ree daughters who are
unprovided for and whose dowry you have wasted.

DURAND [Listening without]. Doesn't it seem as if you heard the sound of
clanging and rumbling down toward Cully? If fire has broken out they are
lost, because the wind is going to blow soon, the lake tells me that.

ADELE. Have you paid the fire insurance on our house?

DURAND. Yes, I have. Otherwise I would never have got that last
mortgage.

ADELE. How much is there left unmortgaged?

DURAND. A fifth of the fire insurance policy. But you know how property
dropped in value when the railroad passed our gates and went to the east
instead.

ADELE. So much the better.

DURAND [Sternly]. Adele! [Pause.] Will you put out the fire in the
stove?

ADELE. Impossible. I can't till the coffee-bread comes.

DURAND. Well, here it is.

[Pierre comes in with basket. Adele looks in the basket.]

ADELE. No bread! But a bill--two, three--

PIERRE.--Well, the baker said he wouldn't send any more bread until he
was paid. And then, when I was going by the butcher's and the grocer's,
they shoved these bills at me. [Goes out.]

ADELE. Oh, God in heaven, this is the end for us! But what's this?
[Opens a package.]

DURAND. Some candles that I bought for the mass for my dear little Rene.
Today is the anniversary of his death.

ADELE. You can afford to buy such things!

DURAND. With my tips, yes. Don't you think it is humiliating to stretch
out my hand whenever a traveller leaves us? Can't you grant me the only
contentment I possess--let me enjoy my sorrow one time each year? To be
able to live in memory of the most beautiful thing life ever gave me?

ADELE. If he had only lived until mow, you'd see how beautiful he'd be!

DURAND. It's very possible that there's truth in your irony--as I
remember him, however, he was not as you all are now.

ADELE. Will you be good enough to receive Monsieur Antonio yourself?
He is coming now to have his coffee _without_ bread! Oh, if mother were
only living! She always found a way when you stood helpless.

DURAND. Your mother had her good qualities.

ADELE. Although you saw only her faults.

DURAND. Monsieur Antonio is coming. If you leave me now, I'll have a
talk with him.

ADELE. You would do better to go out and borrow some money, so that the
scandal would be averted.

DURAND. I can't borrow a sou. After borrowing for ten years! Let
everything crash at once, everything, everything, if it would only be
the e