It's getting quite impossible to make both ends meet with children who have the devil's appetite and their own too." Gervaise and Jean bent over their plates, no longer even daring to cut some bread.

Silvere, who in his dream lived in heaven, did not grasp the situation.

In a calm voice he pronounced these storm-laden words: "But you should work, uncle." "Ah! yes," sneered Macquart, stung to the quick.

"You want me to work, eh! To let those beggars, the rich folk, continue to prey upon me.

I should earn probably twenty sous a day, and ruin my constitution.