Don't, I entreat you, say such things! do you wish to make me go and
dash out my brains against a wall?"

Maurice pursued his train of thought, speaking in hurried, eager tones.

"Remember what you said to me the day after Sedan, that it was not such
a bad thing, now and then, to receive a good drubbing. And you added
that if a man had gangrene in his system, if he saw one of his limbs
wasting from mortification, it would be better to take an ax and chop
off that limb than to die from the contamination of the poison. I have
many a time thought of those words since I have been here, without
a friend, immured in this city of distress and madness. And I am the
diseased limb, and it is you who have lopped it off--" He went on with
increasing vehemence, regardless of the supplications of his terrified
auditors, in a fervid tirade that abounded with symbols and striking
images. It was the untainted, the reasoning, the substantial portion
of France, the peasantry, the tillers of the soil, those who had always
kept close contact with their mother Earth, that was suppressing
the outbreak of the crazed, exasperated part, the part that had been
vitiated by the Empire and led astray by vain illusions and empty
dreams; and in the performance of its duty it had had to cut deep into
the living flesh, without being fully aware of what it was doing.
But the baptism of blood, French blood, was necessary; the abominable
holocaust, the living sacrifice, in the midst of the purifying flames.
Now they had mounted the steps of the Calvary and known their bitterest
agony; the crucified nation had expiated its faults and would be born
again. "Jean, old friend, you and those like you are strong in your
simplicity and honesty. Go, take up the spade and the trowel, turn the
sod in the abandoned field, rebuild the house! As for me, you did
well to lop me off, since I was the ulcer that was eating away your
strength!"

After that his language became more and more incoherent; he insisted on
rising and going to sit by the window. "Paris burns, Paris burns; not
a stone of it will be left standing. Ah! the fire that I invoked, it
destroys, but it heals; yes, the work it does is good. Let me go down
there; let me help to finish the work of humanity and liberty--"

Jean had the utmost difficulty in getting him back to bed, while
Henriette tearfully recalled memories of their childhood, and entreated
him, for the sake of the love they bore each other, t