animal painting

teachers, and the meal began.
Ravenous, and now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of my
portion without thinking of its taste; but the first edge of hunger
blunted, I perceived I had got in hand a nauseous mess; burnt porridge
is almost as bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over
it. The spoons were moved slowly: I saw each girl taste her food and
try to swallow it; but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished.
Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted. Thanks being returned
for what we had not got, and a second hymn chanted, the refectory
was evacuated for the schoolroom. I was one of the last to go out, and
in passing the tables, I saw one teacher take a basin of the
porridge and taste it; she looked at the others; all their
countenances expressed displeasure, and one of them, the stout one,
whispered-
'Abominable stuff! How shameful!'
A quarter of an hour passed before lessons again began, during
which the schoolroom was in a glorious tumult; for that space of
time it seemed to be permitted to talk loud and more freely, and
they used their privilege. The whole conversation ran on the
breakfast, which one and all abused roundly. Poor things! it was the