‘The animals, now,’ said Desirée, thoughtfully, ‘seem to get on much more comfortably than we do. The fowls never have headaches, have they? The rabbits grow as fat as ever one wants them to be. And you never saw my pig looking sad.’
Then, turning towards her brother, she went on with an air of rapture:
‘I have named it Matthew, because it is so like that fat man who brings the letters. It is growing so big and strong. It is very unkind of you to refuse to come and look at it as you always do. You will come to see it some day, won’t you?’
While she was thus talking she had laid hold of her brother’s share of bread, and was eating away at it. She had already finished one piece, and was beginning the second, when La Teuse became aware of what she was doing.
‘That doesn’t belong to you, that bread! You are actually stealing his food from him now!’
‘Let her have it,’ said Abbé Mouret, gently. ‘I shouldn’t have touched it myself. Eat it all, my dear, eat it all.’
For a moment Desirée fell into confusion, with her eyes fixed upon the bread, whilst she struggled to check her rising tears. Then she began to laugh, and finished the slice.
‘My cow,’ said she, continuing her remarks, ‘is never as sad as you are. You were not here when uncle Pascal gave her to me, on the promise that I would be a good girl, or you would have seen how pleased she was when I kissed her for the first time.’
She paused to listen. A cock crowed in the yard, and a great uproar followed, with flapping of wings and cackling, grunting, and hoarse cries as if the whole yard were in a state of commotion.
‘Ah! you know,’ resumed Desirée, clapping her hands, ‘she must be in calf now. I took her to the bull at Beage, three leagues from here. There are very few bulls hereabouts, you know.’