"Shut up! I say," exclaimed Madame Dehan. "Better go and look for my flask of Spa elixir and bring some little glasses."
Mademoiselle Baba brought the elixir. They drank of it.
"I feel better now," said Madame Dehan, "After so much emotion, I need to refresh myself."
She poured out another little glass of the elixir for herself, drank it and licked the last few drops up with her tongue.
"Think of it," she said finally, "think of it, Madame Macarée ... I swear by all that I hold sacred, Mademoiselle Baba can be my witness, this is the first time that such a thing has happened to one of my tenants. And how many I have had! My Lord! Louise Bernier, whom they nicknamed Wrinkle, because she was so skinny; Marcelle la Carabinière (the freshest thing you ever saw!); Josuette, who died of a sunstroke in Christiania, the sun wishing thus to have his revenge of Joshua; Lili de Mercœur, a grand name, mind you, (not hers of course) and then vile enough for a chic woman, as Mercœur put it: 'You must pronounce it Mercure,' screwing up her mouth like a chicken's hole. Well she got hers, all right, they filled her as full of mercury as a thermometer. She would ask me in the morning; What sort of weather do you think we'll have today?' But I would always answer: 'You ought to know better than I...' Never, never in the world would any of those have become enceinte in my house."
"Oh well, it isn't as bad as that," said Macarée, "I also never had it happen to me before. Give me some advice, but make it short."
At this moment she arose.
"Oh!" cried Madame Dehan, "what a well-shaped behind you have! how sweet! how white! what embonpoint! Baba, Madame Macarée is going to put on her dressing-gown. Serve coffee and bring the bilberry tart."
Macarée put on a chemise and then a dressing gown whose belt was made of a Scotch shawl.
Mademoiselle Baba came back; she brought a big platter with cups, a coffee pot, milk-pitcher, jar of honey, butter cakes and the bilberry tart.