XIV

TWO more years went by, and during those two years yet another child,

this time a boy, was born to Mathieu and Marianne. And on this occasion,

at the same time as the family increased, the estate of Chantebled was

increased also by all the heatherland extending to the east as far as the

village of Vieux-Bourg. And this time the last lot was purchased, the

conquest of the estate was complete. The 1250 acres of uncultivated soil

which Séguin's father, the old army contractor, had formerly purchased in

view of erecting a palatial residence there were now, thanks to

unremitting effort, becoming fruitful from end to end. The enclosure

belonging to the Lepailleurs, who stubbornly refused to sell it, alone

set a strip of dry, stony, desolate land amid the broad green plain. And

it was all life's resistless conquest; it was fruitfulness spreading in

the sunlight; it was labor ever incessantly pursuing its work of creation

amid obstacles and suffering, making good all losses, and at each

succeeding hour setting more energy, more health, and more joy in the

veins of the world.

Blaise, now the father of a little girl some ten months old, had been

residing at the Beauchêne works since the previous winter. He occupied

the little pavilion where his mother had long previously given birth to

his brother Gervais. His wife Charlotte had conquered the Beauchênes by

her fair grace, her charming, bouquet-like freshness, to such a point,

indeed, that even Constance had desired to have her near her. The truth

was that Madame Desvignes had made adorable creatures of her two

daughters, Charlotte and Marthe. At the death of her husband, a

stockbroker's confidential clerk, who had died, leaving her at thirty

years of age in very indifferent circumstances, she had gathered her

scanty means together and withdrawn to Janville, her native place, where

she had entirely devoted herself to her daughters' education. Knowing

that they would be almost portionless, she had brought them up extremely

well, in the hope that this might help to find them husbands, and it so

chanced that she proved successful.

Affectionate intercourse sprang up between her and the Froments; the

children played together; and it was, indeed, from those first games that

came the love-romance which was to end in the marriage of Blaise and

Charlotte. By the time the latter reached her eighteenth birthday and

married, Marthe her sister, then fourteen years old, had become the

inseparable companion of Rose Froment, who was of the same age and as

pretty as herself, though dark instead of fair. Charlotte, who had a more

delicate, and perhaps a weaker, nature than her gay, sensible sister, had

become passionately fond of drawing and painting, which she had learnt at

first simply by way of accomplishment. She had ended, however, by

painting miniatures very prettily, and, as her mother remarked, her

proficiency might prove a resource to her in the event of misfortune.

Certainly there was some of the _bourgeois_ respect and esteem for a good

education in the fairly cordial greeting which Constance extended to

Charlotte, who had painted a miniature portrait of her, a good though a

flattering likeness.

On the other hand, Blaise, who was endowed with the creative fire of the

Froments, ever striving, ever hard at work, became a valuable assistant

to Maurice as soon as a brief stay in Morange's office had made him

familiar with the business of the firm. Indeed it was Maurice who,

finding that his father seconded him less and less, had insisted on

Blaise and Charlotte installing themselves in the little pavilion, in

order that the former's services might at all times be available. And

Constance, ever on her knees before her son, could in this matter only

obey respectfully. She evinced boundless faith in the vastness of

Maurice's intellect. His studies had proved fairly satisfactory; if he

was somewhat slow and heavy, and had frequently been delayed by youthful

illnesses, he had, nevertheless, diligently plodded on. As he was far

from talkative, his mother gave out that he was a reflective,

concentrated genius, who would astonish the world by actions, not by

speech. Before he was even fifteen she said of him, in her adoring way:

"Oh! he has a great mind." And, naturally enough, she only acknowledged

Blaise to be a necessary lieutenant, a humble assistant, one whose hand

would execute the sapient young master's orders. The latter, to her

thinking, was now so strong and so handsome, and he was so quickly

reviving the business compromised by the father's slow collapse, that

surely he must be on the high-road to prodigious wealth, to that final

great triumph, indeed, of which she had been dreaming so proudly, so

egotistically, for so many years.

But all at once the thunderbolt fell. It was not without some hesitation

that Blaise had agreed to make the little pavilion his home, for he knew

that there was an idea of reducing him to the status of a mere piece of

machinery. But at the birth of his little girl he bravely decided to

accept the proposal, and to engage in the battle of life even as his

father had engaged in it, mindful of the fact that he also might in time

have a large family. But it so happened that one morning, when he went up

to the house to ask Maurice for some instructions, he heard from

Constance herself that the young man had spent a very bad night, and that

she had therefore prevailed on him to remain in bed. She did not evince

any great anxiety on the subject; the indisposition could only be due to

a little fatigue. Indeed, for a week past the two cousins had been tiring

themselves out over the delivery of a very important order, which had set

the entire works in motion. Besides, on the previous day Maurice,

bareheaded and in perspiration, had imprudently lingered in a draught in

one of the sheds while a machine was being tested.

That evening he was seized with intense fever, and Boutan was hastily

summoned. On the morrow, alarmed, though he scarcely dared to say it, by

the lightning-like progress of the illness, the doctor insisted on a

consultation, and two of his colleagues being summoned, they soon agreed

together. The malady was an extremely infectious form of galloping

consumption, the more violent since it had found in the patient a field

where there was little to resist its onslaught. Beauchêne was away from

home, travelling as usual. Constance, for her part, in spite of the grave

mien of the doctors, who could not bring themselves to tell her the

brutal truth, remained, in spite of growing anxiety, full of a stubborn

hope that her son, the hero, the demi-god necessary for her own life,

could not be seriously ill and likely to die. But only three days

elapsed, and during the very night that Beauchêne returned home, summoned

by a telegram, the young fellow expired in her arms.

In reality his death was simply the final decomposition of impoverished,

tainted, _bourgeois_ blood, the sudden disappearance of a poor, mediocre

being who, despite a façade of seeming health, had been ailing since

childhood. But what an overwhelming blow it was both for the mother and

for the father, all whose dreams and calculations it swept away! The only

son, the one and only heir, the prince of industry, whom they had desired

with such obstinate, scheming egotism, had passed away like a shadow;

their arms clasped but a void, and the frightful reality arose before

them; a moment had sufficed, and they were childless.

Blaise was with the parents at the bedside at the moment when Maurice

expired. It was then about two in the morning, and as soon as possible he

telegraphed the news of the death to Chantebled. Nine o'clock was

striking when Marianne, very pale, quite upset, came into the yard to

call Mathieu.

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

They stood there thunderstruck, chilled and trembling. They had simply

heard that the young man was poorly; they had not imagined him to be

seriously ill.

"Let me go to dress," said Mathieu; "I shall take the quarter-past ten

o'clock train. I must go to kiss them."

Although Marianne was expecting her eleventh child before long, she

decided to accompany her husband. It would have pained her to be unable

to give this proof of affection to her cousins, who, all things

considered, had treated Blaise and his young wife very kindly. Moreover,

she was really grieved by the terrible catastrophe. So she and her

husband, after distributing the day's work among the servants, set out

for Janville station, which they reached just in time to catch the

quarter-past ten o'clock train. It was already rolling on again when they

recognized the Lepailleurs and their son Antonin in the very compartment

where they were seated.

Seeing the Froments thus together in full dress, the miller imagined that

they were going to a wedding, and when he learnt that they had a visit of

condolence to make, he exclaimed: "Oh! so it's just the contrary. But no

matter, it's an outing, a little diversion nevertheless."

Since Mathieu's victory, since the whole of the estate of Chantebled had

been conquered and fertilized, Lepailleur had shown some respect for his

_bourgeois_ rival. Nevertheless, although he could not deny the results

hitherto obtained, he did not altogether surrender, but continued

sneering, as if he expected that some rending of heaven or earth would

take place to prove him in the right. He would not confess that he had

made a mistake; he repeated that he knew the truth, and that folks would

some day see plainly enough that a peasant's calling was the very worst

calling there could be, since the dirty land had gone bankrupt and would

yield nothing more. Besides, he held his revenge--that enclosure which he

left barren, uncultivated, by way of protest against the adjoining estate

which it intersected. The thought of this made him ironical.

"Well," he resumed in his ridiculously vain, scoffing way, "we are going

to Paris too. Yes, we are going to install this young gentleman there."

He pointed as he spoke to his son Antonin, now a tall, carroty fellow of

eighteen, with an elongated head. A few light-colored bristles were

already sprouting on his chin and cheeks, and he wore town attire, with a

silk hat and gloves, and a bright blue necktie. After astonishing

Janville by his success at school, he had displayed so much repugnance to

manual work that his father had decided to make "a Parisian" of him.

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

friendly way.

"Why, yes; why should I force him to toil and moil without the least hope

of ever enriching himself? Neither my father nor I ever managed to put a

copper by with that wretched old mill of ours. Why, the mill-stones wear

away with rot more than with grinding corn. And the wretched fields, too,

yield far more pebbles than crowns. And so, as he's now a scholar, he may

as well try his fortune in Paris. There's nothing like city life to

sharpen a man's wits."

Madame Lepailleur, who never took her eyes from her son, but remained in

admiration before him as formerly before her husband, now exclaimed with

an air of rapture: "Yes, yes, he has a place as a clerk with Maître

Rousselet, the attorney. We have rented a little room for him; I have

seen about the furniture and the linen, and to-day's the great day; he

will sleep there to-night, after we have dined, all three, at a good

restaurant. Ah! yes, I'm very pleased; he's making a start now."

"And he will perhaps end by being a minister of state," said Mathieu,

with a smile; "who knows? Everything is possible nowadays."

It all typified the exodus from the country districts towards the towns,

the feverish impatience to make a fortune, which was becoming general.

Even the parents nowadays celebrated their child's departure, and

accompanied the adventurer on his way, anxious and proud to climb the

social ladder with him. And that which brought a smile to the lips of the

farmer of Chantebled, the _bourgeois_ who had become a peasant, was the

thought of the double change: the miller's son going to Paris, whereas he

had gone to the earth, the mother of all strength and regeneration.

Antonin, however, had also begun to laugh with the air of an artful idler

who was more particularly attracted by the free dissipation of Paris

life. "Oh! minister?" said he, "I haven't much taste for that. I would

much sooner win a million at once so as to rest afterwards."

Delighted with this display of wit, the Lepailleurs burst into noisy

merriment. Oh! their boy would do great things, that was quite certain!

Marianne, her heart oppressed by thought of the mourning which awaited

her, had hitherto kept silent. She now asked, however, why little Thérèse

did not form one of the party. Lepailleur dryly replied that he did not

choose to embarrass himself with a child but six years old, who did not

know how to behave. Her arrival had upset everything in the house; things

would have been much better if she had never been born. Then, as Marianne

began to protest, saying that she had seldom seen a more intelligent and

prettier little girl, Madame Lepailleur answered more gently: "Oh! she's

sharp; that's true enough; but one can't send girls to Paris. She'll have

to be put somewhere, and it will mean a lot of trouble, a lot of money.

However, we mustn't talk about all that this morning, since we want to

enjoy ourselves."

At last the train reached Paris, and the Lepailleurs, leaving the

Northern terminus, were caught and carried off by the impetuously

streaming crowd.

When Mathieu and Marianne alighted from their cab on the Quai d'Orsay, in

front of the Beauchênes' residence, they recognized the Séguins' brougham

drawn up beside the foot pavement. And within it they perceived the two

girls, Lucie and Andrée, waiting mute and motionless in their

light-colored dresses. Then, as they approached the door, they saw

Valentine come out, in a very great hurry as usual. On recognizing them,

however, she assumed an expression of deep pity, and spoke the words

required by the situation:

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

Then she burst out into a flood of words: "You have hastened here, I see,

as I did; it is only natural. I heard of the catastrophe only by chance

less than an hour ago. And you see my luck! My daughters were dressed,

and I myself was dressing to take them to a wedding--a cousin of our

friend Santerre is marrying a diplomatist. And, in addition, I am engaged

for the whole afternoon. Well, although the wedding is fixed for a

quarter-past eleven, I did not hesitate, but drove here before going to

the church. And naturally I went upstairs alone. My daughters have been

waiting in the carriage. We shall no doubt be a little late for the

wedding. But no matter! You will see the poor parents in their empty

house, near the body, which, I must say, they have laid out very nicely

on the bed. Oh! it is heartrending."

Mathieu was looking at her, surprised to see that she did not age. The

fiery flame of her wild life seemed to scorch and preserve her. He knew

that her home was now completely wrecked. Séguin openly lived with Nora,

the governess, for whom he had furnished a little house. It was there

even that he had given Mathieu an appointment to sign the final transfer

of the Chantebled property. And since Gaston had entered the military

college of St. Cyr, Valentine had only her two daughters with her in the

spacious, luxurious mansion of the Avenue d'Antin, which ruin was slowly

destroying.

"I think," resumed Madame Séguin, "that I shall tell Gaston to obtain

permission to attend the funeral. For I am not sure whether his father is

in Paris. It's just the same with our friend Santerre; he's starting on a

tour to-morrow. Ah! not only do the dead leave us, but it is astonishing

what a number of the living go off and disappear! Life is very sad, is it

not, dear madame?"

As she spoke a little quiver passed over her face; the dread of the

coming rupture, which she had felt approaching for several months past,

amid all the skilful preparations of Santerre, who had been long maturing

some secret plan, which she did not as yet divine. However, she made a

devout ecstatic gesture, and added: "Well, we are in the hands of God."

Marianne, who was still smiling at the ever-motionless girls in the

closed brougham, changed the subject. "How tall they have grown, how

pretty they have become! Your Andrée looks adorable. How old is your

Lucie now? She will soon be of an age to marry."

"Oh! don't let her hear you," retorted Valentine; "you would make her

burst into tears! She is seventeen, but for sense she isn't twelve. Would

you believe it, she began sobbing this morning and refusing to go to the

wedding, under the pretence that it would make her ill? She is always

talking of convents; we shall have to come to a decision about her.

Andrée, though she is only thirteen, is already much more womanly. But

she is a little stupid, just like a sheep. Her gentleness quite upsets me

at times; it jars on my nerves."

Then Valentine, on the point of getting into her carriage, turned to

shake hands with Marianne, and thought of inquiring after her health.

"Really," said she, "I lose my head at times. I was quite forgetting. And

the baby you're expecting will be your eleventh child, will it now? How

terrible! Still it succeeds with you. And, ah! those poor people whom you

are going to see, their house will be quite empty now."

When the brougham had rolled away it occurred to Mathieu and Marianne

that before seeing the Beauchênes it might be advisable for them to call

at the little pavilion, where their son or their daughter-in-law might be

able to give them some useful information. But neither Blaise nor

Charlotte was there. They found only a servant who was watching over the

little girl, Berthe. This servant declared that she had not seen Monsieur

Blaise since the previous day, for he had remained at the Beauchênes'

near the body. And as for Madame, she also had gone there early that

morning, and had left instructions that Berthe was to be brought to her

at noon, in order that she might not have to come back to give her the

breast. Then, as Marianne in surprise began to put some questions, the

girl explained matters: "Madame took a box of drawing materials with her.

I fancy that she is painting a portrait of the poor young man who is

dead."

As Mathieu and Marianne crossed the courtyard of the works, they felt

oppressed by the grave-like silence which reigned in that great city of

labor, usually so full of noise and bustle. Death had suddenly passed by,

and all the ardent life had at once ceased, the machinery had become cold

and mute, the workshops silent and deserted. There was not a sound, not a

soul, not a puff of that vapor which was like the very breath of the

place. Its master dead, it had died also. And the distress of the

Froments increased when they passed from the works into the house, amid

absolute solitude; the connecting gallery was wrapt in slumber, the

staircase quivered amid the heavy silence, all the doors were open, as in

some uninhabited house, long since deserted. They found no servant in the

antechamber, and even the dim drawing-room, where the blinds of

embroidered muslin were lowered, while the armchairs were arranged in a

circle, as on reception days, when numerous visitors were expected, at

first seemed to them to be empty. But at last they detected a shadowy

form moving slowly to and fro in the middle of the room. It was Morange,

bareheaded and frock-coated; he had hastened thither at the first news

with the same air as if he had been repairing to his office. He seemed to

be at home; it was he who received the visitors in a scared way, overcome

as he was by this sudden demise, which recalled to him his daughter's

abominable death. His heart-wound had reopened; he was livid, all in

disorder, with his long gray beard streaming down, while he stepped

hither and thither without a pause, making all the surrounding grief his

own.

As soon as he recognized the Froments he also spoke the words which came

from every tongue: "What a frightful misfortune, an only son!"

Then he pressed their hands, and whispered and explained that Madame

Beauchêne, feeling quite exhausted, had withdrawn for a few moments, and

that Beauchêne and Blaise were making necessary arrangements downstairs.

And then, resuming his maniacal perambulations, he pointed towards an

adjoining room, the folding doors of which were wide open.

"He is there, on the bed where he died. There are flowers; it looks very

nice. You may go in."

This room was Maurice's bedchamber. The large curtains had been closely

drawn, and tapers were burning near the bed, casting a soft light on the

deceased's face, which appeared very calm, very white, the eyes closed as

if in sleep. Between the clasped hands rested a crucifix, and with the

roses scattered over the sheet the bed was like a couch of springtide.

The odor of the flowers, mingling with that of the burning wax, seemed

rather oppressive amid the deep and tragic stillness. Not a breath

stirred the tall, erect flames of the tapers, burning in the

semi-obscurity, amid which the bed alone showed forth.

When Mathieu and Marianne had gone in, they perceived their

daughter-in-law, Charlotte, behind a screen near the door. Lighted by a

little lamp, she sat there with a sketching-block on her knees, making a

drawing of Maurice's head as it rested among the roses. Hard and

anguish-bringing as was such work for one with so young a heart, she had

nevertheless yielded to the mother's ardent entreaties. And for three

hours past, pale, looking wondrously beautiful, her face showing all the

flower of youth, her blue eyes opening widely under her fine golden hair,

she had been there diligently working, striving to do her best. When

Mathieu and Marianne approached her she would not speak, but simply

nodded. Still a little color came to her cheeks, and her eyes smiled. And

when the others, after lingering there for a moment in sorrowful

contemplation, had quietly returned to the drawing-room, she resumed her

work alone, in the presence of the dead, among the roses and the tapers.

Morange was still walking the drawing-room like a lost, wandering

phantom. Mathieu remained standing there, while Marianne sat down near

the folding doors. Not another word was exchanged; the spell of waiting

continued amid the oppressive silence of the dim, closed room. When some

ten minutes had elapsed, two other visitors arrived, a lady and a

gentleman, whom the Froments could not at first recognize. Morange bowed

and received them in his dazed way. Then, as the lady did not release her

hold of the gentleman's hand, but led him along, as if he were blind,

between the articles of furniture, so that he might not knock against

them, Marianne and Mathieu realized that the new comers were the

Angelins.

Since the previous winter they had sold their little house at Janville to

fix themselves in Paris, for a last misfortune had befallen them--the

failure of a great banking house had carried away almost the whole of

their modest fortune. The wife had fortunately secured a post as one of

the delegates of the Poor Relief Board, an inspectorship with various

duties, such as watching over the mothers and children assisted by the

board, and reporting thereon. And she was wont to say, with a sad smile,

that this work of looking after the little ones was something of a

consolation for her, since it was now certain that she would never have a

child of her own. As for her husband, whose eyesight was failing more and

more, he had been obliged to relinquish painting altogether, and he

dragged out his days in morose desolation, his life wrecked, annihilated.

With short steps, as if she were leading a child, Madame Angelin brought

him to an armchair near Marianne and seated him in it. He had retained

the lofty mien of a musketeer, but his features had been ravaged by

anxiety, and his hair was white, though he was only forty-four years of

age. And what memories arose at the sight of that sorrowful lady leading

that infirm, aged man, for those who had known the young couple, all

tenderness and good looks, rambling along the secluded paths of Janville,

amid the careless delights of their love.

As soon as Madame Angelin had clasped Marianne's hands with her own

trembling fingers, she also uttered in low, stammering accents, those

despairing words: "Ah! what a frightful misfortune, an only son!"

Her eyes filled with tears, and she would not sit down before going for a

moment to see the body in the adjoining room. When she came back, sobbing

in her handkerchief, she sank into an armchair between Marianne and her

husband. He remained there motionless, staring fixedly with his dim eyes.

And silence fell again throughout the lifeless house, whither the rumble

of the works, now deserted, fireless and frozen, ascended no longer.

But Beauchêne, followed by Blaise, at last made his appearance. The heavy

blow he had received seemed to have made him ten years older. It was as

if the heavens had suddenly fallen upon him. Never amid his conquering

egotism, his pride of strength and his pleasures, had he imagined such a

downfall to be possible. Never had he been willing to admit that Maurice

might be ill--such an idea was like casting a doubt upon his own

strength; he thought himself beyond the reach of thunderbolts; misfortune

would never dare to fall on him. And at the first overwhelming moment he

had found himself weak as a woman, weary and limp, his strength

undermined by his dissolute life, the slow disorganization of his

faculties. He had sobbed like a child before his dead son, all his vanity

crushed, all his calculations destroyed. The thunderbolt had sped by, and

nothing remained. In a minute his life had been swept away; the world was

now all black and void. And he remained livid, in consternation at it

all, his bloated face swollen with grief, his heavy eyelids red with

tears.

When he perceived the Froments, weakness again came upon him, and he

staggered towards them with open arms, once more stifling with sobs.

"Ah! my dear friends, what a terrible blow! And I wasn't here! When I got

here he had lost consciousness; he did not recognize me--. Is it

possible? A lad who was in such good health! I cannot believe it. It

seems to me that I must be dreaming, and that he will get up presently

and come down with me into the workshops!"

They kissed him, they pitied him, struck down like this upon his return

from some carouse or other, still intoxicated, perhaps, and tumbling into

the midst of such an awful disaster, his prostration increased by the

stupor following upon debauchery. His beard, moist with his tears, still

stank of tobacco and musk.

Although he scarcely knew the Angelins, he pressed them also in his arms.

"Ah! my poor friends, what a terrible blow! What a terrible blow!"

Then Blaise in his turn came to kiss his parents. In spite of his grief,

and the horrible night he had spent, his face retained its youthful

freshness. Yet tears coursed down his cheeks, for, working with Maurice

day by day, he had conceived real friendship for him.

The silence fell again. Morange, as if unconscious of what went on around

him, as if he were quite alone there, continued walking softly hither and

thither like a somnambulist. Beauchêne, with haggard mien, went off, and

then came back carrying some little address-books. He turned about for

another moment, and finally sat down at a writing-table which had been

brought out of Maurice's room. Little accustomed as he was to grief, he

instinctively sought to divert his mind, and began searching in the

little address-books for the purpose of drawing up a list of the persons

who must be invited to the funeral. But his eyes became blurred, and with

a gesture he summoned Blaise, who, after going into the bedchamber to

glance at his wife's sketch, was now returning to the drawing-room.

Thereupon the young man, standing erect beside the writing-table, began

to dictate the names in a low voice; and then, amid the deep silence

sounded a low and monotonous murmur.

The minutes slowly went by. The visitors were still waiting for

Constance. At last a little door of the death-chamber slowly opened, and

she entered that chamber noiselessly, without anybody knowing that she

was there. She looked like a spectre emerging out of the darkness into

the pale light of the tapers. She had not yet wept; her face was livid,

contracted, hardened by cold rage. Her little figure, instead of bending,

seemed to have grown taller beneath the injustice of destiny, as if borne

up by furious rebellion. Yet her loss did not surprise her. She had

immediately felt that she had expected it, although but a minute before

the death she had stubbornly refused to believe it possible. But the

thought of it had remained latent within her for long months, and

frightful evidence thereof now burst forth. She suddenly heard the

whispers of the unknown once more, and understood them; she knew the

meaning of those shivers which had chilled her, those vague,

terror-fraught regrets at having no other child! And that which had been

threatening her had come; irreparable destiny had willed it that her only

son, the salvation of the imperilled home, the prince of to-morrow, who

was to share his empire with her, should be swept away like a withered

leaf. It was utter downfall; she sank into an abyss. And she remained

tearless; fury dried her tears within her. Yet, good mother that she had

always been, she suffered all the torment of motherliness exasperated,

poisoned by the loss of her child.

She drew near to Charlotte and paused behind her, looking at the profile

of her dead son resting among the flowers. And still she did not weep.

She slowly gazed over the bed, filled her eyes with the dolorous scene,

then carried them again to the paper, as if to see what would be left her

of that adored son--those few pencil strokes--when the earth should have

taken him forever. Charlotte, divining that somebody was behind her,

started and raised her head. She did not speak; she had felt frightened.

But both women exchanged a glance. And what a heart pang came to

Constance, amid that display of death, in the presence of the void, the

nothingness that was hers, as she gazed on the other's face, all love and

health and beauty, suggesting some youthful star, whence promise of the

future radiated through the fine gold of wavy hair.

But yet another pang came to Constance at that moment: words which were

being whispered in the drawing-room, near the door of the bedchamber,

reached her distinctly. She did not move, but remained erect behind

Charlotte, who had resumed her work. And eagerly lending ear, she

listened, not showing herself as yet, although she had already seen

Marianne and Madame Angelin seated near the doorway, almost among the

folds of the hangings.

"Ah!" Madame Angelin was saying, "the poor mother had a presentiment of

it, as it were. I saw that she felt very anxious when I told her my own

sad story. There is no hope for me; and now death has passed by, and no

hope remains for her."

Silence ensued once more; then, prompted by some connecting train of

thought, she went on: "And your next child will be your eleventh, will it

not? Eleven is not a number; you will surely end by having twelve!"

As Constance heard those words she shuddered in another fit of that fury

which dried up her tears. By glancing sideways she could see that mother

of ten children, who was now expecting yet an eleventh child. She found

her still young, still fresh, overflowing with joy and health and hope.

And she was there, like the goddess of fruitfulness, nigh to the funeral

bier at that hour of the supreme rending, when she, Constance, was bowed

down by the irretrievable loss of her only child.

But Marianne was answering Madame Angelin: "Oh I don't think that at all

likely. Why, I'm becoming an old woman. You forget that I am already a

grandmother. Here, look at that!"

So saying, she waved her hand towards the servant of her daughter-in-law,

Charlotte, who, in accordance with the instructions she had received, was

now bringing the little Berthe in order that her mother might give her

the breast. The servant had remained at the drawing-room door,

hesitating, disliking to intrude on all that mourning; but the child

good-humoredly waved her fat little fists, and laughed lightly. And

Charlotte, hearing her, immediately rose and tripped across the _salon_ to

take the little one into a neighboring room.

"What a pretty child!" murmured Madame Angelin. "Those little ones are

like nosegays; they bring brightness and freshness wherever they come."

Constance for her part had been dazzled. All at once, amid the

semi-obscurity, starred by the flames of the tapers, amid the deathly

atmosphere, which the odor of the roses rendered the more oppressive,

that laughing child had set a semblance of budding springtime, the fresh,

bright atmosphere of a long promise of life. And it typified the victory

of fruitfulness; it was the child's child, it was Marianne reviving in

her son's daughter. A grandmother already, and she was only forty-one

years old! Marianne had smiled at that thought. But the hatchet-stroke

rang out yet more frightfully in Constance's heart. In her case the tree

was cut down to its very root, the sole scion had been lopped off, and

none would ever sprout again.

For yet another moment she remained alone amid that nothingness, in that

room where lay her son's remains. Then she made up her mind and passed

into the drawing-room, with the air of a frozen spectre. They all rose,

kissed her, and shivered as their lips touched her cold cheeks, which her

blood was unable to warm. Profound compassion wrung them, so frightful

was her calmness. And they sought kind words to say to her, but she

curtly stopped them.

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

ended, quite ended."

Madame Angelin sobbed, Angelin himself wiped his poor fixed, blurred

eyes. Marianne and Mathieu shed tears while retaining Constance's hands

in theirs. And she, rigid and still unable to weep, refused consolation,

repeating in monotonous accents: "It is finished; nothing can give him

back to me. Is it not so? And thus there remains nothing; all is ended,

quite ended."

She needed to be brave, for visitors would soon be arriving in a stream.

But a last stab in the heart was reserved for her. Beauchêne, who since

her arrival had begun to cry again, could no longer see to write.

Moreover, his hand trembled, and he had to leave the writing-table and

fling himself into an armchair, saying to Blaise: "There sit down there,

and continue to write for me."

Then Constance saw Blaise seat himself at her son's writing-table, in his

place, dip his pen in the inkstand and begin to write with the very same

gesture that she had so often seen Maurice make. That Blaise, that son of

the Froments! What! her dear boy was not yet buried, and a Froment

already replaced him, even as vivacious, fast-growing plants overrun

neighboring barren fields. That stream of life flowing around her, intent

on universal conquest, seemed yet more threatening; grandmothers still

bore children, daughters suckled already, sons laid hands upon vacant

kingdoms. And she remained alone; she had but her unworthy, broken-down,

worn-out husband beside her; while Morange, the maniac, incessantly

walking to and fro, was like the symbolical spectre of human distress,

one whose heart and strength and reason had been carried away in the

frightful death of his only daughter. And not a sound came from the cold

and empty works; the works themselves were dead.

The funeral ceremony two days later was an imposing one. The five hundred

workmen of the establishment followed the hearse, notabilities of all

sorts made up an immense _cortège_. It was much noticed that an old

workman, father Moineaud, the oldest hand of the works, was one of the

pall-bearers. Indeed, people thought it touching, although the worthy old

man dragged his legs somewhat, and looked quite out of his element in a

frock coat, stiffened as he was by thirty years' hard toil. In the

cemetery, near the grave, Mathieu felt surprised on being approached by

an old lady who alighted from one of the mourning-coaches.

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

He made a gesture of apology. It was Séraphine, still tall and slim, but

so fleshless, so withered that one might have thought she was a hundred

years old. Cécile had warned Mathieu of it, yet if he had not seen her

himself he would never have believed that her proud insolent beauty,

which had seemed to defy time and excesses, could have faded so swiftly.

What frightful, withering blast could have swept over her?

"Ah! my friend," she continued, "I am more dead than the poor fellow whom

they are about to lower into that grave. Come and have a chat with me

some day. You are the only person to whom I can tell everything."

The coffin was lowered, the ropes gave out a creaking sound, and there

came a little thud--the last. Beauchêne, supported by a relative, looked

on with dim, vacant eyes. Constance, who had had the bitter courage to

come, and had now wept all the tears in her body, almost fainted. She was

carried away, driven back to her home, which would now forever be empty,

like one of those stricken fields that remain barren, fated to perpetual

sterility. Mother earth had taken back her all.

And at Chantebled Mathieu and Marianne founded, created, increased, and

multiplied, again proving victorious in the eternal battle which life

wages against death, thanks to that continual increase, both of offspring

and of fertile land, which was like their very existence, their joy and

their strength. Desire passed like a gust of flame, desire divine and

fruitful, since they possessed the power of love, kindliness, and health.

And their energy did the rest--that will of action, that quiet bravery in

the presence of the labor that is requisite, the labor that has made and

that regulates the world.

Still, during those two years it was not without constant battling that

victory remained to them. At last it was complete. Piece by piece Séguin

had sold the entire estate, of which Mathieu was now king, thanks to his

prudent system of conquest, that of increasing his empire by degrees as

he gradually felt himself stronger. The fortune which the idler had

disdained and dissipated had passed into the hands of the toiler, the

creator. There were 1250 acres, spreading from horizon to horizon; there

were woods intersected by broad meadows, where flocks and herds pastured;

there was fat land overflowing with harvests, in the place of marshes

that had been drained; there was other land, each year of increasing

fertility, in the place of the moors which the captured springs now

irrigated. The Lepailleurs' uncultivated enclosure alone remained, as if

to bear witness to the prodigy, the great human effort which had

quickened that desert of sand and mud, whose crops would henceforth

nourish so many happy people. Mathieu devoured no other man's share; he

had brought his share into being, increasing the common wealth,

subjugating yet another small portion of this vast world, which is still

so scantily peopled and so badly utilized for human happiness. The farm,

the homestead, had sprung up and grown in the centre of the estate like a

prosperous township, with inhabitants, servants, and live stock, a

perfect focus of ardent triumphal life. And what sovereign power was that

of the happy fruitfulness which had never wearied of creating, which had

yielded all these beings and things that had been increasing and

multiplying for twelve years past, that invading town which was but a

family's expansion, those trees, those plants, those grain crops, those

fruits whose nourishing stream ever rose under the dazzling sun! All pain

and all tears were forgotten in that joy of creation, the accomplishment

of due labor, the conquest of the future conducting to the infinite of

Action.

Then, while Mathieu completed his work of conquest, Marianne during those

two years had the happiness of seeing a daughter born to her son Blaise,

even while she herself was expecting another child. The branches of the

huge tree had begun to fork, pending the time when they would ramify

endlessly, like the branches of some great royal oak spreading afar over

the soil. There would be her children's children, her grandchildren's

children, the whole posterity increasing from generation to generation.

And yet how carefully and lovingly she still assembled around her her own

first brood, from Blaise and Denis the twins, now one-and-twenty, to the

last born, the wee creature who sucked in life from her bosom with greedy

lips. There were some of all ages in the brood--a big fellow, who was

already a father; others who went to school; others who still had to be

dressed in the morning; there were boys, Ambroise, Gervais, Grégoire, and

another; there were girls, Rose, nearly old enough to marry; Claire,

Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, the last of whom could scarcely

toddle. And it was a sight to see them roam over the estate like a troop

of colts, following one another at varied pace, according to their

growth. She knew that she could not keep them all tied to her

apron-strings; it would be sufficient happiness if the farm kept two or

three beside her; she resigned herself to seeing the younger ones go off

some day to conquer other lands. Such was the law of expansion; the earth

was the heritage of the most numerous race. Since they had number on

their side, they would have strength also; the world would belong to

them. The parents themselves had felt stronger, more united at the advent

of each fresh child. If in spite of terrible cares they had always

conquered, it was because their love, their toil, the ceaseless travail

of their heart and will, gave them the victory. Fruitfulness is the great

conqueress; from her come the pacific heroes who subjugate the world by

peopling it. And this time especially, when at the lapse of those two

years Marianne gave birth to a boy, Nicolas, her eleventh child, Mathieu

embraced her passionately, triumphing over every sorrow and every pang.

Yet another child; yet more wealth and power; yet an additional force

born into the world; another field ready for to-morrow's harvest.

And 'twas ever the great work, the good work, the work of fruitfulness

spreading, thanks to the earth and thanks to woman, both victorious over

destruction, offering fresh means of subsistence each time a fresh child

was born, and loving, willing, battling, toiling even amid suffering, and

ever tending to increase of life and increase of hope.