II
Well, it came to pass that ’Toine got a paralytic stroke. They put the colossus to bed in the little chamber behind the partition of the barroom—so that he could hear what the folks were saying on the other side, and could talk with his friends; for his head was all right, although his body—the enormous body, impossible to move or to lift—was stricken with immobility. At first it was hoped that he would be able to move his big legs again; but this hope vanished in a very short time; and ’Toine-Ma-Fine passed his days as well as his nights in bed—the bed that was only made up once a week, with the assistance of four neighbours, who lifted out the tavern-keeper by his four limbs, while the mattress was being turned.
He kept his good humour still; but it was a different jollity from that of the old times—more humble, more timid—and he was childishly afraid of his wife, who kept yelping all day long:
“There!—the big hog;—there he is, the good-for-nothing, the lazy lout, the nasty drunkard! Ah! the nasty fellow, the nasty beast!”
He never answered her any more. He would only wink his right eye when her back was turned, and then turn himself over in bed—the only movement in his power to make. He called this exercise “taking a turn to the North,”—“taking a turn to the South.”
His great amusement now was to listen to the gossip in the tavern, and to shout dialogues through the partition whenever he could recognize the voices of friends. He would yell:
“Hey, son-in-law!—that you, Célestin?”
And Célestin Maloisel would answer:
“That’s me, Pap ’Toine. So you’re on the way to gallop again, eh, you old rascal?”
’Toine-Ma-Fine would answer:
“Not to gallop—no! not yet! But I’ve not lost flesh; the old shell’s solid as ever.”
After awhile he began to call his most particular friends into his room; and they kept him company pleasantly enough—though it worried him a great deal to see them drinking without his being able to join. He kept saying:
“What kills me, son-in-law—what just kills me is not being able to taste my fine, nom d’un nom. As for the rest, I don’t care a doggone—but it just kills me to think I can’t take a horn.”
And the owl-face of old mother ’Toine appeared at the door. She screamed:
“Look at him!—look at him now, the lazy big lummox that has to be fed—that has to be washed—that has to be cleaned like an overgrown hog!”
And when the old woman was not there, a red cock would sometimes jump up on the window, stare into the room with his little round carrion’s eye, and crow sonorously. Sometimes also, one or two chickens would fly in as far as the foot of the bed, to look for crumbs.
’Toine-Ma-Fine’s friends soon abandoned the barroom for the bedroom—where they would assemble shortly after noon every day, to chat at the fat man’s bedside.
Helpless as he was, that devil-of-a-joker ’Toine, he could make them all laugh still. He would have made Old Nick himself laugh, the old humbug. There were three men in particular who came to see him every day: Célestin Maloisel, a tall lean fellow, a little crooked like the trunk of an apple tree; Prosper Horslaville, a dried-up little man, with a nose like a ferret, mischievous and sly as a fox; and Césaire Paumelle, who never said anything himself, but had lots of fun for all that.
They used to get a plank out of the yard, place it on the edge of the bed, and they would play dominoes pardi—great old games of dominoes, which would last from two o’clock until six.
But Mother ’Toine soon made herself insufferable. She could not endure to see her big fat lummox of a husband still amuse himself, and playing dominoes in bed; and whenever she saw they were going to begin a game, she would rush in furiously, knock the plank over, seize the dominoes and take them into the barroom;—declaring that it was bad enough to have to feed that great lump of tallow without seeing him amuse himself just for spite—just to torment the poor folks who had to work hard all day.
Célestin Maloisel and Césaire Paumelle would bow their heads to the storm; but Prosper Horslaville found great fun in teasing the old woman, in exciting her still more.
One day that she seemed more than usually exasperated, he cried out:
“Hey, mother!—do you know what I’d do if I was in your place—eh!”
She waited for him to explain himself, and watched his face with her owlish eye.
He said:
“Say, that man of yours never’s going to get out of bed, and he’s as warm as an oven. Well now, if I was you, I’d set him to hatching eggs.”
She stood speechless for a moment, thinking he was making fun of her—closely watching the thin cunning face of the peasant, who continued:
“Yes, I’d put five eggs under one arm, and five under the other—just the same time as I’d put them under a hen to set on. Them things does be born of themselves. When they’d be hatched, I’d take your old man’s chicks and give them to the hen to take care of. Tell you, mother—that way you’d soon have a slew of chickens running around!”
Astonished, the old woman said:
“But can that be done?”
“Can it be done? I’d like to know why it couldn’t be done. If you can hatch eggs in a warm box, why couldn’t you hatch them in a bed?”
The old woman was greatly impressed by this reasoning, and she went off, more thoughtful than usual, and quite calmed down.
Eight days later she walked into ’Toine’s room one morning with her apron full of eggs. And she said:
“I’ve just put the yellow hen in the nest with ten eggs under her. Now here’s ten for you. See that you don’t break them.”
’Toine, completely dumbfounded, asked:
“What do you want now?”
She answered:
“I want you to hatch them—you good-for-nothing.”
He laughed at first; but when he found she was serious he got mad, he resisted, he positively objected to letting her put the eggs under his arms to be hatched.
But the old woman cried out in a passion:
“Then you shan’t have a bit of grub until you take them. Now we’ll see if you hatch them or not!”
’Toine got uneasy and didn’t answer.
When he heard the clock strike twelve, he cried out:
“Hey, mother—got the soup ready yet?”
The old woman screamed from the kitchen:
“Got no soup for you, you overgrown lazy lout.”
He thought she was only joking, and he waited awhile;—then he begged, implored, swore, took a desperate turn to the North and a desperate turn to the South, hammered the wall with his fist—but he was obliged to yield and to let her put five eggs against his left side. Then he got his soup.
When his friends came, he looked so queer and so uneasy that they thought he must be sick.
Then they proceeded to play the daily game. But ’Toine seemed to find no fun in it, and he put out his hand very slowly—with infinite precaution.
“Got your arm tied up?” asked Horslaville.
’Toine responded:
“I’ve got a sort of a numbness in my shoulder.”
Suddenly they heard somebody entering the barroom. They stopped playing.
It was the mayor and the adjutant. They asked for two glasses of fine, and began to chat about public affairs. As they were talking very low, ’Toine wanted to put his ear against the partition to hear them, and as he gave a sudden “turn to the North,” forgetting the eggs, he found himself lying upon an omelette.
At the sound of the great oath which he swore, the old woman rushed in, and suspecting the disaster, discovered it with one pull at the bedclothes. At first she did nothing;—she was too indignant, too suffocated with fury at the sight of the yellow cataplasm smeared upon her old man’s side.
Then, trembling with rage, she flung herself upon the paralytic; and began to thump him with all her might on the stomach, just as if she was beating dirty linen at the pool. Her fists came down alternately with a dull thud—rapidly as the paws of a rabbit drumming.
The three friends of ’Toine laughed to split their sides—sneezed, coughed, screeched; as the big fat man parried his wife’s attacks with great caution, for fear of breaking the five eggs on the other side.