"I say, La Bécu," he repeated a dozen times over while he was eating, "if Bécu don't mind, we'll sleep together? What do you say?"
She was very dirty, not having known, she said, that she should stop at the fête; and she laughed, did this dark pole-cat of a woman, wiry and rusty like an old needle; while Hyacinthe, without further delay, grabbed hold of her legs under the table. Meantime the husband, blind drunk, dribbled and chuckled, shouting out that two men would be none too many for the hussy.
It was ten o'clock when the ball began. Through the communicating doorway the four lamps, fastened by iron wires to the beams, could be seen blazing. Clou, the farrier, was there with his trombone, as well as the nephew of a Bazoches-le-Doyen rope-maker, who played the violin. The admission was free, but you paid two sous for each dance you joined in. The beaten soil underfoot had just been watered, on account of the dust. Whenever the instruments left off playing, the sharp, regular detonations of the neighbouring shooting-gallery could be heard. The road, usually so gloomy, was all ablaze with the reflectors of the two other booths; the trinket stall glittered with gildings, while the turn-about was bedecked with mirrors and hung with red curtains like a chapel.
"Hallo! Why, there's my little daughter!" cried Hyacinthe, with swimming eyes.
So it was. La Trouille was just coming into the ball, attended by Delphin and Nénesse; and the father did not seem at all surprised to see her there, although he had locked her in. She not merely had the red bunch of ribbons flaunting in her hair, for round her neck there was now a heavy imitation coral necklace, formed of beads of sealing-wax, which showed blood-red against her dark skin. All three of them, moreover, tired of rambling about in front of the booths, were dull and sticky with sweetmeats, of which they had eaten more than they could digest. Delphin, who was only happy when out and about in all the hidden nooks of the country-side, wore a blouse, and his shaggy round savage-like head was bare. Nénesse, on the other hand, already yearning after the refinements of town life, was clad in a suit of dittos bought at Lambourdieu's, one of those scant outfits turned out wholesale by cheap Paris clothiers; and he wore a round felt hat, to mark his contempt of the village, which he looked down upon.
"Petty!" called Hyacinthe. "Little daughter, come and taste this. First-rate, ain't it?"
He let her drink out of his glass, while Madame Bécu asked Delphin sternly:
"What have you done with your cap?"
"Lost it."