o kill
like flies. Of the fortune he had married, all that remained to him was
the constant grief of beholding those woeful children stricken by
the final degeneracy of scrofula and phthisis. However, this big,
egotistical fellow showed himself an admirable father. The only energy
that remained to him consisted in a determination to make his children
live, and he struggled on hour after hour, saving them every morning,
and dreading to lose them every night. They alone existed now amid his
finished existence, amid the bitterness of his father-in-law's insulting
reproaches, the coldness of his sorry, ailing wife. And he kept to his
task in desperation; he finished bringing those children into the world,
as it were, by dint of unremitting tenderness.

'There, my darling, that's enough, isn't it?' he said. 'You'll soon see
how big and pretty you'll become.'

He then placed Alice in the perambulator again, took Gaston, who was
still wrapped up, on one of his arms; and when his friends wished to
help him, he declined their offer, pushing the little girl's vehicle
along with his right hand, which had remained free.

'Thanks,' he said, 'I'm accustomed to it. Ah! the poor darlings are not
heavy; and besides, with servants one can never be sure of anything.'

On entering the house, Sandoz and Claude again saw the valet who had
been so insolent; and they noticed that Dubuche trembled before him. The
kitchen and the hall shared the contempt of the father-in-law, who
paid for everything, and treated 'madame's' husband like a beggar whose
presence was merely tolerated out of charity. Each time that a shirt
was got ready for him, each time that he asked for some more bread, the
servants' impolite gestures made him feel that he was receiving alms.

'Well, good-bye, we must leave you,' said Sandoz, who suffered at the
sight of it all.

'No, no, wait a bit. The children are going to breakfast, and afterwards
I'll accompany you with them. They must go for their outing.'

Each day was regulated hour by hour. Of a morning came the baths and
the gymnastics; then the breakfast, which was quite an affair, as the
children needed special food, which was duly discussed and weighed. And
matters were carried to such a point that even their wine and water was
slightly warmed, for fear that too chilly a drop might give them a cold.
On this occasion they each partook of the yolk of an egg diluted in some
broth, and a mutton cutlet, which the fa