Jules Verne

“ As soon as I recovered my composure, I did not forget to thank Andre Letourneur for the act of intervention that had saved my life.
"Do you thank me for that, Mr. Kazallon?" he said; "it has only served to prolong your misery."
"Never mind, M. Letourneur," said Miss Herbey; "you did your duty."
Enfeebled and emaciated as the young girl is, her sense of duty never deserts her; and although her torn and bedraggled garments float dejectedly about her body, she never utters a word of complaint, and never loses courage.
"Mr. Kazallon," she said to me, "do you think we are fated to die of hunger?" ”

“ I replied, in a hard, cold tone.
"How long do you suppose we have to live?" she asked again.
"I cannot say; perhaps we shall linger on longer than we imagine."
"The strongest constitutions suffer the most, do they not?" she said.
"Yes; but they have one consolation -- they die the soonest," I replied, coldly.
Had every spark of humanity died out of my breast, that I thus brought the girl face to face with the terrible truth, without a word of hope or comfort? The eyes of Andre and his father, dilated with hunger, were fixed upon me, and I saw reproach and astonishment written in their faces. ”

“ The one of our party who seems to bear his privations the best is Hobart the steward, a man with whom hitherto I have had very little to do. He is small, with a fawning expression remarkable for its indecision, and has a smile which is incessantly playing round his lips; he goes about with his eyes half closed, as though he wished to conceal his thoughts, and there is something altogether false and hypocritical about his whole demeanor. I cannot say that he bears his privations without a murmur, for he sighs and moans incessantly ”