The very next lesson he began to put his plan into execution. He set himself conscientiously to hit the notes awry, or to bungle every touch. Melchior cried out, then roared, and blows began to rain. He had a heavy ruler. At every false note he struck the boy's fingers, and at the same time shouted in his ears, so that he was like to deafen him. Jean-Christophe's face twitched tinder the pain of it; he bit his lips to keep himself from crying, and stoically went on hitting the notes all wrong, bobbing his head down whenever he felt a blow coming. But his system was not good, and it was not long before he began to see that it was so. Melchior was as obstinate as his son, and he swore that even if they were to stay there two days and two nights he would not let him off a single note until it had been properly played. Then Jean-Christophe tried too deliberately to play wrongly, and Melchior began to suspect the trick, as he saw that the boy's hand fell heavily to one side at every note with obvious intent. The blows became more frequent; Jean-Christophe was no longer conscious of his fingers. He wept pitifully and silently, sniffing, and swallowing down his sobs and tears. He understood that he had nothing to gain by going on like that, and that he would have to resort to desperate measures. He stopped, and, trembling at the thought of the storm which was about to let loose, he said valiantly: "Papa, I won't play any more." Melchior choked. "What! What!..." he cried. He took and almost broke the boy's arm with shaking it. Jean-Christophe, trembling more and more, and raising his elbow to ward off the blows, said again: "I won't play any more. First, because I don't like being beaten. And then...." He could not finish. A terrific blow knocked the wind out of him, and Melchior roared: "Ah! you don't like being beaten? You don't like it?..." Blows rained. Jean-Christophe bawled through his sobs: "And then ... I don't like music!... I don't like music!..." He slipped down from his chair. Melchior roughly put him back, and knocked his knuckles against the keyboard. He cried: "You shall play!" And Jean-Christophe shouted: "No! No! I won't play!" Melchior had to surrender. He thrashed the boy, thrust him from the room, and said that he should have nothing to eat all day, or the whole month, until he had played all his exercises without a mistake. He kicked him out and slammed the door after him, Jean-Christophe found himself on the stairs, the dark and dirty stairs, worm-eaten. A draught came through a broken pane in the skylight, and the walls were dripping. Jean-Christophe sat on one of the greasy steps; his heart was beating wildly with anger and emotion. In a low voice he cursed his father: "Beast! That's what you are! A beast ... a gross creature ... a brute! Yes, a brute!... and I hate you, I hate you!... Oh, I wish you were dead! I wish you were dead!"