Toussaint, a big, square-shouldered man with knotty arms, only showed his
fifty years on his round, scorched face, which besides being roughened
and wrinkled by labour, bristled with grey hairs, which nowadays he was
content to shave off once a week. It was only his right arm that was
affected by paralysis, and moved rather sluggishly. As for Charles, a
living portrait of his father, he was now in all the strength of his six
and twentieth year, with splendid muscles distending his white skin, and
a full face barred by a heavy black moustache. The three men, like their
employer, were speaking of the explosion at the Duvillard mansion, of the
bradawl found there, and of Salvat, whom they all now suspected.
"Why, only a brigand would do such a thing!" said Toussaint. "That
Anarchism disgusts me. I'll have none of it. But all the same it's for
the /bourgeois/ to settle matters. If the others want to blow them up,
it's their concern. It's they who brought it about."
This indifference was undoubtedly the outcome of a life of want and
social injustice; it was the indifference of an old toiler, who, weary of
struggling and hoping for improvements, was now quite ready to tolerate
the crumbling of a social system, which threatened him with hunger in his
impotent old age.
"Well, you know," rejoined Charles, "I've heard the Anarchists talking,
and they really say some very true and sensible things.
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