'The key prevents me from seeing,' said Rose, who had applied her eye to the key-hole.
'Wait a moment,' murmured Madame Faujas, and she carefully turned the end of the key, which protruded slightly through the lock. Mouret was sitting in the middle of the room in front of a big empty table, covered with a thick layer of dust. There was not a single paper nor book upon it. He was lying back in his chair, his arms hanging listlessly beside him while he gazed blankly into space. He sat perfectly still, without the slightest movement.
The two women looked at him in silence, one after the other.
'He has made me feel cold to the very marrow,' exclaimed Rose, as they went downstairs again. 'Did you notice his eyes? And what a filthy state the room is in! He hasn't laid a pen on that desk for a couple of months past, and to think that I fancied he spent all his time there writing. Fancy him amusing himself like that—shutting himself up all alone like a corpse, when the house is so bright and cheerful!'
[XVII]
Marthe's health was causing Doctor Porquier much anxiety. He still smiled in his pleasant way, and talked to her after the manner of a fashionable medical man for whom disease never has any existence, and who grants a consultation just as a dressmaker fits on a new dress; but there was a certain twist on his lips which indicated that 'dear madame' had something more seriously wrong with her than a slight cough and spitting of blood, as he tried to persuade her. He advised her, now that the warm weather had come, to get a little change of surroundings and occupation by taking an occasional drive, without, however, over-fatiguing herself. In obedience to the doctor's directions, Marthe, who was more and more possessed by a vague feeling of anguish, and a need of finding some occupation to assuage her nervous impatience, started on a series of excursions to the neighbouring villages. Twice a week she drove off, after luncheon, in an old refurbished carriage, hired from a Plassans coachbuilder. She generally drove some six or seven miles out, so as to get back home by six o'clock. Her great desire was to induce Abbé Faujas to go with her, and it was only in the hope of accomplishing this that she had conformed with the doctor's directions; but the Abbé, without distinctly refusing, always excused himself on the ground that he was too busy to spare the time, and Marthe was obliged to content herself with the companionship of Olympe or Madame Faujas.
One afternoon as she was driving with Olympe towards the village of Les Tulettes, past the little estate of her uncle Macquart, the latter caught sight of her as he stood upon his terrace, which was ornamented with a couple of mulberry trees.
'Where is Mouret?' he cried. 'Why hasn't Mouret come as well?'