and now I live in their house, but what is the shell
without the kernel?5
Madame Roustan clasped Ghristophe to her out-
raged breast: 'Ah, mais non,5 she protested, 'the man
goes too far; his conversation has ceased to be decent.5
Eusebe watched her as she hurried away, and his
eye became composite in expression; angry, amused
and lascivious it looked, which was very much what
its owner was feeling. 'That widow/ he muttered,
eis as full of bad sap as a wicked old ivy about to
strangle. I have very great fears for the unhappy
Goundran, yes, in spite of that saying about the fisher.9
And shaking his head he retired into his shop, there
to ease those same fears by recourse to the bottle.
§2
Christophers visit to Jan Roustan and his parent
was the first really intimate meeting of these cousins.
They had met several times before, it is true, but only
at a distance, from the laps of their mothers.
When Madame Roustan returned to her house,
still outraged by Eusebe's coarse conversation, she
carried Christophe upstairs to her bedroom where
Jan had been left in the charge of a girl from the
country, engaged to assist by Jouse.
Jan was a year and four months old; a dark-skinned,
aggressive and hot-tempered baby. He was squirming
like Eusebe's proverbial eels, for he deeply resented
the liberties that rough peasant hands were taking
with him —but unlike those proverbial eels he was
screaming.
'Rampau de Dieu!? cried Madame Roustan, plump-
ing Christophe onto his feet, 'Rampau de Dieu!
It must be a pin. He will never endure the prick of
a pin — that he will not support for so much as an
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