At length Fontan's voice became audible; he spoke slowly and rather unctuously and uttered but this one word.
"MERDE!" She beat on the door with her fists.
"MERDE!" She banged hard enough to smash in the woodwork.
"MERDE!" And for upward of a quarter of an hour the same foul expression buffeted her, answering like a jeering echo to every blow wherewith she shook the door.

At length, seeing that she was not growing tired, he opened sharply, planted himself on the threshold, folded his arms and said in the same cold, brutal voice: "By God, have you done yet?
What d'you want?
Are you going to let us sleep in peace, eh?
You can quite see I've got company tonight." He was certainly not alone, for Nana perceived the little woman from the Bouffes with the untidy tow hair and the gimlet-hole eyes, standing enjoying herself in her shift among the furniture she had paid for.

But Fontan stepped out on the landing.

He looked terrible, and he spread out and crooked his great fingers as if they were pincers.
"Hook it or I'll strangle you!" Whereupon Nana burst into a nervous fit of sobbing.

She was frightened and she made off.