saturated with grease, there was a little heap of ashes, beside which
lay the pipe--a black pipe, which had not even broken in falling. All of
Uncle Macquart was there, in this handful of fine ashes; and he was in
the red cloud, also, which floated through the open window; in the layer
of soot which carpeted the entire kitchen; the horrible grease of burnt
flesh, enveloping everything, sticky and foul to the touch.

It was the finest case of spontaneous combustion physician had ever
seen. The doctor had, indeed, read in medical papers of surprising
cases, among others that of a shoemaker's wife, a drunken woman who had
fallen asleep over her foot warmer, and of whom they had found only
a hand and foot. He had, until now, put little faith in these cases,
unwilling to admit, like the ancients, that a body impregnated
with alcohol could disengage an unknown gas, capable of taking fire
spontaneously and consuming the flesh and the bones. But he denied the
truth of them no longer; besides, everything became clear to him as
he reconstructed the scene--the coma of drunkenness producing absolute
insensibility; the pipe falling on the clothes, which had taken fire;
the flesh, saturated with liquor, burning and cracking; the fat melting,
part of it running over the ground and part of it aiding the combustion,
and all, at last--muscles, organs, and bones--consumed in a general
blaze. Uncle Macquart was all there, with his blue cloth suit, and his
fur cap, which he wore from one year's end to the other. Doubtless, as
soon as he had begun to burn like a bonfire he had fallen forward, which
would account for the chair being only blackened; and nothing of him was
left, not a bone, not a tooth, not a nail, nothing but this little heap
of gray dust which the draught of air from the door threatened at every
moment to sweep away.

Clotilde had meanwhile entered, Charles remaining outside, his attention
attracted by the continued howling of the dog.

"Good Heavens, what a smell!" she cried. "What is the matter?"

When Pascal explained to her the extraordinary catastrophe that had
taken place, she shuddered. She took up the bottle to examine it, but
she put it down again with horror, feeling it moist and sticky with
Uncle Macquart's flesh. Nothing could be touched, the smallest objects
were coated, as it were, with this yellowish grease which stuck to the
hands.

A shudder of mingled awe and disgust passed through her, and she burst