" And I can see heads nodding assent in the cavern's
twilight.
An incident: Farfadet having by accident rubbed against the damp and
dirty wall, his shoulder has brought away from it a smudge so big
and black that it can be seen even here. Farfadet, so careful of his
appearance, growls, and in avoiding a second contact with the wall,
knocks the table so that his spoon drops to the ground. Stooping, he
fumbles among the loose earth, where dust and spiders' webs for
years have silently fallen. When he recovers his spoon it is almost
black, and webby threads hang from it. Evidently it is disastrous to
let anything fall on the ground. One must live here with great care.
Lamuse brings down his fat hand, like a pork-pie, between two of the
places at table. "Allons, a table!" We fall to. The meal is
abundant and of excellent quality. The sound of conversation mingles
with those of emptying bottles and filling jaws. While we taste the
joy of eating at a table, a glimmer of light trickles through a
vent-hole, and wraps in dusty dawn a piece of the atmosphere and a
patch of the table, while its reflex lights up a plate, a cap's
peak, an eye. Secretly I take stock of this gloomy little
celebration that overflows with gayety. Biquet is telling about his
suppliant sorrows in quest of a washerwoman who would agree to do
him the good turn of washing some linen, but "it was too damned
dear." Tulacque describes the queue outside the grocer's.
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