And I added, laughing, "You have proved that the colonels write like poets; now it is the turn of the poets to fight like colonels."
I entered my wife's room; she knew nothing, and was quietly reading her paper in bed.
I had taken about me five hundred francs in gold. I put on my wife's bed a box containing nine hundred francs, all the money which remained to me, and I told her what had happened.
She turned pale, and said to me, "What are you going to do?"
"My duty."
She embraced me, and only said two words:—
"Do it."
My breakfast was ready. I ate a cutlet in two mouthfuls. As I finished, my daughter came in. She was startled by the manner in which I kissed her, and asked me, "What is the matter?"
"Your mother will explain to you."
And I left them.