He made no sound, but stared, horror-struck, at the old woman
who asked him, almost caressingly, to be obedient and not to offer any
resistance. But when she laid hands on his shirt, he grew hot with
shame and fury. He sprang from the sofa on which she had pushed him,
hitting out right and left. Something unclean, something dark and
repulsive, seemed to emanate from this woman, and the shame of his sex
rose up in him as against an assailant.
But the aunt, mad with passion, seized him, threw him on a chair and
beat him. He screamed with rage, pain he did not feel, and with
convulsive kicks tried to release himself; but all of a sudden he lay
still and was silent.
When the old woman let him go, he remained where he was, motionless.
"Get up!" she said, in a broken voice.
He stood up and looked at her. One of her cheeks was pale, the other
crimson. Her eyes glowed strangely and she trembled all over. He looked
at her curiously, as one might examine a wild beast, and all of a
sudden a supercilious smile raised his upper lip; it seemed to him
as if his contempt gave him an advantage over her. "She-devil!" He
flung the word, newly acquired from the children of the cottagers,
into her face, defiantly and scornfully, seized his clothes and flew
downstairs to his mother, who was sitting in the dining-room, weeping.
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