He attempted to defend himself, but she gave him such a lecture that he could say nothing more.
She then resumed:
“We dine at six o’clock, and you can amuse yourself until then. I cannot entertain you, as I have so many things to do.”
When he was alone he hesitated as to whether he should sleep or take a walk. He looked first at the door leading to his room and then at the hall door, and decided to go out. He sauntered slowly through the quiet Breton town, so sleepy, so calm, so dead, on the shores of its inland bay that is called “le Morbihan.” He looked at the little gray houses, the occasional pedestrians, the empty stores, and he murmured:
“Vannes is certainly not gay, not lively. It was a sad idea, my coming here.”
He reached the harbor, the desolate harbor, walked back along a lonely, deserted boulevard, and got home before five o’clock. Then he threw himself on his bed to sleep till dinner time. The maid woke him, knocking at the door.
“Dinner is ready, sir:”
He went downstairs. In the damp dining-room with the paper peeling from the walls near the floor, he saw a soup tureen on a round table without any table cloth, on which were also three melancholy soup-plates.
M. and Mme. Padoie entered the room at the same time as Varajou. They all sat down to table, and the husband and wife crossed themselves over the pit of their stomachs, after which Padoie helped the soup, a meat soup. It was the day for pot-roast.
After the soup, they had the beef, which was done to rags, melted, greasy, like pap. The officer ate slowly, with disgust, weariness and rage.