Fruitfulness - Emile Zola
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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."
Quick-witted as she was, Cecile darted a glance at him. The friend he
spoke of was himself. Good heavens would her dream come true? She ended
by bravely saying: "Listen, monsieur; you are so kind that you really
ought to do me a last favor. It would be to come with me and see Norine
at once. You alone can talk to her and prevail on her perhaps. But let us
walk slowly, for I am stifling, I feel so happy."
Mathieu, deeply touched, walked on beside her. They turned the corner of
the Rue de Miromesnil, and his own heart began to beat as they climbed
the stairs of Madame Bourdieu's establishment. Ten years ago! Was it
possible? He recalled everything that he had seen and heard in that
house. And it all seemed to date from yesterday, for the building had not
changed; indeed, he fancied that he could recognize the very grease-spots
on the doors on the various landings.
Following Cecile to Norine's room, he found Norine up and dressed, but
seated at the side of her bed and nursing her babe.
"What! is it you, monsieur?" she exclaimed, as soon as she recognized her
visitor. "It is very kind of Cecile to have brought you. Ah! _mon Dieu_
what a lot of things have happened since I last saw you! We are none of
us any the younger."
He scrutinized her, and she did indeed seem to him much aged. She was one
of those blondes who fade rapidly after their thirtieth year. Still, if
her face had become pasty and wore a weary expression, she remained
pleasant-looking, and seemed as heedless, as careless as ever.
Cecile wished to bring matters to the point at once. "Here is your
chocolate," she began. "I met Monsieur Froment in the street, and he is
so kind and takes so much interest in me that he is willing to help me in
carrying out my idea of renting a room where you might live and work with
me. So I begged him to come up here and talk with you, and prevail on you
to keep that poor little fellow of yours. You see, I don't want to take
you unawares; I warn you in advance."
Norine started with emotion, and began to protest. "What is all this
again?" said she. "No, no, I don't want to be worried. I'm too unhappy as
it is."
But Mathieu immediately intervened, and made her understand that if she
reverted to the life she had been leading she would simply sink lower and
lower. She herself had no illusions on that point; she spoke bitterly
enough of her experiences. Her youth had flown, her good-looks were
departing, and the prospect seemed hopeless enough. But then what could
she do? When one had fallen into the mire one had to stay there.
"Ah! yes, ah! yes," said she; "I've had enough of that infernal life
which some folks think so amusing. But it's like a stone round my neck; I
can't get rid of it. I shall have to keep to it till I'm picked up in
some corner and carried off to die at a hospital."
She spoke these words with the fierce energy of one who all at once
clearly perceives the fate which she cannot escape. Then she glanced at
her infant, who was still nursing. "He had better go his way and I'll go
mine," she added. "Then we shan't inconvenience one another."
This time her voice softened, and an expression of infinite tenderness
passed over her desolate face. And Mathieu, in astonishment, divining the
new emotion that possessed her, though she did not express it, made haste
to rejoin: "To let him go his way would be the shortest way to kill him,
now that you have begun to give him the breast."
"Is it my fault?" she angrily exclaimed. "I didn't want to give it to
him; you know what my ideas were. And I flew into a passion and almost
fought Madame Bourdieu when she put him in my arms. But then how could I
hold out? He cried so dreadfully with hunger, poor little mite, and
seemed to suffer so much, that I was weak enough to let him nurse just a
little. I didn't intend to repeat it, but the next day he cried again,
and so I had to continue, worse luck for me! There was no pity shown me;
I've been made a hundred times more unhappy than I should have been, for,
of course, I shall soon have to get rid of him as I got rid of the
others."
Tears appeared in her eyes. It was the oft-recurring story of the
girl-mother who is prevailed upon to nurse her child for a few days, in
the hope that she will grow attached to the babe and be unable to part
from it. The chief object in view is to save the child, because its best
nurse is its natural nurse, the mother. And Norine, instinctively
divining the trap set for her, had struggled to escape it, and repeated,
sensibly enough, that one ought not to begin such a task when one meant
to throw it up in a few days' time. As soon as she yielded she was
certain to be caught; her egotism was bound to be vanquished by the wave
of pity, love, and hope that would sweep through her heart. The poor,
pale, puny infant had weighed but little the first time he took the
breast. But every morning afterwards he had been weighed afresh, and on
the wall at the foot of the bed had been hung the diagram indicating the
daily difference of weight. At first Norine had taken little interest in
the matter, but as the line gradually ascended, plainly indicating how
much the child was profiting, she gave it more and more attention. All at
once, as the result of an indisposition, the line had dipped down; and
since then she had always feverishly awaited the weighing, eager to see
if the line would once more ascend. Then, a continuous rise having set
in, she laughed with delight. That little line, which ever ascended, told
her that her child was saved, and that all the weight and strength he
acquired was derived from her--from her milk, her blood, her flesh. She
was completing the appointed work; and motherliness, at last awakened
within her, was blossoming in a florescence of love.
"If you want to kill him," continued Mathieu, "you need only take him
from your breast. See how eagerly the poor little fellow is nursing!"
This was indeed true. And Norine burst into big sobs: "_Mon Dieu_! you
are beginning to torture me again. Do you think that I shall take any
pleasure in getting rid of him now? You force me to say things which make
me weep at night when I think of them. I shall feel as if my very vitals
were being torn out when this child is taken from me! There, are you both
pleased that you have made me say it? But what good does it do to put me
in such a state, since nobody can remedy things, and he must needs go to
the foundlings, while I return to the gutter, to wait for the broom
that's to sweep me away?"
But Cecile, who likewise was weeping, kissed and kissed the child, and
again reverted to her dream, explaining how happy they would be, all
three of them, in a nice room, which she pictured full of endless joys,
like some Paradise. It was by no means difficult to cut out and paste up
the little boxes. As soon as Norine should know the work, she, who was
strong, might perhaps earn three francs a day at it. And five francs a
day between them, would not that mean fortune, the rearing of the child,
and all evil things forgotten, at an end? Norine, more weary than ever,
gave way at last, and ceased refusing.
"You daze me," she said. "I don't know. Do as you like--but certainly it
will be great happiness to keep this dear little fellow with me."
Cecile, enraptured, clapped her hands; while Mathieu, who was greatly
moved, gave utterance to these deeply significant words: "You have saved
him, and now he saves you."
Then Norine at last smiled. She felt happy now; a great weight had been
lifted from her heart. And carrying her child in her arms she insisted on
accompanying her sister and their friend to the first floor.
During the last half-hour Constance and Madame Angelin had been deep in
consultation with Madame Bourdieu. The former had not given her name, but
had simply played the part of an obliging friend accompanying another on
an occasion of some delicacy. Madame Bourdieu, with the keen scent
characteristic of her profession, divined a possible customer in that
inquisitive lady who put such strange questions to her. However, a rather
painful scene took place, for realizing that she could not forever
deceive Madame Angelin with false hopes, Madame Bourdieu decided to tell
the truth--her case was hopeless. Constance, however, at last made a sign
to entreat her to continue deceiving her friend, if only for charity's
sake. The other, therefore, while conducting her visitors to the landing,
spoke a few hopeful words to Madame Angelin: "After all, dear madame,"
said she, "one must never despair. I did wrong to speak as I did just
now. I may yet be mistaken. Come back to see me again."
At this moment Mathieu and Cecile were still on the landing in
conversation with Norine, whose infant had fallen asleep in her arms.
Constance and Madame Angelin were so surprised at finding the farmer of
Chantebled in the company of the two young women that they pretended they
did not see him. All at once, however, Constance, with the help of
memory, recognized Norine, the more readily perhaps as she was now aware
that Mathieu had, ten years previously, acted as her husband's
intermediary. And a feeling of revolt and the wildest fancies instantly
arose within her. What was Mathieu doing in that house? whose child was
it that the young woman carried in her arms? At that moment the other
child seemed to peer forth from the past; she saw it in swaddling
clothes, like the infant there; indeed, she almost confounded one with
the other, and imagined that it was indeed her husband's illegitimate son
that was sleeping in his mother's arms before her. Then all the
satisfaction she had derived from what she had heard Madame Bourdieu say
departed, and she went off furious and ashamed, as if soiled and
threatened by all the vague abominations which she had for some time felt
around her, without knowing, however, whence came the little chill which
made her shudder as with dread.
As for Mathieu, he saw that neither Norine nor Cecile had recognized
Madame Beauchene under her veil, and so he quietly continued explaining
to the former that he would take steps to secure for her from the
Assistance Publique--the official organization for the relief of the
poor--a cradle and a supply of baby linen, as well as immediate pecuniary
succor, since she undertook to keep and nurse her child. Afterwards he
would obtain for her an allowance of thirty francs a month for at least
one year. This would greatly help the sisters, particularly in the
earlier stages of their life together in the room which they had settled
to rent. When Mathieu added that he would take upon himself the
preliminary outlay of a little furniture and so forth, Norine insisted
upon kissing him.
"Oh! it is with a good heart," said she. "It does one good to meet a man
like you. And come, kiss my poor little fellow, too; it will bring him
good luck."
On reaching the Rue La Boetie it occurred to Mathieu, who was bound for
the Beauchene works, to take a cab and let Cecile alight near her
parents' home, since it was in the neighborhood of the factory. But she
explained to him that she wished, first of all, to call upon her sister
Euphrasie in the Rue Caroline. This street was in the same direction, and
so Mathieu made her get into the cab, telling her that he would set her
down at her sister's door.
She was so amazed, so happy at seeing her dream at last on the point of
realization, that as she sat in the cab by the side of Mathieu she did
not know how to thank him. Her eyes were quite moist, all smiles and
tears.
"You must not think me a bad daughter, monsieur," said she, "because I'm
so pleased to leave home. Papa still works as much as he is able, though
he does not get much reward for it at the factory. And mamma does all she
can at home, though she hasn't much strength left her nowadays. Since
Victor came back from the army, he has married and has children of his
own, and I'm even afraid that he'll have more than he can provide for,
as, while he was in the army, he seems to have lost all taste for work.
But the sharpest of the family is that lazy-bones Irma, my younger
sister, who's so pretty and so delicate-looking, perhaps because she's
always ill. As you may remember, mamma used to fear that Irma might turn
out badly like Norine. Well, not at all! Indeed, she's the only one of us
who is likely to do well, for she's going to marry a clerk in the
post-office. And so the only ones left at home are myself and Alfred. Oh!
he is a perfect bandit! That is the plain truth. He committed a theft the
other day, and one had no end of trouble to get him out of the hands of
the police commissary. But all the same, mamma has a weakness for him,
and lets him take all my earnings. Yes, indeed, I've had quite enough of
him, especially as he is always terrifying me out of my wits, threatening
to beat and even kill me, though he well knows that ever since my illness
the slightest noise throws me into a faint. And as, all considered,
neither papa nor mamma needs me, it's quite excusable, isn't it, that I
should prefer living quietly alone. It is my right, is it not, monsieur?"