The woman and I stood together to watch those boys go away.
Madame Alice
Thursday, December 9th
These last days Madame Alice has been even more sullen than usual. She arrives in the morning, they tell me—she arrives at six and I am never there to see—with a long face, and will say good day to nobody, and grumbles because somebody's handkerchief, or somebody's bag of raffia grasses, or somebody's package of letters, had fallen from his night-table to litter her floor. She grumbles about "pigs," and bangs things.
When I arrive I find her still grumbling and banging.
This morning she was washing the face of the new 25. She washed his poor face very gently, no hands in the world could have been kinder or more careful than hers, or more delicate of touch, though they are big and red, but she was grumbling all the time.
I said, "Good morning," and she hunched one shoulder.
Madame Marthe came in and said that I had better go and fetch my boiled water before somebody else emptied the boiler.
When I was coming back with it from the office, Madame Alice was standing by the window at the turn of the passage. She had put her pail down on the floor, with 25's soap and things thrown down beside it. She stood with one arm against the window-pane and her face buried in the crook of her elbow.
I said, "Oh, Madame Alice, are you ill, Madame Alice?"