He led her into the cottage of the Rossignols, and she remained silent, apparently cold, looking at the crippled man.
"Can you sit up?" she asked, after a long pause.
"Sit up—yes," he said, and moved his elbow and heaved himself up; "but it opens the wounds again."
"And—can you put your feet down?"
"Feet; I'll never do that more."
"Nor stand?"
"God help me! Never stand before man, never kneel before God. I'm a young man; I'm five-and-twenty, and have got three children. I'll never do aught but lie as a log all the years I have to live!"
"There is a trifle for you," said Noémi, putting money into his hand. "I would I had more. Hush! I cannot bear that!"
The poor woman, still half distraught, now worked to further excitement by the return of the seven men safe and sound, while her own husband lay in irrecoverable wretchedness, broke into a storm of curses against Le Gros Guillem, and of blasphemy against God. It was more horrible to hear her than to see the man, who bore his lot not so much with patience as with stolidity.