Celeste took his plate, filled it herself and placed it in front of him.
He tasted the soup and said:
“It is, indeed, excellent.”
The servant took the boy's plate and poured a spoonful of soup in it.
Then she retreated a few steps and waited.
Jean smelled the food and pushed his plate away with an expression of
disgust. Celeste, suddenly pale, quickly stepped forward and forcibly
poured a spoonful down the child's open mouth.
He choked, coughed, sneezed, spat; howling, he seized his glass and
threw it at his nurse. She received it full in the stomach. Then,
exasperated, she took the young shaver's head under her arm and began
pouring spoonful after spoonful of soup down his throat. He grew as
red as a beet, and he would cough it up, stamping, twisting, choking,
beating the air with his hands.
At first the father was so surprised that he could not move. Then,
suddenly, he rushed forward, wild with rage, seized the servant by the
throat and threw her up against the wall stammering:
“Out! Out! Out! you brute!”
But she shook him off, and, her hair streaming down her back, her eyes
snapping, she cried out:
“What's gettin' hold of you? You're trying to thrash me because I am
making this child eat soup when you are filling him with sweet stuff!”
He kept repeating, trembling from head to foot:
“Out! Get out-get out, you brute!”
Then, wild, she turned to him and, pushing her face up against his, her
voice trembling:
“Ah!--you think-you think that you can treat me like that? Oh! no. And
for whom?--for that brat who is not even yours. No, not yours! No, not
yours--not yours! Everybody knows it, except yourself! Ask the grocer,
the butcher, the baker, all of them, any one of them!”
She was growling and mumbling, choked with passion; then she stopped and
looked at him.
He was motionless livid, his arms hanging by his sides. After a short
pause, he murmured in a faint, shaky voice, instinct with deep feeling:
“You say? you say? What do you say?”
She remained silent, frightened by his appearance. Once more he stepped
forward, repeating:
“You say--what do you say?”
Then in a calm voice, she answered:
“I say what I know, what everybody knows.”
He seized her and, with the fury of a beast, he tried to throw her down.
But, although old, she was strong and nimble. She slipped under his arm,
and running around the table once more furious, she screamed:
“Look at him, just look at him, fool that you are! Isn't he the living
image of M. Durefour? just look at his nose and his eyes! Are yours like
that? And his hair! Is it like his mother's? I tell you that everyone
knows it, everyone except yourself! It's the joke of the town! Look at
him!”
She went to the door, opened it, and disappeared.
Jean, frightened, sat motionless before his plate of soup.
At the end of an hour, she returned gently, to see how matters stood.
The child, after doing away with all the cakes and a pitcher full
of cream and one of syrup, was now emptying the jam-pot with his
soup-spoon.
The father had gone out.
Celeste took the child, kissed him, and gently carried him to his room
and put him to bed. She came back to the dining-room, cleared the table,
put everything in place, feeling very uneasy all the time.
Not a single sound could be heard throughout the house. She put her ear
against's her master's door. He seemed to be perfectly still. She put
her eye to the keyhole. He was writing, and seemed very calm.
Then she returned to the kitchen and sat down, ready for any emergency.
She slept on a chair and awoke at daylight.
She did the rooms as she had been accustomed to every morning; she
swept and dusted, and, towards eight o'clock, prepared M. Lemonnier's
breakfast.
But she did not dare bring it to her master, knowing too well how she
would be received; she waited for him to ring. But he did not ring. Nine
o'clock, then ten o'clock went by.
Celeste, not knowing what to think, prepared her tray and started up
with it, her heart beating fast.
She stopped before the door and listened. Everything was still. She
knocked; no answer. Then, gathering up all her courage, she opened the
door and entered. With a wild shriek, she dropped the breakfast tray
which she had been holding in her hand.
In the middle of the room, M. Lemonnier was hanging by a rope from a
ring in the ceiling. His tongue was sticking out horribly. His right
slipper was lying on the ground, his left one still on his foot. An
upturned chair had rolled over to the bed.
Celeste, dazed, ran away shrieking. All the neighbors crowded together.
The physician declared that he had died at about midnight.
A letter addressed to M. Duretdur was found on the table of the suicide.
It contained these words:
“I leave and entrust the child to you!”