e.

The first shock was rude. The old lady unburdened her mind, grew
indignant, spoke of the scandal they were giving. Suddenly her anger
vanished. She looked at the young girl, and she thought her adorable. In
her heart she was not surprised at what was going on. She laughed at it,
all she desired was that it should end in a correct fashion, so as to
silence evil tongues. And she cried with a conciliating air:

"Get married then! Why do you not get married?"

Clotilde remained silent for a moment, surprised. She had not thought of
marriage. Then she smiled again.

"No doubt we will get married, grandmother. But later on, there is no
hurry."

Old Mme. Rougon went away, obliged to be satisfied with this vague
promise.

It was at this time that Pascal and Clotilde ceased to seclude
themselves. Not through any spirit of bravado, not because they wished
to answer ugly rumors by making a display of their happiness, but as a
natural amplification of their joy; their love had slowly acquired the
need of expansion and of space, at first beyond the house, then beyond
the garden, into the town, as far as the whole vast horizon. It filled
everything; it took in the whole world.

The doctor then tranquilly resumed his visits, and he took the young
girl with him. They walked together along the promenades, along the
streets, she on his arm, in a light gown, with flowers in her hat, he
buttoned up in his coat with his broad-brimmed hat. He was all white;
she all blond. They walked with their heads high, erect and smiling,
radiating such happiness that they seemed to walk in a halo. At first
the excitement was extraordinary. The shopkeepers came and stood at
their doors, the women leaned out of the windows, the passers-by stopped
to look after them. People whispered and laughed and pointed to them.
Then they were so handsome; he superb and triumphant, she so youthful,
so submissive, and so proud, that an involuntary indulgence gradually
gained on every one. People could not help defending them and loving
them, and they ended by smiling on them in a delightful contagion of
tenderness. A charm emanated from them which brought back all hearts to
them. The new town, with its _bourgeois_ population of functionaries
and townspeople who had grown wealthy, was the last conquest. But the
Quartier St. Marc, in spite of its austerity, showed itself at once kind
and discreetly tolerant when they walked along its deserted grass-worn
sidewa