The Conquest of Plassans (Classic Reprint) Read online

  When their keen curiosity had been aroused, they pressed her with questions, but all she would say was:

  ‘No no, it’s none of my business… Madame Mouret is a godly woman and she suffers like a true Christian; she has her own view on the matter, which we must respect… He tried to cut her throat with a razor, can you believe it!’

  It was always the same story but each time she achieved the same effect. Fists were clenched and women talked of strangling Mouret. When someone shook his head in disbelief, the others put him right on the spot by asking him to explain away the terrible scenes taking place every night. Only a madman was capable of seizing his wife by the throat as soon as she was in bed. There was in this an element of mystery that especially helped spread the story in the town. For more than a month rumours grew. In the Rue Balande, in spite of the tragic stories hawked around by Olympe, calm had returned. Nights passed peacefully. Marthe was irritated and impatient when those close to her hinted that she ought to be very careful.

  ‘You want to go your own sweet way, don’t you?’ said Rose. ‘But you’ll see. He’ll begin again. We shall find you murdered in your bed one of these days.’

  Madame Rougon made a point of rushing round to visit every other day. She would arrive with an expression of the utmost anxiety and ask Rose as soon as she was in the hall:

  ‘Well, no accidents today?’

  Then, when she saw her daughter she would throw her arms around her in a fury of tenderness as if she were afraid of not finding her there any longer. She spent terrible nights, she said; she trembled at each ring of the doorbell, always imagining they were coming to tell her that something dreadful had happened. Life could not go on like this. And when Marthe affirmed that she ran no risk she looked at her in admiration and cried:

  ‘You are an angel! If it were not for me you would let yourself be killed without a murmur. But rest assured, I am keeping an eye on you, I am taking my precautions. The day your husband raises a finger to you he will hear about it from me.’

  She offered no further explanation. The truth was that she was going to see all the authorities in Plassans. She had also recounted the plight of her daughter to the mayor, to the sub-prefect, to the president of the tribunal, in a confidential fashion, making them swear to absolute discretion.

  ‘This is a request from a desperate mother,’ she murmured tearfully. ‘I give you charge of the honour and dignity of my poor child. My husband would fall ill if there was a public scandal, but I cannot wait for there to be some fatal catastrophe… Advise me, tell me what I ought to do.’

  These gentlemen were charming. They calmed her down, promised to keep an eye on Madame Mouret while not interfering at all. And of course they would take action at the slightest danger. She was at her most pressing with Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies and Monsieur Rastoil, both of them neighbours of her son-in-law, and able to intervene immediately if something happened.

  This tale of a rational madman who waited for the chimes of midnight before letting loose his fury, was of consuming interest to the two societies when they met in the Mourets’ garden. They were very eager to come over and greet Abbé Faujas. At four o’clock, he went down and did the honours with great goodwill under the arbour; then he continued to be self-effacing, answering them only with nods and shakes of the head. The first few times they only made oblique allusions to the drama that was taking place inside the house. But one Tuesday Monsieur Maffre, who was staring anxiously at the façade, made so bold as to ask, indicating a window on the first floor:

  ‘That’s the room, isn’t it?’

  Then, lowering their voices, the two parties discussed the strange events that were upsetting the whole neighbourhood. The priest offered a few vague explanations: it was very upsetting, very sad, and he was sorry for everyone. He wouldn’t say any more than that.

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

  Doctor Porquier shook his head for a long time before replying. First he assumed the look of a man of discretion.

  ‘It’s a most delicate matter,’ he said softly. ‘Madame Mouret is not very strong. As for Monsieur Mouret…’

  ‘I saw Madame Rougon,’ said the sub-prefect. ‘She is extremely worried.’

  ‘She has always thought her son-in-law a nuisance,’ Monsieur de Condamin interrupted rudely. ‘I ran into Mouret the other day at the club. He beat me at piquet. I thought him just the same as ever… He’s a good chap, though he’s never been particularly clever.’

  ‘I never said he was mad, in the usual sense of the word,’ said the doctor, feeling he was being got at. ‘But nor am I saying that it would be wise to leave him at liberty.’

