The old lady had spread out a napkin. Each time they poured out some wine they laid the litre bottle back down on the pillow.’

‘But what were they eating?’

‘I don’t exactly know, Monsieur. It seemed like the remains of some pâté out of a newspaper. They had some apples too, some small apples that didn’t look very nice.’

‘And were they chatting? Could you hear what they were saying?’

‘No, Monsieur, they weren’t chatting… I stayed up there a good quarter of an hour spying on them. They weren’t saying anything. They just ate and ate!’

Marthe had got to her feet, waking Désirée, as though she were going upstairs. Her husband’s curiosity pained her. The latter finally decided to get up himself, while old Rose, who was religious, went on muttering:

‘That poor dear man must have been ravenous. His mother passed him the biggest morsels and took pleasure in watching him eat… Well anyway, he’s going to sleep in some lovely white sheets. I hope the smell of the fruit doesn’t bother him. It doesn’t smell very nice in the room, you know, with that sharp smell of apples and pears. And not a stick of furniture, nothing except the bed in the corner. If it were me I should be scared, I’d keep the light on all night.’

Mouret had taken his candlestick. He remained a moment in front of Rose, summing up the evening with the words of a man disturbed in his usual thinking:

‘It’s extraordinary.’

Then he joined his wife at the foot of the stairs. She was already in bed and asleep while he was listening to the faint noises coming from the floor above. The priest’s room was directly above theirs. He heard him open the window quietly and it much intrigued him. He raised his head from the pillow, desperately fighting sleep, dying to know how long the priest would remain at the window. But sleep got the better of him. Mouret was sleeping like a log before he could hear the muffled squeak of the catch again.

On the floor above, Faujas, bareheaded, was staring out into the darkness. He remained there for a long time, happy to be finally alone, absorbed in the thoughts that caused such harshness across his brow. He could sense on the floor below the tranquil slumber of this house he had only been in for a few hours: the pure respiration of the children, the honest breathing of Marthe, and the sound of Mouret’s heavy, regular breath as he slept. And there was a touch of disdain as well as defiance in the way he lifted his head as though to see into the distance, to the furthest houses in the little sleeping town. The tall trees in the gardens of the sub-prefecture formed a dark mass, Monsieur Rastoil’s pear trees stretched out their thin, twisted branches; after that, there was a sea of darkness, a void, from which not a sound could be heard. The town was as innocent as a young girl rocking a cradle.

Faujas stretched out his arms in an ironic challenge, as though he wanted to pull Plassans to his broad chest and suffocate it. He muttered:

‘So much for those fools smiling this evening as they saw me crossing their streets!’

CHAPTER 3

NEXT day, Mouret spent the morning spying on his new tenant. This occupation would fill the empty hours he spent at home fussing around, tidying things that had not been put away, picking quarrels with his wife and children. From now on he had something to keep him busy, a distraction, something to take him away from his daily routine. As he said, he didn’t care for priests and this first one that had entered his life interested him to an extraordinary degree. This priest brought with him a whiff of mystery; a stranger who made him rather anxious.