And, apart from all this, one had to reckon with the wastefulness of the children, the disorder in which the discouraged wife left the house, and the despair of the husband, who was convinced that he would never extricate himself from his difficulties, even should his salary some day be raised to as high a figure as 4000 francs.

Briefly, one here found the unbearable penury of the petty clerk, with consequences as disastrous as the black want of the artisan: the mock facade and lying luxury; all the disorder and suffering which lie behind intellectual pride at not earning one's living at a bench or on a scaffolding.
* $140.
** $600.
"Well, well," repeated Madame Theodore, "you can't kill the child." "No, of course not; but it's the end of everything," answered Hortense, sinking into the armchair again.

"What will become of us, _mon Dieu_! What will become of us!" Then she collapsed in her unbuttoned dressing gown, tears once more gushing from her red and swollen eyes.
Much vexed that circumstances should be so unpropitious, Madame Theodore nevertheless ventured to ask for the loan of twenty sons; and this brought her sister's despair and confusion to a climax.

"I really haven't a centime in the house," said she, "just now I borrowed ten sous for the children from the servant.

I had to get ten francs from the Mont de Piete on a little ring the other day.