It was on returning from a secret application to Ambroise, prompted by a
maternal longing for peace, that Marianne had taken to her bed, wounded
to the heart, and terrified by the thought of the future. Ambroise had
received her roughly, almost brutally, and she had gone back home in a
state of intense anguish, feeling as if her own flesh were lacerated by
the quarrelling of her ungrateful sons. And she had kept her bed, begging
Mathieu to say nothing, and explaining that a doctor's services would be
useless, since she did not suffer from any malady. She was fading away,
however, as he could well detect; she was day by day taking leave of him,
carried off by her bitter grief. Was it possible that all those loving
and well-loved children, who had grown up under their care and their
caresses, who had become the joy and pride of their victory, all those
children born of their love, united in their fidelity, a sacred
brotherly, sisterly battalion gathered close around them, was it possible
that they should now disband and desperately seek to destroy one another?
If so, it was true, then, that the more a family increases, the greater
is the harvest of ingratitude.
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