As he was entering the house, however, his courage began to ebb.
"Wipe your feet, Corporal," he said, "for they prate so much, you know, about their cleanliness and tidiness."
Jean went inside with an awkward gait, intending to make a clean breast of what he had to say before the others came back. He was surprised by the trim order of the kitchen. The pans were gleaming brightly, and there was not a speck of dust on the furniture, while the flooring was quite worn with the amount of scrubbing it had received. Some cabbage-soup of the day before stood warming by the side of a cinder-piled fire.
"Here's your good health!" said the old man, who had taken a couple of glasses and a partially emptied bottle from the side-board.
His hand trembled slightly as he drained his glass, as if he felt an uneasy alarm about what he was doing. As he put the glass down with the air of a man who has risked everything, he abruptly exclaimed:
"Would you believe, now, that Fanny has never once spoken to me since the day before yesterday, just because I spat? Spat, indeed, just as though every one didn't spit! I spit, of course, when I feel so inclined! One had better have done with it altogether than be worried in this way!"
Then filling his glass a second time, and delighted at having found some one to whom he could pour out his complaints, he eased his mind, never giving Jean an opportunity to get in a word. His troubles, however, did not appear to be very grievous ones, and were born chiefly of the angry indignation of an old man, to whose feelings and faults but little toleration was accorded, and upon whom his children were trying to force a mode of life different from what he had been accustomed to. However, he was as much affected by his grievances, slight though they were, as he could have been by actual cruelty and harsh treatment. A remark repeated in too loud a tone was as hard for him to bear as a blow would have been; and his daughter made matters still worse by her excessive touchiness, which seemed to find an offence and insulting intention in every little sentence which she could twist into an equivocal meaning. The result of all this was that the relations between father and daughter were becoming more and more strained and embittered every day. She who formerly, prior to the division of the property, had certainly been the kindlier hearted of the children, was now degenerating into a cross-grained shrew, subjecting the old man to perfect persecution, constantly following him about with her broom and duster, and finding fault with him both for what he did and for what he omitted to do. Without being subjected to actual cruelty, Fouan was kept in moral torture, over which he silently moaned in any quiet corner he could find.
"You must try to take it easily," repeated Jean, at each of the old man's complaints. "An understanding can always be arrived at with a little patience."
Fouan, however, who had just lighted a candle, now became angrily excited.