'What sense is there in going and mixing yourself up with a lot of priests?' he would growl at times when his dinner was not ready when he wanted it. 'You are always away from home now, there's no keeping you in the house for an hour at a time! I shouldn't mind it myself, if everything weren't going to pieces here. I never get any of my things mended, the table is not even laid by seven o'clock, there's no making anything out of Rose, and the whole place is left to rack and ruin.'
He picked up a house-cloth that was lying about, locked up a bottle of wine that had been left out, and began to wipe the dust off the furniture with his fingers, working himself up to a higher pitch of anger as he cried: 'There'll soon be nothing left for me to do but to take up a broom and put an apron on! You would see me do it without disturbing yourself, I know! I might do all the work of the house without your being any the wiser for it indeed! Do you know that I spent a couple of hours this morning in putting this cupboard in order? No, no, things can't go on any longer in this way!'
At other times there was a disturbance about the children. Once when Mouret came home he found Désirée 'wallowing like a young pig' in the garden, lying on her stomach before an ant-hole, and trying to find out what the ants might be doing in the ground.
'We may be very thankful, I'm sure, that you don't sleep away from the house as well!' he cried as soon as he caught sight of his wife. 'Come and look at your daughter! I wouldn't let her change her dress because I wished that you might see what a pretty sight she is.'
The girl cried bitterly while her father kept turning her round.
'Look at her now! Isn't she a nice spectacle? This is the way children go on when they are left to themselves! It isn't her fault, poor little innocent! At one time you couldn't leave her alone for five minutes: she would be getting into the fire, you said! Well, I expect she will be getting into the fire now, and everything will be burnt up, and then there'll be an end of it all!'
When Rose had taken Désirée away, he continued: 'You live now simply for other people's children. You don't give a moment to your own! What a goose you must be to go knocking yourself up for a parcel of hussies who only laugh at you! Go and walk about the ramparts any evening and you will see something of the conduct of those impudent creatures whom you talk of putting under the protection of the Virgin!'
He stopped to take breath and then went on again:
'At all events see that Désirée is properly taken care of before you go picking up girls from the gutter! There are holes as big as my fist in her dress. One of these days we shall be finding her in the garden with a leg or an arm broken. I don't say anything about Octave or Serge, though I should much prefer your being at home when they come back from college. They are up to all kinds of diabolical tricks. Only yesterday they split a couple of flag-stones on the terrace by letting off crackers. I tell you that if you don't keep yourself at home we shall find the whole house blown to bits one of these days!'
Marthe said a few words in self-defence. She had been obliged to go out, she urged. There was no doubt that Mouret, who possessed an ample fund of common sense, in spite of his proclivities for teasing and jeering, was right. The house was getting into a most unsatisfactory state. That once quiet spot indeed, where the sun had set so peacefully, was becoming uproarious, left to look after itself, suffering from the children's noisiness, the father's bursts of temper, and the mother's careless, indifferent lassitude. In the evening, at table, they dined badly and quarrelled amongst themselves. Rose did just what she liked, and she, by the way, was of opinion that her mistress was quite in the right.