fault. After kicking the mother to death,
hadn't he murdered the daughter as well? The two good angels would lie
in the pauper's grave and all that could be in store for him was to kick
the bucket like a dog in the gutter.

Gervaise restrained herself not to burst out sobbing. She extended her
hands, desirous of easing the child, and as the shred of a sheet was
falling, she wished to tack it up and arrange the bed. Then the dying
girl's poor little body was seen. Ah! _Mon Dieu!_ what misery! What
woe! Stones would have wept. Lalie was bare, with only the remnants of
a camisole on her shoulders by way of chemise; yes, bare, with the
grievous, bleeding nudity of a martyr. She had no flesh left; her bones
seemed to protrude through the skin. From her ribs to her thighs there
extended a number of violet stripes--the marks of the whip forcibly
imprinted on her. A livid bruise, moreover, encircled her left arm, as
if the tender limb, scarcely larger than a lucifer, had been crushed
in a vise. There was also an imperfectly closed wound on her right
leg, left there by some ugly blow and which opened again and again of
a morning, when she went about doing her errands. From head to foot,
indeed, she was but one bruise! Oh! this murdering of childhood; those
heavy hands crushing this lovely girl; how abominable that such weakness
should have such a weighty cross to bear! Again did Gervaise crouch
down, no longer thinking of tucking in the sheet, but overwhelmed by
the pitiful sight of this martyrdom; and her trembling lips seemed to be
seeking for words of prayer.

"Madame Coupeau," murmured the child, "I beg you--"

With her little arms she tried to draw up the sheet again, ashamed as it
were for her father. Bijard, as stultified as ever, with his eyes on the
corpse which was his own work, still wagged his head, but more slowly,
like a worried animal might do.

When she had covered Lalie up again, Gervaise felt she could not remain
there any longer. The dying girl was growing weaker and ceased speaking;
all that was left to her was her gaze--the dark look she had had as a
resigned and thoughtful child and which she now fixed on her two little
ones who were still cutting out their pictures. The room was growing
gloomy and Bijard was working off his liquor while the poor girl was
in her death agonies. No, no, life was too abominable! How frightful
it was! How frightful! And Gervaise took herself off, and went down the
stairs, n