Fruitfulness: Chapter 14

Chapter 14

XIV

TWO more years went by, and during those two years yet another child,
this time a boy, was born to Mathieu and Marianne. And on this occasion,
at the same time as the family increased, the estate of Chantebled was
increased also by all the heatherland extending to the east as far as the
village of Vieux-Bourg. And this time the last lot was purchased, the
conquest of the estate was complete. The 1250 acres of uncultivated soil
which Seguin's father, the old army contractor, had formerly purchased in
view of erecting a palatial residence there were now, thanks to
unremitting effort, becoming fruitful from end to end. The enclosure
belonging to the Lepailleurs, who stubbornly refused to sell it, alone
set a strip of dry, stony, desolate land amid the broad green plain. And
it was all life's resistless conquest; it was fruitfulness spreading in
the sunlight; it was labor ever incessantly pursuing its work of creation
amid obstacles and suffering, making good all losses, and at each
succeeding hour setting more energy, more health, and more joy in the
veins of the world.

Blaise, now the father of a little girl some ten months old, had been
residing at the Beauchene works since the previous winter. He occupied
the little pavilion where his mother had long previously given birth to
his brother Gervais. His wife Charlotte had conquered the Beauchenes by
her fair grace, her charming, bouquet-like freshness, to such a point,
indeed, that even Constance had desired to have her near her. The truth
was that Madame Desvignes had made adorable creatures of her two
daughters, Charlotte and Marthe. At the death of her husband, a
stockbroker's confidential clerk, who had died, leaving her at thirty
years of age in very indifferent circumstances, she had gathered her
scanty means together and withdrawn to Janville, her native place, where
she had entirely devoted herself to her daughters' education. Knowing
that they would be almost portionless, she had brought them up extremely
well, in the hope that this might help to find them husbands, and it so
chanced that she proved successful.

Affectionate intercourse sprang up between her and the Froments; the
children played together; and it was, indeed, from those first games that
came the love-romance which was to end in the marriage of Blaise and
Charlotte. By the time the latter reached her eighteenth birthday and
married, Marthe her sister, then fourteen years old, had become the
inseparable companion of Rose Froment, who was of the same age and as
pretty as herself, though dark instead of fair. Charlotte, who had a more
delicate, and perhaps a weaker, nature than her gay, sensible sister, had
become passionately fond of drawing and painting, which she had learnt at
first simply by way of accomplishment. She had ended, however, by
painting miniatures very prettily, and, as her mother remarked, her
proficiency might prove a resource to her in the event of misfortune.
Certainly there was some of the bourgeois respect and esteem for a good
education in the fairly cordial greeting which Constance extended to
Charlotte, who had painted a miniature portrait of her, a good though a
flattering likeness.

On the other hand, Blaise, who was endowed with the creative fire of the
Froments, ever striving, ever hard at work, became a valuable assistant
to Maurice as soon as a brief stay in Morange's office had made him
familiar with the business of the firm. Indeed it was Maurice who,
finding that his father seconded him less and less, had insisted on
Blaise and Charlotte installing themselves in the little pavilion, in
order that the former's services might at all times be available. And
Constance, ever on her knees before her son, could in this matter only
obey respectfully. She evinced boundless faith in the vastness of
Maurice's intellect. His studies had proved fairly satisfactory; if he
was somewhat slow and heavy, and had frequently been delayed by youthful
illnesses, he had, nevertheless, diligently plodded on. As he was far
from talkative, his mother gave out that he was a reflective,
concentrated genius, who would astonish the world by actions, not by
speech. Before he was even fifteen she said of him, in her adoring way:
"Oh! he has a great mind." And, naturally enough, she only acknowledged
Blaise to be a necessary lieutenant, a humble assistant, one whose hand
would execute the sapient young master's orders. The latter, to her
thinking, was now so strong and so handsome, and he was so quickly
reviving the business compromised by the father's slow collapse, that
surely he must be on the high-road to prodigious wealth, to that final
great triumph, indeed, of which she had been dreaming so proudly, so
egotistically, for so many years.

But all at once the thunderbolt fell. It was not without some hesitation
that Blaise had agreed to make the little pavilion his home, for he knew
that there was an idea of reducing him to the status of a mere piece of
machinery. But at the birth of his little girl he bravely decided to
accept the proposal, and to engage in the battle of life even as his
father had engaged in it, mindful of the fact that he also might in time
have a large family. But it so happened that one morning, when he went up
to the house to ask Maurice for some instructions, he heard from
Constance herself that the young man had spent a very bad night, and that
she had therefore prevailed on him to remain in bed. She did not evince
any great anxiety on the subject; the indisposition could only be due to
a little fatigue. Indeed, for a week past the two cousins had been tiring
themselves out over the delivery of a very important order, which had set
the entire works in motion. Besides, on the previous day Maurice,
bareheaded and in perspiration, had imprudently lingered in a draught in
one of the sheds while a machine was being tested.

That evening he was seized with intense fever, and Boutan was hastily
summoned. On the morrow, alarmed, though he scarcely dared to say it, by
the lightning-like progress of the illness, the doctor insisted on a
consultation, and two of his colleagues being summoned, they soon agreed
together. The malady was an extremely infectious form of galloping
consumption, the more violent since it had found in the patient a field
where there was little to resist its onslaught. Beauchene was away from
home, travelling as usual. Constance, for her part, in spite of the grave
mien of the doctors, who could not bring themselves to tell her the
brutal truth, remained, in spite of growing anxiety, full of a stubborn
hope that her son, the hero, the demi-god necessary for her own life,
could not be seriously ill and likely to die. But only three days
elapsed, and during the very night that Beauchene returned home, summoned
by a telegram, the young fellow expired in her arms.

In reality his death was simply the final decomposition of impoverished,
tainted, bourgeois blood, the sudden disappearance of a poor, mediocre
being who, despite a facade of seeming health, had been ailing since
childhood. But what an overwhelming blow it was both for the mother and
for the father, all whose dreams and calculations it swept away! The only
son, the one and only heir, the prince of industry, whom they had desired
with such obstinate, scheming egotism, had passed away like a shadow;
their arms clasped but a void, and the frightful reality arose before
them; a moment had sufficed, and they were childless.

Blaise was with the parents at the bedside at the moment when Maurice
expired. It was then about two in the morning, and as soon as possible he
telegraphed the news of the death to Chantebled. Nine o'clock was
striking when Marianne, very pale, quite upset, came into the yard to
call Mathieu.

"Maurice is dead! . . . _Mon Dieu_! an only son; poor people!"

They stood there thunderstruck, chilled and trembling. They had simply
heard that the young man was poorly; they had not imagined him to be
seriously ill.

"Let me go to dress," said Mathieu; "I shall take the quarter-past ten
o'clock train. I must go to kiss them."

Although Marianne was expecting her eleventh child before long, she
decided to accompany her husband. It would have pained her to be unable
to give this proof of affection to her cousins, who, all things
considered, had treated Blaise and his young wife very kindly. Moreover,
she was really grieved by the terrible catastrophe. So she and her
husband, after distributing the day's work among the servants, set out
for Janville station, which they reached just in time to catch the
quarter-past ten o'clock train. It was already rolling on again when they
recognized the Lepailleurs and their son Antonin in the very compartment
where they were seated.

Seeing the Froments thus together in full dress, the miller imagined that
they were going to a wedding, and when he learnt that they had a visit of
condolence to make, he exclaimed: "Oh! so it's just the contrary. But no
matter, it's an outing, a little diversion nevertheless."

Since Mathieu's victory, since the whole of the estate of Chantebled had
been conquered and fertilized, Lepailleur had shown some respect for his
bourgeois rival. Nevertheless, although he could not deny the results
hitherto obtained, he did not altogether surrender, but continued
sneering, as if he expected that some rending of heaven or earth would
take place to prove him in the right. He would not confess that he had
made a mistake; he repeated that he knew the truth, and that folks would
some day see plainly enough that a peasant's calling was the very worst
calling there could be, since the dirty land had gone bankrupt and would
yield nothing more. Besides, he held his revenge--that enclosure which he
left barren, uncultivated, by way of protest against the adjoining estate
which it intersected. The thought of this made him ironical.

"Well," he resumed in his ridiculously vain, scoffing way, "we are going
to Paris too. Yes, we are going to install this young gentleman there."

He pointed as he spoke to his son Antonin, now a tall, carroty fellow of
eighteen, with an elongated head. A few light-colored bristles were
already sprouting on his chin and cheeks, and he wore town attire, with a
silk hat and gloves, and a bright blue necktie. After astonishing
Janville by his success at school, he had displayed so much repugnance to
manual work that his father had decided to make "a Parisian" of him.

"So it is decided; you have quite made up your mind?" asked Mathieu in a
friendly way.

"Why, yes; why should I force him to toil and moil without the least hope
of ever enriching himself? Neither my father nor I ever managed to put a
copper by with that wretched old mill of ours. Why, the mill-stones wear
away with rot more than with grinding corn. And the wretched fields, too,
yield far more pebbles than crowns. And so, as he's now a scholar, he may
as well try his fortune in Paris. There's nothing like city life to
sharpen a man's wits."

Madame Lepailleur, who never took her eyes from her son, but remained in
admiration before him as formerly before her husband, now exclaimed with
an air of rapture: "Yes, yes, he has a place as a clerk with Maitre
Rousselet, the attorney. We have rented a little room for him; I have
seen about the furniture and the linen, and to-day's the great day; he
will sleep there to-night, after we have dined, all three, at a good
restaurant. Ah! yes, I'm very pleased; he's making a start now."

"And he will perhaps end by being a minister of state," said Mathieu,
with a smile; "who knows? Everything is possible nowadays."

It all typified the exodus from the country districts towards the towns,
the feverish impatience to make a fortune, which was becoming general.
Even the parents nowadays celebrated their child's departure, and
accompanied the adventurer on his way, anxious and proud to climb the
social ladder with him. And that which brought a smile to the lips of the
farmer of Chantebled, the bourgeois who had become a peasant, was the
thought of the double change: the miller's son going to Paris, whereas he
had gone to the earth, the mother of all strength and regeneration.

Antonin, however, had also begun to laugh with the air of an artful idler
who was more particularly attracted by the free dissipation of Paris
life. "Oh! minister?" said he, "I haven't much taste for that. I would
much sooner win a million at once so as to rest afterwards."

Delighted with this display of wit, the Lepailleurs burst into noisy
merriment. Oh! their boy would do great things, that was quite certain!

Marianne, her heart oppressed by thought of the mourning which awaited
her, had hitherto kept silent. She now asked, however, why little Therese
did not form one of the party. Lepailleur dryly replied that he did not
choose to embarrass himself with a child but six years old, who did not
know how to behave. Her arrival had upset everything in the house; things
would have been much better if she had never been born. Then, as Marianne
began to protest, saying that she had seldom seen a more intelligent and
prettier little girl, Madame Lepailleur answered more gently: "Oh! she's
sharp; that's true enough; but one can't send girls to Paris. She'll have
to be put somewhere, and it will mean a lot of trouble, a lot of money.
However, we mustn't talk about all that this morning, since we want to
enjoy ourselves."

At last the train reached Paris, and the Lepailleurs, leaving the
Northern terminus, were caught and carried off by the impetuously
streaming crowd.

When Mathieu and Marianne alighted from their cab on the Quai d'Orsay, in
front of the Beauchenes' residence, they recognized the Seguins' brougham
drawn up beside the foot pavement. And within it they perceived the two
girls, Lucie and Andree, waiting mute and motionless in their
light-colored dresses. Then, as they approached the door, they saw
Valentine come out, in a very great hurry as usual. On recognizing them,
however, she assumed an expression of deep pity, and spoke the words
required by the situation:

"What a frightful misfortune, is it not? an only son!"

Then she burst out into a flood of words: "You have hastened here, I see,
as I did; it is only natural. I heard of the catastrophe only by chance
less than an hour ago. And you see my luck! My daughters were dressed,
and I myself was dressing to take them to a wedding--a cousin of our
friend Santerre is marrying a diplomatist. And, in addition, I am engaged
for the whole afternoon. Well, although the wedding is fixed for a
quarter-past eleven, I did not hesitate, but drove here before going to
the church. And naturally I went upstairs alone. My daughters have been
waiting in the carriage. We shall no doubt be a little late for the
wedding. But no matter! You will see the poor parents in their empty
house, near the body, which, I must say, they have laid out very nicely
on the bed. Oh! it is heartrending."

Mathieu was looking at her, surprised to see that she did not age. The
fiery flame of her wild life seemed to scorch and preserve her. He knew
that her home was now completely wrecked. Seguin openly lived with Nora,
the governess, for whom he had furnished a little house. It was there
even that he had given Mathieu an appointment to sign the final transfer
of the Chantebled property. And since Gaston had entered the military
college of St. Cyr, Valentine had only her two daughters with her in the
spacious, luxurious mansion of the Avenue d'Antin, which ruin was slowly
destroying.

"I think," resumed Madame Seguin, "that I shall tell Gaston to obtain
permission to attend the funeral. For I am not sure whether his father is
in Paris. It's just the same with our friend Santerre; he's starting on a
tour to-morrow. Ah! not only do the dead leave us, but it is astonishing
what a number of the living go off and disappear! Life is very sad, is it
not, dear madame?"

As she spoke a little quiver passed over her face; the dread of the
coming rupture, which she had felt approaching for several months past,
amid all the skilful preparations of Santerre, who had been long maturing
some secret plan, which she did not as yet divine. However, she made a
devout ecstatic gesture, and added: "Well, we are in the hands of God."

Marianne, who was still smiling at the ever-motionless girls in the
closed brougham, changed the subject. "How tall they have grown, how
pretty they have become! Your Andree looks adorable. How old is your
Lucie now? She will soon be of an age to marry."

"Oh! don't let her hear you," retorted Valentine; "you would make her
burst into tears! She is seventeen, but for sense she isn't twelve. Would
you believe it, she began sobbing this morning and refusing to go to the
wedding, under the pretence that it would make her ill? She is always
talking of convents; we shall have to come to a decision about her.
Andree, though she is only thirteen, is already much more womanly. But
she is a little stupid, just like a sheep. Her gentleness quite upsets me
at times; it jars on my nerves."

Then Valentine, on the point of getting into her carriage, turned to
shake hands with Marianne, and thought of inquiring after her health.
"Really," said she, "I lose my head at times. I was quite forgetting. And
the baby you're expecting will be your eleventh child, will it now? How
terrible! Still it succeeds with you. And, ah! those poor people whom you
are going to see, their house will be quite empty now."

When the brougham had rolled away it occurred to Mathieu and Marianne
that before seeing the Beauchenes it might be advisable for them to call
at the little pavilion, where their son or their daughter-in-law might be
able to give them some useful information. But neither Blaise nor
Charlotte was there. They found only a servant who was watching over the
little girl, Berthe. This servant declared that she had not seen Monsieur
Blaise since the previous day, for he had remained at the Beauchenes'
near the body. And as for Madame, she also had gone there early that
morning, and had left instructions that Berthe was to be brought to her
at noon, in order that she might not have to come back to give her the
breast. Then, as Marianne in surprise began to put some questions, the
girl explained matters: "Madame took a box of drawing materials with her.
I fancy that she is painting a portrait of the poor young man who is
dead."

As Mathieu and Marianne crossed the courtyard of the works, they felt
oppressed by the grave-like silence which reigned in that great city of
labor, usually so full of noise and bustle. Death had suddenly passed by,
and all the ardent life had at once ceased, the machinery had become cold
and mute, the workshops silent and deserted. There was not a sound, not a
soul, not a puff of that vapor which was like the very breath of the
place. Its master dead, it had died also. And the distress of the
Froments increased when they passed from the works into the house, amid
absolute solitude; the connecting gallery was wrapt in slumber, the
staircase quivered amid the heavy silence, all the doors were open, as in
some uninhabited house, long since deserted. They found no servant in the
antechamber, and even the dim drawing-room, where the blinds of
embroidered muslin were lowered, while the armchairs were arranged in a
circle, as on reception days, when numerous visitors were expected, at
first seemed to them to be empty. But at last they detected a shadowy
form moving slowly to and fro in the middle of the room. It was Morange,
bareheaded and frock-coated; he had hastened thither at the first news
with the same air as if he had been repairing to his office. He seemed to
be at home; it was he who received the visitors in a scared way, overcome
as he was by this sudden demise, which recalled to him his daughter's
abominable death. His heart-wound had reopened; he was livid, all in
disorder, with his long gray beard streaming down, while he stepped
hither and thither without a pause, making all the surrounding grief his
own.

As soon as he recognized the Froments he also spoke the words which came
from every tongue: "What a frightful misfortune, an only son!"

Then he pressed their hands, and whispered and explained that Madame
Beauchene, feeling quite exhausted, had withdrawn for a few moments, and
that Beauchene and Blaise were making necessary arrangements downstairs.
And then, resuming his maniacal perambulations, he pointed towards an
adjoining room, the folding doors of which were wide open.

"He is there, on the bed where he died. There are flowers; it looks very
nice. You may go in."

This room was Maurice's bedchamber. The large curtains had been closely
drawn, and tapers were burning near the bed, casting a soft light on the
deceased's face, which appeared very calm, very white, the eyes closed as
if in sleep. Between the clasped hands rested a crucifix, and with the
roses scattered over the sheet the bed was like a couch of springtide.
The odor of the flowers, mingling with that of the burning wax, seemed
rather oppressive amid the deep and tragic stillness. Not a breath
stirred the tall, erect flames of the tapers, burning in the
semi-obscurity, amid which the bed alone showed forth.

When Mathieu and Marianne had gone in, they perceived their
daughter-in-law, Charlotte, behind a screen near the door. Lighted by a
little lamp, she sat there with a sketching-block on her knees, making a
drawing of Maurice's head as it rested among the roses. Hard and
anguish-bringing as was such work for one with so young a heart, she had
nevertheless yielded to the mother's ardent entreaties. And for three
hours past, pale, looking wondrously beautiful, her face showing all the
flower of youth, her blue eyes opening widely under her fine golden hair,
she had been there diligently working, striving to do her best. When
Mathieu and Marianne approached her she would not speak, but simply
nodded. Still a little color came to her cheeks, and her eyes smiled. And
when the others, after lingering there for a moment in sorrowful
contemplation, had quietly returned to the drawing-room, she resumed her
work alone, in the presence of the dead, among the roses and the tapers.

Morange was still walking the drawing-room like a lost, wandering
phantom. Mathieu remained standing there, while Marianne sat down near
the folding doors. Not another word was exchanged; the spell of waiting
continued amid the oppressive silence of the dim, closed room. When some
ten minutes had elapsed, two other visitors arrived, a lady and a
gentleman, whom the Froments could not at first recognize. Morange bowed
and received them in his dazed way. Then, as the lady did not release her
hold of the gentleman's hand, but led him along, as if he were blind,
between the articles of furniture, so that he might not knock against
them, Marianne and Mathieu realized that the new comers were the
Angelins.

Since the previous winter they had sold their little house at Janville to
fix themselves in Paris, for a last misfortune had befallen them--the
failure of a great banking house had carried away almost the whole of
their modest fortune. The wife had fortunately secured a post as one of
the delegates of the Poor Relief Board, an inspectorship with various
duties, such as watching over the mothers and children assisted by the
board, and reporting thereon. And she was wont to say, with a sad smile,
that this work of looking after the little ones was something of a
consolation for her, since it was now certain that she would never have a
child of her own. As for her husband, whose eyesight was failing more and
more, he had been obliged to relinquish painting altogether, and he
dragged out his days in morose desolation, his life wrecked, annihilated.

With short steps, as if she were leading a child, Madame Angelin brought
him to an armchair near Marianne and seated him in it. He had retained
the lofty mien of a musketeer, but his features had been ravaged by
anxiety, and his hair was white, though he was only forty-four years of
age. And what memories arose at the sight of that sorrowful lady leading
that infirm, aged man, for those who had known the young couple, all
tenderness and good looks, rambling along the secluded paths of Janville,
amid the careless delights of their love.

As soon as Madame Angelin had clasped Marianne's hands with her own
trembling fingers, she also uttered in low, stammering accents, those
despairing words: "Ah! what a frightful misfortune, an only son!"

Her eyes filled with tears, and she would not sit down before going for a
moment to see the body in the adjoining room. When she came back, sobbing
in her handkerchief, she sank into an armchair between Marianne and her
husband. He remained there motionless, staring fixedly with his dim eyes.
And silence fell again throughout the lifeless house, whither the rumble
of the works, now deserted, fireless and frozen, ascended no longer.

But Beauchene, followed by Blaise, at last made his appearance. The heavy
blow he had received seemed to have made him ten years older. It was as
if the heavens had suddenly fallen upon him. Never amid his conquering
egotism, his pride of strength and his pleasures, had he imagined such a
downfall to be possible. Never had he been willing to admit that Maurice
might be ill--such an idea was like casting a doubt upon his own
strength; he thought himself beyond the reach of thunderbolts; misfortune
would never dare to fall on him. And at the first overwhelming moment he
had found himself weak as a woman, weary and limp, his strength
undermined by his dissolute life, the slow disorganization of his
faculties. He had sobbed like a child before his dead son, all his vanity
crushed, all his calculations destroyed. The thunderbolt had sped by, and
nothing remained. In a minute his life had been swept away; the world was
now all black and void. And he remained livid, in consternation at it
all, his bloated face swollen with grief, his heavy eyelids red with
tears.

When he perceived the Froments, weakness again came upon him, and he
staggered towards them with open arms, once more stifling with sobs.

"Ah! my dear friends, what a terrible blow! And I wasn't here! When I got
here he had lost consciousness; he did not recognize me--. Is it
possible? A lad who was in such good health! I cannot believe it. It
seems to me that I must be dreaming, and that he will get up presently
and come down with me into the workshops!"

They kissed him, they pitied him, struck down like this upon his return
from some carouse or other, still intoxicated, perhaps, and tumbling into
the midst of such an awful disaster, his prostration increased by the
stupor following upon debauchery. His beard, moist with his tears, still
stank of tobacco and musk.

Although he scarcely knew the Angelins, he pressed them also in his arms.
"Ah! my poor friends, what a terrible blow! What a terrible blow!"

Then Blaise in his turn came to kiss his parents. In spite of his grief,
and the horrible night he had spent, his face retained its youthful
freshness. Yet tears coursed down his cheeks, for, working with Maurice
day by day, he had conceived real friendship for him.

The silence fell again. Morange, as if unconscious of what went on around
him, as if he were quite alone there, continued walking softly hither and
thither like a somnambulist. Beauchene, with haggard mien, went off, and
then came back carrying some little address-books. He turned about for
another moment, and finally sat down at a writing-table which had been
brought out of Maurice's room. Little accustomed as he was to grief, he
instinctively sought to divert his mind, and began searching in the
little address-books for the purpose of drawing up a list of the persons
who must be invited to the funeral. But his eyes became blurred, and with
a gesture he summoned Blaise, who, after going into the bedchamber to
glance at his wife's sketch, was now returning to the drawing-room.
Thereupon the young man, standing erect beside the writing-table, began
to dictate the names in a low voice; and then, amid the deep silence
sounded a low and monotonous murmur.

The minutes slowly went by. The visitors were still waiting for
Constance. At last a little door of the death-chamber slowly opened, and
she entered that chamber noiselessly, without anybody knowing that she
was there. She looked like a spectre emerging out of the darkness into
the pale light of the tapers. She had not yet wept; her face was livid,
contracted, hardened by cold rage. Her little figure, instead of bending,
seemed to have grown taller beneath the injustice of destiny, as if borne
up by furious rebellion. Yet her loss did not surprise her. She had
immediately felt that she had expected it, although but a minute before
the death she had stubbornly refused to believe it possible. But the
thought of it had remained latent within her for long months, and
frightful evidence thereof now burst forth. She suddenly heard the
whispers of the unknown once more, and understood them; she knew the
meaning of those shivers which had chilled her, those vague,
terror-fraught regrets at having no other child! And that which had been
threatening her had come; irreparable destiny had willed it that her only
son, the salvation of the imperilled home, the prince of to-morrow, who
was to share his empire with her, should be swept away like a withered
leaf. It was utter downfall; she sank into an abyss. And she remained
tearless; fury dried her tears within her. Yet, good mother that she had
always been, she suffered all the torment of motherliness exasperated,
poisoned by the loss of her child.

She drew near to Charlotte and paused behind her, looking at the profile
of her dead son resting among the flowers. And still she did not weep.
She slowly gazed over the bed, filled her eyes with the dolorous scene,
then carried them again to the paper, as if to see what would be left her
of that adored son--those few pencil strokes--when the earth should have
taken him forever. Charlotte, divining that somebody was behind her,
started and raised her head. She did not speak; she had felt frightened.
But both women exchanged a glance. And what a heart pang came to
Constance, amid that display of death, in the presence of the void, the
nothingness that was hers, as she gazed on the other's face, all love and
health and beauty, suggesting some youthful star, whence promise of the
future radiated through the fine gold of wavy hair.

But yet another pang came to Constance at that moment: words which were
being whispered in the drawing-room, near the door of the bedchamber,
reached her distinctly. She did not move, but remained erect behind
Charlotte, who had resumed her work. And eagerly lending ear, she
listened, not showing herself as yet, although she had already seen
Marianne and Madame Angelin seated near the doorway, almost among the
folds of the hangings.

"Ah!" Madame Angelin was saying, "the poor mother had a presentiment of
it, as it were. I saw that she felt very anxious when I told her my own
sad story. There is no hope for me; and now death has passed by, and no
hope remains for her."

Silence ensued once more; then, prompted by some connecting train of
thought, she went on: "And your next child will be your eleventh, will it
not? Eleven is not a number; you will surely end by having twelve!"

As Constance heard those words she shuddered in another fit of that fury
which dried up her tears. By glancing sideways she could see that mother
of ten children, who was now expecting yet an eleventh child. She found
her still young, still fresh, overflowing with joy and health and hope.
And she was there, like the goddess of fruitfulness, nigh to the funeral
bier at that hour of the supreme rending, when she, Constance, was bowed
down by the irretrievable loss of her only child.

But Marianne was answering Madame Angelin: "Oh I don't think that at all
likely. Why, I'm becoming an old woman. You forget that I am already a
grandmother. Here, look at that!"

So saying, she waved her hand towards the servant of her daughter-in-law,
Charlotte, who, in accordance with the instructions she had received, was
now bringing the little Berthe in order that her mother might give her
the breast. The servant had remained at the drawing-room door,
hesitating, disliking to intrude on all that mourning; but the child
good-humoredly waved her fat little fists, and laughed lightly. And
Charlotte, hearing her, immediately rose and tripped across the salon to
take the little one into a neighboring room.

"What a pretty child!" murmured Madame Angelin. "Those little ones are
like nosegays; they bring brightness and freshness wherever they come."

Constance for her part had been dazzled. All at once, amid the
semi-obscurity, starred by the flames of the tapers, amid the deathly
atmosphere, which the odor of the roses rendered the more oppressive,
that laughing child had set a semblance of budding springtime, the fresh,
bright atmosphere of a long promise of life. And it typified the victory
of fruitfulness; it was the child's child, it was Marianne reviving in
her son's daughter. A grandmother already, and she was only forty-one
years old! Marianne had smiled at that thought. But the hatchet-stroke
rang out yet more frightfully in Constance's heart. In her case the tree
was cut down to its very root, the sole scion had been lopped off, and
none would ever sprout again.

For yet another moment she remained alone amid that nothingness, in that
room where lay her son's remains. Then she made up her mind and passed
into the drawing-room, with the air of a frozen spectre. They all rose,
kissed her, and shivered as their lips touched her cold cheeks, which her
blood was unable to warm. Profound compassion wrung them, so frightful
was her calmness. And they sought kind words to say to her, but she
curtly stopped them.

"It is all over," said she; "there is nothing to be said. Everything is
ended, quite ended."

Madame Angelin sobbed, Angelin himself wiped his poor fixed, blurred
eyes. Marianne and Mathieu shed tears while retaining Constance's hands
in theirs. And she, rigid and still unable to weep, refused consolation,
repeating in monotonous accents: "It is finished; nothing can give him
back to me. Is it not so? And thus there remains nothing; all is ended,
quite ended."

She needed to be brave, for visitors would soon be arriving in a stream.
But a last stab in the heart was reserved for her. Beauchene, who since
her arrival had begun to cry again, could no longer see to write.
Moreover, his hand trembled, and he had to leave the writing-table and
fling himself into an armchair, saying to Blaise: "There sit down there,
and continue to write for me."

Then Constance saw Blaise seat himself at her son's writing-table, in his
place, dip his pen in the inkstand and begin to write with the very same
gesture that she had so often seen Maurice make. That Blaise, that son of
the Froments! What! her dear boy was not yet buried, and a Froment
already replaced him, even as vivacious, fast-growing plants overrun
neighboring barren fields. That stream of life flowing around her, intent
on universal conquest, seemed yet more threatening; grandmothers still
bore children, daughters suckled already, sons laid hands upon vacant
kingdoms. And she remained alone; she had but her unworthy, broken-down,
worn-out husband beside her; while Morange, the maniac, incessantly
walking to and fro, was like the symbolical spectre of human distress,
one whose heart and strength and reason had been carried away in the
frightful death of his only daughter. And not a sound came from the cold
and empty works; the works themselves were dead.

The funeral ceremony two days later was an imposing one. The five hundred
workmen of the establishment followed the hearse, notabilities of all
sorts made up an immense cortege. It was much noticed that an old
workman, father Moineaud, the oldest hand of the works, was one of the
pall-bearers. Indeed, people thought it touching, although the worthy old
man dragged his legs somewhat, and looked quite out of his element in a
frock coat, stiffened as he was by thirty years' hard toil. In the
cemetery, near the grave, Mathieu felt surprised on being approached by
an old lady who alighted from one of the mourning-coaches.

"I see, my friend," said she, "that you do not recognize me."

He made a gesture of apology. It was Seraphine, still tall and slim, but
so fleshless, so withered that one might have thought she was a hundred
years old. Cecile had warned Mathieu of it, yet if he had not seen her
himself he would never have believed that her proud insolent beauty,
which had seemed to defy time and excesses, could have faded so swiftly.
What frightful, withering blast could have swept over her?

"Ah! my friend," she continued, "I am more dead than the poor fellow whom
they are about to lower into that grave. Come and have a chat with me
some day. You are the only person to whom I can tell everything."

The coffin was lowered, the ropes gave out a creaking sound, and there
came a little thud--the last. Beauchene, supported by a relative, looked
on with dim, vacant eyes. Constance, who had had the bitter courage to
come, and had now wept all the tears in her body, almost fainted. She was
carried away, driven back to her home, which would now forever be empty,
like one of those stricken fields that remain barren, fated to perpetual
sterility. Mother earth had taken back her all.

And at Chantebled Mathieu and Marianne founded, created, increased, and
multiplied, again proving victorious in the eternal battle which life
wages against death, thanks to that continual increase, both of offspring
and of fertile land, which was like their very existence, their joy and
their strength. Desire passed like a gust of flame, desire divine and
fruitful, since they possessed the power of love, kindliness, and health.
And their energy did the rest--that will of action, that quiet bravery in
the presence of the labor that is requisite, the labor that has made and
that regulates the world.

Still, during those two years it was not without constant battling that
victory remained to them. At last it was complete. Piece by piece Seguin
had sold the entire estate, of which Mathieu was now king, thanks to his
prudent system of conquest, that of increasing his empire by degrees as
he gradually felt himself stronger. The fortune which the idler had
disdained and dissipated had passed into the hands of the toiler, the
creator. There were 1250 acres, spreading from horizon to horizon; there
were woods intersected by broad meadows, where flocks and herds pastured;
there was fat land overflowing with harvests, in the place of marshes
that had been drained; there was other land, each year of increasing
fertility, in the place of the moors which the captured springs now
irrigated. The Lepailleurs' uncultivated enclosure alone remained, as if
to bear witness to the prodigy, the great human effort which had
quickened that desert of sand and mud, whose crops would henceforth
nourish so many happy people. Mathieu devoured no other man's share; he
had brought his share into being, increasing the common wealth,
subjugating yet another small portion of this vast world, which is still
so scantily peopled and so badly utilized for human happiness. The farm,
the homestead, had sprung up and grown in the centre of the estate like a
prosperous township, with inhabitants, servants, and live stock, a
perfect focus of ardent triumphal life. And what sovereign power was that
of the happy fruitfulness which had never wearied of creating, which had
yielded all these beings and things that had been increasing and
multiplying for twelve years past, that invading town which was but a
family's expansion, those trees, those plants, those grain crops, those
fruits whose nourishing stream ever rose under the dazzling sun! All pain
and all tears were forgotten in that joy of creation, the accomplishment
of due labor, the conquest of the future conducting to the infinite of
Action.

Then, while Mathieu completed his work of conquest, Marianne during those
two years had the happiness of seeing a daughter born to her son Blaise,
even while she herself was expecting another child. The branches of the
huge tree had begun to fork, pending the time when they would ramify
endlessly, like the branches of some great royal oak spreading afar over
the soil. There would be her children's children, her grandchildren's
children, the whole posterity increasing from generation to generation.
And yet how carefully and lovingly she still assembled around her her own
first brood, from Blaise and Denis the twins, now one-and-twenty, to the
last born, the wee creature who sucked in life from her bosom with greedy
lips. There were some of all ages in the brood--a big fellow, who was
already a father; others who went to school; others who still had to be
dressed in the morning; there were boys, Ambroise, Gervais, Gregoire, and
another; there were girls, Rose, nearly old enough to marry; Claire,
Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, the last of whom could scarcely
toddle. And it was a sight to see them roam over the estate like a troop
of colts, following one another at varied pace, according to their
growth. She knew that she could not keep them all tied to her
apron-strings; it would be sufficient happiness if the farm kept two or
three beside her; she resigned herself to seeing the younger ones go off
some day to conquer other lands. Such was the law of expansion; the earth
was the heritage of the most numerous race. Since they had number on
their side, they would have strength also; the world would belong to
them. The parents themselves had felt stronger, more united at the advent
of each fresh child. If in spite of terrible cares they had always
conquered, it was because their love, their toil, the ceaseless travail
of their heart and will, gave them the victory. Fruitfulness is the great
conqueress; from her come the pacific heroes who subjugate the world by
peopling it. And this time especially, when at the lapse of those two
years Marianne gave birth to a boy, Nicolas, her eleventh child, Mathieu
embraced her passionately, triumphing over every sorrow and every pang.
Yet another child; yet more wealth and power; yet an additional force
born into the world; another field ready for to-morrow's harvest.

And 'twas ever the great work, the good work, the work of fruitfulness
spreading, thanks to the earth and thanks to woman, both victorious over
destruction, offering fresh means of subsistence each time a fresh child
was born, and loving, willing, battling, toiling even amid suffering, and
ever tending to increase of life and increase of hope.

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