‘Wait a bit,’ resumed Dubuche; ‘I have to stop here five minutes longer with one of my poor duckies, and afterwards we’ll go indoors.’ Gently, and with infinite motherly precautions, he removed little Alice from the perambulator and lifted her to the trapeze. Then, stammering coaxing words and smiling, he encouraged her, and left her hanging for a couple of minutes, so as to develop her muscles; but he remained with open arms, watching each movement with the fear of seeing her smashed to pieces, should her weak little wax-like hands relax their hold. She did not say anything, but obeyed him in spite of the terror that this exercise caused her; and she was so pitifully light in weight that she did not even fully stretch the ropes, being like one of those poor scraggy little birds which fall from a young tree without as much as bending it. At this moment, Dubuche, having given Gaston a glance, became distracted on remarking that the rug had slipped and that the child’s legs were uncovered. ‘Good heavens! good heavens! Why, he’ll catch cold on this grass! And I, who can’t move! Gaston, my little dear! It’s the same thing every day; you wait till I’m occupied with your sister. Sandoz, pray cover him over! Ah, thanks! Pull the rug up more; don’t be afraid!’ So this was the outcome of his splendid marriage--those two poor, weak little beings, whom the least breath from the sky threatened to kill like flies. Of the fortune he had married, all that remained to him was the constant grief of beholding those woeful children stricken by the final degeneracy of scrofula and phthisis. However, this big, egotistical fellow showed himself an admirable father. The only energy that remained to him consisted in a determination to make his children live, and he struggled on hour after hour, saving them every morning, and dreading to lose them every night. They alone existed now amid his finished existence, amid the bitterness of his father-in-law’s insulting reproaches, the coldness of his sorry, ailing wife. And he kept to his task in desperation; he finished bringing those children into the world, as it were, by dint of unremitting tenderness. ‘There, my darling, that’s enough, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘You’ll soon see how big and pretty you’ll become.’ He then placed Alice in the perambulator again, took Gaston, who was still wrapped up, on one of his arms; and when his friends wished to help him, he declined their offer, pushing the little girl’s vehicle along with his right hand, which had remained free. ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘I’m accustomed to it. Ah! the poor darlings are not heavy; and besides, with servants one can never be sure of anything.’