“Ah! yes; I was forgetting him,” he resumed more violently than ever; “there’s another whom I can’t think of without losing all patience! But that’s not all; you know little Silvère. Well, I saw him at my mother’s the other evening with his hands covered with blood. He has put some gendarme’s eye out. I did not tell you of it, as I didn’t want to frighten you. But you’ll see one of my nephews in the Assize Court. Ah! what a family! As for Macquart, he has annoyed us to such an extent that I felt inclined to break his head for him the other day when I had a gun in my hand. Yes, I had a mind to do it.” Félicité let the storm pass over. She had received her husband’s reproaches with angelic sweetness, bowing her head like a culprit, whereby she was able to smile in her sleeve. Her demeanour provoked and maddened Pierre. When speech failed the poor man, she heaved deep sighs, feigning repentance; and then she repeated, in a disconsolate voice: “Whatever shall we do! Whatever shall we do! We are over head and ears in debt.” “It’s your fault!” Pierre cried, with all his remaining strength. The Rougons, in fact, owed money on every side. The hope of approaching success had made them forget all prudence. Since the beginning of 1851 they had gone so far as to entertain the frequenters of the yellow drawing-room every evening with syrup and punch, and cakes—providing, in fact, complete collations, at which they one and all drank to the death of the Republic. Besides this, Pierre had placed a quarter of his capital at the disposal of the reactionary party, as a contribution towards the purchase of guns and cartridges. “The pastry-cook’s bill amounts to at least a thousand francs,” Félicité resumed, in her sweetest tone, “and we probably owe twice as much to the liqueur-dealer. Then there’s the butcher, the baker, the greengrocer——” Pierre was in agony. And Félicité struck him a final blow by adding: “I say nothing of the ten thousand francs you gave for the guns.” “I, I!” he faltered, “but I was deceived, I was robbed! It was that idiot Sicardot who let me in for that by swearing that the Napoleonists would be triumphant. I thought I was only making an advance. But the old dolt will have to repay me my money.” “Ah! you won’t get anything back,” said his wife, shrugging her shoulders. “We shall suffer the fate of war. When we have paid off everything, we sha’n’t even have enough to buy dry bread with. Ah! it’s been a fine campaign. We can now go and live in some hovel in the old quarter.”