"Well," he resumed in his ridiculously vain, scoffing way, "we are going to Paris too. Yes, we are going to install this young gentleman there."
He pointed as he spoke to his son Antonin, now a tall, carroty fellow of eighteen, with an elongated head. A few light-colored bristles were already sprouting on his chin and cheeks, and he wore town attire, with a silk hat and gloves, and a bright blue necktie. After astonishing Janville by his success at school, he had displayed so much repugnance to manual work that his father had decided to make "a Parisian" of him.
"So it is decided; you have quite made up your mind?" asked Mathieu in a friendly way.
"Why, yes; why should I force him to toil and moil without the least hope of ever enriching himself? Neither my father nor I ever managed to put a copper by with that wretched old mill of ours. Why, the mill-stones wear away with rot more than with grinding corn. And the wretched fields, too, yield far more pebbles than crowns. And so, as he's now a scholar, he may as well try his fortune in Paris. There's nothing like city life to sharpen a man's wits."
Madame Lepailleur, who never took her eyes from her son, but remained in admiration before him as formerly before her husband, now exclaimed with an air of rapture: "Yes, yes, he has a place as a clerk with Maître Rousselet, the attorney. We have rented a little room for him; I have seen about the furniture and the linen, and to-day's the great day; he will sleep there to-night, after we have dined, all three, at a good restaurant. Ah! yes, I'm very pleased; he's making a start now."
"And he will perhaps end by being a minister of state," said Mathieu, with a smile; "who knows? Everything is possible nowadays."
It all typified the exodus from the country districts towards the towns, the feverish impatience to make a fortune, which was becoming general. Even the parents nowadays celebrated their child's departure, and accompanied the adventurer on his way, anxious and proud to climb the social ladder with him. And that which brought a smile to the lips of the farmer of Chantebled, the bourgeois who had become a peasant, was the thought of the double change: the miller's son going to Paris, whereas he had gone to the earth, the mother of all strength and regeneration.
Antonin, however, had also begun to laugh with the air of an artful idler who was more particularly attracted by the free dissipation of Paris life. "Oh! minister?" said he, "I haven't much taste for that. I would much sooner win a million at once so as to rest afterwards."
Delighted with this display of wit, the Lepailleurs burst into noisy merriment. Oh! their boy would do great things, that was quite certain!
Marianne, her heart oppressed by thought of the mourning which awaited her, had hitherto kept silent. She now asked, however, why little Thérèse did not form one of the party. Lepailleur dryly replied that he did not choose to embarrass himself with a child but six years old, who did not know how to behave. Her arrival had upset everything in the house; things would have been much better if she had never been born. Then, as Marianne began to protest, saying that she had seldom seen a more intelligent and prettier little girl, Madame Lepailleur answered more gently: "Oh! she's sharp; that's true enough; but one can't send girls to Paris. She'll have to be put somewhere, and it will mean a lot of trouble, a lot of money. However, we mustn't talk about all that this morning, since we want to enjoy ourselves."
At last the train reached Paris, and the Lepailleurs, leaving the Northern terminus, were caught and carried off by the impetuously streaming crowd.
When Mathieu and Marianne alighted from their cab on the Quai d'Orsay, in front of the Beauchênes' residence, they recognized the Séguins' brougham drawn up beside the foot pavement. And within it they perceived the two girls, Lucie and Andrée, waiting mute and motionless in their light-colored dresses. Then, as they approached the door, they saw Valentine come out, in a very great hurry as usual. On recognizing them, however, she assumed an expression of deep pity, and spoke the words required by the situation:
"What a frightful misfortune, is it not? an only son!"
Then she burst out into a flood of words: "You have hastened here, I see, as I did; it is only natural. I heard of the catastrophe only by chance less than an hour ago. And you see my luck! My daughters were dressed, and I myself was dressing to take them to a wedding—a cousin of our friend Santerre is marrying a diplomatist. And, in addition, I am engaged for the whole afternoon. Well, although the wedding is fixed for a quarter-past eleven, I did not hesitate, but drove here before going to the church. And naturally I went upstairs alone. My daughters have been waiting in the carriage. We shall no doubt be a little late for the wedding. But no matter! You will see the poor parents in their empty house, near the body, which, I must say, they have laid out very nicely on the bed. Oh! it is heartrending."
Mathieu was looking at her, surprised to see that she did not age. The fiery flame of her wild life seemed to scorch and preserve her. He knew that her home was now completely wrecked. Séguin openly lived with Nora, the governess, for whom he had furnished a little house. It was there even that he had given Mathieu an appointment to sign the final transfer of the Chantebled property. And since Gaston had entered the military college of St. Cyr, Valentine had only her two daughters with her in the spacious, luxurious mansion of the Avenue d'Antin, which ruin was slowly destroying.
"I think," resumed Madame Séguin, "that I shall tell Gaston to obtain permission to attend the funeral. For I am not sure whether his father is in Paris. It's just the same with our friend Santerre; he's starting on a tour to-morrow. Ah! not only do the dead leave us, but it is astonishing what a number of the living go off and disappear! Life is very sad, is it not, dear madame?"
As she spoke a little quiver passed over her face; the dread of the coming rupture, which she had felt approaching for several months past, amid all the skilful preparations of Santerre, who had been long maturing some secret plan, which she did not as yet divine. However, she made a devout ecstatic gesture, and added: "Well, we are in the hands of God."
Marianne, who was still smiling at the ever-motionless girls in the closed brougham, changed the subject. "How tall they have grown, how pretty they have become! Your Andrée looks adorable. How old is your Lucie now? She will soon be of an age to marry."
"Oh! don't let her hear you," retorted Valentine; "you would make her burst into tears! She is seventeen, but for sense she isn't twelve. Would you believe it, she began sobbing this morning and refusing to go to the wedding, under the pretence that it would make her ill? She is always talking of convents; we shall have to come to a decision about her. Andrée, though she is only thirteen, is already much more womanly. But she is a little stupid, just like a sheep. Her gentleness quite upsets me at times; it jars on my nerves."
Then Valentine, on the point of getting into her carriage, turned to shake hands with Marianne, and thought of inquiring after her health. "Really," said she, "I lose my head at times. I was quite forgetting. And the baby you're expecting will be your eleventh child, will it now? How terrible! Still it succeeds with you. And, ah! those poor people whom you are going to see, their house will be quite empty now."
When the brougham had rolled away it occurred to Mathieu and Marianne that before seeing the Beauchênes it might be advisable for them to call at the little pavilion, where their son or their daughter-in-law might be able to give them some useful information. But neither Blaise nor Charlotte was there. They found only a servant who was watching over the little girl, Berthe. This servant declared that she had not seen Monsieur Blaise since the previous day, for he had remained at the Beauchênes' near the body. And as for Madame, she also had gone there early that morning, and had left instructions that Berthe was to be brought to her at noon, in order that she might not have to come back to give her the breast. Then, as Marianne in surprise began to put some questions, the girl explained matters: "Madame took a box of drawing materials with her. I fancy that she is painting a portrait of the poor young man who is dead."
As Mathieu and Marianne crossed the courtyard of the works, they felt oppressed by the grave-like silence which reigned in that great city of labor, usually so full of noise and bustle. Death had suddenly passed by, and all the ardent life had at once ceased, the machinery had become cold and mute, the workshops silent and deserted. There was not a sound, not a soul, not a puff of that vapor which was like the very breath of the place. Its master dead, it had died also. And the distress of the Froments increased when they passed from the works into the house, amid absolute solitude; the connecting gallery was wrapt in slumber, the staircase quivered amid the heavy silence, all the doors were open, as in some uninhabited house, long since deserted. They found no servant in the antechamber, and even the dim drawing-room, where the blinds of embroidered muslin were lowered, while the armchairs were arranged in a circle, as on reception days, when numerous visitors were expected, at first seemed to them to be empty. But at last they detected a shadowy form moving slowly to and fro in the middle of the room. It was Morange, bareheaded and frock-coated; he had hastened thither at the first news with the same air as if he had been repairing to his office. He seemed to be at home; it was he who received the visitors in a scared way, overcome as he was by this sudden demise, which recalled to him his daughter's abominable death. His heart-wound had reopened; he was livid, all in disorder, with his long gray beard streaming down, while he stepped hither and thither without a pause, making all the surrounding grief his own.
As soon as he recognized the Froments he also spoke the words which came from every tongue: "What a frightful misfortune, an only son!"
Then he pressed their hands, and whispered and explained that Madame Beauchêne, feeling quite exhausted, had withdrawn for a few moments, and that Beauchêne and Blaise were making necessary arrangements downstairs. And then, resuming his maniacal perambulations, he pointed towards an adjoining room, the folding doors of which were wide open.
"He is there, on the bed where he died. There are flowers; it looks very nice. You may go in."
This room was Maurice's bedchamber. The large curtains had been closely drawn, and tapers were burning near the bed, casting a soft light on the deceased's face, which appeared very calm, very white, the eyes closed as if in sleep. Between the clasped hands rested a crucifix, and with the roses scattered over the sheet the bed was like a couch of springtide. The odor of the flowers, mingling with that of the burning wax, seemed rather oppressive amid the deep and tragic stillness. Not a breath stirred the tall, erect flames of the tapers, burning in the semi-obscurity, amid which the bed alone showed forth.
When Mathieu and Marianne had gone in, they perceived their daughter-in-law, Charlotte, behind a screen near the door. Lighted by a little lamp, she sat there with a sketching-block on her knees, making a drawing of Maurice's head as it rested among the roses. Hard and anguish-bringing as was such work for one with so young a heart, she had nevertheless yielded to the mother's ardent entreaties. And for three hours past, pale, looking wondrously beautiful, her face showing all the flower of youth, her blue eyes opening widely under her fine golden hair, she had been there diligently working, striving to do her best. When Mathieu and Marianne approached her she would not speak, but simply nodded. Still a little color came to her cheeks, and her eyes smiled. And when the others, after lingering there for a moment in sorrowful contemplation, had quietly returned to the drawing-room, she resumed her work alone, in the presence of the dead, among the roses and the tapers.
Morange was still walking the drawing-room like a lost, wandering phantom. Mathieu remained standing there, while Marianne sat down near the folding doors. Not another word was exchanged; the spell of waiting continued amid the oppressive silence of the dim, closed room. When some ten minutes had elapsed, two other visitors arrived, a lady and a gentleman, whom the Froments could not at first recognize. Morange bowed and received them in his dazed way. Then, as the lady did not release her hold of the gentleman's hand, but led him along, as if he were blind, between the articles of furniture, so that he might not knock against them, Marianne and Mathieu realized that the new comers were the Angelins.
Since the previous winter they had sold their little house at Janville to fix themselves in Paris, for a last misfortune had befallen them—the failure of a great banking house had carried away almost the whole of their modest fortune. The wife had fortunately secured a post as one of the delegates of the Poor Relief Board, an inspectorship with various duties, such as watching over the mothers and children assisted by the board, and reporting thereon. And she was wont to say, with a sad smile, that this work of looking after the little ones was something of a consolation for her, since it was now certain that she would never have a child of her own. As for her husband, whose eyesight was failing more and more, he had been obliged to relinquish painting altogether, and he dragged out his days in morose desolation, his life wrecked, annihilated.
With short steps, as if she were leading a child, Madame Angelin brought him to an armchair near Marianne and seated him in it. He had retained the lofty mien of a musketeer, but his features had been ravaged by anxiety, and his hair was white, though he was only forty-four years of age. And what memories arose at the sight of that sorrowful lady leading that infirm, aged man, for those who had known the young couple, all tenderness and good looks, rambling along the secluded paths of Janville, amid the careless delights of their love.
As soon as Madame Angelin had clasped Marianne's hands with her own trembling fingers, she also uttered in low, stammering accents, those despairing words: "Ah! what a frightful misfortune, an only son!"
Her eyes filled with tears, and she would not sit down before going for a moment to see the body in the adjoining room. When she came back, sobbing in her handkerchief, she sank into an armchair between Marianne and her husband. He remained there motionless, staring fixedly with his dim eyes. And silence fell again throughout the lifeless house, whither the rumble of the works, now deserted, fireless and frozen, ascended no longer.
But Beauchêne, followed by Blaise, at last made his appearance. The heavy blow he had received seemed to have made him ten years older. It was as if the heavens had suddenly fallen upon him. Never amid his conquering egotism, his pride of strength and his pleasures, had he imagined such a downfall to be possible. Never had he been willing to admit that Maurice might be ill—such an idea was like casting a doubt upon his own strength; he thought himself beyond the reach of thunderbolts; misfortune would never dare to fall on him. And at the first overwhelming moment he had found himself weak as a woman, weary and limp, his strength undermined by his dissolute life, the slow disorganization of his faculties. He had sobbed like a child before his dead son, all his vanity crushed, all his calculations destroyed. The thunderbolt had sped by, and nothing remained. In a minute his life had been swept away; the world was now all black and void. And he remained livid, in consternation at it all, his bloated face swollen with grief, his heavy eyelids red with tears.
When he perceived the Froments, weakness again came upon him, and he staggered towards them with open arms, once more stifling with sobs.
"Ah! my dear friends, what a terrible blow! And I wasn't here! When I got here he had lost consciousness; he did not recognize me—. Is it possible? A lad who was in such good health! I cannot believe it. It seems to me that I must be dreaming, and that he will get up presently and come down with me into the workshops!"
They kissed him, they pitied him, struck down like this upon his return from some carouse or other, still intoxicated, perhaps, and tumbling into the midst of such an awful disaster, his prostration increased by the stupor following upon debauchery. His beard, moist with his tears, still stank of tobacco and musk.
Although he scarcely knew the Angelins, he pressed them also in his arms. "Ah! my poor friends, what a terrible blow! What a terrible blow!"
Then Blaise in his turn came to kiss his parents. In spite of his grief, and the horrible night he had spent, his face retained its youthful freshness. Yet tears coursed down his cheeks, for, working with Maurice day by day, he had conceived real friendship for him.
The silence fell again. Morange, as if unconscious of what went on around him, as if he were quite alone there, continued walking softly hither and thither like a somnambulist. Beauchêne, with haggard mien, went off, and then came back carrying some little address-books. He turned about for another moment, and finally sat down at a writing-table which had been brought out of Maurice's room. Little accustomed as he was to grief, he instinctively sought to divert his mind, and began searching in the little address-books for the purpose of drawing up a list of the persons who must be invited to the funeral. But his eyes became blurred, and with a gesture he summoned Blaise, who, after going into the bedchamber to glance at his wife's sketch, was now returning to the drawing-room. Thereupon the young man, standing erect beside the writing-table, began to dictate the names in a low voice; and then, amid the deep silence sounded a low and monotonous murmur.
The minutes slowly went by. The visitors were still waiting for Constance. At last a little door of the death-chamber slowly opened, and she entered that chamber noiselessly, without anybody knowing that she was there. She looked like a spectre emerging out of the darkness into the pale light of the tapers. She had not yet wept; her face was livid, contracted, hardened by cold rage. Her little figure, instead of bending, seemed to have grown taller beneath the injustice of destiny, as if borne up by furious rebellion. Yet her loss did not surprise her. She had immediately felt that she had expected it, although but a minute before the death she had stubbornly refused to believe it possible. But the thought of it had remained latent within her for long months, and frightful evidence thereof now burst forth. She suddenly heard the whispers of the unknown once more, and understood them; she knew the meaning of those shivers which had chilled her, those vague, terror-fraught regrets at having no other child! And that which had been threatening her had come; irreparable destiny had willed it that her only son, the salvation of the imperilled home, the prince of to-morrow, who was to share his empire with her, should be swept away like a withered leaf. It was utter downfall; she sank into an abyss. And she remained tearless; fury dried her tears within her. Yet, good mother that she had always been, she suffered all the torment of motherliness exasperated, poisoned by the loss of her child.
She drew near to Charlotte and paused behind her, looking at the profile of her dead son resting among the flowers. And still she did not weep. She slowly gazed over the bed, filled her eyes with the dolorous scene, then carried them again to the paper, as if to see what would be left her of that adored son—those few pencil strokes—when the earth should have taken him forever. Charlotte, divining that somebody was behind her, started and raised her head. She did not speak; she had felt frightened. But both women exchanged a glance. And what a heart pang came to Constance, amid that display of death, in the presence of the void, the nothingness that was hers, as she gazed on the other's face, all love and health and beauty, suggesting some youthful star, whence promise of the future radiated through the fine gold of wavy hair.
But yet another pang came to Constance at that moment: words which were being whispered in the drawing-room, near the door of the bedchamber, reached her distinctly. She did not move, but remained erect behind Charlotte, who had resumed her work. And eagerly lending ear, she listened, not showing herself as yet, although she had already seen Marianne and Madame Angelin seated near the doorway, almost among the folds of the hangings.
"Ah!" Madame Angelin was saying, "the poor mother had a presentiment of it, as it were. I saw that she felt very anxious when I told her my own sad story. There is no hope for me; and now death has passed by, and no hope remains for her."
Silence ensued once more; then, prompted by some connecting train of thought, she went on: "And your next child will be your eleventh, will it not? Eleven is not a number; you will surely end by having twelve!"
As Constance heard those words she shuddered in another fit of that fury which dried up her tears. By glancing sideways she could see that mother of ten children, who was now expecting yet an eleventh child. She found her still young, still fresh, overflowing with joy and health and hope. And she was there, like the goddess of fruitfulness, nigh to the funeral bier at that hour of the supreme rending, when she, Constance, was bowed down by the irretrievable loss of her only child.
But Marianne was answering Madame Angelin: "Oh I don't think that at all likely. Why, I'm becoming an old woman. You forget that I am already a grandmother. Here, look at that!"
So saying, she waved her hand towards the servant of her daughter-in-law, Charlotte, who, in accordance with the instructions she had received, was now bringing the little Berthe in order that her mother might give her the breast. The servant had remained at the drawing-room door, hesitating, disliking to intrude on all that mourning; but the child good-humoredly waved her fat little fists, and laughed lightly. And Charlotte, hearing her, immediately rose and tripped across the salon to take the little one into a neighboring room.
"What a pretty child!" murmured Madame Angelin. "Those little ones are like nosegays; they bring brightness and freshness wherever they come."
Constance for her part had been dazzled. All at once, amid the semi-obscurity, starred by the flames of the tapers, amid the deathly atmosphere, which the odor of the roses rendered the more oppressive, that laughing child had set a semblance of budding springtime, the fresh, bright atmosphere of a long promise of life. And it typified the victory of fruitfulness; it was the child's child, it was Marianne reviving in her son's daughter. A grandmother already, and she was only forty-one years old! Marianne had smiled at that thought. But the hatchet-stroke rang out yet more frightfully in Constance's heart. In her case the tree was cut down to its very root, the sole scion had been lopped off, and none would ever sprout again.
For yet another moment she remained alone amid that nothingness, in that room where lay her son's remains. Then she made up her mind and passed into the drawing-room, with the air of a frozen spectre. They all rose, kissed her, and shivered as their lips touched her cold cheeks, which her blood was unable to warm. Profound compassion wrung them, so frightful was her calmness. And they sought kind words to say to her, but she curtly stopped them.
"It is all over," said she; "there is nothing to be said. Everything is ended, quite ended."
Madame Angelin sobbed, Angelin himself wiped his poor fixed, blurred eyes. Marianne and Mathieu shed tears while retaining Constance's hands in theirs. And she, rigid and still unable to weep, refused consolation, repeating in monotonous accents: "It is finished; nothing can give him back to me. Is it not so? And thus there remains nothing; all is ended, quite ended."
She needed to be brave, for visitors would soon be arriving in a stream. But a last stab in the heart was reserved for her. Beauchêne, who since her arrival had begun to cry again, could no longer see to write. Moreover, his hand trembled, and he had to leave the writing-table and fling himself into an armchair, saying to Blaise: "There sit down there, and continue to write for me."
Then Constance saw Blaise seat himself at her son's writing-table, in his place, dip his pen in the inkstand and begin to write with the very same gesture that she had so often seen Maurice make. That Blaise, that son of the Froments! What! her dear boy was not yet buried, and a Froment already replaced him, even as vivacious, fast-growing plants overrun neighboring barren fields. That stream of life flowing around her, intent on universal conquest, seemed yet more threatening; grandmothers still bore children, daughters suckled already, sons laid hands upon vacant kingdoms. And she remained alone; she had but her unworthy, broken-down, worn-out husband beside her; while Morange, the maniac, incessantly walking to and fro, was like the symbolical spectre of human distress, one whose heart and strength and reason had been carried away in the frightful death of his only daughter. And not a sound came from the cold and empty works; the works themselves were dead.
The funeral ceremony two days later was an imposing one. The five hundred workmen of the establishment followed the hearse, notabilities of all sorts made up an immense cortège. It was much noticed that an old workman, father Moineaud, the oldest hand of the works, was one of the pall-bearers. Indeed, people thought it touching, although the worthy old man dragged his legs somewhat, and looked quite out of his element in a frock coat, stiffened as he was by thirty years' hard toil. In the cemetery, near the grave, Mathieu felt surprised on being approached by an old lady who alighted from one of the mourning-coaches.
"I see, my friend," said she, "that you do not recognize me."
He made a gesture of apology. It was Séraphine, still tall and slim, but so fleshless, so withered that one might have thought she was a hundred years old. Cécile had warned Mathieu of it, yet if he had not seen her himself he would never have believed that her proud insolent beauty, which had seemed to defy time and excesses, could have faded so swiftly. What frightful, withering blast could have swept over her?
"Ah! my friend," she continued, "I am more dead than the poor fellow whom they are about to lower into that grave. Come and have a chat with me some day. You are the only person to whom I can tell everything."
The coffin was lowered, the ropes gave out a creaking sound, and there came a little thud—the last. Beauchêne, supported by a relative, looked on with dim, vacant eyes. Constance, who had had the bitter courage to come, and had now wept all the tears in her body, almost fainted. She was carried away, driven back to her home, which would now forever be empty, like one of those stricken fields that remain barren, fated to perpetual sterility. Mother earth had taken back her all.
And at Chantebled Mathieu and Marianne founded, created, increased, and multiplied, 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 requisite, the labor that has made and that regulates the world.
Still, during those two years it was not without constant battling that victory remained to them. At last it was complete. Piece by piece Séguin had sold the entire estate, of which Mathieu was now king, thanks to his prudent system of conquest, that of increasing his empire by degrees as he gradually felt himself stronger. The fortune which the idler had disdained and dissipated had passed into the hands of the toiler, the creator. There were 1250 acres, spreading from horizon to horizon; there were woods intersected by broad meadows, where flocks and herds pastured; there was fat land overflowing with harvests, in the place of marshes that had been drained; there was other land, each year of increasing fertility, in the place of the moors which the captured springs now irrigated. The Lepailleurs' uncultivated enclosure alone remained, as if to bear witness to the prodigy, the great human effort which had quickened that desert of sand and mud, whose crops would henceforth nourish so many happy people. Mathieu devoured no other man's share; he had brought his share into being, increasing the common wealth, subjugating yet another small portion of this vast world, which is still so scantily peopled and so badly utilized for human happiness. The farm, the homestead, had sprung up and grown in the centre of the estate like a prosperous township, with inhabitants, servants, and live stock, a perfect focus of ardent triumphal life. And what sovereign power was that of the happy fruitfulness which had never wearied of creating, which had yielded all these beings and things that had been increasing and multiplying for twelve years past, that invading town which was but a family's expansion, those trees, those plants, those grain crops, those fruits whose nourishing stream ever rose under the dazzling sun! All pain and all tears were forgotten in that joy of creation, the accomplishment of due labor, the conquest of the future conducting to the infinite of Action.
Then, while Mathieu completed his work of conquest, Marianne during those two years had the happiness of seeing a daughter born to her son Blaise, even while she herself was expecting another child. The branches of the huge tree had begun to fork, pending the time when they would ramify endlessly, like the branches of some great royal oak spreading afar over the soil. There would be her children's children, her grandchildren's children, the whole posterity increasing from generation to generation. And yet how carefully and lovingly she still assembled around her her own first brood, from Blaise and Denis the twins, now one-and-twenty, to the last born, the wee creature who sucked in life from her bosom with greedy lips. There were some of all ages in the brood—a big fellow, who was already a father; others who went to school; others who still had to be dressed in the morning; there were boys, Ambroise, Gervais, Grégoire, and another; there were girls, Rose, nearly old enough to marry; Claire, Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, the last of whom could scarcely toddle. And it was a sight to see them roam over the estate like a troop of colts, following one another at varied pace, according to their growth. She knew that she could not keep them all tied to her apron-strings; it would be sufficient happiness if the farm kept two or three beside her; she resigned herself to seeing the younger ones go off some day to conquer other lands. Such was the law of expansion; the earth was the heritage of the most numerous race. Since they had number on their side, they would have strength also; the world would belong to them. The parents themselves had felt stronger, more united at the advent of each fresh child. If in spite of terrible cares they had always conquered, it was because their love, their toil, the ceaseless travail of their heart and will, gave them the victory. Fruitfulness is the great conqueress; from her come the pacific heroes who subjugate the world by peopling it. And this time especially, when at the lapse of those two years Marianne gave birth to a boy, Nicolas, her eleventh child, Mathieu embraced her passionately, triumphing 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 thanks 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.
XV
AMID the deep mourning life slowly resumed its course at the Beauchêne works. One effect of the terrible blow which had fallen on Beauchêne was that for some weeks he remained quietly at home. Indeed, he seemed to have profited by the terrible lesson, for he no longer coined lies, no longer invented pressing business journeys as a pretext for dissipation. He even set to work once more, and busied himself about the factory, coming down every morning as in his younger days. And in Blaise he found an active and devoted lieutenant, on whom he each day cast more and more of the heavier work. Intimates were most struck, however, by the manner in which Beauchêne and his wife drew together again. Constance was most attentive to her husband; Beauchêne no longer left her, and they seemed to agree well together, leading a very retired life in their quiet house, where only relatives were now received.
Constance, on the morrow of Maurice's sudden death, was like one who has just lost a limb. It seemed to her that she was no longer whole; she felt ashamed of being, as it were, disfigured. Mingled, too, with her loving sorrow for Maurice there was humiliation at the thought that she was no longer a mother, that she no longer had any heir-apparent to her kingdom beside her. To think that she had been so stubbornly determined to have but one son, one child, in order that he might become the sole master of the family fortune, the all-powerful monarch of the future. Death had stolen him from her, and the establishment now seemed to be less her own, particularly since that fellow Blaise and his wife and his child, representing those fruitful and all-invading Froments, were installed there. She could no longer console herself for having welcomed and lodged them, and her one passionate, all-absorbing desire was to have another son, and thereby reconquer her empire.
This it was which led to her reconciliation with her husband, and for six months they lived together on the best of terms. Then, however, came another six months, and it was evident that they no longer agreed so well together, for Beauchêne took himself off at times under the pretext of seeking fresh air, and Constance remained at home, feverish, her eyes red with weeping.
One day Mathieu, who had come to Grenelle to see his daughter-in-law, Charlotte, was lingering in the garden playing with little Berthe, who had climbed upon his knees, when he was surprised by the sudden approach of Constance, who must have seen him from her windows. She invented a pretext to draw him into the house, and kept him there nearly a quarter of an hour before she could make up her mind to speak her thoughts. Then, all at once, she began: "My dear Mathieu, you must forgive me for mentioning a painful matter, but there are reasons why I should do so. Nearly fifteen years ago, I know it for a fact, my husband had a child by a girl who was employed at the works. And I also know that you acted as his intermediary on that occasion, and made certain arrangements with respect to that girl and her child—a boy, was it not?"
She paused for a reply. But Mathieu, stupefied at finding her so well informed, and at a loss to understand why she spoke to him of that sorry affair after the lapse of so many years, could only make a gesture by which he betrayed both his surprise and his anxiety.
"Oh!" said she, "I do not address any reproach to you; I am convinced that your motives were quite friendly, even affectionate, and that you wished to hush up a scandal which might have been very unpleasant for me. Moreover, I do not desire to indulge in recriminations after so long a time. My desire is simply for information. For a long time I did not care to investigate the statements whereby I was informed of the affair. But the recollection of it comes back to me and haunts me persistently, and it is natural that I should apply to you. I have never spoken a word on the subject to my husband, and indeed it is best for our tranquillity that I should not attempt to extort a detailed confession from him. One circumstance which has induced me to speak to you is that on an occasion when I accompanied Madame Angelin to a house in the Rue de Miromesnil, I perceived you there with that girl, who had another child in her arms. So you have not lost sight of her, and you must know what she is doing, and whether her first child is alive, and in that case where he is, and how he is situated."
Mathieu still refrained from replying, for Constance's increasing feverishness put him on his guard, and impelled him to seek the motive of such a strange application on the part of one who was as a rule so proud and so discreet. What could be happening? Why did she strive to provoke confidential revelations which might have far-reaching effects? Then, as she closely scanned him with her keen eyes, he sought to answer her with kind, evasive words.
"You greatly embarrass me. And, besides, I know nothing likely to interest you. What good would it do yourself or your husband to stir up all the dead past? Take my advice, forget what people may have told you—you are so sensible and prudent—"
But she interrupted him, caught hold of his hands, and held them in her warm, quivering grasp. Never before had she so behaved, forgetting and surrendering herself so passionately. "I repeat," said she, "that nobody has anything to fear from me—neither my husband, nor that girl, nor the child. Cannot you understand me? I am simply tormented; I suffer at knowing nothing. Yes, it seems to me that I shall feel more at ease when I know the truth. It is for myself that I question you, for my own peace of mind.... Ah! if I could only tell you, if I could tell you!"
