Rougon felt pained as he watched the preparations of these disconsolate old folks, whose hands trembled as they made up their packages. Their emotion seemed to him like a silent reproach. It was he who had kept them in Paris, and their sojourn there was ending in complete failure, a veritable flight.
'You are making a mistake,' he said at last.
But Madame Charbonnel answered with a gesture of entreaty as if to beseech him to be silent. 'Don't make us any promises, Monsieur Rougon,' she said sharply. 'They could only bring all our unhappiness over again. When I think that we've been here for two years and a half! Two years and a half, good heavens, in this hole of a place! My left leg will never be free from pain again as long as I live. I have slept on the far side of the bed, and that wall behind you fairly streams with water at night. Oh, I couldn't tell you all we've gone through! It would be too long a story. And we've spent a ruinous amount of money! Only yesterday I was obliged to buy this big trunk to carry away the things we have worn out while we have been in Paris; the wretchedly sewn clothes, which the shopkeepers charged us most extortionately for, and the linen which came back from the laundress's in rags. Ah! I sha'n't be sorry to have seen the last of your laundresses! They ruin everything with their acids.'
Then she threw a bundle of things into the trunk, and exclaimed: 'No, this time we are certainly going. I think it would kill me to stay here an hour longer.'
Rougon, however, insisted upon talking about their lawsuit. Had they had any bad news? he asked. Then the Charbonnels told him, almost crying as they did so, that the property of their cousin Chevassu was certainly lost to them. The Council of State was on the point of authorising the Sisters of the Holy Family to receive the legacy of five hundred thousand francs. Their last remaining hope had expired on hearing of the arrival of Monseigneur Rochart in Paris, whither he had come, for the second time, to hurry the matter forward.
And all at once M. Charbonnel ceased to struggle with the cords of the smaller trunk and raised his arms convulsively, while crying in a broken voice: 'Five hundred thousand francs! Five hundred thousand francs!'
They both seemed overwhelmed. They sat down, the husband on the trunk and the wife on a bundle of linen, amidst all the litter of the room. And they began to pity themselves in a mournful strain; as soon as one stopped the other began. They recalled their affection for their cousin Chevassu. How fond they had been of him! As a matter of fact, they had not seen him for more than seventeen years before his death. But, just now, they wept over him in all good faith, and really believed that they had shown him every kind attention during his illness. Then they began to accuse the Sisters of the Holy Family of disgraceful scheming. They had brought undue influence to bear on cousin Chevassu, they had kept him from his friends, and had exerted constant pressure on his mind, which illness had weakened. Madame Charbonnel, though she was really a very devout woman, went so far as to relate a dreadful story, according to which cousin Chevassu had died of fright after signing his will at the dictation of a priest, who had shewn him the devil standing at the foot of his bed. And as for the Bishop of Faverolles, she said, it was a dirty part that he was playing, in despoiling a couple of honest people, who were esteemed throughout Plassans for the integrity they had shown in getting a little competency together in the oil trade.
'But perhaps the case isn't hopeless yet,' said Rougon, seeing that they were wavering. 'Monseigneur Rochart isn't the Divinity. I myself haven't been able to do anything for you lately; I've had so much else to occupy me. But let me find out exactly how matters stand. I don't mean to let them prey on us.'
The Charbonnels looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. 'It's really no use troubling about it, Monsieur Rougon,' murmured the husband.
And as Rougon persisted, swearing that he would make every effort in their favour, and could not let them go off in this way, the wife in her turn said: 'It's really no use your troubling yourself about it. You would only give yourself a lot of bother for nothing. We spoke of you to our lawyer, but he only laughed at us, and said you had no power now against Monseigneur Rochart.'