At the sound of Yvon's steps, Gervaise turned her head: "Father!" said she in despair, "if you bring nothing with you, I shall kill my children to shorten their agony ... and then myself!"
Yvon threw down his bow and took his bag from his shoulders. Gervaise judged from its size and obvious weight that it was full. She wrenched it from Yvon's hands with savage impatience, thrust her hand in it, pulled out the chunk of roasted meat and raising it over her head to show it to the whole family cried out in a quivering voice: "Meat!... Oh, we shall not yet die! Den-Brao.... Children!... Meat!... Meat!" At these words Den-Brao sat up precipitately; Nominoe, too feeble to rise, turned on his pallet and stretched out his eager hands to his mother; little Jeannette eagerly looked up from her cradle; while Julyan, whom his mother was not now holding, neither heard nor saw aught but was biting into his arms in the delirium of starvation, unnoticed by either Yvon or any other member of the family. All eyes were fixed upon Gervaise, who running to a table and taking a knife sliced off the meat crying: "Meat!... Meat!"
"Give me!... Give me!" cried Den-Brao, stretching out his emaciated arms, and he devoured in an instant the piece that he received.
"You next, Jeannette!" said Gervaise, throwing a slice to the little girl who uttered a cry of joy, while her mother herself, yielding to the cravings of starvation bit off mouthfuls from the slice that she reached out to her oldest son, Nominoe, who, like the rest, pounced upon the prey, and fell to eating in silent voracity. "And now, you, Julyan," continued Gervaise. The lad made no answer. His mother stooped down over him: "Julyan, do not bite your arm! Here is meat, dear boy!" But his elder brother, Nominoe, having swallowed up his own slice, brusquely seized that which his mother was tendering to Julyan. Seeing that the latter continued motionless, Gervaise insisted: "My child, take your arm from your teeth!" But hardly had she pronounced these words than, turning towards Yvon, she cried: "Come here, father.... His arm is icy and rigid ... so rigid that I cannot withdraw it from his jaws."
Yvon rushed to the pallet where Julyan lay. The little boy had expired in the convulsion of hunger, although less unfeebled than his brother and sister. "Step aside," Yvon said to Gervaise; "step aside!" She realized that Julyan was dead, obeyed Yvon's orders and went on to eat. But her hunger being appeased, she approached her son's corpse and sobbed aloud: