or-keeper,
after having explained that he had obtained the favors of the old
woman by painting the portrait of her cat exhibited on the easel.

When he mounted the ladder, he said to M. Saval:

"Are you active?"

The other, without understanding, answered:

"Why, yes."

"Well, you just climb up there, and fasten this chandelier for me to
the ring of the ceiling. Then, you must put a wax candle in each
bottle, and light it. I tell you I have a genius for lighting up. But
off with your coat, damn it! You are just like a Jeames."

The door was opened brutally. A woman appeared, with her eyes
flashing, and remained standing on the threshold.

Romantin gazed at her with a look of terror.

She waited some seconds, crossing her arms over her breast, and then,
in a shrill, vibrating, exasperated voice, said:

"Ha! you sniveler, is this the way you leave me?"

Romantin made no reply. She went on:

"Ha! you scoundrel! You are again doing the swell, while you pack me
off to the country. You'll soon see the way I'll settle your
jollification. Yes, I'm going to receive your friends."

She grew warmer:

"I'm going to slap their faces with the bottles and the wax
candles...."

Romantin uttered one soft word:

"Mathilde...."

But she did not pay any attention to him; she went on:

"Wait a little my fine fellow! wait a little!"

Romantin went over to her, and tried to take her by the hands:

"Mathilde...."

But she was now fairly under way; and on she went, emptying the vials
of her wrath with strong words and reproaches. They flowed out of her
mouth, like a stream sweeping a heap of filth along with it. The words
hurled out, seemed struggling for exit. She stuttered, stammered,
yelled, suddenly recovering her voice to cast forth an insult or a
curse.

He seized her hands without her having even noticed it. She did not
seem to see anything, so much occupied was she in holding forth and
relieving her heart. And suddenly she began to weep. The tears flowed
from her eyes without making her stem the tide of her complaints. But
her words had taken a howling, shrieking tone; they were a continuous
cry interrupted by sobbings. She commenced afresh twice or three
times, till she stopped as if something were choking her, and at last
she ceased with a regular flood of tears.

Then he clasped her in his arms and kissed her hair, affected himself.

"Mathilde, my little Mathilde, listen. You must be reasonable. You
kn