Fruitfulness: Chapter 7

Chapter 7

VII

"I TELL you that I don't need Zoe to give the child a bath," exclaimed
Mathieu half in anger. "Stay in bed, and rest yourself!"

"But the servant must get the bath ready," replied Marianne, "and bring
you some warm water."

She laughed as if amused by the dispute, and he ended by laughing also.

Two days previously they had re-installed themselves in the little
pavilion on the verge of the woods near Janville which they rented from
the Seguins. So impatient, indeed, were they to find themselves once more
among the fields that in spite of the doctor's advice Marianne had made
the journey but fifteen days after giving birth to her little boy.
However, a precocious springtide brought with it that March such balmy
warmth and sunshine that the only ill-effect she experienced was a little
fatigue. And so, on the day after their arrival--Sunday--Mathieu, glad at
being able to remain with her, insisted that she should rest in bed, and
only rise about noon, in time for dejeuner.

"Why," he repeated, "I can very well attend to the child while you rest.
You have him in your arms from morning till night. And, besides, if you
only knew how pleased I am to be here again with you and the dear little
fellow."

He approached her to kiss her gently, and with a fresh laugh she returned
his kiss. It was quite true: they were both delighted to be back at
Chantebled, which recalled to them such loving memories. That room,
looking towards the far expanse of sky and all the countryside,
renascent, quivering with sap, was gilded with gayety by the early
springtide.

Marianne leant over the cradle which was near her, beside the bed. "The
fact is," said she, "Master Gervais is sound asleep. Just look at him.
You will never have the heart to wake him."

Then both father and mother remained for a moment gazing at their
sleeping child. Marianne had passed her arm round her husband's neck and
was clinging to him, as they laughed delightedly over the cradle in which
the little one slumbered. He was a fine child, pink and white already;
but only a father and mother could thus contemplate their offspring. As
the baby opened his eyes, which were still full of all the mystery whence
he had come, they raised exclamations full of emotion.

"You know, he saw me!"

"Certainly, and me too. He looked at me: he turned his head."

"Oh, the cherub!"

It was but an illusion, but that dear little face, still so soft and
silent, told them so many things which none other would have heard! They
found themselves repeated in the child, mingled as it were together; and
detected extraordinary likenesses, which for hours and for days kept them
discussing the question as to which of them he most resembled. Moreover,
each proved very obstinate, declaring that he was the living portrait of
the other.

As a matter of course, Master Gervais had no sooner opened his eyes than
he began to shriek. But Marianne was pitiless: her rule was the bath
first and milk afterwards. Zoe brought up a big jug of hot water, and
then set out the little bath near the window in the sunlight. And
Mathieu, all obstinacy, bathed the child, washing him with a soft sponge
for some three minutes, while Marianne, from her bed, watched over the
operation, jesting about the delicacy of touch that he displayed, as if
the child were some fragile new-born divinity whom he feared to bruise
with his big hands. At the same time they continued marvelling at the
delightful scene. How pretty he looked in the water, his pink skin
shining in the sunlight! And how well-behaved he was, for it was
wonderful to see how quickly he ceased wailing and gave signs of
satisfaction when he felt the all-enveloping caress of the warm water.
Never had father and mother possessed such a little treasure.

"And now," said Mathieu, when Zoe had helped him to wipe the boy with a
fine cloth, "and now we will weigh Master Gervais."

This was a complicated operation, which was rendered the more difficult
by the extreme repugnance that the child displayed. He struggled and
wriggled on the platform of the weighing scales to such a degree that it
was impossible to arrive at his correct weight, in order to ascertain how
much this had increased since the previous occasion. As a rule, the
increase varied from six to seven ounces a week. The father generally
lost patience over the operation, and the mother had to intervene.

"Here! put the scales on the table near my bed, and give me the little
one in his napkin. We will see what the napkin weighs afterwards."

At this moment, however, the customary morning invasion took place. The
other four children, who were beginning to know how to dress themselves,
the elder ones helping the younger, and Zoe lending a hand at times,
darted in at a gallop, like frolicsome escaped colts. Having thrown
themselves on papa's neck and rushed upon mamma's bed to say
good-morning, the boys stopped short, full of admiration and interest at
the sight of Gervais in the scales. Rose, however, still rather uncertain
on her legs, caught hold of the scales in her impatient efforts to climb
upon the bed, and almost toppled everything over. "I want to see! I want
to see!" she cried in her shrill voice.

At this the others likewise wished to meddle, and already stretched out
their little hands, so that it became necessary to turn them out of
doors.

"Now kindly oblige me by going to play outside," said Mathieu. "Take your
hats and remain under the window, so that we may hear you."

Then, in spite of the complaints and leaps of Master Gervais, Marianne
was at last able to obtain his correct weight. And what delight there
was, for he had gained more than seven ounces during the week. After
losing weight during the first three days, like all new-born children, he
was now growing and filling out like a strong, healthy human plant. They
could already picture him walking, sturdy and handsome. His mother,
sitting up in bed, wrapped his swaddling clothes around him with her
deft, nimble hands, jesting the while and answering each of his plaintive
wails.

"Yes, yes, I know, we are very, very hungry. But it is all right; the
soup is on the fire, and will be served to Monsieur smoking hot."

On awakening that morning she had made a real Sunday toilette: her superb
hair was caught up in a huge chignon which disclosed the whiteness of her
neck, and she wore a white flannel lace-trimmed dressing-jacket, which
allowed but a little of her bare arms to be seen. Propped up by two
pillows, she laughingly offered her breast to the child, who was already
protruding his lips and groping with his hands. And when he found what he
wanted he eagerly began to suck.

Mathieu, seeing that both mother and babe were steeped in sunshine, then
went to draw one of the curtains, but Marianne exclaimed: "No, no, leave
us the sun; it doesn't inconvenience us at all, it fills our veins with
springtide."

He came back and lingered near the bed. The sun's rays poured over it,
and life blazed there in a florescence of health and beauty. There is no
more glorious blossoming, no more sacred symbol of living eternity than
an infant at its mother's breast. It is like a prolongation of
maternity's travail, when the mother continues giving herself to her
babe, offering him the fountain of life that shall make him a man.

Scarce is he born to the world than she takes him back and clasps him to
her bosom, that he may there again have warmth and nourishment. And
nothing could be more simple or more necessary. Marianne, both for her
own sake and that of her boy, in order that beauty and health might
remain their portion, was naturally his nurse.

Little Gervais was still sucking when Zoe, after tidying the room, came
up again with a big bunch of lilac, and announced that Monsieur and
Madame Angelin had called, on their way back from an early walk, to
inquire after Madame.

"Show them up," said Marianne gayly; "I can well receive them."

The Angelins were the young couple who, having installed themselves in a
little house at Janville, ever roamed the lonely paths, absorbed in their
mutual passion. She was delicious--dark, tall, admirably formed, always
joyous and fond of pleasure. He, a handsome fellow, fair and square
shouldered, had the gallant mien of a musketeer with his streaming
moustache. In addition to their ten thousand francs a year, which enabled
them to live as they liked, he earned a little money by painting pretty
fans, flowery with roses and little women deftly postured. And so their
life had hitherto been a game of love, an everlasting billing and cooing.
Towards the close of the previous summer they had become quite intimate
with the Froments, through meeting them well-nigh every day.

"Can we come in? Are we not intruding?" called Angelin, in his sonorous
voice, from the landing.

Then Claire, his wife, as soon as she had kissed Marianne, apologized for
having called so early.

"We only learnt last night, my dear," said she, "that you had arrived the
day before. We didn't expect you for another eight or ten days. And so,
as we passed the house just now, we couldn't resist calling. You will
forgive us, won't you?" Then, never waiting for an answer, she added with
the petulant vivacity of a tom-tit whom the open air had intoxicated:
"Oh! so there is the new little gentleman--a boy, am I not right? And
your health is good? But really I need not ask it. _Mon Dieu_, what a
pretty little fellow he is! Look at him, Robert; how pretty he is! A real
little doll! Isn't he funny now, isn't he funny! He is quite amusing."

Her husband, observing her gayety, drew near and began to admire the
child by way of following her example. "Ah yes, he is really a pretty
baby. But I have seen so many frightful ones--thin, puny, bluish little
things, looking like little plucked chickens. When they are white and
plump they are quite nice."

Mathieu began to laugh, and twitted the Angelins on having no child of
their own. But on this point they held very decided opinions. They wished
to enjoy life, unburdened by offspring, while they were young. As for
what might happen in five or six years' time, that, of course, was
another matter. Nevertheless, Madame Angelin could not help being struck
by the delightful picture which Marianne, so fresh and gay, presented
with her plump little babe at her breast in that white bed amid the
bright sunshine.

At last she remarked: "There's one thing. I certainly could not feed a
child. I should have to engage a nurse for any baby of mine."

"Of course!" her husband replied. "I would never allow you to feed it. It
would be idiotic."

These words had scarcely passed his lips when he regretted them and
apologized to Marianne, explaining that no mother possessed of means was
nowadays willing to face the trouble and worry of nursing.

"Oh! for my part," Marianne responded, with her quiet smile, "if I had a
hundred thousand francs a year I should nurse all my children, even were
there a dozen of them. To begin with, it is so healthful, you know, both
for mother and child: and if I didn't do my duty to the little one I
should look on myself as a criminal, as a mother who grudged her
offspring health and life."

Lowering her beautiful soft eyes towards her boy, she watched him with a
look of infinite love, while he continued nursing gluttonously. And in a
dreamy voice she continued: "To give a child of mine to another--oh no,
never! I should feel too jealous. I want my children to be entirely my
own. And it isn't merely a question of a child's physical health. I speak
of his whole being, of the intelligence and heart that will come to him,
and which he ought to derive from me alone. If I should find him foolish
or malicious later on, I should think that his nurse had poisoned him.
Dear little fellow! when he pulls like that it is as if he were drinking
me up entirely."

Then Mathieu, deeply moved, turned towards the others, saying: "Ah! she
is quite right. I only wish that every mother could hear her, and make it
the fashion in France once more to suckle their infants. It would be
sufficient if it became an ideal of beauty. And, indeed, is it not of the
loftiest and brightest beauty?"

The Angelins complaisantly began to laugh, but they did not seem
convinced. Just as they rose to take their leave an extraordinary uproar
burst forth beneath the window, the piercing clamor of little wildings,
freely romping in the fields. And it was all caused by Ambroise throwing
a ball, which had lodged itself on a tree. Blaise and Denis were flinging
stones at it to bring it down, and Rose called and jumped and stretched
out her arms as if she hoped to be able to reach the ball. The Angelins
stopped short, surprised and almost nervous.

"Good heavens!" murmured Claire, "what will it be when you have a dozen?"

"But the house would seem quite dead if they did not romp and shout,"
said Marianne, much amused. "Good-by, my dear. I will go to see you when
I can get about."

The months of March and April proved superb, and all went well with
Marianne. Thus the lonely little house, nestling amid foliage, was ever
joyous. Each Sunday in particular proved a joy, for the father did not
then have to go to his office. On the other days he started off early in
the morning, and returned about seven o'clock, ever busily laden with
work in the interval. And if his constant perambulations did not affect
his good-humor, he was nevertheless often haunted by thoughts of the
future. Formerly he had never been alarmed by the penury of his little
home. Never had he indulged in any dream of ambition or wealth. Besides,
he knew that his wife's only idea of happiness, like his own, was to live
there in very simple fashion, leading a brave life of health,
peacefulness, and love. But while he did not desire the power procured by
a high position and the enjoyment offered by a large fortune, he could
not help asking himself how he was to provide, were it ever so modestly,
for his increasing family. What would he be able to do, should he have
other children; how would he procure the necessaries of life each time
that a fresh birth might impose fresh requirements upon him? One situated
as he was must create resources, draw food from the earth step by step,
each time a little mouth opened and cried its hunger aloud. Otherwise he
would be guilty of criminal improvidence. And such reflections as these
came upon him the more strongly as his penury had increased since the
birth of Gervais--to such a point, indeed, that Marianne, despite
prodigies of economy, no longer knew how to make her money last her till
the end of the month. The slightest expenditure had to be debated; the
very butter had to be spread thinly on the children's bread; and they had
to continue wearing their blouses till they were well-nigh threadbare. To
increase the embarrassment they grew every year, and cost more money. It
had been necessary to send the three boys to a little school at Janville,
which was as yet but a small expense. But would it not be necessary to
send them the following year to a college, and where was the money for
this to come from? A grave problem, a worry which grew from hour to hour,
and which for Mathieu somewhat spoilt that charming spring whose advent
was flowering the countryside.

The worst was that Mathieu deemed himself immured, as it were, in his
position as designer at the Beauchene works. Even admitting that his
salary should some day be doubled, it was not seven or eight thousand
francs a year which would enable him to realize his dream of a numerous
family freely and proudly growing and spreading like some happy forest,
indebted solely for strength, health, and beauty to the good common
mother of all, the earth, which gave to all its sap. And this was why,
since his return to Janville, the earth, the soil had attracted him,
detained him during his frequent walks, while he revolved vague but
ever-expanding thoughts in his mind. He would pause for long minutes, now
before a field of wheat, now on the verge of a leafy wood, now on the
margin of a river whose waters glistened in the sunshine, and now amid
the nettles of some stony moorland. All sorts of vague plans then rose
within him, uncertain reveries of such vast scope, such singularity, that
he had as yet spoken of them to nobody, not even his wife. Others would
doubtless have mocked at him, for he had as yet but reached that dim,
quivering hour when inventors feel the gust of their discovery sweep over
them, before the idea that they are revolving presents itself with full
precision to their minds. Yet why did he not address himself to the soil,
man's everlasting provider and nurse? Why did he not clear and fertilize
those far-spreading lands, those woods, those heaths, those stretches of
stony ground which were left sterile around him? Since it was just that
each man should bring his contribution to the common weal, create
subsistence for himself and his offspring, why should not he, at the
advent of each new child, supply a new field of fertile earth which would
give that child food, without cost to the community? That was his sole
idea; it took no more precise shape; at the thought of realizing it he
was carried off into splendid dreams.

The Froments had been in the country fully a month when one evening
Marianne, wheeling Gervais's little carriage in front of her, came as far
as the bridge over the Yeuse to await Mathieu, who had promised to return
early. Indeed, he got there before six o'clock. And as the evening was
fine, it occurred to Marianne to go as far as the Lepailleurs' mill down
the river, and buy some new-laid eggs there.

"I'm willing," said Mathieu. "I'm very fond of their romantic old mill,
you know; though if it were mine I should pull it down and build another
one with proper appliances."

In the yard of the picturesque old building, half covered with ivy, with
its mossy wheel slumbering amid water-lilies, they found the Lepailleurs,
the man tall, dry, and carroty, the woman as carroty and as dry as
himself, but both of them young and hardy. Their child Antonin was
sitting on the ground, digging a hole with his little hands.

"Eggs?" La Lepailleur exclaimed; "yes, certainly, madame, there must be
some."

She made no haste to fetch them, however, but stood looking at Gervais,
who was asleep in his little vehicle.

"Ah! so that's your last. He's plump and pretty enough, I must say," she
remarked.

But Lepailleur raised a derisive laugh, and with the familiarity which
the peasant displays towards the bourgeois whom he knows to be hard up,
he said: "And so that makes you five, monsieur. Ah, well! that would be a
deal too many for poor folks like us."

"Why?" Mathieu quietly inquired. "Haven't you got this mill, and don't
you own fields, to give labor to the arms that would come and whose labor
would double and treble your produce?"

These simple words were like a whipstroke that made Lepailleur rear. And
once again he poured forth all his spite. Ah! surely now, it wasn't his
tumble-down old mill that would ever enrich him, since it had enriched
neither his father nor his grandfather. And as for his fields, well, that
was a pretty dowry that his wife had brought him, land in which nothing
more would grow, and which, however much one might water it with one's
sweat, did not even pay for manuring and sowing.

"But in the first place," resumed Mathieu, "your mill ought to be
repaired and its old mechanism replaced, or, better still, you should buy
a good steam-engine."

"Repair the mill! Buy an engine! Why, that's madness," the other replied.
"What would be the use of it? As it is, people hereabouts have almost
renounced growing corn, and I remain idle every other month."

"And then," continued Mathieu, "if your fields yield less, it is because
you cultivate them badly, following the old routine, without proper care
or appliances or artificial manure."

"Appliances! Artificial manure! All that humbug which has only sent poor
folks to rack and ruin! Ah! I should just like to see you trying to
cultivate the land better, and make it yield what it'll never yield any
more."

Thereupon he quite lost his temper, became violent and brutal, launching
against the ungrateful earth all the charges which his love of idleness
and his obstinacy suggested. He had travelled, he had fought in Africa as
a soldier, folks could not say that he had always lived in his hole like
an ignorant beast. But, none the less, on leaving his regiment he had
lost all taste for work and come to the conclusion that agriculture was
doomed, and would never give him aught but dry bread to eat. The land
would soon be bankrupt, and the peasantry no longer believed in it, so
old and empty and worn out had it become. And even the sun got out of
order nowadays; they had snow in July and thunderstorms in December, a
perfect upsetting of seasons, which wrecked the crops almost before they
were out of the ground.

"No, monsieur," said Lepailleur, "what you say is impossible; it's all
past. The soil and work, there's nothing left of either. It's barefaced
robbery, and though the peasant may kill himself with labor, he will soon
be left without even water to drink. Children indeed! No, no! There's
Antonin, of course, and for him we may just be able to provide. But I
assure you that I won't even make Antonin a peasant against his will! If
he takes to schooling and wishes to go to Paris, I shall tell him that
he's quite right, for Paris is nowadays the only chance for sturdy chaps
who want to make a fortune. So he will be at liberty to sell everything,
if he chooses, and try his luck there. The only thing that I regret is
that I didn't make the venture myself when there was still time."

Mathieu began to laugh. Was it not singular that he, a bourgeois with a
bachelor's degree and scientific attainments, should dream of coming back
to the soil, to the common mother of all labor and wealth, when this
peasant, sprung from peasants, cursed and insulted the earth, and hoped
that his son would altogether renounce it? Never had anything struck him
as more significant. It symbolized that disastrous exodus from the rural
districts towards the towns, an exodus which year by year increased,
unhinging the nation and reducing it to anaemia.

"You are wrong," he said in a jovial way so as to drive all bitterness
from the discussion. "Don't be unfaithful to the earth; she's an old
mistress who would revenge herself. In your place I would lay myself out
to obtain from her, by increase of care, all that I might want. As in the
world's early days, she is still the great fruitful spouse, and she
yields abundantly when she is loved in proper fashion."

But Lepailleur, raising his fists, retorted: "No, no; I've had enough of
her!"

"And, by the way," continued Mathieu, "one thing which astonishes me is
that no courageous, intelligent man has ever yet come forward to do
something with all that vast abandoned estate yonder--that
Chantebled--which old Seguin, formerly, dreamt of turning into a princely
domain. There are great stretches of waste land, woods which one might
partly fell, heaths and moorland which might easily be restored to
cultivation. What a splendid task! What a work of creation for a bold man
to undertake!"

This so amazed Lepailleur that he stood there openmouthed. Then his
jeering spirit asserted itself: "But, my dear sir--excuse my saying
it--you must be mad! Cultivate Chantebled, clear those stony tracts, wade
about in those marshes! Why, one might bury millions there without
reaping a single bushel of oats! It's a cursed spot, which my
grandfather's father saw such as it is now, and which my grandson's son
will see just the same. Ah! well, I'm not inquisitive, but it would
really amuse me to meet the fool who might attempt such madness."

"_Mon Dieu_, who knows?" Mathieu quietly concluded. "When one only loves
strongly one may work miracles."

La Lepailleur, after going to fetch a dozen eggs, now stood erect before
her husband in admiration at hearing him talk so eloquently to a
bourgeois. They agreed very well together in their avaricious rage at
being unable to amass money by the handful without any great exertion,
and in their ambition to make their son a gentleman, since only a
gentleman could become wealthy. And thus, as Marianne was going off after
placing the eggs under a cushion in Gervais' little carriage, the other
complacently called her attention to Antonin, who, having made a hole in
the ground, was now spitting into it.

"Oh! he's smart," said she; "he knows his alphabet already, and we are
going to put him to school. If he takes after his father he will be no
fool, I assure you."

It was on a Sunday, some ten days later, that the supreme revelation, the
great flash of light which was to decide his life and that of those he
loved, fell suddenly upon Mathieu during a walk he took with his wife and
the children. They had gone out for the whole afternoon, taking a little
snack with them in order that they might share it amid the long grass in
the fields. And after scouring the paths, crossing the copses, rambling
over the moorland, they came back to the verge of the woods and sat down
under an oak. Thence the whole expanse spread out before them, from the
little pavilion where they dwelt to the distant village of Janville. On
their right was the great marshy plateau, from which broad, dry, sterile
slopes descended; while lower ground stretched away on their left. Then,
behind them, spread the woods with deep thickets parted by clearings,
full of herbage which no scythe had ever touched. And not a soul was to
be seen around them; there was naught save wild Nature, grandly quiescent
under the bright sun of that splendid April day. The earth seemed to be
dilating with all the sap amassed within it, and a flood of life could be
felt rising and quivering in the vigorous trees, the spreading plants,
and the impetuous growth of brambles and nettles which stretched
invadingly over the soil. And on all sides a powerful, pungent odor was
diffused.

"Don't go too far," Marianne called to the children; "we shall stay under
this oak. We will have something to eat by and by."

Blaise and Denis were already bounding along, followed by Ambroise, to
see who could run the fastest; but Rose pettishly called them back, for
she preferred to play at gathering wild flowers. The open air fairly
intoxicated the youngsters; the herbage rose, here and there, to their
very shoulders. But they came back and gathered flowers; and after a time
they set off at a wild run once more, one of the big brothers carrying
the little sister on his back.

Mathieu, however, had remained absent-minded, with his eyes wandering
hither and thither, throughout their walk. At times he did not hear
Marianne when she spoke to him; he lapsed into reverie before some
uncultivated tract, some copse overrun with brushwood, some spring which
suddenly bubbled up and was then lost in mire. Nevertheless, she felt
that there was no sadness nor feeling of indifference in his heart; for
as soon as he returned to her he laughed once more with his soft, loving
laugh. It was she who often sent him roaming about the country, even
alone, for she felt that it would do him good; and although she had
guessed that something very serious was passing through his mind, she
retained full confidence, waiting till it should please him to speak to
her.

Now, however, just as he had sunk once more into his reverie, his glance
wandering afar, studying the great varied expanse of land, she raised a
light cry: "Oh! look, look!"

Under the big oak tree she had placed Master Gervais in his little
carriage, among wild weeds which hid its wheels. And while she handed a
little silver mug, from which it was intended they should drink while
taking their snack, she had noticed that the child raised his head and
followed the movement of her hand, in which the silver sparkled beneath
the sun-rays. Forthwith she repeated the experiment, and again the
child's eyes followed the starry gleam.

"Ah! it can't be said that I'm mistaken, and am simply fancying it!" she
exclaimed. "It is certain that he can see quite plainly now. My pretty
pet, my little darling!"

She darted to the child to kiss him in celebration of that first clear
glance. And then, too, came the delight of the first smile.

"Why, look!" in his turn said Mathieu, who was leaning over the child
beside her, yielding to the same feeling of rapture, "there he is smiling
at you now. But of course, as soon as these little fellows see clearly
they begin to laugh."

She herself burst into a laugh. "You are right, he is laughing! Ah! how
funny he looks, and how happy I am!"

Both father and mother laughed together with content at the sight of that
infantile smile, vague and fleeting, like a faint ripple on the pure
water of some spring.

Amid this joy Marianne called the four others, who were bounding under
the young foliage around them: "Come, Rose! come, Ambroise! come, Blaise
and Denis! It's time now; come at once to have something to eat."

They hastened up and the snack was set out on a patch of soft grass.
Mathieu unhooked the basket which hung in front of the baby's little
vehicle; and Marianne, having drawn some slices of bread-and-butter from
it, proceeded to distribute them. Perfect silence ensued while all four
children began biting with hearty appetite, which it was a pleasure to
see. But all at once a scream arose. It came from Master Gervais, who was
vexed at not having been served first.

"Ah! yes, it's true I was forgetting you," said Marianne gayly; "you
shall have your share. There, open your mouth, you darling;" and, with an
easy, simple gesture, she unfastened her dress-body; and then, under the
sunlight which steeped her in golden radiance, in full view of the
far-spreading countryside, where all likewise was bare--the soil, the
trees, the plants, streaming with sap--having seated herself in the long
grass, where she almost disappeared amid the swarming growth of April's
germs, the babe on her breast eagerly sucked in her warm milk, even as
all the encompassing verdure was sucking life from the soil.

"How hungry you are!" she exclaimed. "Don't pinch me so hard, you little
glutton!"

Meantime Mathieu had remained standing amid the enchantment of the
child's first smile and the gayety born of the hearty hunger around him.
Then his dream of creation came back to him, and he at last gave voice to
those plans for the future which haunted him, and of which he had so far
spoken to nobody: "Ah, well, it is high time that I should set to work
and found a kingdom, if these children are to have enough soup to make
them grow. Shall I tell you what I've thought--shall I tell you?"

Marianne raised her eyes, smiling and all attention. "Yes, tell me your
secret if the time has come. Oh! I could guess that you had some great
hope in you. But I did not ask you anything; I preferred to wait."

He did not give a direct reply, for at a sudden recollection his feelings
rebelled. "That Lepailleur," said he, "is simply a lazy fellow and a fool
in spite of all his cunning airs. Can there be any more sacrilegious
folly than to imagine that the earth has lost her fruitfulness and is
becoming bankrupt--she, the eternal mother, eternal life? She only shows
herself a bad mother to her bad sons, the malicious, the obstinate, and
the dull-witted, who do not know how to love and cultivate her. But if an
intelligent son comes and devotes himself to her, and works her with the
help of experience and all the new systems of science, you will soon see
her quicken and yield tremendous harvests unceasingly. Ah! folks say in
the district that this estate of Chantebled has never yielded and never
will yield anything but nettles. Well, nevertheless, a man will come who
will transform it and make it a new land of joy and abundance."

Then, suddenly turning round, with outstretched arm, and pointing to the
spots to which he referred in turn, he went on: "Yonder in the rear there
are nearly five hundred acres of little woods, stretching as far as the
farms of Mareuil and Lillebonne. They are separated by clearings of
excellent soil which broad gaps unite, and which could easily be turned
into good pastures, for there are numerous springs. And, indeed, the
springs become so abundant on the right, that they have changed that big
plateau into a kind of marshland, dotted with ponds, and planted with
reeds and rushes. But picture a man of bold mind, a clearer, a conqueror,

who should drain those lands and rid them of superfluous water by means
of a few canals which might easily be dug! Why, then a huge stretch of
land would be reclaimed, handed over to cultivation, and wheat would grow
there with extraordinary vigor. But that is not all. There is the expanse
before us, those gentle slopes from Janville to Vieux-Bourg, that is
another five hundred acres, which are left almost uncultivated on account
of their dryness, the stony poverty of their soil. So it is all very
simple. One would merely have to take the sources up yonder, the waters,
now stagnant, and carry them across those sterile slopes, which, when
irrigated, would gradually develop extraordinary fertility. I have seen
everything, I have studied everything. I feel that there are at least
twelve hundred acres of land which a bold creator might turn into a most
productive estate. Yonder lies a whole kingdom of corn, a whole new world
to be created by labor, with the help of the beneficent waters and our
father the sun, the source of eternal life."

Marianne gazed at him and admired him as he stood there quivering,
pondering over all that he evoked from his dream. But she was frightened
by the vastness of such hopes, and could not restrain a cry of
disquietude and prudence.

"No, no, that is too much; you desire the impossible. How can you think
that we shall ever possess so much--that our fortune will spread over the
entire region? Think of the capital, the arms that would be needed for
such a conquest!"

For a moment Mathieu remained silent on thus suddenly being brought back
to reality. Then with his affectionate, sensible air, he began to laugh.
"You are right; I have been dreaming and talking wildly," he replied. "I
am not yet so ambitious as to wish to be King of Chantebled. But there is
truth in what I have said to you; and, besides, what harm can there be in
dreaming of great plans to give oneself faith and courage? Meantime I
intend to try cultivating just a few acres, which Seguin will no doubt
sell me cheaply enough, together with the little pavilion in which we
live. I know that the unproductiveness of the estate weighs on him. And,
later on, we shall see if the earth is disposed to love us and come to us
as we go to her. Ah well, my dear, give that little glutton plenty of
life, and you, my darlings, eat and drink and grow in strength, for the
earth belongs to those who are healthy and numerous."

Blaise and Denis made answer by taking some fresh slices of
bread-and-butter, while Rose drained the mug of wine and water which
Ambroise handed her. And Marianne sat there like the symbol of blossoming
Fruitfulness, the source of vigor and conquest, while Gervais heartily
nursed on. He pulled so hard, indeed, that one could hear the sound of
his lips. It was like the faint noise which attends the rise of a
spring--a slender rill of milk that is to swell and become a river.
Around her the mother heard that source springing up and spreading on all
sides. She was not nourishing alone: the sap of April was dilating the
land, sending a quiver through the woods, raising the long herbage which
embowered her. And beneath her, from the bosom of the earth, which was
ever in travail, she felt that flood of sap reaching and ever pervading
her. And it was like a stream of milk flowing through the world, a stream
of eternal life for humanity's eternal crop. And on that gay day of
spring the dazzling, singing, fragrant countryside was steeped in it all,
triumphal with that beauty of the mother, who, in the full light of the
sun, in view of the vast horizon, sat there nursing her child.

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