'Oh! it's only a fancy, a dream, that I'm talking of. One may indulge

in pleasant dreams, you know, when the actual truth is not very

cheerful.'

He had risen from the table and had sat down upon one of the arms of

Pauline's chair. She let her knitting drop, that she might laugh at

ease over the ceaseless flow of the young man's imagination.

'Are you mad, my poor fellow?' she asked. 'What should we have done

out there?'

'We should have lived! Do you remember that book of travels that we

read together a dozen years ago? There is a perfect paradise out there.

There is no winter, the sky is always blue, and life is passed beneath

the sun and the stars. We should have had a cabin and have lived upon

delicious fruits, with nothing to do and never a trouble to vex us.'

'Ah! then we should soon have become a pair of savages, with rings

through our noses and feathers on our heads!'

'Well, why not? We should have loved each other from one end of the

year to the other, taking no count of the days. Ah! it would have been

delightful!'

She looked at him. Her eyelids were quivering and her face turned

pale. That thought of love had filled her with delicious languor. He

had playfully taken hold of her hand and was smiling in an embarrassed

manner. At first Pauline felt no disquietude. It was nothing more than

a revival of their old intimacy. But she slowly grew disturbed; her

strength seemed to ebb from her, and her very voice faltered as she

said:

'Nothing but fruit would make rather a spare diet. We should have had

to hunt and fish, and cultivate a piece of land. If it is true, as they

say, that the women do the work out there, would you have set me to dig

the ground?'

'You! With those tiny hands of yours! Oh! we could have made capital

servants out of the monkeys, you know!'

She smiled languidly at this pleasantry, while he added:

'Besides, they would have been no longer in existence, those little

hands of yours! I should have eaten them up--like this!'

He kissed her hands and pretended to bite at them, while the blood

surged to his face in a sudden thrill of passion. They neither of

them spoke. They were affected by a common madness--a vertigo which

threw them both into dizzy faintness. Pauline seemed on the point of

swooning; her eyes closed; but at last, as Lazare's lips suddenly met

hers, the thrill she felt made her raise her eyelids, and she awoke

like one who has just passed through a terrible dream. Then she sprang

to her feet, and, faint though she still felt, she found courage to

resist both Lazare and her own passion. The struggle was short, but

violent. She repulsed him again and again, and at last, profiting by

a brief respite, she fled across the landing into her own room. He

followed, and she could hear him speaking to her, but in spite of the

passionate promptings of her own heart she kept silent. He sobbed and

her own tears fell, yet she gave him no response. When at last she

heard him close his door behind him she gave full rein to her grief.

It was all over and she had conquered, but her victory filled her

with distress. It was impossible for her to sleep; she lay awake till

morning. What had happened took complete possession of her thoughts.

That evening had been a sin at which she now shuddered with horror.

She felt that she could no longer find excuse for herself, that she

must acknowledge the duplicity of her affections. Her motherly love for

Lazare and her condemnation of Louise were but a hypocritical revival

of her old passion for her cousin. She had let herself glide into

falsehood; for, as she analysed more closely the secret sentiments of

her heart, she became conscious that the rupture between Lazare and his

wife had pleased her rather than otherwise, and that she had hoped in

some way to profit by it. Was it not she, too, who had brought about

between her cousin and herself a renewal of the intimacy of former

days? Ought she not to have known that the result must be disastrous?

Now matters had reached a terrible pass, and they were threatened

with ruin. She had given him to another, while she herself loved him

passionately, and he, too, longed for her. This thought careered

through her brain and beat upon her temples like a peal of bells. At

first she made up her mind to run away from the house in the morning.

Then she thought that such flight would be cowardly. Since Lazare was

leaving very shortly, why should she not remain? Her pride, too, awoke

within her; she resolved to conquer herself, for she felt that she

could never again carry her head erect should the occurrence of that

night inspire her with remorse.

The next morning she came downstairs at her accustomed hour. There

was nothing about her to reveal the night of torture she had spent

except the heaviness of her eyes. She was pale and quite calm. When

Lazare appeared in his turn, he explained his air of weary lassitude by

telling his father that he had sat up late, working. The day passed in

the usual way. Neither Pauline nor Lazare made any reference to what

had occurred between them, even when they found themselves alone and

free from all observation. They made no attempt to avoid each other;

they appeared quite confident of themselves. But in the evening, when

they wished each other good-night on the landing near their rooms,

they fell into each other's arms, and their lips met in a kiss. Then

Pauline, full of alarm, hastily escaped and locked herself in her room,

while Lazare, too, rushed away, bursting into tears.

It was thus that they continued to bear themselves towards each other.

The days slowly glided away, and the cousins lived on together in

constant anxiety of possible backsliding. Though they never spoke of

such a thing, and never referred to that terrible night, they thought

of it continually and were filled with fear. Their sense of what was

right and honourable remained undimmed, and every sudden little lapse,

any embrace or stolen kiss, left them full of anger with themselves.

But neither had the courage to take the only safe step, that of

immediate separation. Pauline, believing that it would be cowardly for

her to flee, persisted in remaining in the presence of danger; while

Lazare, absorbed in his transports, did not even reply to the pressing

letters he received from his wife. He had now been six weeks at

Bonneville, and he and Pauline had begun to believe that this existence

of alternate pain and sweetness would go on for ever.

One Sunday, at dinner, Chanteau became quite gay, after venturing

to drink a glass of Burgundy, a luxury for which he had to pay very

dearly each time that he indulged in it. Pauline and Lazare had spent

some delightful hours together by the sea under the bright blue sky,

exchanging looks full of tenderness, though marked with that haunting

fear of themselves which infused such passion into their intimacy.

They were all three smiling, when Véronique, who was just about to

bring in the dessert, called from the door of the kitchen:

'Here comes Madame!'

'Madame who?' cried Pauline, with a feeling of stupefaction.

'Madame Louise!'

They all broke out into exclamations. Chanteau, quite scared, gazed

at Pauline and Lazare, who had turned very pale. But the latter rose

excitedly from his seat and stammered angrily:

'What! Louise? She never told me she was coming, and I had forbidden

her to do so. She must be mad!'

The twilight was falling, soft and clear. Lazare threw down his napkin

and rushed out of the room. Pauline followed him, struggling to regain

her cheerful serenity. It was indeed Louise who was alighting with

difficulty from old Malivoire's coach.

'Are you mad?' her husband cried to her across the yard. 'Why have you

done such a foolish thing without writing to me?'

Then Louise burst into tears. She had been so poorly at Clermont, she

said, and had felt so depressed and weary. And as her two last letters

had remained unanswered, she had felt an irresistible impulse to set

off, a yearning desire to see Bonneville again. If she had not sent him

word of her intention, it was because she feared that he might have

prevented her from satisfying her whim.

'And to think I was pleased with the idea of taking you all by

surprise!' she concluded.

'It is idiotic! You will go back again to-morrow!' her husband cried.

Louise, quite overcome, crushed by this reception, fell into Pauline's

arms. The latter had again turned pale. And now, when she felt this

woman, so soon to be a mother, pressing against her, both horror and

pity came upon her. However, she succeeded in conquering her jealousy

and in silencing Lazare.

'Why do you speak to her so unkindly? Kiss her! You did quite right to

come, my dear, if you thought you would be better at Bonneville. You

know very well that we all love you, don't you?'

Loulou was barking furiously at all the hubbub which disturbed the

usual quiet of the yard. Minouche, having poked her head out of the

door, had retired again, shaking her feet as though she had just

escaped mixing herself up in some compromising incident. The whole

party went into the house, and Véronique laid another cover at the

table and began to serve the dinner over again.

'Hallo! is it really you, Louisette?' Chanteau exclaimed, with an

uneasy smile. 'You wanted to take us by surprise? You have almost made

my wine go the wrong way!'

However, the evening passed off pleasantly. They had all regained their

self-possession, and avoided making any reference to the immediate

future. There was a momentary revival of embarrassment at bedtime, when

Véronique inquired if Monsieur Lazare was going to sleep in his wife's

room.

'Oh no! Louise will sleep better alone,' Lazare replied, looking up

instinctively and catching Pauline's glance.

'Yes, that will be better,' said the young wife; 'sleep at the top of

the house, for I'm dreadfully tired, and like that I shall have the

whole bed to myself.'

Three days passed. Then Pauline at last came to a determination. She

would leave the house on the following Monday. Lazare and Louise

had already begun to talk of remaining till after the birth of the

expected baby, and Pauline thought she could see that her cousin had

had enough of Paris, and would settle down altogether at Bonneville,

weary and sick of his perpetual failures. The best thing she could do,

therefore, was to give the place up to them at once, for she had not

been able to conquer herself, and she more than ever lacked the courage

to live beside them and witness all the intimacy of man and wife.

Besides, this course seemed the best means of escaping from all the

perils threatened by the reviving passion from which she and Lazare

had just suffered so cruelly. Louise alone expressed some astonishment

on learning Pauline's decision, but she was supplied with undeniable

reasons for it. Doctor Cazenove told her that his relation at Saint-Lô

had made Pauline unusually favourable offers, that the girl could not

really refuse them any longer, and that her friends must insist upon

her accepting a position which would make her future safe. Chanteau,

too, with tears in his eyes, expressed his consent.

On the Saturday came a farewell dinner, with the priest and the Doctor.

Louise, who suffered greatly, could scarcely drag herself to the table,

and this threw additional gloom over the meal, in spite of the efforts

of Pauline, who had cheerful smiles for everyone, though in reality she

grieved bitterly at the thought of leaving that house, which she had

animated and brightened for so many years with her ringing laughter.

Her heart was aching with pain, and Véronique served the dinner with

a tragic air. Chanteau refused to touch a single drop of Burgundy,

having become all at once almost superfluously prudent, for he trembled

at the thought of being so soon deprived of a nurse whose mere voice

seemed able to lull his pains. Lazare, for his part, was feverish, and

wrangled with the Doctor about a new scientific discovery.

By eleven o'clock the house had once more subsided into silence.

Louise and Chanteau were already asleep, while Véronique was tidying

up her kitchen. Then, at the top of the house, by the door of his old

room, which he still occupied, Lazare detained Pauline for a moment,

according to his wont.

'Good-bye!' he murmured.

'No! not good-bye,' she said, forcing herself to smile. '_Au revoir_,

since I am not going away till Monday.'

They gazed at each other, and as their eyes grew dim they fell into

each other's arms, while their lips met passionately in a last kiss.

X

The next morning, as they sat down to their coffee at the early

breakfast, they were surprised that Louise did not make her appearance.

The servant went upstairs to knock at her door, and when the young

woman at last came down it was evident that she was in a state of great

suffering. She took but a few sips of coffee; and all the morning she

dragged herself about the house, rising from one chair to go and sit

down upon another. They did not venture to speak to her, for she grew

irritable and seemed to suffer the more when any notice was taken of

her. She experienced no relief until a little before noon, when she was

able to sit down at the table again and take some soup. Between two

and three o'clock, however, she was again unable to remain still, and

dragged herself about between the dining-room and the kitchen, finally

going, with great difficulty, upstairs, but only to come down again

immediately.

At the top of the house Pauline was now packing her trunk. She was

to leave Bonneville the next morning, and she had only the needful

time to empty her drawers and get everything ready for departure;

nevertheless, she every minute went out on to the landing and looked

over the banisters, distressed by the other's evident suffering. About

four o'clock, as she heard Louise becoming still more agitated, she

resolved to speak to Lazare, who had locked himself up in his room,

full of nervous exasperation at the troubles with which he accused Fate

of overwhelming him.

'We cannot leave Louise like this,' insisted Pauline. 'We must go and

talk to her. Come with me.'

They found her half-way on the first flight of stairs, lacking the

strength to go either up or down.

'My dear girl,' said Pauline tenderly, 'we are quite distressed about

you. We are going to send for Madame Bouland.'

At this Louise grew angry. 'Why do you torment me like this,' she

cried, 'when all that I want is to be left alone? I shan't need Madame

Bouland for a long time yet. Leave me alone and don't torture me!'

Louise showed herself so obstinate and displayed so much temper that

Lazare, in his turn, grew angry; however, Pauline was compelled to

promise that she would not send for Madame Bouland. This person was an

_accoucheuse_ of Verchemont, who possessed an extraordinary reputation

throughout the district for skill and energy. She was considered to

have no equal at Bayeux or even at Caen. It was on account of this

great reputation of hers that Louise, who was very timid and had a

presentiment of disaster, had resolved to place herself in her hands.

None the less she experienced a great fear of Madame Bouland--the same

irrational fear, indeed, with which patients contemplate a dentist whom

it is necessary they should visit, though they defer doing so as long

as possible.

At six o'clock Louise felt much better again, and showed herself very

triumphant in consequence. But she was worn out, and, when she had

eaten a cutlet, she went back to her room. She would be all right, she

said, if she could only get to sleep. Thus she obstinately refused to

let anyone sit upstairs with her, and insisted upon being left alone.

The others then sat down to a stew and a piece of roast veal. The

dinner began in silence, for Louise's illness increased the gloom which

was caused by Pauline's approaching departure. They made as little

noise as possible with their spoons and forks, for fear it might reach

the ears of the invalid and still further distress her. Chanteau,

however, grew very loquacious by degrees, and had begun relating some

wonderful stories, when Véronique, as she was handing round the veal,

suddenly exclaimed:

'I'm not quite sure, but I fancy I can hear Madame Lazare groaning

upstairs.'

Lazare sprang from his seat and opened the door. They all gave over

eating, and strained their ears to listen. At first they could hear

nothing, but soon the sound of prolonged groaning reached them.

Pauline thereupon threw down her napkin and ran upstairs, followed

by Lazare. And now Louise, whom they found seated on her bed in a

dressing-gown, rather peevishly consented to let them send for Madame

Bouland. When Lazare, however, suggested that they had better send for

Doctor Cazenove as well, on the chance of complications arising, his

wife burst into tears. Hadn't they the least pity for her, she cried?

Why did they go on torturing her? They knew very well that the idea

of being attended by a doctor was intolerable to her. She would have

nobody but Madame Bouland.

'If you send for the Doctor,' said she, 'I'll get into bed and turn my

face to the wall and refuse to say another word to anybody.'

'At any rate, go for Madame Bouland,' said Pauline to Lazare by way of

conclusion. 'She may be able to give her some relief.'

They both went downstairs again, and found Abbé Horteur, who had come

to pay a short visit, standing in silence before the alarmed Chanteau.

An attempt was made to persuade Lazare to eat a little veal before

starting, but he declared that a single mouthful would choke him, and

forthwith he set off at a run to Verchemont.

'I think I hear her calling me!' Pauline exclaimed a moment later,

hastening towards the staircase. 'If I want Véronique I will knock on

the floor. You can finish your dinner without me, can't you, uncle?'

The priest, much embarrassed at finding himself in the midst of this

confusion, could not summon up his customary consolatory phrases, and

he also soon retired, promising, however, to return after he had been

to the Gonins', where the crippled old man was very ill. Thus Chanteau

was left alone before the disordered table. The glasses were half full,

the veal was growing cold on the plates, and the greasy forks and

half-eaten pieces of bread still lay where they had been dropped in the

sudden alarm which had come upon the diners. As Véronique put a kettle

of water on the fire, by way of precaution, in case it might be wanted,

she began to grumble at not knowing whether she ought to clear the

table or leave things in their present state of confusion.

Two anxious hours went by; nine o'clock came, and still Madame Bouland

did not arrive. Louise was now anxiously longing for her to come, and

bitterly complained that they must want her to die, since they left

her so long without assistance. It only took twenty-five minutes to

get to Verchemont, and an hour ought to have been sufficient to fetch

the woman. Lazare must be amusing himself somewhere, or, perhaps,

an accident had happened, and no one would ever come at all. Then,

however, the young wife ceased complaining, for an attack of sickness

came upon her, and the whole house was once more in a state of alarm.

Eleven o'clock struck, and the delay became intolerable. So Véronique

in her turn set off for Verchemont. She took a lantern with her, and

was instructed to search all the ditches. Meantime Pauline remained

with Louise, unable to assist her in spite of her desire to do so.

It was nearly midnight when the sound of wheels at last impelled the

girl to rush downstairs.

'Why, where is Véronique?' she cried out from the steps, as she

recognised Lazare and Madame Bouland. 'Haven't you met her?'

Lazare replied that they had come by the Port-en-Bessin road, after

encountering all sorts of hindrances. On reaching Verchemont he had

found that Madame Bouland was eight miles away attending to another

woman. He could procure no horse or vehicle to go after her, and had

been obliged to make the whole journey on foot, running all the way.

And, besides, there had been endless other troubles. Fortunately,

however, Madame Bouland had a trap with her.

'But the woman!' exclaimed Pauline. 'She has been attended to all

right, I suppose, since Madame Bouland has been able to come with you?'

Lazare's voice trembled as he replied hoarsely:

'The woman is dead.'

They went into the hall, which was dimly lighted by a candle placed on

the stairs. There was an interval of silence while Madame Bouland hung

up her cloak. She was a short, dark woman, very thin, and as yellow

as a lemon, with a large prominent nose. She spoke loudly, and had an

extremely authoritative manner, which caused her to be much respected

by the peasantry.

'Will you be good enough to follow me?' Pauline said to her. 'I

have been quite at a loss to know what to do; she has never ceased

complaining since the beginning of the evening.'

Louise still stood before a chest of drawers in her room, pawing the

floor with her feet. She burst into tears as soon as she saw Madame

Bouland, who forthwith began to question her. But the young wife turned

a glance of entreaty towards Pauline, which the latter well understood.

She therefore led Lazare from the room, and they both remained on the

landing, unable to take themselves further away. The candle, which was

still burning below, threw a dim light, broken by weird shadows, up

the stairs, and the two cousins stood, Lazare leaning against the wall

and Pauline against the banisters, gazing at each other in motionless

silence. They strained their ears to catch the sounds that came from

Louise's room; and when Madame Bouland at last opened the door they

would have entered, but she pushed them back, came out, and closed the

door behind her.

'Well?' Pauline murmured.

She signed to them to go downstairs, and it was not till they had

reached the ground floor that she opened her mouth. It was a premature

and very difficult case.

'It seems likely to be extremely serious,' she said. 'It is my duty to

warn the family.'

Lazare turned pale. An icy breath passed over his brow. Then in

stammering accents he asked for particulars.

Madame Bouland gave them, adding: 'I cannot undertake the

responsibility. The presence of a doctor is absolutely necessary.'

Silence fell once more. Lazare was overcome with despair. Where were

they to find a doctor at that time of night? His wife might die twenty

times before they could get the surgeon from Arromanches.

'I don't think there is any immediate danger,' said Madame Bouland;

'still, you had better lose no time. I myself can do nothing further.'

And as Pauline besought her, in the name of humanity, to try something,

at any rate, to alleviate the sufferings of Louise, whose groans echoed

through the house, she replied in her clear sharp voice: 'No, indeed; I

can do nothing of that kind. That other poor woman over yonder is dead,

and I would rather not be responsible for this one.'

Again did Lazare shudder. At this moment, however, a tearful call was

heard from Chanteau in the dining-room.

'Are you there? Come in! No one has been to tell me anything. I have

been waiting to hear something ever so long.'

They entered the room. They had forgotten all about poor Chanteau since

the interrupted dinner. He had remained at the table, twisting his

thumbs and patiently waiting with all the drowsy resignation which he

had acquired during his long periods of lonely quiescence. This new

catastrophe, which was revolutionising the house, had greatly saddened

him; he had not even had heart enough to go on eating, his food still

remained untouched on his plate.

'Is she no better?' he inquired.

Lazare ragefully shrugged his shoulders. But Madame Bouland, who

retained all her accustomed calmness, pressed the young man to lose no

further time.

'Take my trap!' she said. 'The horse is tired out; still, you will be

able to get back in two hours or two hours and a half. I will stay here

and look after her.'

Then with sudden determination Lazare rushed out of the room, feeling

convinced that he would find his wife dead upon his return. They could

hear him shouting and lashing the horse with his whip as the conveyance

clattered noisily away.

Madame Bouland went upstairs again, and Pauline followed her, after

briefly replying to her uncle's questions. When she had offered to

put him to bed he had refused to go, insisting on staying up in order

that he might know how things went on. If he felt drowsy, he said, he

could sleep very well in his easy-chair, for he often slept in it the

whole afternoon. He had only just been left alone again when Véronique

returned with her lantern extinguished. She was boiling over with rage.

For two years she had never poured forth so many words at one time.

'Of course they took the other road!' she cried. 'And there have I

been looking into all the ditches and nearly killing myself to get to

Verchemont! And I waited, too, for a whole half-hour down there in the

middle of the road!'

Chanteau looked at her with his big eyes.

'Well, my girl, it was scarcely likely that you would meet each other.'

'And then, as I was coming back,' she continued, 'I met Monsieur Lazare

galloping on like a madman in a crazy gig. I shouted out to him that

they were anxiously waiting for him, but he only whipped his horse the

more violently and nearly ran over me. I've had quite enough of these

errands, of which I can make neither head nor tale. To make matters

worse, too, my lantern went out.'

She hustled her master about, and tried to make him finish eating his

food, so that she might, at any rate, get the table cleared. He was

not at all hungry, but he ate a little of the cold veal for the sake

of doing something. He was worried now by the Abbé's failure to return

that evening. What was the use of the priest promising to come and

keep him company if he had made up his mind to stay at home? However,

priests certainly cut a comical figure on such occasions as the

present; and, this idea, amusing Chanteau, he set himself cheerfully to

take his supper in solitude.

'Come, sir, make haste!' cried Véronique. 'It is nearly one o'clock,

and it won't do to have the plates and dishes and things lying about

like this till to-morrow. There's always something going wrong in this

awful house!'

She was just beginning to clear the table when Pauline called to

her from the staircase. Then Chanteau was once more left alone and

forgotten in front of the table, and nobody came again to give him any

news.

Louise was in quite a desperate condition, and her strength seemed to

be rapidly ebbing away, when, about half-past three o'clock, Véronique

privately warned Pauline of Lazare's arrival with Doctor Cazenove.

Madame Bouland insisted on remaining alone with the Doctor beside the

patient, while the others betook themselves to the dining-room, where

Chanteau was now fast asleep. And then there again came a long, weary,

and very anxious wait. When the Doctor joined them his voice betrayed

his emotion.

'I have done nothing yet,' said he; 'I wouldn't do anything without

consulting you.'

And thereupon he passed his hand over his forehead, as if to drive away

some irksome thought.

'But it is not for us to decide, Doctor,' said Pauline, for Lazare was

incapable of speech; 'we leave her in your hands.'

He shook his head. 'I must tell you,' said he, 'that both mother and

child seem to me lost. Perhaps I might save one or the other.'

Lazare and Pauline rose up shuddering. Chanteau, aroused by the

conversation, opened his heavy eyes and listened with an expression of

amazement.

'Which of the two must I try to save?' repeated the Doctor, who

trembled as much as those of whom he asked the question--'the child or

the mother?'

'Which, O God?' cried Lazare. 'Do I know? Can I say?'

Tears choked him once again, whilst his cousin, ghastly pale, remained

silent in presence of that awful alternative.

But Cazenove went on giving explanations. 'It is a case of conscience,'

he concluded. 'I beg of you, decide yourselves.'

Sobs now prevented Lazare from answering. He had taken his handkerchief

and was twisting it convulsively whilst striving to recover a little of

his reason. Chanteau still looked on in stupefaction. And only Pauline

was able to say, 'Why did you come down? It is cruel to torture us like

this, when you alone know the best course, and alone are able to act.'

Just then Madame Bouland herself descended the stairs to say that

matters were becoming much worse. 'Have you decided?' she inquired.

'The lady is sinking.'

Thereupon, with one of those sudden impulses which disconcerted people,

Cazenove threw his arms about Lazare, kissed him, and exclaimed:

'Listen, I will try to save them both.... And if they succumb--well, I

shall be yet more grieved than yourself, for I shall take it to be my

own fault.'

Excepting Chanteau, who in his turn embraced his son, they all went

upstairs together. Cazenove desired it. Louise was fully conscious, but

very low. She offered no objection to a doctor now; her sufferings were

too great. When he began to speak to her she simply answered: 'Kill me;

kill me at once.'

There came a cruel and affecting scene. It was one of those dread hours

when life and death wrestle together, when human science and skill

battle to overcome and correct the errors of Nature. More than once

did the Doctor pause, fearing a fatal issue. The patient's agony was

terrible, but at last science triumphed, and a child was born. It was a

boy.

Lazare, who had turned his face to the wall, was sobbing, and burst out

into tears. He had been a prey to the keenest mental torture during the

progress of the operations, and he thought despairingly that it would

be preferable for them all to die rather than to continue living if

such intense agony was to be mingled with life.

But Pauline bent over Louise and kissed her on the forehead.

'Come and kiss her!' she said to her cousin.

He came and stooped down over his wife; but he shuddered when his

lips touched her brow, which was moist with icy perspiration. Louise

lay there with her eyes closed, and seemed to be no longer breathing.

Lazare leaned against the wall at the foot of the bed, trying to stifle

his sobs.

'I am afraid the child is dead,' said the Doctor.

The baby, indeed, had given utterance to none of the usual shrill

calls. It was a very small infant of a deathly hue.

'We might try the effect of friction and inflation,' the Doctor

continued; 'but I'm afraid it would only be time wasted. And the mother

stands in need of all my attention.'

Pauline heard him.

'Give me the child!' she exclaimed. 'I will try what I can do. If I

don't manage to make it breathe, it will be that I have no more breath

left myself.' Thereupon she carried the infant into the next room, the

room which had once been Madame Chanteau's, taking with her a bottle of

brandy and some flannel. She laid the poor wee creature in an arm-chair

before a blazing fire; and then, having steeped a piece of flannel in a

saucer of brandy, she knelt down and rubbed it without a pause, quite

regardless of the cramp that gradually stiffened her arm. It was so

small a child, and looked so wretched and fragile, that she feared lest

she might kill it by rubbing it too hard. And so she passed the flannel

backwards and forwards with a gentle, almost caressing motion, like the

constant brushing of a bird's wing. Then she turned the child over, and

tried to recall each of its tiny limbs to life. But it still lay there

motionless. Though the friction seemed to impart a little warmth, the

infant's chest remained shrunken, uninflated, and it even seemed to

grow darker in colour.

Then, without evincing any repugnance, Pauline pressed her mouth to

its tiny, rigid lips, and drawing long, slow breaths she strove to

adapt the force of her lungs to the capacity of those little compressed

organs into which the air had been unable to make its way. She was

obliged to stop every now and then, when her breath grew exhausted;

but, after inhaling a fresh supply, she turned to her task again.

Her blood mounted to her head, and her ears began to buzz; she even

became a little giddy. Nevertheless she still persevered, striving to

inflate the baby's lungs for more than half an hour, without being

encouraged by the least result. She vainly tried to make the ribs play

by pressing them very gently with her fingers. But nothing seemed to do

the least good, and anyone else would have abandoned in despair this

apparently impossible resurrection. Pauline, however, brought maternal

perseverance to her task, the obstinate insistence of a mother who is

determined that her child shall live, and at last she felt that the

poor wee body was stirring, that its tiny lips moved slightly beneath

her own.

For nearly an hour she had remained alone in that room, absorbed in the

anguish of that struggle with death, and forgetful of all else. That

faint sign of life, that transitory tremor of the little lips, filled

her with fresh courage. She had recourse to friction again, and every

other minute she resumed her attempt at inflation, employing the two

processes alternately without any regard for her own exhaustion. She

felt a growing craving to conquer and produce life. For a moment she

feared she had been mistaken, for it again seemed that her lips were

only pressing lifeless ones. But she became conscious of another rapid

contraction. Little by little the air was forcing its way into the

child's lungs; she could feel it being sucked from her and returned,

and she even fancied she could detect the little heart beginning to

beat. Her mouth never left the tiny lips; she shared her life with

that little creature; they had only one breath between them in that

wonderful resurrection, a slow, continuous exchange of breath going

from one to the other as if they had a common soul. Pauline's lips were

soiled, for the child had scarcely been cleansed, but her joy at having

saved it prevented any feeling of disgust. She began to inhale a warm

pungency of life, which intoxicated her; and when, at last, the baby

broke out into a feeble, plaintive wail, she fell back from the chair

on to the floor, stirred to the depths of her being.

The big fire was blazing brightly, filling the room with cheerful

light. Pauline remained on the floor in front of the baby, whom she had

not yet examined. What a poor, frail mite it was! All her own robust

vigour rose up in rebellious protest as she thought what a wretched

puny son Louise had given to Lazare. She felt keen regret for her own

wasted life. She herself would never be a mother! She was young and

strong, and healthy and beautiful, but of what avail was all that? The

fulness of life was not for her. And she wept for the child that she

would never have.

Meantime the poor, frail little creature that she had revived to

existence was still wailing and writhing on the chair, and Pauline

began to fear that it might fall upon the floor. Her pity was aroused

at the sight of such uncomeliness and weakness. She would at least do

what she could for it; she would help it to continue living, as she

had had the happiness of helping it into life. So she took it upon her

knees and did what she could for it, while still shedding tears, in

which were mingled sorrow for her own lonesome fate and pity for the

misery of all living creatures.

Madame Bouland, whom she called, came to help her to wash the baby.

They wrapped it in warm flannels and then laid it in the bed, till the

cradle should be prepared for it. Madame Bouland was astonished to find

it alive, and examined it carefully. It seemed well formed, she said,

but its frailty would make it difficult to rear. Then she hurried off

again to Louise, who still remained in a very critical condition.

As Pauline was again taking up her position at the baby's side Lazare,

who had been informed of the miracle his cousin had accomplished,

entered the room.

'Come and look at him!' said Pauline, with much emotion. But as he drew

near he began to tremble, and exclaimed:

'What! you have laid him in that bed!'

He had shuddered as he entered. That room, so long unused, so full of

mournful associations and so rarely entered, was now warm and bright,

enlivened by the crackling of the fire. Each article of furniture

was still in its accustomed position, and the clock still marked

twenty-three minutes to eight. No one had occupied that chamber, now

prepared for Madame Bouland, since his mother had died there. And it

was in that very bed where she had passed away--in that sacred, awful

bed--that he saw his own son restored to life, looking so tiny as he

lay among the spreading coverings.

'Does it displease you?' Pauline asked in surprise.

He shook his head. He could not speak for emotion. At last he stammered:

'I was thinking of mamma. She has gone, and now here is another who

will go away as she went. Why, then, did he come?'

His words were cut short by a burst of sobbing. His terror and his

disgust of life broke out in spite of all the efforts he had made to

restrain himself since Louise's terrible delivery. When he had touched

his baby's brow with his lips, he hastily stepped back, for he had

fancied that he could feel the infant's skull giving way beneath his

touch. He was filled with remorseful despondency at the sight of the

poor, frail little thing.

'Don't distress yourself!' said Pauline, by way of cheering him. 'We'll

make a fine young fellow of him. It doesn't at all matter that he is

small now.'

He looked at her, and, utterly upset as he was, a full confession

escaped from his heart:

'It is again to you that we owe his life! Am I destined, then, to be

always under obligations to you?'

'To me!' she exclaimed. 'I have done nothing more than Madame Bouland

would have done if I hadn't happened to be here.'

He silenced her with a wave of his hand.

'Do you think,' he said, 'that I am so base that I cannot understand

that I owe everything to you? Ever since you first came into this house

you have never ceased to sacrifice yourself. I will say nothing now

about your money, but you still loved me yourself when you gave me

to Louise. I know it now quite well. Ah! if you only knew the shame

I feel when I look at you and recollect! You would have given your

very life-blood, you were always kind and cheerful, even at the very

time when I was crushing down your heart. Ah, yes! you were right;

cheerfulness and kindliness are everything; all else is mere delusion!'

She tried to interrupt him, but he continued in a louder voice:

'What a fool I made of myself with all my disbelief and boasting, and

all the pessimism which I paraded out of vanity and fear! It was I who

spoilt our lives--yours and my own, and those of the whole family. Yes!

you were the only sensible one amongst us! Life becomes so easy when

everyone in a family is cheerful and affectionate, and each lives for

the others. If the world is to die of misery, at any rate let it die

cheerfully, and in sympathy with itself!'

Pauline smiled at the violence of his language, and caught hold of his

hands.

'Come! come!' she said, 'don't excite yourself! Now that you see I was

right, you are cured, and all will go well.'

'Ah! I don't know that! I am talking like this just now, because there

are times when the truth will force itself out, even in spite of one's

self. But to-morrow I shall slip back into all my old torment. One

can't change one's nature! No, no! Things will go no better. On the

contrary, they will gradually get worse and worse. You know that as

well as I do. It is my own stupidity that enrages me.'

She drew him gently towards her, and said to him in her grave way:

'You are neither foolish nor base; you are unfortunate. Kiss me,

Lazare.'

They exchanged a kiss before that poor little babe, who seemed to

be asleep. It was the kiss of brother and sister untainted by the

slightest breath of the passion which had glowed within them only the

day before.

The dawn was breaking, a soft grey dawn. Cazenove came to look at the

baby, and was astonished to find it doing so well. He determined to

take it back into the other room, for he felt that he could now answer

for Louise. When the little creature was brought to its mother, she

looked at it with a feeble smile, then closed her eyes and fell into

deep and restorative slumber. The window had been slightly opened, and

a delicious freshness, like a very breath of life, streamed in from the

sea. They all stood for a moment motionless, worn out, but very happy,

beside the bed in which the young mother was sleeping. Then, with

silent tread, they left the room, leaving Madame Bouland to watch over

her.

The Doctor, however, did not go away till nearly eight o'clock. He

was very hungry, and Lazare and Pauline themselves were famished, so

Véronique prepared some coffee and an omelet. Downstairs they found

Chanteau, whom they had all forgotten, sleeping soundly in his chair.

Nothing had been touched since the previous evening, and the room

reeked with the acrid smoke of the lamp, which was still burning.

Pauline jokingly remarked that the table, on which the plates and

dishes had remained, was already laid for them. She swept up the crumbs

and made the things a little tidier. Then, as the coffee took some

little time to prepare, they attacked the cold veal, joking the while

about the dinner that had been so unpleasantly interrupted. Now that

all danger was over, they were as merry as children.

'You will hardly believe it,' Chanteau exclaimed, beaming, 'but I slept

without being asleep. I was very angry that nobody came down to give me

any news, but I felt no uneasiness, for I dreamt that all was going on

well.'

His delight increased when he saw Abbé Horteur enter the room. The

priest had come across after saying Mass. Chanteau joked him merrily.

'Ah! here you are at last! You deserted me in a nice way last night!

Are you frightened of babies, then?'

The priest defended himself from this charge by telling them how he

had one night delivered a poor woman on the high-road and baptized her

child. Then he accepted a small glass of curaçoa.

Bright sunshine was gilding the yard when Dr. Cazenove at last took

his departure. As Lazare and Pauline walked with him to the gate, he

whispered to the latter:

'You are not going away to-day?'

She remained for a moment silent, then raised her big dreamy eyes, and

seemed to be looking far away into the future.

'No!' she answered; 'I must wait.'

XI

After an abominable month of May, June set in with very warm weather.

Westerly gales had been blowing for the last three weeks, storms had

devastated the coast, swept away masses of the cliffs, swallowed up

boats, and killed many people; but now the broad blue sky, the satiny

sea, and the bright hot days were infinitely pleasant and enjoyable.

One glorious afternoon Pauline had wheeled Chanteau's chair on to the

terrace, and near him, on a red woollen rug, she had deposited little

Paul, who was now eighteen months old. She was his godmother, and she

spoilt the child as much as she did the grandfather.

'Are you sure the sun won't inconvenience you, uncle?' she asked.

'Oh dear no! I should think not, indeed! It is so long since I saw it.

Are you going to leave little Paul asleep there?'

'Yes. The fresh air will do him good.'

She knelt down on the edge of the rug and gazed at him. He was dressed

in a white frock, with bare legs and arms peeping beyond it. His eyes

were fast closed, and his quiet little rosy face was turned up towards

the sky.

'He has dropped off to sleep at once,' she said softly. 'He tired

himself out with rolling about. Don't let the animals bother him.'

She shook her finger at Minouche, who sat at the dining-room window

making an elaborate toilet. Some distance off Loulou lay stretched out

on the gravel, opening his eyes every now and then with a glance of

suspicion, and ever ready to snarl and bite.

As Pauline rose to her feet again, a low groan came from Chanteau.

'Ah! has your pain returned?'

'Returned! Ah! it never leaves me now. I groaned, eh? Well, it's funny,

but I do so without even being aware of it.'

He had become a most pitiable object. By degrees his chronic gout had

led to the accumulation of cretaceous matter at all his joints, and

great chalk-stones had formed and pushed out through his skin. His

feet, which were hidden out of sight in his slippers, were contracted

inwards like the claws of a sickly bird. But his hands openly displayed

all their horrible deformity, swollen as they were at every joint

with gleaming red knots, the fingers warped by swellings which forced

them apart, and the left hand being rendered especially hideous by

a secretion as big as a small egg. On the left elbow, too, a more

voluminous deposit had brought on an ulcer. Ankylosis was now complete;

Chanteau could no longer make use of his hands or feet, and the few

joints which could still slightly bend cracked with as much noise as

though a bag of marbles were being shaken. His whole body seemed to

have become petrified in the position which he had adopted as the least

painful--that is, a somewhat forward one, with an inclination to the

right; and he had so completely shaped himself to his easy-chair that

even when he was put to bed he remained twisted and bent. His pain

never left him now, and the least change in the weather, or a drop of

wine, or a mouthful of meat in excess of his usual diet, brought on

inflammation.

'Would you like a glass of milk?' Pauline asked him. 'It would refresh

you perhaps.'

'Ah! milk indeed!' he replied, between two groans. 'That's another

pretty invention of theirs, that milk-cure! I believe they finished me

off with that! No, no! I won't take anything; that's the treatment that

does me the most good.'

He asked her, however, to change the position of his left leg, for he

could not move it himself.

'The villain is all on fire to-day. Put it further away; push it.

There, that will do, thank you. What a lovely day! Oh dear! oh dear!'

With his eyes turned towards the far-spreading panorama, he continued

to groan quite unconsciously. His moan of pain had now become quite

as natural to him as breathing itself. He was wrapped in a heavy blue

woollen rug, and his poor deformed hands, that looked so pitiable in

the bright sunshine, lay helpless on his knees. It pleased him to sit

and look at the sea with its infinite azure, over which white sails

flitted as over a boundless highway, open there before him who could no

longer put one foot before another.

Pauline, feeling anxious at the sight of Paul's little naked legs,

knelt down again and covered them up with part of the rug. For three

months past she had always been intending to take her departure on the

following Monday. But the child's feeble hands held her back with a

force she could not resist. For the first month of the boy's life they

had each morning feared that he would not live to see the evening. It

was Pauline who had kept him alive from day to day, for his mother was

long confined to her bed, and the nurse, whom they had been obliged

to procure, simply gave him the breast, evincing the gentle stupidity

of a cow. The most devoted, constant care and attention were needed,

and Pauline had to keep perpetual watch over the child. By the end of

the first month, however, the boy had happily acquired the strength

of a child born in due season, and gradually developed. Still, he was

but a little creature, and Pauline never left him for a minute, more

especially since the weaning, which had been attended by much trouble.

'There!' she said, 'he can't take cold now. See, uncle, how pretty he

looks in this crimson rug! It makes him quite rosy.'

Chanteau painfully turned his head, which was now the only part of his

body which he was able to move.

'If you kiss him,' he murmured, 'you will wake him. Don't disturb the

little cherub. Do you see that steamer over there? It is coming from

Havre. How fast it is cutting along!'

Pauline watched the steamer in order to please him. It looked like a

black speck on the boundless waters; a slight streak of smoke just

blurred a point of the horizon. For a short time the girl stood there,

perfectly still, gazing at that sea which slumbered so peacefully

beneath the clear sky, and enjoying the beauty of the day.

'But, while I'm stopping here, the stew is getting burned!' she

exclaimed at last, hurrying off towards the kitchen.

Just as she was about to enter the house a voice called from the first

floor:

'Pauline!'

It was Louise, who was leaning out of the window of what had once been

Madame Chanteau's room, but which was now occupied by herself and

Lazare. She wore a loose jacket, and her hair was hanging down. In

querulous tones she went on: 'If Lazare's down there, tell him to come

upstairs.'

'No, he isn't here. He hasn't come back yet,' Pauline replied.

At this Louise broke out angrily:

'I knew quite well that we shouldn't see him again till this evening,

even if he condescends to come back then. He stayed away all night in

spite of his express promise. Ah! he's a nice fellow. When he once gets

to Caen, there's no getting him away from it!'

'He has so few amusements,' Pauline gently urged. 'And then this

business about the manure would keep him some time. No doubt he will

take advantage of the Doctor's gig, and come back in it.'

Since Lazare and Louise had settled down at Bonneville they had lived

a life of perpetual misunderstanding and bickering. There were no open

quarrels between them, but constant signs of ill-temper, the lives

of both being rendered unhappy by want of harmony. Louise, after a

long and painful convalescence, was now leading an empty, aimless

existence, manifesting the greatest distaste for domestic matters, and

spending her time in novel-reading and protracted toilets. Lazare had

again fallen a prey to overwhelming _ennui_; he never opened a book,

but spent his time in gazing abstractedly at the sea, just escaping

to Caen at long intervals, though only to return home more weary than

ever. Pauline, who had been obliged to retain the management of the

house, had become quite indispensable to them, for she patched up their

quarrels several times a day.

'Be quick and finish dressing!' added the girl. 'The Abbé will be here

directly, and you must come and sit with him and my uncle. I have too

much to do myself.'

But Louise could not rid herself of her rancour.

'How _can_ he do it? Keeping away from home all this time! My father

wrote to me yesterday and told me that the remainder of our money would

go the same way as the rest.'

Lazare had, indeed, allowed himself to be swindled in a couple of

unfortunate speculations, and Pauline had become so anxious on the

child's account that, as his godmother, she had made him a present

of two-thirds of what she still possessed, taking out in his name a

policy which would assure him a hundred thousand francs on the day he

reached his majority. She now had only an income of five hundred francs

herself, but her sole regret in the matter was the necessity she was

under of curtailing her customary charities.

'A fine speculation that manure business is!' Louise continued. 'I am

sure my father will have made him give it up, and he's only stopping

away to amuse himself. Oh, well! I don't care! He may be as dissolute

as he likes!'

'Then what are you getting so angry for?' Pauline retorted. 'But you

know that's all nonsense; the poor fellow never thinks of anything

wrong. Do hurry down, won't you? What can have happened to Véronique, I

wonder, that she should disappear in this way on a Saturday, and leave

me all her work to do?'

In fact, a most extraordinary thing had happened--one which had been

puzzling the whole house since two o'clock. Véronique had prepared

the vegetables for the stew, and plucked and trussed a duck; and

then she had disappeared as suddenly and completely as if the earth

had swallowed her up. Pauline, quite astounded by this sudden

disappearance, had at last resolved to undertake the cooking of the

stew herself.

'She hasn't come back, then?' asked Louise, recovering from her anger.

'No, indeed!' Pauline replied. 'Do you know what I am beginning to

think? She bought the duck for forty sous of a woman who happened to

be passing, and I remember telling her that I had seen much finer ones

for thirty sous at Verchemont. She tossed her head directly, and gave

me one of her surly looks. Well, I'll be bound that she has gone to

Verchemont to see if I wasn't telling a lie.'

She smiled, but there was a touch of sadness in her smile, for the

surliness which Véronique was again manifesting pained her. The

servant's gradually increasing ill-will against Pauline since Madame

Chanteau's death had now brought her back to the virulence of the very

early days.

'We've none of us been able to get a word out of her for a week or

more,' said Louise. 'Any sort of folly may be expected from a person

with such a disposition.'

'Well,' said Pauline charitably, 'we must excuse her whims. She is

sure to come back again, and we shan't die of hunger this time.'

But the baby now began to move about on the rug, and she ran up and

bent over it.

'Well! what is it, my dear?'

The mother, who was still at the window, glanced out for a moment and

then disappeared within the room. Chanteau, quite absorbed in his own

reflections, just turned his head as Loulou began to bark, and then

called out to his niece:

'Here are your visitors, Pauline!'

Two ragged young urchins, the advanced guard of the troop which she

received every Saturday, now came up. Little Paul had quickly dropped

off to sleep once more, and she rose and said:

'It's a nice time for them to come! I haven't a minute to spare. Well,

never mind; stay, since you're here. Sit down on the bench. And, uncle,

if any more of them come, please make them sit down by the side of

these. I must just go and glance at my stew.'

When she returned, at the end of a quarter of an hour, two boys and two

girls were already seated on the bench; they were some of her little

beggars of former days, but had now grown much bigger, though they

still retained their mendicant habits.

Never before had there been so much distress in Bonneville. During

the storms in May the three remaining houses had been crushed against

the cliffs. The destruction was now complete; the flood-tides had

made a clean sweep of the village after centuries of attack, during

which the sea had each year devoured one or another part of the place.

On the shingle one now only saw the conquering waves, which effaced

even all trace of the ruins. The fishermen, expelled from the nook

where for generation after generation they had obstinately persisted

in struggling against the ceaseless onslaught, had been compelled to

migrate further up the ravine, where they were camping in companies.

The richer ones had built cabins for themselves, while the poorer

ones were taking refuge under rocks, all combining to found a new

Bonneville, from which their descendants would in turn be ejected

after fresh centuries of contest. Before it could complete its work

of destruction, the sea had found it necessary to sweep the piles and

stockades away. On the day of their overthrow the wind had blown from

the north, and such huge mountains of water had dashed up that the

church itself had been shaken by the violence with which they broke

against the shore. Lazare, though he was told of what was happening,

would not go down. He had remained on the terrace, watching the

waves sweep up, while the fishermen rushed off to view the desperate

onslaught. They were thrilled with mingled pride and awe. Ah! how the

hussy was howling! Now she was going to make a clean sweep of it all!

And in less than twenty minutes, indeed, everything had disappeared,

the stockades were broken down, and the timbers were smashed into

matchwood. And the fishermen roared with the waves, and gesticulated

and danced like so many savages, intoxicated by the wind and the sea,

and glutting themselves with the sight of all that destruction. Then,

while Lazare angrily shook his fist at them, they had fled for their

lives, closely pursued by the wild rush of the waves, which nothing

more held in check. Now they were perishing of starvation, and groaning

as of old in their new Bonneville, accusing the hussy of their ruin and

commending themselves to the charity of the 'kind young lady.'

'What are you doing there?' cried Pauline, as she saw Houtelard's son.

'I forbade you ever to come here again!'

He was a great strapping fellow, now nearly twenty years old. His

former sad and timid expression, that told of bad treatment at home,

had turned into a sly, crafty look. He lowered his eyes as he replied:

'Please take pity upon us, Mademoiselle Pauline. We are so miserable

and wretched now that father is dead!'

Houtelard had gone off to sea one stormy evening and had never

returned. His body had never been found, nor had that of his mate, nor

even a single plank of their boat. Pauline, however, obliged as she was

to exercise strict supervision over her charities, had sworn that she

would never give a single sou to either son or widow, for they lived

together in open shame.

'You know quite well why I won't have you coming here,' Pauline

replied. 'When you behave differently, I will see what I can do for

you.'

Thereupon the young fellow began to plead his cause in a whining voice:

'It is all her fault; she brought it about. She would have gone on

beating me otherwise. Please give us a trifle, kind young lady. We have

lost everything. I could get on well enough myself, but it is for her

that I'm asking you, and she is very ill--indeed she is; I swear it.'

Pauline ended by taking pity on him and sending him away with a loaf of

bread and some stew; and she even promised to call on the sick woman

and take her some medicine.

'Medicine, indeed!' muttered Chanteau. 'Just you try to get her to

swallow it!'

But Pauline had already turned her attention to the Prouane girl, one

of whose cheeks was gashed.

'How have you managed to do that?'

'I fell against a tree, Mademoiselle Pauline.'

'Against a tree? It looks more like a cut from the corner of a table.'

She was a big girl now, with prominent cheek-bones, but she still

had the great haggard eyes of a weak-witted child, and she made vain

efforts to remain standing in a respectful attitude. Her legs shook

under her, and she could scarcely articulate her words.

'Why! you have been drinking, you wicked girl!' cried Pauline,

scrutinizing her keenly.

'Oh, Mademoiselle! how can you say so?'

'You were drunk and you fell down! Isn't it so? I know very well what

you are all given to. Sit down, and I will go and get some arnica and a

bandage.'

She attended to the girl's cheek, and tried to make her feel ashamed

of herself. It was disgraceful, she told her, for a girl of her age to

intoxicate herself with her father and mother, a couple of drunkards

who would be found dead some morning, poisoned by calvados. The girl

listened drowsily, and when her cheek was bandaged she stammered out:

'Father is always complaining of pains, and I could rub him well if you

would give me a little camphorated brandy.'

Neither Pauline nor Chanteau could keep from laughing.

'No, no! I know very well what would become of the brandy. I will give

you a loaf, though I'm afraid you will go and sell it and spend the

money in drink. Stay where you are, and Cuche shall take you home.'

Young Cuche got up from the bench in his turn. His feet were bare;

indeed, the only clothes he wore were some old breeches and a ragged

shirt, through which showed parts of his skin, browned by the sun

and torn by brambles. He was to be met running about the high-roads,

leaping over hedges with the agility of a wolf, living like a savage,

to whom hunger makes every sort of prey acceptable. He had reached the

lowest depths of misery and destitution, such an abyss of wretchedness

that Pauline looked at him with remorse, as though she felt guilty for

allowing a human being to go on living in such a state. But whenever

she had attempted to rescue him, he had always fled, hating all thought

of work or service.

'Since you have come here again,' she said to him gently, 'I suppose

you have thought over what I said to you last Saturday. I hope that

your return here is a sign that you are not lost to all sense of what

is right. You cannot go on leading your present vagabond life; I am no

longer as rich as I was, and I cannot support you in idleness. Have you

made up your mind to accept my offer?'

Since the loss of her fortune Pauline had tried to make up for her lack

of money by interesting other charitable people in her pensioners.

Doctor Cazenove had at last succeeded in obtaining the admission of

Cuche's mother into the hospital for incurables at Bayeux, and Pauline

herself held in reserve a sum of one hundred francs to provide an

outfit for the son, for whom she had found a berth among the workmen

employed on the railway line to Cherbourg. He bent his head as she

spoke, and listened to her with an expression of distrust.

'It's quite settled, isn't it?' she continued. 'You will accompany your

mother, and then you will go to your post.'

But as she stepped towards him he sprang back. His eyes, though

downcast, never left her, and he seemed to think that she was going to

seize him by his wrists.

'What is the matter?' she asked in surprise.

Then, with a wild animal's uneasy glance, the lad murmured: 'You are

going to take me and shut me up. I don't want to go.'

All further attempts at persuasion were useless. He let her continue

talking, and appeared to admit the force of her reasoning; but as soon

as ever she moved he sprang towards the gate, and with an obstinate

shake of the head refused her offers for his mother and for himself,

preferring freedom and starvation.

'Take yourself off, you lazy impostor!' Chanteau cried at last in

indignation. 'It is kindness thrown away, troubling one's self about

such a vagabond.'

Pauline's hands trembled as she thought of her wasted charity, her

failure to effect anything for this lad, who insisted on remaining in

misery.

'No, no! uncle,' she said, with an expression of despairing tolerance,

'they are starving, and they must have some food in spite of

everything.'

She called Cuche back to her to give him, as on other Saturdays, a loaf

of bread and forty sous. But he backed away from her, saying:

'Put it down on the ground and go away, and I will come and pick it up.'

She did as he told her. Then he cautiously stepped forward, casting

suspicious glances around him. As soon as he had picked up the forty

sous and the loaf he ran off as fast as his bare feet could carry him.

'The wild beast!' cried Chanteau. 'He will come and murder us all one

of these nights. It's just like that little gaol-bird's daughter there.

I would swear it was she who stole my silk handkerchief the other day.'

He was speaking of the Tourmal girl, whose grandfather had lately

joined her father in gaol. She was now the only one who was left on the

bench with the little Prouane, who was stupefied with drink. She got

up, without any sign that she had heard the charge of theft brought

against her, and she began to whine: 'Have pity upon us, kind young

lady! There is nobody but mother and me at home now. The gendarmes come

and beat us every night. My body is all one big bruise, and mother

is dying. Oh! kind young lady, do give us some money and some good

meat-soup and some wine----'

Chanteau, quite exasperated by the girl's string of lies, moved

restlessly in his chair, but Pauline would have given the chemise off

her back.

'There! there! That will do,' she muttered. 'You would get more if you

talked less. Stay where you are, and I will make up a basket for you.'

When she came back, bringing with her an old fish-hamper, in which

she had put a loaf, two litre-bottles of wine, and some meat, she

found another of her pensioners on the terrace, the Gonin girl, who

had brought her child with her, a girl now some twenty months old.

The mother, who was sixteen years of age, was so fragile and slight

of figure that she seemed more like the child's elder sister. She was

scarcely able to carry the infant, but she nevertheless brought it

to the house, as she knew that Mademoiselle Pauline was very fond of

children and could refuse them nothing.

'Good gracious! How heavy she is!' cried Pauline, as she took the child

in her arms. 'And to think that she is not six months older than our

Paul!'

Despite herself, her eyes turned sadly towards the little boy, who was

still lying asleep upon the rug. However, the young mother began to

complain:

'If you only knew how much she eats, Mademoiselle Pauline! And I've no

bed-linen, and nothing to dress her with. And then, since father is

dead, mother and the other one are always ill-using me. They treat me

like the lowest of the low, and say that if I have a baby I ought to

provide what it costs to keep it.'

'Poor little thing!' Pauline murmured. 'I am knitting her some socks.

You must bring her to see me oftener; there is always milk here, and

she might have a few spoonfuls of gruel. I will go and see your mother,

and I'll try to frighten her, as she still behaves unkindly to you.'

The girl took up her daughter again, while Pauline began to prepare a

parcel.

However, Abbé Horteur now appeared upon the terrace.

'Here come Monsieur Lazare and the Doctor,' he announced.

At the same moment they heard the wheels of the gig, and while Martin,

the ex-sailor with the wooden leg, was leading the horse to the stable,

Cazenove came round from the yard, crying:

'I am bringing you back the rake who stopped away from home all night.

You won't be very hard on him, I hope!'

Lazare now appeared, smiling feebly. He was quickly ageing; his

shoulders were bent and his face was cadaverous, devastated by the

mental anguish which was destroying him. He was no doubt on the point

of explaining the reason of his delay when the window of the first

floor, which had remained open, was violently closed.

'Louise hasn't quite finished dressing yet,' Pauline explained. 'She

will be down in a minute or two.'

They all looked at one another, and there was a feeling of

embarrassment. That angry banging of the window portended a quarrel.

After taking a step or two towards the stairs, Lazare checked himself

and determined to wait where he was. He kissed his father and little

Paul; and then, to conceal his disquietude, he tackled his cousin,

saying to her in a querulous voice:

'Rid us of all this vermin! You know I can't bear to see them anywhere

near me.'

He was referring to the three girls who were still on the bench.

Pauline hastened to tie up the parcel which she had made for the Gonin

girl.

'There! you can go now,' she said. 'You two just take your companion

home, and mind she doesn't fall any more. And, you, look well after

your baby, and try not to forget it or leave it anywhere on the road.'

As they were at last setting off Lazare insisted upon examining the

Tourmal girl's hamper. She had already contrived to stow away in it an

old coffee-pot, which had been thrown aside in a corner and which she

had managed to steal. Then all three of the little hussies were driven

away, the young drunkard tottering along between the two others.

'What a dreadful lot they are!' exclaimed the priest, sitting down by

Chanteau's side. 'God has certainly abandoned them. Some have children

directly after their first Communion, and others take to drinking and

thieving like their parents. Ah, well! I've warned them of what will

happen to them some day!'

'I say, my dear fellow,' then began the Doctor, addressing Lazare in an

ironical tone, 'are you thinking of building those famous stockades of

yours over again?'

Lazare made an angry gesture. Any allusion to his defeat in his

struggle with the sea exasperated him.

'No indeed!' he cried. 'I would let the sea sweep into our own house,

without even putting a broom-handle across the road to stay its course.

No, no! indeed. I've been very foolish as it is, but one doesn't commit

that kind of folly again. I actually saw those scoundrels dancing with

delight on the day of the catastrophe! Do you know what I begin to

think? I feel sure they had sawn through the beams on the day before

the flood-tide, for they would never have given way as they did if they

had not been tampered with.'

He tried in this way to salve his wounded pride as an engineer. Then,

stretching his hand towards Bonneville, he added:

'Let them all go to smash! I will take my turn at dancing then!'

'Don't say such wicked things!' Pauline observed in her quiet manner.

'Only the poor may be excused for being wicked. You ought to build up

the stockade again in spite of everything.'

Lazare had already calmed down, as though his last burst of passion had

exhausted him.

'No, no!' he muttered, 'it would bore me too much. But you are right;

there is nothing for one to make oneself angry about. Whether they're

drowned or not, what does it matter to me?'

Silence fell again. Chanteau had fallen back into a posture of dolorous

immobility after raising his head to receive his son's kiss. The priest

was twirling his thumbs, and the Doctor paced about, with his hands

behind his back. They all began to look at little Paul, whom Pauline

defended even from his father's caresses, to prevent him from being

wakened. Since the others had come she had begged them to lower their

voices and not to tread so heavily about the rug, and she now shook a

whip at Loulou, who still continued to growl at the noise he had heard

when the horse was led to the stable.

'You don't suppose that that will quiet him, do you?' said Lazare.

'He'll make that row for an hour. He's the most disagreeable brute

I ever came across. He begins to snarl directly one moves, and one

might as well be without a dog at all, he is so completely absorbed in

himself. The only good the sulky beast does is to make us regret our

poor old Matthew.'

'How old is Minouche now?' Cazenove inquired. 'I have seen her about

here as long as I can remember.'

'She is turned sixteen,' Pauline answered, 'and she keeps very well

yet.'

Minouche, who was still at her toilet on the dining-room window-sill,

raised her head as the Doctor pronounced her name. For a moment she

held her foot suspended in the air, then again began to lick her fur

delicately.

'She isn't deaf yet, you see,' Pauline said; 'but I fancy her sight is

not so good as it was. It is scarcely a week ago since seven kittens of

hers were drowned. It is really quite terrible to think of the number

she has had during the last sixteen years. If they had all been allowed

to live they would have eaten up the whole neighbourhood.'

'Well, well, she at any rate keeps neat and clean,' said the priest,

glancing at Minouche as she continued washing herself with her tongue.

Chanteau, who, like the others, was looking towards the cat, now began

to moan more loudly with that incessant involuntary expression of pain

which had become so habitual to him that he had grown unconscious of it.

'Are you feeling worse?' the Doctor asked him.

'Eh? What? Why do you ask?' he said, suddenly seeming to awake. 'Ah,

it's because I'm breathing heavily. Yes, I am in great pain this

evening. I thought that the sun would do me good, but I feel as though

I were being suffocated, and I haven't a joint that isn't burning.'

Cazenove examined his hands. They all shuddered at the sight of those

poor deformed stumps. The priest made another of his sensible remarks.

'Such fingers as those are not adapted for playing draughts. That's an

amusement which you can't have now.'

'Be very careful about what you eat and drink,' the Doctor urged. 'Your

elbow is highly inflamed, and the ulceration is increasing.'

'How can I be more careful than I am?' Chanteau wailed hopelessly. 'My

wine is all measured out and my meat is weighed! Must I give up taking

anything at all? Indeed, it isn't living to go on like this, and one

might as well die at once. I can't eat even without assistance--how is

it likely with such things as these at the end of my arms?--and you may

be quite sure that Pauline, who feeds me, takes care that I don't get

anything that I oughtn't to have.'

The girl smiled.

'Ah! yes, indeed,' she said, 'you ate too much yesterday. It was

my fault, but I couldn't refuse when I saw how your appetite was

distressing you.'

At this they all pretended to grow merry, and began to tease him about

the junketings in which they declared he still indulged. But their

voices trembled with pity as they glanced at that remnant of a man,

that inert mass of flesh, which now only lived enough to suffer. He

had fallen back into his usual position, with his body leaning to the

right and his hands lying on his knees.

'This evening now, for instance,' Pauline continued, 'we are going to

have a roast duck----'

But she suddenly checked herself to ask:

'By the way, did you see anything of Véronique as you came through

Verchemont?'

Then she told Lazare and the Doctor the story of Véronique's

disappearance. Neither of them had seen anything of her. They expressed

some astonishment at the woman's strange whims, and ended by growing

merry over the subject. It would be a fine sight, they said, to see her

face when she came back and found them already round the table with the

dinner cooked and served.

'I must leave you now,' said Pauline gaily, 'for I have to attend to

the kitchen. If I let the stew get burnt, or serve the duck underdone,

my uncle will give me notice!'

Abbé Horteur broke out into a loud laugh, and even Doctor Cazenove

himself seemed tickled at the idea, when the window on the first floor

was suddenly thrown open with a tremendous clatter. Louise did not show

herself, but merely called in a sharp voice:

'Come upstairs, Lazare!'

At first Lazare seemed inclined to rebel and to refuse obedience to

a command given in such a voice. But Pauline, anxious to avoid a

scene before visitors, gave him an entreating look, and he went off

to the house, while his cousin remained for a moment or two longer

on the terrace to do what she could to dissipate the awkwardness

of the situation. No one spoke, and they all looked at the sea in

embarrassment. The westering sun was now casting a sheet of gold over

it, crowning the little blue waves with quivering fires. Far away in

the distance the horizon was changing to a soft lilac hue. The lovely

day was drawing towards its close in perfect serenity, and not a cloud

or a sail flecked the infinite stretch of sky and sea.

'Well, as he never came home last night,' Pauline at last ventured to

say with a smile, 'I suppose it is necessary to lecture him a little.'

The Doctor looked at her, and on his face also appeared a smile, in

which Pauline could read his prediction of former days, when he had

told her that she wasn't making them a very desirable present in

bestowing them on one another. And at this she walked away towards the

kitchen.

'Well, I must really leave you now,' she said. 'Try to amuse

yourselves. Call for me, uncle, if Paul wakes up again.'

In the kitchen, when she had stirred the stew and got the spit ready,

she knocked the pots and pans about impatiently. The voices of Louise

and Lazare reached her more and more distinctly through the ceiling,

and she grew distressed as she thought that they would certainly be

heard on the terrace. It was very absurd of them, she said to herself,

to go on shouting as though they were both deaf, and letting everybody

know of their disagreements. But she did not care to go up to them,

partly because she had to get the dinner ready, and partly because she

felt ill at ease at the thought of interfering with them in their own

room. It was generally downstairs, amid the common life of the family,

that she played her part of reconciler.

She went into the dining-room for a few moments and busied herself with

laying the table. But the shouting still continued, and she could no

longer bear the thought that they were making themselves unhappy. So,

impelled by that spirit of active charity which made the happiness of

others the chief thought of her life, she at last went upstairs.

'My dear children,' she exclaimed, as she abruptly entered the room, 'I

daresay you will tell me it is no business of mine, but you are really

making too much noise. It is very foolish of you to excite yourselves

in this way and disturb the whole house.'

She had hastily stepped across the room, and at once closed the window,

which Louise had left open. Fortunately neither the priest nor the

Doctor had remained on the terrace. With one quick glance she had seen

that there was nobody there except the drowsing Chanteau and little

Paul, who was still asleep.

'We could hear you out there as plainly as if you had been in the

dining-room,' she resumed. 'Come, now, what is the matter this time?'

But, their tempers aroused, they continued quarrelling without taking

any notice of Pauline. She now stood there, still and silent, feeling

ill at ease again in that room. The yellow cretonne with its green

pattern, the old mahogany furniture and the red carpet, had been

replaced by heavy woollen hangings and furniture more in harmony with

Louise's delicacy of taste. There was nothing left to remind one of

the dead mother. A scent of heliotrope arose from the toilet-table, on

which lay some damp towels, and the perfume somewhat oppressed Pauline.

She involuntarily glanced round the room, in which every object spoke

of the familiar life of husband and wife. Though, as her rebellious

thoughts calmed down, she had at last prevailed upon herself to

continue living with them, she had never previously entered their room,

where all things suggested conjugal privacy. And thus she quivered

almost with the jealousy of former times.

'How can you make each other so unhappy?' she murmured, after a short

interval of silence. 'Won't you ever be sensible?'

'Well, no, I've had quite enough of it!' cried Louise. 'Do you think he

will ever allow that he is in the wrong? I merely told him how uneasy

he had made us all by not coming home last night, and then he flew at

me like a wild beast and accused me of having ruined his life, and

threatened that he would go off to America!'

Lazare interrupted her in furious tones:

'You are lying! If you had chided me for my absence in that gentle

fashion, I should have kissed you, and there would have been an end of

the matter. But it was you who accused me of making you spend your life

in tears. Yes, you threatened to go and throw yourself into the sea, if

I continued to make your life unbearable.'

Then they flew at each other again, and gave vent to all the bitterness

which the continual jarring of their temperaments aroused in them. The

slightest little differences set them bickering, and brought them to a

state of exasperated antipathy which made the rest of the day wretched.

Whenever her husband interfered with her enjoyment Louise, despite her

gentle face, proved as malicious as a fawning cat, that loves to be

caressed, but strikes out with its claws at the slightest irritation;

and Lazare, finding in these quarrels a relief from his besetting

_ennui_, frequently persisted in them for the sake of the excitement

they brought.

However, Pauline continued listening to the quarrel. She was suffering

greater unhappiness than they themselves were. That fashion of loving

one another was beyond her comprehension. Why couldn't they make

mutual allowances and accommodate themselves to each other, since they

had to live together? She was deeply pained, for she still regarded

the marriage as her own work, and she longed to see it a happy and

harmonious one, so that she might feel compensated for the sacrifice

she had made by knowing that she had, at any rate, acted rightly.

'I never reproach you for squandering my fortune,' Louise continued.

'There was only that accusation wanting!' Lazare cried. 'It wasn't my

fault that I was robbed of it.'

'Oh! it's only stupid folks who allow their pockets to be emptied, who

are robbed. But, any way, we are now reduced to a wretched income of

four or five thousand francs, barely sufficient to enable us to live

in this hole of a place. If it were not for Pauline, our child would

have to go naked one of these days, for I quite expect that you will

squander all that we have left, what with all your extraordinary fads

and speculations that come to grief one after the other.'

'There! there! Prate away! Your father has already paid me similar

pretty compliments. I guessed you had been writing to him. I've given

up that speculation in manure in consequence; though I know it was a

perfectly safe thing, with cent. per cent. to be gained. But now I'm

like you, and I've had enough of it, and the deuce take me if I bestir

myself any more. We will go on living here.'

'A pretty life, isn't it, for a woman of my age? It's nothing but a

gaol, with never an opportunity of going out or seeing anybody; and

there's that stupid sea for ever in front of one, which only seems to

increase one's _ennui_----Oh! if I had only known! If I had only known!'

'And do you suppose that I enjoy myself here? If I were not married, I

should be able to go away to some distant place and try my fortune. I

have longed to do so a score of times. But that's all at an end now;

I'm nailed down to this lonely wilderness, where there's nothing to do

but to go to sleep. You have done for me; I feel that very clearly.'

'I have done for you! I!--I didn't force you to marry me, did I? It was

you who ought to have seen that we were not suited to each other. It is

your fault if our lives are wrecked.'

'Ah! yes, indeed, our lives are certainly wrecked, and you do all you

can to make them more intolerable every day.'

Pauline, though she had resolved not to interfere between them, could

no longer restrain herself.

'Oh! do give over, you unhappy creatures! You seem to take a pleasure

in marring a life which might be such a happy one. Why will you goad

each other into saying things which you cannot recall and which make

you so wretched? Hold your tongues, both of you! I won't let this go on

any longer.'

Louise had fallen into a chair in a fit of tears, while Lazare, in a

state of wild excitement, strode up and down the room.

'Crying won't do any good, my dear,' Pauline continued. 'You are really

not tolerant; you have too many grievances. And you, my poor fellow,

how can you treat her in this unkind fashion? It is abominable of you.

I thought that, at any rate, you had a kind heart. You are, both of

you, a couple of overgrown children, and are equally in fault, making

yourselves wretched without knowing why. But I won't have it any

longer, do you hear? I won't have unhappy people about me. Go and kiss

each other at once!'

She tried to laugh; she no longer felt that tremor which had at first

so disquieted her. She was only thrilled by a glow of kindliness, a

desire to see them in each other's arms, so that she might be sure

their quarrel was at an end.

'Kiss him, indeed! I should just think so!' exclaimed Louise. 'He has

insulted me too much!'

'Never!' exclaimed Lazare.

Then Pauline broke into a merry laugh.

'Come, come!' she said; 'don't sulk with each other. You know, I am

very determined about having my own way. The dinner is getting burnt,

and our guests are waiting. If you don't do as I tell you, Lazare, I

shall come and make you. Go down on your knees before her, and clasp

her affectionately to your heart. No, no! you must do it better than

that!'

She made them twine their arms closely and lovingly about each other,

and watched them kiss, with an air of joyful triumph, without the

least sign of trouble in her clear, calm eyes. Within her glowed warm,

thrilling joy, like some subtle fire, which raised her high above them.

Lazare pressed his wife to his heart in remorse; and Louise, who was

still in her dressing-wrap, with her neck and arms bare, returned his

caresses, her tears streaming forth more freely than before.

'There! that's much nicer, isn't it, than quarrelling?' said Pauline.

'I will be off, now that you no longer need me to make peace between

you.'

She sprang to the door as she spoke, and quickly closed it upon that

chamber of love, with its perfume of heliotrope, which now thrilled her

with soft emotion, as though it were an accomplice perfume which would

complete her task of reconciliation.

When she got downstairs to the kitchen, Pauline began to sing as she

stirred her stew. Then she threw a bundle of wood on the fire, arranged

the turnspit, and began to watch the duck roast with a critical eye.

It amused her to have to play the servant's part. She had tied a big

white apron round her, and felt quite pleased at the thought of waiting

upon them all and undertaking the most humble duties, so that she might

be able to tell them that they were that day indebted to her for their

gaiety and health. Now that, thanks to her, they were smiling and

happy, she wanted to serve them a festive repast of very good things,

of which they would partake plentifully while growing bright and

mirthful round the table.

She thought, however, of her uncle and the child again, and hastily ran

out on to the terrace, where she was greatly astonished to find her

cousin seated by the side of his little son.

'What!' she exclaimed, 'have you come down already?'

He merely nodded his head in answer. He seemed to have fallen back into

his former weary indifference; his shoulders were bent, and his hands

were lying listlessly in front of him. Then Pauline said to him with an

expression of uneasy anxiety:

'I hope you didn't begin again as soon as my back was turned?'

'No, no!' he at last made up his mind to reply. 'She will be down as

soon as she has put on her dress. We have quite forgiven each other

and made it up. But how long will it last? To-morrow there will be

something else; every day, every hour! You can't change people, and you

can't prevent things happening.'

Pauline became very grave, and her saddened eyes sought the ground.

Lazare was right. She could clearly foresee a long series of days

like this in store for them, the same incessant quarrels, which she

would have to smooth away. And she was no longer quite sure that she

was altogether cured herself, and might not again give way to her old

outbursts of jealousy. Ah! were these daily troubles never to have an

end? But she had already raised her eyes again; she remembered how many

times she had won the victory over herself; and as for those other two,

she would see whether they would not grow tired of quarrelling before

she did of reconciling them. This thought brightened her, and she

laughingly repeated it to Lazare. What would be left for her to do, if

the house became perfectly happy? She would fall a victim to _ennui_

herself, if she hadn't some little worries to smooth away.

'Where are the priest and the Doctor?' she asked, surprised to see them

no longer there.

'They must have gone into the kitchen garden,' said Chanteau. 'The Abbé

wanted to show our pears to the Doctor.'

Pauline was going to look from the corner of the terrace, when she

stopped short before little Paul.

'Ah! He has woke up again!' she cried. 'Just look at him! He's already

trying to be off on the loose!'

Paul had just pulled himself up on to his little knees in the midst of

the rug, and was beginning to creep off slyly upon all fours. Before

he reached the gravel, however, he tripped over a fold in the rug, and

rolled upon his back, with his frock thrown back and his little legs

and arms in the air. He lay kicking about and wriggling amidst the

poppy-like brilliance of the rug.

'Well! he's kicking in a fine way!' cried Pauline merrily. 'Look, and

you shall see how he has improved in his walking since yesterday.'

She knelt down beside the child and tried to set him on his feet. He

had developed so slowly that he was very backward for his age, and they

had for a time feared that he would always be weak on his legs. So it

was a great joy to the family to see him make his first attempts at

walking, clutching at the air with his hands, and tumbling down over

the smallest bit of gravel.

'Come now! give over playing,' Pauline called to him. 'Come and show

them that you are a man. There now, keep steady, and go and kiss papa,

and then you shall go and kiss grandfather.'

Chanteau, whose face was twitching with sharp shooting pains, turned

his head to watch the scene. Lazare, notwithstanding his despondency,

was willing to lend himself to the fun.

'Come along!' he cried to the child.

'Oh! you must hold out your arms to him,' Pauline explained. 'He won't

venture if you don't. He likes to see something that he can fall

against. Come, my treasure, pluck up a little courage!'

There were three steps for him to take. There were loving exclamations

and unbounded enthusiasm when Paul made up his mind to go that little

distance, with all the swaying of a tight-rope walker who feels

uncertain of his legs. He fell into the arms of his father, who kissed

him on his still scanty hair, while he smiled with an infant's vague

delighted smile, widely opening his moist and rosy little mouth. Then

his godmother wanted to make him talk, but his tongue was still more

backward than his legs, and he only uttered guttural sounds in which

his relatives alone could distinguish the words 'papa' and 'mamma.'

'Oh! but there's something else yet,' Pauline resumed. 'He promised to

go and kiss his grandfather. Go along with you! Ah! it's a fine walk

you've got before you this time!'

There were at least eight steps between Lazare's chair and Chanteau's.

Paul had never ventured so far out into the world before, and so

there was considerable excitement about the matter. Pauline took up a

position half-way in order to prevent accidents, and two long minutes

were spent in persuading the child to make a start. At last he set off,

swaying about, with his hands clutching the air. For an instant Pauline

thought that she would have to catch him in her arms, but he pushed

bravely forward and fell upon Chanteau's knees. Bursts of applause

greeted him.

Then they made him repeat the journey half a score of times. He no

longer showed any signs of fear; he started off at the first call,

went from his grandfather to his father, and then back again to his

grandfather, laughing loudly all the time, and quite enjoying the fun,

though he always seemed on the point of tumbling over, as if the ground

were shaking beneath him.

'Just once again to father!' Pauline cried.

Lazare was beginning to get a little tired. Children, even his own,

quickly bored him. As he looked at his boy, so merry and now out of

danger, the thought flashed through his mind that this little creature

would outlive him and would doubtless close his eyes for the last time,

an idea which made him shudder with agony. Since he had come to the

determination to continue vegetating at Bonneville, he was constantly

occupied with the thought that he would die in the room where his

mother had died; and he never went up the stairs without telling

himself that one day his coffin would pass that way. The entrance to

the passage was very narrow, and there was an awkward turning, which

was a perpetual source of disquietude to him, and he worried himself

with wondering how the bearers would be able to carry him out without

jolting him. As increasing age day by day shortened his span of

life, that constant dwelling upon the thought of death hastened his

breaking-up, annihilated his last shreds of manliness. He was 'quite

done for,' as he often told himself; he was of no further use at all,

and he would ask himself what was the good of bestirring himself, as he

fell deeper and deeper into the slough of boredom.

'Just once more to grandfather!' cried Pauline.

Chanteau was not able to stretch out his arms to receive and support

his grandson, and, though he set his knees apart, the clutching of the

child's puny fingers at his trousers drew sighs of pain from him. The

little one was already used to the old man's ceaseless moaning, and

probably imagined, in his scarcely awakened mind, that all grandfathers

suffered in the same way. That day, however, in the bright sunshine,

as he came and fell against him, he raised his little face, checked

his laugh, and gazed at the old man with his vacillating eyes. The

grandfather's deformed hands looked like hideous blocks of mingled

flesh and chalk; his face, dented with red wrinkles, disfigured by

suffering, seemed to have been violently twisted towards his right

shoulder; while his whole body was covered with bumps and crevices,

as if it were that of some old stone saint, damaged and badly pieced

together. Paul appeared quite surprised to see him looking so ill and

so old in the sunshine.

'Just once more! Just once more!' cried Pauline again.

She, full of health and cheerfulness, kept sending the little lad to

and fro between the two men, from the grandfather, who obstinately

lived on in hopeless suffering, to the father, who was already

undermined by terror of the hereafter.

'Perhaps his generation will be a less foolish one than this,' she

suddenly exclaimed. 'He won't accuse chemistry of spoiling his life; he

will believe that it is still possible to live, even with the certainty

of having some day to die.'

Lazare smiled in an embarrassed way.

'Bah!' he muttered, 'he will have the gout like my father, and his

nerves will be worse strung than mine. Just see how weak he is! It is

the law of degeneration.'

'Be quiet!' cried Pauline. 'I will bring him up, and you'll see if I

don't make a man of him!'

There was a moment's silence, while she clasped the child to her in a

motherly embrace.

'Why don't you get married, as you're so fond of children?' Lazare

asked.

She looked at him in amazement.

'But I have a child! Haven't you given me one? I get married! Never!

What an idea!'

She dandled little Paul in her arms, and laughed yet more loudly as she

declared that Lazare had quite converted her to the doctrines of the

great Saint Schopenhauer, and that she would remain unmarried in order

to be able to work for the universal deliverance. And she was, indeed,

the incarnation of renunciation, of love for others and kindly charity

for erring humanity.

The sun was sinking to rest in the boundless waters, perfect serenity

fell from the paling sky, the immensity of air and sea alike lay

wrapped in all the mellow softness of the close of a lovely day. Far

away over the water one single little white sail gleamed like a spark,

but it vanished as the sun sank beneath the long line of the horizon;

then there was nothing to be seen save the gradual deepening of the

twilight over the motionless sea. And Pauline was still dandling

the child, and laughing with brave gaiety as she stood between her

despairing cousin and her moaning uncle, in the middle of the terrace,

which was now growing bluish in the shadowy dusk. She had stripped

herself of everything, but happiness rang out in her clear laugh.

'Aren't we going to dine this evening?' asked Louise, making her

appearance in a coquettish dress of grey silk.

'I'm quite ready,' Pauline replied. 'I can't think what they can be

doing in the garden.'

At that moment Abbé Horteur came back, looking very much distressed. In

reply to their anxious questions, after seeking for some phrase which

would soften the shock, he ended by bluntly saying:

'We have just discovered poor Véronique hanging from one of your

pear-trees.'

They all raised a cry of surprise and horror, and their faces paled

beneath the passing quiver of death.

'But what could make her do such a thing?' cried Pauline. 'She could

have had no reason, and she had even to prepare the dinner. It can

scarcely be because I told her that they had made her pay ten sous too

much for her duck!'

In his turn Doctor Cazenove now came up. For the last quarter of an

hour he had been vainly trying to restore animation to the poor woman's

body in the coach-house, whither Martin had helped him to carry it. One

could never tell, he said, what such whimsical old servants would do.

She had never really got over her mistress's death.

'It didn't take her long,' he added. 'She just strung herself up by the

strings of one of her kitchen aprons.'

Lazare and Louise, frozen with terror, said not a word. Chanteau, after

listening in silence, felt a pang of disgust as he thought of the

compromised dinner. And that wretched creature without hands or feet,

who had to be put to bed and fed like a child, that pitiable remnant of

a man, whose almost vanished life was nothing more than one scream of

pain, cried out in furious indignation:

'What a fool one must be to go and kill oneself!'

THE END

FOOTNOTES

[1] See 'The Fat and the Thin,' in which story already figures little

Pauline, who becomes the heroine of 'The Joy of Life.'--Ed.

[2] £320.

[3] The chief character in 'Money.'--Ed.

[4] The English tourist goes cycling and snap-shotting through the

picturesque Norman villages, never dreaming, as a rule, that he is

amongst the most sottish and vicious of all the French peasantry.--Ed.

[5] The equivalent of the English County Council.--Ed.