ore as soon as possible, and when
the rice-cream was brought in, he nearly had a fit, and groaned with
greediness, and Gontran called out to him: "You have eaten too much
already; you will have no more." And they pretended not to give him any.
Then he began to cry; he cried and trembled more violently than ever,
while all the children laughed. At last, however, they gave him his
helping, a very small piece; and as he ate the first mouthful of the
pudding, he made a comical and greedy noise in his throat, and a
movement with his neck like ducks do when they swallow too large a
morsel, and then, when he had done, he began to stamp his feet, so as to
get more.

I was seized with pity for this saddening and ridiculous Tantalus, and I
interposed on his behalf: "Please, will you not give him a little more
rice?" But Simon replied: "Oh! no, my dear fellow, if he were to eat
too much, it might harm him, at his age."

I held my tongue, and thought over these words. Oh! ethics! Oh! logic!
Oh! wisdom! At his age! So they deprived him of his only remaining
pleasure out of regard for his health! His health! What would he do with
it, inert and trembling wreck that he was? They were taking care of his
life, so they said. His life? How many days? Ten, twenty, fifty, or a
hundred? Why? For his own sake? Or to preserve for some time longer the
spectacle of his impotent greediness in the family.

There was nothing left for him to do in this life, nothing whatever. He
had one single wish left, one sole pleasure; why not grant him that last
solace constantly, until he died?

After playing cards for a long time, I went up to my room and to bed; I
was low-spirited and sad, sad, sad! I sat at my window, but I heard
nothing but the beautiful warbling of a bird in a tree, somewhere in the
distance. No doubt the bird was singing thus in a low voice during the
night, and to lull his mate, who was sleeping on her eggs.

And I thought of my poor friend's five children, and pictured him to
myself, snoring by the side of his ugly wife.

JOSEPH

They were both of them drunk, quite drunk, little Baroness Andree de la
Fraisieres and little Countess Noemi de Gardens. They had been dining
alone together, in the large room which faced the sea. The soft breeze
of a summer evening blew in at the open window, soft and fresh at the
same time, a breeze that smelt of the sea. The two young women, extended
in their lounging chairs, sipped their Cha