‘Is that you, Fage?’ asked the Academician in his deep and resonant bass.
‘No, Meuchieu Achtier. It is the young gentleman.’
On Wednesday mornings the polisher opened the door, because Corentine was dressing her mistress.
‘How’s The Master?’ cried Paul Astier, hurrying by to his mother’s room. The Academician did not answer. His son’s habit of using ironically a title generally bestowed upon him as a compliment was always offensive to him.
‘M. Fage is to be shown up as soon as he comes,’ he said, not addressing himself directly to the polisher.
‘Yes, Meuchieu Achtier.’ And the bang-bang-bang began again.
‘Good morning, mamma.’
‘Why, it’s Paul! Come in. Mind the folds, Corentine.’
Madame Astier was putting on a skirt before the looking-glass. She was tall, slender, and still good-looking in spite of her worn features and her too delicate skin. She did not move, but held out to him a cheek with a velvet surface of powder. He touched it with his fair pointed beard. The son was as little demonstrative as the mother.
‘Will M. Paul stay to breakfast?’ asked Corentine. She was a stout countrywoman of an oily complexion, pitted with smallpox. She was sitting on the carpet like a shepherdess in the fields, and was about to repair, at the hem of the skirt, her mistress’s old black dress. Her tone and her attitude showed the objectionable familiarity of the under-paid maid-of-all-work.