Then she lamented that everybody had their misfortunes. The miseries, now, that she and her husband had gone through, since they'd been kind enough to strip themselves for their children's benefit! Once started on this topic she never stopped. It was an eternal subject of complaint with her.
"Deary me! One can get used to disrespect. When one's children are swine, they're swine, and that's all about it. But if they'd only pay their allowance—"
Then she explained, for the twentieth time, that Delhomme alone brought his fifty francs every quarter, and punctual, too, to the tick! Buteau was always in arrears, and haggled over coppers. Thus, although the money was ten days overdue, she was still awaiting payment. He had promised to pay up that very night. As for Hyacinthe, that was a simpler matter. He didn't pay anything; they never saw the colour of his money. And he'd actually had the cheek to send La Trouille that morning to borrow five francs, to enable her to make some broth for him as he was very ill. Oh, yes! they all knew what he suffered from—a spark in his inside! And so the wench had been sent to the right-about in no time, with orders to tell her father that if he didn't bring his fifty francs that night, like his brother Buteau, he should have the lawyer after him.
"Just to frighten him, you know, for the poor boy's not bad at heart, after all," added Rose, whose partiality for the elder son had already softened her.
At night-fall, Fouan having come in to his dinner, she began again at table while he bent silently over his food. Could it be possible that, out of their six hundred francs, they should only get two hundred from Delhomme, scarcely a hundred from Buteau, and nothing at all from the other? That made just half the allowance. And the scamps had signed at the notary's; it was set down in black and white, and was under the charge of the law! But a vast deal their children cared about the law!
To every complaint Palmyre, who was scouring the tiled floor of the kitchen in the dark, made the same answer, which sounded like a refrain of misery.
"Sure enough, we've all of us got our troubles; they bring us to the grave!"
Rose was at length deciding to light the candle when La Grande came in with her knitting. During the summer there was no evening meeting; but, to avoid using even a candle-end, she was wont to spend an hour at her brother's before groping her way to bed in the darkness. She established herself forthwith; and Palmyre, who had still the pots and pans to scour, breathed not a word more, over-awed by the sight of her grandmother.
"If you want any hot water, my girl," said Rose, "undo a faggot."