Truth [Vérité]

Emotion then reached a climax. On the day after the discovery of the corner of the copy-slip among Father Philibin's papers, there had come an hour of lassitude and discomfiture among the most ardent supporters of the Church. This time the battle really seemed to be lost, and Le Petit Beaumontais even printed an article in which the conduct of the reverend Jesuit was roundly blamed. But two days later the faction had recovered its self-possession, and the very same newspaper proceeded to canonise theft and falsehood. St. Philibin, hero and martyr, was portrayed amid a setting of palms, and with a halo about his head. A legend likewise arose, showing the reverend Father in a remote convent of the Apennines, surrounded by wild forests. There, wearing a hair-cloth next his skin, he prayed devoutly both by day and by night, and offered himself in sacrifice for the sins of the world. And on the back of the pious little pictures which circulated, showing him on his knees, there was a prayer by repeating which the faithful might gain indulgences.

The resounding accusation launched against Brother Gorgias fully restored to the clericals their rageful determination to attack and conquer, convinced as they were that the victory of the Jew would shake the Congregations in a terrible fashion and leave a gaping breach in the very heart of the Church. All the anti-Simonists of former days rose up again, more uncompromising than ever, eager to conquer or to die. And the old battle began afresh on every side; on one hand all the free-minded men who believed in truth and equity and looked to the future, on the other all the reactionaries, the believers in authority, who clung to the past with its God of wrath, and based salvation on priests and soldiers. The Municipal Council of Maillebois again quarrelled about schoolmaster Froment, families were rent asunder, the Brothers' pupils and Marc's stoned one another on the Place de la République after lessons. Then, too, the fine society of Beaumont was utterly upset, such was the feverish anxiety of all who had participated in any way in Simon's trial.

For one man, such as Salvan, who rejoiced with Marc at each successive interview, how many there were who no longer slept o' nights at the thought that all the iniquity which had been buried was about to be exhumed! Fresh elections were impending, and the politicians feared lest they should be unseated. Lemarrois, the Radical, the ex-Mayor of Beaumont, once the town's indispensable man, was terrified by the rise of Delbos's popularity; Marcilly, the amiable arriviste, ever anxious to be on the winning side, floundered in uncertainty, no longer knowing which party to support; the reactionary senators and deputies, headed by the fierce Hector de Sanglebœuf, resisted desperately as they saw the storm, which might sweep them away, rising all round. In the government world and the university world the anxiety was no less keen; Prefect Hennebise lamented that he could not stifle the affair; Rector Forbes, losing his depth, cast everything upon the shoulders of Academy Inspector Le Barazer, who alone remained calm and smiling amid the tempest, while Depinvilliers, the Director of the Lycée, took his daughters to Mass despairingly, even as one may throw oneself into a river, and Inspector Mauraisin, in anguish and astonishment at the turn which things were taking, wondered if the time had not come to go over to the Freemasons.[2]

But the emotion was particularly keen in the judicial world, for did not a revision of the former trial mean a new trial directed against the judges who had conducted the first proceedings? and if the papers in the case should be exhumed and examined would not terrible revelations ensue? Investigating Magistrate Daix, that unlucky honest man, who was haunted by remorse for having yielded to his wife's covetous ambition, looked livid when he repaired in silence each morning to his office at the Palace of Justice. And if Raoul de La Bissonnière, the dapper Public Prosecutor, made, on the contrary, an excessive show of good humour and ease of mind, one could divine that he did so from a torturing desire to prevent his fears from being seen. As for Presiding Judge Gragnon, who was the most compromised of all, he seemed to have aged quite suddenly; his face had become heavy, his shoulders bent beneath some invisible weight, and he dragged his big body about with shuffling steps, unless he noticed that he was being watched, when, with a suspicious glance, he made an effort to draw himself erect. Meantime the gentlemen's ladies had once more transformed their salons into hotbeds of intrigue, barter, and propaganda. And from the bourgeois to their servants, from the servants to the tradespeople, from the tradespeople to the working classes, the whole population followed on, becoming more and more crazed amid the tempest which cast men and things into general dementia.

The sudden self-effacement of Father Crabot, whose tall and elegant figure and whose handsome gowns of fine cloth were so well known at the reception hour in the Avenue des Jaffres, was much remarked. He ceased to show himself there, and a proof of excellent taste and profound piety was detected in his desire for retreat and meditation, of which his friends spoke with devout emotion. As Father Philibin also had disappeared, the only one of the superior ecclesiastics who remained in the front rank was Brother Fulgence, who somehow always contrived to act in a compromising way, bestirring himself too much, showing indeed such clumsiness at each step he took that nasty rumours began to circulate among the clericals, in accordance, no doubt, with some order from Valmarie to sacrifice the Brother.

But the hero, the extraordinary figure of the time, one that became more and more amazing every day, was Brother Gorgias, who met the accusation brought against him with prodigious audacity. On the very evening of the day when David's letter denouncing him was made public, he hastened to the office of Le Petit Beaumontais to answer it, insulting the Jews, inventing extraordinary stories, clothing true facts with falsehoods of genius, fit to disturb the soundest minds. He scoffed, too, asking if schoolmasters were in the habit of walking about with copy-slips in their pockets; and he denied everything, both paraph and stamp, explaining that Simon, who had imitated his handwriting, might very well have procured a stamp from the Brothers' school, or even have had one made. It was idiotic; but he nevertheless proclaimed this version in such a thundering voice and with such violent gestures that it was accepted, and became official truth. From that moment Le Petit Beaumontais showed no hesitation; it adopted the story of the forged stamp as it had adopted that of the forged paraph, the whole theory of abominable premeditation on the part of Simon, who, in committing his crime, had sought with infernal cunning to cast it upon a holy man, in order to soil the Church! And this imbecile invention impassioned all the folk who were brutified by centuries of Catechism and bondage. Brother Gorgias rose to be a martyr of the Faith, like Father Philibin.

He could no longer show himself without being acclaimed, women kissed the hem of his frock, children asked him to bless them, while he, impudent and triumphant, harangued the crowds, and indulged in the most extravagant mummery, like a popular idol, a mountebank before a booth, certain of applause. Yet, behind all that assurance, those who were warned, who knew the truth, detected the anxious distress of that wretched man who was forced to play a part, the folly and fragility of which he was the first to recognise. And it was evident that in him one simply had an actor on the stage, a tragic puppet whose strings were pulled by invisible hands. Though Father Crabot had hidden himself away, humbly cloistered himself in his bare, cold cell at Valmarie, his black shadow still passed across the scene, and one could divine that his were the dexterous hands which pulled the strings, pushed the puppets forward, and toiled for the triumph of the Congregations.

Amid the greatest commotion, and despite the opposition of all the coalesced reactionary forces, the Minister of Justice was obliged to lay the application for revision, drawn up by David on behalf of Madame Simon and her children, before the Court of Cassation. This was truth's first victory, and for a moment the clerical faction seemed to be overwhelmed. But on the morrow the struggle began afresh. Even the Court of Cassation was cast into the mud, insulted every morning, accused of having sold itself to the Jews. Le Petit Beaumontais enumerated the amounts which had been paid, libelled the presiding judge, the general prosecutor, and the counsellors by relating all sorts of abominable stories about their private lives, which stories were inventions from beginning to end. During the two months occupied by the preparation of the case the river of filth never ceased to flow; no manœuvre, however iniquitous, no lie, even no crime, was left untried to stay the march of inexorable justice. At last, after memorable discussions, during which several judges gave a high example of healthy common-sense and courageous equity, superior to all passion, the Court gave its decision, which, although foreseen, burst on its slanderers like a thunderclap. It retained the cause, declared that there was ground for revision, and recognised the necessity of an investigation, which it decided to conduct itself.

That evening Marc, when afternoon lessons were over, found himself alone in his little garden, in the warm twilight of springtime. Louise had not yet come in from school, for Mademoiselle Mazeline, whose favourite pupil she had become, sometimes kept her with her. As for Geneviève, ever since déjeuner, she had been absent at her grandmother's, where, indeed, she now spent nearly all her time. And, despite the fresh perfume which the lilacs shed in the warm air, Marc, as he paced the garden paths, was pursued by bitter, torturing thoughts of his devastated home. He had not given way on the subject of Confession—indeed, his daughter had lately quitted the Catechism class, the priest having refused to receive her any longer if she did not come to him by way of the Confessional. But, morning and evening alike, Marc had to contend against the attacks of his wife, who was exasperated, maddened, by the idea that Louise would be damned, and that she herself would be virtually an accomplice in it as she could not find the strength to take the girl in her arms and carry her to the tribunal of penitence. She remembered her own adorable first Communion, the loveliest day of her life, with her white gown, the incense, the candles, the gentle Jesus to whom she had so sweetly affianced herself, and who had remained her only real spouse, the spouse of a divine love, the delights of which—she vowed it—were the only ones which she would taste henceforth. But was her daughter to be robbed of such felicity, degraded, reduced to the level of the beasts of the field, which knew no religion? She could not bear such a thought, but sought every possible opportunity to wring a consent from her husband, changing the family hearth into a battlefield, where the most futile incidents gave rise to endless bickering.

The night was falling, slowly and peacefully; and Marc, on whom for the moment a feeling of great lassitude had come, felt astonished that he should be able to resist his wife with a courage which was cruel for her, himself, and their daughter. All his old spirit of tolerance came back; he had allowed his daughter to be baptised, so might he not also allow her to make her first Communion? The reasons which his wife urged, reasons to which he had long bowed—respect of individual liberty, the rights of a mother, the rights of conscience—were not without weight. In a home the mother necessarily became the educator and initiator, particularly when girls were in question. To take no account of her ideas, to oppose the desires of her mind and heart, meant surely the wrecking of the home. Nought was left of the bond of agreement which a home requires to flourish, all happiness was destroyed, the parents and their child lapsed into horrible warfare—that warfare from which Marc's own home, once so united and so sweet, now suffered. And thus, while pacing the narrow paths of his little garden, across which the shadows were spreading, Marc asked himself whether and in what manner he might give way again in order to restore a little peace and happiness.

A feeling of remorse tortured him; for was not his misfortune due to himself? His share of responsibility had become manifest to him more than once, and he had asked himself why, on the morrow of his marriage, he had not endeavoured to win Geneviève over to his own belief. At that time, amid the first revelation of love, she had indeed belonged to him, she had cast herself into his arms with all confidence, ready to mingle with him, in such wise that they might be of one flesh and one mind. He alone, at that unique hour of life, might have had the power to wrest the woman from the priest, and turn the child of the ages, bending beneath the dread of hell, into the conscious companion of his own existence, a companion whose mind would be freed, opened to truth and equity.

At the time of their earliest quarrels Geneviève herself had cried it to him: 'If you suffer because we do not think the same, it is your own fault! You should have taught me. I am such as I was made, and the misfortune is that you did not know how to make me anew!'

She had got far beyond that point now; she did not allow that he could possibly influence her, such had become the unshakable pride of her faith. Nevertheless, he bitterly recalled his lost opportunity, and deplored his egotistical adoration during the delightful springtime of their married life, when he had never ceased to admire her beauty, without a thought of diving into her conscience and enlightening her. True, he had not then imagined that he would become an artisan of truth such as he was to-day; he had accepted certain compromises, imagining that he was strong enough to remain the master. Indeed, all his present torture arose from his whilom masculine vanity, the blind weakness of his early love.

He knew that now, and as he paused before a lilac bush, whose flowers, open since the previous day, were shedding a penetrating perfume around, a sudden flame, a renewed desire to fight and conquer, arose within him. Even if he had formerly failed in his duty, was that a reason for him to fail in it now, by allowing his daughter to wreck her life in the same way as her mother had wrecked hers? Such remissness on his part would be the more unpardonable as he had taken on himself the task of saving the children of others from the falsehoods of the centuries. Perhaps it might be allowable for some obscurely situated man to put up with the doings of a bigot wife, who was intent on crazing her daughter with foolish and dangerous practices; but how could he accept such a position—he who had removed the crucifix from his classroom, he whose teaching was strictly secular, he who openly proclaimed the necessity of saving woman from the Church if one desired to build the Happy City? Would not his acceptance of such a position be the fullest possible confession of impotence? It would be the denial and the annihilation of his mission. He would lose all power, all authority to ask others to do that which he could or would not do himself in his own home. And what an example of hypocrisy and egotistical weakness would he not give to his daughter, who was acquainted with his ideas, and knew him to be opposed to Confession and Communion. Would she not wonder why he tolerated at home the actions which he condemned when their neighbours were in question? Would it not seem to her that he thought one way and acted another? Ah! no, no, tolerance had become impossible; he could no longer give way unless he desired to see his work of deliverance crumble beneath universal contempt.

Once more Marc began to walk to and fro under the paling sky, where the first stars were beginning to twinkle. One of the triumphs of the Church was that freethinking parents did not remove their children from its control, bound as they were by social usages, and fearful of scandal. There was an apprehension among them that they might fail to start their sons in life, or find husbands for their daughters, if the children did not at least pass through the formal routine of the sacraments. So who would begin, who would set the example? No doubt it would be necessary to wait a very long time for a general change, the time which science might require to destroy dogma as a matter of usage, even as it had already destroyed it as a matter of sense. Yet it was the duty of brave minds to set the first examples, examples which the Church dreaded, and which nowadays impelled it to make so many efforts to retain the support and favour of women, whom it had so long brutalised, treated as daughters of the devil, responsible for all the sins of the world.

It seemed to Marc that the Jesuits, who by a stroke of genius had resolved to adapt the Deity to the requirements of human passions, were the real artisans of the great movement which had placed women as instruments of political and social conquest in the hands of the priests. The Church had cursed human love, and now it employed it. It had treated woman as a monster of lewdness, from whom it was the duty of the Saints to flee; yet now it caressed her, loaded her with flattery, made her the ornament and mainstay of the sanctuary, having resolved to exploit her power over man.

Indeed sexuality flames among the candles of the altars, the priests nowadays accept it as a means of grace, use it as a trap in which they hope to recapture and master man. Does not all the disunion, the painful quarrel of contemporary society, spring from the divorce existing between man and woman, the former half freed, the latter still a serf, a petted, hallucinated slave of expiring Catholicism? The problem lies in that; we men should not leave the Church to profit by the mystical rapture in which it steeps our daughters and our wives, we should wrest from it the merit of the spurious deliverance it brings to them, we should deliver them really from all their fancies, and take them from the Church to ourselves, since indeed they are ours, even as we are theirs.

Marc reflected that there were three forces in presence: man, woman, and the Church, and instead of woman and the Church being arrayed against man, it was necessary that man and woman should be arrayed against the Church. Besides, were not man and wife one? Neither could act without the other, whereas united in flesh and in mind they became invincible, the very force of life, the very embodiment of happiness in the midst of conquered nature. And the one, sole, true solution suddenly became manifest to Marc: woman must be taught, enlightened, she must be set in her rightful place as our equal and our companion, for only the freed woman can free man.

At the moment when, calmed and comforted, Marc was regaining the courage he needed to continue fighting, he heard Geneviève come in, and went to join her in the classroom where a little vague light still lingered. He found her standing there, and though the birth of the child she expected was now near at hand, she carried herself so upright, in such an aggressive posture, with such brilliant eyes, that he felt a supreme storm to be imminent.

'Well, are you pleased?' she asked him curtly.

'Pleased with what, my darling?'

'Ah! you don't know then.... So I shall have the pleasure of being the first to give you the great news.... Your heroic efforts have been successful, the news has just arrived by telegraph. The Court of Cassation has decided in favour of the revision of the affair.'

Marc raised a cry of intense joy, unwilling to notice the tone of furious irony in which Geneviève had announced the triumph: 'At last! So there are some real judges after all! The innocent man will suffer no longer.... But is the news quite certain?'

'Yes, yes, quite certain, I had it from honourable people to whom it was telegraphed. Yes, the abomination is complete and you may well rejoice.'

In Geneviève's quivering bitterness there was an echo of the violent scene which, doubtless, she had just witnessed at her grandmother's house, whither some priest or monk, some friend of Father Crabot's, had hastened to impart the tidings of the catastrophe which imperilled religion.

But Marc, as if determined not to understand, opened his arms to his wife, saying: 'Thank you; I could not have had a better-loved messenger. Kiss me!'

Geneviève brushed him aside with a gesture of hatred. 'Kiss you!' she cried. 'Why? Because you have been the artisan of an infamous deed; because this criminal victory over religion rejoices you? It is your country, your family, yourself, that you cast into the mire in order to save that filthy Jew, the greatest scoundrel in all the world!'

'Do not say such things,' replied Marc in a gentle, entreating way, seeking to pacify her. 'How can you repeat such monstrous words, you who used to be so intelligent and so kind-hearted? Is it true, then, that error is so contagious that it may obscure the soundest minds? Just think a little. You know all; Simon is innocent; and to leave him still in penal servitude would be frightful iniquity—a source of social rottenness which would end by destroying the nation.'

'No, no!' she cried, with a kind of mystical exaltation; 'Simon is guilty—men of recognised holiness accused him, and accuse him still; and to regard him as innocent it would be necessary to discard all faith in religion, to believe God Himself capable of error! No, no! he must stay at the galleys, for on the day of his release nothing divine, nothing that one may revere, would be left on earth!'

Marc was becoming impatient. 'I cannot understand,' said he, 'how we can disagree on so clear a question of truth and justice. Heaven has nothing to do with this.'

'It has. There is no truth or justice outside heaven!'

'Ah! that is the gist of it all—that explains our disagreement and torture! You would still think as I do if you had not set heaven between us! And you will come back to me on the day when you consent to live on earth and show a healthy mind and a sisterly heart. There is only one truth, one justice, such as science establishes under the control of human certainty and solidarity!'

Geneviève was becoming exasperated: 'Let us come to the point once and for all,' she retorted. 'It is my religion that you wish to destroy!'

'Yes,' he cried; 'it is against your Roman Catholicism that I fight—against the imbecility of its teaching, the hypocrisy of its practices, the perversion of its worship, its deadly action on children and women, and its social injuriousness. The Roman Catholic Church—that is the enemy of whom we must first clear the path. Before the social question, before the political question, comes the religious question, which bars everything. We shall never be able to take a single forward step unless we begin by striking down that Church, which corrupts, and poisons, and murders. And, understand me fully, that is the reason why I am resolved not to allow our Louise to confess and communicate. I should feel that I was not doing my duty, that I was placing myself in contradiction with all my principles and lessons, if I were to allow such things. And on the morrow I should have to leave this school and cease to teach the children of others, for lack of having both the loyalty and the strength to guide my own child towards truth, the only real and only good truth. Thus I shall not yield on the matter; our daughter herself will come to a decision when she is twenty!'

Geneviève, now quite beside herself, was on the point of replying, when Louise came in, followed by Mademoiselle Mazeline, who, having detained her after lessons, wished to explain that she had been teaching her a difficult crochet stitch. Short and slight, possessed of no beauty, but extremely charming with her broad face, her large, loving mouth, and her fine black eyes glowing with ardent sympathy, the schoolmistress called from the threshold: 'Why, have you no light? I want to show you the clever work of a good little girl.'

But Geneviève, without listening, sternly called the child to her. 'Ah! so it's you, Louise. Come here a moment. Your father is again torturing me about you. He is now positively opposed to your making your first Communion. Well, I insist on your doing so this year. You are twelve years old, you can delay the matter no longer without causing a scandal. But before deciding on my course, I wish to know what your own views are.'

Tall as she was already, Louise looked almost a little woman, showing a very intelligent face, in which her mother's refined features seemed to mingle in an expression of quiet good sense, which she had inherited from her father. With an air of affectionate deference she answered: 'My views! Oh, mamma, I can have none. Only I thought it was all settled, as papa's only desire is that I should wait till my majority. Then I will tell you my views!'

'Is that how you answer me, unhappy child?' cried her mother, whose irritation was increasing. 'Wait! still wait! when your father's horrible lessons are evidently corrupting you, and robbing me more and more of your heart!'

At this moment Mademoiselle Mazeline made the mistake of intervening, but she did so like a good soul who was grieved by this quarrel in a home whose happiness in former days had greatly touched her. 'Oh, my dear Madame Froment!' she said, 'your Louise is very fond of you, and what she said just now was very reasonable.'

Geneviève turned violently towards the schoolmistress: 'Attend to your own affairs, mademoiselle. I won't inquire into your share in all this; but you would do well to teach your pupils to respect God and their parents!... This is not your home, remember!'

Then, as the schoolmistress withdrew, heavy at heart and saying nothing for fear lest she might embitter the quarrel, the mother again turned to the girl:

'Listen to me, Louise ... and you, Marc, listen to me also.... I have had enough of it, I swear to you that I have had enough of it, that what has occurred this evening, what has just been said, has filled the cup to overflowing.... You no longer have any love for me, you torture me in my faith, and you try to drive me from the house.'

Her daughter, full of distress and agitation, was weeping in a corner of the large, dim room, and the heart of her husband, who stood there motionless, bled as he heard those supreme, rending words. Both he and the child raised the same protest: 'Drive you from the house!'

'Yes, you do all you can to render it unbearable!... Indeed, it is impossible for me to remain longer in a spot where all is scandal, error, and impiety, where every word and every gesture wound and shock me. I have been told twenty times that it was not a fit place for me, and I will not damn myself with you, so I am going away, returning whence I came!'

She cried those last words aloud with extraordinary vehemence.

'To your grandmother's, eh?' exclaimed Marc.

'To my grandmother's, yes! That is an asylum, a refuge full of sovereign peace. They at least know how to understand and love me there! I ought never to have quitted that pious home of my youth. Good-bye! There is nothing here to detain either my body or my soul!'

She went towards the door, with a fierce, set face, but, owing to her condition, with somewhat unsteady steps. Louise was still sobbing violently. But Marc, making a last effort, resolutely strove to bar the way.

'In my turn,' he said, 'I beg you to listen to me. You wish to return whence you came, and I am not surprised at it, for I know that every effort has been made there to wrest you from me. It is a house of mourning and vengeance.... But you are not alone, remember; there is the child you bear, and you cannot take it from me in that way to hand it over to others.'

Geneviève was standing before her husband, who, on his side, leant against the door. She seemed to increase in stature, to become yet more resolute and stubborn as she cast in his face these words: 'I am going away expressly in order to take that child from you, and place it beyond the reach of your abominable influence. I will not have you make a pagan of that child and ruin it in mind and heart as you have ruined this unhappy girl here. It is my child, I suppose, and you surely don't mean to beat me under pretence of keeping it? Come, get away from that door, and let me go!'

He did not answer, he was making a superhuman effort to abstain from force, such as anger suggested. For a moment they looked at one another in the last faint gleam of the expiring light.

'Get away from that door!' she repeated harshly. Understand that I have quite made up my mind. You do not desire a scandal, do you? You would have nothing to gain by it; you would be dismissed and prevented from continuing what you call your great work—the teaching of those children, whom you have preferred to me, and whom you will turn into brigands with your fine lessons.... Yes, be prudent, take care of yourself for the sake of your school, a school of the damned, and let me return to my God, who, some day, will chastise you!'

'Ah! my poor wife,' he murmured in a faint voice, for her words had wounded him to the heart. 'Fortunately it is not you yourself who speak; it is those wretched people who are making use of you as a deadly weapon against me. I recognise their words, the hope of a drama, the desire to see me dismissed, my school closed, my work destroyed. It is still because I am a witness, a friend of Simon, whose innocence I shall soon help to establish, that they wish to strike me down, is it not? And you are right, I do not desire a scandal which would please so many people.'

'Then let me go,' she repeated stubbornly.

'Yes, by and by. Before then I wish you to know that I still love you, love you even more than ever, because you are a poor sick child, attacked by one of those contagious fevers, which it takes so much time to cure. But I do not despair, for at bottom you are a good and healthy creature, sensible and loving when you choose, and some day you will awaken from your nightmare.... Besides, we have lived together for nearly fourteen years, I made you wife and mother, and even though I neglected to re-mould you entirely, the many things which have come to you from me will continue to assert themselves.... You will come back to me, Geneviève.'

She laughed with an air of bravado. 'I do not think so,' she said.

'You will come back to me,' he repeated, in a voice instinct with conviction. 'When you know and understand the truth, the love you have borne me will do the rest; and you have a tender heart, you are not capable of long injustice.... I have never done you violence, I have constantly respected your wishes, and now, as you wish it, go to your folly, follow it till it is exhausted, as there is no other means of curing you of it.'

He drew aside from the door to make way for her, and she for a moment seemed to hesitate amid the quivering gloom which was enshrouding that dear and grief-stricken home. It had become so dark that Marc could no longer see her face, which had contracted while she listened to him. But all at once she made up her mind, exclaiming in a choking voice: 'Good-bye!'

Then Louise, lost amid the darkness, sprang forward in her turn, wishing to prevent her mother's departure: 'Oh! mamma, mamma, you cannot go away like this! We, who love you so well—we, who only want you to be happy——'

But the door had closed, and the only response was a last, distant cry, half stifled by a sound of rapid footsteps: 'Good-bye! good-bye!'

Then, sobbing and staggering, Louise fell into her father's arms; and, sinking together upon one of the forms of the classroom, they long remained there, weeping together. Night had completely fallen now, nothing but the faint sound of their sobs was to be heard in the large dark room. The deep silence of abandonment and mourning filled the empty house. The wife, the mother, had gone, stolen from the husband and the child, in order that they might be tortured, cast into despair. Before Marc's tearful eyes there rose the whole machination, the hypocritical, underhand efforts of years, which now wrenched from him the wife whom he adored, in order to weaken him and goad him into some sudden rebellion which would sweep both his work and himself away. His heart bled, but he had found the strength to accept his torture, and none would ever know his distress, for none could see him sobbing with his daughter in the darkness of his deserted home, like a poor man who had nought left him save that child, and who was seized with terror at the thought that she likewise might be wrested from him, some day.

A little later that same evening, as Marc had to conduct a course of evening lessons for adults, the four gas jets of the classroom were lighted, and students flocked in. Several of his former pupils, artisans and young men of modest commercial pursuits, assiduously followed these courses of history, geography, physical and natural science. And for an hour and a half Marc, installed at his desk, spoke on very clearly, contending with error and conveying a little truth to the minds of the humble. But all the time frightful grief was consuming him, his home was pillaged, destroyed, his love bewailed the lost wife whom he would find no longer overhead, in the room once warm with tender love, and now so cold.

Nevertheless, like the obscure hero he was, he bravely pursued his work.

BOOK III

I

Directly the Court of Cassation started on its inquiry, David and Marc, meeting one evening in the Lehmanns' dark little shop, decided that it would be best to abstain from all agitation, and remain in the background. Now that the idea of a revision of the case was accepted, the family's great joy and hope had restored its courage. If the inquiry should be loyally conducted by the Court, Simon's innocence would surely be recognised, and acquittal would become certain. So it would suffice to remain wakeful and watchful of the march of the affair, without exhibiting any doubt of the conscientiousness and equity of the highest judges in the land.

There was only one thing which prevented the joy of those poor people from becoming perfect. The news of Simon's health was still far from good; and might he not succumb over yonder before the triumph? The Court had declared that there were no grounds for bringing him back to France before its final judgment, and it seemed likely that the inquiry might last several months. In spite of all this, however, David remained full of superb confidence, relying on the wonderful strength of resistance which his brother had hitherto displayed. He knew him, and he tranquillised the others, even made them laugh, by telling stories of Simon's youth, anecdotes which showed him retiring within himself with singular force of will, thoughtful both of his dignity and of the happiness of those near to him. So the interview between Marc, David, and the Lehmanns ended, and they separated, resolved to show neither anxiety nor impatience, but to behave as if the victory were already won.

From that time, then, Marc shut himself up in his school, attending to his pupils from morn till night, giving himself to them with an abnegation, a devotion, which seemed to increase in the midst of obstacles and suffering. While he was busy with them in the classroom, while he acted as their big brother, striving to apportion the bread of knowledge among them, he forgot some of his torture, he suffered less from the ever-bleeding wound in his heart. But in the evenings, when he found himself alone in the home whence love had fled, he relapsed into frightful despair, and wondered how it would be possible for him to continue living in dark and chilly widowerhood. Some little relief came to him on the return of Louise from Mademoiselle Mazeline's; and yet, when the lamp had been lighted for the evening meal, what long spells of silence fell between the father and the daughter, each plunged into inconsolable wretchedness by the departure of the wife, the mother, whose desertion haunted them! They tried to escape from their pursuing thoughts by talking of the petty incidents of the day. But everything brought them back to her; they ended by talking of her alone, drawing their chairs together, and taking each other's hands, as if to warm each other in their solitude. And all their evenings ended in that fashion, the daughter seated on her father's lap with one arm around his neck, and both sobbing and quivering beside the smoky lamp. The home was dead; the absent one had carried away its life, its warmth, its light.

Yet Marc did nothing to compel Geneviève to return to him. Indeed, he did not wish to be indebted in any way to such rights as it might be possible for him to enforce. The idea of a scandal, a public dispute, was odious to him; and not only had he resolved that he would not fall into the trap set by those who had induced Geneviève to forsake him, relying in this connection on some conjugal drama which would bring about his revocation, but he also set all his hope in the sole force of love. Geneviève would surely reflect and return home. In particular, it seemed impossible that she would keep her expected child for herself alone. As soon as possible after its birth she would bring it to him, since it belonged to both of them. Even if the Church had succeeded in perverting her as a loving woman, surely it would be unable to kill her motherly feelings. And as a mother she would come back, and remain with the child. The latter's birth was near at hand, so there would not be more than a month to wait.

By degrees, after hoping for this dénouement, by way of consoling himself, Marc began to regard it as a certainty. And, like a good fellow, who did not wish to part mother and daughter, he sent Louise to spend Thursday and Sunday afternoons with Geneviève at Madame Duparque's, although that dark, dank, pious house had already brought him so much suffering. Perhaps he unknowingly found some last, melancholy satisfaction in this indirect intercourse, as well as a means of maintaining a tie between himself and the absent one. Whenever Louise came home after spending several hours with her mother, she brought a little of Geneviève with her; and on those evenings her father kept her longer than usual on his knees, and questioned her eagerly, longing for tidings, even though they might make him suffer.

'How did you find her to-day, my dear?' he would ask. 'Does she laugh a little? Does she seem pleased? Did she play with you?'

'No, no, father.... You know very well that she has long ceased to play. But she still had a little gaiety when she was here, and now she looks sad and ill.'

'Ill!'

'Oh! not ill enough to remain in bed. On the contrary, she cannot keep from moving about, and her hands are burning hot, as if she had the fever.'

'And what did you do, my dear?'

'We went to Vespers, as we do every Sunday. Then we returned to grandmamma's for some refreshment. There was a monk there, whom I did not know, some missionary, who told us stories of savages.'

Then Marc remained silent for a moment, full of great bitterness of spirit, but unwilling to judge the mother in the daughter's presence, or to give the latter an order to disobey her by refusing to accompany her to church. At last he resumed gently: 'And did she speak to you of me, my dear?'

'No, no, father.... Nobody there speaks to me of you, and as you told me never to speak first about you, it is just as if you did not exist.'

'All the same, grandmother is not angry with you?'

'Grandmamma Duparque hardly looks at me, and I prefer that; for she has such eyes that she frightens me when she scolds.... But Grandmamma Berthereau is very kind, especially when there is nobody there to see her. She gives me sweets, and takes me in her arms and kisses me ever so much.'

'Grandmamma Berthereau!'

'Why, yes. One day even she told me that I ought to love you very much. She is the only one who has ever spoken to me of you.'

Marc again relapsed into silence, for he did not wish his daughter to be initiated too soon into the wretchedness of life. He had always suspected that the doleful, silent Madame Berthereau, once so well loved by her husband, now led a life of agony beneath the bigoted rule of her mother, that harsh Madame Duparque. And he felt that he might possibly have an ally in the younger woman, though, unfortunately, one whose spirit was so broken that she might never find the courage to speak or act.

'You must be very affectionate with Grandmamma Berthereau,' said Marc to Louise, by way of conclusion. 'Though she may not say it, I think she is grieved as we are.... And mind you kiss your mother for both of us, she will feel that I have joined in your caress.'

'Yes, father.'

Thus did the long evening pass away, bitter but quiet, in the wrecked home. Whenever, on a Sunday, the daughter returned with some bad tidings—speaking, for instance, of a sick headache or some affection of the nerves from which the mother now suffered—the father remained full of anxiety until the ensuing Thursday. That nervous affection did not surprise him, he trembled lest his poor wife should be consumed in the perverse and imbecile flames of mysticism. But if on the following Thursday his daughter told him that mamma had smiled, and inquired about the little cat she had left at home, he revived to hope, and laughed with satisfaction and relief. Then, once again, he composed himself to await the return of the dear absent one, who would surely come back with her new-born babe at her breast.

Since Geneviève's departure Mademoiselle Mazeline, by the force of things, had become a confidente, an intimate for Marc and Louise. She brought the child home almost every evening, after lessons, and rendered little services in that disorganised home where there was no longer any housewife. The dwellings of the schoolmaster and the schoolmistress almost touched one another; there was only a little yard to be crossed, while in the rear a gate facilitated communication between the two gardens. Thus the intercourse became closer, particularly as Marc felt great sympathy for Mademoiselle Mazeline, whom he regarded as a most courageous and excellent woman. He had learnt to esteem her at Jonville in former times on finding that she was quite free from superstition, and strove to endow her pupils with solid minds and loving hearts. And now at Maillebois he felt intense friendship for her, so well did she realise his ideal of the educating, initiating woman, the only one capable of liberating future society. Marc was now thoroughly convinced that no serious progress would ever be effected if woman did not accompany man, and even precede him, on the road to the Happy City. And how comforting it was to meet at least one of those pioneers, one who was both very intelligent and very kind-hearted, all simplicity too, accomplishing her work of salvation as if it were one of the natural functions of her being! Thus Mademoiselle Mazeline became for Marc, amid his torture, a friend prized for her serenity and gaiety, one who imparted consolation and hope.

He was profoundly touched by the schoolmistress's sympathy and obligingness. She frequently spoke of Geneviève with anxious affection, devising excuses for her, explaining her case like a sensible woman who regarded lack of sense in others with sympathetic compassion. And she particularly begged of Marc that he would not be violent, that he would not behave like an egotistical and jealous master, one of those for whom a wife is a slave, a thing handed over to them by the laws. Without doubt Mademoiselle Mazeline had much to do with the prudence which Marc evinced in striving to remain patient and relying on sense and love to convince Geneviève and bring her back to him. Finally, the schoolmistress endeavoured with so much delicacy to replace the absent mother with Louise that she became, as it were, the light of that mournful home, where father and daughter shivered at the thought of their abandonment.

During those first fine days of the year Mademoiselle Mazeline frequently found herself of an evening with Marc and Louise in their little garden behind the school. The schoolmistress had merely to open the gate of communication, whose bolts were drawn back on either side, and neighbourly intercourse followed. Indeed she somewhat neglected her own garden for the schoolmaster's, where a table and a few chairs were set out under some lilac bushes. They jestingly called this spot 'the wood,' as if they had sought shelter under some large oaks on a patch of forest land. Then the scanty lawn was likened to a great meadow, the two flower borders became royal parterres; and after the day's hard work it was pleasant indeed to chat there, amid the quietude of twilight.

One evening, Louise, who had been reflecting with all a big girl's gravity, suddenly inquired: 'Mademoiselle, why have you never married?'

At this the schoolmistress laughed good naturedly. 'Oh, my darling, have you never looked at me!' she answered. 'A husband is not easily found when one has such a big nose as mine, and no figure.'

The girl looked at her mistress with astonishment, for never had she thought her ugly. True enough, Mademoiselle Mazeline did not possess a fine figure, and her nose was too large, her face a broad one, with a bumpy forehead and projecting cheek bones. But her admirable eyes smiled so tenderly that her whole countenance became resplendent with charm.

'You are very pretty,' declared Louise in a tone of conviction. 'If I were a man I should like to marry you.'

Marc felt very much amused, while Mademoiselle Mazeline gave signs of restrained emotion, tinged somewhat with melancholy. 'It would seem that the men haven't the same taste as you, my dear,' said she, as she recovered her quiet gaiety. 'When I was between twenty and twenty-five I would willingly have married, but I met nobody who wished for me. And I should not think of marrying now, when I am six and thirty.'

'Why not?' Marc inquired.

'Oh! because the time has passed.... An humble elementary teacher, born of poor parents, hardly tempts the marrying men. Where can one be found willing to burden himself with a wife who earns little, who is tied to heavy duties, and compelled to live in the depths of some out of the way region? If she is not lucky enough to marry a schoolmaster, and share her poverty with his, she inevitably becomes an old maid.... I long since gave up all idea of marriage, and I am happy all the same.'

But she quickly added: 'Of course marriage is necessary; a woman ought to marry, for she does not live, she does not fulfil her natural destiny, unless she becomes wife and mother. No real health or happiness exists for any human creature apart from his or her complete florescence. And in teaching my girls I never forget that they are destined to have husbands and children some day.... Only, when one is forgotten, sacrificed as it were, one has to arrange for oneself some little corner of content. Thus, I have cut out for myself my share of work, and I don't complain so much, for, in spite of everything, I have succeeded in becoming a mother. All the children of others, all the dear little girls with whom I busy myself from morning till evening, belong to me. I am not alone, I have a very large family.'

She laughed as she thus referred to her admirable devotion in the simple way of one who seemed to feel that she was under obligations to all the pupils who consented to become the children of her mind and heart.

'Yes,' said Marc by way of conclusion, 'when life shows itself harsh to any of us the disinherited one must behave kindly to life. That is the only way to prevent misfortune.'

On most occasions when Marc and Mademoiselle Mazeline met in the little garden, over which the twilight stole, their talk was of Geneviève. This was particularly the case on those evenings when Louise, after spending the afternoon at Madame Duparque's, returned with news of her mother. One day she came back in a state of much emotion, for her mother, whom she had accompanied to the Capuchin Chapel to witness some great ceremony in honour of St. Antony of Padua, had fainted away there, and had been carried to Madame Duparque's in a disquieting condition.

'They will end by killing her!' cried Marc despairingly.

But Mademoiselle Mazeline, wishing to comfort him, evinced stubborn optimism.

'No, no, when all is said your Geneviève has only an ailing mind, she is physically healthy and strong. Some day, you'll see, my friend, her intelligence, helped by her heart, will win the victory.... And what could you expect? She is paying for her mystical education and training in one of those convents whence, as long as they remain unclosed, the evils which assail women, and the disasters of married life, will always come. You must forgive her, she is not the real culprit. She suffers from the long heredity bequeathed to her by her forerunners, possessed, terrorised, and stupefied by the Church.'

Overcome by sadness, Marc, though his daughter was present, could not restrain a low plaint, a spontaneous avowal: 'Ah, for her sake and mine it would have been better if we had never married! She could not become my helpmate, my other self!'

'But whom would you have married, then?' the schoolmistress inquired. 'Where would you have found a girl of the middle class who had not been brought up under Catholic rule, possessed with error and falsehoods? The wife you needed, my poor friend, with your free mind—an artisan of the future as you are—still remains to be created. Perhaps just a few specimens exist, but even they are tainted by atavism and faulty education.'

Then, with a laugh, she added in her gentle yet resolute way: 'But you know that I am trying to form such companions as may be needed by the men who have freed themselves from dogmas, and who thirst for truth and equity. Yes, I am trying to provide wives for the young fellows whom you, on your side, are training.... As for yourself, my friend, you were merely born too soon.'

Thus conversing, the schoolmaster and the schoolmistress, those humble pioneers of the future social system, forgot in some measure the presence of the big girl of thirteen who listened to them in silence, but with her ears wide open. Marc had discreetly refrained from giving any direct lessons to his daughter. He contented himself with setting her an example, and she loved him dearly because he showed so much goodness of heart, sincerity, and equity. The mind of that big girl was slowly awakening to reason, but she did not dare to intervene as yet in the conversation of her father and mademoiselle; though assuredly she derived profit from it, even if, like other children, when their elders forget themselves so far as to speak before them of things regarded as being above their intelligence, she appeared neither to hear nor to understand. With her glance wandering away into the falling night, her lips scarcely stirred by a faint quiver, she was always learning, classifying in her little head all the ideas that emanated from those two persons whom, with her mother, were the ones she loved best in the world. And one day, after a conversation of the kind, a remark, which escaped her as she emerged from one of her deep reveries, showed that she had perfectly understood.

'When I marry,' said she, 'I shall want a husband whose ideas are like papa's, so that we may discuss things and come to an agreement. And if we both think alike, it will all go well.'

This manner of resolving the problem greatly amused Mademoiselle Mazeline. Marc on his side was moved, for he felt that some of his own passion for truth, his clear firm mind, was appearing in his daughter. Doubtless, while a child's brain is yet dimly developing, it is difficult to foretell what will be the woman's mature intellect. Yet Marc thought he had grounds for believing that Louise would prove sensible and healthy, free from many errors. And this probability was very sweet to him, as if indeed he awaited from his daughter the help, the loving mediation, which by bringing the absent one back to the home would re-establish all the ties so tragically severed.

However, the news which Louise brought from the Place des Capucins grew worse and worse. As the time for her child's birth drew near, Geneviève became more and more gloomy, more and more capricious and bad tempered, in such wise that at times she even rejected her daughter's caresses. She had had several more fainting fits, and was giving way, it seemed, to increasing religious exaltation, after the fashion of those patients who, disappointed by the inefficacy of certain drugs, double and double the dose until at last they poison themselves. Thus, one delightful evening, while Mademoiselle Mazeline sat with the others in the flowery garden, the news which Louise communicated rendered the schoolmistress so anxious that she made a proposal to Marc.

'Shall I go to see your wife, my friend?' she asked. 'She showed some affection for me in former times, and perhaps she might listen to me if I were to talk sense to her.'

'But what would you say to her?' Marc replied.

'Why, that her place is beside you, that she still loves you though she knows it not; that her sufferings are all due to a frightful misunderstanding; and that she will only be cured when she returns to you with that dear child, the thought of whom is stifling her like remorse.'

Tears had risen to the eyes of Marc, who felt quite upset by the schoolmistress's words. But Louise quickly intervened: 'Oh, no, mademoiselle,' she said, 'don't go to see mamma; I advise you not to.'

'Why not, my darling?'

The girl blushed, and became greatly embarrassed. She knew not how to explain in what contemptuous and hateful terms the schoolmistress was spoken of at the little house on the Place des Capucins. But Mademoiselle Mazeline understood, and, like a woman accustomed to misrepresentation, she gently asked: 'Does your mamma no longer like me, then? Do you fear she might receive me badly?'

'Oh! mamma does not say much,' Louise ended by confessing; 'it is the others.'

Then Marc, overcoming his emotion, resumed, 'The child is right, my friend. Your visit might become painful, and it would probably have no effect. None the less, I thank you for your kindness; I know how warm your heart is.'

A long spell of silence ensued. The sky overhead was beautifully clear, and quietude descended from the vast vault of azure, where the sun was expiring in a roseate flush. A few carnations, a few wallflowers, in the little garden borders perfumed the mild air. And nothing more was said that evening by Marc and his friend as they lingered, steeped in melancholy, amid the delightful close of a fine day.

The inevitable had duly come to pass. A week had not elapsed after Geneviève's departure from her home before all Maillebois was talking of a scandalous intrigue carried on publicly by the schoolmaster and the schoolmistress. In the daytime, it was said, they constantly left their classrooms to join one another, and they spent their evenings together in the garden of the boys' school, where they could be plainly distinguished from certain neighbouring windows. And the abominable thing was the constant presence of little Louise, who mingled with it all. The vilest reports speedily began to circulate. Passers-by pretended that they had heard Marc and Mademoiselle Mazeline singing, and laughing over, filthy songs. Then a legend sprang up, it being plainly established that if Geneviève had quitted her home it was in a spirit of legitimate revolt and disgust, and in order to avoid association with that other woman, that godless creature who depraved the little girls confided to her care. Thus there was not merely a question of restoring Louise to her mother; in order to save the children of Maillebois from perdition, the schoolmaster and the schoolmistress must be stoned and driven away.

Some of these rumours reached Marc's ears; but he, realising by their imbecile violence whence they emanated, merely shrugged his shoulders. As the Congregations had not managed to secure a scandal in connection with Geneviève's departure, they were resuming their underhand work of slander, striving to embitter the new state of things. They had failed to bring about Marc's revocation by taking his wife from him, but perhaps they might succeed by accusing him of keeping a mistress. Moreover, this would cast a slur on the secular schools, and was dirty work well suited to clerics who do not shrink from any lies to ensure the triumph of religion. Since the revival of the Simon case, Father Crabot, no doubt, had been leading a cloistered life, and, besides, he seemed to occupy too high a position to stoop to such abominable inventions; but all the cassocks and frocks of Maillebois were astir, Brothers and Capuchins ever winging their flight, like a covey of black gowns, over the road to Valmarie. They returned, looking very busy; and then, in all the confessional boxes of the region, in quiet corners of the chapels, and in the parlours of the convents, came endless whispering with excited female devotees, who grew terribly indignant at all the horrors they heard. Thence those horrors spread in undertones and hints to families, tradespeople, and dependents. Yet if Marc felt angry, it was only at the thought that ignoble tales were surely being whispered to Geneviève herself, in order to make their separation irrevocable.

A month elapsed, and it seemed to Marc that the birth of the expected child must be imminent. After counting the days with feverish longing he felt astonished at receiving no news, when one Thursday morning Pélagie presented herself at the school and drily requested that Mademoiselle Louise might not be sent to see her mamma that afternoon. Then, as Marc, recognising her voice, hastened to the door and demanded an explanation, the servant ended by informing him that Madame's accouchement had taken place on the Monday evening, and that she was not at all in a favourable state of health. That said, Pélagie took to her heels, feeling worried that she had spoken, for she had been told to say nothing. Marc, on his side, remained confounded. What! his wife's relations acted as if he did not exist. A child was born to him, and nobody informed him of it! And such rebellion, such a need of protest, arose within him that he at once put on his hat and repaired to the ladies' house.

When Pélagie opened the door she almost choked, thunderstruck, as she was, by his audacity. But with a wave of the arm he brushed her aside, and without a word walked into the little drawing-room where, according to their wont, Madame Duparque was knitting beside the window, while Madame Berthereau, seated a little in the rear, slowly continued some embroidery. The little room, which smelt as usual of dampness and mouldiness, seemed to be slumbering amid the deep silence and the dismal light coming from the square.

But the grandmother, amazed and indignant at the sight of Marc, sprang abruptly to her feet: 'What! you take such a liberty as this, sir! What do you want? Why have you come here?' she cried.

The incredible violence of this greeting, when Marc himself was swayed by such legitimate anger, restored his calmness.

'I have come to see my child,' he answered; 'why was I not warned?'

The old lady, who had remained rigidly erect, seemed to understand on her side also that passion might place her in a position of inferiority.

'I had no reason to warn you,' she replied; 'I was waiting for Geneviève to request me to do so.'

'And she did not ask you?'

'No.'

All at once Marc fancied that he understood the position. In the person of his wife the Church had not only striven to kill the loving woman, it had wished to kill the mother also. If Geneviève, on the eve of her delivery, had not returned to him in accordance with his hopes, if she had hidden herself away as if she were ashamed, the reason must be that her child had been imputed to her as a crime. In order to keep her in that house they must have filled her mind with fear and horror, as if she were guilty of some sin, for which she would never obtain absolution unless she severed every tie that had united her to Satan.

'Is the baby a boy?' Marc asked.

'Yes, a boy.'

'Where is he? I wish to see and kiss him.'

'He is no longer here.'

'No longer here!'

'No, he was baptised yesterday under the name of the blessed Saint Clément, and has gone away to be nursed.'

'But that is a crime!' Marc cried, with a pang of grief. 'It is not right to baptise a child without its father's consent, or to send it away, abduct it in that fashion! What! Geneviève, Geneviève, who nursed Louise with such motherly delight, is not to nurse her little Clément!'

Madame Duparque, still fully retaining her composure, gave a little grunt of satisfaction, pleased as she was in her rancour to see him suffer. 'A Catholic mother,' she answered, 'always has the right to have her child baptised, particularly when she has reason to suspect that its salvation may be imperilled by its father's atheism. And as for keeping the child here, there could be no thought of such a thing; it would have done neither the child itself, nor anybody, any good.'

Things were indeed such as Marc had fancied. The child had been regarded as the progeny of the devil, its birth had been awaited like that of Antichrist, and it had been necessary to baptise it, and send it away with all speed in order to avert the greatest misfortunes. Later, it might be taken back, an attempt might be made to consecrate it to the Deity and make a priest of it, in order to appease the divine anger. In this wise the pious little home of the Place des Capucins would not undergo the shame of sheltering that child, its father would not soil the house by coming to kiss it, and as it would not be constantly before its mother's eyes the latter would be delivered from remorseful thoughts.

Marc, however, having by an effort calmed himself, exclaimed firmly: 'I wish to see Geneviève.'

With equal decision Madame Duparque replied: 'You cannot see her.'

'I wish to see Geneviève,' he repeated. 'Where is she? Upstairs in her old room? I shall know how to find her.'

He was already walking towards the door when the grandmother barred his passage. 'You cannot see her, it is impossible,' said she. 'You do not wish to kill her, do you? The sight of you would give her the most terrible shock. She nearly died during her accouchement. For two days past she has been pale as death, unable to speak. At the least feverishness she loses her senses, the child had to be taken away without letting her see it. Ah! you may be proud of your work; Heaven chastises all whom you have contaminated!'

Then Marc, no longer restraining himself, relieved his heart in low and quivering words: 'You evil woman! you have grown old in practising the dark cruelty of your Deity, and now you seek to annihilate your posterity.... You will pursue the work of withering your race as long as it retains in its flesh one drop of blood, one spark of human kindness. Ever since her widowhood you have banished your daughter here from life and its sweetness, you have deprived her of even the strength to speak and complain. And if your granddaughter is dying upstairs, as the result of having been wrenched from her husband and her child, it is also because you agreed to it, for you alone served as the instrument of the abominable authors of this crime.... Ah! yes, my poor, my adored Geneviève, how many lies, how many frightful impostures were needed to take her from me! And here she has been so stupefied, so perverted by black bigotry and senseless practices that she is no longer woman, nor wife, nor mother. Her husband is the devil, whom she may never see again lest she should fall into hell; her babe is the offspring of sin, and she would be in peril of damnation should she give it her breast.... Well, listen, such crimes will not be carried out to the very end. Life always regains the upper hand, it drives away the darkness and its delirious nightmares at each fresh dawn. You will be vanquished, I am convinced of it, and I even feel less horror than pity for you, wretched old woman that you are, without either mind or heart!'

Madame Duparque had listened, preserving her usual expression of haughty severity, and not even attempting to interrupt. 'Is that all!' she now inquired. 'I am aware that you have no feelings of respect. As you deny God, how could one expect you to show any deference for a grandmother's white hair? Nevertheless, in order to show you how mistaken you are in accusing me of cloistering Geneviève, I will let you pass.... Go upstairs to her, kill her at your ease, you alone will be responsible for the fearful agony into which the sight of you will cast her.'

As she finished the old lady moved away from the door, and, returning to her seat near the window, resumed her knitting without the slightest sign of emotion, such as might have made another's hands tremble.

Marc on his side for a moment remained motionless, bewildered, at a loss what to do. Was it possible for him to see Geneviève, talk to her, strive to convince her and win her back at such a time as this? He realised how inopportune, how perilous even, such an effort would be. So without a word of adieu he slowly went towards the door. But a sudden thought made him turn.

'Since the child is no longer here, give me the address of the nurse,' he said.

Madame Duparque returned no answer, but continued to manipulate her knitting needles with her long, withered fingers in the same regular fashion as before.

'You won't give me the nurse's address?' Marc repeated.

There came a fresh pause, and at last the old woman ended by saying: 'It is not my business to give it you. Go and ask Geneviève for it, since your idea is to kill the poor child.'

Fury then overcame Marc. He sprang to the window and shouted in the grandmother's impassive face: 'You must give me the nurse's address this moment, at once!'

She, however, was still silently braving him with her clear eyes fixed upon his face when Madame Berthereau, now utterly distracted, intervened. At the outset of the dispute she had stubbornly kept her head bent over her embroidery, like one who was resigned to everything, who had become cowardly, and wished to avoid compromising herself for fear of great personal worries. But when Marc, while reproaching Madame Duparque with her harsh and fanatical tyranny, had alluded to all that she herself had suffered since her widowhood in that bigoted home, she had yielded to increasing emotion, to the tears which, long forced back, again rose from her heart and almost choked her. She forgot some of her silent timidity; after long years she raised her head once more, and became impassioned. And when she heard her mother refuse to give that poor, robbed, tortured man the address of his child's nurse, she at last rebelled, and cried the address aloud:

'The nurse is a Madame Delorme, at Dherbecourt, near Valmarie!'

At this, suddenly roused from her rigidity, Madame Duparque sprang to her feet with the nimbleness of a young woman, waving her arm the while as if to strike down the audacious creature whom she still treated as a child, though she was more than fifty years old.

'Who allowed you to speak, my girl? Are you going to relapse into your past weakness?' she cried. 'Are years of penitence powerless to efface the fault of a wicked marriage? Take care! Sin is still within you, I feel it is so, in spite of all your apparent resignation. Why did you speak without my orders?'

For a moment Madame Berthereau, who still quivered with love and pity, was able to resist. 'I spoke,' said she, 'because my heart bleeds and protests. We have no right to refuse Marc the nurse's address.... Yes, yes, what we have done is abominable!'

'Be quiet!' cried her mother furiously.

'I say that it was abominable to separate the wife from the husband, and then to separate the child from both.... Never would Berthereau, my poor dead husband, who loved me so much, never would he have allowed love to be slain like that, had he been alive.'

'Be quiet! Be quiet!'

Erect, looking taller than ever in the vigorous leanness of her three and seventy years, the old woman repeated that cry in such an imperious voice that her white-haired daughter, seized with terror, surrendered, and again bent her head over her embroidery. And heavy silence fell while she shook with a slight convulsive tremor, and tears coursed slowly down her withered cheeks, which so many other tears, shed secretly, had ravaged.

Marc had been thunderstruck by the sudden outburst of that poignant family drama, the existence of which he hitherto had merely suspected. He felt intense sympathy for that sad widow who, for more than ten years past, had been hebetated, crushed down by maternal despotism, exercised in the name of a jealous and revengeful God. And if the poor woman had not defended his Geneviève, if she had abandoned her and him to the dark fury of the terrible grandmother, he forgave her for her shuddering cowardice on seeing how greatly she suffered herself.

But Madame Duparque had again recovered her quiet composure. 'You see, sir,' she said, 'your presence here brings scandal and violence. Everything you touch becomes corrupt, your breath suffices to taint the atmosphere of the spot where you are. Here is my daughter, who had never ventured to raise her voice against me, but as soon as you enter the house she lapses into disobedience and insult.... Go, sir, go to your dirty work! Leave honest folk alone, and work for your filthy Jew, though he will end by rotting where he is, it is I who predict it, for God will never suffer his venerable servants to be defeated.'