Like one stupefied, he stopped and gazed at the lawn as if he had expected the beans to spring up at his call. There was no sign of them.
Then he turned round to me:
"Have you any beans?"
Good Heavens! There was a small sack of big white beans which we had bought last week, and out of which we hoped to get many a meal! If I deny that we have any, thought I, these people will go to the attic, and the first thing they see is the sack of beans, white and fruitful of promise.
"Hum ... yes, we have a small quantity of beans. But as we bought them, they cannot be requisitioned."
"How much have you?"
The answer came reluctantly:
"About twenty litres."
"Well, they are requisitioned; you are forbidden to use them."
The callers were about to leave, but the drunken man still wished to take Geneviève away.