He began with
a brave deed, which obtained for him the Legion of Honor at the age of
twenty; and then from twenty to fifty he was not able to rise higher
than captain, whereas at the beginning he expected to retire with at
least the rank of colonel."

"Madame might also admit that it was his fault. If he had not always
been as cutting as a whip, his superiors would have loved and protected
him better. Harshness is of no use; one should try to please if one
wishes to advance. As far as his treatment of us is concerned, it is
also our fault, since we are willing to remain with him, but with others
it's different."

Madame Maramballe was thinking. Oh, for how many years had she thus been
thinking of the brutality of her husband, whom she had married long ago
because he was a handsome officer, decorated quite young, and full of
promise, so they said! What mistakes one makes in life!

She murmured: "Let us stop a while, my poor Alexandre, and you rest on
that bench:"

It was a little worm-eaten bench, placed at a turn in the alley. Every
time they came in this direction Alexandre was accustomed to making a
short pause on this seat.

He sat down and with a proud and familiar gesture he took his beautiful
white beard in his hand, and, closing his, fingers over it, ran them
down to the point, which he held for a minute at the pit of his stomach,
as if once more to verify the length of this growth.

Madame Maramballe continued: "I married him; it is only just and natural
that I should bear his injustice; but what I do not understand is why
you also should have supported it, my good Alexandre!"

He merely shrugged his shoulders and answered: "Oh! I--madame."

She added: "Really. I have often wondered. When I married him you were
his orderly and you could hardly do otherwise than endure him. But
why did you remain with us, who pay you so little and who treat you so
badly, when you could have done as every one else does, settle down,
marry, have a family?"

He answered: "Oh, madame! with me it's different."

Then he was silent; but he kept pulling his beard as if he were ringing
a bell within him, as if he were trying to pull it out, and he rolled
his eyes like a man who is greatly embarrassed.

Madame Maramballe was following her own train of thought: "You are not a
peasant. You have an education--"

He interrupted her proudly: "I studied surveying, madame."

"Then why did you stay with us, and blast your prospect