"Once,—twice,—thrice,—you will not? Well, then, here goes! Now I'll smash your old timbers, into morsels too small for you to pick up. Hu!—hu!—hallo! Well done! Bravo!"
And suiting the action to the word, the ruffian assailed the door so furiously that he quickly drove it in, the miserable lock with which it was furnished having speedily broken to pieces.
The two women shrieked loudly; Madame de Fermont, in spite of her weakness, rushed forward to meet the ruffian at the moment when he was entering the room, and stopped him.
"Sir, this is most shameful; you must not enter here," exclaimed the unhappy mother, keeping the door closed as well as she could. "I will call for help." And she shuddered at the sight of this man, with his hideous and drunken countenance.
"What's all this? What's all this?" said he. "Oughtn't neighbours to be obliging? You ought to have opened; I shouldn't have broken anything."
Then with the stupid obstinacy of intoxication, he added, reeling on his tottering legs:
"I wanted to come in, and I will come in; and I won't go out until I've lighted my pipe."
"I have neither fire nor matches. In heaven's name, sir, do go away."
"That's not true. You tell me that I may not see the little girl who's in bed. Yesterday you stopped up all the holes in the door. She's a pretty chick, and I should like to see her. So mind, or I shall hurt you if you don't let me enter quietly. I tell you I will see the little girl in her bed, and I will light my pipe, or I'll smash everything before me, and you into the bargain."
"Help, help, help!" exclaimed Madame de Fermont, who felt the door yielding before the broad shoulders of the Gros-Boiteux.