However, Pauline continued listening to the quarrel. She was suffering greater unhappiness than they themselves were. That fashion of loving one another was beyond her comprehension. Why couldn't they make mutual allowances and accommodate themselves to each other, since they had to live together? She was deeply pained, for she still regarded the marriage as her own work, and she longed to see it a happy and harmonious one, so that she might feel compensated for the sacrifice she had made by knowing that she had, at any rate, acted rightly. 'I never reproach you for squandering my fortune,' Louise continued. 'There was only that accusation wanting!' Lazare cried. 'It wasn't my fault that I was robbed of it.' 'Oh! it's only stupid folks who allow their pockets to be emptied, who are robbed. But, any way, we are now reduced to a wretched income of four or five thousand francs, barely sufficient to enable us to live in this hole of a place. If it were not for Pauline, our child would have to go naked one of these days, for I quite expect that you will squander all that we have left, what with all your extraordinary fads and speculations that come to grief one after the other.' 'There! there! Prate away! Your father has already paid me similar pretty compliments. I guessed you had been writing to him. I've given up that speculation in manure in consequence; though I know it was a perfectly safe thing, with cent. per cent. to be gained. But now I'm like you, and I've had enough of it, and the deuce take me if I bestir myself any more. We will go on living here.' 'A pretty life, isn't it, for a woman of my age? It's nothing but a gaol, with never an opportunity of going out or seeing anybody; and there's that stupid sea for ever in front of one, which only seems to increase one's _ennui_----Oh! if I had only known! If I had only known!' 'And do you suppose that I enjoy myself here? If I were not married, I should be able to go away to some distant place and try my fortune. I have longed to do so a score of times. But that's all at an end now; I'm nailed down to this lonely wilderness, where there's nothing to do but to go to sleep. You have done for me; I feel that very clearly.' 'I have done for you! I!--I didn't force you to marry me, did I? It was you who ought to have seen that we were not suited to each other. It is your fault if our lives are wrecked.' 'Ah! yes, indeed, our lives are certainly wrecked, and you do all you can to make them more intolerable every day.' Pauline, though she had resolved not to interfere between them, could no longer restrain herself. 'Oh! do give over, you unhappy creatures! You seem to take a pleasure in marring a life which might be such a happy one. Why will you goad each other into saying things which you cannot recall and which make you so wretched? Hold your tongues, both of you! I won't let this go on any longer.'