Honore de Balzac: The Country Doctor

3. CHAPTER III: THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE (continued)

" 'What an idiot you are!' said the hemp-grower. 'Always seeing something or other that has no sort of sense about it! Just you all over.'

"He takes up the head, which snaps at his finger, and pitches it out into the yard.

" 'Get on with my omelette,' he says, 'and do not bother yourself about that. 'Tis a cat.'

" 'A cat! says she; 'it was as round as a ball.'

"She puts back her frying-pan on the fire. . . . Pouf! Down comes a leg this time, and they go through the whole story again. The man was no more astonished at the foot than he had been at the head; he snatched up the leg and threw it out at the door. Before they had finished, the other leg, both arms, the body, the whole murdered traveler, in fact, came down piecemeal. No omelette all this time! The old hemp-seller grew very hungry indeed.

" 'By my salvation!' said he, 'when once my omelette is made we will see about satisfying that man yonder.'

" 'So you admit, now, that it was a man?' said the hunchback wife. 'What made you say that it was not a head a minute ago, you great worry?'

"The woman breaks the eggs, fries the omelette, and dishes it up without any more grumbling; somehow this squabble began to make her feel very uncomfortable. Her husband sits down and begins to eat. The hunchback was frightened, and said that she was not hungry.

" 'Tap! tap!' There was a stranger rapping at the door.

" 'Who is there?'

" 'The man that died yesterday!'

" 'Come in,' answers the hemp-grower.