love each other. They had lived thus, thanks to him, Parent, on his
money, after having deceived him, robbed him, ruined him! They had
condemned him, the innocent, the simple-minded, the jovial man to all
the miseries of solitude, to that abominable life which he had led
between the pavement and the counter, every moral torture and every
physical misery! They had made him a useless being, who was lost and
wretched amongst other people, a poor old man without any pleasures, or
anything to look forward to, and who hoped for nothing from anyone. For
him, the world was empty, because he loved nothing in the world. He
might go among other nations or go about the streets, go into all the
houses in Paris, open every room, but he would not find the beloved
face, the face of wife or child, that he was in search of, and which
smiles when it sees you, behind any door. And that idea worked upon him
more than any other, the idea of a door which one opens, to see and to
embrace somebody behind it.

And that was the fault of those three wretches! the fault of that
worthless woman, of that infamous friend and of that tall, light-haired
lad who put on insolent airs. Now, he felt as angry with the child as he
did with the other two! Was he not Limousin's son? Would Limousin have
kept him and loved him, otherwise would not Limousin very quickly have
got rid of the mother and of the child if he had not felt sure that it
was his, certainly his? Does anybody bring up other people's children?
And now they were there, quite close to him, those three who had made
him suffer so much.

Parent looked at them, irritated and excited at the recollection of all
his sufferings and of his despair, and was especially exasperated at
their placid and satisfied looks. He felt inclined to kill them, to
throw his syphon of Seltzer water at them, to split open Limousin's