Suddenly through his tears he caught sight of the wicker-work woman on which Madame Bergeret draped her dresses and which she always kept in her husband’s study in front of the book-case, disregarding the professor’s resentment when he complained that every time he wanted to put his books on the shelves, he had to embrace the wicker-work woman and carry her off. At the best of times M. Bergeret’s teeth were set on edge by this contrivance which reminded him of the hen-coops of the cottagers, or of the idol of woven cane which he had seen as a child in one of the prints of his ancient history, and in which, it was said, the Phœnicians burnt their slaves. Above all, the thing reminded him of Madame Bergeret, and although it was headless, he always expected to hear it burst out screaming, moaning, or scolding. This time the headless thing seemed to be none other than Madame Bergeret herself, Madame Bergeret, the hateful, the grotesque. Flinging himself upon it, he clasped the thing in his arms and made its wicker breast crack under his fingers, as though it were the gristles of ribs that broke. Overturning it, he stamped on it with his feet and carrying it off, threw it creaking and mutilated, out of window into the yard belonging to Lenfant, the cooper, where it fell among buckets and tubs. In doing this, he felt as though he were performing an act that symbolised a true fact, yet was at the same time ridiculous and absurd. On the whole, however, he felt somewhat relieved, and when Euphémie came to tell him that déjeuner was getting cold, he shrugged his shoulders, and walking resolutely across the still deserted dining-room, took up his hat in the hall and went downstairs. In the gateway he remembered that he knew neither where to go nor what to do and that he had come to no decision at all. Once outside, he noticed that it was raining and that he had no umbrella. He was rather annoyed at the fact, though the sense of annoyance came quite as a relief. As he stood hesitating as to whether he should go out into the shower or not, he caught sight of a pencil drawing on the plaster of the wall, just below the bell and just at the height which a child’s arm would reach. It represented an old man; two dots and two lines within a circle made the face, and the body was depicted by an oval; the arms and legs were shown by single lines which radiated outwards like wheel-spokes and imparted a certain air of jollity to this scrawl, which was executed in the classic style of mural ribaldry. It must have been drawn some time ago, for it showed signs of friction and in places was already half rubbed out. But this was the first time that M. Bergeret had noticed it, doubtless because his powers of observation were just now in a peculiarly wide-awake condition. “A _graffito_,” said the professor to himself. He noticed next that two horns stuck out from the old man’s head and that the word _Bergeret_ was written by the side, so that no mistake might be made.