DURAND. If you knew, Thérèse, how many matches I have wasted on you when I used to get up nights to see if you had thrown off the bedclothes! If you knew, Annette, how many times I have secretly given you water when you cried from thirst, because your mother believed that it was harmful for children to drink!
THÉRÈSE. Well, all that was so long ago that I can't bother about it. For that matter, it was only your duty, as you have said yourself.
DURAND. It was, and I fulfilled my duty and a little more too.
ADÈLE. Well, continue to do so, or no one knows what will become of us. Three young girls left homeless and friendless, without anything to live on! Do you know what want can drive one to?
DURAND. That's what I said ten years ago, but no one would heed me; and twenty years ago I predicted that this moment would come, and I haven't been able to prevent its coming. I have been sitting like a lone brakeman on an express train, seeing it go toward an abyss, but I haven't, been able to get to the engine valves to stop it.
THÉRÈSE. And now you want thanks for landing in the abyss with us.
DURAND. No, my child, I only ask that you be a little less unkind to me. You have cream fur the cat, but you begrudge milk to your father, who has not eaten for—so long.
THÉRÈSE. Oh, it's you, then, who has begrudged milk for my cat!
DURAND. Yes, it's I.
ANNETTE. And perhaps it is he who has eaten the rats' bait, too.