All the same, the two men, little by little, began to talk; and they started, apropos of nothing, a political discussion. Braux, upholding the revolutionary and communistic doctrines, gesticulated violently, his eyes alight in his hairy face, shouting:

‘Property, sir, is a theft from the worker; the earth belongs to everybody: inheritances are an infamy and a shame!’

But he stopped brusquely, confused like a man who has just said a silly thing: then in a gentler tone:

‘But this is not the moment to discuss things like that.’

The door opened: Dr. Chenet appeared. He experienced a second of astonishment, then he regained his countenance and, approaching the old woman:

‘Aha, mamma, you’re all right to-day. Oh! I thought you would be, you know! and I was saying to myself just now, climbing the stairs: “I bet the old lady will be on her feet”,’ and he patted her gently on the back. ‘She’s as solid as the Pont-Neuf Bridge: she’ll bury us all, you’ll see.’

He sat down, accepting the coffee that was offered him, and took part in the conversation of the two men, approving Braux’s ideas, for he had himself been mixed up in the Commune.

Now the old lady, feeling tired, wanted to go away. Caravan rushed forward. Then she looked him full in the face and said to him:

‘You’re going to bring up at once my chest of drawers and my clock.’

Then, as he stammered: ‘Yes, mamma,’ she took her daughter’s arm and disappeared with her.

The two Caravans remained aghast, mute, crushed under an atrocious disaster, while Braux rubbed his hands, sipping his coffee.

Suddenly Madame Caravan, mad with anger, rushed on him, howling:

‘You’re a thief, a scamp, a blackguard—I’ll spit in your face. I’ll—I’ll—’ She could find no words, suffocating: but he laughed and went on drinking.

Then, as his wife just then came in, she hurled herself on her sister-in-law, and the two of them, the one enormous with her threatening stomach, the other epileptic and thin, their voices distorted, their hands trembling, launched out full throated on basket-loads of insults.

Chenet and Braux interfered, and the latter, pushing his better half by the shoulders, shoved her outside, crying:

‘Out you go, donkey, you’ve brayed too much!’

And you could hear them in the road squabbling as they went along.

Monsieur Chenet took his leave.

The Caravans remained face to face. Then the man fell on a chair with a cold sweat on his brow, and murmured:

‘Whatever am I going to say to my Chief?’