at the holy-water stoup of gilt porcelain, the print commemorating
his First Communion, the toilet basin on the chest of drawers,
and stacked in the corners piles of pasteboard and ornamental
paper for binding.

Everything about him seemed animated by a hostile, malevolent,
unjust spirit. In the next room he could hear his father moving.
He pictured him at his work-bench, with his serge apron, calm
and content. What a humiliation! and for the second time in a
dozen hours he blushed for his parentage.

His slumbers were broken and uneasy; he dreamed he was turning,
turning unendingly in complicated figures, and it was impossible
always to avoid touching Madame Evans' knee, though all the time
he was horribly afraid of doing it. Then there was a great field
full of thousands and thousands of marble pigs stuck up on stone
pedestals, among which he could see Monsieur Delbèque promenading
slowly up and down.




VIII

Next morning he awoke feeling sour-tempered and low-spirited.

"Well, my boy," his father asked him, blowing noisily at each
spoonful of soup he absorbed, "well, did you enjoy yourself
yesterday?"