Then they put a tiny morsel onto his plate, which he ate with feverish gluttony, in order to get something more as soon as possible, and when the rice-cream was brought in, he nearly had a fit, and groaned with greediness, and Gontran called out to him: "You have eaten too much already; you will have no more." And they pretended not to give him any. Then he began to cry; he cried and trembled more violently than ever, while all the children laughed. At last, however, they gave him his helping, a very small piece; and as he ate the first mouthful of the pudding, he made a comical and greedy noise in his throat, and a movement with his neck like ducks do when they swallow too large a morsel, and then, when he had done, he began to stamp his feet, so as to get more. I was seized with pity for this saddening and ridiculous Tantalus, and I interposed on his behalf: "Please, will you not give him a little more rice?" But Simon replied: "Oh! no, my dear fellow, if he were to eat too much, it might harm him, at his age." I held my tongue, and thought over these words. Oh! ethics! Oh! logic! Oh! wisdom! At his age! So they deprived him of his only remaining pleasure out of regard for his health! His health! What would he do with it, inert and trembling wreck that he was? They were taking care of his life, so they said. His life? How many days? Ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred? Why? For his own sake? Or to preserve for some time longer the spectacle of his impotent greediness in the family. There was nothing left for him to do in this life, nothing whatever. He had one single wish left, one sole pleasure; why not grant him that last solace constantly, until he died? After playing cards for a long time, I went up to my room and to bed; I was low-spirited and sad, sad, sad! I sat at my window, but I heard nothing but the beautiful warbling of a bird in a tree, somewhere in the distance. No doubt the bird was singing thus in a low voice during the night, and to lull his mate, who was sleeping on her eggs. And I thought of my poor friend's five children, and pictured him to myself, snoring by the side of his ugly wife. JOSEPH They were both of them drunk, quite drunk, little Baroness Andree de la Fraisieres and little Countess Noemi de Gardens. They had been dining alone together, in the large room which faced the sea. The soft breeze of a summer evening blew in at the open window, soft and fresh at the same time, a breeze that smelt of the sea. The two young women, extended in their lounging chairs, sipped their Chartreuse from time to time, as they smoked their cigarettes, and they were talking most confidentially, telling each other details which nothing but this charming intoxication could have induced their pretty lips to utter.