Silence fell between them. They were now near the lawn where the family had remained. And for the last moment Mathieu had been thinking of Morange, whom he had also invited to the wedding, but who had excused himself from attending, as if he were terrified at the idea of gazing on the joy of others, and dreaded, too, lest some sacrilegious attempt should be made in his absence on the mysterious sanctuary where he worshipped. Would he, Morange—so Mathieu wondered—have clung like Beauchêne to his former ideas? Would he still have defended the theory of the only child; that hateful, calculating theory which had cost him both his wife and his daughter? Mathieu could picture him flitting past, pale and distracted, with the step of a maniac hastening to some mysterious end, in which insanity would doubtless have its place. But the lugubrious vision vanished, and then again before Mathieu's eyes the lawn spread out under the joyous sun, offering between its belt of foliage such a picture of happy health and triumphant beauty, that he felt impelled to break the mournful silence and exclaim:
"Look there! look there! Isn't that gay; isn't that a delightful scene—all those dear women and dear children in that setting of verdure? It ought to be painted to show people how healthy and beautiful life is!"
Time had not been lost on the lawn since the Beauchênes and Séguins had gone off to visit the stables. First of all there had been a distribution of the menu cards, which Charlotte had adorned with such delicate water-color sketches. This surprise of hers had enraptured them all at lunch, and they still laughed at the sight of those pretty children's heads. Then, while the servants cleared the table, Grégoire achieved a great success by offering the bride a bouquet of splendid white roses, which he drew out of a bush where he had hitherto kept it hidden. He had doubtless been waiting for some absence of his father's. They were the roses of the mill; with Thérèse's assistance he must have pillaged the bushes in the enclosure. Marianne, recognizing how serious was the transgression, wished to scold him. But what superb white roses they were, as big as cabbages, as he himself had said! And he was entitled to triumph over them, for they were the only white roses there, and had been secured by himself, like the wandering urchin he was with a spice of knight-errantry in his composition, quite ready to jump over walls and cajole damsels in order to deck a bride with snowy blooms.
"Oh! papa won't say anything," he declared, with no little self-assurance; "they are far too beautiful."
This made the others laugh; but fresh emotion ensued, for Benjamin and Guillaume awoke and screamed their hunger aloud. It was gayly remarked, however, that they were quite entitled to their turn of feasting. And as it was simply a family gathering there was no embarrassment on the part of the mothers. Marianne took Benjamin on her knees in the shade of the oak tree, and Charlotte placed herself with Guillaume on her right hand; while, on her left, Andrée seated herself with little Léonce, who had been weaned a week previously, but was still very fond of caresses.
It was at this moment that the Beauchênes and the Séguins reappeared with Mathieu, and stopped short, struck by the charm of the spectacle before them. Between a framework of tall trees, under the patriarchal oak, on the thick grass of the lawn the whole vigorous family was gathered in a group, instinct with gayety, beauty, and strength. Gervais and Claire, ever active, were, with Frédéric, hurrying on the servants, who made no end of serving the coffee on the table which had just been cleared. For this table the three younger girls, half buried in a heap of flowers, tea and blush and crimson roses, were now, with the help of knight Grégoire, devising new decorations. Then, a few paces away, the bridal pair, Denis and Marthe, were conversing in undertones; while the bride's mother, Madame Desvignes, sat listening to them with a discreet and infinitely gentle smile upon her lips. And it was in the midst of all this that Marianne, radiant, white of skin, still fresh, ever beautiful, with serene strength, was giving the breast to her twelfth child, her Benjamin, and smiling at him as he sucked away; while surrendering her other knee to little Nicolas, who was jealous of his younger brother. And her two daughters-in-law seemed like a continuation of herself. There was Andrée on the left with Ambroise, who had stepped up to tease his little Léonce; and Charlotte on the right with her two children, Guillaume, who hung on her breast, and Berthe, who had sought a place among her skirts. And here, faith in life had yielded prosperity, ever-increasing, overflowing wealth, all the sovereign florescence of happy fruitfulness.
Séguin, addressing himself to Marianne, asked her jestingly: "And so that little gentleman is the fourteenth you have nursed?"
She likewise laughed. "No; I mustn't tell fibs! I have nursed twelve, including this one; that is the exact number."
Beauchêne, who had recovered his self-possession, could not refrain from intervening once more: "A full dozen, eh! It is madness!"
"I share your opinion," said Mathieu, laughing in his turn. "At all events, if it is not madness it is extravagance, as we admit, my wife and I, when we are alone. And we certainly don't think that all people ought to have such large families as ours. But, given the situation in France nowadays, with our population dwindling and that of nearly every other country increasing, it is hardly possible to complain of even the largest family. Thus, even if our example be exaggerated, it remains an example, I think, for others to think over."
Marianne listened, still smiling, but with tears standing in her eyes. A feeling of gentle sadness was penetrating her; her heart-wound had reopened even amid all her joy at seeing her children assembled around her. "Yes," said she in a trembling voice, "there have been twelve, but I have only ten left. Two are already sleeping yonder, waiting for us underground."
There was no sign of dread, however, in that evocation of the peaceful little cemetery of Janville and the family grave in which all the children hoped some day to be laid, one after the other, side by side. Rather did that evocation, coming amid that gay wedding assembly, seem like a promise of future blessed peace. The memory of the dear departed ones remained alive, and lent to one and all a kind of loving gravity even amid their mirth. Was it not impossible to accept life without accepting death. Each came here to perform his task, and then, his work ended, went to join his elders in that slumber of eternity where the great fraternity of humankind was fulfilled.
But in presence of those jesters, Beauchêne and Séguin, quite a flood of words rose to Mathieu's lips. He would have liked to answer them; he would have liked to triumph over the mendacious theories which they still dared to assert even in their hour of defeat. To fear that the earth might become over-populated, that excess of life might produce famine, was this not idiotic? Others only had to do as he had done: create the necessary subsistence each time that a child was born to them. And he would have pointed to Chantebled, his work, and to all the corn growing up under the sun, even as his children grew. They could not be charged with having come to consume the share of others, since each was born with his bread before him. And millions of new beings might follow, for the earth was vast: more than two-thirds of it still remained to be placed under cultivation, and therein lay endless fertility for unlimited humanity. Besides, had not every civilization, every progress, been due to the impulse of numbers? The improvidence of the poor had alone urged revolutionary multitudes to the conquest of truth, justice, and happiness. And with each succeeding day the human torrent would require more kindliness, more equity, the logical division of wealth by just laws regulating universal labor. If it were true, too, that civilization was a check to excessive natality, this phenomenon itself might make one hope in final equilibrium in the far-off ages, when the earth should be entirely populated and wise enough to live in a sort of divine immobility. But all this was pure speculation beside the needs of the hour, the nations which must be built up afresh and incessantly enlarged, pending the eventual definitive federation of mankind. And it was really an example, a brave and a necessary one, that Marianne and he were giving, in order that manners and customs, and the idea of morality and the idea of beauty might be changed.
Full of these thoughts Mathieu was already opening his mouth to speak. But all at once he felt how futile discussion would be in presence of that admirable scene; that mother surrounded by such a florescence of vigorous children; that mother nursing yet another child, under the big oak which she had planted. She was bravely accomplishing her task—that of perpetuating the world. And hers was the sovereign beauty.
Mathieu could think of only one thing that would express everything, and that was to kiss her with all his heart before the whole assembly.
"There, dear wife! You are the most beautiful and the best! May all the others do as you have done."
Then, when Marianne had gloriously returned his kiss, there arose an acclamation, a tempest of merry laughter. They were both of heroic mould; it was with a great dash of heroism that they had steered their bark onward, thanks to their full faith in life, their will of action, and the force of their love. And Constance was at last conscious of it: she could realize the conquering power of fruitfulness; she could already see the Froments masters of the factory through their son Denis; masters of Séguin's mansion through their son Ambroise; masters, too, of all the countryside through their other children. Numbers spelt victory. And shrinking, consumed with a love which she could never more satisfy, full of the bitterness of her defeat, though she yet hoped for some abominable revenge of destiny, she—who never wept!—turned aside to hide the big hot tears which now burnt her withered cheeks.
Meantime Benjamin and Guillaume were enjoying themselves like greedy little men whom nothing could disturb. Had there been less laughter one might have heard the trickling of their mothers' milk: that little stream flowing forth amid the torrent of sap which upraised the earth and made the big trees quiver in the powerful July blaze. On every side fruitful life was conveying germs, creating and nourishing. And for its eternal work an eternal river of milk flowed through the world.
XIX
ONE Sunday morning Norine and Cécile—who, though it was rightly a day of rest, were, nevertheless, working on either side of their little table, pressed as they were to deliver boxes for the approaching New Year season—received a visit which left them pale with stupor and fright.
Their unknown hidden life had hitherto followed a peaceful course, the only battle being to make both ends meet every week, and to put by the rent money for payment every quarter. During the eight years that the sisters had been living together in the Rue de la Fédération near the Champ de Mars, occupying the same big room with cheerful windows, a room whose coquettish cleanliness made them feel quite proud, Norine's child had grown up steadily between his two affectionate mothers. For he had ended by confounding them together: there was Mamma Norine and there was Mamma Cécile; and he did not exactly know whether one of the two was more his mother than the other. It was for him alone that they both lived and toiled, the one still a fine, good-looking woman at forty years of age, the other yet girlish at thirty.
Now, at about ten o'clock that Sunday, there came in succession two loud knocks at the door. When the latter was opened a short, thick-set fellow, about eighteen, stepped in. He was dark-haired, with a square face, a hard prominent jaw, and eyes of a pale gray. And he wore a ragged old jacket and a gray cloth cap, discolored by long usage.
"Excuse me," said he; "but isn't it here that live Mesdames Moineaud, who make cardboard boxes?"
Norine stood there looking at him with sudden uneasiness. Her heart had contracted as if she were menaced. She had certainly seen that face somewhere before; but she could only recall one old-time danger, which suddenly seemed to revive, more formidable than ever, as if threatening to spoil her quiet life.
"Yes, it is here," she answered.
Without any haste the young man glanced around the room. He must have expected more signs of means than he found, for he pouted slightly. Then his eyes rested on the child, who, like a well-behaved little boy, had been amusing himself with reading, and had now raised his face to examine the newcomer. And the latter concluded his examination by directing a brief glance at the other woman who was present, a slight, sickly creature who likewise felt anxious in presence of that sudden apparition of the unknown.
"I was told the left-hand door on the fourth floor," the young man resumed. "But, all the same, I was afraid of making a mistake, for the things I have to say can't be said to everybody. It isn't an easy matter, and, of course, I thought it well over before I came here."
He spoke slowly in a drawling way, and after again making sure that the other woman was too young to be the one he sought, he kept his pale eyes steadily fixed on Norine. The growing anguish with which he saw her quivering, the appeal that she was evidently making to her memory, induced him to prolong things for another moment. Then he spoke out: "I am the child who was put to nurse at Rougemont; my name is Alexandre-Honoré."
There was no need for him to say anything more. The unhappy Norine began to tremble from head to foot, clasped and wrung her hands, while an ashen hue came over her distorted features. Good heavens—Beauchêne! Yes, it was Beauchêne whom he resembled, and in so striking a manner, with his eyes of prey, his big jaw which proclaimed an enjoyer consumed by base voracity, that she was now astonished that she had not been able to name him at her first glance. Her legs failed her, and she had to sit down.
"So it's you," said Alexandre.
As she continued shivering, confessing the truth by her manner, but unable to articulate a word, to such a point did despair and fright clutch her at the throat, he felt the need of reassuring her a little, particularly if he was to keep that door open to him.
"You must not upset yourself like that," said he; "you have nothing to fear from me; it isn't my intention to give you any trouble. Only when I learnt at last where you were I wished to know you, and that was natural, wasn't it? I even fancied that perhaps you might be pleased to see me.... Then, too, the truth is that I'm precious badly off. Three years ago I was silly enough to come back to Paris, where I do little more than starve. And on the days when one hasn't breakfasted, one feels inclined to look up one's parents, even though they may have turned one into the street, for, all the same, they can hardly be so hard-hearted as to refuse one a plateful of soup."
Tears rose to Norine's eyes. This was the finishing stroke, the return of that wretched cast-off son, that big suspicious-looking fellow who accused her and complained of starving. Annoyed at being unable to elicit from her any response but shivers and sobs, Alexandre turned to Cécile: "You are her sister, I know," said he; "tell her that it's stupid of her to go on like that. I haven't come to murder her. It's funny how pleased she is to see me! Yet I don't make any noise, and I said nothing whatever to the door-porter downstairs, I assure you."
Then as Cécile, without answering him, rose to go and comfort Norine, he again became interested in the child, who likewise felt frightened and turned pale on seeing the grief of his two mammas.
"So that lad is my brother?"
Thereupon Norine suddenly sprang to her feet and set herself between the child and him. A mad fear had come to her of some catastrophe, some great collapse which would crush them all. Yet she did not wish to be harsh, she even sought kind words, but amid it all she lost her head, carried away by feelings of revolt, rancor, instinctive hostility.
"You came, I can understand it. But it is so cruel. What can I do? After so many years one doesn't know one another, one has nothing to say. And, besides, as you can see for yourself, I'm not rich."
Alexandre glanced round the room for the second time. "Yes, I see," he answered; "and my father, can't you tell me his name?"
She remained thunderstruck by this question and turned yet paler, while he continued: "Because if my father should have any money I should know very well how to make him give me some. People have no right to fling children into the gutter like that."
All at once Norine had seen the past rise up before her: Beauchêne, the works, and her father, who now had just quitted them owing to his infirmities, leaving his son Victor behind him.
And a sort of instinctive prudence came to her at the thought that if she were to give up Beauchêne's name she might compromise all her happy life, since terrible complications might ensue. The dread she felt of that suspicious-looking lad, who reeked of idleness and vice, inspired her with an idea: "Your father? He has long been dead," said she.
He could have known nothing, have learnt nothing on that point, for, in presence of the energy of her answer, he expressed no doubt whatever of her veracity, but contented himself with making a rough gesture which indicated how angry he felt at seeing his hungry hopes thus destroyed.
"So I've got to starve!" he growled.
Norine, utterly distracted, was possessed by one painful desire—a desire that he might take himself away, and cease torturing her by his presence, to such a degree did remorse, and pity, and fright, and horror now wring her bleeding heart. She opened a drawer and took from it a ten-franc piece, her savings for the last three months, with which she had intended to buy a New Year's present for her little boy. And giving those ten francs to Alexandre, she said: "Listen, I can do nothing for you. We live all three in this one room, and we scarcely earn our bread. It grieves me very much to know that you are so unfortunately circumstanced. But you mustn't rely on me. Do as we do—work."
He pocketed the ten francs, and remained there for another moment swaying about, and saying that he had not come for money, and that he could very well understand things. For his part he always behaved properly with people when people behaved properly with him. And he repeated that since she showed herself good-natured he had no idea of creating any scandal. A mother who did what she could performed her duty, even though she might only give a ten-sous piece. Then, as he was at last going off, he inquired: "Won't you kiss me?"
She kissed him, but with cold lips and lifeless heart, and the two smacking kisses which, with noisy affectation, he gave her in return, left her cheeks quivering.
"And au revoir, eh?" said he. "Although one may be poor and unable to keep together, each knows now that the other's in the land of the living. And there is no reason why I shouldn't come up just now and again to wish you good day when I'm passing."
When he had at last disappeared long silence fell amid the infinite distress which his short stay had brought there. Norine had again sunk upon a chair, as if overwhelmed by this catastrophe. Cécile had been obliged to sit down in front of her, for she also was overcome. And it was she who, amid the mournfulness of that room, which but a little while ago had held all their happiness, spoke out the first to complain and express her astonishment.
"But you did not ask him anything; we know nothing about him," said she. "Where has he come from? What is he doing? What does he want? And, in particular, how did he manage to discover you? These were the interesting things to learn."
"Oh! what would you have!" replied Norine. "When he told me his name he knocked all the strength out of me; I felt as cold as ice! Oh! it's he, there's no doubt of it. You recognized his likeness to his father, didn't you? But you are right; we know nothing, and now we shall always be living with that threat over our heads, in fear that everything will crumble down upon us."
All her strength, all her courage was gone, and she began to sob, stammering indistinctly: "To think of it! a big fellow of eighteen falling on one like that without a word of warning! And it's quite true that I don't love him, since I don't even know him. When he kissed me I felt nothing. I was icy cold, as if my heart were frozen. O God! O God! what trouble to be sure, and how horrid and cruel it all is!"
Then, as her little boy, on seeing her weep, ran up and flung himself; frightened and tearful, against her bosom, she wildly caught him in her arms. "My poor little one! my poor little one! if only you don't suffer by it; if only my sin doesn't fall on you! Ah! that would be a terrible punishment. Really the best course is for folks to behave properly in life if they don't want to have a lot of trouble afterwards!"
In the evening the sisters, having grown somewhat calmer, decided that their best course would be to write to Mathieu. Norine remembered that he had called on her a few years previously to ask if Alexandre had not been to see her. He alone knew all the particulars of the business, and where to obtain information. And, indeed, as soon as the sisters' letter reached him Mathieu made haste to call on them in the Rue de la Fédération, for he was anxious with respect to the effect which any scandal might have at the works, where Beauchêne's position was becoming worse every day. After questioning Norine at length, he guessed that Alexandre must have learnt her address through La Couteau, though he could not say precisely how this had come about. At last, after a long month of discreet researches, conversations with Madame Menoux, Céleste, and La Couteau herself, he was able in some measure to explain things. The alert had certainly come from the inquiry intrusted to the nurse-agent at Rougemont, that visit which she had made to the hamlet of Saint-Pierre in quest of information respecting the lad who was supposed to be in apprenticeship with Montoir the wheelwright. She had talked too much, said too much, particularly to the other apprentice, that Richard, another foundling, and one of such bad instincts, too, that seven months later he had taken flight, like Alexandre, after purloining some money from his master. Then years elapsed, and all trace of them was lost. But later on, most assuredly they had met one another on the Paris pavement, in such wise that the big carroty lad had told the little dark fellow the whole story how his relatives had caused a search to be made for him, and perhaps, too, who his mother was, the whole interspersed with tittle-tattle and ridiculous inventions. Still this did not explain everything, and to understand how Alexandre had procured his mother's actual address, Mathieu had to presume that he had secured it from La Couteau, whom Céleste had acquainted with so many things. Indeed, he learnt at Broquette's nurse-agency that a short, thickset young man with pronounced jaw-bones had come there twice to speak to La Couteau. Nevertheless, many points remained unexplained; the whole affair had taken place amid the tragic, murky gloom of Parisian low life, whose mire it is not healthy to stir. Mathieu ended by resting content with a general notion of the business, for he himself felt frightened at the charges already hanging over those two young bandits, who lived so precariously, dragging their idleness and their vices over the pavement of the great city. And thus all his researches had resulted in but one consoling certainty, which was that even if Norine the mother was known, the father's name and position were certainly not suspected by anybody.
When Mathieu saw Norine again on the subject he terrified her by the few particulars which he was obliged to give her.
"Oh! I beg you, I beg you, do not let him come again," she pleaded. "Find some means; prevent him from coming here. It upsets me too dreadfully to see him."
Mathieu, of course, could do nothing in this respect. After mature reflection he realized that the great object of his efforts must be to prevent Alexandre from discovering Beauchêne. What he had learnt of the young man was so bad, so dreadful, that he wished to spare Constance the pain and scandal of being blackmailed. He could see her blanching at the thought of the ignominy of that lad whom she had so passionately desired to find, and he felt ashamed for her sake, and deemed it more compassionate and even necessary to bury the secret in the silence of the grave. Still, it was only after a long fight with himself that he came to this decision, for he felt that it was hard to have to abandon the unhappy youth in the streets. Was it still possible to save him? He doubted it. And besides, who would undertake the task, who would know how to instil honest principles into that waif by teaching him to work? It all meant yet another man cast overboard, forsaken amid the tempest, and Mathieu's heart bled at the thought of condemning him, though he could think of no reasonable means of salvation.
"My opinion," he said to Norine, "is that you should keep his father's name from him for the present. Later on we will see. But just now I should fear worry for everybody."
She eagerly acquiesced. "Oh! you need not be anxious," she responded. "I have already told him that his father is dead. If I were to speak out everything would fall on my shoulders, and my great desire is to be left in peace in my corner with my little one."
With sorrowful mien Mathieu continued reflecting, unable to make up his mind to utterly abandon the young man. "If he would only work, I would find him some employment. And I would even take him on at the farm later, when I should no longer have cause to fear that he might contaminate my people. However, I will see what can be done; I know a wheelwright who would doubtless employ him, and I will write to you in order that you may tell him where to apply, when he comes back to see you."
"What? When he comes back!" she cried in despair. "So you think that he will come back. O God! O God! I shall never be happy again."
He did, indeed, come back. But when she gave him the wheelwright's address he sneered and shrugged his shoulders. He knew all about the Paris wheelwrights! A set of sweaters, a parcel of lazy rogues, who made poor people toil and moil for them. Besides, he had never finished his apprenticeship; he was only fit for running errands, in which capacity he was willing to accept a post in a large shop. When Mathieu had procured him such a situation, he did not remain in it a fortnight. One fine evening he disappeared with the parcels of goods which he had been told to deliver. In turn he tried to learn a baker's calling, became a mason's hodman, secured work at the markets, but without ever fixing himself anywhere. He simply discouraged his protector, and left all sorts of roguery behind him for others to liquidate. It became necessary to renounce the hope of saving him. When he turned up, as he did periodically, emaciated, hungry, and in rags, they had to limit themselves to providing him with the means to buy a jacket and some bread.
Thus Norine lived on in a state of mortal disquietude. For long weeks Alexandre seemed to be dead, but she, nevertheless, started at the slightest sound that she heard on the landing. She always felt him to be there, and whenever he suddenly rapped on the door she recognized his heavy knock and began to tremble as if he had come to beat her. He had noticed how his presence reduced the unhappy woman to a state of abject terror, and he profited by this to extract from her whatever little sums she hid away. When she had handed him the five-franc piece which Mathieu, as a rule, left with her for this purpose, the young rascal was not content, but began searching for more. At times he made his appearance in a wild, haggard state, declaring that he should certainly be sent to prison that evening if he did not secure ten francs, and talking the while of smashing everything in the room or else of carrying off the little clock in order to sell it. And it was then necessary for Cécile to intervene and turn him out of the place; for, however puny she might be, she had a brave heart. But if he went off it was only to return a few days later with fresh demands, threatening that he would shout his story to everybody on the stairs if the ten francs were not given to him. One day, when his mother had no money in the place and began to weep, he talked of ripping up the mattress, where, said he, she probably kept her hoard. Briefly, the sisters' little home was becoming a perfect hell.
The greatest misfortune of all, however, was that in the Rue de la Fédération Alexandre made the acquaintance of Alfred, Norine's youngest brother, the last born of the Moineaud family. He was then twenty, and thus two years the senior of his nephew. No worse prowler than he existed. He was the genuine rough, with pale, beardless face, blinking eyes, and twisted mouth, the real gutter-weed that sprouts up amid the Parisian manure-heaps. At seven years of age he robbed his sisters, beating Cécile every Saturday in order to tear her earnings from her. Mother Moineaud, worn out with hard work and unable to exercise a constant watch over him, had never managed to make him attend school regularly, or to keep him in apprenticeship. He exasperated her to such a degree that she herself ended by turning him into the streets in order to secure a little peace and quietness at home. His big brothers kicked him about, his father was at work from morning till evening, and the child, thus morally a waif, grew up out of doors for a career of vice and crime among the swarms of lads and girls of his age, who all rotted there together like apples fallen on the ground. And as Alfred grew he became yet more corrupt; he was like the sacrificed surplus of a poor man's family, the surplus poured into the gutter, the spoilt fruit which spoils all that comes into contact with it.
Like Alexandre, too, he nowadays only lived chancewise, and it was not even known where he had been sleeping, since Mother Moineaud had died at a hospital exhausted by her long life of wretchedness and family cares which had proved far too heavy for her. She was only sixty at the time of her death, but was as bent and as worn out as a centenarian. Moineaud, two years older, bent like herself, his legs twisted by paralysis, a lamentable wreck after fifty years of unjust toil, had been obliged to quit the factory, and thus the home was empty, and its few poor sticks had been cast to the four winds of heaven.
Moineaud fortunately received a little pension, for which he was indebted to Denis's compassionate initiative. But he was sinking into second childhood, worn out by his long and constant efforts, and not only did he squander his few coppers in drink, but he could not be left alone, for his feet were lifeless, and his hands shook to such a degree that he ran the risk of setting all about him on fire whenever he tried to light his pipe. At last he found himself stranded in the home of his daughters, Norine and Cécile, the only two who had heart enough to take him in. They rented a little closet for him, on the fifth floor of the house, over their own room, and they nursed him and bought him food and clothes with his pension-money, to which they added a good deal of their own. As they remarked in their gay, courageous way, they now had two children, a little one and a very old one, which was a heavy burden for two women who earned but five francs a day, although they were ever making boxes from morn till night, There was a touch of soft irony in the circumstance that old Moineaud should have been unable to find any other refuge than the home of his daughter Norine—that daughter whom he had formerly turned away and cursed for her misconduct, that hussy who had dishonored him, but whose very hands he now kissed when, for fear lest he should set the tip of his nose ablaze, she helped him to light his pipe.
All the same, the shaky old nest of the Moineauds was destroyed, and the whole family had flown off, dispersed chancewise. Irma alone, thanks to her fine marriage with a clerk, lived happily, playing the part of a lady, and so full of vanity that she no longer condescended to see her brothers and sisters. Victor, meantime, was leading at the factory much the same life as his father had led, working at the same mill as the other, and in the same blind, stubborn way. He had married, and though he was under six-and-thirty, he already had six children, three boys and three girls, so that his wife seemed fated to much the same existence as his mother La Moineaude. Both of them would finish broken down, and their children in their turn would unconsciously perpetuate the swarming and accursed starveling race.
At Euphrasie's, destiny the inevitable showed itself more tragic still. The wretched woman had not been lucky enough to die. She had gradually become bedridden, quite unable to move, though she lived on and could hear and see and understand things. From that open grave, her bed, she had beheld the final break-up of what remained of her sorry home. She was nothing more than a thing, insulted by her husband and tortured by Madame Joseph, who would leave her for days together without water, and fling her occasional crusts much as they might be flung to a sick animal whose litter is not even changed. Terror-stricken, and full of humility amid her downfall, Euphrasie resigned herself to everything; but the worst was that her three children, her twin daughters and her son, being abandoned to themselves, sank into vice, the all-corrupting life of the streets. Bénard, tired out, distracted by the wreck of his home, had taken to drinking with Madame Joseph; and afterwards they would fight together, break the furniture, and drive off the children, who came home muddy, in rags, and with their pockets full of stolen things. On two occasions Bénard disappeared for a week at a time. On the third he did not come back at all. When the rent fell due, Madame Joseph in her turn took herself off. And then came the end. Euphrasie had to be removed to the hospital of La Salpétrière, the last refuge of the aged and the infirm; while the children, henceforth without a home in name, were driven into the gutter. The boy never turned up again; it was as if he had been swallowed by some sewer. One of the twin girls, found in the streets, died in a hospital during the ensuing year; and the other, Toinette, a fair-haired scraggy hussy, who, however puny she might look, was a terrible little creature with the eyes and the teeth of a wolf, lived under the bridges, in the depths of the stone quarries, in the dingy garrets of haunts of vice, so that at sixteen she was already an expert thief. Her fate was similar to Alfred's; here was a girl morally abandoned, then contaminated by the life of the streets, and carried off to a criminal career. And, indeed, the uncle and the niece having met by chance, ended by consorting together, their favorite refuge, it was thought, being the limekilns in the direction of Les Moulineaux.
One day then it happened that Alexandre upon calling at Norine's there encountered Alfred, who came at times to try to extract a half-franc from old Moineaud, his father. The two young bandits went off together, chatted, and met again. And from that chance encounter there sprang a band. Alexandre was living with Richard, and Alfred brought Toinette to them. Thus they were four in number, and the customary developments followed: begging at first, the girl putting out her hand at the instigation of the three prowlers, who remained on the watch and drew alms by force at nighttime from belated bourgeois encountered in dark corners; next came vulgar vice and its wonted attendant, blackmail; and then theft, petty larceny to begin with, the pilfering of things displayed for sale by shopkeepers, and afterwards more serious affairs, premeditated expeditions, mapped out like real war plans.
The band slept wherever it could; now in suspicious dingy doss-houses, now on waste ground. In summer time there were endless saunters through the woods of the environs, pending the arrival of night, which handed Paris over to their predatory designs. They found themselves at the Central Markets, among the crowds on the boulevards, in the low taverns, along the deserted avenues—indeed, wherever they sniffed the possibility of a stroke of luck, the chance of snatching the bread of idleness, or the pleasures of vice. They were like a little clan of savages on the war-path athwart civilization, living outside the pale of the laws. They suggested young wild beasts beating the ancestral forest; they typified the human animal relapsing into barbarism, forsaken since birth, and evincing the ancient instincts of pillage and carnage. And like noxious weeds they grew up sturdily, becoming bolder and bolder each day, exacting a bigger and bigger ransom from the fools who toiled and moiled, ever extending their thefts and marching along the road to murder.
Never should it be forgotten that the child, born chancewise, and then cast upon the pavement, without supervision, without prop or help, rots there and becomes a terrible ferment of social decomposition. All those little ones thrown to the gutter, like superfluous kittens are flung into some sewer, all those forsaken ones, those wanderers of the pavement who beg, and thieve, and indulge in vice, form the dung-heap in which the worst crimes germinate. Childhood left to wretchedness breeds a fearful nucleus of infection in the tragic gloom of the depths of Paris. Those who are thus imprudently cast into the streets yield a harvest of brigandage—that frightful harvest of evil which makes all society totter.
When Norine, through the boasting of Alexandre and Alfred, who took pleasure in astonishing her, began to suspect the exploits of the band, she felt so frightened that she had a strong bolt placed upon her door. And when night had fallen she no longer admitted any visitor until she knew his name. Her torture had been lasting for nearly two years; she was ever quivering with alarm at the thought of Alexandre rushing in upon her some dark night. He was twenty now; he spoke authoritatively, and threatened her with atrocious revenge whenever he had to retire with empty hands. One day, in spite of Cécile, he threw himself upon the wardrobe and carried off a bundle of linen, handkerchiefs, towels, napkins, and sheets, intending to sell them. And the sisters did not dare to pursue him down the stairs. Despairing, weeping, overwhelmed by it all, they had sunk down upon their chairs.
That winter proved a very severe one; and the two poor workwomen, pillaged in this fashion, would have perished in their sorry home of cold and starvation, together with the dear child for whom they still did their best, had it not been for the help which their old friend, Madame Angelin, regularly brought them. She was still a lady-delegate of the Poor Relief Service, and continued to watch over the children of unhappy mothers in that terrible district of Grenelle, whose poverty is so great. But for a long time past she had been unable to do anything officially for Norine. If she still brought her a twenty-franc piece every month, it was because charitable people intrusted her with fairly large amounts, knowing that she could distribute them to advantage in the dreadful inferno which her functions compelled her to frequent. She set her last joy and found the great consolation of her desolate, childless life in thus remitting alms to poor mothers whose little ones laughed at her joyously as soon as they saw her arrive with her hands full of good things.
One day when the weather was frightful, all rain and wind, Madame Angelin lingered for a little while in Norine's room. It was barely two o'clock in the afternoon, and she was just beginning her round. On her lap lay her little bag, bulging out with the gold and the silver which she had to distribute. Old Moineaud was there, installed on a chair and smoking his pipe, in front of her. And she felt concerned about his needs, and explained that she would have greatly liked to obtain a monthly relief allowance for him.
"But if you only knew," she added, "what suffering there is among the poor during these winter months. We are quite swamped, we cannot give to everybody, there are too many. And after all you are among the fortunate ones. I find some lying like dogs on the tiled floors of their rooms, without a scrap of coal to make a fire or even a potato to eat. And the poor children, too, good Heavens! Children in heaps among vermin, without shoes, without clothes, all growing up as if destined for prison or the scaffold, unless consumption should carry them off."
Madame Angelin quivered and closed her eyes as if to escape the spectacle of all the terrifying things that she evoked, the wretchedness, the shame, the crimes that she elbowed during her continual perambulations through that hell of poverty, vice, and hunger. She often returned home pale and silent, having reached the uttermost depths of human abomination, and never daring to say all. At times she trembled and raised her eyes to Heaven, wondering what vengeful cataclysm would swallow up that accursed city of Paris.
"Ah!" she murmured once more; "their sufferings are so great, may their sins be forgiven them."
Moineaud listened to her in a state of stupor, as if he were unable to understand. At last with difficulty he succeeded in taking his pipe from his mouth. It was, indeed, quite an effort now for him to do such a thing, and yet for fifty years he had wrestled with iron—iron in the vice or on the anvil.
"There is nothing like good conduct," he stammered huskily. "When a man works he's rewarded."
Then he wished to set his pipe between his lips once more, but was unable to do so. His hand, deformed by the constant use of tools, trembled too violently. So it became necessary for Norine to rise from her chair and help him.
"Poor father!" exclaimed Cécile, who had not ceased working, cutting out the cardboard for the little boxes she made: "What would have become of him if we had not given him shelter? It isn't Irma, with her stylish hats and her silk dresses who would have cared to have him at her place."
Meantime Norine's little boy had taken his stand in front of Madame Angelin, for he knew very well that, on the days when the good lady called, there was some dessert at supper in the evening. He smiled at her with the bright eyes which lit up his pretty fair face, crowned with tumbled sunshiny hair. And when she noticed with what a merry glance he was waiting for her to open her little bag, she felt quite moved.
"Come and kiss me, my little friend," said she.
She knew no sweeter reward for all that she did than the kisses of the children in the poor homes whither she brought a little joy. When the youngster had boldly thrown his arms round her neck, her eyes filled with tears; and, addressing herself to his mother, she repeated: "No, no, you must not complain; there are others who are more unhappy than you. I know one who if this pretty little fellow could only be her own would willingly accept your poverty, and paste boxes together from morning till night and lead a recluse's life in this one room, which he suffices to fill with sunshine. Ah! good Heavens, if you were only willing, if we could only change."
For a moment she became silent, afraid that she might burst into sobs. The wound dealt her by her childlessness had always remained open. She and her husband were now growing old in bitter solitude in three little rooms overlooking a courtyard in the Rue de Lille. In this retirement they subsisted on the salary which she, the wife, received as a lady-delegate, joined to what they had been able to save of their original fortune. The former fan-painter of triumphant mien was now completely blind, a mere thing, a poor suffering thing, whom his wife seated every morning in an armchair where she still found him in the evening when she returned home from her incessant peregrinations through the frightful misery of guilty mothers and martyred children. He could no longer eat, he could no longer go to bed without her help, he had only her left him, he was her child as he would say at times with a despairing irony which made them both weep.
A child? Ah, yes! she had ended by having one, and it was he! An old child, born of disaster; one who appeared to be eighty though he was less than fifty years old, and who amid his black and ceaseless night ever dreamt of sunshine during the long hours which he was compelled to spend alone. And Madame Angelin did not only envy that poor workwoman her little boy, she also envied her that old man smoking his pipe yonder, that infirm relic of labor who at all events saw clearly and still lived.
"Don't worry the lady," said Norine to her son; for she felt anxious, quite moved indeed, at seeing the other so disturbed, with her heart so full. "Run away and play."
She had learnt a little of Madame Angelin's sad story from Mathieu. And with the deep gratitude which she felt towards her benefactress was blended a sort of impassioned respect, which rendered her timid and deferent each time that she saw her arrive, tall and distinguished, ever clad in black, and showing the remnants of her former beauty which sorrow had wrecked already, though she was barely six-and-forty years of age. For Norine, the lady-delegate was like some queen who had fallen from her throne amid frightful and undeserved sufferings.
"Run away, go and play, my darling," Norine repeated to her boy: "you are tiring madame."
"Tiring me, oh no!" exclaimed Madame Angelin, conquering her emotion. "On the contrary, he does me good. Kiss me, kiss me again, my pretty fellow."
Then she began to bestir and collect herself.
"Well, it is getting late, and I have so many places to go to between now and this evening! This is what I can do for you."
She was at last taking a gold coin from her little bag, but at that very moment a heavy blow, as if dealt by a fist, resounded on the door. And Norine turned ghastly pale, for she had recognized Alexandre's brutal knock. What could she do? If she did not open the door, the bandit would go on knocking, and raise a scandal. She was obliged to open it, but things did not take the violent tragical turn which she had feared. Surprised at seeing a lady there, Alexandre did not even open his mouth. He simply slipped inside, and stationed himself bolt upright against the wall. The lady-delegate had raised her eyes and then carried them elsewhere, understanding that this young fellow must be some friend, probably some relative. And without thought of concealment, she went on:
"Here are twenty francs, I can't do more. Only I promise you that I will try to double the amount next month. It will be the rent month, and I've already applied for help on all sides, and people have promised to give me the utmost they can. But shall I ever have enough? So many applications are made to me."
Her little bag had remained open on her knees, and Alexandre, with his glittering eyes, was searching it, weighing in fancy all the treasure of the poor that it contained, all the gold and silver and even the copper money that distended its sides. Still in silence, he watched Madame Angelin as she closed it, slipped its little chain round her wrist, and then finally rose from her chair.
"Well, au revoir, till next month then," she resumed. "I shall certainly call on the 5th; and in all probability I shall begin my round with you. But it's possible that it may be rather late in the afternoon, for it happens to be my poor husband's name-day. And so be brave and work well."
Norine and Cécile had likewise risen, in order to escort her to the door. Here again there was an outpouring of gratitude, and the child once more kissed the good lady on both cheeks with all his little heart. The sisters, so terrified by Alexandre's arrival, at last began to breathe again.
In point of fact the incident terminated fairly well, for the young man showed himself accommodating. When Cécile returned from obtaining change for the gold, he contented himself with taking one of the four five-franc pieces which she brought up with her. And he did not tarry to torture them as was his wont, but immediately went off with the money he had levied, whistling the while the air of a hunting-song.
The 5th of the ensuing month, a Saturday, was one of the gloomiest, most rainy days of that wretched, mournful winter. Darkness fell rapidly already at three o'clock in the afternoon, and it became almost night. At the deserted end of Rue de la Fédération there was an expanse of waste ground, a building site, for long years enclosed by a fence, which dampness had ended by rotting. Some of the boards were missing, and at one part there was quite a breach. All through that afternoon, in spite of the constantly recurring downpours, a scraggy girl remained stationed near that breach, wrapped to her eyes in the ragged remnants of an old shawl, doubtless for protection against the cold. She seemed to be waiting for some chance meeting, the advent it might be of some charitably disposed wayfarer. And her impatience was manifest, for while keeping close to the fence like some animal lying in wait, she continually peered through the breach, thrusting out her tapering weasel's head and watching yonder, in the direction of the Champ de Mars.
Hours went by, three o'clock struck, and then such dark clouds rolled over the livid sky, that the girl herself became blurred, obscured, as if she were some mere piece of wreckage cast into the darkness. At times she raised her head and watched the sky darken, with eyes that glittered as if to thank it for throwing so dense a gloom over that deserted corner, that spot so fit for an ambuscade. And just as the rain had once more begun to fall, a lady could be seen approaching, a lady clad in black, quite black, under an open umbrella. While seeking to avoid the puddles in her path, she walked on quickly, like one in a hurry, who goes about her business on foot in order to save herself the expense of a cab.
From some precise description which she had obtained, Toinette, the girl, appeared to recognize this lady from afar off. She was indeed none other than Madame Angelin, coming quickly from the Rue de Lille, on her way to the homes of her poor, with the little chain of her little bag encircling her wrist. And when the girl espied the gleaming steel of that little chain, she no longer had any doubts, but whistled softly. And forthwith cries and moans arose from a dim corner of the vacant ground, while she herself began to wail and call distressfully.
Astonished, disturbed by it all, Madame Angelin stopped short.
"What is the matter, my girl?" she asked.
"Oh! madame, my brother has fallen yonder and broken his leg."
"What, fallen? What has he fallen from?"
"Oh! madame, there's a shed yonder where we sleep, because we haven't any home, and he was using an old ladder to try to prevent the rain from pouring in on us, and he fell and broke his leg."
Thereupon the girl burst into sobs, asking what was to become of them, stammering that she had been standing there in despair for the last ten minutes, but could see nobody to help them, which was not surprising with that terrible rain falling and the cold so bitter. And while she stammered all this, the calls for help and the cries of pain became louder in the depths of the waste ground.
Though Madame Angelin was terribly upset, she nevertheless hesitated, as if distrustful.
"You must run to get a doctor, my poor child," said she, "I can do nothing."
"Oh! but you can, madame; come with me, I pray you. I don't know where there's a doctor to be found. Come with me, and we will pick him up, for I can't manage it by myself; and at all events we can lay him in the shed, so that the rain sha'n't pour down on him."
This time the good woman consented, so truthful did the girl's accents seem to be. Constant visits to the vilest dens, where crime sprouted from the dunghill of poverty, had made Madame Angelin brave. She was obliged to close her umbrella when she glided through the breach in the fence in the wake of the girl, who, slim and supple like a cat, glided on in front, bareheaded, in her ragged shawl.
"Give me your hand, madame," said she. "Take care, for there are some trenches.... It's over yonder at the end. Can you hear how he's moaning, poor brother?... Ah! here we are!"
Then came swift and overwhelming savagery. The three bandits, Alexandre, Richard, and Alfred, who had been crouching low, sprang forward and threw themselves upon Madame Angelin with such hungry, wolfish violence that she was thrown to the ground. Alfred, however, being a coward, then left her to the two others, and hastened with Toinette to the breach in order to keep watch. Alexandre, who had a handkerchief rolled up, all ready, thrust it into the poor lady's mouth to stifle her cries. Their intention was to stun her only and then make off with her little bag.
But the handkerchief must have slipped out, for she suddenly raised a shriek, a loud and terrible shriek. And at that moment the others near the breach gave the alarm whistle: some people were, doubtless, drawing near. It was necessary to finish. Alexandre knotted the handkerchief round the unhappy woman's neck, while Richard with his fist forced her shriek back into her throat. Red madness fell upon them, they both began to twist and tighten the handkerchief, and dragged the poor creature over the muddy ground until she stirred no more. Then, as the whistle sounded again, they took the bag, left the body there with the handkerchief around the neck, and galloped, all four of them, as far as the Grenelle bridge, whence they flung the bag into the Seine, after greedily thrusting the coppers, and the white silver, and the yellow gold into their pockets.
When Mathieu read the particulars of the crime in the newspapers, he was seized with fright and hastened to the Rue de la Fédération. The murdered woman had been promptly identified, and the circumstance that the crime had been committed on that plot of vacant ground but a hundred yards or so from the house where Norine and Cécile lived upset him, filled him with a terrible presentiment. And he immediately realized that his fears were justified when he had to knock three times at Norine's door before Cécile, having recognized his voice, removed the articles with which it had been barricaded, and admitted him inside. Norine was in bed, quite ill, and as white as her sheets. She began to sob and shuddered repeatedly as she told him the story: Madame Angelin's visit the previous month, and the sudden arrival of Alexandre, who had seen the bag and had heard the promise of further help, at a certain hour on a certain date. Besides, Norine could have no doubts, for the handkerchief found round the victim's neck was one of hers which Alexandre had stolen: a handkerchief embroidered with the initial letters of her Christian name, one of those cheap fancy things which are sold by thousands at the big linendrapery establishments. That handkerchief, too, was the only clew to the murderers, and it was such a very vague one that the police were still vainly seeking the culprits, quite lost amid a variety of scents and despairing of success.
Mathieu sat near the bed listening to Norine and feeling icy cold. Good God! that poor, unfortunate Madame Angelin! He could picture her in her younger days, so gay and bright over yonder at Janville, roaming the woods there in the company of her husband, the pair of them losing themselves among the deserted paths, and lingering in the discreet shade of the pollard willows beside the Yeuse, where their love kisses sounded beneath the branches like the twittering of song birds. And he could picture her at a later date, already too severely punished for her lack of foresight, in despair at remaining childless, and bowed down with grief as by slow degrees her husband became blind, and night fell upon the little happiness yet left to them. And all at once Mathieu also pictured that wretched blind man, on the evening when he vainly awaited the return of his wife, in order that she might feed him and put him to bed, old child that he was, now motherless, forsaken, forever alone in his dark night, in which he could only see the bloody spectre of his murdered helpmate. Ah! to think of it, so bright a promise of radiant life, followed by such destiny, such death!
"We did right," muttered Mathieu, as his thoughts turned to Constance, "we did right to keep that ruffian in ignorance of his father's name. What a terrible thing! We must bury the secret as deeply as possible within us."
Norine shuddered once more.
"Oh! have no fear," she answered, "I would die rather than speak."
Months, years, flowed by; and never did the police discover the murderers of the lady with the little bag. For years, too, Norine shuddered every time that anybody knocked too roughly at her door. But Alexandre did not reappear there. He doubtless feared that corner of the Rue de la Fédération, and remained as it were submerged in the dim unsoundable depths of the ocean of Paris.
XX
DURING the ten years which followed, the vigorous sprouting of the Froments, suggestive of some healthy vegetation of joy and strength, continued in and around the ever and ever richer domain of Chantebled. As the sons and the daughters grew up there came fresh marriages, and more and more children, all the promised crop, all the promised swarming of a race of conquerors.
First it was Gervais who married Caroline Boucher, daughter of a big farmer of the region, a fair, fine-featured, gay, strong girl, one of those superior women born to rule over a little army of servants. On leaving a Parisian boarding-school she had been sensible enough to feel no shame of her family's connection with the soil. Indeed she loved the earth and had set herself to win from it all the sterling happiness of her life. By way of dowry she brought an expanse of meadow-land in the direction of Lillebonne, which enlarged the estate by some seventy acres. But she more particularly brought her good humor, her health, her courage in rising early, in watching over the farmyard, the dairy, the whole home, like an energetic active housewife, who was ever bustling about, and always the last to bed.
Then came the turn of Claire, whose marriage with Frédéric Berthaud, long since foreseen, ended by taking place. There were tears of soft emotion, for the memory of her whom Berthaud had loved and whom he was to have married disturbed several hearts on the wedding day when the family skirted the little cemetery of Janville as it returned to the farm from the municipal offices. But, after all, did not that love of former days, that faithful fellow's long affection, which in time had become transferred to the younger sister, constitute as it were another link in the ties which bound him to the Froments? He had no fortune, he brought with him only his constant faithfulness, and the fraternity which had sprung up between himself and Gervais during the many seasons when they had ploughed the estate like a span of tireless oxen drawing the same plough. His heart was one that could never be doubted, he was the helper who had become indispensable, the husband whose advent would mean the best of all understandings and absolute certainty of happiness.
From the day of that wedding the government of the farm was finally settled. Though Mathieu was barely five-and-fifty he abdicated, and transferred his authority to Gervais, that son of the earth as with a laugh he often called him, the first of his children born at Chantebled, the one who had never left the farm, and who had at all times given him the support of his arm and his brain and his heart. And now Frédéric in turn would think and strive as Gervais's devoted lieutenant, in the great common task. Between them henceforth they would continue the father's work, and perfect the system of culture, procuring appliances of new design from the Beauchêne works, now ruled by Denis, and ever drawing from the soil the largest crops that it could be induced to yield. Their wives had likewise divided their share of authority; Claire surrendered the duties of supervision to Caroline, who was stronger and more active than herself, and was content to attend to the accounts, the turnover of considerable sums of money, all that was paid away and all that was received. The two couples seemed to have been expressly and cleverly selected to complete one another and to accomplish the greatest sum of work without ever the slightest fear of conflict. And, indeed, they lived in perfect union, with only one will among them, one purpose which was ever more and more skilfully effected—the continual increase of the happiness and wealth of Chantebled under the beneficent sun.
At the same time, if Mathieu had renounced the actual exercise of authority, he none the less remained the creator, the oracle who was consulted, listened to, and obeyed. He dwelt with Marianne in the old shooting-box which had been transformed and enlarged into a very comfortable house. Here they lived like the founders of a dynasty who had retired in full glory, setting their only delight in beholding around them the development and expansion of their race, the birth and growth of their children's children. Leaving Claire and Gervais on one side, there were as yet only Denis and Ambroise—the first to wing their flight abroad—engaged in building up their fortunes in Paris. The three girls, Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, who would soon be old enough to marry, still dwelt in the happy home beside their parents, as well as the three youngest boys, Grégoire, the free lance, Nicolas, the most stubborn and determined of the brood, and Benjamin, who was of a dreamy nature. All these finished growing up at the edge of the nest, so to say, with the window of life open before them, ready for the day when they likewise would take wing.
With them dwelt Charlotte, Blaise's widow, and her two children, Berthe and Guillaume, the three of them occupying an upper floor of the house where the mother had installed her studio. She was becoming rich since her little share in the factory profits, stipulated by Denis, had been increasing year by year; but nevertheless, she continued working for her dealer in miniatures. This work brought her pocket-money, she gayly said, and would enable her to make her children a present whenever they might marry. There was, indeed, already some thought of Berthe marrying; and assuredly she would be the first of Mathieu and Marianne's grandchildren to enter into the state of matrimony. They smiled softly at the idea of becoming great-grandparents before very long perhaps.
After the lapse of four years, Grégoire, first of the younger children, flew away. There was a great deal of trouble, quite a little drama in connection with the affair, which Mathieu and Marianne had for some time been anticipating. Grégoire was anything but reasonable. Short, but robust, with a pert face in which glittered the brightest of eyes, he had always been the turbulent member of the family, the one who caused the most anxiety. His childhood had been spent in playing truant in the woods of Janville, and he had afterwards made a mere pretence of studying in Paris, returning home full of health and spirits, but unable or unwilling to make up his mind with respect to any particular trade or profession. Already four-and-twenty, he knew little more than how to shoot and fish, and trot about the country on horseback. He was certainly not more stupid or less active than another, but he seemed bent on living and amusing himself according to his fancy. The worst was that for some months past all the gossips of Janville had been relating that he had renewed his former boyish friendship with Thérèse Lepailleur, the miller's daughter, and that they were to be met of an evening in shady nooks under the pollard-willows by the Yeuse.
One morning Mathieu, wishing to ascertain if the young coveys of partridges were plentiful in the direction of Mareuil, took Grégoire with him; and when they found themselves alone among the plantations of the plateau, he began to talk to him seriously.
"You know I'm not pleased with you, my lad," said he. "I really cannot understand the idle life which you lead here, while all the rest of us are hard at work. I shall wait till October since you have positively promised me that you will then come to a decision and choose the calling which you most fancy. But what is all this tittle-tattle which I hear about appointments which you keep with the daughter of the Lepailleurs? Do you wish to cause us serious worry?"
Grégoire quietly began to laugh.
"Oh, father! You are surely not going to scold a son of yours because he happens to be on friendly terms with a pretty girl! Why, as you may remember, it was I who gave her her first bicycle lesson nearly ten years ago. And you will recollect the fine white roses which she helped me to secure in the enclosure by the mill for Denis' wedding."
Grégoire still laughed at the memory of that incident, and lived afresh through all his old time sweethearting—the escapades with Thérèse along the river banks, and the banquets of blackberries in undiscoverable hiding-places, deep in the woods. And it seemed, too, that the love of childhood had revived, and was now bursting into consuming fire, so vividly did his cheeks glow, and so hotly did his eyes blaze as he thus recalled those distant times.
"Poor Thérèse! We had been at daggers drawn for years, and all because one evening, on coming back from the fair at Vieux-Bourg, I pushed her into a pool of water where she dirtied her frock. It's true that last spring we made it up again on finding ourselves face to face in the little wood at Monval over yonder. But come, father, do you mean to say that it's a crime if we take a little pleasure in speaking to one another when we meet?"
Rendered the more anxious by the fire with which Grégoire sought to defend the girl, Mathieu spoke out plainly.
"A crime? No, if you just wish one another good day and good evening. Only folks relate that you are to be seen at dusk with your arms round each other's waist, and that you go stargazing through the grass alongside the Yeuse."
Then, as Grégoire this time without replying laughed yet more loudly, with the merry laugh of youth, his father gravely resumed:
"Listen, my lad, it is not at all to my taste to play the gendarme behind my sons. But I won't have you drawing some unpleasant business with the Lepailleurs on us all. You know the position, they would be delighted to give us trouble. So don't give them occasion for complaining, leave their daughter alone."
"Oh! I take plenty of care," cried the young man, thus suddenly confessing the truth. "Poor girl! She has already had her ears boxed because somebody told her father that I had been met with her. He answered that rather than give her to me he would throw her into the river."
"Ah! you see," concluded Mathieu. "It is understood, is it not? I shall rely on your good behavior."
Thereupon they went their way, scouring the fields as far as the road to Mareuil. Coveys of young partridges, still weak on the wing, started up both to the right and to the left. The shooting would be good. Then as the father and the son turned homeward, slackening their pace, a long spell of silence fell between them. They were both reflecting.
"I don't wish that there should be any misunderstanding between us," Mathieu suddenly resumed; "you must not imagine that I shall prevent you from marrying according to your tastes and that I shall require you to take an heiress. Our poor Blaise married a portionless girl. And it was the same with Denis; besides which I gave your sister, Claire, in marriage to Frédéric, who was simply one of our farm hands. So I don't look down on Thérèse. On the contrary, I think her charming. She's one of the prettiest girls of the district—not tall, certainly, but so alert and determined, with her little pink face shining under such a wild crop of fair hair, that one might think her powdered with all the flour in the mill."
"Yes, isn't that so, father?" interrupted Grégoire enthusiastically. "And if you only knew how affectionate and courageous she is! She's worth a man any day. It's wrong of them to smack her, for she will never put up with it. Whenever she sets her mind on anything she's bound to do it, and it isn't I who can prevent her."
Absorbed in some reflections of his own, Mathieu scarcely heard his son.
"No, no," he resumed; "I certainly don't look down on their mill. If it were not for Lepailleur's stupid obstinacy he would be drawing a fortune from that mill nowadays. Since corn-growing has again been taken up all over the district, thanks to our victory, he might have got a good pile of crowns together if he had simply changed the old mechanism of his wheel which he leaves rotting under the moss. And better still, I should like to see a good engine there, and a bit of a light railway line connecting the mill with Janville station."
In this fashion he continued explaining his ideas while Grégoire listened, again quite lively and taking things in a jesting way.
"Well, father," the young man ended by saying, "as you wish that I should have a calling, it's settled. If I marry Thérèse, I'll be a miller."
Mathieu protested in surprise: "No, no, I was merely talking. And besides, you have promised me, my lad, that you will be reasonable. So once again, for the sake of the peace and quietness of all of us, leave Thérèse alone, for we can only expect to reap worry with the Lepailleurs."
The conversation ceased and they returned to the farm. That evening, however, the father told the mother of the young man's confession, and she, who already entertained various misgivings, felt more anxious than ever. Still a month went by without anything serious happening.
Then, one morning Marianne was astounded at finding Grégoire's bedroom empty. As a rule he came to kiss her. Perhaps he had risen early, and had gone on some excursion in the environs. But she trembled slightly when she remembered how lovingly he had twice caught her in his arms on the previous night when they were all retiring to bed. And as she looked inquisitively round the room she noticed on the mantelshelf a letter addressed to her—a prettily worded letter in which the young fellow begged her to forgive him for causing her grief, and asked her to excuse him with his father, for it was necessary that he should leave them for a time. Of his reasons for doing so and his purpose, however, no particulars were given.
This family rending, this bad conduct on the part of the son who had been the most spoilt of all, and who, in a fit of sudden folly was the first to break the ties which united the household together, was a very painful blow for Marianne and Mathieu. They were the more terrified since they divined that Grégoire had not gone off alone. They pieced together the incidents of the deplorable affair. Charlotte remembered that she had heard Grégoire go downstairs again, almost immediately after entering his bedroom, and before the servants had even bolted the house-doors for the night. He had certainly rushed off to join Thérèse in some coppice, whence they must have hurried away to Vieux-Bourg station which the last train to Paris quitted at five-and-twenty minutes past midnight. And it was indeed this which had taken place. At noon the Froments already learnt that Lepailleur was creating a terrible scandal about the flight of Thérèse. He had immediately gone to the gendarmes to shout the story to them, and demand that they should bring the guilty hussy back, chained to her accomplice, and both of them with gyves about their wrists.
He on his side had found a letter in his daughter's bedroom, a plucky letter in which she plainly said that as she had been struck again the previous day, she had had enough of it, and was going off of her own free will. Indeed, she added that she was taking Grégoire with her, and was quite big and old enough, now that she was two-and-twenty, to know what she was about. Lepailleur's fury was largely due to this letter which he did not dare to show abroad; besides which, his wife, ever at war with him respecting their son Antonin, not only roundly abused Thérèse, but sneeringly declared that it might all have been expected, and that he, the father, was the cause of the gad-about's misconduct. After that, they engaged in fisticuffs; and for a whole week the district did nothing but talk about the flight of one of the Chantebled lads with the girl of the mill, to the despair of Mathieu and Marianne, the latter of whom in particular grieved over the sorry business.
Five days later, a Sunday, matters became even worse. As the search for the runaways remained fruitless Lepailleur, boiling over with rancor, went up to the farm, and from the middle of the road—for he did not venture inside—poured forth a flood of ignoble insults. It so happened that Mathieu was absent; and Marianne had great trouble to restrain Gervais as well as Frédéric, both of whom wished to thrust the miller's scurrilous language back into his throat. When Mathieu came home in the evening he was extremely vexed to hear of what had happened.
"It is impossible for this state of things to continue," he said to his wife, as they were retiring to rest. "It looks as if we were hiding, as if we were guilty in the matter. I will go to see that man in the morning. There is only one thing, and a very simple one, to be done, those unhappy children must be married. For our part we consent, is it not so? And it is to that man's advantage to consent also. To-morrow the matter must be settled."