work. He argued, and had ideas of his own.
He certainly hadn't yet come to bomb-throwing like that madman Salvat,
but he spent half his time with Socialists and Anarchists, who put his
brain in a muddle. It was a real pity to see such a strong, good-hearted
young fellow turning out badly like that. But it was said in the
neighbourhood that many another was inclined the same way; that the best
and most intelligent of the younger men felt tired of want and
unremunerative labour, and would end by knocking everything to pieces
rather than go on toiling with no certainty of food in their old age.

"Ah! yes," continued Madame Toussaint, "the sons are not like the fathers
were. These fine fellows won't be as patient as my poor husband has been,
letting hard work wear him away till he's become the sorry thing you see
there.... Do you know what Charles said the other evening when he
found his father on that chair, crippled like that, and unable to speak?
Why, he shouted to him that he'd been a stupid jackass all his life,
working himself to death for those _bourgeois_, who now wouldn't bring
him so much as a glass of water. Then, as he none the less has a good
heart, he began to cry his eyes out."

The baby was no longer wailing, still the good woman continued walking to
and fro, rocking it in her arms and pressing it to her affectionate
heart. Her son Charles could do no more for them, she said; perhaps he
might be able to give them a five-franc piece now and again, but even
that wasn't certain. It was of no use for her to go back to her old
calling as a seamstress, she had lost all practice of it. And it would
even be difficult for her to earn anything as charwoman, for she had that
infant on her hands as well as her infirm husband--a big child, whom she
would have to wash and feed. And so what would become of the three of
them? She couldn't tell; but it made her shudder, however brave and
motherly she tried to be.

For their part, Pierre and Thomas quivered with compassion, particularly
when they saw big tears coursing down the cheeks of the wretched,
stricken Toussaint, as he sat quite motionless in that little and still
cleanly home of toil and want. The poor man had listened to his wife, and
he looked at her and at the infant now sleeping in her arms. Voiceless,
unable to cry his woe aloud, he experienced the most awful anguish. What
dupery his long life of labour had been! how frightfully unjust it was
that all his eff