So keen was the sense of hearing with which suffering had endowed him, that he even heard the others' thoughts.
"I beg your pardon, aunt," he said, "for not having behaved well to you just now." Then two big tears rolled from his eyes, whilst he smiled with the air of a tender-hearted man who has seen too much of life and can no longer be deceived by anything.

Madame Chaise at once kissed him and told him that she was not at all angry.

And the Vignerons' delight in living was displayed in all candour.
"If the kidneys are not up to much," M.de Guersaint now said to Pierre, "here at all events are some cauliflowers with a good flavour." The formidable mastication was still going on around them.

Pierre had never seen such an amount of eating, amidst such perspiration, in an atmosphere as stifling as that of a washhouse full of hot steam.

The odour of the victuals seemed to thicken into a kind of smoke.