From that time the Faujases came down regularly every day to spend the evening with the Mourets. There were tremendous battles between the old lady and her landlord. She seemed to play with him, to let him win just frequently enough to prevent him from being altogether discouraged, and this made him fume with suppressed anger, for he prided himself on his skill at piquet. He used to indulge in dreams of beating her night after night for weeks in succession without ever letting her win a single game; while she ever preserved wonderful coolness, her square peasant-like face remaining quite expressionless as with her big hands she threw down the cards with all the regularity of a machine. From eight o'clock till bed-time they would remain seated at their end of the table, quite absorbed in their game and never moving.

At the other end, near the stove, Abbé Faujas and Marthe were left entirely to themselves. The Abbé felt a masculine and priestly disdain for woman, and in spite of himself this disdain often made itself manifest in some slightly harsh expression. On these occasions Marthe was affected by a strange feeling of anxiety. She raised her eyes with one of those sudden thrills of alarm which cause people to cast a hurried glance behind them, half expecting to see some concealed enemy raising his hand to strike. At other times, on catching sight of the Abbé's cassock, she would check herself suddenly in the midst of a laugh, and would relapse into silence, quite confused, astonished at finding herself talking so freely to a man who was so different from other men. It was a long time before there was any real intimacy between them.

Abbé Faujas never directly questioned Marthe about her husband, or her children, or her house; but, nevertheless, he gradually made himself acquainted with every detail of their history and manner of life. Every evening, while Mouret and Madame Faujas were contending furiously one against the other, he contrived to learn some new fact. Upon one occasion he remarked that the husband and wife were surprisingly alike.

'Yes,' Marthe answered with a smile, 'when we were twenty years old we used to be taken for brother and sister; and, indeed, it was a little owing to that circumstance that we got married. People used to joke us about it, and were continually making us stand side by side, and saying what a fine couple we should make. The likeness was so striking that worthy Monsieur Compan, though he knew us quite well, hesitated to marry us.'

'But you are cousins, are you not?' the priest asked.

'Yes,' she replied, with a slight blush, 'my husband is a Macquart, and I am a Rougon.'

Then she kept silence for a moment or two, feeling ill at ease, for she was sure that the priest knew the history of her family which was so notorious at Plassans. The Macquarts were an illegitimate branch of the Rougons.

'The most singular part of it,' she resumed, to conceal her embarrassment, 'is, that we both resemble our grandmother. My husband's mother transmitted the likeness to him, while in me it has sprung up again after a break, passing my father by.'

Then the Abbé cited a similar instance in his own family. He had a sister, he said, who was the living image of her mother's grandfather. The likeness in this case had leapt over two generations. His sister, too, closely resembled the old man in her character and habits, even in her gestures and the tone of her voice.

'It was just the same with me when I was a little girl; I often heard people say of me,' remarked Marthe, '"She's Aunt Dide all over again!" The poor woman is now at Les Tulettes. She never had a strong head. For my part, in growing older, I have become less excitable and stronger, but I remember that when I was a child I hadn't good health at all. I used to have attacks of giddiness, and my head was filled with the strangest fancies. I often laugh now when I think of the extraordinary things I used to do.'