r. With God's grace,
all will yet be well. You will return if He wills it, and Catharine
will wait for you."

Catharine wept again, and I more than she; so that Monsieur Goulden
himself could not help shedding tears.

At length Catharine and her mother descended the stairs, and Aunt
Gredel called out from the bottom:

"Try to come and see us once or twice again, Joseph."

"Yes, yes," I answered, shutting the door.

I could no longer stand. Never had I been so miserable, and even now,
when I think of it, my heart chills.

VII

From that day I could think of nothing but my misfortune. I tried to
work, but my thoughts were far away, and Monsieur Goulden said:

"Joseph, stop working. Make the most of the little time you can remain
among us; go to see Catharine and Mother Gredel. I still think they
will exempt you, but who can tell? They need men so much that it may
be a long time coming."

I went every morning then to Quatre-Vents, and passed my days with
Catharine. We were very sorrowful, but very glad to see each other.
We loved one another even more than before, if that were possible.
Catharine sometimes tried to sing as in the good old times; but
suddenly she would burst into tears. Then we wept together, and Aunt
Gredel would rail at the wars which brought misery to every one. She
said that the Council of Revision deserved to be hung; that they were
all robbers, banded together to poison our lives. It solaced us a
little to hear her talk thus, and we thought she was right.

I returned to the city about eight or nine o'clock in the evening, when
they closed the gates, and as I passed, I saw the small inns full of
conscripts and old returned soldiers drinking together. The conscripts
always paid; the others, with dirty police caps cocked over their ears,
red noses, and horse-hair stocks in place of shirt-collars, twisted
their mustaches and related with majestic air their battles, their
marches, and their duels. One can imagine nothing viler than those
holes, full of smoke, cob-webs hanging on the black beams, those old
sworders and young men drinking, shouting, and beating the tables like
crazy people; and behind, in the shadow, old Annette Schnaps or Marie
Hering--her old wig stuck back on her head, her comb with only three
teeth remaining, crosswise, in it--gazing on the scene, or emptying a
mug to the health of the braves.

It was sad to see the sons of peasants, honest and laborious