Then painfully, in such terms as he could command, he went on to tell how affairs looked to him.  They had received an all-fired good basting, that was sure as sure could be! but they were not all dead yet, he didn’t believe; there were some left, and those would suffice to rebuild the house if they only behaved themselves, working hard and not drinking up what they earned.  When a family has trouble, if its members work and put by a little something, they will pull through, in spite of all the bad luck in the world.  And further, it is not such a bad thing to get a good cuffing once in a way; it sets one thinking.  And, great heavens! if a man has something rotten about him, if he has gangrene in his arms or legs that is spreading all the time, isn’t it better to take a hatchet and lop them off rather than die as he would from cholera?

“All up, all up!  Ah, no, no! no, no!” he repeated several times.  “It is not all up with me, I know very well it is not.”

And notwithstanding his seedy condition and demoralized appearance, his hair all matted and pasted to his head by the blood that had flowed from his wound, he drew himself up defiantly, animated by a keen desire to live, to take up the tools of his trade or put his hand to the plow, in order, to use his own expression, to “rebuild the house.”  He was of the old soil where reason and obstinacy grow side by side, of the land of toil and thrift.

“All the same, though,” he continued, “I am sorry for the Emperor.  Affairs seemed to be going on well; the farmers were getting a good price for their grain.  But surely it was bad judgment on his part to allow himself to become involved in this business!”

Maurice, who was still in “the blues,” spoke regretfully:  “Ah, the Emperor!  I always liked him in my heart, in spite of my republican ideas.  Yes, I had it in the blood, on account of my grandfather, I suppose.  And now that that limb is rotten and we shall have to lop it off, what is going to become of us?”

His eyes began to wander, and his voice and manner evinced such distress that Jean became alarmed and was about to rise and go to him, when Henriette came into the room.  She had just awakened on hearing the sound of voices in the room adjoining hers.  The pale light of a cloudy morning now illuminated the apartment.

“You come just in time to give him a scolding,” he said, with an affectation of liveliness.  “He is not a good boy this morning.”

But the sight of his sister’s pale, sad face and the recollection of her affliction had had a salutary effect on Maurice by determining a sudden crisis of tenderness.  He opened his arms and took her to his bosom, and when she rested her head upon his shoulder, when he held her locked in a close embrace, a feeling of great gentleness pervaded him and they mingled their tears.

“Ah, my poor, poor darling, why have I not more strength and courage to console you! for my sorrows are as nothing compared with yours.  That good, faithful Weiss, the husband who loved you so fondly!  What will become of you?  You have always been the victim; always, and never a murmur from your lips.  Think of the sorrow I have already caused you, and who can say that I shall not cause you still more in the future!”