the quarry.  The oil-dealers and almond-dealers were the men who saved France.  They clinked glasses to the glory of the Rougons.  Granoux, who was very red, began to stammer, while Vuillet, very pale, was quite drunk.  Nevertheless Sicardot continued filling his glass.  For her part Angele, who had already eaten too much, prepared herself some sugar and water.  The gentlemen were so delighted at being freed from panic, and finding themselves together again in that yellow drawing-room, round a good table, in the bright light radiating from the candelabra and the chandelier—­which they now saw for the first time without its fly-specked cover—­that they gave way to most exuberant folly and indulged in the coarsest enjoyment.  Their voices rose in the warm atmosphere more huskily and eulogistically at each successive dish till they could scarcely invent fresh compliments.  However, one of them, an old retired master-tanner, hit upon this fine phrase—­that the dinner was a “perfect feast worthy of Lucullus.”

Pierre was radiant, and his big pale face perspired with triumph.  Felicite, already accustoming herself to her new station in life, said that they would probably rent poor Monsieur Peirotte’s flat until they could purchase a house of their own in the new town.  She was already planning how she would place her future furniture in the receiver’s rooms.  She was entering into possession of her Tuileries.  At one moment, however, as the uproar of voices became deafening, she seemed to recollect something, and quitting her seat she whispered in Aristide’s ear:  “And Silvere?”

The young man started with surprise at the question.

“He is dead,” he replied, likewise in a whisper.  “I was there when the gendarme blew his brains out with a pistol.”

Felicite in her turn shuddered.  She opened her mouth to ask her son why he had not prevented this murder by claiming the lad; but abruptly hesitating she remained there speechless.  Then Aristide, who had read her question on her quivering lips, whispered:  “You understand, I said nothing—­so much the worse for him!  I did quite right.  It’s a good riddance.”

This brutal frankness displeased Felicite.  So Aristide had his skeleton, like his father and mother.  He would certainly not have confessed so openly that he had been strolling about the Faubourg and had allowed his cousin to be shot, had not the wine from the Hotel de Provence and the dreams he was building upon his approaching arrival in Paris, made him depart from his habitual cunning.  The words once spoken, he swung himself to and fro on his chair.  Pierre, who had watched the conversation between his wife and son from a distance, understood what had passed and glanced at them like an accomplice imploring silence.  It was the last blast of terror, as it were, which blew over the Rougons, amidst the splendour and enthusiastic merriment of the dinner.  True, Felicite, on returning to her seat, espied a taper burning behind a window on the other side of the road.  Some one sat watching Monsieur Peirotte’s corpse, which had been brought back from Sainte-Roure that morning.  She sat down, feeling as if that taper were heating her back.  But the gaiety was now increasing, and exclamations of rapture rang through the yellow drawing-room when the dessert appeared.