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Updated: June 16, 2025
"I thought I was the only member of the family here." He spoke these last words with a touch of irony, as if deriding the intrigues of his father and his uncle Antoine. Silvere was very glad to meet his cousin; the doctor was the only one of the Rougons who ever shook hands with him in the street, and showed him any sincere friendship.
She had always come that way, and the pressure of her foot, as she alighted from the wall, had worn away the stone's surface in one corner. The mark seemed instinct with something of her lissom figure. And to Silvere it appeared as if some fatalism attached to all these objects as if the stone were there precisely in order that he might come to die beside it, there where he had loved.
"But uncle," said Silvere, "you are not yet too old to work!" Macquart, coughing and stooping, shook his head mournfully, as if to say that he could not bear the least fatigue for any length of time. Just as his nephew was about to withdraw, he borrowed ten francs of him.
It was particularly at this time that he talked of dividing and sharing the riches of the wealthy. He showed himself terrible. His speeches kept up a constant conflagration in the tavern, where his furious looks secured him unlimited credit. Moreover, he only worked when he had been unable to get a five-franc piece out of Silvere or a comrade.
Pascal resisted gently, saying, in his kindly voice: "I can do nothing for her, others are waiting for me. Let go, my poor child; she is quite dead." At last Silvere released his hold and again fell back. Dead! Dead! Still that word, which rang like a knell in his dazed brain! When he was alone he crept up close to the corpse. Miette still seemed to be looking at him.
That evening, while Silvere held her down on her bed, he heard her stammer in a panting voice such words as "custom-house officer," "fire," and "murder." And she struggled, and begged for mercy, and dreamed aloud of vengeance. At last, as always happened when the attack was drawing to a close, she fell into a strange fright, her teeth chattering, while her limbs quivered with abject terror.
Now and again Miette accused Silvere of having taken her the wrong way; for, at times for a quarter of an hour at a stretch they lost all sight of the surrounding country, seeing above the walls and hedges nothing but long rows of almond-trees whose slender branches showed sharply against the pale sky. All at once, however, they came out just in front of Orcheres.
It was now very nearly eight o'clock, and he had been holding his gun levelled for over a minute, when all at once a low, panting call, light as a breath, came from the direction of the Jas-Meiffren. "Are you there, Silvere?" the voice asked. Silvere dropped his gun and bounded on to the tombstone. "Yes, yes," he replied, also in a hushed voice. "Wait, I'll help you."
Those passionate kisses brought a last gleam of joy to Miette's eyes. They loved one another, and their idyll ended in death. But Silvere could not believe she was dying. "No, you will see, it will prove only a trifle," he declared. "Don't speak if it hurts you. Wait, I will raise your head and then warm you; your hands are quite frozen."
They were now unable to distinguish the valley or the hills; they heard only the hoarse plaints of the bells, sounding through the deep obscurity like invisible drums, hidden they knew not where, but ever goading them on with despairing calls. Miette and Silvere went on, all eagerness like the others.
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