foolishly interfered, reminding him that he had received two
hundred francs, besides a suit of clothes and a year's rent. Antoine
thereupon shouted to her to hold her tongue, and continued, with
increasing fury: "Two hundred francs! A fine thing! I want my due, ten
thousand francs. Ah! yes, talk of the hole they shoved me into like a
dog, and the old frock-coat which Pierre gave me because he was ashamed
to wear it any longer himself, it was so dirty and ragged!"

He was not speaking the truth; but, seeing the rage that he was in,
nobody ventured to protest any further. Then, turning towards Silvere:
"It's very stupid of you to defend them!" he added. "They robbed your
mother, who, good woman, would be alive now if she had had the means of
taking care of herself."

"Oh! you're not just, uncle," the young man said; "my mother did not
die for want of attention, and I'm certain my father would never have
accepted a sou from his wife's family!"

"Pooh! don't talk to me! your father would have taken the money just
like anybody else. We were disgracefully plundered, and it's high time
we had our rights."

Then Macquart, for the hundredth time, began to recount the story of
the fifty thousand francs. His nephew, who knew it by heart, and all
the variations with which he embellished it, listened to him rather
impatiently.

"If you were a man," Antoine would say in conclusion, "you would come
some day with me, and we would kick up a nice row at the Rougons. We
would not leave without having some money given us."

Silvere, however, grew serious, and frankly replied: "If those wretches
robbed us, so much the worse for them. I don't want their money. You
see, uncle, it's not for us to fall on our relatives. If they've done
wrong, well, one of these days they'll be severely punished for it."

"Ah! what a big simpleton you are!" the uncle cried. "When we have the
upper hand, you'll see whether I sha'n't settle my own little affairs
myself. God cares a lot about us indeed! What a foul family ours is!
Even if I were starving to death, not one of those scoundrels would
throw me a dry crust."

Whenever Macquart touched upon this subject, he proved inexhaustible. He
bared all his bleeding wounds of envy and covetousness. He grew mad
with rage when he came to think that he was the only unlucky one in the
family, and was forced to eat potatoes, while the others had meat to
their heart's content. He would pass all his relations in