h should outdistance the other in the
race of orisons; from time to time they kissed a medal, and crossed
themselves anew, then resumed their rapid and unintelligible murmur.

Cornudet sat still, lost in thought.

Ah the end of three hours Loiseau gathered up the cards, and remarked
that he was hungry.

His wife thereupon produced a parcel tied with string, from which she
extracted a piece of cold veal. This she cut into neat, thin slices, and
both began to eat.

"We may as well do the same," said the countess. The rest agreed, and
she unpacked the provisions which had been prepared for herself, the
count, and the Carre-Lamadons. In one of those oval dishes, the lids of
which are decorated with an earthenware hare, by way of showing that a
game pie lies within, was a succulent delicacy consisting of the brown
flesh of the game larded with streaks of bacon and flavored with other
meats chopped fine. A solid wedge of Gruyere cheese, which had been
wrapped in a newspaper, bore the imprint: "Items of News," on its rich,
oily surface.

The two good sisters brought to light a hunk of sausage smelling
strongly of garlic; and Cornudet, plunging both hands at once into
the capacious pockets of his loose overcoat, produced from one four
hard-boiled eggs and from the other a crust of bread. He removed the
shells, threw them into the straw beneath his feet, and began to devour
the eggs, letting morsels of the bright yellow yolk fall in his mighty
beard, where they looked like stars.

Boule de Suif, in the haste and confusion of her departure, had not
thought of anything, and, stifling with rage, she watched all these
people placidly eating. At first, ill-suppressed wrath shook her
whole person, and she opened her lips to shriek the truth at them, to
overwhelm them with a volley of insults; but she could not utter a word,
so choked was she with indignation.

No one looked at her, no one thought of her. She felt herself swallowed
up in the scorn of these virtuous creatures, who had first sacrificed,
then rejected her as a thing useless and unclean. Then she remembered
her big basket full of the good things they had so greedily devoured:
the two chickens coated in jelly, the pies, the pears, the four bottles
of claret; and her fury broke forth like a cord that is overstrained,
and she was on the verge of tears. She made terrible efforts at
self-control, drew herself up, swallowed the sobs which choked her; but
the tears rose