Fruitfulness: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

IV

AT half-past seven o'clock, when Mathieu arrived at the restaurant on the
Place de la Madeleine where he was to meet his employer, he found him
already there, drinking a glass of madeira with his customer, M.
Firon-Badinier. The dinner was a remarkable one; choice viands and the
best wines were served in abundance. But Mathieu was struck less by the
appetite which the others displayed than by Beauchene's activity and
skill. Glass in hand, never losing a bite, he had already persuaded his
customer, by the time the roast arrived, to order not only the new
thresher but also a mowing machine. M. Firon-Badinier was to take the
train for Evreux at nine-twenty, and when nine o'clock struck, the other,
now eager to be rid of him, contrived to pack him off in a cab to the
St.-Lazare railway station.

For a moment Beauchene remained standing on the pavement with Mathieu,
and took off his hat in order that the mild breezes of that delightful
May evening might cool his burning head.

"Well, that's settled," he said with a laugh. "But it wasn't so easily
managed. It was the Pommard which induced the beggar to make up his mind.
All the same, I was dreadfully afraid he would make me miss my
appointment."

These remarks, which escaped him amid his semi-intoxication, led him to
more confidential talk. He put on his hat again, lighted a fresh cigar,
and took Mathieu's arm. Then they walked on slowly through the
passion-stirred throng and the nightly blaze of the Boulevards.

"There's plenty of time," said Beauchene. "I'm not expected till
half-past nine, and it's close by. Will you have a cigar? No? You never
smoke?"

"Never."

"Well, my dear fellow, it would be ridiculous to feign with you, since
you happened to see me this morning. Oh, it's a stupid affair! I'm quite
of that opinion; but, then, what would you have?"

Thereupon he launched out into long explanations concerning his marital
life and the intrigue which had suddenly sprung up between him and that
girl Norine, old Moineaud's daughter. He professed the greatest respect
for his wife, but he was nevertheless a loose liver; and Constance was
now beginning to resign herself to the inevitable. She closed her eyes
when it would have been unpleasant for her to keep them open. She knew
very well that it was essential that the business should be kept together
and pass intact into the hands of their son Maurice. A tribe of children
would have meant the ruin of all their plans.

Mathieu listened at first in great astonishment, and then began to ask
questions and raise objections, at most of which Beauchene laughed gayly,
like the gross egotist he was. He talked at length with extreme
volubility, going into all sorts of details, at times assuming a
semi-apologetic manner, but more frequently justifying himself with an
air of triumph. And, finally, when they reached the corner of the Rue
Caumartin he halted to bid Mathieu good-by. He there had a little
bachelor's lodging, which was kept in order by the concierge of the
house, who, being very well paid, proved an extremely discreet domestic.

As he hurried off, Mathieu, still standing at the corner of the street,
could not help thinking of the scenes which he had witnessed at the
Beauchene works that day. He thought of old Moineaud, the fitter, whom he
again saw standing silent and unmoved in the women's workroom while his
daughter Euphrasie was being soundly rated by Beauchene, and while
Norine, the other girl, looked on with a sly laugh. When the toiler's
children have grown up and gone to join, the lads the army of slaughter,
and the girls the army of vice, the father, degraded by the ills of life,
pays little heed to it all. To him it is seemingly a matter of
indifference to what disaster the wind may carry the fledgelings who fall
from the nest.

It was now half-past nine o'clock, and Mathieu had more than an hour
before him to reach the Northern railway station. So he did not hurry,
but strolled very leisurely up the Boulevards. He had eaten and drunk far
more than usual, and Beauchene's insidious confidential talk, still
buzzing in his ears, helped on his intoxication. His hands were hot, and
now and again a sudden glow passed over his face. And what a warm evening
it was, too, on those Boulevards, blazing with electric lights, fevered
by a swarming, jostling throng, amid a ceaseless rumble of cabs and
omnibuses! It was all like a stream of ardent life flowing away into the
night, and Mathieu allowed himself to be carried on by the torrent, whose
hot breath, whose glow of passion, he ever felt sweeping over him.

Then, in a reverie, he pictured the day he had just spent. First he was
at the Beauchenes' in the morning, and saw the father and mother
standing, like accomplices who fully shared one another's views, beside
the sofa on which Maurice, their only son, lay dozing with a pale and
waxen face. The works must never be exposed to the danger of being
subdivided. Maurice alone must inherit all the millions which the
business might yield, so that he might become one of the princes of
industry. And therefore the husband hurried off to sin while the wife
closed her eyes. In this sense, in defiance of morality and health, did
the capitalist bourgeoisie, which had replaced the old nobility,
virtually re-establish the law of primogeniture. That law had been
abolished at the Revolution for the bourgeoisie's benefit; but now, also
for its own purposes, it revived it. Each family must have but one son.

Mathieu had reached this stage in his reflections when his thoughts were
diverted by several street hawkers who, in selling the last edition of an
evening print, announced a "drawing" of the lottery stock of some
enterprise launched by the Credit National. And then he suddenly recalled
the Moranges in their dining-room, and heard them recapitulate their
dream of making a big fortune as soon as the accountant should have
secured a post in one of the big banking establishments, where the
principals raise men of value to the highest posts. Those Moranges lived
in everlasting dread of seeing their daughter marry a needy petty clerk;
succumbing to that irresistible fever which, in a democracy ravaged by
political equality and economic inequality, impels every one to climb
higher up the social ladder. Envy consumed them at the thought of the
luxury of others; they plunged into debt in order that they might imitate
from afar the elegance of the upper class, and all their natural honesty
and good nature was poisoned by the insanity born of ambitious pride. And
here again but one child was permissible, lest they should be
embarrassed, delayed, forever impeded in the attainment of the future
they coveted.

A crowd of people now barred Mathieu's way, and he perceived that he was
near the theatre, where a first performance was taking place that
evening. It was a theatre where free farcical pieces were produced, and
on its walls were posted huge portraits of its "star," a carroty wench
with a long flat figure, destitute of all womanliness, and seemingly
symbolical of perversity. Passers-by stopped to gaze at the bills, the
vilest remarks were heard, and Mathieu remembered that the Seguins and
Santerre were inside the house, laughing at the piece, which was of so
filthy a nature that the spectators at the dress rehearsal, though they
were by no means over-nice in such matters, had expressed their disgust
by almost wrecking the auditorium. And while the Seguins were gloating
over this horror, yonder, at their house in the Avenue d'Antin, Celeste
had just put the children, Gaston and Lucie, to bed, and had then hastily
returned to the kitchen, where a friend, Madame Menoux, who kept a little
haberdasher's shop in the neighborhood, awaited her. Gaston, having been
given some wine to drink, was already asleep; but Lucie, who again felt
sick, lay shivering in her bed, not daring to call Celeste, lest the
servant, who did not like to be disturbed, should ill-treat her. And, at
two o'clock in the morning, after offering Santerre an oyster supper at a
night restaurant, the Seguins would come home, their minds unhinged by
the imbecile literature and art to which they had taken for fashion's
sake, vitiated yet more by the ignoble performance they had witnessed,
and the base society they had elbowed at supper. They seemed to typify
vice for vice's sake, elegant vice and pessimism as a principle.

Indeed, when Mathieu tried to sum up his day, he found vice on every
side, in each of the spheres with which he had come in contact. And now
the examples he had witnessed filled him no longer with mere surprise;
they disturbed him, they shook his beliefs, they made him doubt whether
his notions of life, duty, and happiness might not after all be
inaccurate.

He stopped short and drew a long breath, seeking to drive away his
growing intoxication. He had passed the Grand Opera and was reaching the
crossway of the Rue Drouot. Perhaps his increase of fever was due to
those glowing Boulevards. The private rooms of the restaurants were still
ablaze, the cafes threw bright radiance across the road, the pavement was
blocked by their tables and chairs and customers. All Paris seemed to
have come down thither to enjoy that delightful evening. There was
endless elbowing, endless mingling of breath as the swelling crowd
sauntered along. Couples lingered before the sparkling displays of
jewellers' shops. Middle-class families swept under dazzling arches of
electric lamps into cafes concerts, whose huge posters promised the
grossest amusements. Hundreds and hundreds of women went by with trailing
skirts, and whispered and jested and laughed; while men darted in
pursuit, now of a fair chignon, now of a dark one. In the open cabs men
and women sat side by side, now husbands and wives long since married,
now chance couples who had met but an hour ago. But Mathieu went on
again, yielding to the force of the current, carried along like all the
others, a prey to the same fever which sprang from the surroundings, from
the excitement of the day, from the customs of the age. And he no longer
took the Beauchenes, the Moranges, the Seguins as isolated types; it was
all Paris that symbolized vice, all Paris that yielded to debauchery and
sank into degradation. There were the folks of high culture, the folks
suffering from literary neurosis; there were the merchant princes; there
were the men of liberal professions, the lawyers, the doctors, the
engineers; there were the people of the lower middle-class, the petty
tradesmen, the petty clerks; there were even the manual workers, poisoned
by the example of the upper spheres--all practising the doctrines of
egotism as vanity and the passion for money grew more and more intense. .
. . No more children! Paris was bent on dying. And Mathieu recalled how
Napoleon I., one evening after battle, on beholding a plain strewn with
the corpses of his soldiers, had put his trust in Paris to repair the
carnage of that day. But times had changed. Paris would no longer supply
life, whether it were for slaughter or for toil.

And as Mathieu thought of it all a sudden weakness came upon him. Again
he asked himself whether the Beauchenes, the Moranges, the Seguins, and
all those thousands and thousands around him were not right, and whether
he were not the fool, the dupe, the criminal, with his belief in life
ever renascent, ever growing and spreading throughout the world. And
before him arose, too, the image of Seraphine, the temptress, opening her
perfumed arms to him and carrying him off to the same existence of
pleasure and baseness which the others led.

Then he remembered the three hundred francs which he carried in his
pocket. Three hundred francs, which must last for a whole month, though
out of them he had to pay various little sums that he already owed. The
remainder would barely suffice to buy a ribbon for Marianne and jam for
the youngsters' bread. And if he set the Moranges on one side, the
others, the Beauchenes and the Seguins, were rich. He bitterly recalled
their wealth. He pictured the rumbling factory with its black buildings
covering a great stretch of ground; he pictured hundreds of workmen ever
increasing the fortune of their master, who dwelt in a handsomely
appointed pavilion and whose only son was growing up for future
sovereignty, under his mother's vigilant eyes. He pictured, too, the
Seguins' luxurious mansion in the Avenue d'Antin, the great hall, the
magnificent staircase, the vast room above, crowded with marvels; he
pictured all the refinement, all the train of wealth, all the tokens of
lavish life, the big dowry which would be given to the little girl, the
high position which would be purchased for the son. And he, bare and
empty-handed, who now possessed nothing, not even a stone at the edge of
a field, would doubtless always possess nothing, neither factory buzzing
with workmen, nor mansion rearing its proud front aloft. And he was the
imprudent one, and the others were the sensible, the wise. What would
ever become of himself and his troop of children? Would he not die in
some garret? would they not lead lives of abject wretchedness? Ah! it was
evident the others were right, the others were sensible. And he felt
unhinged, he regarded himself with contempt, like a fool who has allowed
himself to be duped.

Then once more the image of Seraphine arose before his eyes, more
tempting than ever. A slight quiver came upon him as he beheld the blaze
of the Northern railway station and all the feverish traffic around it.
Wild fancies surged through his brain. He thought of Beauchene. Why
should he not do likewise? He recalled past times, and, yielding to
sudden madness, turned his back upon the station and retraced his steps
towards the Boulevards. Seraphine, he said to himself, was doubtless
waiting for him; she had told him that he would always be welcome. As for
his wife, he would tell her he had missed his train.

At last a block in the traffic made him pause, and on raising his eyes he
saw that he had reached the Boulevards once more. The crowd still
streamed along, but with increased feverishness. Mathieu's temples were
beating, and wild words escaped his lips. Why should he not live the same
life as the others? He was ready, even eager, to plunge into it. But the
block in the traffic continued, he could not cross the road; and while he
stood there hesitation and doubt came upon him. He saw in that increasing
obstruction a deliberate obstacle to his wild design. And all at once the
image of Seraphine faded from before his mind's eye and he beheld
another, his wife, his dear wife Marianne, awaiting him, all smiles and
trustfulness, in the fresh quietude of the country. Could he deceive her?
. . . Then all at once he again rushed off towards the railway station,
in fear lest he should lose his train. He was determined that he would
listen to no further promptings, that he would cast no further glance
upon glowing, dissolute Paris, and he reached the station just in time to
climb into a car. The train started and he journeyed on, leaning out of
his compartment and offering his face to the cool night breeze in order
that it might calm and carry off the evil fever that had possessed him.

The night was moonless, but studded with such pure and such glowing stars
that the country could be seen spreading far away beneath a soft bluish
radiance. Already at twenty minutes past eleven Marianne found herself on
the little bridge crossing the Yeuse, midway between Chantebled, the
pavilion where she and her husband lived, and the station of Janville.
The children were fast asleep; she had left them in the charge of Zoe,
the servant, who sat knitting beside a lamp, the light of which could be
seen from afar, showing like a bright spark amid the black line of the
woods.

Whenever Mathieu returned home by the seven o'clock train, as was his
wont, Marianne came to meet him at the bridge. Occasionally she brought
her two eldest boys, the twins, with her, though their little legs moved
but slowly on the return journey when, in retracing their steps, a
thousand yards or more, they had to climb a rather steep hillside. And
that evening, late though the hour was, Marianne had yielded to that
pleasant habit of hers, enjoying the delight of thus going forward
through the lovely night to meet the man she worshipped. She never went
further than the bridge which arched over the narrow river. She seated
herself on its broad, low parapet, as on some rustic bench, and thence
she overlooked the whole plain as far as the houses of Janville, before
which passed the railway line. And from afar she could see her husband
approaching along the road which wound between the cornfields.

That evening she took her usual seat under the broad velvety sky spangled
with gold. And with a movement which bespoke her solicitude she turned
towards the bright little light shining on the verge of the sombre woods,
a light telling of the quietude of the room in which it burnt, the
servant's tranquil vigil, and the happy slumber of the children in the
adjoining chamber. Then Marianne let her gaze wander all around her, over
the great estate of Chantebled, belonging to the Seguins. The dilapidated
pavilion stood at the extreme edge of the woods whose copses, intersected
by patches of heath, spread over a lofty plateau to the distant farms of
Mareuil and Lillebonne. But that was not all, for to the west of the
plateau lay more than two hundred and fifty acres of land, a marshy
expanse where pools stagnated amid brushwood, vast uncultivated tracts,
where one went duck-shooting in winter. And there was yet a third part of
the estate, acres upon acres of equally sterile soil, all sand and
gravel, descending in a gentle slope to the embankment of the railway
line. It was indeed a stretch of country lost to culture, where the few
good patches of loam remained unproductive, inclosed within the waste
land. But the spot had all the beauty and exquisite wildness of solitude,
and was one that appealed to healthy minds fond of seeing nature in
freedom. And on that lovely night one could nowhere have found more
perfect and more balmy quiet.

Marianne, who since coming to the district had already threaded the
woodland paths, explored the stretches of brushwood around the meres, and
descended the pebbly slopes, let her eyes travel slowly over the expanse,
divining spots she had visited and was fond of, though the darkness now
prevented her from seeing them. In the depths of the woods an owl raised
its soft, regular cry, while from a pond on the right ascended a faint
croaking of frogs, so far away that it sounded like the vibration of
crystal. And from the other side, the side of Paris, there came a growing
rumble which, little by little, rose above all the other sounds of the
night. She heard it, and at last lent ear to nothing else. It was the
train, for whose familiar roar she waited every evening. As soon as it
left Monval station on its way to Janville, it gave token of its coming,
but so faintly that only a practised ear could distinguish its rumble
amid the other sounds rising from the country side. For her part, she
heard it immediately, and thereupon followed it in fancy through every
phase of its journey. And never had she been better able to do so than on
that splendid night, amid the profound quietude of the earth's slumber.
It had left Monval, it was turning beside the brickworks, it was skirting
St. George's fields. In another two minutes it would be at Janville. Then
all at once its white light shone out beyond the poplar trees of Le
Mesnil Rouge, and the panting of the engine grew louder, like that of
some giant racer drawing near. On that side the plain spread far away
into a dark, unknown region, beneath the star-spangled sky, which on the
very horizon showed a ruddy reflection like that of some brasier, the
reflection of nocturnal Paris, blazing and smoking in the darkness like a
volcano.

Marianne sprang to her feet. The train stopped at Janville, and then its
rumble rose again, grew fainter, and died away in the direction of
Vieux-Bourg. But she no longer paid attention to it. She now had eyes and
ears only for the road which wound like a pale ribbon between the dark
patches of corn. Her husband did not take ten minutes to cover the
thousand yards and more which separated the station from the little
bridge. And, as a rule, she perceived and recognized him far off; but on
that particular night, such was the deep silence that she could
distinguish his footfall on the echoing road long before his dark, slim
figure showed against the pale ground. And he found her there, erect
under the stars, smiling and healthy, a picture of all that is good. The
milky whiteness of her skin was accentuated by her beautiful black hair,
caught up in a huge coil, and her big black eyes, which beamed with all
the gentleness of spouse and mother. Her straight brow, her nose, her
mouth, her chin so boldly, purely rounded, her cheeks which glowed like
savory fruit, her delightful little ears--the whole of her face, full of
love and tenderness, bespoke beauty in full health, the gayety which
comes from the accomplishment of duty, and the serene conviction that by
loving life she would live as she ought to live.

"What! so you've come then!" Mathieu exclaimed, as soon as he was near
her. "But I begged you not to come out so late. Are you not afraid at
being alone on the roads at this time of night?"

She began to laugh. "Afraid," said she, "when the night is so mild and
healthful? Besides, wouldn't you rather have me here to kiss you ten
minutes sooner?"

Those simple words brought tears to Mathieu's eyes. All the murkiness,
all the shame through which he had passed in Paris horrified him. He
tenderly took his wife in his arms, and they exchanged the closest, the
most human of kisses amid the quiet of the slumbering fields. After the
scorching pavement of Paris, after the eager struggling of the day and
the degrading spectacles of the night, how reposeful was that
far-spreading silence, that faint bluish radiance, that endless unrolling
of plains, steeped in refreshing gloom and dreaming of fructification by
the morrow's sun! And what suggestions of health, and rectitude, and
felicity rose from productive Nature, who fell asleep beneath the dew of
night solely that she might reawaken in triumph, ever and ever
rejuvenated by life's torrent, which streams even through the dust of her
paths.

Mathieu slowly seated Marianne on the low broad parapet once more. He
kept her near his heart; it was a halt full of affection, which neither
could forego, in presence of the universal peace that came to them from
the stars, and the waters, and the woods, and the endless fields.

"What a splendid night!" murmured Mathieu. "How beautiful and how
pleasant to live in it!"

Then, after a moment's rapture, during which they both heard their hearts
beating, he began to tell her of his day. She questioned him with loving
interest, and he answered, happy at having to tell her no lie.

"No, the Beauchenes cannot come here on Sunday. Constance never cared
much for us, as you well know. Their boy Maurice is suffering in the
legs; Dr. Boutan was there, and the question of children was discussed
again. I will tell you all about that. On the other hand, the Moranges
have promised to come. You can't have an idea of the delight and vanity
they displayed in showing me their new flat. What with their eagerness to
make a big fortune I'm much afraid that those worthy folks will do
something very foolish. Oh! I was forgetting. I called on the landlord,
and though I had a good deal of difficulty over it, he ended by
consenting to have the roof entirely relaid. Ah! what a home, too, those
Seguins have! I came away feeling quite scared. But I will tell you all
about it by and by with the rest."

Marianne evinced no loquacious curiosity; she quietly awaited his
confidences, and showed anxiety only respecting themselves and the
children.

"You received your salary, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yes, yes, you need not be afraid about that."

"Oh! I'm not afraid, it's only our little debts which worry me."

Then she asked again: "And did your business dinner go off all right? I
was afraid that Beauchene might detain you and make you miss your train."

He replied that everything had gone off properly, but as he spoke he
flushed and felt a pang at his heart. To rid himself of his emotion he
affected sudden gayety.

"Well, and you, my dear," he asked, "how did you manage with your thirty
sous?"

"My thirty sous!" she gayly responded, "why, I was much too rich; we
fared like princes, all five of us, and I have six sous left."

Then, in her turn, she gave an account of her day, her daily life, pure
as crystal. She recapitulated what she had done, what she had said; she
related how the children had behaved, and she entered into the minutest
details respecting them and the house. With her, moreover, one day was
like another; each morning she set herself to live the same life afresh,
with never-failing happiness.

"To-day, though, we had a visit," said she; "Madame Lepailleur, the woman
from the mill over yonder, came to tell me that she had some fine
chickens for sale. As we owe her twelve francs for eggs and milk, I
believe that she simply called to see if I meant to pay her. I told her
that I would go to her place to-morrow."

While speaking Marianne had pointed through the gloom towards a big black
pile, a little way down the Yeuse. It was an old water-mill which was
still worked, and the Lepailleurs had now been installed in it for three
generations. The last of them, Francois Lepailleur, who considered
himself to be no fool, had come back from his military service with
little inclination to work, and an idea that the mill would never enrich
him, any more than it had enriched his father and grandfather. It then
occurred to him to marry a peasant farmer's daughter, Victoire Cornu,
whose dowry consisted of some neighboring fields skirting the Yeuse. And
the young couple then lived fairly at their ease, on the produce of those
fields and such small quantities of corn as the peasants of the district
still brought to be ground at the old mill. If the antiquated and badly
repaired mechanism of the mill had been replaced by modern appliances,
and if the land, instead of being impoverished by adherence to
old-fashioned practices, had fallen into the hands of an intelligent man
who believed in progress, there would no doubt have been a fortune in it
all. But Lepailleur was not only disgusted with work, he treated the soil
with contempt. He indeed typified the peasant who has grown weary of his
eternal mistress, the mistress whom his forefathers loved too much.
Remembering that, in spite of all their efforts to fertilize the soil, it
had never made them rich or happy, he had ended by hating it. All his
faith in its powers had departed; he accused it of having lost its
fertility, of being used up and decrepit, like some old cow which one
sends to the slaughter-house. And, according to him, everything went
wrong: the soil simply devoured the seed sown in it, the weather was
never such as it should be, the seasons no longer came in their proper
order. Briefly, it was all a premeditated disaster brought about by some
evil power which had a spite against the peasantry, who were foolish to
give their sweat and their blood to such a thankless creature.

"Madame Lepailleur brought her boy with her, a little fellow three years
old, called Antonin," resumed Marianne, "and we fell to talking of
children together. She quite surprised me. Peasant folks, you know, used
to have such large families. But she declared that one child was quite
enough. Yet she's only twenty-four, and her husband not yet
twenty-seven."

These remarks revived the thoughts which had filled Mathieu's mind all
day. For a moment he remained silent. Then he said, "She gave you her
reasons, no doubt?"

"Give reasons--she, with her head like a horse's, her long freckled face,
pale eyes, and tight, miserly mouth--I think she's simply a fool, ever in
admiration before her husband because he fought in Africa and reads the
newspapers. All that I could get out of her was that children cost one a
good deal more than they bring in. But the husband, no doubt, has ideas
of his own. You have seen him, haven't you? A tall, slim fellow, as
carroty and as scraggy as his wife, with an angular face, green eyes, and
prominent cheekbones. He looks as though he had never felt in a good
humor in his life. And I understand that he is always complaining of his
father-in-law, because the other had three daughters and a son. Of course
that cut down his wife's dowry; she inherited only a part of her father's
property. And, besides, as the trade of a miller never enriched his
father, Lepailleur curses his mill from morning till night, and declares
that he won't prevent his boy Antonin from going to eat white bread in
Paris, if he can find a good berth there when he grows up."

Thus, even among the country folks, Mathieu found a small family the
rule. Among the causes were the fear of having to split up an
inheritance, the desire to rise in the social system, the disgust of
manual toil, and the thirst for the luxuries of town life. Since the soil
was becoming bankrupt, why indeed continue tilling it, when one knew that
one would never grow rich by doing so? Mathieu was on the point of
explaining these things to his wife, but he hesitated, and then simply
said: "Lepailleur does wrong to complain; he has two cows and a horse,
and when there is urgent work he can take an assistant. We, this morning,
had just thirty sous belonging to us, and we own no mill, no scrap of
land. For my part I think his mill superb; I envy him every time I cross
this bridge. Just fancy! we two being the millers--why, we should be very
rich and very happy!"

This made them both laugh, and for another moment they remained seated
there, watching the dark massive mill beside the Yeuse. Between the
willows and poplars on both banks the little river flowed on peacefully,
scarce murmuring as it coursed among the water plants which made it
ripple. Then, amid a clump of oaks, appeared the big shed sheltering the
wheel, and the other buildings garlanded with ivy, honeysuckle, and
creepers, the whole forming a spot of romantic prettiness. And at night,
especially when the mill slept, without a light at any of its windows,
there was nothing of more dreamy, more gentle charm.

"Why!" remarked Mathieu, lowering his voice, "there is somebody under the
willows, beside the water. I heard a slight noise."

"Yes, I know," replied Marianne with tender gayety. "It must be the young
couple who settled themselves in the little house yonder a fortnight ago.
You know whom I mean--Madame Angelin, that schoolmate of Constance's."

The Angelins, who had become their neighbors, interested the Froments.
The wife was of the same age as Marianne, tall, dark, with fine hair and
fine eyes, radiant with continual joy, and fond of pleasure. And the
husband was of the same age as Mathieu, a handsome fellow, very much in
love, with moustaches waving in the wind, and the joyous spirits of a
musketeer. They had married with sudden passion for one another, having
between them an income of some ten thousand francs a year, which the
husband, a fan painter with a pretty talent, might have doubled had it
not been for the spirit of amorous idleness into which his marriage had
thrown him. And that spring-time they had sought a refuge in that desert
of Janville, that they might love freely, passionately, in the midst of
nature. They were always to be met, holding each other by the waist, on
the secluded paths in the woods; and at night they loved to stroll across
the fields, beside the hedges, along the shady banks of the Yeuse,
delighted when they could linger till very late near the murmuring water,
in the thick shade of the willows.

But there was quite another side to their idyl, and Marianne mentioned it
to her husband. She had chatted with Madame Angelin, and it appeared that
the latter wished to enjoy life, at all events for the present, and did
not desire to be burdened with children. Then Mathieu's worrying thoughts
once more came back to him, and again at this fresh example he wondered
who was right--he who stood alone in his belief, or all the others.

"Well," he muttered at last, "we all live according to our fancy. But
come, my dear, let us go in; we disturb them."

They slowly climbed the narrow road leading to Chantebled, where the lamp
shone out like a beacon. When Mathieu had bolted the front door they
groped their way upstairs. The ground floor of their little house
comprised a dining-room and a drawing-room on the right hand of the hall,
and a kitchen and a store place on the left. Upstairs there were four
bedrooms. Their scanty furniture seemed quite lost in those big rooms;
but, exempt from vanity as they were, they merely laughed at this. By way
of luxury they had simply hung some little curtains of red stuff at the
windows, and the ruddy reflection from these hangings seemed to them to
impart wonderfully rich cheerfulness to their home.

They found Zoe, their peasant servant, asleep over her knitting beside
the lamp in their own bedroom, and they had to wake her and send her as
quietly as possible to bed. Then Mathieu took up the lamp and entered the
children's room to kiss them and make sure that they were comfortable. It
was seldom they awoke on these occasions. Having placed the lamp on the
mantelshelf, he still stood there looking at the three little beds when
Marianne joined him. In the bed against the wall at one end of the room
lay Blaise and Denis, the twins, sturdy little fellows six years of age;
while in the second bed against the opposite wall was Ambroise, now
nearly four and quite a little cherub. And the third bed, a cradle, was
occupied by Mademoiselle Rose, fifteen months of age and weaned for three
weeks past. She lay there half naked, showing her white flowerlike skin,
and her mother had to cover her up with the bedclothes, which she had
thrust aside with her self-willed little fists. Meantime the father
busied himself with Ambroise's pillow, which had slipped aside. Both
husband and wife came and went very gently, and bent again and again over
the children's faces to make sure that they were sleeping peacefully.
They kissed them and lingered yet a little longer, fancying that they had
heard Blaise and Denis stirring. At last the mother took up the lamp and
they went off, one after the other, on tiptoe.

When they were in their room again Marianne exclaimed: "I didn't want to
worry you while we were out, but Rose made me feel anxious to-day; I did
not find her well, and it was only this evening that I felt more at ease
about her." Then, seeing that Mathieu started and turned pale, she went
on: "Oh! it was nothing. I should not have gone out if I had felt the
least fear for her. But with those little folks one is never free from
anxiety."

She then began to make her preparations for the night; but Mathieu,
instead of imitating her, sat down at the table where the lamp stood, and
drew the money paid to him by Morange from his pocket. When he had
counted those three hundred francs, those fifteen louis, he said in a
bitter, jesting way, "The money hasn't grown on the road. Here it is; you
can pay our debts to-morrow."

This remark gave him a fresh idea. Taking his pencil he began to jot down
the various amounts they owed on a blank page of his pocket diary. "We
say twelve francs to the Lepailleurs for eggs and milk. How much do you
owe the butcher?" he asked.

"The butcher," replied Marianne, who had sat down to take off her shoes;
"well, say twenty francs."

"And the grocer and the baker?"

"I don't know exactly, but about thirty francs altogether. There is
nobody else."

Then Mathieu added up the items: "That makes sixty-two francs," said he.
"Take them away from three hundred, and we shall have two hundred and
thirty-eight left. Eight francs a day at the utmost. Well, we have a nice
month before us, with our four children to feed, particularly if little
Rose should fall ill."

The remark surprised his wife, who laughed gayly and confidently, saying:
"Why, what is the matter with you to-night, my dear? You seem to be
almost in despair, when as a rule you look forward to the morrow as full
of promise. You have often said that it was sufficient to love life if
one wished to live happily. As for me, you know, with you and the little
ones I feel the happiest, richest woman in the world!"

At this Mathieu could restrain himself no longer. He shook his head and
mournfully began to recapitulate the day he had just spent. At great
length he relieved his long-pent-up feelings. He spoke of their poverty
and the prosperity of others. He spoke of the Beauchenes, the Moranges,
the Seguins, the Lepailleurs, of all he had seen of them, of all they had
said, of all their scarcely disguised contempt for an improvident
starveling like himself. He, Mathieu, and she, Marianne, would never have
factory, nor mansion, nor mill, nor an income of twelve thousand francs a
year; and their increasing penury, as the others said, had been their own
work. They had certainly shown themselves imprudent, improvident. And he
went on with his recollections, telling Marianne that he feared nothing
for himself, but that he did not wish to condemn her and the little ones
to want and poverty. She was surprised at first, and by degrees became
colder, more constrained, as he told her all that he had upon his mind.
Tears slowly welled into her eyes; and at last, however lovingly he
spoke, she could no longer restrain herself, but burst into sobs. She did
not question what he said, she spoke no words of revolt, but it was
evident that her whole being rebelled, and that her heart was sorely
grieved.

He started, greatly troubled when he saw her tears. Something akin to her
own feelings came upon him. He was terribly distressed, angry with
himself. "Do not weep, my darling!" he exclaimed as he pressed her to
him: "it was stupid, brutal, and wrong of me to speak to you in that way.
Don't distress yourself, I beg you; we'll think it all over and talk
about it some other time."

She ceased to weep, but she continued silent, clinging to him, with her
head resting on his shoulder. And Mathieu, by the side of that loving,
trustful woman, all health and rectitude and purity, felt more and more
confused, more and more ashamed of himself, ashamed of having given heed
to the base, sordid, calculating principles which others made the basis
of their lives. He thought with loathing of the sudden frenzy which had
possessed him during the evening in Paris. Some poison must have been
instilled into his veins; he could not recognize himself. But honor and
rectitude, clear-sightedness and trustfulness in life were fast
returning. Through the window, which had remained open, all the sounds of
the lovely spring night poured into the room. It was spring, the season
of love, and beneath the palpitating stars in the broad heavens, from
fields and forests and waters came the murmur of germinating life. And
never had Mathieu more fully realized that, whatever loss may result,
whatever difficulty may arise, whatever fate may be in store, all the
creative powers of the world, whether of the animal order, whether of the
order of the plants, for ever and ever wage life's great incessant battle
against death. Man alone, dissolute and diseased among all the other
denizens of the world, all the healthful forces of nature, seeks death
for death's sake, the annihilation of his species. Then Mathieu again
caught his wife in a close embrace, printing on her lips a long, ardent
kiss.

"Ah! dear heart, forgive me; I doubted both of us. It would be impossible
for either of us to sleep unless you forgive me. Well, let the others
hold us in derision and contempt if they choose. Let us love and live as
nature tells us, for you are right: therein lies true wisdom and true
courage."

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