He began to divine many things; it was unnecessary for her to be more explicit. He knew that during the past year she and her husband had been hoping for the advent of a second child, and that none had come. As a woman, Constance felt no jealousy of Norine, but as a mother she was jealous of her son. She could not drive the thought of that child from her mind; it ever and ever returned thither like a mocking insult now that her hopes of replacing Maurice were fading fast. Day by day did she dream more and more passionately of the other woman's son, wondering where he was, what had become of him, whether he were healthy, and whether he resembled his father.
"I assure you, my dear Mathieu," she resumed, "that you will really bring me relief by answering me. Is he alive? Tell me simply whether he is alive. But do not tell me a lie. If he is dead I think that I shall feel calmer. And yet, good heavens! I certainly wish him no evil."
Then Mathieu, who felt deeply touched, told her the simple truth.
"Since you insist on it, for the benefit of your peace of mind, and since it is to remain entirely between us and to have no effect on your home, I see no reason why I should not confide to you what I know. But that is very little. The child was left at the Foundling Hospital in my presence. Since then the mother, having never asked for news, has received none. I need not add that your husband is equally ignorant, for he always refused to have anything to do with the child. Is the lad still alive? Where is he? Those are things which I cannot tell you. A long inquiry would be necessary. If, however, you wish for my opinion, I think it probable that he is dead, for the mortality among these poor cast-off children is very great."
Constance looked at him fixedly. "You are telling me the real truth? You are hiding nothing?" she asked. And as he began to protest, she went on: "Yes, yes, I have confidence in you. And so you believe that he is dead! Ah! to think of all those children who die, when so many women would be happy to save one, to have one for themselves. Well, if you haven't been able to tell me anything positive, you have at least done your best. Thank you."
During the ensuing months Mathieu often found himself alone with Constance, but she never reverted to the subject. She seemed to set her energy on forgetting all about it, though he divined that it still haunted her. Meantime things went from bad to worse in the Beauchêne household. The husband gradually went back to his former life of debauchery, in spite of all the efforts of Constance to keep him near her. She, for her part, clung to her fixed idea, and before long she consulted Boutan. There was a terrible scene that day between husband and wife in the doctor's presence. Constance raked up the story of Norine and cast it in Beauchêne's teeth, while he upbraided her in a variety of ways. However, Boutan's advice, though followed for a time, proved unavailing, and she at last lost confidence in him. Then she spent months and months in consulting one and another. She placed herself in the hands of Madame Bourdieu, she even went to see La Rouche, she applied to all sorts of charlatans, exasperated to fury at finding that there was no real succor for her. She might long ago have had a family had she so chosen. But she had elected otherwise, setting all her egotism and pride on that only son whom death had snatched away; and now the motherhood she longed for was denied her.
For nearly two years did Constance battle, and at last in despair she was seized with the idea of consulting Dr. Gaude. He told her the brutal truth; it was useless for her to address herself to charlatans; she would simply be robbed by them; there was absolutely no hope for her. And Gaude uttered those decisive words in a light, jesting way, as though surprised and amused by her profound grief. She almost fainted on the stairs as she left his flat, and for a moment indeed death seemed welcome. But by a great effort of will she recovered self-possession, the courage to face the life of loneliness that now lay before her. Moreover, another idea vaguely dawned upon her, and the first time she found herself alone with Mathieu she again spoke to him of Norine's boy.
"Forgive me," said she, "for reverting to a painful subject, but I am suffering too much now that I know there is no hope for me. I am haunted by the thought of that illegitimate child of my husband's. Will you do me a great service? Make the inquiry you once spoke to me about, try to find out if he is alive or dead. I feel that when I know the facts peace may perhaps return to me."
Mathieu was almost on the point of answering her that, even if this child were found again, it could hardly cure her of her grief at having no child of her own. He had divined her agony at seeing Blaise take Maurice's place at the works now that Beauchêne had resumed his dissolute life, and daily intrusted the young man with more and more authority. Blaise's home was prospering too; Charlotte had now given birth to a second child, a boy, and thus fruitfulness was invading the place and usurpation becoming more and more likely, since Constance could never more have an heir to bar the road of conquest. Without penetrating her singular feelings, Mathieu fancied that she perhaps wished to sound him to ascertain if he were not behind Blaise, urging on the work of spoliation. She possibly imagined that her request would make him anxious, and that he would refuse to make the necessary researches. At this idea he decided to do as she desired, if only to show her that he was above all the base calculations of ambition.
"I am at your disposal, cousin," said he. "It is enough for me that this inquiry may give you a little relief. But if the lad is alive, am I to bring him to you?"
"Oh! no, no, I do not ask that!" And then, gesticulating almost wildly, she stammered: "I don't know what I want, but I suffer so dreadfully that I am scarce able to live!"
In point of fact a tempest raged within her, but she really had no settled plan. One could hardly say that she really thought of that boy as a possible heir. In spite of her hatred of all conquerors from without, was it likely that she would accept him as a conqueror, in the face of her outraged womanly feelings and her bourgeois horror of illegitimacy? And yet if he were not her son, he was at least her husband's. And perhaps an idea of saving her empire by placing the works in the hands of that heir was dimly rising within her, above all her prejudices and her rancor. But however that might be, her feelings for the time remained confused, and the only clear thing was her desperate torment at being now and forever childless, a torment which goaded her on to seek another's child with the wild idea of making that child in some slight degree her own.
Mathieu, however, asked her, "Am I to inform Beauchêne of the steps I take?"
"Do you as you please," she answered. "Still, that would be the best."
That same evening there came a complete rupture between herself and her husband. She threw in Beauchêne's face all the contempt and loathing that she had felt for him for years. Hopeless as she was, she revenged herself by telling him everything that she had on her heart and mind. And her slim dark figure, upborne by bitter rage, assumed such redoubtable proportions in his eyes that he felt frightened by her and fled. Henceforth they were husband and wife in name only. It was logic on the march, it was the inevitable disorganization of a household reaching its climax, it was rebellion against nature's law and indulgence in vice leading to the gradual decline of a man of intelligence, it was a hard worker sinking into the sloth of so-called pleasure; and then, death having snatched away the only son, the home broke to pieces—the wife—fated to childlessness, and the husband driven away by her, rolling through debauchery towards final ruin.
But Mathieu, keeping his promise to Constance, discreetly began his researches. And before he even consulted Beauchêne it occurred to him to apply at the Foundling Hospital. If, as he anticipated, the child were dead, the affair would go no further. Fortunately enough he remembered all the particulars: the two names, Alexandre-Honoré, given to the child, the exact date of the deposit at the hospital, indeed all the little incidents of the day when he had driven thither with La Couteau. And when he was received by the director of the establishment, and had explained to him the real motives of his inquiries, at the same time giving his name, he was surprised by the promptness and precision of the answer: Alexandre-Honoré, put out to nurse with the woman Loiseau at Rougemont, had first kept cows, and had then tried the calling of a locksmith; but for three months past he had been in apprenticeship with a wheelwright, a certain Montoir, residing at Saint-Pierre, a hamlet in the vicinity of Rougemont. Thus the lad lived; he was fifteen years old, and that was all. Mathieu could obtain no further information respecting either his physical health or his morality.
