went on firmly: "If you let me nearly
die of hunger again, you will force me to commit a crime, and then, so
much the worse for you other fat fellows."

The mayor had risen and he repeated: "Take him away immediately or I
shall end by getting angry."

The two gendarmes thereupon seized the carpenter by the arms and dragged
him out. He allowed them to do it without resistance, passed through the
village again and found himself on the highroad once more; and when
the men had accompanied him two hundred yards beyond the village, the
brigadier said: "Now off with you and do not let me catch you about here
again, for if I do, you will know it."

Randel went off without replying or knowing where he was going. He
walked on for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, so stupefied that
he no longer thought of anything. But suddenly, as he was passing a
small house, where the window was half open, the smell of the soup
and boiled meat stopped him suddenly, and hunger, fierce, devouring,
maddening hunger, seized him and almost drove him against the walls of
the house like a wild beast.

He said aloud in a grumbling voice: "In Heaven's name! they must give me
some this time!" And he began to knock at the door vigorously with his
stick, and as no one came he knocked louder and called out: "Hey! hey!
you people in there, open the door!" And then, as nothing stirred, he
went up to the window and pushed it wider open with his hand, and the
close warm air of the kitchen, full of the smell of hot soup, meat and
cabbage, escaped into the cold outer air, and with a bound the carpenter
was in the house. Two places were set at the table, and no doubt the
proprietors of the house, on going to church, had left their dinner on
the fire, their nice Sunday boiled beef and vegetable soup, while there
was a loaf of new bread on the chimney-piece, between two bottles which
seemed full.

Randel seized the bread first of all and broke it with as much violence
as if he were strangling a man, and then he began to eat voraciously,
swallowing great mouthfuls quickly. But almost immediately the smell of
the meat attracted him to the fireplace, and, having taken off the lid
of the saucepan, he plunged a fork into it and brought out a large
piece of beef tied with a string. Then he took more cabbage, carrots and
onions until his plate was full, and, having put it on the table, he sat
down before it, cut the meat into four pieces, and dined as if he had