Garnier looked at Ramel before replying, then answered in a quiet tone: 

“Oh! not now!  That is all over.  I vote like everybody else, but I let the rest alone.  I have had my reckoning.”

He had said all this in a low tone without any bitterness and as if burdened with painful memories.

“It is, however, strange, all the same,” added the workman, “to observe that the more things change, the more alike they are.  Instead of occupying themselves over there with interpellations and seeking to overthrow or to strengthen administrations, would it not be better if they thought a little of those who are dying of hunger? for there are some, it is necessary to admit that such are not wanting!  What is it to me whether Pichereau or Vaudrey be minister, when I do not know at the moment where I shall sleep when I have spent my savings, and whether the baker will give me credit now that I am without a shop?”

At the mention of Vaudrey’s name, Ramel wished to make a sign to this man, but Sulpice had just seized the hand of his old friend and pressed it as if to entreat him not to interrupt the conversation.  The voice that he heard, interrupted by a cough, was the voice of a workman and he did not hear such every day.

“Note well that I am not a blusterer or a disturber, isn’t that so, Monsieur Ramel?  I have always been content with my lot, myself—­One receives and executes orders and one is satisfied.  Everything goes on all right—­My politics at present is my work; when I shall have broken my back to bring journalists into power—­I beg your pardon, Monsieur Ramel, you know very well that it is not of you that I speak thus—­I shall be no fatter for it, I presume.  I only want just to keep life and soul together, if it can be done.  I suppose you could not find me a place, Monsieur Ramel?  I would do anything, heavy work if need be, or bookkeeping, if it is desired.  I would like bookkeeping better, although it is not my line, because the forge fire, the coal and heat, as you see, affect me there now—­he touched his neck—­it strangles me and hastens the end too quickly.  It is true for that I am in the world.”

Vaudrey felt himself stirred even to his bones by the mournful, musical voice of the consumptive, by this true misery, this poverty expressed without phrases and this claim of labor.  All the questions yonder, as Garnier said, in the committees and sub-committees, in the tribune and in the lobbies, discussions, disputes, personal questions cloaked under the guise of the general welfare, suddenly appeared to him as petty and vain, narrow and egotistical beside the formidable question of bread which was propounded to him so quietly by this man of the people, who was not a rebel of the violent days, but the unfortunate brother, the eternal Lazarus crying, without threat, but simply, sadly:  “And I?”

He would have liked, without making himself known, to give something to this sufferer, to promise him a position.  He did not dare to offer it or to mention his name.  The man would have refused charity and the minister, in all the personnel of bustling employes, often useless, that fill the ministry, had not a single place to give to this workman whose chest was on fire and whose throat was choking.