Surprise kept Rougon motionless for a moment at the sight of this
frantic bourgeois thus belabouring the bell in the moonlight. Then
he understood the kettle-like clang which this strange ringer had
disseminated over the town. He shouted to him to stop, but Granoux did
not hear. Rougon was obliged to take hold of his frock-coat, and then
the other recognising him, exclaimed in a triumphant voice: "Ah! you've
heard it. At first I tried to knock the bell with my fists, but that
hurt me. Fortunately I found this hammer. Just a few more blows, eh?"
However, Rougon dragged him away. Granoux was radiant. He wiped his
forehead, and made his companion promise to let everybody know in the
morning that he had produced all that noise with a mere hammer. What
an achievement, and what a position of importance that furious ringing
would confer upon him!
Towards morning, Rougon bethought himself of reassuring Felicite. In
accordance with his orders, the national guards had shut themselves up
in the town-hall. He had forbidden them to remove the corpses, under the
pretext that it was necessary to give the populace of the old quarter a
lesson. And as, while hastening to the Rue de la Banne, he passed over
the square, on which the moon was no longer shining, he inadvertently
stepped on the clenched hand of a corpse that lay beside the footpath.
At this he almost fell. That soft hand, which yielded beneath his
heel, brought him an indefinable sensation of disgust and horror.
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