoil themselves condescended to smile.

‘There is no great harm done,’ said the doctor, ‘so long as one confines one’s self to killing flies. But the conduct of all lucid madmen is not so innocent as that. Some of them torture their families by some concealed vice, which has reached the degree of a mania; there are other wretched ones who drink and give themselves up to secret debauchery, or who steal because they can’t help stealing, or who are mad with pride or jealousy or ambition. They are able to control themselves in public, to carry out the most complicated schemes and projects, to converse rationally and without giving any one any reason to suspect their mental weakness, but as soon as they get back to their own private life, and are alone with their victims, they surrender themselves to their delirious ideas and become brutal savages. If they don’t murder straight out, they do it gradually.’

‘Well, now, what about Monsieur Mouret?’ asked Madame de Condamin.

‘Monsieur Mouret has always been a teasing, restless, despotic sort of man. His cerebral derangement has increased with his years. I should not hesitate now to class him amongst dangerous madmen. I had a patient who used to shut herself up, just as he does, in an unoccupied room, and spend the whole day in contriving the most abominable actions.’

‘But, doctor, if that is your opinion, you ought to proffer your advice,’ exclaimed Monsieur Rastoil; ‘you ought to warn those who are concerned.’

Doctor Porquier seemed slightly embarrassed.

‘Well, we will see about it,’ he said, smiling again with his fashionable doctor’s smile. ‘If it should be necessary and matters should become serious, I will do my duty.’

‘Pooh!’ cried Monsieur de Condamin satirically; ‘the greatest lunatics are not those who have the reputation of being so. No brain is sound for a mad-doctor. The doctor here has just been reciting to us a page out of a book on lucid madness, which I have read, and which is as interesting as a novel.’