  This pronouncement caused some consternation. Monsieur Rastoil instinctively glanced at the wall separating the two gardens. All faces were turned to the doctor.

  ‘I knew’, he went on, ‘a charming lady who lived in style, giving dinner parties and receiving the most distinguished guests, chatting away most wittily. Well, as soon as this lady retired to her bedroom she locked herself in and spent part of the night crawling around the room on all fours, barking like a dog. Her servants thought for a long time she was hiding a dog in her room… That lady was a case of what we doctors call “lucid madness”.’

  Abbé Surin tried to hold back his giggles at the sight of the Rastoil girls, who were amused at this story of somebody in society pretending to be a dog. Doctor Porquier blew solemnly into his handkerchief.

  ‘I could tell you twenty stories like that one,’ he added. ‘People who seem to be completely sane and who indulge in the most surprising behaviour as soon as they are alone. Monsieur de Bourdeu once knew a marquis very well—mentioning no names—in Valence…’

  ‘He was a very close friend,’ said Monsieur de Bourdeu; ‘he often dined at the prefecture. The story was a huge scandal.’

  ‘What story?’ asked Madame de Condamin, seeing that the doctor and the former prefect were silent.

  ‘It’s somewhat indecent,’ went on Monsieur de Bourdeu, starting to laugh. ‘The marquis, who wasn’t very bright anyway, spent days at a time in his study, where he said he was busy at an important work to do with political economy… After ten years it was discovered that from morning till night he had been making little balls of equal size with…’

  ‘With his excrement,’ finished the doctor, in such a serious tone of voice that it shocked no one and did not even bring a blush to the faces of the women.

  ‘As for me,’ said Abbé Bourrette, amused by these anecdotes as if they were fairy stories, ‘I once had a very strange penitent… She had an obsession with killing flies. She could not see one without experiencing an irresistible desire to capture it. When she was home she skewered them on to her knitting needles. Then when she came to confession she cried bitterly. She accused herself of killing the poor creatures and thought she would be damned. I never managed to cure her of it.’

  The abbé’s story was appreciated. Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies and Monsieur Rastoil themselves deigned to smile.

  ‘There’s no great harm in only killing flies,’ the doctor remarked. ‘But lucid madmen aren’t always as innocent as that. There are those who torture their families with some hidden vice which has turned into a mania; poor creatures who drink, who indulge in secret debauchery, who thieve compulsively, who are in agonies through pride, jealousy, ambition. And they are hypocritical in their madness to the point where they manage to control themselves, bring to fruition the most complex projects, give reasonable answers without anyone suspecting they have cerebral lesions; then as soon as they are among their intimates again and alone with their victims they abandon themselves to delirious ideas and turn into executioners… Even if they don’t commit outright murder they may kill by degrees.’

  ‘So what about Monsieur Mouret?’ asked Madame de Condamin.

  ‘Monsieur Mouret has always been sarcastic, anxious, despotic. The lesion
seems to have got worse as he got older. Now I would not hesitate to classify him as a dangerous madman… I had a patient like him who locked herself into a room away from others and spent whole days devising the most disgusting things.’

  ‘But, Doctor, if that is your opinion you must notify people!’ cried Monsieur Rastoil. ‘You should write a report for the authorities.’

  Doctor Porquier looked slightly uncomfortable.

  ‘We are chatting informally,’ he said, assuming his bedside manner again. ‘If required, if things get serious, I shall do my duty.’

  ‘Pooh!’ concluded Monsieur de Condamin aggressively. ‘The real madmen are never the ones we think… To specialists in mental problems nobody is sane… The doctor has just been trotting out a page from a book on lucid madmen, which I have read and which is as interesting as a novel.’

