Free The Conquest of Plassans (Les Rougon-Macquart Book 4) by Émile Zola Page A

As he felt he was in the wrong, he took to chatting to Rose surreptitiously about the Faujas.
    One morning, Rose beckoned him to follow her into the kitchen.
    ‘Oh, there you are, Monsieur,’ she said, shutting the door. ‘I’ve been watching for you to come down for a good hour.’
    ‘Have you found something out?’
    ‘You shall see… Yesterday I chatted to Madame Faujas for more than an hour.’
    Mouret was thrilled. He sat down on a kitchen chair which had lost its straw, in the midst of yesterday’s dishcloths and vegetable peelings.
    ‘Quick, tell me,’ he urged.
    ‘Well,’ said the cook, ‘I was at the front door saying hello to Monsieur Rastoil’s maid when Madame Faujas came down to empty a bucket of dirty water into the gutter. Instead of going upstairs again and not turning round, as usual, she stayed looking at me for a minute or two. I thought she wanted to have a chat. I said to her that it had been a fine day and the wine harvest would be good… She answered “Yes, it will” in an indifferent kind of way and wasn’t in any hurry to go, her being a woman who doesn’t own any land and so isn’t interested in that sort of thing at all. But she’d put down her bucket and didn’t go. She even leaned against the wall, beside me…’
    ‘So what did she tell you?’ asked Mouret, in a torment of impatience.
    ‘I wasn’t so silly as to ask her lots of questions, you understand; she would have run away… In a roundabout way I brought the conversation round to what she might be interested in. As the priest-in-charge of Saint-Saturnin, that nice Monsieur Compan, just went by, I told her that he had been very ill, and hadn’t long to live and that they would find it hard to find a replacement for him in the cathedral. She was all ears, I can tell you. She even asked me what was wrong with him. Then, bit by bit I talked to her about our bishop. Monsignor Rousselot is a very good gentleman. She didn’t know how old he was. I told her he is sixty, that he is rather soft as well, and sometimes lets people tread all over him. They often say that Monsieur Fenil, the assistant bishop, does whatever he wants at the bishopric… The old lady was really interested; she would have been there in the street till tomorrow morning.’
    Mouret made a gesture of despair.
    ‘After all that,’ he cried, ‘I can see that the chatting was done entirely by you… But what did
she
say?’
    ‘Wait, let me finish,’ Rose went on calmly. ‘I was coming to that… I ended up telling her about us so as to get her to talk. I told her you were Monsieur François Mouret, a former businessman from Marseilles and that in fifteen years you made your fortune in wine, oil, and almonds. And I told her that you chose to come and enjoy the fruits of your earnings in Plassans, a quiet town where your wife’srelatives live. I even found a way of telling her that Madame is your cousin, that you are forty years old and she is thirty-seven and that you are a very happy family. You weren’t to be seen on the Cours Sauvaire very often. Well, the whole story… She seemed very interested. She kept answering “Yes, yes”, and wasn’t in any hurry to go. When I stopped, she nodded, like this, as if to say that she was listening and I should go on… And we went on chatting like that till it was dark, like good friends, leaning against the wall.’
    Mouret had risen, in a rage.
    ‘What!’ he cried. ‘Is that all!… She made you natter away for an hour and told you nothing!’
    ‘When it got dark, she said: “It’s getting cooler.” And she took her bucket again and went upstairs.’
    ‘You are a complete fool! That old woman is worth ten of you! Oh, how they must be laughing now they know everything they wanted to know about us… Rose, you are a complete fool!’
    The old cook was not of a patient temperament. She began to stomp around, clattering the pans and saucepans, crumpling cloths and throwing them about.
    ‘You