JEAN-LUC EXPECTS to receive some credit for the cruelty of his suggestion. But Beatrice only laughs at him. A switch! How childish. Her laugh reveals every way in which his thinking is tedious and quaint. Jean-Luc returns sadly to nursing the strain in his back. She acts as if she is the oldest of them all now.
She turns and looks at the other children, daringly.
You want to hear him talk? she asks.
Not one of them says yes. But she doesn't need them to. The horse lets out a little groan when she pulls on the reins, a warning he might not get started back up again. She's heard it before; she drops down onto the road, marches to the rear of the cart. On her face is the sly, important expression that the postman wears while making deliveries. She pretends as if she doesn't notice how hungrily her brothers and sisters are watching her. And then, with the same neatness of movement, the same absence of imagination with which she straightens the tablecloth, wrings the laundry, beats the carpets, dresses the children, heeds her mother's every command, she lifts the edge of M. Jouy's smock so that she can unbutton the opening to his breeches.
The children, too, let out a little groan. This is a constant source of wonder to them, that Beatrice should appear docile while being so profoundly disobedient.