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Updated: May 2, 2025
Macquart, as he poured himself out another glass of brandy, explained that he had felt an inclination to drink a little Cognac, and had sent her to fetch a bottle. She had not been long absent, and at the very moment when she returned she had fallen rigid on the floor without uttering a word. Macquart himself had carried her to the bed.
Besides, you're an old soldier, why don't you seek some employment?" Fine would then interpose, with a thoughtlessness of which she soon repented. "That's what I'm always telling him," said she. "The market inspector wants an assistant; I mentioned my husband to him, and he seems well disposed towards us." But Macquart interrupted her with a fulminating glance.
He saw her again young, a tall, pale, slender girl with frightened eyes, a widow, after fifteen months of married life with Rougon, the clumsy gardener whom she had chosen for a husband, throwing herself immediately afterwards into the arms of the smuggler Macquart, whom she loved with a wolfish love, and whom she did not even marry.
Then Macquart had been killed, shot down like a dog by a gendarme; and the first shock had paralyzed her, so that even then she retained nothing living but her water-clear eyes in her livid face; and she shut herself up from the world in the hut which her lover had left her, leading there for forty years the dead existence of a nun, broken by terrible nervous attacks.
And to think that we brought ourselves to poverty simply to give them a university education!" Then, as he drew breath, Felicite said to him softly: "You are forgetting Macquart." "Ah! yes; I was forgetting him," he resumed more violently than ever; "there's another whom I can't think of without losing all patience! But that's not all; you know little Silvere.
And what a world was evoked from the depths of the tragic cabin which breathed this horror that came from the far-off past in such appalling shape that every one, notwithstanding the oppressive heat, shivered. "What is it, master?" whispered Clotilde, trembling. "No, no, nothing!" murmured the doctor. "I will tell you later." Macquart, who alone continued to sneer, scolded the old mother.
All of Uncle Macquart was there, in this handful of fine ashes; and he was in the red cloud, also, which floated through the open window; in the layer of soot which carpeted the entire kitchen; the horrible grease of burnt flesh, enveloping everything, sticky and foul to the touch. It was the finest case of spontaneous combustion physician had ever seen.
He spent hours with his barber, who talked politics, and brushed his hair for him between their discussions. So, at last, the temptation became too strong, and Macquart installed himself before the washstand. He washed his hands and face, dressed his hair, perfumed himself, in fact went through a complete toilet.
One of the writers was commencing, in an emphatic voice, "Inhabitants of Plassans, the hour of independence has struck, the reign of justice has begun " when a noise was heard at the door of the office, which was slowly pushed open. "Is it you, Cassoute?" Macquart asked, interrupting the perusal. Nobody answered; but the door opened wider. "Come in, do!" he continued, impatiently.
Everything was in its place; the glass and the empty bottle of spirits were on the table; only the chair in which Uncle Macquart must have been sitting bore traces of fire, the front legs were blackened and the straw was partially consumed. What had become of Macquart? Where could he have disappeared?
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