On these occasions Céleste would lose her temper, and exclaim:
“It’s a shame, monsieur, a shame. You’ll be the ruin of the child, the ruin of him, do you hear! But it’s got to be stopped, and stopped it shall be, yes, I promise it shall, and before long, too.”
“Well, what about it, my good woman?” Monsieur Lemonnier would answer with a smile. “I’m too fond of him, I can’t go against his will. It’s up to you to take your share in his upbringing.”
Jean was weak and somewhat ailing. The doctor declared him to be anaemic, and ordered iron, red meat, and strong broth.
But the little one liked nothing but cakes, and refused all other nourishment; and his father, in despair, stuffed him with cream tarts and chocolate éclairs.
One evening, as the two sat down to table alone together, Céleste brought in the soup tureen with an assurance and an air of authority unusual in her. She abruptly took off the lid, plunged the ladle into the middle of it, and announced:
“There’s broth such as I’ve never made before; the little one really must have some, this time.”
Monsieur Lemonnier, terrified, lowered his head. He saw that this was not going down well.
Céleste took his plate, filled it herself, and placed it back in front of him.
He immediately tasted the soup and declared:
“Yes, it is excellent.”
Then the servant took the little boy’s plate and poured into it a whole ladleful of soup. She retired two paces and waited.
Jean sniffed it, pushed away the plate, and uttered a “pah” of disgust. Céleste, grown pale, went swiftly up to him and, seizing the spoon full of soup, thrust it forcibly into the child’s half-open mouth.
He choked, coughed, sneezed, and spat, and, yelling, grasped his glass in his fist and flung it at his nurse. It caught her full in the stomach. At that, exasperated, she took the brat’s head under her arm and began to ram spoonful after spoonful of soup down his gullet. He steadily vomited them back, stamping his feet with rage, writhing, choking, and beating the air with his hands, as red as though he were dying of suffocation.
At first the father remained in such stupefaction that he made no movement at all. Then suddenly he rushed forward with the wild rage of a madman, took the servant by the throat, and flung her against the wall.
“Get out! … out! … out! … brute!” he stammered.
But with a vigorous shake she repulsed him, and with dishevelled hair, her cap hanging down her back, her eyes blazing, cried:
“What’s come over you now? You want to beat me because I make the child eat his soup, when you’ll kill him with your spoiling!”
“Out! … be off with you … off with you, brute!” he repeated, trembling from head to foot.
Then in a rage she turned upon him, and facing him eye to eye, said in a trembling voice:
“Ah! … You think … you think … you’re going to treat me like that, me, me? … No, never. … And for whose sake, for whose sake? … For that snotty brat who isn’t even your own child! No … not yours! … No! not yours! … not yours! … not yours! Why, everybody knows it, by God, except you. … Ask the grocer, the butcher, the baker, everyone, everyone. …”
She faltered, choked with anger, then was silent and looked at him.
He did not stir; livid, his arms waving wildly. At the end of several seconds he stammered in a feeble, tremulous voice, in which strong emotion still quivered:
“You say? … you say? … What do you say?”
Then she answered in a calmer voice: “I say what I know, by God! What everyone knows.”
He raised his two hands and, flinging himself upon her with the fury of a brute beast, tried to fell her to the ground. But she was strong, in spite of her age, and agile too. She slipped through his arms and, running round the table, once more in a violent rage, screeched:
“Look at him, look at him, you fool, and see if he isn’t the living image of Monsieur Duretour; look at his nose and eyes, are your eyes like that? Or your nose? Or your hair? And were hers like that? I tell you everybody knows it, everybody, except you! It’s the laughingstock of the town! Look at him! Look at him! …”
She passed in front of the door, opened it, and disappeared.
Jean, terrified, remained motionless, staring at his soup plate.
At the end of an hour she returned, very softly, to see. The little one, after having devoured the cakes, a dish of custard, and a dish of pears in syrup, was now eating jam out of a pot with his soup spoon.
The father had gone out.
Céleste took the child, embraced him, and, with silent steps, carried him off to his room and put him to bed. And she returned to the dining room, cleared the table, and set everything in order, very uneasy in her mind.
No sound whatever was to be heard in the house. She went and set her ear to her master’s door. He was not moving about the room. She set her eye to the keyhole. He was writing and seemed calm.
Then she went back to sit in her kitchen, so as to be ready for any circumstance, for she realised that something was in the air.
She fell asleep in her chair, and did not wake until daybreak.
She did the household work, as was her custom every morning; she swept and dusted, and, at about eight o’clock, made Monsieur Lemonnier’s coffee.
But she dared not take it to her master, having very little idea how she would be received; and she
