It was this distress of mind, added to vague but constant fears for the future, which gave Marthe her thoughtful and subdued air.

Nothing saddens so deeply as unmerited degradation from which there seems no escape.

A painter could have made a fine picture of this family of pariahs in the bosom of their pretty nook in Champagne, where the landscape is generally sad.
"Francois!" called the bailiff, to hasten his son.
Francois Michu, a child of ten, played in the park and forest, and levied his little tithes like a master; he ate the fruits; he chased the game; he at least had neither cares nor troubles.

Of all the family, Francois alone was happy in a home thus isolated from the neighborhood by its position between the park and the forest, and by the still greater moral solitude of universal repulsion.
"Pick up these things," said his father, pointing to the parapet, "and put them away.

Look at me! You love your father and your mother, don't you ?" The child flung himself on his father as if to kiss him, but Michu made a movement to shift the gun and pushed him back.