is a clerk, Monsieur Chretiennot, perhaps you know him. Unfortunately
he's rather proud, and as I don't want any scenes between him and my
sister, I no longer go to see her. Besides, she's in despair just now,
for she's expecting another baby, which is a terrible blow for a small
household, when one already has two girls. . . . That's why the only
person I can apply to is my brother Toussaint. His wife isn't a bad sort
by any means, but she's no longer the same since she's been living in
fear of her husband having another attack. The first one carried off all
her savings, and what would become of her if Toussaint should remain on
her hands, paralysed? Besides, she's threatened with another burden, for,
as you may know, her son Charles got keeping company with a servant at a
wine shop, who of course ran away after she had a baby, which she left
him to see to. So one can understand that the Toussaints themselves are
hard put. I don't complain of them. They've already lent me a little
money, and of course they can't go on lending for ever."

She continued talking in this spiritless, resigned way, complaining only
on account of Celine; for, said she, it was enough to make one's heart
break to see such an intelligent child obliged to tramp the streets after
getting on so well at the Communal School. She could feel too that
everybody now kept aloof from them on account of Salvat. The Toussaints
didn't want to be compromised in any such business. There was only
Charles, who had said that he could well understand a man losing his head
and trying to blow up the /bourgeois/, because they really treated the
workers in a blackguard way.

"For my part, monsieur," added Madame Theodore, "I say nothing, for I'm
only a woman. All the same, though, if you'd like to know what I think,
well, I think that it would have been better if Salvat hadn't done what
he did, for we two, the girl and I, are the real ones to suffer from it.