g treated with respect! As he did not vouchsafe any further answer,
she was silenced, but she could not go to sleep and lay tossing to and
fro.

"Great God, have you done moving about?" cried he suddenly, giving a
brisk jump upward.

"It isn't my fault if there are crumbs in the bed," she said curtly.

In fact, there were crumbs in the bed. She felt them down to her middle;
she was everywhere devoured by them. One single crumb was scorching her
and making her scratch herself till she bled. Besides, when one eats a
cake isn't it usual to shake out the bedclothes afterward? Fontan, white
with rage, had relit the candle, and they both got up and, barefooted
and in their night dresses, they turned down the clothes and swept up
the crumbs on the sheet with their hands. Fontan went to bed again,
shivering, and told her to go to the devil when she advised him to wipe
the soles of his feet carefully. And in the end she came back to her
old position, but scarce had she stretched herself out than she danced
again. There were fresh crumbs in the bed!

"By Jove, it was sure to happen!" she cried. "You've brought them back
again under your feet. I can't go on like this! No, I tell you, I can't
go on like this!"

And with that she was on the point of stepping over him in order to jump
out of bed again, when Fontan in his longing for sleep grew desperate
and dealt her a ringing box on the ear. The blow was so smart that Nana
suddenly found herself lying down again with her head on the pillow.

She lay half stunned.

"Oh!" she ejaculated simply, sighing a child's big sigh.

For a second or two he threatened her with a second slap, asking her
at the same time if she meant to move again. Then he put out the light,
settled himself squarely on his back and in a trice was snoring. But she
buried her face in the pillow and began sobbing quietly to herself. It
was cowardly of him to take advantage of his superior strength! She had
experienced very real terror all the same, so terrible had that quaint
mask of Fontan's become. And her anger began dwindling down as though
the blow had calmed her. She began to feel respect toward him and
accordingly squeezed herself against the wall in order to leave him
as much room as possible. She even ended by going to sleep, her cheek
tingling, her eyes full of tears and feeling so deliciously depressed
and wearied and submissive that she no longer noticed the crumbs. When
she woke up in the morning