When Mathieu found himself in the street again, slightly dazed, he remembered that La Couteau had told him that the child would be sent to Rougemont. He had always pictured it dying there, carried off by the hurricane which killed so many babes, and lying in the silent village cemetery paved with little Parisians. To find the boy alive, saved from the massacre, came like a surprise of destiny, and brought vague anguish, a fear of some terrible catastrophe to Mathieu's heart. At the same time, since the boy was living, and he now knew where to seek him, he felt that he must warn Beauchêne. The matter was becoming serious, and it seemed to him that he ought not to carry the inquiry any further without the father's authorization.
That same day, then, before returning to Chantebled, he repaired to the factory, where he was lucky enough to find Beauchêne, whom Blaise's absence on business had detained there by force. Thus he was in a very bad humor, puffing and yawning and half asleep. It was nearly three o'clock, and he declared that he could never digest his lunch properly unless he went out afterwards. The truth was that since his rupture with his wife he had been devoting his afternoons to paying attentions to a girl serving at a beer-house.
"Ah! my good fellow," he muttered as he stretched himself. "My blood is evidently thickening. I must bestir myself, or else I shall be in a bad way."
However, he woke up when Mathieu had explained the motive of his visit. At first he could scarcely understand it, for the affair seemed to him so extraordinary, so idiotic.
"Eh? What do you say? It was my wife who spoke to you about that child? It is she who has taken it into her head to collect information and start a search?"
His fat apoplectical face became distorted, his anger was so violent that he could scarcely stutter. When he heard, however, of the mission with which his wife had intrusted Mathieu, he at last exploded: "She is mad! I tell you that she is raving mad! Were such fancies ever seen? Every morning she invents something fresh to distract me!"
Without heeding this interruption, Mathieu quietly finished his narrative: "And so I have just come back from the Foundling Hospital, where I learnt that the boy is alive. I have his address—and now what am I to do?"
This was the final blow. Beauchêne clenched his fists and raised his arms in exasperation. "Ah! well, here's a nice state of things! But why on earth does she want to trouble me about that boy? He isn't hers! Why can't she leave us alone, the boy and me? It's my affair. And I ask you if it is at all proper for my wife to send you running about after him? Besides, I hope that you are not going to bring him to her. What on earth could we do with that little peasant, who may have every vice? Just picture him coming between us. I tell you that she is mad, mad, mad!"
He had begun to walk angrily to and fro. All at once he stopped: "My dear fellow, you will just oblige me by telling her that he is dead."
But he turned pale and recoiled. Constance stood on the threshold and had heard him. For some time past she had been in the habit of stealthily prowling around the offices, like one on the watch for something. For a moment, at the sight of the embarrassment which both men displayed, she remained silent. Then, without even addressing her husband, she asked: "He is alive, is he not?"
Mathieu could but tell her the truth. He answered with a nod. Then Beauchêne, in despair, made a final effort: "Come, be reasonable, my dear. As I was saying only just now, we don't even know what this youngster's character is. You surely don't want to upset our life for the mere pleasure of doing so?"
Standing there, lean and frigid, she gave him a harsh glance; then, turning her back on him, she demanded the child's name, and the names of the wheelwright and the locality. "Good, you say Alexandre-Honoré, with Montoir the wheelwright, at Saint-Pierre, near Rougemont, in Calvados. Well, my friend, oblige me by continuing your researches; endeavor to procure me some precise information about this boy's habits and disposition. Be prudent, too; don't give anybody's name. And thanks for what you have done already; thanks for all you are doing for me."
Thereupon she took herself off without giving any further explanation, without even telling her husband of the vague plans she was forming. Beneath her crushing contempt he had grown calm again. Why should he spoil his life of egotistical pleasure by resisting that mad creature? All that he need do was to put on his hat and betake himself to his usual diversions. And so he ended by shrugging his shoulders.
"After all, let her pick him up if she chooses, it won't be my doing. Act as she asks you, my dear fellow; continue your researches and try to content her. Perhaps she will then leave me in peace. But I've had quite enough of it for to-day; good-by, I'm going out."
With the view of obtaining some information of Rougemont, Mathieu at first thought of applying to La Couteau, if he could find her again; for which purpose it occurred to him that he might call on Madame Bourdieu in the Rue de Miromesnil. But another and more certain means suggested itself. He had been led to renew his intercourse with the Séguins, of whom he had for a time lost sight; and, much to his surprise, he had found Valentine's former maid, Céleste, in the Avenue d'Antin once more. Through this woman, he thought, he might reach La Couteau direct.
The renewal of the intercourse between the Froments and the Séguins was due to a very happy chance. Mathieu's son Ambroise, on leaving college, had entered the employment of an uncle of Séguin's, Thomas du Hordel, one of the wealthiest commission merchants in Paris; and this old man, who, despite his years, remained very sturdy, and still directed his business with all the fire of youth, had conceived a growing fondness for Ambroise, who had great mental endowments and a real genius for commerce. Du Hordel's own children had consisted of two daughters, one of whom had died young, while the other had married a madman, who had lodged a bullet in his head and had left her childless and crazy like himself. This partially explained the deep grandfatherly interest which Du Hordel took in young Ambroise, who was the handsomest of all the Froments, with a clear complexion, large black eyes, brown hair that curled naturally, and manners of much refinement and elegance. But the old man was further captivated by the young fellow's spirit of enterprise, the four modern languages which he spoke so readily, and the evident mastery which he would some day show in the management of a business which extended over the five parts of the world. In his childhood, among his brothers and sisters, Ambroise had always been the boldest, most captivating and self-assertive. The others might be better than he, but he reigned over them like a handsome, ambitious, greedy boy, a future man of gayety and conquest. And this indeed he proved to be; by the charm of his victorious intellect he conquered old Du Hordel in a few months, even as later on he was destined to vanquish everybody and everything much as he pleased. His strength lay in his power of pleasing and his power of action, a blending of grace with the most assiduous industry.
About this time Séguin and his uncle, who had never set foot in the house of the Avenue d'Antin since insanity had reigned there, drew together again. Their apparent reconciliation was the outcome of a drama shrouded in secrecy. Séguin, hard up and in debt, cast off by Nora, who divined his approaching ruin, and preyed upon by other voracious creatures, had ended by committing, on the turf, one of those indelicate actions which honest people call thefts. Du Hordel, on being apprised of the matter, had hastened forward and had paid what was due in order to avoid a frightful scandal. And he was so upset by the extraordinary muddle in which he found his nephew's home, once all prosperity, that remorse came upon him as if he were in some degree responsible for what had happened, since he had egotistically kept away from his relatives for his own peace's sake. But he was more particularly won over by his grandniece Andrée, now a delicious young girl well-nigh eighteen years of age, and therefore marriageable. She alone sufficed to attract him to the house, and he was greatly distressed by the dangerous state of abandonment in which he found her.
Her father continued dragging out his worthless life away from home. Her mother, Valentine, had just emerged from a frightful crisis, her final rupture with Santerre, who had made up his mind to marry a very wealthy old lady, which, after all, was the logical destiny of such a crafty exploiter of women, one who behind his affectation of cultured pessimism had the vilest and greediest of natures. Valentine, distracted by this rupture, had now thrown herself into religion, and, like her husband, disappeared from the house for whole days. She was said to be an active helpmate of old Count de Navarède, the president of a society of Catholic propaganda. Gaston, her son, having left Saint-Cyr three months previously, was now at the Cavalry School of Saumur, so fired with passion for a military career that he already spoke of remaining a bachelor, since a soldier's sword should be his only love, his only spouse. Then Lucie, now nineteen years old, and full of mystical exaltation, had already entered an Ursuline convent for her novitiate. And in the big empty home, whence father, mother, brother and sister fled, there remained but the gentle and adorable Andrée, exposed to all the blasts of insanity which even now swept through the household, and so distressed by loneliness, that her uncle, Du Hordel, full of compassionate affection, conceived the idea of giving her a husband in the person of young Ambroise, the future conqueror.
