THE FOUR GOSPELS (Les Quatre Évangiles). Эмиль Золя

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СКАЧАТЬ had never again spoken to him on the subject, he simply told him that he was going out in the afternoon, without indicating the motive of his absence. At the same time he knew what secret relief Beauchene would experience when he at last learnt that the whole business was at an end — the child cast adrift and the mother following her own course.

      On reaching the Rue de Miromesnil, Mathieu had to go up to Norine’s room, for though she was to leave the house on the following Thursday, she still kept her bed. And at the foot of the bedstead, asleep in a cradle, he was surprised to see the infant, of which, he thought, she had already rid herself.

      “Oh! is it you?” she joyously exclaimed. “I was about to write to you, for I wanted to see you before going away. My little sister here would have taken you the letter.”

      Cecile Moineaud was indeed there, together with the younger girl, Irma. The mother, unable to absent herself from her household duties, had sent them to make inquiries, and give Norine three big oranges, which glistened on the table beside the bed. The little girls had made the journey on foot, greatly interested by all the sights of the streets and the displays in the shopwindows. And now they were enraptured with the fine house in which they found their big sister sojourning, and full of curiosity with respect to the baby which slept under the cradle’s muslin curtains.

      Mathieu made the usual inquiries of Norine, who answered him gayly, but pouted somewhat at the prospect of having so soon to leave the house, where she had found herself so comfortable.

      “We shan’t easily find such soft mattresses and such good food, eh, Victoire?” she asked. Whereupon Mathieu perceived that another girl was present, a pale little creature with wavy red hair, tip-tilted nose, and long mouth, whom he had already seen there on the occasion of a previous visit. She slept in one of the two other beds which the room contained, and now sat beside it mending some linen. She was to leave the house on the morrow, having already sent her child to the Foundling Hospital; and in the meantime she was mending some things for Rosine, the well-to-do young person of great beauty whom Mathieu had previously espied, and whose story, according to Norine, was so sadly pathetic.

      Victoire ceased sewing and raised her head. She was a servant girl by calling, one of those unlucky creatures who are overtaken by trouble when they have scarce arrived in the great city from their native village. “Well,” said she, “it’s quite certain that one won’t be able to dawdle in bed, and that one won’t have warm milk given one to drink before getting up. But, all the same, it isn’t lively to see nothing but that big gray wall yonder from the window. And, besides, one can’t go on forever doing nothing.”

      Norine laughed and jerked her head, as if she were not of this opinion. Then, as her little sisters embarrassed her, she wished to get rid of them.

      “And so, my pussies,” said she, “you say that papa’s still angry with me, and that I’m not to go back home.”

      “Oh!” cried Cecile, “it’s not so much that he’s angry, but he says that all the neighbors would point their fingers at him if he let you come home. Besides, Euphrasie keeps his anger up, particularly since she’s arranged to get married.”

      “What! Euphrasie going to be married? You didn’t tell me that.”

      Norine looked very vexed, particularly when her sisters, speaking both together, told her that the future husband was Auguste Benard, a jovial young mason who lived on the floor above them. He had taken a fancy to Euphrasie, though she had no good looks, and was as thin, at eighteen, as a grasshopper. Doubtless, however, he considered her strong and hardworking.

      “Much good may it do them!” said Norine spitefully. “Why, with her evil temper, she’ll be beating him before six months are over. You can just tell mamma that I don’t care a rap for any of you, and that I need nobody. I’ll go and look for work, and I’ll find somebody to help me. So, you hear, don’t you come back here. I don’t want to be bothered by you any more.”

      At this, Irma, but eight years old and tenderhearted, began to cry. “Why do you scold us? We didn’t come to worry you. I wanted to ask you, too, if that baby’s yours, and if we may kiss it before we go away.”

      Norine immediately regretted her spiteful outburst. She once more called the girls her “little pussies,” kissed them tenderly, and told them that although they must run away now they might come back another day to see her if it amused them. “Thank mamma from me for her oranges. And as for the baby, well, you may look at it, but you mustn’t touch it, for if it woke up we shouldn’t be able to hear ourselves.”

      Then, as the two children leant inquisitively over the cradle, Mathieu also glanced at it, and saw a healthy, sturdy-looking child, with a square face and strong features. And it seemed to him that the infant was singularly like Beauchene.

      At that moment, however, Madame Bourdieu came in, accompanied by a woman, whom he recognized as Sophie Couteau, “La Couteau,” that nurse-agent whom he had seen at the Seguins’ one day when she had gone thither to offer to procure them a nurse. She also certainly recognized this gentleman, whose wife, proud of being able to suckle her own children, had evinced such little inclination to help others to do business. She pretended, however, that she saw him for the first time; for she was discreet by profession and not even inquisitive, since so many matters were ever coming to her knowledge without the asking.

      Little Cecile and little Irma went off at once; and then Madame Bourdieu, addressing Norine, inquired: “Well, my child, have you thought it over; have you quite made up your mind about that poor little darling, who is sleeping there so prettily? Here is the person I spoke to you about. She comes from Normandy every fortnight, bringing nurses to Paris; and each time she takes babies away with her to put them out to nurse in the country. Though you say you won’t feed it, you surely need not cast off your child altogether; you might confide it to this person until you are in a position to take it back. Or else, if you have made up your mind to abandon it altogether, she will kindly take it to the Foundling Hospital at once.”

      Great perturbation had come over Norine, who let her head fall back on her pillow, over which streamed her thick fair hair, whilst her face darkened and she stammered: “Mon Dieu, mon Dieu! you are going to worry me again!”

      Then she pressed her hands to her eyes as if anxious to see nothing more.

      “This is what the regulations require of me, monsieur,” said Madame Bourdieu to Mathieu in an undertone, while leaving the young mother for a moment to her reflections. “We are recommended to do all we can to persuade our boarders, especially when they are situated like this one, to nurse their infants. You are aware that this often saves not only the child, but the mother herself, from the sad future which threatens her. And so, however much she may wish to abandon the child, we leave it near her as long as possible, and feed it with the bottle, in the hope that the sight of the poor little creature may touch her heart and awaken feelings of motherliness in her. Nine times out of ten, as soon as she gives the child the breast, she is vanquished, and she keeps it. That is why you still see this baby here.”

      Mathieu, feeling greatly moved, drew near to Norine, who still lay back amid her streaming hair, with her hands pressed to her face. “Come,” said he, “you are a goodhearted girl, there is no malice in you. Why not yourself keep that dear little fellow?”

      Then she uncovered her burning, tearless face: “Did the father even come to see me?” she asked bitterly. “I can’t love the child of a man who has behaved as he has! The mere thought that it’s there, in that cradle, puts me in a rage.”

      “But that dear little innocent isn’t guilty. It’s he whom you condemn, yourself whom you punish, for now you will be quite alone, and he might СКАЧАТЬ