"I suppose that is so—when you count it up."
"Well, these people have three children, and when they go out they are dressed like princes."
"Yes, but they don't eat."
"You mean they don't drink. Well, they find the means for going out on Sundays, for going once or twice a year to the theatre, to receive friends—in short, they appear to be at ease, and make no complaint as to their condition."
"What!" cried the blacksmith, bringing down his clenched fist heavily on the table, "do you compare me with a paper-scratcher? Are such things as him men at all? He has not even a trade! A paper-scratcher!—a pack of useless idlers the whole lot of them—as bad as tradesmen and the rest of the bloodsuckers!"
"AT THE CABARET."
Marianne saw that he had no other answer to give. For some time he was no longer himself. He did not get exactly drunk, but he was constantly in a state that was half-way towards intoxication, and a mere nothing roused his anger. It was still worse some days later, and if the wife was resigned, the mother asked herself in terror, whether it was possible for her to continue to live with him. He did no work, and his days were spent at the cabaret, sometimes part of his nights. He, formerly so kind and tender to his wife, regarded her with nothing but savage looks; and as to his children, of whom he had been so fond, he ceased to notice them even.
Marianne cried when she was alone, for it was the future which, more than all, terrified her. There was no more money coming in, and her little savings, so painfully amassed, were, day by day, dwindling. She had been obliged to sell a railway share, a tiny piece of paper of which she had been so proud. Linen, clothes, all took the same road; the handsome gilt clock had to be sold, the commode—even the children's playthings and books, one day, when they were hungry.
It must be told, too, that she herself earned nothing. Not only had work been brought to a standstill since the outset of that detestable strike: people who had, before that, employed her, now shut their doors in her face.