Fruitfulness. Emile Zola
on their playing their parts with due propriety.
“Well, don’t you wish anybody good evening?”
The children were not timid; they were already used to society and looked visitors full in the face. If they made little haste, it was because they were naturally indolent and did not care to obey. They at last made up their minds and allowed themselves to be kissed.
“Good evening, good friend Santerre.”
Then they hesitated before Mathieu, and their father had to remind them of the gentleman’s name, though they had already seen him on two or three occasions.
“Good evening, Monsieur Froment.”
Valentine took hold of them, sat them on her lap, and half stifled them with caresses. She seemed to adore them, but as soon as she had sat them down again she forgot all about them.
“So you are going out again, mamma?” asked the little boy.
“Why, yes, my darling. Papas and mammas, you know, have their affairs to see to.”
“So we shall have dinner all alone, mamma?”
Valentine did not answer, but turned towards the maid, who was waiting for orders; —
“You are not to leave them for a moment, Celeste – you hear? And, above all things, they are not to go into the kitchen. I can never come home without finding them in the kitchen. It is exasperating. Let them have their dinner at seven, and put them to bed at nine. And see that they go to sleep.”
The big girl with the equine head listened with an air of respectful obedience, while her faint smile expressed the cunning of a Norman peasant who had been five years in Paris already and was hardened to service, and well knew what was done with children when the master and mistress were absent.
“Madame,” she said in a simple way, “Mademoiselle Lucie is poorly. She has been sick again.”
“What? sick again!” cried the father in a fury. “I am always hearing of that! They are always being sick! And it always happens when we are going out! It is very disagreeable, my dear; you might see to it; you ought not to let our children have papier-mache stomachs!”
The mother made an angry gesture, as if to say that she could not help it. As a matter of fact, the children were often poorly. They had experienced every childish ailment, they were always catching cold or getting feverish. And they preserved the mute, moody, and somewhat anxious demeanor of children who are abandoned to the care of servants.
“Is it true you were poorly, my little Lucie?” asked Valentine, stooping down to the child. “You aren’t poorly now, are you? No, no, it’s nothing, nothing at all. Kiss me, my pet; bid papa good night very prettily, so that he may not feel worried in leaving you.”
She rose up, already tranquillized and gay again; and, noticing that Mathieu was looking at her, she exclaimed:
“Ah! these little folks give one a deal of worry. But one loves them dearly all the same, though, so far as there is happiness in life, it would perhaps be better for them never to have been born. However, my duty to the country is done. Each wife ought to have a boy and a girl as I have.”
Thereupon Mathieu, seeing that she was jesting, ventured to say with a laugh:
“Well, that isn’t the opinion of your medical man, Dr. Boutan. He declares that to make the country prosperous every married couple ought to have four children.”
“Four children! He’s mad!” cried Seguin. And again with the greatest freedom of language he brought forward his pet theories. There was a world of meaning in his wife’s laughter while Celeste stood there unmoved and the children listened without understanding. But at last Santerre led the Seguins away. It was only in the hall that Mathieu obtained from his landlord a promise that he would write to the plumber at Janville and that the roof of the pavilion should be entirely renovated, since the rain came into the bedrooms.
The Seguins’ landau was waiting at the door. When they had got into it with their friend, it occurred to Mathieu to raise his eyes; and at one of the windows he perceived Celeste standing between the two children, intent, no doubt, on assuring herself that Monsieur and Madame were really going. The young man recalled Reine’s departure from her parents; but here both Lucie and Gaston remained motionless, gravely mournful, and neither their father nor their mother once thought of looking up at them.
IV
AT half-past seven o’clock, when Mathieu arrived at the restaurant on the Place de la Madeleine where he was to meet his employer, he found him already there, drinking a glass of madeira with his customer, M. Firon-Badinier. The dinner was a remarkable one; choice viands and the best wines were served in abundance. But Mathieu was struck less by the appetite which the others displayed than by Beauchene’s activity and skill. Glass in hand, never losing a bite, he had already persuaded his customer, by the time the roast arrived, to order not only the new thresher but also a mowing machine. M. Firon-Badinier was to take the train for Evreux at nine-twenty, and when nine o’clock struck, the other, now eager to be rid of him, contrived to pack him off in a cab to the St. – Lazare railway station.
For a moment Beauchene remained standing on the pavement with Mathieu, and took off his hat in order that the mild breezes of that delightful May evening might cool his burning head.
“Well, that’s settled,” he said with a laugh. “But it wasn’t so easily managed. It was the Pommard which induced the beggar to make up his mind. All the same, I was dreadfully afraid he would make me miss my appointment.”
These remarks, which escaped him amid his semi-intoxication, led him to more confidential talk. He put on his hat again, lighted a fresh cigar, and took Mathieu’s arm. Then they walked on slowly through the passion-stirred throng and the nightly blaze of the Boulevards.
“There’s plenty of time,” said Beauchene. “I’m not expected till half-past nine, and it’s close by. Will you have a cigar? No? You never smoke?”
“Never.”
“Well, my dear fellow, it would be ridiculous to feign with you, since you happened to see me this morning. Oh, it’s a stupid affair! I’m quite of that opinion; but, then, what would you have?”
Thereupon he launched out into long explanations concerning his marital life and the intrigue which had suddenly sprung up between him and that girl Norine, old Moineaud’s daughter. He professed the greatest respect for his wife, but he was nevertheless a loose liver; and Constance was now beginning to resign herself to the inevitable. She closed her eyes when it would have been unpleasant for her to keep them open. She knew very well that it was essential that the business should be kept together and pass intact into the hands of their son Maurice. A tribe of children would have meant the ruin of all their plans.
Mathieu listened at first in great astonishment, and then began to ask questions and raise objections, at most of which Beauchene laughed gayly, like the gross egotist he was. He talked at length with extreme volubility, going into all sorts of details, at times assuming a semi-apologetic manner, but more frequently justifying himself with an air of triumph. And, finally, when they reached the corner of the Rue Caumartin he halted to bid Mathieu good-by. He there had a little bachelor’s lodging, which was kept in order by the concierge of the house, who, being very well paid, proved an extremely discreet domestic.
As he hurried off, Mathieu, still standing at the corner of the street, could not help thinking of the scenes which he had witnessed at the Beauchene works that day. He thought of old Moineaud, the fitter, whom he again saw standing silent and unmoved in the women’s workroom while his daughter Euphrasie was being soundly rated by Beauchene, and while Norine, the other girl, looked on with a sly laugh. When the toiler’s children have grown up and gone to join, the lads the army of slaughter, and the girls the army of vice, the father, degraded by the ills of life, pays little heed to it all. To him it is seemingly a matter of indifference to what disaster the wind may carry the fledgelings who fall from the nest.
It was now half-past nine o’clock, and Mathieu had more than an hour before him to reach the Northern railway station. So he did not