Madame--Why, you admitted it to me yourself one night, on the Pont des Arts, as we were walking home from the theatre. Monsieur--After all, there is no great harm in that. Madame--(sadly)--I am not angry with you, this sternness is part of your nature, you are a rod of iron. Monsieur--I have some energy when it is needed, I grant you, but I have not the absurd pride you imagine, and there (he dips his finger in the paste and carries it to his lips), is the proof, you spoilt child. Are you satisfied? It has no taste, it is insipid. Madame--You were pretending. Monsieur--I swear to you . . . Madame (taking a little soon, filling it with her precious paste and holding it to her husband's lips)--I want to see the face you will make, love. Monsieur--(Puts out his lips, buries his two front teeth, with marked disgust, in the paste, makes a horrible face and spits into the fireplace)--Eugh. Madame--(still holding the spoon and with much interest) Well? Monsieur--Well! it is awful! oh! awful! taste it. Madame--(dreamily stirring the paste with the spoon, her little finger in the air)--I should never have believed that it was so nasty. Monsieur--You will soon see for yourself, taste it, taste it. Madame--I am in no hurry, I have plenty of time. Monsieur--To see what it is like. Taste a little, come. Madame--(pushing away the plate with a look of horror)--Oh! how you worry me. Be quiet, do; for a trifle I could hate you. It is disgusting, this paste of yours! CHAPTER XXII FAMILY LIFE It was the evening of the 15th of February. It was dreadfully cold. The snow drove against the windows and the wind whistled furiously under the doors. My two aunts, seated at a table in one corner of the drawing- room, gave vent from time to time to deep sighs, and, wriggling in their armchairs, kept casting uneasy glances toward the bedroom door. One of them had taken from a little leather bag placed on the table her blessed rosary and was repeating her prayers, while her sister was reading a volume of Voltaire's correspondence which she held at a distance from her eyes, her lips moving as she perused it. For my own part, I was striding up and down the room, gnawing my moustache, a bad habit I have never been able to get rid of, and halting from time to time in front of Dr. C., an old friend of mine, who was quietly reading the paper in the most comfortable of the armchairs. I dared not disturb him, so absorbed did he seem in what he was reading, but in my heart I was furious to see him so quiet when I myself was so agitated. Suddenly he tossed the paper on to the couch and, passing his hand across his bald and shining head, said: "Ah! if I were a minister, it would not take long, no, it would not be very long . . . . You have read that article on Algerian cotton. One of two things, either irrigation . . . . But you are not listening to me, and yet it is a more serious matter than you think."