son? And listen! one last example. Your brother, Maxime, committed a
great fault when he had by a servant that poor little Charles, and it is
certain, besides, that the unhappy child is of unsound mind. No matter.
Will it please you if they tell you that your nephew is degenerate; that
he reproduces from four generations back, his great-great-grandmother
the dear woman to whom we sometimes take him, and with whom he likes so
much to be? No! there is no longer any family possible, if people begin
to lay bare everything--the nerves of this one, the muscles of that. It
is enough to disgust one with living!"

Clotilde, standing in her long black blouse, had listened to her
grandmother attentively. She had grown very serious; her arms hung by
her sides, her eyes were fixed upon the ground. There was silence for
a moment; then she said slowly:

"It is science, grandmother."

"Science!" cried Felicite, trotting about again. "A fine thing, their
science, that goes against all that is most sacred in the world! When
they shall have demolished everything they will have advanced greatly!
They kill respect, they kill the family, they kill the good God!"

"Oh! don't say that, madame!" interrupted Martine, in a grieved voice,
her narrow devoutness wounded. "Do not say that M. Pascal kills the
good God!"

"Yes, my poor girl, he kills him. And look you, it is a crime, from
the religious point of view, to let one's self be damned in that way.
You do not love him, on my word of honor! No, you do not love him, you
two who have the happiness of believing, since you do nothing to bring