'There's no harm in him; don't hurt him.'
'Ah! I'm not so sure of that. I shouldn't like to trust myself too near him. He gets up in the night and strangles people.'
'He certainly looks a bad one.'
'Has it come upon him suddenly?'
'Yes, indeed, all at once. And he used to be so kind and gentle! I'm going away; all this distresses me. Here are the three sous for the turnips.'
Mouret had just recognised Olympe in the midst of a group of women, and he went towards her. She had been buying some magnificent peaches, which she carried in a very fashionable-looking handbag. And she was evidently relating some very moving story, for all the gossips around her were breaking out into exclamations and clasping their hands with expressions of pity.
'Then,' said she, 'he caught her by the hair, and he would have cut her throat with a razor which was lying on the chest of drawers if we hadn't arrived just in time to prevent the murder. But don't say anything to her about it; it would only bring her more trouble.'
'What trouble?' asked Mouret in amazement. The listeners hurried away, and Olympe assumed an expression of careful watchfulness as, in her turn, she warily slipped off, saying:
'Don't excite yourself, Monsieur Mouret. You had better go back home.'
Mouret took refuge in a little lane that led to the Cours Sauvaire. Thereupon the shouts increased in violence, and for a few moments he was pursued by the angry uproar of the market-folk.