eighty-three years well, like an old drunkard
saturated with liquor, whom the alcohol seemed to preserve. At Plassans
he had left a terrible reputation as a do-nothing and a scoundrel,
and the old men whispered the execrable story of the corpses that lay
between him and the Rougons, an act of treachery in the troublous days
of December, 1851, an ambuscade in which he had left comrades with their
bellies ripped open, lying on the bloody pavement. Later, when he had
returned to France, he had preferred to the good place of which he had
obtained the promise this little domain of the Tulettes, which Felicite
had bought for him. And he had lived comfortably here ever since; he had
no longer any other ambition than that of enlarging it, looking out once
more for the good chances, and he had even found the means of obtaining
a field which he had long coveted, by making himself useful to his
sister-in-law at the time when the latter again reconquered Plassans
from the legitimists--another frightful story that was whispered also,
of a madman secretly let loose from the asylum, running in the night
to avenge himself, setting fire to his house in which four persons were
burned. But these were old stories and Macquart, settled down now, was
no longer the redoubtable scoundrel who had made all the family tremble.
He led a perfectly correct life; he was a wily diplomat, and he had
retained nothing of his air of jeering at the world but his bantering
smile.

"Uncle is at home," said Pascal, as they approached the house.

This was one of those Provencal structures of a single story, with
discolored tiles and four walls washed with a bright yellow. Before the
facade extended a narrow terrace shaded by ancient mulberry trees, whose
thick, gnarled branches drooped down, forming an arbor. It was here
that Uncle Macquart smoked his pipe in the cool shade, in summer. And on
hearing the sound of the carriage, he came and stood at the edge of the
terrace, straightening his tall form neatly clad in blue cloth, his head
covered with the eternal fur cap which he wore from one year's end to
the other.

As soon as he recognized his visitors, he called out with a sneer:

"Oh, here come some fine company! How kind of you; you are out for an
airing."

But the presence of Maxime puzzled him. Who was he? Whom had he come to
see? They mentioned his name to him, and he immediately cut short the
explanations they were adding, to enable him to straigh