But, reflecting that the excited state in which M. Bastien was, only rendered him more passionate, and more intractable, that he would not hesitate at any violence or outburst of temper, and that then the intervention of David and Frederick would, unfortunately, become inevitable, the young woman, brave as she always was, thanked Heaven that her son had heard nothing, seized the lamp on the chimneypiece, returned to her husband, who stood immovable on the threshold, and said to him in a low voice: "Let us go in the library, monsieur. I am afraid, as I told you, of waking my son." M. Bastien appeared to take counsel with himself before yielding to Marie's desire. After several minutes' hesitation, during which the young woman almost died of anguish, the Hercules replied: "Well, to come to the point, I prefer that; come, go on before me." Marie, preceding Jacques Bastien in the corridor, soon entered the library. CHAPTER XXXVII. Madame Bastien, whose heart was beating violently, set the lamp on the chimneypiece in the library, and said to her husband: "What do you wish, monsieur?" Jacques had reached that degree of drunkenness which is not madness, which leaves the mind even quite clear, but which renders the will implacable; he did not at first reply to the question of Marie, who said again: "Please, monsieur, I beg you, tell me what you wish of me." Jacques, both hands in the pockets of his blouse, stood directly in front of his wife; sometimes he knit his eyebrows with a sinister expression as he stared at her, sometimes he smiled with a satirical air. Finally, addressing Marie with a slow and uncertain voice, for his half-drunken condition retarded his utterance and obliged him to make frequent pauses, he said to her: "Madame it is about seventeen years and a half that we have been married, is it not?" "Yes, monsieur." "What good have you been to me?" "Monsieur!" "You have not even served me as a wife." Marie, her cheeks coloured with shame and indignation, started to go out. Bastien barred the passage and cried elevating his voice: "Stop there!" "Silence, monsieur!" said the unhappy woman, whose fears were renewed lest David and Frederick should be awakened by the noise of an altercation. So, waiting for new outrages, and resigned beforehand to submit to them, she said to Jacques, in a trembling voice: "For pity's sake, monsieur, do not speak so loud, they will hear you. I will listen to you, as painful as this conversation is to me." "I tell you that you have been no good to me since we were married; a servant hired for wages would have kept my house better than you, and with less expense." "Perhaps, monsieur," replied Marie, with a bitter smile, "this servant might not, as I, have reared your son--" "To hate his father?" "Monsieur!"