This plan was helped on by the renewed presence of Céleste the maid. Eight years had elapsed since Valentine had been obliged to dismiss this woman for immorality; and during those eight years Céleste, weary of service, had tried a number of equivocal callings of which she did not speak. She had ended by turning up at Rougemont, her native place, in bad health and such a state of wretchedness, that for the sake of a living she went out as a charwoman there. Then she gradually recovered her health, and accumulated a little stock of clothes, thanks to the protection of the village priest, whom she won over by an affectation of extreme piety. It was at Rougemont, no doubt, that she planned her return to the Séguins, of whose vicissitudes she was informed by La Couteau, the latter having kept up her intercourse with Madame Menoux, the little haberdasher of the neighborhood.
Valentine, shortly after her rupture with Santerre, one day of furious despair, when she had again dismissed all her servants, was surprised by the arrival of Céleste, who showed herself so repentant, so devoted, and so serious-minded, that her former mistress felt touched. She made her weep on reminding her of her faults, and asking her to swear before God that she would never repeat them; for Céleste now went to confession and partook of the holy communion, and carried with her a certificate from the Curé of Rougemont vouching for her deep piety and high morality. This certificate acted decisively on Valentine, who, unwilling to remain at home, and weary of the troubles of housekeeping, understood what precious help she might derive from this woman. On her side Céleste certainly relied upon power being surrendered to her. Two months later, by favoring Lucie's excessive partiality to religious practices, she had helped her into a convent. Gaston showed himself only when he secured a few days' leave. And so Andrée alone remained at home, impeding by her presence the great general pillage that Céleste dreamt of. The maid therefore became a most active worker on behalf of her young mistress's marriage.
Andrée, it should be said, was comprised in Ambroise's universal conquest. She had met him at her uncle Du Hordel's house for a year before it occurred to the latter to marry them. She was a very gentle girl, a little golden-haired sheep, as her mother sometimes said. And that handsome, smiling young man, who evinced so much kindness towards her, became the subject of her thoughts and hopes whenever she suffered from loneliness and abandonment. Thus, when her uncle prudently questioned her, she flung herself into his arms, weeping big tears of gratitude and confession. Valentine, on being approached, at first manifested some surprise. What, a son of the Froments! Those Froments had already taken Chantebled from them, and did they now want to take one of their daughters? Then, amid the collapse of fortune and household, she could find no reasonable objection to urge. She had never been attached to Andrée. She accused La Catiche, the nurse, of having made the child her own. That gentle, docile, emotional little sheep was not a Séguin, she often remarked. Then, while feigning to defend the girl, Céleste embittered her mother against her, and inspired her with a desire to see the marriage promptly concluded, in order that she might free herself from her last cares and live as she wished. Thus, after a long chat with Mathieu, who promised his consent, it remained only for Du Hordel to assure himself of Séguin's approval before an application in due form was made. It was difficult, however, to find Séguin in a suitable frame of mind. So weeks were lost, and it became necessary to pacify Ambroise, who was very much in love, and was doubtless warned by his all-invading genius that this loving and simple girl would bring him a kingdom in her apron.
One day when Mathieu was passing along the Avenue d'Antin, it occurred to him to call at the house to ascertain if Séguin had re-appeared there, for he had suddenly taken himself off without warning, and had gone, so it was believed, to Italy. Then, as Mathieu found himself alone with Céleste, the opportunity seemed to him an excellent one to discover La Couteau's whereabouts. He asked for news of her, saying that a friend of his was in need of a good nurse.
"Well, monsieur, you are in luck's way," the maid replied; "La Couteau is to bring a child home to our neighbor, Madame Menoux, this very day. It is nearly four o'clock now, and that is the time when she promised to come. You know Madame Menoux's place, do you not? It is the third shop in the first street on the left." Then she apologized for being unable to conduct him thither: "I am alone," she said; "we still have no news of the master. On Wednesdays Madame presides at the meeting of her society, and Mademoiselle Andrée has just gone out walking with her uncle."
Mathieu hastily repaired to Madame Menoux's shop. From a distance he saw her standing on the threshold; age had made her thinner than ever; at forty she was as slim as a young girl, with a long and pointed face. Silent labor consumed her; for twenty years she had been desperately selling bits of cotton and packages of needles without ever making a fortune, but pleased, nevertheless, at being able to add her modest gains to her husband's monthly salary in order to provide him with sundry little comforts. His rheumatism would no doubt soon compel him to relinquish his post as a museum attendant, and how would they be able to manage with his pension of a few hundred francs per annum if she did not keep up her business? Moreover, they had met with no luck. Their first child had died, and some years had elapsed before the birth of a second boy, whom they had greeted with delight, no doubt, though he would prove a heavy burden to them, especially as they had now decided to take him back from the country. Thus Mathieu found the worthy woman in a state of great emotion, waiting for the child on the threshold of her shop, and watching the corner of the avenue.
"Oh! it was Céleste who sent you, monsieur! No, La Couteau hasn't come yet. I'm quite astonished at it; I expect her every moment. Will you kindly step inside, monsieur, and sit down?"
He refused the only chair which blocked up the narrow passage where scarcely three customers could have stood in a row. Behind a glass partition one perceived the dim back shop, which served as kitchen and dining-room and bedchamber, and which received only a little air from a damp inner yard which suggested a sewer shaft.
"As you see, monsieur, we have scarcely any room," continued Madame Menoux; "but then we pay only eight hundred francs rent, and where else could we find a shop at that price? And besides, I have been here for nearly twenty years, and have worked up a little regular custom in the neighborhood. Oh! I don't complain of the place myself, I'm not big, there is always sufficient room for me. And as my husband comes home only in the evening, and then sits down in his armchair to smoke his pipe, he isn't so much inconvenienced. I do all I can for him, and he is reasonable enough not to ask me to do more. But with a child I fear that it will be impossible to get on here."
The recollection of her first boy, her little Pierre, returned to her, and her eyes filled with tears. "Ah! monsieur, that was ten years ago, and I can still see La Couteau bringing him back to me, just as she'll be bringing the other by and by. I was told so many tales; there was such good air at Rougemont, and the children led such healthy lives, and my boy had such rosy cheeks, that I ended by leaving him there till he was five years old, regretting that I had no room for him here. And no, you can't have an idea of all the presents that the nurse wheedled out of me, of all the money that I paid! It was ruination! And then, all at once, I had just time to send for the boy, and he was brought back to me as thin and pale and weak, as if he had never tasted good bread in his life. Two months later he died in my arms. His father fell ill over it, and if we hadn't been attached to one another, I think we should both have gone and drowned ourselves."
Scarce wiping her eyes she feverishly returned to the threshold, and again cast a passionate expectant glance towards the avenue. And when she came back, having seen nothing, she resumed: "So you will understand our emotion when, two years ago, though I was thirty-seven, I again had a little boy. We were wild with delight, like a young married couple. But what a lot of trouble and worry! We had to put the little fellow out to nurse as we let the other one, since we could not possibly keep him here. And even after swearing that he should not go to Rougemont we ended by saying that we at least knew the place, and that he would not be worse off there than elsewhere. Only we sent him to La Vimeux, for we wouldn't hear any more of La Loiseau since she sent Pierre back in such a fearful state. And this time, as the little fellow is now two years old, I was determined to have him home again, though I don't even know where I shall put him. I've been waiting for an hour now, and I can't help trembling, for I always fear some catastrophe."
She could not remain in the shop, but remained standing by the doorway, with her neck outstretched and her eyes fixed on the street corner. All at once a deep cry came from her: "Ah! here they are!"
Leisurely, and with a sour, harassed air, La Couteau came in and placed the sleeping child in Madame Menoux's arms, saying as she did so: "Well, your George is a tidy weight, I can tell you. You won't say that I've brought you this one back like a skeleton."
Quivering, her legs sinking beneath her for very joy, the mother had been obliged to sit down, keeping her child on her knees, kissing him, examining him, all haste to see if he were in good health and likely to live. He had a fat and rather pale face, and seemed big, though puffy. When she had unfastened his wraps, her hands trembling the while with nervousness, she found that he was pot-bellied, with small legs and arms.
"He is very big about the body," she murmured, ceasing to smile, and turning gloomy with renewed fears.
"Ah, yes! complain away!" said La Couteau. "The other was too thin; this one will be too fat. Mothers are never satisfied!"
At the first glance Mathieu had detected that the child was one of those who are fed on pap, stuffed for economy's sake with bread and water, and fated to all the stomachic complaints of early childhood. And at the sight of the poor little fellow, Rougemont, the frightful slaughter-place, with its daily massacre of the innocents, arose in his memory, such as it had been described to him in years long past. There was La Loiseau, whose habits were so abominably filthy that her nurslings rotted as on a manure heap; there was La Vimeux, who never purchased a drop of milk, but picked up all the village crusts and made bran porridge for her charges as if they had been pigs; there was La Gavette too, who, being always in the fields, left her nurslings in the charge of a paralytic old man, who sometimes let them fall into the fire; and there was La Cauchois, who, having nobody to watch the babes, contented herself with tying them in their cradles, leaving them in the company of fowls which came in bands to peck at their eyes. And the scythe of death swept by; there was wholesale assassination; doors were left wide open before rows of cradles, in order to make room for fresh bundles despatched from Paris. Yet all did not die; here, for instance, was one brought home again. But even when they came back alive they carried with them the germs of death, and another hecatomb ensued, another sacrifice to the monstrous god of social egotism.
"I'm tired out; I must sit down," resumed La Couteau, seating herself on the narrow bench behind the counter. "Ah! what a trade! And to think that we are always received as if we were heartless criminals and thieves!"
She also had become withered, her sunburnt, tanned face suggesting more than ever the beak of a bird of prey. But her eyes remained very keen, sharpened as it were by ferocity. She no doubt failed to get rich fast enough, for she continued wailing, complaining of her calling, of the increasing avarice of parents, of the demands of the authorities, of the warfare which was being declared against nurse-agents on all sides. Yes, it was a lost calling, said she, and really God must have abandoned her that she should still be compelled to carry it on at forty-five years of age. "It will end by killing me," she added; "I shall always get more kicks than money at it. How unjust it is! Here have I brought you back a superb child, and yet you look anything but pleased—it's enough to disgust one of doing one's best!"
In thus complaining her object perhaps was to extract from the haberdasher as large a present as possible. Madame Menoux was certainly disturbed by it all. Her boy woke up and began to wail loudly, and it became necessary to give him a little lukewarm milk. At last, when the accounts were settled, the nurse-agent, seeing that she would have ten francs for herself, grew calmer. She was about to take her leave when Madame Menoux, pointing to Mathieu, exclaimed: "This gentleman wished to speak to you on business."
Although La Couteau had not seen the gentleman for several years past, she had recognized him perfectly well. Still she had not even turned towards him, for she knew him to be mixed up in so many matters that his discretion was a certainty. And so she contented herself with saying: "If monsieur will kindly explain to me what it is I shall be quite at his service."
"I will accompany you," replied Mathieu; "we can speak together as we walk along."
"Very good, that will suit me well, for I am rather in a hurry."
Once outside, Mathieu resolved that he would try no ruses with her. The best course was to tell her plainly what he wanted, and then to buy her silence. At the first words he spoke she understood him. She well remembered Norine's child, although in her time she had carried dozens of children to the Foundling Hospital. The particular circumstances of that case, however, the conversation which had taken place, her drive with Mathieu in a cab, had all remained engraved on her memory. Moreover, she had found that child again, at Rougemont, five days later; and she even remembered that her friend the hospital-attendant had left it with La Loiseau. But she had occupied herself no more about it afterwards; and she believed that it was now dead, like so many others. When she heard Mathieu speak of the hamlet of Saint-Pierre, of Montoir the wheelwright, and of Alexandre-Honoré, now fifteen, who must be in apprenticeship there, she evinced great surprise.
"Oh, you must be mistaken, monsieur," she said; "I know Montoir at Saint-Pierre very well. And he certainly has a lad from the Foundling, of the age you mention, at his place. But that lad came from La Cauchois; he is a big carroty fellow named Richard, who arrived at our village some days before the other. I know who his mother was; she was an English woman called Amy, who stopped more than once at Madame Bourdieu's. That ginger-haired lad is certainly not your Norine's boy. Alexandre-Honoré was dark."
"Well, then," replied Mathieu, "there must be another apprentice at the wheelwright's. My information is precise, it was given me officially."
After a moment's perplexity La Couteau made a gesture of ignorance, and admitted that Mathieu might be right. "It's possible," said she; "perhaps Montoir has two apprentices. He does a good business, and as I haven't been to Saint-Pierre for some months now I can say nothing certain. Well, and what do you desire of me, monsieur?"
He then gave her very clear instructions. She was to obtain the most precise information possible about the lad's health, disposition, and conduct, whether the schoolmaster had always been pleased with him, whether his employer was equally satisfied, and so forth. Briefly, the inquiry was to be complete. But, above all things, she was to carry it on in such a way that nobody should suspect anything, neither the boy himself nor the folks of the district. There must be absolute secrecy.
"All that is easy," replied La Couteau, "I understand perfectly, and you can rely on me. I shall need a little time, however, and the best plan will be for me to tell you of the result of my researches when I next come to Paris. And if it suits you you will find me to-day fortnight, at two o'clock, at Broquette's office in the Rue Roquépine. I am quite at home there, and the place is like a tomb."
Some days later, as Mathieu was again at the Beauchêne works with his son Blaise, he was observed by Constance, who called him to her and questioned him in such direct fashion that he had to tell her what steps he had taken. When she heard of his appointment with La Couteau for the Wednesday of the ensuing week, she said to him in her resolute way: "Come and fetch me. I wish to question that woman myself. I want to be quite certain on the matter."
In spite of the lapse of fifteen years Broquette's nurse-office in the Rue Roquépine had remained the same as formerly, except that Madame Broquette was dead and had been succeeded by her daughter Herminie. The sudden loss of that fair, dignified lady, who had possessed such a decorative presence and so ably represented the high morality and respectability of the establishment, had at first seemed a severe one. But it so happened that Herminie, a tall, slim, languid creature that she was, gorged with novel-reading, also proved in her way a distinguished figurehead for the office. She was already thirty and was still unmarried, feeling indeed nothing but loathing for all the mothers laden with whining children by whom she was surrounded. Moreover, M. Broquette, her father, though now more than five-and-seventy, secretly remained the all-powerful, energetic director of the place, discharging all needful police duties, drilling new nurses like recruits, remaining ever on the watch and incessantly perambulating the three floors of his suspicious, dingy lodging-house.