nevertheless, shone at the brink of her eyelids, and soon
two heavy drops coursed slowly down her cheeks. Others followed more
quickly, like water filtering from a rock, and fell, one after another,
on her rounded bosom. She sat upright, with a fixed expression, her face
pale and rigid, hoping desperately that no one saw her give way.

But the countess noticed that she was weeping, and with a sign drew her
husband's attention to the fact. He shrugged his shoulders, as if to
say: "Well, what of it? It's not my fault." Madame Loiseau chuckled
triumphantly, and murmured:

"She's weeping for shame."

The two nuns had betaken themselves once more to their prayers, first
wrapping the remainder of their sausage in paper:

Then Cornudet, who was digesting his eggs, stretched his long legs under
the opposite seat, threw himself back, folded his arms, smiled like
a man who had just thought of a good joke, and began to whistle the
Marseillaise.

The faces of his neighbors clouded; the popular air evidently did not
find favor with them; they grew nervous and irritable, and seemed ready
to howl as a dog does at the sound of a barrel-organ. Cornudet saw the
discomfort he was creating, and whistled the louder; sometimes he even
hummed the words:

Amour sacre de la patrie,
Conduis, soutiens, nos bras vengeurs,
Liberte, liberte cherie,
Combats avec tes defenseurs!

The coach progressed more swiftly, the snow being harder now; and all
the way to Dieppe, during the long, dreary hours of the journey, first
in the gathering dusk, then in the thick darkness, raising his voice
above the rumbling of the vehicle, Cornudet continued with fierce
obstinacy his vengeful and monotonous whistling, forcing his weary and
exasperated-hearers to follow the song from end to end, to recall
every word of every line, as each was repeated over and over again with
untiring persistency.

And Boule de Suif still wept, and sometimes a sob she could not restrain
was heard in the darkness between two verses of the song.

TWO FRIENDS

Besieged Paris was in the throes of famine. Even the sparrows on the
roofs and the rats in the sewers were growing scarce. People were eating
anything they could get.

As Monsieur Morissot, watchmaker by profession and idler for the nonce,
was strolling along the boulevard one bright January morning, his hands
in his trousers pockets and stomach empty, he suddenly came face to face
with an acqu