ightly
raised, and her big eyes turned upward towards heaven.

CHAPTER VI

It was about five o'clock in the morning when Rougon at last ventured to
leave his mother's house. The old woman had gone to sleep on a chair. He
crept stealthily to the end of the Impasse Saint-Mittre. There was not a
sound, not a shadow. He pushed on as far as the Porte de Rome. The gates
stood wide open in the darkness that enveloped the slumbering town.
Plassans was sleeping as sound as a top, quite unconscious, apparently,
of the risk it was running in allowing the gates to remain unsecured.
It seemed like a city of the dead. Rougon, taking courage, made his way
into the Rue de Nice. He scanned from a distance the corners of each
successive lane; and trembled at every door, fearing lest he should see
a band of insurgents rush out upon him. However, he reached the Cours
Sauvaire without any mishap. The insurgents seemed to have vanished in
the darkness like a nightmare.

Pierre then paused for a moment on the deserted pavement, heaving a
deep sigh of relief and triumph. So those rascals had really abandoned
Plassans to him. The town belonged to him now; it slept like the foolish
thing it was; there it lay, dark and tranquil, silent and confident, and
he had only to stretch out his hand to take possession of it. That
brief halt, the supercilious glance which he cast over the drowsy place,
thrilled him with unspeakable delight. He remained there, alone in the
darkness, and crossed his arms, in the attitude of a great general on
the eve of a victory. He could hear nothing in the distance but the
murmur of the fountains of the Cours Sauvaire, whose jets of water fell
into the basins with a musical plashing.

Then he began to feel a little uneasy. What if the Empire should
unhappily have been established without his aid? What if Sicardot,
Garconnet, and Peirotte, instead of being arrested and led away by
the insurrectionary band, had shut the rebels up in prison? A cold
perspiration broke out over him, and he went on his way again, hoping
that Felicite would give him some accurate information. He now pushed on
more rapidly, and was skirting the houses of the Rue de la Banne, when a
strange spectacle, which caught his eyes as he raised his head, riveted
him to the ground. One of the windows of the yellow drawing-room was
brilliantly illuminated, and, in the glare, he saw a dark form, which he
recognized as that of his wife, bending forward,