Эмиль Золя
Fruitfulness
IX
ONE Thursday morning Mathieu went to lunch with Dr. Boutan in the rooms where the latter had resided for more than ten years, in the Rue de l’Universite, behind the Palais-Bourbon. By a contradiction, at which he himself often laughed, this impassioned apostle of fruitfulness had remained a bachelor. His extensive practice kept him in a perpetual hurry, and he had little time free beyond his dejeuner hour. Accordingly, whenever a friend wished to have any serious conversation with him, he preferred to invite him to his modest table, to partake more or less hastily of an egg, a cutlet, and a cup of coffee.
Mathieu wished to ask the doctor’s advice on a grave subject. After a couple of weeks’ reflection, his idea of experimenting in agriculture, of extricating that unappreciated estate of Chantebled from chaos, preoccupied him to such a degree that he positively suffered at not daring to come to a decision. The imperious desire to create, to produce life, health, strength, and wealth grew within him day by day. Yet what fine courage and what a fund of hope he needed to venture upon an enterprise which outwardly seemed so wild and rash, and the wisdom of which was apparent to himself alone. With whom could he discuss such a matter, to whom could he confide his doubts and hesitation? When the idea of consulting Boutan occurred to him, he at once asked the doctor for an appointment. Here was such a confidant as he desired, a man of broad, brave mind, one who worshipped life, who was endowed with far-seeing intelligence, and who would therefore at once look beyond the first difficulties of execution.
As soon as they were face to face on either side of the table, Mathieu began to pour forth his confession, recounting his dream – his poem, as he called it. And the doctor listened without interrupting, evidently won over by the young man’s growing, creative emotion. When at last Boutan had to express an opinion he replied: “Mon Dieu, my friend, I can tell you nothing from a practical point of view, for I have never even planted a lettuce. I will even add that your project seems to me so hazardous that any one versed in these matters whom you might consult would assuredly bring forward substantial and convincing arguments to dissuade you. But you speak of this affair with such superb confidence and ardor and affection, that I feel convinced you would succeed. Moreover, you flatter my own views, for I have long endeavored to show that, if numerous families are ever to flourish again in France, people must again love and worship the soil, and desert the towns, and lead a fruitful fortifying country life. So how can I disapprove your plans? Moreover, I suspect that, like all people who ask advice, you simply came here in the hope that you would find in me a brother ready, in principle at all events, to wage the same battle.”
At this they both laughed heartily. Then, on Boutan inquiring with what capital he would start operations, Mathieu quietly explained that he did not mean to borrow money and thus run into debt; he would begin, if necessary, with very few acres indeed, convinced as he was of the conquering power of labor. His would be the head, and he would assuredly find the necessary arms. His only worry was whether he would be able to induce Seguin to sell him the old hunting-box and the few acres round it on a system of yearly payments, without preliminary disbursement. When he spoke to the doctor on this subject, the other replied:
“Oh! I think he is very favorably disposed. I know that he would be delighted to sell that huge, unprofitable estate, for with his increasing pecuniary wants he is very much embarrassed by it. You are aware, no doubt, that things are going from bad to worse in his household.”
Then the doctor broke off to inquire: “And our friend Beauchene, have you warned him of your intention to leave the works?”
“Why, no, not yet,” said Mathieu; “and I would ask you to keep the matter private, for I wish to have everything settled before informing him.”
Lunching quickly, they had now got to their coffee, and the doctor offered to drive Mathieu back to the works, as he was going there himself, for Madame Beauchene had requested him to call once a week, in order that he might keep an eye on Maurice’s health. Not only did the lad still suffer from his legs, but he had so weak and delicate a stomach that he had to be dieted severely.
“It’s the kind of stomach one finds among children who have not been brought up by their own mothers,” continued Boutan. “Your plucky wife doesn’t know that trouble; she can let her children eat whatever they fancy. But with that poor little Maurice, the merest trifle, such as four cherries instead of three, provokes indigestion. Well, so it is settled, I will drive you back to the works. Only I must first make a call in the Rue Roquepine to choose a nurse. It won’t take me long, I hope. