There was some subdued yawning, and
occasionally eyelids closed and faces became haggard and white. It was
unutterably slow, as it always was, according to Vandeuvres's dictum.
This sort of supper should be served anyhow if it was to be funny, he
opined. Otherwise when elegantly and conventionally done you might as
well feed in good society, where you were not more bored than here. Had
it not been for Bordenave, who was still bawling away, everybody would
have fallen asleep. That rum old buffer Bordenave, with his leg duly
stretched on its chair, was letting his neighbors, Lucy and Rose, wait
on him as though he were a sultan. They were entirely taken up with him,
and they helped him and pampered him and watched over his glass and his
plate, and yet that did not prevent his complaining.
"Who's going to cut up my meat for me? I can't; the table's a league
away."
Every few seconds Simonne rose and took up a position behind his back in
order to cut his meat and his bread. All the women took a great interest
in the things he ate. The waiters were recalled, and he was stuffed to
suffocation. Simonne having wiped his mouth for him while Rose and Lucy
were changing his plate, her act struck him as very pretty and, deigning
at length to show contentment:
"There, there, my daughter," he said, "that's as it should be.
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