No sooner did he enter the flat than he became brutal: 'You've taken possession of the whole room as usual!' he shouted. 'Where can I ask Monsieur Froment to sit down?'
Gentle, timid, and somewhat red of face, his wife hastened to gather up her reels and boxes. 'But when I work, my friend,' she said, 'I need some room. Besides, I did not expect you home so soon.'
'Yes, yes, I know, you never expect me!'
Those words, in which, perhaps, there was some cruel allusion to what had happened, quite upset the unfortunate woman. One thing which her husband did not forgive her was her lover's handsomeness, particularly as he knew that he himself was so puny and sickly; and nothing enraged himself more than to read his wife's excuse in her clear eyes. However, she now bent her head, and made herself as small as possible, while she resumed her work.
'Sit down, Monsieur Froment,' said Savin. 'As I was telling you just now, that big fellow yonder drives me to despair. He is now nearly two-and-twenty, he has already tried two or three trades, and all he seems to be good for is to watch his mother work and pass her the beads she may require.'
Young Philippe, indeed, was sitting in a corner of the room, silent and motionless, like one who strove to keep in the background. Madame Savin, amidst her humiliation, had given him a tender glance, to which he had responded by a slight smile as if by way of consolation. One could detect that he and his mother were linked together by some bond of suffering. Pale, and of poor health, the sly, cowardly, and mendacious schoolboy of former times had become a sorry young fellow, quite destitute, it seemed, of energy, who sought a refuge in his mother's kindness of heart; she, still so young in appearance, looking like an elder sister, one who also suffered, and who therefore sympathised with him.
'Why did you not listen to me?' Marc exclaimed in answer to the clerk; 'we would have made a schoolmaster of him.'
But Savin protested: 'Ah! no, indeed. Rather than that I prefer to have him on my hands. To cram one's brains at school till one is over twenty, then start at a paltry salary of sixty francs a month, and work for more than ten years before earning a hundred—do you call that a profession? A schoolmaster, indeed! Nobody cares to become one nowadays; even the poorest peasants would rather break stones on the highways!'
'But I thought I had persuaded you to let your son Jules enter the Training College?' Marc rejoined. 'Don't you intend to make him an elementary teacher?'
'Oh, dear, no. I've put him with an artificial-manure merchant. He's barely sixteen, and he is already earning twenty francs a month. He will thank me for it later on.'