The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 | Page 8

Loiseau alone accepted a mouthful, and handed back
the flask with thanks saying, "That's good! that warms you up and

keeps the hunger off a bit." The alcohol raised his spirits somewhat,
and he proposed that they should do the same as on the little ship in the
song--eat the fattest of the passengers. This indirect but obvious
allusion to Boule De Suif shocked the gentle people. Nobody
responded and only Cornudet smiled. The two Sisters of Mercy had
ceased to tell their beads and sat motionless, their hands buried in their
wide sleeves, their eyes obstinately lowered, doubtless engaged in
offering back to Heaven the sacrifice of suffering which it sent them.
At last, at three o'clock, when they were in the middle of an
interminable stretch of bare country without a single village in sight,
Boule de Suif, stooping hurriedly, drew from under the seat a large
basket covered with a white napkin.
Out of it she took, first of all, a little china plate and a delicate silver
drinking-cup, and then an immense dish, in which two whole fowls
ready carved lay stiffened in their jelly. Other good things were visible
in the basket: patties, fruits, pastry--in fact provisions for a three days'
journey in order to be independent of inn cookery. The necks of four
bottles protruded from between the parcels of food. She took the wing
of a fowl and began to eat it daintily with one of those little rolls which
they call "Regence" in Normandy.
Every eye was fixed upon her. As the odor of the food spread through
the carriage nostrils began to quiver and mouths to fill with water,
while the jaws, just below the ears contracted painfully. The dislike
entertained by the ladies for this abandoned young woman grew savage,
almost to the point of longing to murder her or at least to turn her out
into the snow, her and her drinking-cup and her basket and her
provisions.
Loiseau, however, was devouring the dish of chicken with his eyes.
"Madame has been more prudent than we," he said. "Some people
always think of everything."
She turned her head in his direction. "If you would care for any,
Monsieur--? It is not comfortable to fast for so long."

He bowed. "Ma foi!--frankly, I won't refuse. I can't stand this any
longer--the fortune of war, is it not, madame?" And with a
comprehensive look he added: "In moments such as this we are only
too glad to find any one who will oblige us." He had a newspaper
which he spread on his knee to save his trousers, and with the point of a
knife which he always carried in his pocket he captured a drumstick all
glazed with jelly, tore it with his teeth, and then proceeded to chew it
with satisfaction so evident that a deep groan of distress went up from
the whole party.
Upon this Boule de Suif in a gentle and humble tone invited the two
Sisters to share the collation. They both accepted on the spot, and
without raising their eyes began to eat very hurriedly, after stammering
a few words of thanks. Nor did Cornudet refuse his neighbor's offer,
and with the Sisters they formed a kind of table by spreading out
newspapers on their knees.
The jaws opened and shut without a pause, biting, chewing, gulping
ferociously. Loiseau, hard at work in his corner, urged his wife in a low
voice to follow his example. She resisted for some time, then, after a
pang which gripped her very vitals, she gave in. Whereupon her
husband, rounding off his phrases, asked if their "charming
fellow-traveler" would permit him to offer a little something to
Madame Loiseau.
"Why, yes, certainly, Monsieur," she answered with a pleasant smile,
and handed him the dish.
There was a moment of embarrassment when the first bottle of claret
was uncorked--there was but the one drinking-cup. Each one wiped it
before passing it to the rest. Cornudet alone, from an impulse of
gallantry no doubt, placed his lips on the spot still wet from the lips of
his neighbor.
Then it was that, surrounded by people who were eating, suffocated by
the fragrant odor of the viands, the Count and Countess de Breville and
Monsieur and Madame Carré-Lamadon suffered the agonies of that
torture which has ever been associated with the name of Tantalus.

Suddenly the young wife of the cotton manufacturer gave a deep sigh.
Every head turned towards her; she was as white as the snow outside,
her eyes closed, her head fell forward--she had fainted. Her husband,
distraught with fear, implored assistance of the whole company. All
lost their heads till the elder of the two Sisters, who supported the
unconscious lady, forced Boule de Suif's drinking-cup between her lips