“And you were only forty-one; it’s marvellous!”

“Ah, indeed! it must have been frightfully dark!”

“No; I confess I never should have dared it!”

“Then you seized him, like that, by the throat?

“And the insurgents, what did they say?”

These remarks and questions only incited Rougon’s imagination the more.  He replied to everybody.  He mimicked the action.  This stout man, in his admiration of his own achievements, became as nimble as a schoolboy; he began afresh, repeated himself, amidst the exclamations of surprise and individual discussions which suddenly arose about some trifling detail.  And thus he continued blowing his trumpet, making himself more and more important as if some irresistible force impelled him to turn his narrative into a genuine epic.  Moreover Granoux and Roudier stood by his side prompting him, reminding him of such trifling matters as he omitted.  They also were burning to put in a word, and occasionally they could not restrain themselves, so that all three went on talking together.  When, in order to keep the episode of the broken mirror for the denouement, like some crowning glory, Rougon began to describe what had taken place downstairs in the courtyard, after the arrest of the guard, Roudier accused him of spoiling the narrative by changing the sequence of events.  For a moment they wrangled about it somewhat sharply.  Then Roudier, seeing a good opportunity for himself, suddenly exclaimed:  “Very well, let it be so.  But you weren’t there.  So let me tell it.”

He thereupon explained at great length how the insurgents had awoke, and how the muskets of the town’s deliverers had been levelled at them to reduce them to impotence.  He added, however, that no blood, fortunately, had been shed.  This last sentence disappointed his audience, who had counted upon one corpse at least.

“But I thought you fired,” interrupted Felicite, recognising that the story was wretchedly deficient in dramatic interest.

“Yes, yes, three shots,” resumed the old hosier.  “The pork-butcher Dubruel, Monsieur Lievin, and Monsieur Massicot discharged their guns with really culpable alacrity.”  And as there were some murmurs at this remark; “Culpable, I repeat the word,” he continued.  “There are quite enough cruel necessities in warfare without any useless shedding of blood.  Besides, these gentlemen swore to me that it was not their fault; they can’t understand how it was their guns went off.  Nevertheless, a spent ball after ricocheting grazed the cheek of one of the insurgents and left a mark on it.”

This graze, this unexpected wound, satisfied the audience.  Which cheek, right or left, had been grazed, and how was it that a bullet, a spent one, even, could strike a cheek without piercing it?  These points supplied material for some long discussions.

“Meantime,” continued Rougon at the top of his voice, without giving time for the excitement to abate; “meantime we had plenty to do upstairs.  The struggle was quite desperate.”