Rabot, slender, timid, and self-satisfied, bowed smilingly, bending his head forward as though to say: “Yes, I'm the Rabot whom Blondel married.”
Suddenly Maitre Belhomme, still holding his handkerchief to his ear, began groaning in a pitiful fashion. He was going “Oh-oh-oh!” and stamping his foot in order to show his terrible suffering.
“You must have an awful toothache,” said the priest.
The peasant stopped moaning for a minute and answered:
“No, Monsieur le cure, it is not the teeth. It's my ear-away down at the bottom of my ear.”
“Well, what have you got in your ear? A lump of wax?”
“I don't know whether it's wax; but I know that it is a bug, a big bug, that crawled in while I was asleep in the haystack.”
“A bug! Are you sure?”
“Am I sure? As sure as I am of heaven, Monsieur le cure! I can feel it gnawing at the bottom of my ear! It's eating my head for sure! It's eating my head! Oh-oh-oh!” And he began to stamp his foot again.
Great interest had been aroused among the spectators. Each one gave his bit of advice. Poiret claimed that it was a spider, the teacher, thought it might be a caterpillar. He had already seen such a thing once, at Campemuret, in Orne, where he had been for six years. In this case the caterpillar had gone through the head and out at the nose. But the man remained deaf in that ear ever after, the drum having been pierced.