"I must further warn you that I will have no children on the premises, absolutely none.
If you were to have another child, I should be obliged to discharge you at once. Oh! no children!
They cry, they are in the way, they ruin everything, they frighten the horses and spread diseases. No, no, not for anything in the world would I tolerate a child on my premises. So you are warned.
Govern yourselves accordingly; take your precautions."
Just then one of the children, who had fallen, came, crying, to take refuge in his mother's gown.
She took him in her arms, lulled him with soothing words, caressed him, kissed him tenderly, and sent him back to rejoin the two others, pacified and smiling. The woman suddenly felt her heart growing heavy.
She thought that she would not be able to keep back her tears. Joy, tenderness, love, motherhood, then, were for the rich only?
The children had begun to play again on the lawn.
She hated them with a savage hatred; she felt a desire to insult them, to beat them, to kill them; to insult and kill also this insolent and cruel woman, this egoistic mother, who had just uttered abominable words, words that condemned not to be born the future humanity that lay sleeping in her womb. But she restrained herself, and said simply, in response to a new warning, more imperative than the other:
"We will be careful, Madame the Countess; we will try."
"That's right; for I cannot too often repeat it to you,—this is a principle here, a principle upon which I cannot compromise." And she added, with an inflection in her voice that was almost caressing:
"Moreover, believe me, when one is not rich, it is better to have no children."
The man, to please his future mistress, said, by way of conclusion:
"Surely, surely. Madame the Countess speaks truly."
But there was hatred within him. The sombre and fierce gleam that passed over his eyes like a flash gave the lie to the forced servility of these last words. The countess did not see this murderous gleam, for she had fixed her eyes instinctively on the person of the woman whom she had just condemned to sterility or infanticide.
The bargain was quickly concluded.
She gave her orders, detailed minutely the services that she expected of her new gardeners, and, as she dismissed them with a haughty smile, she said, in a tone that admitted of no reply:
"I think that you have religious sentiments, do you not?
Here everybody goes to mass on Sunday, and receives the sacrament at Easter.
I insist upon it absolutely."
They went away without speaking to each other, very serious, very sober.
The road was dusty and the heat oppressive, and the poor woman walked painfully, dragging her legs after her.
As she was stifling a little, she stopped, placed her bag upon the ground, and unlaced her corsets.
"Ouf!" she exclaimed, taking in deep breaths of air.
And her figure, which had been long compressed, now swelled out, revealing the characteristic roundness, the stain of motherhood, the crime. They continued on their way.
A few steps further on they entered an inn by the roadside, and ordered a quart of wine.
"Why didn't you say I was pregnant?" asked the woman.
The man answered:
"What? That she might show us the door, as the three others have done?"
"To-day or to-morrow makes but little difference."
Then the man murmured between his teeth:
"If you were a woman,—well, you would go this very evening to Mother Hurlot. She has herbs."
But the woman began to weep.
And in her tears she groaned:
"Don't say that; don't say that! That brings bad luck."
The man pounded the table, and cried:
"Must we, then, die, my God!"
The bad luck came.
Four days later the woman had a miscarriage ... a miscarriage?... and died in the frightful pains of peritonitis.
And, when the man had finished his story, he said to me:
"So now here I am, all alone.
No wife, no child, nothing.
I really thought of revenging myself; yes, for a long time I thought of killing those three children that were playing on the lawn, although I am not wicked, I assure you. But that woman's three children, I swear to you, I could have strangled with joy, with real joy! Oh! yes.
But then, I did not dare. What do you expect?
We are afraid; we are cowards; we have courage only to suffer!" _____
XVI
November 24.
No letter from Joseph. Knowing how prudent he is, I am not greatly astonished at his silence, but it causes me a little suffering.
To be sure, Joseph is not unaware that the letters go through Madame's hands before reaching ours, and doubtless he does not wish to expose himself or me to the danger of their being read by her, or even have the fact that he writes to me made a subject of Madame's malicious comments.
Yet, with his great mental resources, it seems to me that he could have found a way of sending me news.