"It is, indeed, excellent."

The servant took the boy's plate and poured a spoonful of soup in it.
Then she retreated a few steps and waited.

Jean smelled the food and pushed his plate away with an expression of
disgust. Celeste, suddenly pale, quickly stepped forward and forcibly
poured a spoonful down the child's open mouth.

He choked, coughed, sneezed, spat; howling, he seized his glass and threw
it at his nurse. She received it full in the stomach. Then, exasperated,
she took the young shaver's head under her arm and began pouring spoonful
after spoonful of soup down his throat. He grew as red as a beet, and he
would cough it up, stamping, twisting, choking, beating the air with his
hands.

At first the father was so surprised that he could not move. Then,
suddenly, he rushed forward, wild with rage, seized the servant by the
throat and threw her up against the wall stammering:

"Out! Out! Out! you brute!"

But she shook him off, and, her hair streaming down her back, her eyes
snapping, she cried out:

"What's gettin' hold of you? You're trying to thrash me because I am
making this child eat soup when you are filling him with sweet stuff!"

He kept repeating, trembling from head to foot: