Mouret, with perspiration breaking out on his brow, and his feet stumbling against the flag-stones, overheard old Madame Rougon say to the wife of the conservator of rivers and forests:
'See! there he is, the scoundrel! It is disgraceful; we can't tolerate it much longer.'
Thereupon Mouret could no longer restrain himself from setting off at a run. With swinging arms and a look of distraction upon his face, he rushed into the Rue Balande while some ten or a dozen street-arabs dashed after him. It seemed to him as though all the shopkeepers of the Rue de la Banne, the market-women, the promenaders of the Cours, the young men from the club, the Rougons, the Condamins—all the people of Plassans, in fact—were surging onwards behind his back, breaking out into laughs and jeers, as he sped up the hilly street. The lads stamped and slid over the pavement, making indeed as much noise in that usually quiet neighbourhood as a pack of hounds might have made.
'Catch him!' they screamed.
'Hie! What a scarecrow he looks in that overcoat of his!'
'Some of you go round by the Rue Taravelle, and then you'll nab him!'
'Cut along! cut along as hard as you can go!'
Mouret, now quite frantic, made a desperate rush towards his door, but his foot slipped and he tumbled upon the foot-pavement, where he lay for a few moments, utterly overcome. The lads, afraid lest he should kick out at them, formed a circle around and vented screams of triumph, while the smallest of them, gravely stepping forward, threw the rotten orange at Mouret. It flattened itself against his left eye. He rose up with difficulty, and went in to his house without attempting to wipe himself. Rose was forced to come out with a broom and drive the young ragamuffins away.
From that Sunday forward all Plassans was convinced that Mouret was a lunatic who ought to be placed under restraint. The most surprising statements were made in support of this belief. It was said, for instance, that he shut himself up for days together in a perfectly empty room which had not been touched with a broom for a whole year; and those who circulated this story vouched for its truth, as they had it, they said, from Mouret's own cook. The accounts differed as to what he did in that empty room. The cook said that he pretended to be dead, a statement which thrilled the whole neighbourhood with horror. The market-people firmly believed that he kept a coffin concealed in the room, laid himself at full length in it, with his eyes open and his hands upon his breast, and remained like that from morning till night.
'The attack had been threatening him for a long time past,' Olympe remarked in every shop she entered. 'It was brooding in him; he had for a long time been very melancholy and low-spirited, hiding in out-of-the-way corners, just like an animal, you know, that feels ill. The very first day I set foot in the house I said to my husband, "The landlord seems to be in a bad way." His eyes were quite yellow and he had such a queer look about him. Afterwards he went on in the strangest way; he had all sorts of extraordinary whims and crotchets. He used to count every lump of sugar, and lock everything up, even the bread. He was so dreadfully miserly that his poor wife hadn't even a pair of boots to put on. Ah! poor thing, she has a dreadful time of it, and I pity her from the bottom of my heart. Imagine the life she leads with a madman who can't even behave decently at table! He throws his napkin away in the middle of dinner, and stalks off, looking stupefied, after having made a horrible mess in his plate. And such a temper he has, too! He used to make the most terrible scenes just because the mustard pot wasn't in its right place. But now he doesn't speak at all, though he glares like a wild beast, and springs at people's throats without uttering a word. Ah! I could tell you some strange stories, if I liked.'