"Those beasts have everything and we get nothing—not even a crust if we’re starving! The only thing they’re fit for is to be taken in! Just mark my w… - Émile Zola

Hortense and Berthe nodded, as though profoundly impressed by the wisdom of their mother's pronouncements. She had long since convinced them of the absolute inferiority of men, whose sole function was to marry and to pay.

They again kissed each other and fell asleep. The patch of light on the ceiling now seemed to be assuming the shape of a terrified eye, that stared wildly and fixedly upon the pale, slumbering couple who reeked with crime beneath their very sheets, and dreamt they could see a rain of blood falling in big drops, which turned into golden coins as they plashed upon the floor.

When truth is buried underground it grows, it chokes, it gathers such an explosive force that on the day it bursts out, it blows up everything with it.

O Almighty God, O Divinity, Helpful Power, whoever, whatever Thou mayst be, take pity upon poor mankind and make human suffering cease! All