Reader's Diary (Week 25)

One day when he was playing bear She pushed him so roughly that he fell against a piece of furniture, and when She saw the lump on his forehead She burst into involuntary laughter. After that Her experiments on la faloise having whetted Her appetite, She treated him like an animal, threshing him and chasing him to an accompaniment of kicks.

“Gee up! Gee up! You’re a horse. Hoi! Gee up! Won’t you hurry up, you dirty screw?”

At other times he was a dog. She would throw Her scented handkerchief to the far end of the room, and he had to run and pick it up with his teeth, dragging himself along on hands and knees.

“Fetch it, caesar! Look here, I’ll give you what for if you don’t look sharp! Well done, caesar! Good dog! Nice old fellow! Now behave pretty!”

And he loved his abasement and delighted in being a brute beast. he longed to sink still further and would cry:

“Hit harder. On, on! i’m wild! Hit away!”

(Zola, 1880)