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‘Jondrette!’ said M. Leblanc, ‘I thought your name was
Fabantou?’
‘Fabantou, alias Jondrette!’ replied the husband hurried-
ly. ‘An artistic sobriquet!’
And launching at his wife a shrug of the shoulders which
M. Leblanc did not catch, he continued with an emphatic
and caressing inflection of voice:—
‘Ah! we have had a happy life together, this poor darling
and I! What would there be left for us if we had not that? We
are so wretched, my respectable sir! We have arms, but there
is no work! We have the will, no work! I don’t know how the
government arranges that, but, on my word of honor, sir, I
am not Jacobin, sir, I am not a bousingot.[30] I don’t wish
them any evil, but if I were the ministers, on my most sacred
word, things would be different. Here, for instance, I wanted
to have my girls taught the trade of paper-box makers. You
will say to me: ‘What! a trade?’ Yes! A trade! A simple trade!
A bread-winner! What a fall, my benefactor! What a degra-
dation, when one has been what we have been! Alas! There
is nothing left to us of our days of prosperity! One thing
only, a picture, of which I think a great deal, but which I am
willing to part with, for I must live! Item, one must live!’
[30] A democrat.
While Jondrette thus talked, with an apparent incoher-
ence which detracted nothing from the thoughtful and
sagacious expression of his physiognomy, Marius raised his
eyes, and perceived at the other end of the room a person
whom he had not seen before. A man had just entered, so
softly that the door had not been heard to turn on its hinges.