In the meantime, Macquart had spent the day at aunt Dide’s house.  Stretching himself on the old coffer, and lamenting the loss of Monsieur Garconnet’s sofa, he had several times felt a mad inclination to break into his two hundred francs at some neighbouring cafe.  This money was burning a hole in his waistcoat pocket; however, he whiled away his time by spending it in imagination.  His mother moved about, in her stiff, automatic way, as if she were not even aware of his presence.  During the last few days her children had been coming to her rather frequently, in a state of pallor and desperation, but she departed neither from her taciturnity, nor her stiff, lifeless expression.  She knew nothing of the fears which were throwing the pent-up town topsy-turvy, she was a thousand leagues away from Plassans, soaring into the one constant fixed idea which imparted such a blank stare to her eyes.  Now and again, however, at this particular moment, some feeling of uneasiness, some human anxiety, occasionally made her blink.  Antoine, unable to resist the temptation of having something nice to eat, sent her to get a roast chicken from an eating-house in the Faubourg.  When it was set on the table:  “Hey!” he said to her, “you don’t often eat fowl, do you?  It’s only for those who work, and know how to manage their affairs.  As for you, you always squandered everything.  I bet you’re giving all your savings to that little hypocrite, Silvere.  He’s got a mistress, the sly fellow.  If you’ve a hoard of money hidden in some corner, he’ll ease you of it nicely some day.”

Macquart was in a jesting mood, glowing with wild exultation.  The money he had in his pocket, the treachery he was preparing, the conviction that he had sold himself at a good price—­all filled him with the self-satisfaction characteristic of vicious people who naturally became merry and scornful amidst their evil practices.  Of all his talk, however, aunt Dide only heard Silvere’s name.

“Have you seen him?” she asked, opening her lips at last.

“Who?  Silvere?” Antoine replied.  “He was walking about among the insurgents with a tall red girl on his arm.  It will serve him right if he gets into trouble.”

The grandmother looked at him fixedly, then, in a solemn voice, inquired:  “Why?”

“Eh!  Why, he shouldn’t be so stupid,” resumed Macquart, feeling somewhat embarrassed.  “People don’t risk their necks for the sake of ideas.  I’ve settled my own little business.  I’m no fool.”

But aunt Dide was no longer listening to him.  She was murmuring:  “He had his hands covered with blood.  They’ll kill him like the other one.  His uncles will send the gendarmes after him.”

“What are you muttering there?” asked her son, as he finished picking the bones of the chicken.  “You know I like people to accuse me to my face.  If I have sometimes talked to the little fellow about the Republic, it was only to bring him round to a more reasonable way of thinking.  He was dotty.  I love liberty myself, but it mustn’t degenerate into license.  And as for Rougon, I esteem him.  He’s a man of courage and common-sense.”