pay no attention to what went on
around him, apparently neither hearing nor seeing anything of it. At
dinner he had eaten with his ordinary appetite and had even managed to
reply to Desiree's everlasting rattle of questions. But now he had given
up the struggle, his strength at an end, racked, exhausted as he was
by the internal tempest that still raged within him. He even lacked the
courage to rise from his seat and go upstairs to his own room. Moreover,
he was afraid that if he turned his face towards the lamplight, the
tears, which he could no longer keep from his eyes, would be noticed. So
he pressed his face close to the window and gazed out into the darkness,
growing gradually more drowsy, sinking into a kind of nightmare stupor.

Brother Archangias, still busy at his psalm-singing, winked and nodded
in the direction of the dozing priest.

'What's the matter?' asked La Teuse.

The Brother replied by a yet more significant wink.

'Well, what do you mean? Can't you speak? Ah! there's a king. That's
capital!--so I take your queen.'

The Brother laid down his cards, bent over the table, and whispered
close to La Teuse's face: 'That hussy has been here.'

'I know that well enough,' answered La Teuse. 'I saw her go with
mademoiselle into the poultry-yard.'

At this he gave her a terrible look, and shook his fist in her face.

'You saw her, and you let her come in! You ought to have called me, and
we would have hung her up by the feet to a nail in your kitchen.'

But at this the old woman lost her temper, and, lowering her voice
solely in order that she might not awaken Abbe Mouret, she replied:
'Don't you go talking about hanging people up in my kitchen! I certainly
saw her, and I even kept my back turned when she went to join his
reverence in the church when the catechising was over. But all that
was no business of mine. I had my cooking to attend to! As for the girl
herself, I detest her. But if his reverence wishes to see her--why, she
is welcome to come whenever she pleases. I'd let her in myself!'

'If you were to do that, La Teuse,' retorted the Brother ragefully, 'I
would strangle you, that I would.'

But she laughed at him.

'Don't talk any of your nonsense to me, my man! Don't you know that it
is forbidden you to lay your hands upon a woman, just as it's forbidden
for a donkey to have anything to do with the _Pater Noster_? Just you
try to strangle me and you'll see what I'll do! But do be quiet no