The two good sisters had resumed their prayers after having rolled
up in a paper the rest of their sausage.

Then Cornudet, who was digesting the eggs, stretched his long legs
under the seat, sat back, crossed his arms, smiled like a man who
has thought of a good joke and began to whistle the Marseillaise.

The faces of all the others darkened. Decidedly the popular song
did not please his neighbors. They became nervous, fidgety, and
seemed ready to howl like dogs that hear a barrel-organ. He noticed
it, did not stop. At times he even pronounced the words:


Amour sacre del la patrie,
Conduis, soutiens, nos bras vengeurs,
Liberte, liberte cherie,
Combats avec tes defenseurs.


The snow being harder, the coach traveled more quickly, and as far
as Dieppe, during the long dreary hours of the trip, through the
jostles of the road, during the twilight, and later in the thick
darkness of the coach, he kept on with a fierce obstinacy his
monotonous and revengeful whistling, compelling the fagged and
exasperated hearers to follow the anthem from one end to the other,
to remember every word that went with each measure.

And Boule de Suif was still weeping; and at times a sob, which she
could not restrain, passed between two verses in the night.