“It’s you who fired!” she cried.  “I heard the gold. . . .  Wretched woman that I am! . . .  I brought nothing but wolves into the world—­a whole family—­a whole litter of wolves! . . .  There was only one poor lad, and him they have devoured; each had a bite at him, and their lips are covered with blood. . . .  Ah! the accursed villains!  They have robbed, they have murdered. . . .  And they live like gentlemen.  Villains!  Accursed villains!”

She sang, laughed, cried, and repeated “accursed villains!” in strangely sonorous tones, which suggested a crackling of a fusillade.  Pascal, with tears in his eyes, took her in his arms and laid her on the bed again.  She submitted like a child, but persisted in her wailing cries, accelerating their rhythm, and beating time on the sheet with her withered hands.

“That’s just what I was afraid of,” the doctor said; “she is mad.  The blow has been too heavy for a poor creature already subject, as she is, to acute neurosis.  She will die in a lunatic asylum like her father.”

“But what could she have seen?” asked Rougon, at last venturing to quit the corner where he had hidden himself.

“I have a terrible suspicion,” Pascal replied.  “I was going to speak to you about Silvere when you came in.  He is a prisoner.  You must endeavour to obtain his release from the prefect, if there is still time.”

The old oil-dealer turned pale as he looked at his son.  Then, rapidly, he responded:  “Listen to me; you stay here and watch her.  I’m too busy this evening.  We will see to-morrow about conveying her to the lunatic asylum at Les Tulettes.  As for you, Macquart, you must leave this very night.  Swear to me that you will!  I’m going to find Monsieur de Bleriot.”

He stammered as he spoke, and felt more eager than ever to get out into the fresh air of the streets.  Pascal fixed a penetrating look on the madwoman, and then on his father and uncle.  His professional instinct was getting the better of him, and he studied the mother and the sons, with all the keenness of a naturalist observing the metamorphosis of some insect.  He pondered over the growth of that family to which he belonged, over the different branches growing from one parent stock, whose sap carried identical germs to the farthest twigs, which bent in divers ways according to the sunshine or shade in which they lived.  And for a moment, as by the glow of a lightning flash, he thought he could espy the future of the Rougon-Macquart family, a pack of unbridled, insatiate appetites amidst a blaze of gold and blood.

Aunt Dide, however, had ceased her wailing chant at the mention of Silvere’s name.  For a moment she listened anxiously.  Then she broke out into terrible shrieks.  Night had now completely fallen, and the black room seemed void and horrible.  The shrieks of the madwoman, who was no longer visible, rang out from the darkness as from a grave.  Rougon, losing his head, took to flight, pursued by those taunting cries, whose bitterness seemed to increase amidst the gloom.