Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/387

Rh had raised his cap to heaven like a quarrelsome titmouse bristling its tuft.

Paridael's heart bled more and more sorrowfully in his bosom. And that because of some young scoundrels who were absolute strangers to him.

"There are hundreds, even thousands of these louts, all cast in the same mold, between Merxem and Kiel!" the judicious and moderate Marbol had told told him.

Did not they themselves realize that Béjard would not have found it difficult to raise more than one reserve of conscripts of the same kidney!

The prolific city threw them upon the streets, neglectfully, exposing them to accidents, abandoning them to their own industry, to their good or evil instincts, destining nearly all of them to helotism, squandering them upon the racy atmosphere of the streets and the waterfront.

If they did not serve for food for the fishes, they would, one day, be stretched out upon the slabs in the morgue, or contribute to the instruction of medical students. Did they possess the supreme and unique character with which Laurent endowed them? Incontestably. Were he the only one to see them in this warm light and in so bold a relief, it would be because they were created and existed so.

On the point of joining the apprentices in their workshop in order to suspend the malignant labor with which they were charged, and disputing them with Béjard himself, the same odor as before, but stronger, the stifling heat of a slaughter-house, blended with the mustiness of an infirmary and puffs of the odor of burning pounced upon him. As though he had been made to breathe a powerful anesthetic, he became dizzy, and things reeled before his eyes.