Then he went to fetch some glasses, for he insisted upon making the two women taste his wine. It was some light wine which he had discovered at Saint-Eutrope, and in which he took great pride. Marthe scarcely wetted her lips, but Olympe finished the bottle. And afterwards she even accepted a glass of syrup, saying that the wine was very strong.
'And what have you done with your priest?' Uncle Macquart suddenly asked his niece.
Marthe looked at him in surprise and displeasure without replying.
'I heard that he was sponging on you tremendously,' Macquart loudly continued. 'Those priests are fond of good living. When I heard about him, I said that it served Mouret quite right. I warned him. Well, I shall be glad to help you to turn him out of the house. Mouret has only got to come and ask me, and I'll give him a helping hand. I've never been able to endure those fellows. I know one of them, Abbé Fenil, who has a house on the other side of the road. He is no better than the rest of them, but he is as malicious as an ape, and he amuses me. I fancy that he doesn't get on very well with that priest of yours; isn't that so, eh?'
Marthe had turned very pale.
'Madame here is the sister of his reverence Abbé Faujas,' she said, turning to Olympe, who was listening with much curiosity.
'What I said has no reference to madame,' replied Macquart quite unconcernedly. 'Madame is not offended, I'm sure. She will take another glass of syrup?'
Olympe accepted another glass of the syrup, but Marthe rose from her seat and wished to leave. Her uncle, however, insisted upon taking her over his grounds. At the end of the garden she stopped to look at a large white building that was on the slope of the hill, at a few hundred yards from Les Tulettes. Its inner courts looked like prison-yards, and the narrow symmetrical windows which streaked its front with black lines gave it the cheerless aspect of a hospital.
'That is the Lunatic Asylum,' exclaimed Macquart, who had followed the direction of Marthe's eyes. 'The young man here is one of the warders. We get on very well together, and he comes every now and then to have a bottle of wine with me.'
Then, turning towards the man in grey, who was finishing his glass beneath the mulberry tree, he called out: