Then she laughed till the tears came into her eyes; and La Couteau, on her side highly amused, began to wriggle with a savage delight. All at once, however, she calmed down and exclaimed, "But, I say, they will turn her out of doors?"
"Oh! that won't be long. They would have done so already if they had dared."
But at this moment the ringing of a bell was heard, and an oath escaped Céleste. "Good! there's madame ringing for me now! One can never be at peace for a moment."
La Couteau, however, was already standing up, quite serious, intent on business and ready to depart.
"Come, little one, don't be foolish, you must do your work. For my part I have an idea. I'll run to fetch one of the nurses whom I brought this morning, a girl I can answer for as for myself. In an hour's time I'll be back here with her, and there will be a little present for you if you help me to get her the situation."
She disappeared while the maid, before answering a second ring, leisurely replaced the malaga and the biscuits at the bottom of the cupboard.
At ten o'clock that day Séguin was to take his wife and their friend Santerre to Mantes, to lunch there, by way of trying an electric motor-car, which he had just had built at considerable expense. He had become fond of this new "sport," less from personal taste, however, than from his desire to be one of the foremost in taking up a new fashion. And a quarter of an hour before the time fixed for starting he was already in his spacious "cabinet," arrayed in what he deemed an appropriate costume: a jacket and breeches of greenish ribbed velvet, yellow shoes, and a little leather hat. And he poked fun at Santerre when the latter presented himself in town attire, a light gray suit of delicate effect.
Soon after Valentine had given birth to her daughter Andrée, the novelist had again become a constant frequenter of the house in the Avenue d'Antin. He was intent on resuming the little intrigue that he had begun there and felt confident of victory. Valentine, on her side, after a period of terror followed by great relief, had set about making up for lost time, throwing herself more wildly than ever into the vortex of fashionable life. She had recovered her good looks and youthfulness, and had never before experienced such a desire to divert herself, leaving her children more and more to the care of servants, and going about, hither and thither, as her fancy listed, particularly since her husband did the same in his sudden fits of jealousy and brutality, which broke out every now and again in the most imbecile fashion without the slightest cause. It was the collapse of all family life, with the threat of a great disaster in the future; and Santerre lived there in the midst of it, helping on the work of destruction.
He gave a cry of rapture when Valentine at last made her appearance gowned in a delicious travelling dress, with a cavalier toque on her head. But she was not quite ready, for she darted off again, saying that she would be at their service as soon as she had seen her little Andrée, and given her last orders to the nurse.
"Well, make haste," cried her husband. "You are quite unbearable, you are never ready."
It was at this moment that Mathieu called, and Séguin received him in order to express his regret that he could not that day go into business matters with him. Nevertheless, before fixing another appointment, he was willing to take note of certain conditions which the other wished to stipulate for the purpose of reserving to himself the exclusive right of purchasing the remainder of the Chantebled estate in portions and at fixed dates. Séguin was promising that he would carefully study this proposal when he was cut short by a sudden tumult—distant shouts, wild hurrying to and fro, and a violent banging of doors.
"Why! what is it? what is it?" he muttered, turning towards the shaking walls.
The door suddenly opened and Valentine reappeared, distracted, red with fear and anger, and carrying her little Andrée, who wailed and struggled in her arms.
"There, there, my pet," gasped the mother, "don't cry, she shan't hurt you any more. There, it's nothing, darling; be quiet, do."
Then she deposited the little girl in a large armchair, where she at once became quiet again. She was a very pretty child, but still so puny, although nearly four months old, that there seemed to be nothing but her beautiful big eyes in her pale little face.
"Well, what is the matter?" asked Séguin, in astonishment.
"The matter, is, my friend, that I have just found Marie lying across the cradle as drunk as a market porter, and half stifling the child. If I had been a few moments later it would have been all over. Drunk at ten o'clock in the morning! Can one understand such a thing? I had noticed that she drank, and so I hid the liqueurs, for I hoped to be able to keep her, since her milk is so good. But do you know what she had drunk? Why, the methylated spirits for the warmer! The empty bottle had remained beside her."
"But what did she say to you?"
"She simply wanted to beat me. When I shook her, she flew at me in a drunken fury, shouting abominable words. And I had time only to escape with the little one, while she began barricading herself in the room, where she is now smashing the furniture! There! just listen!"
Indeed, a distant uproar of destruction reached them. They looked one at the other, and deep silence fell, full of embarrassment and alarm.
"And then?" Séguin ended by asking in his curt dry voice.
"Well, what can I say? That woman is a brute beast, and I can't leave Andrée in her charge to be killed by her. I have brought the child here, and I certainly shall not take her back. I will even own that I won't run the risk of going back to the room. You will have to turn the girl out of doors, after paying her wages."
"I! I!" cried Séguin. Then, walking up and down as if spurring on the anger which was rising within him, he burst forth: "I've had enough, you know, of all these idiotic stories! This house has become a perfect hell upon earth all through that child! There will soon be nothing but fighting here from morning till night. First of all it was pretended that the nurse whom I took the trouble to choose wasn't healthy. Well, then a second nurse is engaged, and she gets drunk and stifles the child. And now, I suppose, we are to have a third, some other vile creature who will prey on us and drive us mad. No, no, it's too exasperating, I won't have it."
Valentine, her fears now calmed, became aggressive. "What won't you have? There is no sense in what you say. As we have a child we must have a nurse. If I had spoken of nursing the little one myself you would have told me I was a fool. You would have found the house more uninhabitable than ever, if you had seen me with the child always in my arms. But I won't nurse—I can't. As you say, we will take a third nurse; it's simple enough, and we'll do so at once and risk it."
Séguin had abruptly halted in front of Andrée, who, alarmed by the sight of his stern dark figure began to cry. Blinded as he was by anger, he perhaps failed to see her, even as he failed to see Gaston and Lucie, who had hastened in at the noise of the dispute and stood near the door, full of curiosity and fear. As nobody thought of sending them away they remained there, and saw and heard everything.
"The carriage is waiting," resumed Séguin, in a voice which he strove to render calm. "Let us make haste, let us go."
Valentine looked at him in stupefaction. "Come, be reasonable," said she. "How can I leave this child when I have nobody to whom I can trust her?"
"The carriage is waiting for us," he repeated, quivering; "let us go at once."
And as his wife this time contented herself with shrugging her shoulders, he was seized with one of those sudden fits of madness which impelled him to the greatest violence, even when people were present, and made him openly display his rankling poisonous sore, that absurd jealousy which had upset his life. As for that poor little puny, wailing child, he would have crushed her, for he held her to be guilty of everything, and indeed it was she who was now the obstacle to that excursion he had planned, that pleasure trip which he had promised himself, and which now seemed to him of such supreme importance. And 'twas so much the better if friends were there to hear him. So in the vilest language he began to upbraid his wife, not only reproaching her for the birth of that child, but even denying that the child was his. "You will only be content when you have driven me from the house!" he finished in a fury. "You won't come? Well then, I'll go by myself!"
And thereupon he rushed off like a whirlwind, without a word to Santerre, who had remained silent, and without even remembering that Mathieu still stood there awaiting an answer. The latter, in consternation at hearing all these things, had not dared to withdraw lest by doing so he should seem to be passing judgment on the scene. Standing there motionless, he turned his head aside, looked at little Andrée who was still crying, and at Gaston and Lucie, who, silent with fright, pressed one against the other behind the armchair in which their sister was wailing.
Valentine had sunk upon a chair, stifling with sobs, her limbs trembling. "The wretch! Ah, how he treats me! To accuse me thus, when he knows how false it is! Ah! never more; no, never more! I would rather kill myself; yes, kill myself!"
Then Santerre, who had hitherto stood on one side, gently drew near to her and ventured to take her hand with a gesture of affectionate compassion, while saying in an undertone: "Come, calm yourself. You know very well that you are not alone, that you are not forsaken. There are some things which cannot touch you. Calm yourself, cease weeping, I beg you. You distress me dreadfully."
He made himself the more gentle since the husband had been the more brutal; and he leant over her yet the more closely, and again lowered his voice till it became but a murmur. Only a few words could be heard: "It is wrong of you to worry yourself like this. Forget all that folly. I told you before that he doesn't know how to behave towards a woman."
Twice was that last remark repeated with a sort of mocking pity; and she smiled vaguely amid her drying tears, in her turn murmuring: "You are kind, you are. Thank you. And you are quite right.... Ah! if I could only be a little happy!"
Then Mathieu distinctly saw her press Santerre's hand as if in acceptance of his consolation. It was the logical, fatal outcome of the situation—given a wife whom her husband had perverted, a mother who refused to nurse her babe. And yet a cry from Andrée suddenly set Valentine erect, awaking to the reality of her position. If that poor creature were so puny, dying for lack of her mother's milk, the mother also was in danger from her refusal to nurse her and clasp her to her breast like a buckler of invincible defence. Life and salvation one through the other, or disaster for both, such was the law. And doubtless Valentine became clearly conscious of her peril, for she hastened to take up the child and cover her with caresses, as if to make of her a protecting rampart against the supreme madness to which she had felt prompted. And great was the distress that came over her. Her other children were there, looking and listening, and Mathieu also was still waiting. When she perceived him her tears gushed forth again, and she strove to explain things, and even attempted to defend her husband.
"Excuse him, there are moments when he quite loses his head. Mon Dieu! What will become of me with this child? Yet I can't nurse her now, it is too late. It is frightful to be in such a position without knowing what to do. Ah! what will become of me, good Lord?"
Santerre again attempted to console her, but she no longer listened to him, and he was about to defer all further efforts till another time when unexpected intervention helped on his designs.
Céleste, who had entered noiselessly, stood there waiting for her mistress to allow her to speak. "It is my friend who has come to see me, madame," said she; "you know, the person from my village, Sophie Couteau, and as she happens to have a nurse with her—"
"There is a nurse here?"
"Oh! yes, madame, a very fine one, an excellent one."
Then, on perceiving her mistress's radiant surprise, her joy at this relief, she showed herself zealous: "Madame must not tire herself by holding the little one. Madame hasn't the habit. If madame will allow me, I will bring the nurse to her."
Heaving a sigh of happy deliverance, Valentine had allowed the servant to take the child from her. So Heaven had not abandoned her! However, she began to discuss the matter, and was not inclined to have the nurse brought there. She somehow feared that if the other one, who was drunk in her room, should come out and meet the new arrival, she would set about beating them all and breaking everything. At last she insisted on taking Santerre and Mathieu into the linen-room, saying that the latter must certainly have some knowledge of these matters, although he declared the contrary. Only Gaston and Lucie were formally forbidden to follow.
"You are not wanted," said their mother, "so stay here and play. But we others will all go, and as softly as possible, please, so that that drunken creature may not suspect anything."
Once in the linen-room, Valentine ordered all the doors to be carefully secured. La Couteau was standing there with a sturdy young person of five-and-twenty, who carried a superb-looking infant in her arms. She had dark hair, a low forehead, and a broad face, and was very respectably dressed. And she made a little courtesy like a well-trained nurse, who has already served with gentlefolks and knows how to behave. But Valentine's embarrassment remained extreme; she looked at the nurse and at the babe like an ignorant woman who, though her elder children had been brought up in a room adjoining her own, had never troubled or concerned herself about anything. In her despair, seeing that Santerre kept to himself, she again appealed to Mathieu, who once more excused himself. And it was only then that La Couteau, after glancing askance at the gentleman who, somehow or other, always turned up whenever she had business to transact, ventured to intervene:
"Will madame rely on me? If madame will kindly remember, I once before ventured to offer her my services, and if she had accepted them she would have saved herself no end of worry. That Marie Lebleu is impossible, and I certainly could have warned madame of it at the time when I came to fetch Marie's child. But since madame's doctor had chosen her, it was not for me to speak. Oh! she has good milk, that's quite sure; only she also has a good tongue, which is always dry. So if madame will now place confidence in me—"
Then she rattled on interminably, expatiating on the respectability of her calling, and praising the value of the goods she offered.
"Well, madame, I tell you that you can take La Catiche with your eyes shut. She's exactly what you want, there's no better in Paris. Just look how she's built, how sturdy and how healthy she is! And her child, just look at it! She's married, she even has a little girl of four at the village with her husband. She's a respectable woman, which is more than can be said for a good many nurses. In a word, madame, I know her and can answer for her. If you are not pleased with her I myself will give you your money back."
In her haste to get it all over Valentine made a great gesture of surrender. She even consented to pay one hundred francs a month, since La Catiche was a married woman. Moreover, La Couteau explained that she would not have to pay the office charges, which would mean a saving of forty-five francs, though, perhaps, madame would not forget all the trouble which she, La Couteau, had taken. On the other hand, there would, of course, be the expense of taking La Catiche's child back to the village, a matter of thirty francs. Valentine liberally promised to double that sum; and all seemed to be settled, and she felt delivered, when she suddenly bethought herself of the other nurse, who had barricaded herself in her room. How could they get her out in order to install La Catiche in her place?
"What!" exclaimed La Couteau, "does Marie Lebleu frighten you? She had better not give me any of her nonsense if she wants me ever to find her another situation. I'll speak to her, never fear."
Céleste thereupon placed Andrée on a blanket, which was lying there, side by side with the infant of which the new nurse had rid herself a moment previously, and undertook to conduct La Couteau to Marie Lebleu's room. Deathlike silence now reigned there, but the nurse-agent only had to give her name to secure admittance. She went in, and for a few moments one only heard her dry curt voice. Then, on coming out, she tranquillized Valentine, who had gone to listen, trembling.
"I've sobered her, I can tell you," said she. "Pay her her month's wages. She's packing her box and going off."
Then, as they went back into the linen-room, Valentine settled pecuniary matters and added five francs for this new service. But a final difficulty arose. La Couteau could not come back to fetch La Catiche's child in the evening, and what was she to do with it during the rest of the day? "Well, no matter," she said at last, "I'll take it; I'll deposit it at the office, before I go my round. They'll give it a bottle there, and it'll have to grow accustomed to the bottle now, won't it?"
"Of course," the mother quietly replied.
Then, as La Couteau, on the point of leaving, after all sorts of bows and thanks, turned round to take the little one, she made a gesture of hesitation on seeing the two children lying side by side on the blanket.
"The devil!" she murmured; "I mustn't make a mistake."
This seemed amusing, and enlivened the others. Céleste fairly exploded, and even La Catiche grinned broadly; while La Couteau caught up the child with her long claw-like hands and carried it away. Yet another gone, to be carted away yonder in one of those ever-recurring razzias which consigned the little babes to massacre!
Mathieu alone had not laughed. He had suddenly recalled his conversation with Boutan respecting the demoralizing effects of that nurse trade, the shameful bargaining, the common crime of two mothers, who each risked the death of her child—the idle mother who bought another's services, the venal mother who sold her milk. He felt cold at heart as he saw one child carried off still full of life, and the other remain there already so puny. And what would be fate's course? Would not one or the other, perhaps both of them be sacrificed?
Valentine, however, was already leading both him and Santerre to the spacious salon again; and she was so delighted, so fully relieved, that she had recovered all her cavalier carelessness, her passion for noise and pleasure. And as Mathieu was about to take his leave, he heard the triumphant Santerre saying to her, while for a moment he retained her hand in his clasp: "Till to-morrow, then." And she, who had cast her buckler of defence aside, made answer: "Yes—yes, to-morrow."
A week later La Catiche was the acknowledged queen of the house. Andrée had recovered a little color, and was increasing in weight daily. And in presence of this result the others bowed low indeed. There was every disposition to overlook all possible faults on the nurse's part. She was the third, and a fourth would mean the child's death; so that she was an indispensable, a providential helper, one whose services must be retained at all costs. Moreover, she seemed to have no defects, for she was a calm, cunning, peasant woman, one who knew how to rule her employers and extract from them all that was to be extracted. Her conquest of the Séguins was effected with extraordinary skill. At first some unpleasantness seemed likely, because Céleste was, on her own side, pursuing a similar course; but they were both too intelligent to do otherwise than come to an understanding. As their departments were distinct, they agreed that they could prosecute parallel invasions. And from that moment they even helped one another, divided the empire, and preyed upon the house in company.
La Catiche sat upon a throne, served by the other domestics, with her employers at her feet. The finest dishes were for her; she had her special wine, her special bread, she had everything most delicate and most nourishing that could be found. Gluttonous, slothful, and proud, she strutted about, bending one and all to her fancies. The others gave way to her in everything to avoid sending her into a temper which might have spoilt her milk. At her slightest indisposition everybody was distracted. One night she had an attack of indigestion, and all the doctors in the neighborhood were rung up to attend on her. Her only real defect, perhaps, was a slight inclination for pilfering; she appropriated some linen that was lying about, but madame would not hear of the matter being mentioned.
There was also the chapter of the presents which were heaped on her in order to keep her in good temper. Apart from the regulation present when the child cut its first tooth, advantage was taken of various other occasions, and a ring, a brooch, and a pair of earrings were given her. Naturally she was the most adorned nurse in the Champs-Elysées, with superb cloaks and the richest of caps, trimmed with long ribbons which flared in the sunlight. Never did lady lead a life of more sumptuous idleness. There were also the presents which she extracted for her husband and her little girl at the village. Parcels were sent them by express train every week. And on the morning when news came that her own baby, carried back by La Couteau, had died from the effects of a bad cold, she was presented with fifty francs as if in payment for the loss of her child. Little Andrée, meanwhile, grew ever stronger, and thus La Catiche rose higher and higher, with the whole house bending low beneath her tyrannical sway.
On the day when Mathieu called to sign the deed which was to insure him the possession of the little pavilion of Chantebled with some fifty acres around it, and the privilege of acquiring other parts of the estate on certain conditions, he found Séguin on the point of starting for Le Havre, where a friend, a wealthy Englishman, was waiting for him with his yacht, in order that they might have a month's trip round the coast of Spain.
"Yes," said Séguin feverishly, alluding to some recent heavy losses at the gaming table, "I'm leaving Paris for a time—I have no luck here just now. But I wish you plenty of courage and all success, my dear sir. You know how much I am interested in the attempt you are about to make."
A little later that same day Mathieu was crossing the Champs-Elysées, eager to join Marianne at Chantebled, moved as he was by the decisive step he had taken, yet quivering also with faith and hope, when in a deserted avenue he espied a cab waiting, and recognized Santerre inside it. Then, as a veiled lady furtively sprang into the vehicle, he turned round wondering: Was that not Valentine? And as the cab drove off he felt convinced it was.
There came other meetings when he reached the main avenue; first Gaston and Lucie, already tired of play, and dragging about their puny limbs under the careless supervision of Céleste, who was busy laughing with a grocer's man; while farther off La Catiche, superb and royal, decked out like the idol of venal motherhood, was giving little Andrée an outing, with her long purple ribbons streaming victoriously in the sunshine.
XI
ON the day when the first blow with the pick was dealt, Marianne, with Gervais in her arms, came and sat down close by, full of happy emotion at this work of faith and hope which Mathieu was so boldly undertaking. It was a clear, warm day in the middle of June, with a pure, broad sky that encouraged confidence. And as the children had been given a holiday, they played about in the surrounding grass, and one could hear the shrill cries of little Rose while she amused herself with running after the three boys.
"Will you deal the first blow?" Mathieu gayly asked his wife.
But she pointed to her baby. "No, no, I have my work. Deal it yourself, you are the father."
He stood there with two men under his orders, but ready himself to undertake part of the hard manual toil in order to help on the realization of his long thought of, ripening scheme. With great prudence and wisdom he had assured himself a modest livelihood for a year of effort, by an intelligent scheme of association and advances repayable out of profits, which would enable him to wait for his first harvest. And it was his life that he risked on that future crop, should the earth refuse his worship and his labor. But he was a faithful believer, one who felt certain of conquering, since love and determination were his.
"Well then, here goes!" he gallantly cried. "May the earth prove a good mother to us!"
Then he dealt the first blow with his pick.
The work was begun to the left of the old pavilion, in a corner of that extensive marshy tableland, where little streams coursed on all sides through the reeds which sprang up everywhere. It was at first simply a question of draining a few acres by capturing these streams and turning them into canals, in order to direct them afterwards over the dry sandy slopes which descended towards the railway line. After an attentive examination Mathieu had discovered that the work might easily be executed, and that water-furrows would suffice, such was the disposition and nature of the ground. This, indeed, was his real discovery, not to mention the layer of humus which he felt certain would be found amassed on the plateau, and the wondrous fertility which it would display as soon as a ploughshare had passed through it. And so with his pick he now began to open the trench which was to drain the damp soil above, and fertilize the dry, sterile, thirsty ground below.
The open air, however, had doubtless given Gervais an appetite, for he began to cry. He was now a strong little fellow, three months and a half old, and never neglected mealtime. He was growing like one of the young trees in the neighboring wood, with hands which did not easily release what they grasped, with eyes too full of light, now all laughter and now all tears, and with the ever open beak of a greedy bird, that raised a tempest whenever his mother kept him waiting.
"Yes, yes, I know you are there," said she; "come, don't deafen us any longer."
Then she gave him the breast and he became quiet, simply purring like a happy little kitten. The beneficent source had begun to flow once more, as if it were inexhaustible. The trickling milk murmured unceasingly. One might have said that it could be heard descending and spreading, while Mathieu on his side continued opening his trench, assisted by the two men whose apprenticeship was long since past.
He rose up at last, wiped his brow, and with his air of quiet certainty exclaimed: "It's only a trade to learn. In a few months' time I shall be nothing but a peasant. Look at that stagnant pond there, green with water-plants. The spring which feeds it is yonder in that big tuft of herbage. And when this trench has been opened to the edge of the slope, you will see the pond dry up, and the spring gush forth and take its course, carrying the beneficent water away."
"Ah!" said Marianne, "may it fertilize all that stony expanse, for nothing can be sadder than dead land. How happy it will be to quench its thirst and live again!"
Then she broke off to scold Gervais: "Come, young gentleman, don't pull so hard," said she. "Wait till it comes; you know very well that it's all for you."
Meantime the blows of the pickaxes rang out, the trench rapidly made its way through the fat, moist soil, and soon the water would flow into the parched veins of the neighboring sandy tracts to endow them with fruitfulness. And the light trickling of the mother's milk also continued with the faint murmur of an inexhaustible source, flowing from her breast into the mouth of her babe, like a fountain of eternal life. It ever and ever flowed, it created flesh, intelligence, and labor, and strength. And soon its whispering would mingle with the babble of the delivered spring as it descended along the trenches to the dry hot lands. And at last there would be but one and the same stream, one and the same river, gradually overflowing and carrying life to all the earth, a mighty river of nourishing milk flowing through the world's veins, creating without a pause, and producing yet more youth and more health at each return of springtide.
Four months later, when Mathieu and his men had finished the autumn ploughing, there came the sowing on the same spot. Marianne was there again, and it was such a very mild gray day that she was still able to sit down, and once more gayly give the breast to little Gervais. He was already eight months old and had become quite a personage. He grew a little more every day, always in his mother's arms, on that warm breast whence he sucked life. He was like the seed which clings to the seed-pod so long as it is not ripe. And at that first quiver of November, that approach of winter through which the germs would slumber in the furrows, he pressed his chilly little face close to his mother's warm bosom, and nursed on in silence as if the river of life were lost, buried deep beneath the soil.
"Ah!" said Marianne, laughing, "you are not warm, young gentleman, are you? It is time for you to take up your winter quarters."
Just then Mathieu, with his sower's bag at his waist, was returning towards them, scattering the seed with broad rhythmical gestures. He had heard his wife, and he paused to say to her: "Let him nurse and sleep till the sun comes back. He will be a man by harvest time." And, pointing to the great field which he was sowing with his assistants, he added: "All this will grow and ripen when our Gervais has begun to walk and talk—just look, see our conquest!"
He was proud of it. From ten to fifteen acres of the plateau were now rid of the stagnant pools, cleared and levelled; and they spread out in a brown expanse, rich with humus, while the water-furrows which intersected them carried the streams to the neighboring slopes. Before cultivating those dry lands one must yet wait until the moisture should have penetrated and fertilized them. That would be the work of the future, and thus, by degrees, life would be diffused through the whole estate.
"Evening is coming on," resumed Mathieu, "I must make haste."
Then he set off again, throwing the seed with his broad rhythmical gesture. And while Marianne, gravely smiling, watched him go, it occurred to little Rose to follow in his track, and take up handfuls of earth, which she scattered to the wind. The three boys perceived her, and Blaise and Denis then hastened up, followed by Ambroise, all gleefully imitating their father's gesture, and darting hither and thither around him. And for a moment it was almost as if Mathieu with the sweep of his arm not only cast the seed of expected corn into the furrows, but also sowed those dear children, casting them here and there without cessation, so that a whole nation of little sowers should spring up and finish populating the world.
Two months more went by, and January had arrived with a hard frost, when one day the Froments unexpectedly received a visit from Séguin and Beauchêne, who had come to try their luck at wild-duck shooting, among such of the ponds on the plateau as had not yet been drained. It was a Sunday, and the whole family was gathered in the roomy kitchen, cheered by a big fire. Through the clear windows one could see the far-spreading countryside, white with rime, and stiffly slumbering under that crystal casing, like some venerated saint awaiting April's resurrection. And, that day, when the visitors presented themselves, Gervais also was slumbering in his white cradle, rendered somnolent by the season, but plump even as larks are in the cold weather, and waiting, he also, simply for life's revival, in order to reappear in all the triumph of his acquired strength.
The family had gayly partaken of déjeuner, and now, before nightfall, the four children had gathered round a table by the window, absorbed in a playful occupation which delighted them. Helped by Ambroise, the twins, Blaise and Denis, were building a whole village out of pieces of cardboard, fixed together with paste. There were houses, a town hall, a church, a school. And Rose, who had been forbidden to touch the scissors, presided over the paste, with which she smeared herself even to her hair. In the deep quietude, through which their laughter rang at intervals, their father and mother had remained seated side by side in front of the blazing fire, enjoying that delightful Sunday peace after the week's hard work.
They lived there very simply, like genuine peasants, without any luxury, any amusement, save that of being together. Their gay, bright kitchen was redolent of that easy primitive life, lived so near the earth, which frees one from fictitious wants, ambition, and the longing for pleasure. And no fortune, no power could have brought such quiet delight as that afternoon of happy intimacy, while the last-born slept so soundly and quietly that one could not even hear him breathe.
Beauchêne and Séguin broke in upon the quiet like unlucky sportsmen, with their limbs weary and their faces and hands icy cold. Amid the exclamations of surprise which greeted them, they complained of the folly that had possessed them to venture out of Paris in such bleak weather.
"Just fancy, my dear fellow," said Beauchêne, "we haven't seen a single duck! It's no doubt too cold. And you can't imagine what a bitter wind blows on the plateau, amid those ponds and bushes bristling with icicles. So we gave up the idea of any shooting. You must give us each a glass of hot wine, and then we'll get back to Paris."
Séguin, who was in even a worse humor, stood before the fire trying to thaw himself; and while Marianne made haste to warm some wine, he began to speak of the cleared fields which he had skirted. Under the icy covering, however, beneath which they stiffly slumbered, hiding the seed within them, he had guessed nothing of the truth, and already felt anxious about this business of Mathieu's, which looked anything but encouraging. Indeed, he already feared that he would not be paid his purchase money, and so made bold to speak ironically.
"I say, my dear fellow, I am afraid you have lost your time," he began; "I noticed it all as I went by, and it did not seem promising. But how can you hope to reap anything from rotten soil in which only reeds have been growing for centuries?"
"One must wait," Mathieu quietly answered. "You must come back and see it all next June."
But Beauchêne interrupted them. "There is a train at four o'clock, I think," said he; "let us make haste, for it would annoy us tremendously to miss it, would it not, Séguin?"
So saying, he gave him a gay, meaning glance. They had doubtless planned some little spree together, like husbands bent on availing themselves to the utmost of the convenient pretext of a day's shooting. Then, having drunk some wine and feeling warmed and livelier, they began to express astonishment at their surroundings.
"It stupefies me, my dear fellow," declared Beauchêne, "that you can live in this awful solitude in the depth of winter. It is enough to kill anybody. I am all in favor of work, you know; but, dash it! one must have some amusement too."
"But we do amuse ourselves," said Mathieu, waving his hand round that rustic kitchen in which centred all their pleasant family life.
The two visitors followed his gesture, and gazed in amazement at the walls covered with utensils, at the rough furniture, and at the table on which the children were still building their village after offering their cheeks to be kissed. No doubt they were unable to understand what pleasure there could possibly be there, for, suppressing a jeering laugh, they shook their heads. To them it was really an extraordinary life, a life of most singular taste.
"Come and see my little Gervais," said Marianne softly. "He is asleep; mind, you must not wake him."
For politeness' sake they both bent over the cradle, and expressed surprise at finding a child but ten months old so big. He was very good, too. Only, as soon as he should wake, he would no doubt deafen everybody. And then, too, if a fine child like that sufficed to make life happy, how many people must be guilty of spoiling their lives! The visitors came back to the fireside, anxious only to be gone now that they felt enlivened.
"So it's understood," said Mathieu, "you won't stay to dinner with us?"
"Oh, no, indeed!" they exclaimed in one breath.
Then, to attenuate the discourtesy of such a cry, Beauchêne began to jest, and accepted the invitation for a later date when the warm weather should have arrived.
"On my word of honor, we have business in Paris," he declared. "But I promise you that when it's fine we will all come and spend a day here—yes, with our wives and children. And you will then show us your work, and we shall see if you have succeeded. So good-by! All my good wishes, my dear fellow! Au revoir, cousin! Au revoir, children; be good!"
Then came more kisses and hand-shakes, and the two men disappeared. And when the gentle silence had fallen once more Mathieu and Marianne again found themselves in front of the bright fire, while the children completed the building of their village with a great consumption of paste, and Gervais continued sleeping soundly. Had they been dreaming? Mathieu wondered. What sudden blast from all the shame and suffering of Paris had blown into their far-away quiet? Outside, the country retained its icy rigidity. The fire alone sang the song of hope in life's future revival. And, all at once, after a few minutes' reverie the young man began to speak aloud, as if he had at last just found the answer to all sorts of grave questions which he had long since put to himself.
"But those folks don't love; they are incapable of loving! Money, power, ambition, pleasure—yes, all those things may be theirs, but not love! Even the husbands who deceive their wives do not really love their mistresses. They have never glowed with the supreme desire, the divine desire which is the world's very soul, the brazier of eternal life. And that explains everything. Without desire there is no love, no courage, and no hope. By love alone can one create. And if love be restricted in its mission there is but failure ——. Yes, they lie and deceive, because they do not love. Then they suffer and lapse into moral and physical degradation. And at the end lies the collapse of our rotten society, which breaks up more and more each day before our eyes. That, then, is the truth I was seeking. It is desire and love that save. Whoever loves and creates is the revolutionary saviour, the maker of men for the new world which will shortly dawn."
Never before had Mathieu so plainly understood that he and his wife were different from others. This now struck him with extraordinary force. Comparisons ensued, and he realized that their simple life, free from the lust of wealth, their contempt for luxury and worldly vanities, all their common participation in toil which made them accept and glorify life and its duties, all that mode of existence of theirs which was at once their joy and their strength, sprang solely from the source of eternal energy: the love with which they glowed. If, later on, victory should remain with them, if they should some day leave behind them work of value and health and happiness, it would be solely because they had possessed the power of love and the courage to love freely, harvesting, in an ever-increasing family, both the means of support and the means of conquest. And this sudden conviction filled Mathieu with such a glow that he leant towards his wife, who sat there deeply moved by what he said, and kissed her ardently upon the lips. It was divine love passing like a flaming blast. But she, though her own eyes were sparkling, laughingly scolded him, saying: "Hush, hush, you will wake Gervais."
Then they remained there hand in hand, pressing each other's fingers amid the silence. Evening was coming on, and at last the children, their village finished, raised cries of rapture at seeing it standing there among bits of wood, which figured trees. And then the softened glances of the parents strayed now through the window towards the crops sleeping beneath the crystalline rime, and now towards their last-born's cradle, where hope was likewise slumbering.
Again did two long months go by. Gervais had just completed his first year, and fine weather, setting in early, was hastening the awaking of the earth. One morning, when Marianne and the children went to join Mathieu on the plateau, they raised shouts of wonder, so completely had the sun transformed the expanse in a single week. It was now all green velvet, a thick endless carpet of sprouting corn, of tender, delicate emerald hue. Never had such a marvellous crop been seen. And thus, as the family walked on through the mild, radiant April morning, amid the country now roused from winter's sleep, and quivering with fresh youth, they all waxed merry at the sight of that healthfulness, that progressing fruitfulness, which promised the fulfilment of all their hopes. And their rapture yet increased when, all at once, they noticed that little Gervais also was awaking to life, acquiring decisive strength. As he struggled in his little carriage and his mother removed him from it, behold! he took his flight, and, staggering, made four steps; then hung to his father's legs with his little fists. A cry of extraordinary delight burst forth.
"Why! he walks, he walks!"
Ah! those first lispings of life, those successive flights of the dear little ones; the first glance, the first smile, the first step—what joy do they not bring to parents' hearts! They are the rapturous étapes of infancy, for which father and mother watch, which they await impatiently, which they hail with exclamations of victory, as if each were a conquest, a fresh triumphal entry into life. The child grows, the child becomes a man. And there is yet the first tooth, forcing its way like a needle-point through rosy gums; and there is also the first stammered word, the "pa-pa," the "mam-ma," which one is quite ready to detect amid the vaguest babble, though it be but the purring of a kitten, the chirping of a bird. Life does its work, and the father and the mother are ever wonderstruck with admiration and emotion at the sight of that efflorescence alike of their flesh and their souls.
"Wait a moment," said Marianne, "he will come back to me. Gervais! Gervais!"
And after a little hesitation, a false start, the child did indeed return, taking the four steps afresh, with arms extended and beating the air as if they were balancing-poles.
"Gervais! Gervais!" called Mathieu in his turn. And the child went back to him; and again and again did they want him to repeat the journey, amid their mirthful cries, so pretty and so funny did they find him.
Then, seeing that the four other children began playing rather roughly with him in their enthusiasm, Marianne carried him away. And once more, on the same spot, on the young grass, did she give him the breast. And again did the stream of milk trickle forth.
Close by that spot, skirting the new field, there passed a crossroad, in rather bad condition, leading to a neighboring village. And on this road a cart suddenly came into sight, jolting amid the ruts, and driven by a peasant—who was so absorbed in his contemplation of the land which Mathieu had cleared, that he would have let his horse climb upon a heap of stones had not a woman who accompanied him abruptly pulled the reins. The horse then stopped, and the man in a jeering voice called out: "So this, then, is your work, Monsieur Froment?"
Mathieu and Marianne thereupon recognized the Lepailleurs, the people of the mill. They were well aware that folks laughed at Janville over the folly of their attempt—that mad idea of growing wheat among the marshes of the plateau. Lepailleur, in particular, distinguished himself by the violent raillery he levelled at this Parisian, a gentleman born, with a good berth, who was so stupid as to make himself a peasant, and fling what money he had to that rascally earth, which would assuredly swallow him and his children and his money all together, without yielding even enough wheat to keep them in bread. And thus the sight of the field had stupefied him. It was a long while since he had passed that way, and he had never thought that the seed would sprout so thickly, for he had repeated a hundred times that nothing would germinate, so rotten was all the land. Although he almost choked with covert anger at seeing his predictions thus falsified, he was unwilling to admit his error, and put on an air of ironical doubt.
"So you think it will grow, eh? Well, one can't say that it hasn't come up. Only one must see if it can stand and ripen." And as Mathieu quietly smiled with hope and confidence, he added, striving to poison his joy: "Ah! when you know the earth you'll find what a hussy she is. I've seen plenty of crops coming on magnificently, and then a storm, a gust of wind, a mere trifle, has reduced them to nothing! But you are young at the trade as yet; you'll get your experience in misfortune."
His wife, who nodded approval on hearing him talk so finely, then addressed herself to Marianne: "Oh! my man doesn't say that to discourage you, madame. But the land you know, is just like children. There are some who live and some who die; some who give one pleasure, and others who kill one with grief. But, all considered, one always bestows more on them than one gets back, and in the end one finds oneself duped. You'll see, you'll see."
Without replying, Marianne, moved by these malicious predictions, gently raised her trustful eyes to Mathieu. And he, though for a moment irritated by all the ignorance, envy, and imbecile ambition which he felt were before him, contented himself with jesting. "That's it, we'll see. When your son Antoine becomes a prefect, and I have twelve peasant daughters ready, I'll invite you to their weddings, for it's your mill that ought to be rebuilt, you know, and provided with a fine engine, so as to grind all the corn of my property yonder, left and right, everywhere!"
The sweep of his arm embraced such a far expanse of ground that the miller, who did not like to be derided, almost lost his temper. He lashed his horse with his whip, and the cart jolted on again through the ruts.
"Wheat in the ear is not wheat in the mill," said he. "Au revoir, and good luck to you, all the same."
"Thanks, au revoir."
Then, while the children still ran about, seeking early primroses among the mosses, Mathieu came and sat down beside Marianne, who, he saw, was quivering. He said nothing to her, for he knew that she possessed sufficient strength and confidence to surmount, unaided, such fears for the future as threats might kindle in her womanly heart. But he simply set himself there, so near her that he touched her, looking and smiling at her the while. And she immediately became calm again and likewise smiled, while little Gervais, whom the words of the malicious could not as yet disturb, nursed more eagerly than ever, with a purr of rapturous satisfaction. The milk was ever trickling, bringing flesh to little limbs which grew stronger day by day, spreading through the earth, filling the whole world, nourishing the life which increased hour by hour. And was not this the answer which faith and hope returned to all threats of death?—the certainty of life's victory, with fine children ever growing in the sunlight, and fine crops ever rising from the soil at each returning spring! To-morrow, yet once again, on the glorious day of harvest, the corn will have ripened, the children will be men!
And it was thus, indeed, three months later, when the Beauchênes and the Séguins, keeping their promise, came—husbands, wives, and children—to spend a Sunday afternoon at Chantebled. The Froments had even prevailed on Morange to be of the party with Reine, in their desire to draw him for a day, at any rate, from the dolorous prostration in which he lived. As soon as all these fine folks had alighted from the train it was decided to go up to the plateau to see the famous fields, for everybody was curious about them, so extravagant and inexplicable did the idea of Mathieu's return to the soil, and transformation into a peasant, seem to them. He laughed gayly, and at least he succeeded in surprising them when he waved his hand towards the great expanse under the broad blue sky, that sea of tall green stalks whose ears were already heavy and undulated at the faintest breeze. That warm splendid afternoon, the far-spreading fields looked like the very triumph of fruitfulness, a growth of germs which the humus amassed through centuries had nourished with prodigious sap, thus producing this first formidable crop, as if to glorify the eternal source of life which sleeps in the earth's flanks. The milk had streamed, and the corn now grew on all sides with overflowing energy, creating health and strength, bespeaking man's labor and the kindliness, the solidarity of the world. It was like a beneficent, nourishing ocean, in which all hunger would be appeased, and in which to-morrow might arise, amid that tide of wheat whose waves were ever carrying good news to the horizon.
True, neither Constance nor Valentine was greatly touched by the sight of the waving wheat, for other ambitions filled their minds: and Morange, though he stared with his vague dim eyes, did not even seem to see it. But Beauchêne and Séguin marvelled, for they remembered their visit in the month of January, when the frozen ground had been wrapt in sleep and mystery. They had then guessed nothing, and now they were amazed at this miraculous awakening, this conquering fertility, which had changed a part of the marshy tableland into a field of living wealth. And Séguin, in particular, did not cease praising and admiring, certain as he now felt that he would be paid, and already hoping that Mathieu would soon take a further portion of the estate off his hands.
Then, as soon as they had walked to the old pavilion, now transformed into a little farm, and had seated themselves in the garden, pending dinner-time, the conversation fell upon children. Marianne, as it happened, had weaned Gervais the day before, and he was there among the ladies, still somewhat unsteady on his legs, and yet boldly going from one to the other, careless of his frequent falls on his back or his nose. He was a gay-spirited child who seldom lost his temper, doubtless because his health was so good. His big clear eyes were ever laughing; he offered his little hands in a friendly way, and was very white, very pink, and very sturdy—quite a little man indeed, though but fifteen and a half months old. Constance and Valentine admired him, while Marianne jested and turned him away each time that he greedily put out his little hands towards her.
"No, no, monsieur, it's over now. You will have nothing but soup in future."
"Weaning is such a terrible business," then remarked Constance. "Did he let you sleep last night?"
"Oh! yes, he had good habits, you know; he never troubled me at night. But this morning he was stupefied and began to cry. Still, you see, he is fairly well behaved already. Besides, I never had more trouble than this with the other ones."
Beauchêne was standing there, listening, and, as usual, smoking a cigar. Constance appealed to him:
"You are lucky. But you, dear, remember—don't you?—what a life Maurice led us when his nurse went away. For three whole nights we were unable to sleep."
"But just look how your Maurice is playing!" exclaimed Beauchêne. "Yet you'll be telling me again that he is ill."
"Oh! I no longer say that, my friend; he is quite well now. Besides, I was never anxious; I know that he is very strong."
A great game of hide-and-seek was going on in the garden, along the paths and even over the flower-beds, among the eight children who were assembled there. Besides the four of the house—Blaise, Denis, Ambroise, and Rose—there were Gaston and Lucie, the two elder children of the Séguins, who had abstained, however, from bringing their other daughter—little Andrée. Then, too, both Reine and Maurice were present. And the latter now, indeed, seemed to be all right upon his legs, though his square face with its heavy jaw still remained somewhat pale. His mother watched him running about, and felt so happy and so vain at the realization of her dream that she became quite amiable even towards these poor relatives the Froments, whose retirement into the country seemed to her like an incomprehensible downfall, which forever thrust them out of her social sphere.
"Ah! well," resumed Beauchêne, "I've only one boy, but he's a sturdy fellow, I warrant it; isn't he, Mathieu?"
These words had scarcely passed his lips when he must have regretted them. His eyelids quivered and a little chill came over him as his glance met that of his former designer. For in the latter's clear eyes he beheld, as it were, a vision of that other son, Norine's ill-fated child, who had been cast into the unknown. Then there came a pause, and amid the shrill cries of the boys and girls playing at hide-and-seek a number of little shadows flitted through the sunlight: they were the shadows of the poor doomed babes who scarce saw the light before they were carried off from homes and hospitals to be abandoned in corners, and die of cold, and perhaps even of starvation!
Mathieu had been unable to answer a word. And his emotion increased when he noticed Morange huddled up on a chair, and gazing with blurred, tearful eyes at little Gervais, who was laughingly toddling hither and thither. Had a vision come to him also? Had the phantom of his dead wife, shrinking from the duties of motherhood and murdered in a hateful den, risen before him in that sunlit garden, amid all the turbulent mirth of happy, playful children?
"What a pretty girl your daughter Reine is!" said Mathieu, in the hope of drawing the accountant from his haunting remorse. "Just look at her running about!—so girlish still, as if she were not almost old enough to be married."
Morange slowly raised his head and looked at his daughter. And a smile returned to his eyes, still moist with tears. Day by day his adoration increased. As Reine grew up he found her more and more like her mother, and all his thoughts became centred in her. His one yearning was that she might be very beautiful, very happy, very rich. That would be a sign that he was forgiven—that would be the only joy for which he could yet hope. And amid it all there was a vague feeling of jealousy at the thought that a husband would some day take her from him, and that he would remain alone in utter solitude, alone with the phantom of his dead wife.
"Married?" he murmured; "oh! not yet. She is only fourteen."
At this the others expressed surprise: they would have taken her to be quite eighteen, so womanly was her precocious beauty already.
"As a matter of fact," resumed her father, feeling flattered, "she has already been asked in marriage. You know that the Baroness de Lowicz is kind enough to take her out now and then. Well, she told me that an arch-millionnaire had fallen in love with Reine—but he'll have to wait! I shall still be able to keep her to myself for another five or six years at least!"
He no longer wept, but gave a little laugh of egotistical satisfaction, without noticing the chill occasioned by the mention of Séraphine's name; for even Beauchêne felt that his sister was hardly a fit companion for a young girl.
Then Marianne, anxious at seeing the conversation drop, began, questioning Valentine, while Gervais at last slyly crept to her knees.
"Why did you not bring your little Andrée?" she inquired. "I should have been so pleased to kiss her. And she would have been able to play with this little gentleman, who, you see, does not leave me a moment's peace."
But Séguin did not give his wife time to reply. "Ah! no, indeed!" he exclaimed; "in that case I should not have come. It is quite enough to have to drag the two others about. That fearful child has not ceased deafening us ever since her nurse went away."
Valentine then explained that Andrée was not really well behaved. She had been weaned at the beginning of the previous week, and La Catiche, after terrorizing the household for more than a year, had plunged it by her departure into anarchy. Ah! that Catiche, she might compliment herself on all the money she had cost! Sent away almost by force, like a queen who is bound to abdicate at last, she had been loaded with presents for herself and her husband, and her little girl at the village! And now it had been of little use to take a dry-nurse in her place, for Andrée did not cease shrieking from morning till night. They had discovered, too, that La Catiche had not only carried off with her a large quantity of linen, but had left the other servants quite spoilt, disorganized, so that a general clearance seemed necessary.
"Oh!" resumed Marianne, as if to smooth things, "when the children are well one can overlook other worries."
"Why, do you imagine that Andrée is well?" cried Séguin, giving way to one of his brutal fits. "That Catiche certainly set her right at first, but I don't know what happened afterwards, for now she is simply skin and bones." Then, as his wife wished to protest, he lost his temper. "Do you mean to say that I don't speak the truth? Why, look at our two others yonder: they have papier-mâché faces, too! It is evident that you don't look after them enough. You know what a poor opinion Santerre has of them!"
For him Santerre's opinion remained authoritative. However, Valentine contented herself with shrugging her shoulders; while the others, feeling slightly embarrassed, looked at Gaston and Lucie, who amid the romping of their companions, soon lost breath and lagged behind, sulky and distrustful.
"But, my dear friend," said Constance to Valentine, "didn't our good Doctor Boutan tell you that all the trouble came from your not nursing your children yourself? At all events, that was the compliment that he paid me."
At the mention of Boutan a friendly shout arose. Oh! Boutan, Boutan! he was like all other specialists. Séguin sneered; Beauchêne jested about the legislature decreeing compulsory nursing by mothers; and only Mathieu and Marianne remained silent.
"Of course, my dear friend, we are not jesting about you," said Constance, turning towards the latter. "Your children are superb, and nobody says the contrary."
Marianne gayly waved her hand, as if to reply that they were free to make fun of her if they pleased. But at this moment she perceived that Gervais, profiting by her inattention, was busy seeking his "paradise lost." And thereupon she set him on the ground: "Ah, no, no, monsieur!" she exclaimed. "I have told you that it is all over. Can't you see that people would laugh at us?"
Then for her and her husband came a delightful moment. He was looking at her with deep emotion. Her duty accomplished, she was now returning to him, for she was spouse as well as mother. Never had he thought her so beautiful, possessed of so strong and so calm a beauty, radiant with the triumph of happy motherhood, as though indeed a spark of something divine had been imparted to her by that river of milk that had streamed from her bosom. A song of glory seemed to sound, glory to the source of life, glory to the true mother, to the one who nourishes, her travail o'er. For there is none other; the rest are imperfect and cowardly, responsible for incalculable disasters. And on seeing her thus, in that glory, amid her vigorous children, like the good goddess of Fruitfulness, Mathieu felt that he adored her. Divine passion swept by—the glow which makes the fields palpitate, which rolls on through the waters, and floats in the wind, begetting millions and millions of existences. And 'twas delightful the ecstasy into which they both sank, forgetfulness of all else, of all those others who were there. They saw them no longer; they felt but one desire, to say that they loved each other, and that the season had come when love blossoms afresh. His lips protruded, she offered hers, and then they kissed.
"Oh! don't disturb yourselves!" cried Beauchêne merrily. "Why, what is the matter with you?"
"Would you like us to move away?" added Séguin.
But while Valentine laughed wildly, and Constance put on a prudish air, Morange, in whose voice tears were again rising, spoke these words, fraught with supreme regret: "Ah! you are right!"
Astonished at what they had done, without intention of doing it, Mathieu and Marianne remained for a moment speechless, looking at one another in consternation. And then they burst into a hearty laugh, gayly excusing themselves. To love! to love! to be able to love! Therein lies all health, all will, and all power.
XII
FOUR years went by. And during those four years Mathieu and Marianne had two more children, a daughter at the end of the first year and a son at the expiration of the third. And each time that the family thus increased, the estate at Chantebled was increased also—on the first occasion by fifty more acres of rich soil reclaimed among the marshes of the plateau, and the second time by an extensive expanse of wood and moorland which the springs were beginning to fertilize. It was the resistless conquest of life, it was fruitfulness spreading in the sunlight, it was labor ever incessantly pursuing its work of creation amid obstacles and suffering, making good all losses, and at each succeeding hour setting more energy, more health, and more joy in the veins of the world.
On the day when Mathieu called on Séguin to purchase the wood and moorland, he lunched with Dr. Boutan, whom he found in an execrable humor. The doctor had just heard that three of his former patients had lately passed through the hands of his colleague Gaude, the notorious surgeon to whose clinic at the Marbeuf Hospital society Paris flocked as to a theatre. One of these patients was none other than Euphrasie, old Moineaud's eldest daughter, now married to Auguste Bénard, a mason, and already the mother of three children. She had doubtless resumed her usual avocations too soon after the birth of her last child, as often happens in working-class families where the mother is unable to remain idle. At all events, she had for some time been ailing, and had finally been removed to the hospital. Mathieu had for a while employed her young sister Cécile, now seventeen, as a servant in the house at Chantebled, but she was of poor health and had returned to Paris, where, curiously enough, she also entered Doctor Gaude's clinic. And Boutan waxed indignant at the methods which Gaude employed. The two sisters, the married woman and the girl, had been discharged as cured, and so far, this might seem to be the case; but time, in Boutan's opinion, would bring round some terrible revenges.
One curious point of the affair was that Beauchêne's dissolute sister, Séraphine, having heard of these so-called cures, which the newspapers had widely extolled, had actually sought out the Bénards and the Moineauds to interview Euphrasie and Cécile on the subject. And in the result she likewise had placed herself in Gaude's hands. She certainly was of little account, and, whatever might become of her, the world would be none the poorer by her death. But Boutan pointed out that during the fifteen years that Gaude's theories and practices had prevailed in France, no fewer than half a million women had been treated accordingly, and, in the vast majority of cases, without any such treatment being really necessary. Moreover, Boutan spoke feelingly of the after results of such treatment—comparative health for a few brief years, followed in some cases by a total loss of muscular energy, and in others by insanity of a most violent form; so that the padded cells of the madhouses were filling year by year with the unhappy women who had passed through the hands of Gaude and his colleagues. From a social point of view also the effects were disastrous. They ran counter to all Boutan's own theories, and blasted all his hopes of living to see France again holding a foremost place among the nations of the earth.
"Ah!" said he to Mathieu, "if people were only like you and your good wife!"
During those four years at Chantebled the Froments had been ever founding, creating, increasing, and multiplying, again and again proving victorious in the eternal battle which life wages against death, thanks to that continual increase both of offspring and of fertile land which was like their very existence, their joy and their strength. Desire passed like a gust of flame—desire divine and fruitful, since they possessed the power of love, kindliness, and health. And their energy did the rest—that will of action, that quiet bravery in the presence of the labor that is necessary, the labor that has made and that regulates the earth. But during the first two years they had to struggle incessantly. There were two disastrous winters with snow and ice, and March brought hail-storms and hurricanes which left the crops lying low. Even as Lepailleur had threateningly predicted with a laugh of impotent envy, it seemed as if the earth meant to prove a bad mother, ungrateful to them for their toil, indifferent to their losses. During those two years they only extricated themselves from trouble thanks to the second fifty acres that they purchased from Séguin, to the west of the plateau, a fresh expanse of rich soil which they reclaimed amid the marshes, and which, in spite of frost and hail, yielded a prodigious first harvest. As the estate gradually expanded, it also grew stronger, better able to bear ill-luck.
But Mathieu and Marianne also had great family worries. Their five elder children gave them much anxiety, much fatigue. As with the soil, here again there was a daily battle, endless cares and endless fears. Little Gervais was stricken with fever and narrowly escaped death. Rose, too, one day filled them with the direst alarm, for she fell from a tree in their presence, but fortunately with no worse injury than a sprain. And, on the other hand, they were happy in the three others, Blaise, Denis, and Ambroise, who proved as healthy as young oak-trees. And when Marianne gave birth to her sixth child, on whom they bestowed the gay name of Claire, Mathieu celebrated the new pledge of their affection by further acquisitions.
Then, during the two ensuing years, their battles and sadness and joy all resulted in victory once more. Marianne gave birth, and Mathieu conquered new lands. There was ever much labor, much life expended, and much life realized and harvested. This time it was a question of enlarging the estate on the side of the moorlands, the sandy, gravelly slopes where nothing had grown for centuries. The captured sources of the tableland, directed towards those uncultivated tracts, gradually fertilized them, covered them with increasing vegetation. There were partial failures at first, and defeat even seemed possible, so great was the patient determination which the creative effort demanded. But here, too, the crops at last overflowed, while the intelligent felling of a part of the purchased woods resulted in a large profit, and gave Mathieu an idea of cultivating some of the spacious clearings hitherto overgrown with brambles.
And while the estate spread the children grew. It had been necessary to send the three elder ones—Blaise, Denis, and Ambroise—to a school in Paris, whither they gallantly repaired each day by the first train, returning only in the evening. But the three others, little Gervais and the girls Rose and Claire, were still allowed all freedom in the midst of Nature. Marianne, however, gave birth to a seventh child, amid circumstances which caused Mathieu keen anxiety. For a moment, indeed, he feared that he might lose her. But her healthful temperament triumphed over all, and the child—a boy, named Grégoire—soon drank life and strength from her breast, as from the very source of existence. When Mathieu saw his wife smiling again with that dear little one in her arms, he embraced her passionately, and triumphed once again over every sorrow and every pang. Yet another child, yet more wealth and power, yet an additional force born into the world, another field ready for to-morrow's harvest.
And 'twas ever the great work, the good work, the work of fruitfulness spreading, thanks to the earth and to woman, both victorious over destruction, offering fresh means of subsistence each time a fresh child was born, and loving, willing, battling, toiling even amid suffering, and ever tending to increase of life and increase of hope.