Such was Marc's discouragement that he now wondered whether it would be worth his while to carry the inquiry further by visiting Savin the clerk. In the Doloirs' home he had not found the same dense ignorance as at the Bongards'. The former were a step higher in the social scale, and if both husband and wife were still virtually illiterate, they at least came in contact with other classes, and knew a little of life. But how vague was still the dawn which they typified, how dim was the groping through idiotic egotism, in what disastrous errors did lack of solidarity maintain the poor folk of that class! If they were not happier it was because they were ignorant of every right condition of civic life, of the necessity that others should be happy in order that one might be happy oneself. Marc thought of that human house, the doors and windows of which people have striven to keep closed for ages, whereas they ought to be opened widely in order to allow air and warmth and light to enter in torrents freely. While he was thus reflecting, he turned the corner of the Rue Plaisir, and reached the Rue Fauche, where the Savins dwelt. He thereupon felt ashamed of his discouragement, so he climbed the stairs to their flat, and speedily found himself in the presence of Madame Savin, who had hastened to answer his ring. 'My husband, monsieur? Yes, as it happens, he is at home, for he was rather feverish this morning and could not go to his office. Please follow me.' She was charming was Madame Savin, dark, refined and gay, with a pretty laugh, and so young-looking also, though her twenty-eighth year was already past, that she seemed to be the elder sister of her four children. The firstborn was a girl, Hortense; followed by twin boys, Achille and Philippe, and then by another boy, Jules, whom the young mother was still nursing. It was said that her husband was terribly jealous, that he suspected her, and watched her, ever full of ill-natured disquietude, although she gave him no cause for it. A bead-worker by trade, and an orphan, she had been sought by him in marriage for her beauty's sake, after her aunt's death, when she was quite alone in the world; and on this account she retained a feeling of gratitude towards him, and conducted herself very uprightly like a good wife and a good mother. Just as she was about to usher Marc into the adjoining room, some embarrassment came over her. Perhaps she feared the bad temper of her husband, who was ever ready to pick a quarrel, and to whom she preferred to yield for the sake of domestic peace. 'What name am I to give, monsieur?' she asked.