for everybody."

She eagerly acquiesced. "Oh! you need not be anxious," she responded.
"I have already told him that his father is dead. If I were to speak out
everything would fall on my shoulders, and my great desire is to be left
in peace in my corner with my little one."

With sorrowful mien Mathieu continued reflecting, unable to make up his
mind to utterly abandon the young man. "If he would only work, I would
find him some employment. And I would even take him on at the farm
later, when I should no longer have cause to fear that he might
contaminate my people. However, I will see what can be done; I know a
wheelwright who would doubtless employ him, and I will write to you in
order that you may tell him where to apply, when he comes back to see
you."

"What? When he comes back!" she cried in despair. "So you think that he
will come back. O God! O God! I shall never be happy again."

He did, indeed, come back. But when she gave him the wheelwright's
address he sneered and shrugged his shoulders. He knew all about the
Paris wheelwrights! A set of sweaters, a parcel of lazy rogues, who made
poor people toil and moil for them. Besides, he had never finished his
apprenticeship; he was only fit for running errands, in which capacity
he was willing to accept a post in a large shop. When Mathieu had
procured him such a situation, he did not remain in it a fortnight. One
fine evening he disappeared with the parcels of goods which he had been
told to deliver. In turn he tried to learn a baker's calling, became
a mason's hodman, secured work at the markets, but without ever fixing
himself anywhere. He simply discouraged his protector, and left all
sorts of roguery behind him for others to liquidate. It became necessary
to renounce the hope of saving him. When he turned up, as he did
periodically, emaciated, hungry, and in rags, they had to limit
themselves to providing him with the means to buy a jacket and some
bread.

Thus Norine lived on in a state of mortal disquietude. For long weeks
Alexandre seemed to be dead, but she, nevertheless, started at the
slightest sound that she heard on the landing. She always felt him to
be there, and whenever he suddenly rapped on the door she recognized his
heavy knock and began to tremble as if he had come to beat her. He had
noticed how his presence reduced the unhappy woman to a state of abject
terror, and he profited by this to extract from her whatever little
sums she hid awa