'In a corner, just like a dog! She threw a mattress on the floor of the other room and said that she'd sleep there more soundly than if she were in paradise. I couldn't persuade her to do anything to make herself more comfortable. She says that she is never cold, and that her head is much too hard to make her at all afraid of lying on the floor. I have taken them some sugar and some water, as madame told me. Oh! they really are the strangest people!'
Then Rose brought in the remainder of the dinner. That evening the Mourets lingered over their meal. They discussed the new tenants at great length. In their life, which went on with all the even regularity of clock-work, the arrival of these two strangers was a very exciting event. They talked about it as they would have done of some catastrophe in the neighbourhood, going into all that minuteness of detail which helps one to while away long nights in the country. Mouret was especially fond of the chattering gossip of a little provincial town. During dessert, as he rested his elbows on the table in the cool dining-room, he repeated for the tenth time with the self-satisfied air of a happy man:
'It certainly isn't a very handsome present that Besançon has made to Plassans! Did you notice the back of his cassock when he turned round? I shall be very much surprised if he is much run after by the pious folks here. He is too seedy and threadbare; and the pious folks like nice-looking priests.'
'He has a very gentle voice,' said Marthe, indulgently.
'Not when he is angry, at any rate,' Mouret replied. 'Didn't you hear him when he burst out on finding that the rooms were not furnished? He's a stern man, I'll be bound; not one of the sort, I should think, to go lounging in confessional-boxes. I shall be very curious to see how he sets about his furnishing to-morrow. But as long as he pays me, I don't much mind anything else. If he doesn't, I shall apply to Abbé Bourrette. It was with him that I made the bargain.'
The Mourets were not a devout family. The children themselves made fun of the Abbé and his mother. Octave burlesqued the old lady's way of craning out her neck to see to the end of the rooms, a performance which made Désirée laugh. After a time, however, Serge, who was of a more serious turn of mind, stood up for 'those poor people.'
As a rule, precisely at ten o'clock, if he was not playing at piquet, Mouret took up his candlestick and went off to bed, but that evening, when eleven o'clock struck, he was not yet feeling drowsy. Désirée had fallen asleep, with her head lying on Marthe's knees. The two lads had gone up to their room; and Mouret, left alone with his wife, still went on chattering.
'How old do you suppose he is?' he suddenly asked.
'Who?' replied Marthe, who was now beginning to feel very sleepy.
'Who? Why, the Abbé, of course! Between forty and forty-five, eh? He's a fine strapping fellow. It's a pity for him to wear a cassock! He would have made a splendid carbineer.'