ON the morrow, after a morning's hard toil at his office at the works,
Mathieu, having things well advanced, bethought himself of going to see
Norine at Madame Bourdieu's. He knew that she had given birth to a child
a fortnight previously, and he wished to ascertain the exact state of
affairs, in order to carry to an end the mission with which Beauchêne had
intrusted him. As the other, however, had never again spoken to him on
the subject, he simply told him that he was going out in the afternoon,
without indicating the motive of his absence. At the same time he knew
what secret relief Beauchêne would experience when he at last learnt that
the whole business was at an end--the child cast adrift and the mother
following her own course.
On reaching the Rue de Miromesnil, Mathieu had to go up to Norine's room,
for though she was to leave the house on the following Thursday, she
still kept her bed. And at the foot of the bedstead, asleep in a cradle,
he was surprised to see the infant, of which, he thought, she had already
rid herself.
"Oh! is it you?" she joyously exclaimed. "I was about to write to you,
for I wanted to see you before going away. My little sister here would
have taken you the letter."
Cécile Moineaud was indeed there, together with the younger girl, Irma.
The mother, unable to absent herself from her household duties, had sent
them to make inquiries, and give Norine three big oranges, which
glistened on the table beside the bed. The little girls had made the
journey on foot, greatly interested by all the sights of the streets and
the displays in the shop-windows. And now they were enraptured with the
fine house in which they found their big sister sojourning, and full of
curiosity with respect to the baby which slept under the cradle's muslin
curtains.
Mathieu made the usual inquiries of Norine, who answered him gayly, but
pouted somewhat at the prospect of having so soon to leave the house,
where she had found herself so comfortable.
"We shan't easily find such soft mattresses and such good food, eh,
Victoire?" she asked. Whereupon Mathieu perceived that another girl was
present, a pale little creature with wavy red hair, tip-tilted nose, and
long mouth, whom he had already seen there on the occasion of a previous
visit. She slept in one of the two other beds which the room contained,
and now sat beside it mending some linen. She was to leave the house on
the morrow, having already sent her child to the Foundling Hospital; and
in the meantime she was mending some things for Rosine, the well-to-do
young person of great beauty whom Mathieu had previously espied, and
whose story, according to Norine, was so sadly pathetic.
Victoire ceased sewing and raised her head. She was a servant girl by
calling, one of those unlucky creatures who are overtaken by trouble when
they have scarce arrived in the great city from their native village.
"Well," said she, "it's quite certain that one won't be able to dawdle in
bed, and that one won't have warm milk given one to drink before getting
up. But, all the same, it isn't lively to see nothing but that big gray
wall yonder from the window. And, besides, one can't go on forever doing
nothing."
Norine laughed and jerked her head, as if she were not of this opinion.
Then, as her little sisters embarrassed her, she wished to get rid of
them.
"And so, my pussies," said she, "you say that papa's still angry with me,
and that I'm not to go back home."
"Oh!" cried Cécile, "it's not so much that he's angry, but he says that
all the neighbors would point their fingers at him if he let you come
home. Besides, Euphrasie keeps his anger up, particularly since she's
arranged to get married."
"What! Euphrasie going to be married? You didn't tell me that."
Norine looked very vexed, particularly when her sisters, speaking both
together, told her that the future husband was Auguste Bénard, a jovial
young mason who lived on the floor above them. He had taken a fancy to
Euphrasie, though she had no good looks, and was as thin, at eighteen, as
a grasshopper. Doubtless, however, he considered her strong and
hard-working.
"Much good may it do them!" said Norine spitefully. "Why, with her evil
temper, she'll be beating him before six months are over. You can just
tell mamma that I don't care a rap for any of you, and that I need
nobody. I'll go and look for work, and I'll find somebody to help me. So,
you hear, don't you come back here. I don't want to be bothered by you
any more."
At this, Irma, but eight years old and tender-hearted, began to cry. "Why
do you scold us? We didn't come to worry you. I wanted to ask you, too,
if that baby's yours, and if we may kiss it before we go away."
Norine immediately regretted her spiteful outburst. She once more called
the girls her "little pussies," kissed them tenderly, and told them that
although they must run away now they might come back another day to see
her if it amused them. "Thank mamma from me for her oranges. And as for
the baby, well, you may look at it, but you mustn't touch it, for if it
woke up we shouldn't be able to hear ourselves."
Then, as the two children leant inquisitively over the cradle, Mathieu
also glanced at it, and saw a healthy, sturdy-looking child, with a
square face and strong features. And it seemed to him that the infant was
singularly like Beauchêne.
At that moment, however, Madame Bourdieu came in, accompanied by a woman,
whom he recognized as Sophie Couteau, "La Couteau," that nurse-agent whom
he had seen at the Séguins' one day when she had gone thither to offer to
procure them a nurse. She also certainly recognized this gentleman, whose
wife, proud of being able to suckle her own children, had evinced such
little inclination to help others to do business. She pretended, however,
that she saw him for the first time; for she was discreet by profession
and not even inquisitive, since so many matters were ever coming to her
knowledge without the asking.
Little Cécile and little Irma went off at once; and then Madame Bourdieu,
addressing Norine, inquired: "Well, my child, have you thought it over;
have you quite made up your mind about that poor little darling, who is
sleeping there so prettily? Here is the person I spoke to you about. She
comes from Normandy every fortnight, bringing nurses to Paris; and each
time she takes babies away with her to put them out to nurse in the
country. Though you say you won't feed it, you surely need not cast off
your child altogether; you might confide it to this person until you are
in a position to take it back. Or else, if you have made up your mind to
abandon it altogether, she will kindly take it to the Foundling Hospital
at once."
Great perturbation had come over Norine, who let her head fall back on
her pillow, over which streamed her thick fair hair, whilst her face
darkened and she stammered: "_Mon Dieu_, _mon Dieu_! you are going to
worry me again!"
Then she pressed her hands to her eyes as if anxious to see nothing more.
"This is what the regulations require of me, monsieur," said Madame
Bourdieu to Mathieu in an undertone, while leaving the young mother for a
moment to her reflections. "We are recommended to do all we can to
persuade our boarders, especially when they are situated like this one,
to nurse their infants. You are aware that this often saves not only the
child, but the mother herself, from the sad future which threatens her.
And so, however much she may wish to abandon the child, we leave it near
her as long as possible, and feed it with the bottle, in the hope that
the sight of the poor little creature may touch her heart and awaken
feelings of motherliness in her. Nine times out of ten, as soon as she
gives the child the breast, she is vanquished, and she keeps it. That is
why you still see this baby here."
Mathieu, feeling greatly moved, drew near to Norine, who still lay back
amid her streaming hair, with her hands pressed to her face. "Come," said
he, "you are a goodhearted girl, there is no malice in you. Why not
yourself keep that dear little fellow?"
Then she uncovered her burning, tearless face: "Did the father even come
to see me?" she asked bitterly. "I can't love the child of a man who has
behaved as he has! The mere thought that it's there, in that cradle, puts
me in a rage."
"But that dear little innocent isn't guilty. It's he whom you condemn,
yourself whom you punish, for now you will be quite alone, and he might
prove a great consolation."
"No, I tell you no, I won't. I can't keep a child like that with nobody
to help me. We all know what we can do, don't we? Well, it is of no use
my questioning myself. I'm not brave enough, I'm not stupid enough to do
such a thing. No, no, and no."
He said no more, for he realized that nothing would prevail over that
thirst for liberty which she felt in the depths of her being. With a
gesture he expressed his sadness, but he was neither indignant nor angry
with her, for others had made her what she was.
"Well, it's understood, you won't be forced to feed it," resumed Madame
Bourdieu, attempting a final effort. "But it isn't praiseworthy to
abandon the child. Why not trust it to Madame here, who would put it out
to nurse, so that you would be able to take it back some day, when you
have found work? It wouldn't cost much, and no doubt the father would
pay."
This time Norine flew into a passion. "He! pay? Ah! you don't know him.
It's not that the money would inconvenience him, for he's a millionnaire.
But all he wants is to see the little one disappear. If he had dared he
would have told me to kill it! Just ask that gentleman if I speak the
truth. You see that he keeps silent! And how am I to pay when I haven't a
copper, when to-morrow I shall be cast out-of-doors, perhaps, without
work and without bread. No, no, a thousand times no, I can't!"
Then, overcome by an hysterical fit of despair, she burst into sobs. "I
beg you, leave me in peace. For the last fortnight you have been
torturing me with that child, by keeping him near me, with the idea that
I should end by nursing him. You bring him to me, and set him on my
knees, so that I may look at him and kiss him. You are always worrying me
with him, and making him cry with the hope that I shall pity him and take
him to my breast. But, _mon Dieu_! can't you understand that if I turn my
head away, if I don't want to kiss him or even to see him, it is because
I'm afraid of being caught and loving him like a big fool, which would be
a great misfortune both for him and for me? He'll be far happier by
himself! So, I beg you, let him be taken away at once, and don't torture
me any more."
Sobbing violently, she again sank back in bed, and buried her dishevelled
head in the pillows.
La Couteau had remained waiting, mute and motionless, at the foot of the
bedstead. In her gown of dark woollen stuff and her black cap trimmed
with yellow ribbons she retained the air of a peasant woman in her Sunday
best. And she strove to impart an expression of compassionate good-nature
to her long, avaricious, false face. Although it seemed to her unlikely
that business would ensue, she risked a repetition of her customary
speech.
"At Rougemont, you know, madame, your little one would be just the same
as at home. There's no better air in the Department; people come there
from Bayeux to recruit their health. And if you only knew how well the
little ones are cared for! It's the only occupation of the district, to
have little Parisians to coddle and love! And, besides, I wouldn't charge
you dear. I've a friend of mine who already has three nurslings, and, as
she naturally brings them up with the bottle, it wouldn't put her out to
take a fourth for almost next to nothing. Come, doesn't that suit
you--doesn't that tempt you?"
When, however, she saw that tears were Norine's only answer, she made an
impatient gesture like an active woman who cannot afford to lose her
time. At each of her fortnightly journeys, as soon as she had rid herself
of her batch of nurses at the different offices, she hastened round the
nurses' establishments to pick up infants, so as to take the train
homewards the same evening together with two or three women who, as she
put it, helped her "to cart the little ones about." On this occasion she
was in a greater hurry, as Madame Bourdieu, who employed her in a variety
of ways, had asked her to take Norine's child to the Foundling Hospital
if she did not take it to Rougemont.
"And so," said La Couteau, turning to Madame Bourdieu, "I shall have only
the other lady's child to take back with me. Well, I had better see her
at once to make final arrangements. Then I'll take this one and carry it
yonder as fast as possible, for my train starts at six o'clock."
When La Couteau and Madame Bourdieu had gone off to speak to Rosine, who
was the "other lady" referred to, the room sank into silence save for the
wailing and sobbing of Norine. Mathieu had seated himself near the
cradle, gazing compassionately at the poor little babe, who was still
peacefully sleeping. Soon, however, Victoire, the little servant girl,
who had hitherto remained silent, as if absorbed in her sewing, broke the
heavy silence and talked on slowly and interminably without raising her
eyes from her needle.
"You were quite right in not trusting your child to that horrid woman!"
she began. "Whatever may be done with him at the hospital, he will be
better off there than in her hands. At least he will have a chance to
live. And that's why I insisted, like you, on having mine taken there at
once. You know I belong in that woman's region--yes, I come from
Berville, which is barely four miles from Rougemont, and I can't help
knowing La Couteau, for folks talk enough about her in our village. She's
a nice creature and no mistake! And it's a fine trade that she plies,
selling other people's milk. She was no better than she should be at one
time, but at last she was lucky enough to marry a big, coarse, brutal
fellow, whom at this time of day she leads by the nose. And he helps her.
Yes, he also brings nurses to Paris and takes babies back with him, at
busy times. But between them they have more murders on their consciences
than all the assassins that have ever been guillotined. The mayor of
Berville, a _bourgeois_ who's retired from business and a worthy man, said
that Rougemont was the curse of the Department. I know well enough that
there's always been some rivalry between Rougemont and Berville; but, the
folks of Rougemont ply a wicked trade with the babies they get from
Paris. All the inhabitants have ended by taking to it, there's nothing
else doing in the whole village, and you should just see how things are
arranged so that there may be as many funerals as possible. Ah! yes,
people don't keep their stock-in-trade on their hands. The more that die,
the more they earn. And so one can understand that La Couteau always
wants to take back as many babies as possible at each journey she makes."
Victoire recounted these dreadful things in her simple way, as one whom
Paris has not yet turned into a liar, and who says all she knows,
careless what it may be.
"And it seems things were far worse years ago," she continued. "I have
heard my father say that, in his time, the agents would bring back four
or five children at one journey--perfect parcels of babies, which they
tied together and carried under their arms. They set them out in rows on
the seats in the waiting-rooms at the station; and one day, indeed, a
Rougemont agent forgot one child in a waiting-room, and there was quite a
row about it, because when the child was found again it was dead. And
then you should have seen in the trains what a heap of poor little things
there was, all crying with hunger. It became pitiable in winter time,
when there was snow and frost, for they were all shivering and blue with
cold in their scanty, ragged swaddling-clothes. One or another often died
on the way, and then it was removed at the next station and buried in the
nearest cemetery. And you can picture what a state those who didn't die
were in. At our place we care better for our pigs, for we certainly
wouldn't send them travelling in that fashion. My father used to say that
it was enough to make the very stones weep. Nowadays, however, there's
more supervision; the regulations allow the agents to take only one
nursling back at a time. But they know all sorts of tricks, and often
take a couple. And then, too, they make arrangements; they have women who
help them, and they avail themselves of those who may be going back into
the country alone. Yes, La Couteau has all sorts of tricks to evade the
law. And, besides, all the folks of Rougemont close their eyes--they are
too much interested in keeping business brisk; and all they fear is that
the police may poke their noses into their affairs. Ah! it is all very
well for the Government to send inspectors every month, and insist on
registers, and the Mayor's signature and the stamp of the Commune; why,
it's just as if it did nothing. It doesn't prevent these women from
quietly plying their trade and sending as many little ones as they can to
kingdom-come. We've got a cousin at Rougemont who said to us one day: 'La
Malivoire's precious lucky, she got rid of four more during last month.'"
Victoire paused for a moment to thread her needle. Norine was still
weeping, while Mathieu listened, mute with horror, and with his eyes
fixed upon the sleeping child.
"No doubt folks say less about Rougemont nowadays than they used to," the
girl resumed; "but there's still enough to disgust one. We know three or
four baby-farmers who are not worth their salt. The rule is to bring the
little ones up with the bottle, you know; and you'd be horrified if you
saw what bottles they are--never cleaned, always filthy, with the milk
inside them icy cold in the winter and sour in the summer. La Vimeux, for
her part, thinks that the bottle system costs too much, and so she feeds
her children on soup. That clears them off all the quicker. At La
Loiseau's you have to hold your nose when you go near the corner where
the little ones sleep--their rags are so filthy. As for La Gavette, she's
always working in the fields with her man, so that the three or four
nurslings that she generally has are left in charge of the grandfather,
an old cripple of seventy, who can't even prevent the fowls from coming
to peck at the little ones.[5] And things are worse even at La Cauchois',
for, as she has nobody at all to mind the children when she goes out
working, she leaves them tied in their cradles, for fear lest they should
tumble out and crack their skulls. You might visit all the houses in the
village, and you would find the same thing everywhere. There isn't a
house where the trade isn't carried on. Round our part there are places
where folks make lace, or make cheese, or make cider; but at Rougemont
they only make dead bodies."
[Footnote 5: There is no exaggeration in what M. Zola writes on this
subject. I have even read in French Government reports of instances in
which nurslings have been devoured by pigs! And it is a well-known
saying in France that certain Norman and Touraine villages are
virtually "paved with little Parisians."--_Trans._]
All at once she ceased sewing, and looked at Mathieu with her timid,
clear eyes.
"But the worst of all," she continued, "is La Couillard, an old thief who
once did six months in prison, and who now lives a little way out of the
village on the verge of the wood. No live child has ever left La
Couillard's. That's her specialty. When you see an agent, like La
Couteau, for instance, taking her a child, you know at once what's in the
wind. La Couteau has simply bargained that the little one shall die. It's
settled in a very easy fashion: the parents give a sum of three or four
hundred francs on condition that the little one shall be kept till his
first communion, and you may be quite certain that he dies within a week.
It's only necessary to leave a window open near him, as a nurse used to
do whom my father knew. At winter time, when she had half a dozen babies
in her house, she would set the door wide open and then go out for a
stroll. And, by the way, that little boy in the next room, whom La
Couteau has just gone to see, she'll take him to La Couillard's, I'm
sure; for I heard the mother, Mademoiselle Rosine, agree with her the
other day to give her a sum of four hundred francs down on the
understanding that she should have nothing more to do in the matter."
At this point Victoire ceased speaking, for La Couteau came in to fetch
Norine's child. Norine, who had emerged from her distress during the
servant girl's stories, had ended by listening to them with great
interest. But directly she perceived the agent she once more hid her face
in her pillows, as though she feared to see what was about to happen.
Mathieu, on his side, had risen from his chair and stood there quivering.
"So it's understood, I'm going to take the child," said La Couteau.
"Madame Bourdieu has given me a slip of paper bearing the date of the
birth and the address. Only I ought to have some Christian names. What do
you wish the child to be called?"
Norine did not at first answer. Then, in a faint distressful voice, she
said: "Alexandre."
"Alexandre, very well. But you would do better to give the boy a second
Christian name, so as to identify him the more readily, if some day you
take it into your head to run after him."
It was again necessary to tear a reply from Norine. "Honoré," she said.
"Alexandre Honoré--all right. That last name is yours, is it not?[6] And
the first is the father's? That is settled; and now I've everything I
need. Only it's four o'clock already, and I shall never get back in time
for the six o'clock train if I don't take a cab. It's such a long way
off--the other side of the Luxembourg. And a cab costs money. How shall
we manage?"
[Footnote 6: Norine is, of course, a diminutive of Honorine, which is the
feminine form of Honoré.--_Trans._]
While she continued whining, to see if she could not extract a few francs
from the distressed girl, it suddenly occurred to Mathieu to carry out
his mission to the very end by driving with her himself to the Foundling
Hospital, so that he might be in a position to inform Beauchêne that the
child had really been deposited there, in his presence. So he told La
Couteau that he would go down with her, take a cab, and bring her back.
"All right; that will suit me. Let us be off! It's a pity to wake the
little one, since he's so sound asleep; but all the same, we must pack
him off, since it's decided."
With her dry hands, which were used to handling goods of this
description, she caught up the child, perhaps, however, a little roughly,
forgetting her assumed wheedling good nature now that she was simply
charged with conveying it to hospital. And the child awoke and began to
scream loudly.
"Ah! dear me, it won't be amusing if he keeps up this music in the cab.
Quick, let us be off."
But Mathieu stopped her. "Won't you kiss him, Norine?" he asked.
At the very first squeal that sorry mother had dipped yet lower under her
sheets, carrying her hands to her ears, distracted as she was by the
sound of those cries. "No, no," she gasped, "take him away; take him away
at once. Don't begin torturing me again!"
Then she closed her eyes, and with one arm repulsed the child who seemed
to be pursuing her. But when she felt that the agent was laying him on
the bed, she suddenly shuddered, sat up, and gave a wild hasty kiss,
which lighted on the little fellow's cap. She had scarcely opened her
tear-dimmed eyes, and could have seen but a vague phantom of that poor
feeble creature, wailing and struggling at the decisive moment when he
was being cast into the unknown.
"You are killing me! Take him away; take him away!"
Once in the cab the child suddenly became silent. Either the jolting of
the vehicle calmed him, or the creaking of the wheels filled him with
emotion. La Couteau, who kept him on her knees, at first remained silent,
as if interested in the people on the footwalks, where the bright sun was
shining. Then, all of a sudden, she began to talk, venting her thoughts
aloud.
"That little woman made a great mistake in not trusting the child to me.
I should have put him out to nurse properly, and he would have grown up
finely at Rougemont. But there! they all imagine that we simply worry
them because we want to do business. But I just ask you, if she had given
me five francs for myself and paid my return journey, would that have
ruined her? A pretty girl like her oughtn't to be hard up for money. I
know very well that in our calling there are some people who are hardly
honest, who speculate and ask for commissions, and then put out nurslings
at cheap rates and rob both the parents and the nurse. It's really not
right to treat these dear little things as if they were goods--poultry or
vegetables. When folks do that I can understand that their hearts get
hardened, and that they pass the little ones on from hand to hand without
any more care than if they were stock-in-trade. But then, monsieur, I'm
an honest woman; I'm authorized by the mayor of our village; I hold a
certificate of morality, which I can show to anybody. If ever you should
come to Rougemont, just ask after Sophie Couteau there. Folks will tell
you that I'm a hard-working woman, and don't owe a copper to a soul!"
Mathieu could not help looking at her to see how unblushingly she thus
praised herself. And her speech struck him as if it were a premeditated
reply to all that Victoire had related of her, for, with the keen scent
of a shrewd peasant woman, she must have guessed that charges had been
brought against her. When she felt that his piercing glance was diving to
her very soul, she doubtless feared that she had not lied with sufficient
assurance, and had somehow negligently betrayed herself; for she did not
insist, but put on more gentleness of manner, and contented herself with
praising Rougemont in a general way, saying what a perfect paradise it
was, where the little ones were received, fed, cared for, and coddled as
if they were all sons of princes. Then, seeing that the gentleman uttered
never a word, she became silent once more. It was evidently useless to
try to win him over. And meantime the cab rolled and rolled along;
streets followed streets, ever noisy and crowded; and they crossed the
Seine and at last drew near to the Luxembourg. It was only after passing
the palace gardens that La Couteau again began:
"Well, it's that young person's own affair if she imagines that her child
will be better off for passing through the Foundling. I don't attack the
Administration, but you know, monsieur, there's a good deal to be said on
the matter. At Rougemont we have a number of nurslings that it sends us,
and they don't grow any better or die less frequently than the others.
Well, well, people are free to act as they fancy; but all the same I
should like you to know, as I do, all that goes on in there."
The cab had stopped at the top of the Rue Denfert-Rochereau, at a short
distance from the former outer Boulevard. A big gray wall stretched out,
the frigid façade of a State establishment, and it was through a quiet,
simple, unobtrusive little doorway at the end of this wall that La
Couteau went in with the child. Mathieu followed her, but he did not
enter the office where a woman received the children. He felt too much
emotion, and feared lest he should be questioned; it was, indeed, as if
he considered himself an accomplice in a crime. Though La Couteau told
him that the woman would ask him nothing, and the strictest secrecy was
always observed, he preferred to wait in an anteroom, which led to
several closed compartments, where the persons who came to deposit
children were placed to wait their turn. And he watched the woman go off,
carrying the little one, who still remained extremely well behaved, with
a vacant stare in his big eyes.
Though the interval of waiting could not have lasted more than twenty
minutes, it seemed terribly long to Mathieu. Lifeless quietude reigned in
that stern, sad-looking anteroom, wainscoted with oak, and pervaded with
the smell peculiar to hospitals. All he heard was the occasional faint
wail of some infant, above which now and then rose a heavy, restrained
sob, coming perhaps from some mother who was waiting in one of the
adjoining compartments. And he recalled the "slide" of other days, the
box which turned within the wall. The mother crept up, concealing herself
much as possible from view, thrust her baby into the cavity as into an
oven, gave a tug at the bell-chain, and then precipitately fled. Mathieu
was too young to have seen the real thing; he had only seen it
represented in a melodrama at the Port St. Martin Theatre.[7] But how many
stories it recalled--hampers of poor little creatures brought up from the
provinces and deposited at the hospital by carriers; the stolen babes of
Duchesses, here cast into oblivion by suspicious-looking men; the
hundreds of wretched work-girls too who had here rid themselves of their
unfortunate children. Now, however, the children had to be deposited
openly, and there was a staff which took down names and dates, while
giving a pledge of inviolable secrecy. Mathieu was aware that some few
people imputed to the suppression of the slide system the great increase
in criminal offences. But each day public opinion condemns more and more
the attitude of society in former times, and discards the idea that one
must accept evil, dam it in, and hide it as if it were some necessary
sewer; for the only course for a free community to pursue is to foresee
evil and grapple with it, and destroy it in the bud. To diminish the
number of cast-off children one must seek out the mothers, encourage
them, succor them, and give them the means to be mothers in fact as well
as in name. At that moment, however, Mathieu did not reason; it was his
heart that was affected, filled with growing pity and anguish at the
thought of all the crime, all the shame, all the grief and distress that
had passed through that anteroom in which he stood. What terrible
confessions must have been heard, what a procession of suffering,
ignominy, and wretchedness must have been witnessed by that woman who
received the children in her mysterious little office! To her all the
wreckage of the slums, all the woe lying beneath gilded life, all the
abominations, all the tortures that remain unknown, were carried. There
in her office was the port for the shipwrecked, there the black hole that
swallowed up the offspring of frailty and shame. And while Mathieu's
spell of waiting continued he saw three poor creatures arrive at the
hospital. One was surely a work-girl, delicate and pretty though she
looked, so thin, so pale too, and with so wild an air that he remembered
a paragraph he had lately read in a newspaper, recounting how another
such girl, after forsaking her child, had thrown herself into the river.
The second seemed to him to be a married woman, some workman's wife, no
doubt, overburdened with children and unable to provide food for another
mouth; while the third was tall, strong, and insolent,--one of those who
bring three or four children to the hospital one after the other. And all
three women plunged in, and he heard them being penned in separate
compartments by an attendant, while he, with stricken heart, realizing
how heavily fate fell on some, still stood there waiting.
[Footnote 7: The "slide" system, which enabled a mother to deposit her
child at the hospital without being seen by those within, ceased to be
employed officially as far back as 1847; but the apparatus was
long preserved intact, and I recollect seeing it in the latter
years of the Second Empire, _cir._ 1867-70, when I was often at
the artists' studios in the neighborhood. The aperture through
which children were deposited in the sliding-box was close to
the little door of which M. Zola speaks.--_Trans._]
When La Couteau at last reappeared with empty arms she said never a word,
and Mathieu put no question to her. Still in silence, they took their
seats in the cab; and only some ten minutes afterwards, when the vehicle
was already rolling through bustling, populous streets, did the woman
begin to laugh. Then, as her companion, still silent and distant, did not
condescend to ask her the cause of her sudden gayety, she ended by saying
aloud:
"Do you know why I am laughing? If I kept you waiting a bit longer, it
was because I met a friend of mine, an attendant in the house, just as I
left the office. She's one of those who put the babies out to nurse in
the provinces.[8] Well, my friend told me that she was going to Rougemont
to-morrow with two other attendants, and that among others they would
certainly have with them the little fellow I had just left at the
hospital."
[Footnote 8: There are only about 600 beds at the Hôpital des Enfants
Assistés, and the majority of the children deposited there
are perforce placed out to purse in the country.--_Trans._]
Again did she give vent to a dry laugh which distorted her wheedling
face. And she continued: "How comical, eh? The mother wouldn't let me
take the child to Rougemont, and now it's going there just the same. Ah!
some things are bound to happen in spite of everything."
Mathieu did not answer, but an icy chill had sped through his heart. It
was true, fate pitilessly took its own course. What would become of that
poor little fellow? To what early death, what life of suffering or
wretchedness, or even crime, had he been thus brutally cast?
But the cab continued rolling on, and for a long while neither Mathieu
nor La Couteau spoke again. It was only when the latter alighted in the
Rue de Miromesnil that she began to lament, on seeing that it was already
half-past five o'clock, for she felt certain that she would miss her
train, particularly as she still had some accounts to settle and that
other child upstairs to fetch. Mathieu, who had intended to keep the cab
and drive to the Northern terminus, then experienced a feeling of
curiosity, and thought of witnessing the departure of the nurse-agents.
So he calmed La Couteau by telling her that if she would make haste he
would wait for her. And as she asked for a quarter of an hour, it
occurred to him to speak to Norine again, and so he also went upstairs.
When he entered Norine's room he found her sitting up in bed, eating one
of the oranges which her little sisters had brought her. She had all the
greedy instincts of a plump, pretty girl; she carefully detached each
section of the orange, and, her eyes half closed the while, her flesh
quivering under her streaming outspread hair, she sucked one after
another with her fresh red lips, like a pet cat lapping a cup of milk.
Mathieu's sudden entry made her start, however, and when she recognized
him she smiled faintly in an embarrassed way.
"It's done," he simply said.
She did not immediately reply, but wiped her fingers on her handkerchief.
However, it was necessary that she should say something, and so she
began: "You did not tell me you would come back--I was not expecting you.
Well, it's done, and it's all for the best. I assure you there was no
means of doing otherwise."
Then she spoke of her departure, asked the young man if he thought she
might regain admittance to the works, and declared that in any case she
should go there to see if the master would have the audacity to turn her
away. Thus she continued while the minutes went slowly by. The
conversation had dropped, Mathieu scarcely replying to her, when La
Couteau, carrying the other child in her arms, at last darted in like a
gust of wind. "Let's make haste, let's make haste!" she cried. "They
never end with their figures; they try all they can to leave me without a
copper for myself!"
But Norine detained her, asking: "Oh! is that Rosine's baby? Pray do show
it me." Then she uncovered the infant's face, and exclaimed: "Oh! how
plump and pretty he is!" And she began another sentence: "What a pity!
Can one have the heart--" But then she remembered, paused, and changed
her words: "Yes, how heartrending it is when one has to forsake such
little angels."
"Good-by! Take care of yourself!" cried La Couteau; "you will make me
miss my train. And I've got the return tickets, too; the five others are
waiting for me at the station! Ah! what a fuss they would make if I got
there too late!"
Then, followed by Mathieu, she hurried away, bounding down the stairs,
where she almost fell with her little burden. But soon she threw herself
back in the cab, which rolled off.
"Ah! that's a good job! And what do you say of that young person,
monsieur? She wouldn't lay out fifteen francs a month on her own account,
and yet she reproaches that good Mademoiselle Rosine, who has just given
me four hundred francs to have her little one taken care of till his
first communion. Just look at him--a superb child, isn't he? What a pity
it is that the finest are often those who die the first."
Mathieu looked at the infant on the woman's knees. His garments were very
white, of fine texture, trimmed with lace, as if he were some little
condemned prince being taken in all luxury to execution. And the young
man remembered that Norine had told him that the child was the offspring
of crime. Born amid secrecy, he was now, for a fixed sum, to be handed
over to a woman who would quietly suppress him by simply leaving some
door or window wide open. Young though the boy was, he already had a
finely-formed face, that suggested the beauty of a cherub. And he was
very well behaved; he did not raise the faintest wail. But a shudder
swept through Mathieu. How abominable!
La Couteau quickly sprang from the cab as soon as they reached the
courtyard of the St. Lazare Station. "Thank you, monsieur, you have been
very kind," said she. "And if you will kindly recommend me to any ladies
you may know, I shall be quite at their disposal."
Then Mathieu, having alighted on the pavement in his turn, saw a scene
which detained him there a few moments longer. Amid all the scramble of
passengers and luggage, five women of peasant aspect, each carrying an
infant, were darting in a scared, uneasy way hither and thither, like
crows in trouble, with big yellow beaks quivering and black wings
flapping with anxiety. Then, on perceiving La Couteau, there was one
general caw, and all five swooped down upon her with angry, voracious
mien. And, after a furious exchange of cries and explanations, the six
banded themselves together, and, with cap-strings waving and skirts
flying, rushed towards the train, carrying the little ones, like birds of
prey who feared delay in returning to the charnel-house.
And Mathieu remained alone in the great crowd. Thus every year did these
crows of ill omen carry off from Paris no fewer than 20,000 children, who
were never, never seen again! Ah! that great question of the depopulation
of France! Not merely were there those who were resolved to have no
children, not only were infanticide and crime of other kinds rife upon
all sides, but one-half of the babes saved from those dangers were
killed. Thieves and murderesses, eager for lucre, flocked to the great
city from the four points of the compass, and bore away all the budding
Life that their arms could carry in order that they might turn it to
Death! They beat down the game, they watched in the doorways, they
sniffed from afar the innocent flesh on which they preyed. And the babes
were carted to the railway stations; the cradles, the wards of hospitals
and refuges, the wretched garrets of poor mothers, without fires and
without bread--all, all were emptied! And the packages were heaped up,
moved carelessly hither and thither, sent off, distributed to be murdered
either by foul deed or by neglect. The raids swept on like tempest
blasts; Death's scythe never knew dead season, at every hour it mowed
down budding life. Children who might well have lived were taken from
their mothers, the only nurses whose milk would have nourished them, to
be carted away and to die for lack of proper nutriment.
A rush of blood warmed Mathieu's heart when, all at once, he thought of
Marianne, so strong and healthy, who would be waiting for him on the
bridge over the Yeuse, in the open country, with their little Gervais at
her breast. Figures that he had seen in print came back to his mind. In
certain regions which devoted themselves to baby-farming the mortality
among the nurslings was fifty per cent; in the best of them it was forty,
and seventy in the worst. It was calculated that in one century seventeen
millions of nurslings had died. Over a long period the mortality had
remained at from one hundred to one hundred and twenty thousand per
annum. The most deadly reigns, the greatest butcheries of the most
terrible conquerors, had never resulted in such massacre. It was a giant
battle that France lost every year, the abyss into which her whole
strength sank, the charnel-place into which every hope was cast. At the
end of it is the imbecile death of the nation. And Mathieu, seized with
terror at the thought, rushed away, eager to seek consolation by the side
of Marianne, amid the peacefulness, the wisdom, and the health which were
their happy lot.