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 lazybones 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?”
She went on to speak of her sister Euphrasie, who had fallen into a most wretched condition, said she, ever since passing through Dr. Gaude’s hands. Her home had virtually been broken up, she had become decrepit, a mere bundle of rags, unable even to handle a broom. It made one tremble to see her. Then, after a pause, just as the cab was reaching the Rue Caroline, the girl continued: “Will you come up to see her? You might say a few kind words to her. It would please me, for I’m going on a rather unpleasant errand. I thought that she would have strength enough to make some little boxes like me, and thus earn a few pence for herself; but she has kept the work I gave her more than a month now, and if she really cannot do it I must take it back.”
Mathieu consented, and in the room upstairs he beheld one of the most frightful, poignant spectacles that he had ever witnessed. In the centre of that one room where the family slept and ate, Euphrasie sat on a straw-bottomed chair; and although she was barely thirty years of age, one might have taken her for a little old woman of fifty; so thin and so withered did she look that she resembled one of those fruits, suddenly deprived of sap, that dry up on the tree. Her teeth had fallen, and of her hair she only retained a few white locks. But the more characteristic mark of this mature senility was a wonderful loss of muscular strength, an almost complete disappearance of will, energy, and power of action, so that she now spent whole days, idle, stupefied, without courage even to raise a finger.
When Cecile told her that her visitor was M. Froment, the former chief designer at the Beauchene works, she did not even seem to recognize him; she no longer took interest in anything. And when her sister spoke of the object of her visit, asking for the work with which she had entrusted her, she answered with a gesture of utter weariness: “Oh! what can you expect! It takes me too long to stick all those little bits of cardboard together. I can’t do it; it
