"But your daily earnings, why did you give them to him? Why did you not
hide them?"

"I did hide them; but he beat me so much that I was obliged to give them
up. It was not on account of the blows that I yielded, but because I said
to myself, in the end he will wound me so seriously that I shall not be
able to work for some time. Suppose he breaks my arm, then what will become
of me--who will take care of and feed my children? If I am forced to go the
hospital, they will die of hunger then. Thus you can imagine, my brother, I
preferred to give my money to my husband, not on account of the beating,
but that I might not be wounded, and remain _able to work_."

"Poor woman. Bah! they talk of martyrdom--it is you who are a martyr!"

"And yet I have never harmed any one; I only ask to work to take care of my
children; but what would you? There are the happy and unhappy, as there are
the good and the wicked."

"Yes, and it is astonishing how happy the good are! But you have finally
got rid of that scoundrel of a husband?"

"I hope so, for he did not leave me until he had sold my bedstead, and the
cradle of my two little children. But I think he wished to do something
worse."

"What do you mean?"

"I say him, but it was rather this bad woman who urged him; it is on that
account I speak of it. 'I say,' one day he said to me, 'when in a family