It was indifferent to them whether
they lived in one house or another of a quarter so deserted that
plenty of lodgings can be had for a low price. But I see in you a
fixed determination, and I beg you, monsieur, not to deceive me. Do
you really desire a quiet life? If not, I shall be forced to move and
go beyond the barrier, and the removal may cost me my daughter's
life."
If the man could have wept, the tears would have covered his cheeks
while he spoke; as it was, they were, to use an expression now become
vulgar, "in his voice." He covered his forehead with his hand, which
was nothing but bones and muscle.
"What is your daughter's illness?" asked Godefroid, in a persuasive
and sympathetic voice.
"A terrible disease to which physicians give various names, but it
has, in truth, no name. My fortune is lost," he added, with one of
those despairing gestures made only by the wretched. "The little money
that I had,--for in 1830 I was cast from a high position,--in fact,
all that I possessed, was soon used by on my daughter's illness; her
mother, too, was ruined by it, and finally her husband. To-day the
pension I receive from the government barely suffices for the actual
necessities of my poor, dear, saintly child. The faculty of tears has
left me; I have suffered tortures. Monsieur, I must be granite not to
have died. But no, God had kept alive the father that the child might
have a nurse, a providence.
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