'Octave crushes them, the poor flies! It is very wicked of him.'
Abbé Faujas sat down. He seemed very much tired. He yielded for a moment or two to the cool quietness of the terrace, glancing slowly over the garden and the neighbouring trees. The perfect calmness and solitude of this quiet corner of the little town seemed somewhat to surprise him.
'It is very pleasant here,' he murmured.
Then he relapsed into silence, and seemed lost in reverie. He started slightly as Mouret said to him with a laugh:
'If you will allow us, sir, we will now go back to our dinner.'
And then, catching a glance from his wife, Mouret added:
'You must sit down with us and have a plate of soup. It will save you the trouble of having to go to the hotel to dine. Don't make any difficulty, I beg.'
'I am extremely obliged to you, but we really don't require anything,' the Abbé replied in tones of extreme politeness, which allowed of no repetition of the invitation.
The Mourets then returned to the dining-room and seated themselves round the table. Marthe served the soup and there was soon a cheerful clatter of spoons. The young people chattered merrily, and Désirée broke into a peal of ringing laughter as she listened to a story which her father, who was now in high glee at having at last got to his dinner, was telling. In the meantime, Abbé Faujas, whom they had quite forgotten, remained motionless upon the terrace, facing the setting sun. He did not even turn his head, he seemed to hear nothing of what was going on behind him. Just as the sun was disappearing he took off his hat as if overcome by the heat. Marthe, who was sitting with her face to the window, could see his big bare head with its short hair that was already silvering about the temples. A last red ray lighting up that stern soldier-like head, on which the tonsure lay like a cicatrised wound from the blow of a club; then the ray faded away and the priest, now wrapped in shadow, seemed nothing more than a black silhouette against the ashy grey of the gloaming.
Not wishing to summon Rose, Marthe herself went to get a lamp and brought in the first dish. As she was returning from the kitchen, she met, at the foot of the staircase, a woman whom she did not at first recognise. It was Madame Faujas. She had put on a cotton cap and looked like a servant in her common print gown, with a yellow kerchief crossed over her breast and knotted behind her waist. Her wrists were bare, she was quite out of breath with the work she had been doing, and her heavy laced boots clattered on the flooring of the passage.