You might well have heard a pin drop in the room,
for you could not have seen three more paralysed
people than those who now stared at le tout petit
Loup — that mosquito, that gnat, that midge of a
child with the eyes of a wizened, malevolent monkey.
There was only one thing that they might have said —
they all thought of it, too, at precisely the same
instant. They might have said: 'Look at yourself in
the glass; not just at the top of yourself but at the
whole!3 Yes, they might have, though naturally none
of them said it.
But a sly and insidious foe had poor Loup, which
was always lying in wait to undo him* And it lived
in his lungs, this insidious foe, which gave it a very
unfair advantage. All in a moment he was fighting
for breath, and a really alarming attack it was this
time. So Christophe must take off the shoes and
stockings while Marie deftly removed the collar,
trying not to spoil the white flottant tie. Then she
handed the jacket and waistcoat to Jouse, and one
way and another they got him undressed and to bed,
where he lay like a sick marmoset, much too suffering
to resemble a malevolent monkey. Then Marie must
run out in search of a neighbour, and the wife of the
corn-chandler promised to come and remain until
they should get back from Mass.
'Very well,9 sighed Jouse, Very well, that is settled.
And now I think we had all better dress; it is late,
and one cannot keep the good God waiting.5
'You and Christophe be off, then,' said Marie
rather crossly, cgo and wash and get into your clean
underclothes. I must try some stale bread for this
smudge on the collar.3
§2
In due course Madame Roustan arrived with Jan;
she was wearing a heliotrope coloured voile dress,