THE HALF-WIT HAS already unbuttoned his breeches. So it is with little difficulty that she him arranges: he must arch his back; he must let his head drop between his arms; he must appear more dog-like. In exasperation, Madeleine presses her hand into the small of M. Jouy's back: Like so!
There once was a widow, she shouts at the barn, who so favored my talents, she would say of them only, Louder!
And, Smack! is the sound of a girl's hand falling squarely upon the backside of an idiot. Smack! is the sound of her palm meeting the flesh of his bared cheeks.
She lived in a very grand house, Madeleine cries. She had Persian carpets in every room. But nothing gave her greater pleasure than the sight of my two hands!
And once again she displays them proudly, as if they are a hundred times more rare than anything this barn has ever seen. In truth, Madeleine is sorry to have them back in her possession. She is sorry never to have stroked the hair on M. Pujol's neck, and she would have liked to touch the pulsing hearts of her neighbors; in truth, the short life of her ten perfect fingers is causing her own heart to wither, and it is all she can do to keep from weeping stupidly as the half-wit—but she would rather die than show regret, so she brings her paddle down more swiftly on the idiot.
There once was a man, she declares, who had suffered so much, he found relief, he found solace, in the touch of these hands.
But the person whom she is paddling now does not shiver and moan as M. Pujol once did. Instead he is making a snuffling noise; he is choking, it seems, on the spill of his tears.
If only you knew Le Petomane, she tells the audience. If only he were here.