without ever making a fortune, but pleased, nevertheless, at being able to add her modest gains to her husband’s monthly salary in order to provide him with sundry little comforts. His rheumatism would no doubt soon compel him to relinquish his post as a museum attendant, and how would they be able to manage with his pension of a few hundred francs per annum if she did not keep up her business? Moreover, they had met with no luck. Their first child had died, and some years had elapsed before the birth of a second boy, whom they had greeted with delight, no doubt, though he would prove a heavy burden to them, especially as they had now decided to take him back from the country. Thus Mathieu found the worthy woman in a state of great emotion, waiting for the child on the threshold of her shop, and watching the corner of the avenue.
“Oh! it was Celeste who sent you, monsieur! No, La Couteau hasn’t come yet. I’m quite astonished at it; I expect her every moment. Will you kindly step inside, monsieur, and sit down?”
He refused the only chair which blocked up the narrow passage where scarcely three customers could have stood in a row. Behind a glass partition one perceived the dim back shop, which served as kitchen and dining-room and bedchamber, and which received only a little air from a damp inner yard which suggested a sewer shaft.
“As you see, monsieur, we have scarcely any room,” continued Madame Menoux; “but then we pay only eight hundred francs rent, and where else could we find a shop at that price? And besides, I have been here for nearly twenty years, and have worked up a little regular custom in the neighborhood. Oh! I don’t complain of the place myself, I’m not big, there is always sufficient room for me. And as my husband comes home only in the evening, and then sits down in his armchair to smoke his pipe, he isn’t so much inconvenienced. I do all I can for him, and he is reasonable enough not to ask me to do more. But with a child I fear that it will be impossible to get on here.”
The recollection of her first boy, her little Pierre, returned to her, and her eyes filled with tears. “Ah! monsieur, that was ten years ago, and I can still see La Couteau bringing him back to me, just as she’ll be bringing the other by and by. I was told so many tales; there was such good air at Rougemont, and the children led such healthy lives, and my boy had such rosy cheeks, that I ended by leaving him there till he was five years old, regretting that I had no room for him here. And no, you can’t have an idea of all the presents that the nurse wheedled out of me, of all the money that I paid! It was ruination! And then, all at once, I had just time to send for the boy, and he was brought back to me as thin and pale and weak, as if he had never tasted good bread in his life. Two months later he died in my arms. His father fell ill over it, and if we hadn’t been attached to one another, I think we should both have gone and drowned ourselves.”
Scarce wiping her eyes she feverishly returned to the threshold, and again cast a passionate expectant glance towards the avenue. And when she came back, having seen nothing, she resumed: “So you will understand our emotion when, two years ago, though I was thirty-seven, I again had a little boy. We were wild with delight, like a young married couple. But what a lot of trouble and worry! We had to put the little fellow out to nurse as we let the other one, since we could not possibly keep him here. And even after swearing that he should not go to Rougemont we ended by saying that we at least knew the place, and that he would not be worse off there than elsewhere. Only we sent him to La Vimeux, for we wouldn’t hear any more of La Loiseau since she sent Pierre back in such a fearful state. And this time, as the little fellow is now two years old, I was determined to have him home again, though I don’t even know where I shall put him. I’ve been waiting for an hour now, and I can’t help trembling, for I always fear some catastrophe.”
She could not remain in the shop, but remained standing by the doorway, with her neck outstretched and her eyes fixed on the street corner. All at once a deep cry came from her: “Ah! here they are!”
Leisurely, and with a sour, harassed air, La Couteau came in and placed the sleeping child in Madame Menoux’s arms, saying as she did so: “Well, your George is a tidy weight, I can tell you. You won’t say that I’ve brought you this one back like a skeleton.”
Quivering, her legs sinking beneath her for very joy, the mother had been obliged to sit down, keeping her child on her knees, kissing him, examining him, all haste to see if he were in good health and likely to live. He had a fat and rather pale face, and seemed big, though puffy. When she had unfastened his wraps, her hands trembling the while with nervousness, she found that he was potbellied, with small legs and arms.
“He is very big about the body,” she murmured, ceasing to smile, and turning gloomy with renewed fears.
“Ah, yes! complain away!” said La Couteau. “The other was too thin; this one will be too fat. Mothers are never satisfied!”
At the first glance Mathieu had detected that the child was one of those who are fed on pap, stuffed for economy’s sake with bread and water, and fated to all the stomachic complaints of early childhood. And at the sight of the poor little fellow, Rougemont, the frightful slaughter-place, with its daily massacre of the innocents, arose in his memory, such as it had been described to him in years long past. There was La Loiseau, whose habits were so abominably filthy that her nurslings rotted as on a manure heap; there was La Vimeux, who never purchased a drop of milk, but picked up all the village crusts and made bran porridge for her charges as if they had been pigs; there was La Gavette too, who, being always in the fields, left her nurslings in the charge of a paralytic old man, who sometimes let them fall into the fire; and there was La Cauchois, who, having nobody to watch the babes, contented herself with tying them in their cradles, leaving them in the company of fowls which came in bands to peck at their eyes. And the scythe of death swept by; there was wholesale assassination; doors were left wide open before rows of cradles, in order to make room for fresh bundles despatched from Paris. Yet all did not die; here, for instance, was one brought home again. But even when they came back alive they carried with them the germs of death, and another hecatomb ensued, another sacrifice to the monstrous god of social egotism.
“I’m tired out; I must sit down,” resumed La Couteau, seating herself on the narrow bench behind the counter. “Ah! what a trade! And to think that we are always received as if we were heartless criminals and thieves!”
She also had become withered, her sunburnt, tanned face suggesting more than ever the beak of a bird of prey. But her eyes remained very keen, sharpened as it were by ferocity. She no doubt failed to get rich fast enough, for she continued wailing, complaining of her calling, of the increasing avarice of parents, of the demands of the authorities, of the warfare which was being declared against nurse-agents on all sides. Yes, it was a lost calling, said she, and really God must have abandoned her that she should still be compelled to carry it on at forty-five years of age. “It will end by killing me,” she added; “I shall always get more kicks than money at it. How unjust it is! Here have I brought you back a superb child, and yet you look anything but pleased — it’s enough to disgust one of doing one’s best!”
In thus complaining her object perhaps was to extract from the haberdasher as large a present as possible. Madame Menoux was certainly disturbed by it all. Her boy woke up and began to wail loudly, and it became necessary to give him a little lukewarm milk. At last, when the accounts were settled, the nurse-agent, seeing that she would have ten francs for herself, grew calmer. She was about to take her leave when Madame Menoux, pointing to Mathieu, exclaimed: “This gentleman wished to speak to you on business.”
Although La Couteau had not seen the gentleman for several years past, she had recognized him perfectly well. Still she had not even turned towards him, for she knew him to be mixed up in so many matters that his discretion was a certainty. And so she contented herself with saying: “If monsieur will kindly explain to me what it is I shall be quite at his service.”
“I will accompany you,” replied Mathieu; “we can speak together as we walk along.”
“Very
