She did not finish. Her mother gave her a clout with all her might, and such a hard one that it hanged Berthe’s head down onto the table-cover. Her hand had been itching to give it, ever since the day before; it had been making her fingers tingle, the same as in those far-off days when the child used to oversleep herself.
“There!” cried she, “that’s for your education! Your husband ought to have beaten you to a jelly.”
The young woman did not rise, but sat there sobbing, her cheek pressed against her arm. She forgot her twenty-four years, this clout brought her back to the slaps of other times, to a whole past of timorous hypocrisy. All her resolution of an emancipated grownup person melted away in the great sorrow of a little girl.
But, on hearing her weep so bitterly, the father was seized with a terrible emotion. He at length got up, quite distracted, and he pushed the mother away, saying:
“You wish, then, to kill me between you? Tell me, must I go on my knees to you?”
Madame Josserand, having relieved her feelings, and having nothing to add, was withdrawing in a royal silence, when she found Hortense listening behind the door as she suddenly opened it. This caused a fresh outburst.
“Ah! so you were listening to all this filth? The one does the most horrible things, and the other takes a delight in hearing about them; the two make the pair. But, good heavens! whoever was it that brought you up?”
Hortense, without being in the least moved, entered the room.
“It was not necessary to listen, one can even hear you in the kitchen. The servant is wriggling with laughter. Besides, I’m old enough to be married; there is no harm in my knowing.”
“Verdier, eh?” resumed the mother bitterly. “That’s all the satisfaction you give me. Now, you are waiting for the death of a brat. You may wait, she’s big and plump, so I’ve been told. It serves you right.”