"_Zut! zut!_ and _zut!_ You make me tired. I will speak to whom I like.
I will see anyone that it pleases me to see. You shall lay down no law
for me, camel!"
I need only to see once more her wicked eyes, and hear her shrill
voice and her tyrannical orders, in order to lose at once the bad
impression, the impression of disgust, that I brought back from the
mass, from the grocer, and from Rose. Rose and the grocer are right;
the haberdasher also is right; all of them are right. And I promise
myself that I will see Rose; that I will see her often; that I will
return to the grocer's; that I will make this dirty haberdasher my best
friend,--since Madame forbids me to do so. And I repeat internally,
with savage energy:
"Camel! Camel! Camel!"
But I would have been much more relieved if I had had the courage to
hurl and shout this insult full in her face.
During the day, after lunch, Monsieur and Madame went out driving.
The dressing-room, the chambers, Monsieur's desk, all the closets, all
the cupboards, all the sideboards, were locked. What did I tell you?
Ah, well, thank you! no means of reading a letter, or of making up any
little packages.
So I have remained in my room. I have written to my mother and to
Monsieur Jean, and I have read "En Famille." What a delightful book!
And how well written! It is queer, all the same; I am very fond of
hearing dirty things, but I do not like to read them. I like only the
books that make me cry.
For dinner they had boiled beef and broth. It seemed to me that
Monsieur and Madame were very cool toward each other. Monsieur read
the "Petit Journal" with provoking ostentation. He crumpled the paper,
rolling all the time his kind, comical, gentle eyes. Even when he is
in anger, Monsieur's eyes remain gentle and timid. At last, doubtless
to start the conversation, Monsieur, with his nose still buried in his
paper, exclaimed:
"Hello! another woman cut to pieces!"
Madame made no answer. Very stiff, very straight, austere in her black
silk dress, her forehead wrinkled, her look stern, she did not cease
her dreaming. About what?
It is, perhaps, because of me that Madame is sulky with Monsieur.