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“Isn’t he a darling? Isn’t he a darling?”

And M. Duretour would hug the child in his arms and tickle his neck with his mustache.

Celeste, the old nurse, alone, seemed to have no tenderness for the little one. She would grow angry at his pranks, and seemed impatient at the caresses of the two men. She would exclaim:

“How can you expect to bring a child up like that? You’ll make a perfect monkey out of him.”

Years went by, and Jean was nine years old. He hardly knew how to read; he had been so spoiled, and only did as he saw fit. He was willful, stubborn and quick-tempered. The father always gave in to him and let him have his own way. M. Duretour would always buy him all the toys he wished, and he fed him on cake and candies. Then Celeste would grow angry and exclaim:

“It’s a shame, monsieur, a shame. You are spoiling this child. But it will have to stop; yes, sir, I tell you it will have to stop, and before long, too.”

M. Lemonnier would answer, smiling:

“What can you expect? I love him too much, I can’t resist him; you must get used to it.”

Jean was delicate, rather. The doctor said that he was anaemic, prescribed iron, rare meat and broth.

But the little fellow loved only cake and refused all other nourishment; and the father, in despair, stuffed him with cream-puffs and chocolate eclairs.

One evening, as they were sitting down to supper, Celeste brought on the soup with an air of authority and an assurance which she did not usually have. She took off the cover and, dipping the ladle into the dish, she declared:

“Here is some broth such as I have never made; the young one will have to take some this time.”

M. Lemonnier, frightened, bent his head. He saw a storm brewing.

Celeste took his plate, filled it herself and placed it in front of him.

He tasted the soup and said:

“It is, indeed, excellent.”

The servant took the boy’s plate and poured a spoonful of soup in it. Then she retreated a few steps and waited.

Jean smelled the food and pushed his plate away with an expression of disgust. Celeste, suddenly pale, quickly stepped forward and forcibly poured a spoonful down the child’s open mouth.

He choked, coughed, sneezed, spat; howling, he seized his glass and threw it at his nurse. She received it full in the stomach. Then, exasperated, she took the young shaver’s head under her arm and began pouring spoonful after spoonful of soup down his throat. He grew as red as a beet, and he would cough it up, stamping, twisting, choking, beating the air with his hands.

At first the father was so surprised that he could not move. Then, suddenly, he rushed forward, wild with rage, seized the servant by the throat and threw her up against the wall stammering:

“Out! Out! Out! you brute!”

But she shook him off, and, her hair streaming down her back, her eyes snapping, she cried out:

“What’s gettin’ hold of you? You’re trying to thrash me because I am making this child eat soup when you are filling him with sweet stuff!”

He kept repeating, trembling from head to foot:

“Out! Get out-get out, you brute!”

Then, wild, she turned to him and, pushing her face up against his, her voice trembling:

“Ah!–you think-you think that you can treat me like that? Oh! no. And for whom?–for that brat who is not even yours. No, not yours! No, not yours–not yours! Everybody knows it, except yourself! Ask the grocer, the butcher, the baker, all of them, any one of them!”

She was growling and mumbling, choked with passion; then she stopped and looked at him.

He was motionless livid, his arms hanging by his sides. After a short pause, he murmured in a faint, shaky voice, instinct with deep feeling: