A bell rang; it was for dinner, and I went downstairs.  Madame Radevin took my arm in a ceremonious manner, and we passed into the dining-room.  A footman wheeled in the old man in his armchair.  He gave a greedy and curious look at the dessert, as he turned his shaking head with difficulty from one dish to the other.

Simon rubbed his hands:  “You will be amused,” he said; and all the children understanding that I was going to be indulged with the sight of their greedy grandfather, began to laugh, while their mother merely smiled and shrugged her shoulders, and Simon, making a speaking trumpet of his hands, shouted at the old man:  “This evening there is sweet creamed rice!” The wrinkled face of the grandfather brightened, and he trembled more violently, from head to foot, showing that he had understood and was very pleased.  The dinner began.

“Just look!” Simon whispered.  The old man did not like the soup, and refused to eat it; but he was obliged to do it for the good of his health, and the footman forced the spoon into his mouth, while the old man blew so energetically, so as not to swallow the soup, that it was scattered like a spray all over the table and over his neighbors.  The children writhed with laughter at the spectacle, while their father, who was also amused, said:  “Is not the old man comical?”

During the whole meal they were taken up solely with him.  He devoured the dishes on the table with his eyes, and tried to seize them and pull them over to him with his trembling hands.  They put them almost within his reach, to see his useless efforts, his trembling clutches at them, the piteous appeal of his whole nature, of his eyes, of his mouth and of his nose as he smelt them, and he slobbered on his table napkin with eagerness, while uttering inarticulate grunts.  And the whole family was highly amused at this horrible and grotesque scene.

Then they put a tiny morsel on his plate, and he ate with feverish gluttony, in order to get something more as soon as possible, and when the sweetened rice was brought in, he nearly had a fit, and groaned with greediness, and Gontran called out to him: 

“You have eaten too much already; you can have no more.”  And they pretended not to give him any.  Then he began to cry; he cried and trembled more violently than ever, while all the children laughed.  At last, however, they gave him his helping, a very small piece; and as he ate the first mouthful, he made a comical noise in his throat, and a movement with his neck as ducks do when they swallow too large a morsel, and when he had swallowed it, he began to stamp his feet, so as to get more.

I was seized with pity for this saddening and ridiculous Tantalus, and interposed on his behalf: 

“Come, give him a little more rice!” But Simon replied:  “Oh! no, my dear fellow, if he were to eat too much, it would harm him, at his age.”