the more, the gardener drew as much as possible from the land, which in
the result almost doubled in value.

Pierre, the legitimate son, either from secret instinct or from his
knowledge of the different manner in which he and the others were
regarded by the neighbours, domineered over his brother and sister
from an early age. In their quarrels, although he was much weaker than
Antoine, he always got the better of the contest, beating the other with
all the authority of a master. With regard to Ursule, a poor, puny, wan
little creature, she was handled with equal roughness by both the
boys. Indeed, until they were fifteen or sixteen, the three children
fraternally beat each other without understanding their vague, mutual
hatred, without realising how foreign they were to one another. It was
only in youth that they found themselves face to face with definite,
self-conscious personalities.

At sixteen, Antoine was a tall fellow, a blend of Macquart's and
Adelaide's failings. Macquart, however, predominated in him, with his
love of vagrancy, his tendency to drunkenness, and his brutish savagery.
At the same time, under the influence of Adelaide's nervous nature, the
vices which in the father assumed a kind of sanguinary frankness were
in the son tinged with an artfulness full of hypocrisy and cowardice.
Antoine resembled his mother by his total want of dignified will, by his
effeminate voluptuous egotism, which disposed him to accept any bed of
infamy provided he could lounge upon it at his ease and sleep warmly in
it. People said of him: "Ah! the brigand! He hasn't even the courage of
his villainy like Macquart; if ever he commits a murder, it will be with
pin pricks." Physically, Antoine inherited Adelaide's thick lips only;
his other features resembled those of the smuggler, but they were softer
and more prone to change of expression.