  Abbé Faujas had been listening intently without taking part in the conversation. Then, as there was a silence, he intimated that these stories of madmen were depressing for the ladies. He tried to make them change the subject. But their curiosity had been aroused and both societies began to spy on the slightest things that Mouret did. The latter now only went out into the garden for an hour every day after lunch, while the Faujas stayed at table with his wife. As soon as he had set foot in the garden he was under the active surveillance of the Rastoils and their intimates at the prefecture. He could not stop in front of a vegetable plot or inspect a lettuce, or make the slightest gesture without giving rise to the most disagreeable comments in both gardens to right and left. Everyone turned against him. Monsieur de Condamin was the only one who still stuck up for him. But one day the beautiful Octavie said as they were having lunch:

  ‘What difference does it make to you whether Mouret is mad or not?’

  ‘To me? None whatsoever, my love,’ he answered in surprise.

  ‘Well then, allow him to be mad, since everyone is telling you he’s mad… I don’t know what possesses you to hold a different opinion from your wife. It won’t do you any good, dear… So be intelligent enough not to be clever in Plassans.’

  Monsieur de Condamin smiled:

  ‘You are quite right, as usual,’ he said gallantly. ‘You know I have placed my fortune in your hands… Don’t wait dinner for me. I am going to ride as far as Saint-Eutrope to cast an eye over some tree-felling.’

  And he left, chewing a cigar.

  Madame de Condamin was well aware that he fancied a little girl living in the direction of Saint-Eutrope. But she was tolerant and had even saved him twice from the consequences of some very sordid situations. As for him, he had no worries about his wife’s faithfulness. He knew she was too shrewd to have any affairs in Plassans.

  ‘You’ll never guess how Mouret spends his time in that room he shuts himself up in,’ the forestry commissioner said the next day, when he went to the sub-prefecture. ‘Well, he counts up all the s’s in the Bible. He was afraid he had got it wrong and he has already started his calculations again three times… My word, how right you were! That fool is completely cracked.’

  And from that moment on Monsieur de Condamin started making inordinate accusations against Mouret. He even pushed things a bit far, and invented wildly exaggerated and insalubrious stories which shocked the Rastoil family. Monsieur Maffre became his particular victim. One day he told him that he had spied Mouret stark naked at one of the windows looking out on the street, wearing nothing but a woman’s bonnet, bowing at non-existent people. Another day he affirmed with remarkable sangfroid that he was sure he had seen Mouret ten miles away dancing, deep in a wood, like a savage. Then, as Maffre seemed incredulous, he got cross and said that Mouret could perfectly well shin down the drainpipe without being seen. The people in the prefecture smiled, but the very next day the Rastoil maidservant was spreading these amazing tales around the town where the legend of the man who beat his wife was taking on extraordinary proportions.

  One afternoon the elder of the two Rastoil girls, Aurélie, recounted with a blush that the night before when she had stood at the window at midnight she had seen the neighbour walking in his garden with a big candle. Monsieur de Condamin thought the girl was laughing at him, but she gave precise details.

  ‘He was holding the candle in his left hand. He knelt down on the ground; then he dragged himself along on his knees, sobbing.’

  ‘Perhaps he has committed a crime and buried the body in the garden,’ said Monsieur Maffre who had gone pale.

  So then the two societies agreed to keep watch one night, until midnight if necessary, in order to put their minds to rest. The following night they were on the lookout in the two gardens; but Mouret did not appear. Three evenings were wasted in this manner. The sub-prefecture gave up.

  Madame de Condamin refused to sit under the chestnut trees where it was terrifyingly dark; but the fourth night under an ink-black sky a light flickered on the Mourets’ ground floor. Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies, having been alerted, slipped into the Impasse des Chevillottes to invite the Rastoils to come on to the terrace of his mansion overlooking the next door garden. The president, who was on watch with his daughters behind the fountain, hesitated a moment, reflecting that, politically speaking, he was risking a good deal by going to the sub-prefecture; but the night was so dark and his daughter Aurélie was so anxious to prove the truth of her story that he followed Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies, stepping quietly through the shadows. That was how the Legitimist doctrine penetrated the home of a Bonapartist civil servant for the very first time.

  ‘Don’t make a noise,’ said the sub-prefect. ‘Lean out over the terrace.’

