The elder Hautot, who had fallen on his side, in a fainting condition, kept both his hands over his stomach, from which flowed down upon the grass through the linen vest torn by the lead, long streamlets of blood. As he was laying down his gun, in order to seize the partridge, within reach of him, he had let the firearm fall, and the second discharge going off with the shock, had torn open his entrails. They drew him out of the trench; they removed his clothes, and they saw a frightful wound, through which the intestines came out. Then, after having bandaged him the best way they could, they brought him back to his own house, and they awaited the doctor, who had been sent for, as well as a priest. When the doctor arrived, he gravely shook his head, and, turning towards young Hautot, who was sobbing on a chair: "My poor boy," said he, "this has not a good look." But, when the dressing was finished, the wounded man moved his fingers, opened his mouth, then his eyes, cast around his troubled, haggard glances, then appeared to search about in his memory, to recollect, to understand, and he murmured: "Ah! good God! this has done for me!" The doctor held his hand. "Why no, why no, some days of rest merely--it will be nothing." Hautot returned: "It has done for me! My stomach is split! I know it well." Then, all of a sudden: "I want to talk to the son, if I have the time." Hautot Junior, in spite of himself, shed tears, and kept repeating like a little boy. "P'pa, p'pa, poor p'ps!" But the father, in a firmer tone: "Come! stop crying--this is not the time for it. I have to talk to you. Sit down there quite close to me. It will be quickly done, and I will be more calm. As for the rest of you, kindly give me one minute." They all went out, leaving the father and son face to face. As soon as they were alone: "Listen, son! you are twenty-four years; one can say things like this to you. And then there is not such mystery about these matters as we import into them. You know well that your mother is seven years dead, isn't that so? and that I am not more than forty-five years myself, seeing that I got married at nineteen. Is not that true?" The son faltered: "Yes, it is true." "So then your mother is seven years dead, and I have remained a widower. Well! a man like me cannot remain without a wife at thirty-seven isn't that true?" The son replied: "Yes, it is true." The father, out of breath, quite pale, and his face contracted with suffering, went on: "God! what pain I feel! Well, you understand. Man is not made to live alone, but I did not want to take a successor to your mother, since I promised her not to do so. Then--you understand?" "Yes, father." "So, I kept a young girl at Rouen, Reu de l'Eperlan 18, in the third story, the second door--I tell you all this, don't forget--but a young girl, who has been very nice to me, loving, devoted, a true woman, eh? You comprehend, my lad?" "Yes, father."