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It was Tuesday, the market-day at Plassans, and Roudier had thought it necessary to have the gates opened in order to admit the few peasants who had brought vegetables, butter, and eggs. As soon as it had assembled, the Municipal Commission, now composed of five members only, including its president, declared that this was unpardonable imprudence.
And again, he remembered the Thursday walks. They started at two o'clock for some verdant nook about three miles from Plassans. Often they sought a meadow on the banks of the Viorne, where the gnarled willows steeped their leaves in the stream.
An embarrassed silence followed; this was the one difference of opinion which, at times, brought about disagreements among these three united beings who led so restricted a life. Martine was only twenty-nine, a year older than the doctor, when she entered his house, at the time when he made his debut as a physician at Plassans, in a bright little house of the new town.
I can never return to Plassans; my uncle would beat me; all the townspeople would point their fingers at me " And then, as if seized with sudden irritation, she added: "But no! I am cursed! I forbid you to leave aunt Dide to follow me. You must leave me on the highway." "Miette, Miette!" Silvere implored; "don't talk like that." "Yes. I want to please you. Be reasonable.
Whenever any caravan arrives at Plassans it takes up its quarters on the Aire Saint-Mittre. The place is consequently never empty. There is always some strange band there, some troop of wild men and withered women, among whom groups of healthy-looking children roll about on the grass.
In an insinuating voice she began to tell him a long story of how a lady, whom she was not at liberty to name, one of the most distinguished ladies in Plassans, who had suddenly met with a reverse of fortune, had been obliged to part with one of her jewels; and she then enlarged on the splendid chance a piece of jewelry that had cost twelve hundred francs, and she was willing to let it go for five hundred.
Tall, with a formidable beard and lean face, Macquart was the terror of the good women of the Faubourg of Plassans; they actually accused him of devouring little children raw. Though he was hardly thirty years old, he looked fifty.
The insurgents who led the van of that swarming, roaring stream, so vague and monstrous in the darkness, were rapidly approaching the bridge. "I thought," murmured Miette, "that you would not pass through Plassans?"
On the other hand, the labouring classes, which constitute scarcely a fifth of the population, mingle with the idlers of the district. It is only once a week, and during the fine weather, that the three districts of Plassans come together face to face. The whole town repairs to the Cours Sauvaire on Sunday after vespers; even the nobility venture thither.
Plassans might well have thought that an infuriated army was crossing it in all directions. The fusillade, the tocsin, the marches and countermarches of the national guards, the weapons which were being dragged along like clubs, the terrified cries in the darkness, all produced a deafening tumult, such as might break forth in a town taken by assault and given over to plunder.
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