  Monsieur Rastoil and his daughters found Doctor Porquier, Madame de Condamin, and her husband there. The night was so dark that they said hello without being able to see each other. But then everyone held their breath. Mouret had just appeared on the steps with a candle thrust into a big kitchen candlestick.

  ‘Look, he’s holding a candle,’ whispered Aurélie.

  There was no doubt about it. Mouret was indeed holding a candle. He went slowly down the steps, turned left, and stopped by a bed of lettuces. He lifted up the candle to shine some light on the lettuces; his face looked very yellow against the blackness of night.

  ‘What a face!’ said Madame de Condamin. ‘I am sure I shall be seeing it in my dreams… Is he asleep, Doctor?’

  ‘No, no,’ replied Doctor Porquier. ‘He’s not sleepwalking, he’s wide awake… You can see how fixed his eyes are. I would also ask you to observe the stiffness of his movements.’

  ‘Shh! We don’t need a lecture,’ interrupted Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies.

  Then the deepest silence reigned. Mouret, having stepped over the box hedge, had knelt down among the lettuces. He lowered his candle and searched along the furrows, under the spreading green leaves. From time to time there was a little grunt. He seemed to be crushing and digging something into the earth. This lasted about half an hour.

  ‘He’s crying, I told you so,’ repeated Aurélie, with satisfaction.

  ‘It’s really most frightening,’ stammered Madame de Condamin. ‘Let’s go in, I do beg you.’

  Mouret dropped his candle and it went out. They could hear him getting cross and going up the steps again, stumbling against them as he went. The Rastoil girls uttered a little cry of fright. They only regained their composure in the lighted drawing room, where Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies insisted that all of the gathering accept a cup of tea and some biscuits. Madame de Condamin was still trembling. She curled up in the corner of a chaise longue. She told everyone with a melting smile that nothing had ever made such an impression on her, not even the time when she had ill-advisedly taken it into her head one morning to go and watch an execution.

  ‘It’s strange,’ said Monsieur Rastoil, who had been deep in thought for some time. ‘Mouret seemed to be looking for slugs under his lettuces. The gardens are crawling with the wretches and they say you can only get rid of them properly at night.’

  ‘S
lugs!’ cried Monsieur de Condamin. ‘Come now, he’s not worried about slugs! Does one go and look for slugs with a candle? I’d rather hold to Monsieur Maffre’s view that there is some crime involved… Has Mouret never had a maidservant disappear? We should make enquiries.’

  Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies realized that his friend, the forestry commissioner, was going a bit far. He muttered as he drank a mouthful of tea:

  ‘No no, dear boy. He’s mad, he imagines the most bizarre things, that’s all… That’s quite terrifying enough.’

  He took the plate of biscuits and, throwing back his shoulders like the fine officer he was, offered it to the Rastoil girls. Then, putting the plate down, he went on:

  ‘When you think that this creature was involved in politics! I don’t wish to blame you for your alliance with the Republicans, Monsieur le Président, but you must admit that the Marquis of Lagrifoul had the strangest of supporters in him.’

  Monsieur Rastoil had grown very serious. He made a vague gesture, but did not reply.

  ‘And he is still involved. Maybe it’s politics that has driven him mad,’ said the beautiful Octavie, wiping her lips delicately. ‘They say he is very eager for the next elections, don’t they, my love?’

  She addressed herself to her husband, glancing in his direction.

  ‘It’ll be the death of him!’ cried Monsieur de Condamin. ‘He tells everyone he’s in charge of the list, that he will appoint a shoemaker if he feels like it.’

  ‘You exaggerate,’ said Doctor Porquier. ‘He hasn’t got so much influence nowadays; the whole town is laughing at him.’

  ‘And that’s just where you are wrong! If he wants, he can get all the old quarter and a great number of the villages out to vote… He’s mad, it’s true, but that’s a recommendation… Given that he’s a Republican, I find him still very reasonable.’

  This not very good joke was a great success. Even the Rastoil girls giggled like little schoolgirls. The president nodded approvingly and stopped being so serious. Avoiding the eyes of the sub-prefect, he said: