ceased wailing and gave signs of satisfaction when he felt the all-enveloping caress of the warm water. Never had father and mother possessed such a little treasure.
“And now,” said Mathieu, when Zoe had helped him to wipe the boy with a fine cloth, “and now we will weigh Master Gervais.”
This was a complicated operation, which was rendered the more difficult by the extreme repugnance that the child displayed. He struggled and wriggled on the platform of the weighing scales to such a degree that it was impossible to arrive at his correct weight, in order to ascertain how much this had increased since the previous occasion. As a rule, the increase varied from six to seven ounces a week. The father generally lost patience over the operation, and the mother had to intervene.
“Here! put the scales on the table near my bed, and give me the little one in his napkin. We will see what the napkin weighs afterwards.”
At this moment, however, the customary morning invasion took place. The other four children, who were beginning to know how to dress themselves, the elder ones helping the younger, and Zoe lending a hand at times, darted in at a gallop, like frolicsome escaped colts. Having thrown themselves on papa’s neck and rushed upon mamma’s bed to say good-morning, the boys stopped short, full of admiration and interest at the sight of Gervais in the scales. Rose, however, still rather uncertain on her legs, caught hold of the scales in her impatient efforts to climb upon the bed, and almost toppled everything over. “I want to see! I want to see!” she cried in her shrill voice.
At this the others likewise wished to meddle, and already stretched out their little hands, so that it became necessary to turn them out of doors.
“Now kindly oblige me by going to play outside,” said Mathieu. “Take your hats and remain under the window, so that we may hear you.”
Then, in spite of the complaints and leaps of Master Gervais, Marianne was at last able to obtain his correct weight. And what delight there was, for he had gained more than seven ounces during the week. After losing weight during the first three days, like all new-born children, he was now growing and filling out like a strong, healthy human plant. They could already picture him walking, sturdy and handsome. His mother, sitting up in bed, wrapped his swaddling clothes around him with her deft, nimble hands, jesting the while and answering each of his plaintive wails.
“Yes, yes, I know, we are very, very hungry. But it is all right; the soup is on the fire, and will be served to Monsieur smoking hot.”
On awakening that morning she had made a real Sunday toilette: her superb hair was caught up in a huge chignon which disclosed the whiteness of her neck, and she wore a white flannel lace-trimmed dressing-jacket, which allowed but a little of her bare arms to be seen. Propped up by two pillows, she laughingly offered her breast to the child, who was already protruding his lips and groping with his hands. And when he found what he wanted he eagerly began to suck.
Mathieu, seeing that both mother and babe were steeped in sunshine, then went to draw one of the curtains, but Marianne exclaimed: “No, no, leave us the sun; it doesn’t inconvenience us at all, it fills our veins with springtide.”
He came back and lingered near the bed. The sun’s rays poured over it, and life blazed there in a florescence of health and beauty. There is no more glorious blossoming, no more sacred symbol of living eternity than an infant at its mother’s breast. It is like a prolongation of maternity’s travail, when the mother continues giving herself to her babe, offering him the fountain of life that shall make him a man.
Scarce is he born to the world than she takes him back and clasps him to her bosom, that he may there again have warmth and nourishment. And nothing could be more simple or more necessary. Marianne, both for her own sake and that of her boy, in order that beauty and health might remain their portion, was naturally his nurse.
Little Gervais was still sucking when Zoe, after tidying the room, came up again with a big bunch of lilac, and announced that Monsieur and Madame Angelin had called, on their way back from an early walk, to inquire after Madame.
“Show them up,” said Marianne gayly; “I can well receive them.”
The Angelins were the young couple who, having installed themselves in a little house at Janville, ever roamed the lonely paths, absorbed in their mutual passion. She was delicious – dark, tall, admirably formed, always joyous and fond of pleasure. He, a handsome fellow, fair and square shouldered, had the gallant mien of a musketeer with his streaming moustache. In addition to their ten thousand francs a year, which enabled them to live as they liked, he earned a little money by painting pretty fans, flowery with roses and little women deftly postured. And so their life had hitherto been a game of love, an everlasting billing and cooing. Towards the close of the previous summer they had become quite intimate with the Froments, through meeting them well-nigh every day.
“Can we come in? Are we not intruding?” called Angelin, in his sonorous voice, from the landing.
Then Claire, his wife, as soon as she had kissed Marianne, apologized for having called so early.
“We only learnt last night, my dear,” said she, “that you had arrived the day before. We didn’t expect you for another eight or ten days. And so, as we passed the house just now, we couldn’t resist calling. You will forgive us, won’t you?” Then, never waiting for an answer, she added with the petulant vivacity of a tom-tit whom the open air had intoxicated: “Oh! so there is the new little gentleman – a boy, am I not right? And your health is good? But really I need not ask it. Mon Dieu, what a pretty little fellow he is! Look at him, Robert; how pretty he is! A real little doll! Isn’t he funny now, isn’t he funny! He is quite amusing.”
Her husband, observing her gayety, drew near and began to admire the child by way of following her example. “Ah yes, he is really a pretty baby. But I have seen so many frightful ones – thin, puny, bluish little things, looking like little plucked chickens. When they are white and plump they are quite nice.”
Mathieu began to laugh, and twitted the Angelins on having no child of their own. But on this point they held very decided opinions. They wished to enjoy life, unburdened by offspring, while they were young. As for what might happen in five or six years’ time, that, of course, was another matter. Nevertheless, Madame Angelin could not help being struck by the delightful picture which Marianne, so fresh and gay, presented with her plump little babe at her breast in that white bed amid the bright sunshine.
At last she remarked: “There’s one thing. I certainly could not feed a child. I should have to engage a nurse for any baby of mine.”
“Of course!” her husband replied. “I would never allow you to feed it. It would be idiotic.”
These words had scarcely passed his lips when he regretted them and apologized to Marianne, explaining that no mother possessed of means was nowadays willing to face the trouble and worry of nursing.
“Oh! for my part,” Marianne responded, with her quiet smile, “if I had a hundred thousand francs a year I should nurse all my children, even were there a dozen of them. To begin with, it is so healthful, you know, both for mother and child: and if I didn’t do my duty to the little one I should look on myself as a criminal, as a mother who grudged her offspring health and life.”
Lowering her beautiful soft eyes towards her boy, she watched him with a look of infinite love, while he continued nursing gluttonously. And in a dreamy voice she continued: “To give a child of mine to another – oh no, never! I should feel too jealous. I want my children to be entirely my own. And it isn’t merely a question of a child’s physical health. I speak of his whole being, of the intelligence and heart that will come to him, and which he ought to derive from me alone. If I should find him
