After the blowing-on-the-food ceremony Sébastien finally stuck his spoon into the beige-coloured lumps that were smeared across his plate. And I asked the fateful question:

“Do you like it?”

Sébastien said nothing. His expression had become vacant as he chewed, a little like a cat who’s doing his business as if the fate of the world depended on it. I looked at Mathieu, the word “panic” probably printed on my forehead.

“What do we do if he doesn’t like it?”

Mathieu gestured impatiently.

“Let him taste it first!”

He went back to his son, still with his look of a reassuring clown.

“Chew it properly, that’s a good baby . . .”

Sébastien dropped his spoon in the middle of his plate; sauce spattered the salt-shaker.

“I’m not a baby! Quit calling me that!”

He’d crossed his arms and gritted his teeth, which gave him a very nasty little prognathous look.

“I’m not hungry any more!”

There was no way to make him eat. His father tried everything—wheedling, threats, the sad clown number, the happy clown, the pouting clown: nothing worked. It was obvious that Sébastien was taking advantage of his hurt feelings at the insulting term “baby” to get out of eating something he disliked. I was sorry, especially because the shrimps were actually quite delicious (as I’ve mentioned before, nothing interferes with my appetite and I’d wolfed down two huge portions even as I watched the scene which was turning like mayonnaise in a thunderstorm, culminating as I was finishing my meal in a shrill and highly ­dramatic crying jag).

It went on for a long half-hour, during which I’d have given anything to be somewhere else. It was an all-out ­battle, briskly waged, a microcosm of the most violent plagues that strike without warning, then disappear the way they began: after three reconciliations, they fought again over some silly detail, exchanged countless kisses, came to blows only once—a slap on Sébastien’s hand released a ­torrent of strident howls that made the hair on my neck stand on end—and, of course, they ended up in each other’s arms, vowing eternal love, cloudless blue skies and other oaths they’d violate at once if either of them was foolish enough to utter a single nasty word.