"What's to be done?" repeated Maheude, crouching down in the corner by the oven.
Étienne stood up, looking at the portraits of the Emperor and Empress stuck against the wall. He would have torn them down long since if the family had not preserved them for ornament. So he murmured, with clenched teeth:
"And to think that we can't get two sous out of these damned idiots, who are watching us starve!"
"If I were to take the box?" said the woman, very pale, after some hesitation.
Maheu, seated on the edge of the table, with his legs dangling and his head on his chest, sat up.
"No! I won't have it!"
Maheude painfully rose and walked round the room. Good God! was it possible that they were reduced to such misery? The cupboard without a crumb, nothing more to sell, no notion where to get a l
