which had lasted since
the day before, Martine said as she was serving the breakfast:

"Just now as I was crossing the Place de la Sous-Prefecture, I saw a
stranger whom I thought I recognized going into Mme. Felicite's house.
Yes, mademoiselle, I should not be surprised if it were your brother."

On the impulse of the moment, Pascal and Clotilde spoke.

"Your brother! Did your grandmother expect him, then?"

"No, I don't think so, though she has been expecting him at any time for
the past six months, I know that she wrote to him again a week ago."

They questioned Martine.

"Indeed, monsieur, I cannot say; since I last saw M. Maxime four years
ago, when he stayed two hours with us on his way to Italy, he may
perhaps have changed greatly--I thought, however, that I recognized his
back."

The conversation continued, Clotilde seeming to be glad of this event,
which broke at last the oppressive silence between them, and Pascal
ended:

"Well, if it is he, he will come to see us."

It was indeed Maxime. He had yielded, after months of refusal, to the
urgent solicitations of old Mme. Rougon, who had still in this quarter
an open family wound to heal. The trouble was an old one, and it grew
worse every day.

Fifteen years before, when he was seventeen, Maxime had had a child by
a servant whom he had seduced. His father Saccard, and his stepmother
Renee--the latter vexed more especially at his unworthy choice--had
acted in the matter with indulgence. The servant, Justine Megot,
belonged to one of the neighboring villages, and was a fair-haired
girl, also seventeen, gentle and docile; and they had sent her back to
Plassans, with an allowance of twelve hundred francs a year, to bring up
little Charles. Three years later she had married there a harness-maker
of the faubourg, Frederic Thomas by name, a good workman and a sensible
fellow, who was tempted by the allowance. For the rest her conduct was
now most exemplary, she had grown fat, and she appeared to be cured of
a cough that had threatened a hereditary malady due to the alcoholic
propensities of a long line of progenitors. And two other children born
of her marriage, a boy who was now ten and a girl who was seven, both
plump and rosy, enjoyed perfect health; so that she would have been the
most respected and the happiest of women, if it had not been for the
trouble which Charles caused in the household. Thomas, notwithstanding
the allowance, execrated this son o