by Эмиль Золя
As Lepailleur would not part with his enclosure on any reasonable terms, Seguin had to content himself for the time with selling Mathieu the selected marshland on the plateau. A deed of conveyance having been prepared, they exchanged signatures. And then, on Seguin's hands, there still remained nearly two hundred and fifty acres of woods in the direction of Lillebonne, together with the moorlands stretching to Vieux-Bourg, in which Lepailleur's few acres were enclosed.
It was on the occasion of the visits which he paid Seguin in reference to these matters that Mathieu became acquainted with the terrible break-up of the other's home. The very rooms of the house in the Avenue d'Antin, particularly the once sumptuous "cabinet," spoke of neglect and abandonment. The desire to cut a figure in society, and to carry the "fad" of the moment to extremes, ever possessed Seguin; and thus he had for a while renounced his pretended artistic tastes for certain new forms of sport-the motor-car craze, and so forth. But his only real passion was horseflesh, and to this he at last returned. A racing stable which he set up quickly helped on his ruin. Women and gaming had been responsible for the loss of part of his large fortune, and now horses were devouring the remainder. It was said, too, that he gambled at the bourse, in the hope of recouping himself for his losses on the turf, and by way, too, of affecting an air of power and influence, for he allowed it to be supposed that he obtained information direct from members of the Government. And as his losses increased and downfall threatened him, all that remained of the bel esprit and moralist, once so prone to discuss literature and social philosophy with Santerre, was an embittered, impotent individual-one who had proclaimed himself a pessimist for fashion's sake, and was now caught in his own trap; having so spoilt his existence that he was now but an artisan of corruption and death.
All was disaster in his home. Celeste the maid had long since been dismissed, and the children were now in the charge of a certain German governess called Nora, who virtually ruled the house. Her position with respect to Seguin was evident to one and all; but then, what of Seguin's wife and Santerre? The worst was, that this horrible life, which seemed to be accepted on either side, was known to the children, or, at all events, to the elder daughter Lucie, yet scarcely in her teens. There had been terrible scenes with this child, who evinced a mystical disposition, and was ever talking of becoming a nun when she grew up. Gaston, her brother, resembled his father; he was brutal in his ways, narrow-minded, supremely egotistical. Very different was the little girl Andree, whom La Catiche had suckled. She had become a pretty child-so affectionate, docile, and gay, that she scarcely complained even of her brother's teasing, almost bullying ways. "What a pity," thought Mathieu, "that so lovable a child should have to grow up amid such surroundings!"
And then his thoughts turned to his own home-to Chantebled. The debts contracted at the outset of his enterprise had at last been paid, and he alone was now the master there, resolved to have no other partners than his wife and children. It was for each of his children that he conquered a fresh expanse of land. That estate would remain their home, their source of nourishment, the tie linking them together, even if they became dispersed through the world in a variety of social positions. And thus how decisive was that growth of the property, the acquisition of that last lot of marshland which allowed the whole plateau to be cultivated! There might now come yet another child, for there would be food for him; wheat would grow to provide him with daily bread. And when the work was finished, when the last springs were captured, and the land had been drained and cleared, how prodigious was the scene at springtide!-with the whole expanse, as far as eye could see, one mass of greenery, full of the promise of harvest. Therein was compensation for every tear, every worry and anxiety of the earlier days of labor.
Meantime Mathieu, amid his creative work, received Marianne's gay and courageous assistance. And she was not merely a skilful helpmate, taking a share in the general management, keeping the accounts, and watching over the home. She remained both a loving and well-loved spouse, and a mother who nursed, reared, and educated her little ones in order to give them some of her own sense and heart. As Boutan remarked, it is not enough for a woman to have a child; she should also possess healthy moral gifts in order that she may bring it up in creditable fashion. Marianne, for her part, made it her pride to obtain everything from her children by dint of gentleness and grace. She was listened to, obeyed, and worshipped by them, because she was so beautiful, so kind, and so greatly beloved. Her task was scarcely easy, since she had eight children already; but in all things she proceeded in a very orderly fashion, utilizing the elder to watch over the younger ones, giving each a little share of loving authority, and extricating herself from every embarrassment by setting truth and justice above one and all. Blaise and Denis, the twins, who were now sixteen, and Ambroise, who was nearly fourteen, did in a measure escape her authority, being largely in their father's hands. But around her she had the five others-from Rose, who was eleven, to Louise, who was two years old; between them, at intervals of a couple of years, coming Gervais, Claire, and Gregoire. And each time that one flew away, as it were, feeling his wings strong enough for flight, there appeared another to nestle beside her. And it was again a daughter, Madeleine, who came at the expiration of those two years. And when Mathieu saw his wife erect and smiling again, with the dear little girl at her breast, he embraced her passionately and triumphed once again 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.
XIII
TWO more years went by, and during those two years Mathieu and Marianne had yet another daughter; and this time, as the family increased, Chantebled also was increased by all the woodland extending eastward of the plateau to the distant farms of Mareuil and Lillebonne. All the northern part of the property was thus acquired: more than five hundred acres of woods, intersected by clearings which roads soon connected together. And those clearings, transformed into pasture-land, watered by the neighboring springs, enabled Mathieu to treble his live-stock and attempt cattle-raising on a large scale. It was the resistless conquest of life, 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.
Since the Froments had become conquerors, busily founding a little kingdom and building up a substantial fortune in land, the Beauchenes no longer derided them respecting what they had once deemed their extravagant idea in establishing themselves in the country. Astonished and anticipating now the fullest success, they treated them as well-to-do relatives, and occasionally visited them, delighted with the aspect of that big, bustling farm, so full of life and prosperity. It was in the course of these visits that Constance renewed her intercourse with her former schoolfellow, Madame Angelin, the Froments' neighbor. A great change had come over the Angelins; they had ended by purchasing a little house at the end of the village, where they invariably spent the summer, but their buoyant happiness seemed to have departed. They had long desired to remain unburdened by children, and now they eagerly longed to have a child, and none came, though Claire, the wife, was as yet but six-and-thirty. Her husband, the once gay, handsome musketeer, was already turning gray and losing his eyesight-to such a degree, indeed, that he could scarcely see well enough to continue his profession as a fan-painter.
When Madame Angelin went to Paris she often called on Constance, to whom, before long, she confided all her worries. She had been in a doctor's hands for three years, but all to no avail, and now during
the last six months she had been consulting a person in the Rue de Miromesnil, a certain Madame Bourdieu, said she.
Constance at first made light of her friend's statements, and in part declined to believe her. But when she found herself alone she felt disquieted by what she had heard. Perhaps she would have treated the matter as mere idle tittle-tattle, if she had not already regretted that she herself had no second child. On the day when the unhappy Morange had lost his only daughter, and had remained stricken down, utterly alone in life, she had experienced a vague feeling of anguish. Since that supreme loss the wretched accountant had been living on in a state of imbecile stupefaction, simply discharging his duties in a mechanical sort of way from force of habit. Scarcely speaking, but showing great gentleness of manner, he lived as one who was stranded, fated to remain forever at Beauchene's works, where his salary had now risen to eight thousand francs a year. It was not known what he did with this amount, which was considerable for a man who led such a narrow regular life, free from expenses and fancies outside his home-that flat which was much too big for him, but which he had, nevertheless, obstinately retained, shutting himself up therein, and leading a most misanthropic life in fierce solitude.
It was his grievous prostration which had at one moment quite upset and affected Constance, so that she had even sobbed with the desolate man-she whose tears flowed so seldom! No doubt a thought that she might have had other children than Maurice came back to her in certain bitter hours of unconscious self-examination, when from the depths of her being, in which feelings of motherliness awakened, there rose vague fear, sudden dread, such as she had never known before.
Yet Maurice, her son, after a delicate youth which had necessitated great care, was now a handsome fellow of nineteen, still somewhat pale, but vigorous in appearance. He had completed his studies in a fairly satisfactory manner, and was already helping his father in the management of the works. And his adoring mother had never set higher hopes upon his head. She already pictured him as the master of that great establishment, whose prosperity he would yet increase, thereby rising to royal wealth and power.
Constance's worship for that only son, to-morrow's hero; increased the more since his father day by day declined in her estimation, till she regarded him in fact with naught but contempt and disgust. It was a logical downfall, which she could not stop, and the successive phases of which she herself fatally precipitated. At the outset she had overlooked his infidelity; then from a spirit of duty and to save him from irreparable folly she had sought to retain him near her; and finally, failing in her endeavor, she had begun to feel loathing and disgust. He was now two-and-forty, he drank too much, he ate too much, he smoked too much. He was growing corpulent and scant of breath, with hanging lips and heavy eyelids; he no longer took care of his person as formerly, but went about slipshod, and indulged in the coarsest pleasantries. But it was more particularly away from his home that he sank into degradation, indulging in the low debauchery which had ever attracted him. Every now and again he disappeared from the house and slept elsewhere; then he concocted such ridiculous falsehoods that he could not be believed, or else did not take the trouble to lie at all. Constance, who felt powerless to influence him, ended by allowing him complete freedom.
The worst was, that the dissolute life he led grievously affected the business. He who had been such a great and energetic worker had lost both mental and bodily vigor; he could no longer plan remunerative strokes of business; he no longer had the strength to undertake important contracts. He lingered in bed in the morning, and remained for three or four days without once going round the works, letting disorder and waste accumulate there, so that his once triumphal stock-takings now year by year showed a falling-off. And what an end it was for that egotist, that enjoyer, so gayly and noisily active, who had always professed that money-capital increased tenfold by the labor of others-was the only desirable source of power, and whom excess of money and excess of enjoyment now cast with appropriate irony to slow ruin, the final paralysis of the impotent.
But a supreme blow was to fall on Constance and fill her with horror of her husband. Some anonymous letters, the low, treacherous revenge of a dismissed servant, apprised her of Beauchene's former intrigue with Norine, that work-girl who had given birth to a boy, spirited away none knew whither. Though ten years had elapsed since that occurrence, Constance could not think of it without a feeling of revolt. Whither had that child been sent? Was he still alive? What ignominious existence was he leading? She was vaguely jealous of the boy. The thought that her husband had two sons and she but one was painful to her, now that all her motherly nature was aroused. But she devoted herself yet more ardently to her fondly loved Maurice; she made a demi-god of him, and for his sake even sacrificed her just rancor. She indeed came to the conclusion that he must not suffer from his father's indignity, and so it was for him that, with extraordinary strength of will, she ever preserved a proud demeanor, feigning that she was ignorant of everything, never addressing a reproach to her husband, but remaining, in the presence of others, the same respectful wife as formerly. And even when they were alone together she kept silence and avoided explanations and quarrels. Never even thinking of the possibility of revenge, she seemed, in the presence of her husband's profligacy, to attach herself more firmly to her home, clinging to her son, and protected by him from thought of evil as much as by her own sternness of heart and principles. And thus sorely wounded, full of repugnance but hiding her contempt, she awaited the triumph of that son who would purify and save the house, feeling the greatest faith in his strength, and quite surprised and anxious whenever, all at once, without reasonable cause, a little quiver from the unknown brought her a chill, affecting her heart as with remorse for some long-past fault which she no longer remembered.
That little quiver came back while she listened to all that Madame Angelin confided to her. And at last she became quite interested in her friend's case, and offered to accompany her some day when she might be calling on Madame Bourdieu. In the end they arranged to meet one Thursday afternoon for the purpose of going together to the Rue de Miromesnil.
As it happened, that same Thursday, about two o'clock, Mathieu, who had come to Paris to see about a threshing-machine at Beauchene's works, was quietly walking along the Rue La Boetie when he met Cecile Moineaud, who was carrying a little parcel carefully tied round with string. She was now nearly twenty-one, but had remained slim, pale, and weak, since passing through the hands of Dr. Gaude. Mathieu had taken a great liking to her during the few months she had spent as a servant at Chantebled; and later, knowing what had befallen her at the hospital, he had regarded her with deep compassion. He had busied himself to find her easy work, and a friend of his had given her some cardboard boxes to paste together, the only employment that did not tire her thin weak hands. So childish had she remained that one would have taken her for a young girl suddenly arrested in her growth. Yet her slender fingers were skilful, and she contrived to earn some two francs a day in making the little boxes. And as she suffered greatly at her parents' home, tortured by her brutal surroundings there, and robbed of her earnings week by week, her dream was to secure a home of her own, to find a little money that would enable her to install herself in a room where she might live in peace and quietness. It had occurred to Mathieu to give her a pleasant surprise some day by supplying her with the small sum she needed.
"Where are you running so fast?" he gayly asked her.
The meeting seemed to take her aback, and she answered in an evasive, embarrassed way: "I am going to the Rue de Miromesnil for a call I have to make."
Noticing his kindly air, however, she soon told him the truth. Her sister, that poor creature Norine, had just given birth to another child, her third, at Madame Bourdieu's establishment. A gentleman who had been protecting her had cast her adrift, and she had been obliged to sell her few sticks of furniture in order to get together a couple of hundred francs, and thus secure admittance to Madame Bourdieu's house, for
the mere idea of having to go to a hospital terrified her. Whenever she might be able to get about again, however, she would find herself in the streets, with the task of beginning life anew at one-and-thirty years of age.
"She never behaved unkindly to me," resumed Cecile. "I pity her with all my heart, and I have been to see her. I am taking her a little chocolate now. Ah! if you only saw her little boy! he is a perfect love!"
The poor girl's eyes shone, and her thin, pale face became radiant with a smile. The instinct of maternity remained keen within her, though she could never be a mother.
"What a pity it is," she continued, "that Norine is so obstinately determined on getting rid of the baby, just as she got rid of the others. This little fellow, it's true, cries so much that she has had to give him the breast. But it's only for the time being; she says that she can't see him starve while he remains near her. But it quite upsets me to think that one can get rid of one's children; I had an idea of arranging things very differently. You know that I want to leave my parents, don't you? Well, I thought of renting a room and of taking my sister and her little boy with me. I would show Norine how to cut out and paste up those little boxes, and we might live, all three, happily together."
"And won't she consent?" asked Mathieu.
"Oh! she told me that I was mad; and there's some truth in that, for I have no money even to rent a room. Ah! if you only knew how it distresses me."
Mathieu concealed his emotion, and resumed in his quiet way: "Well, there are rooms to be rented. And you would find a friend to help you. Only I am much afraid that you will never persuade your sister to keep her child, for I fancy that I know her ideas on that subject. A miracle would be needed to change them."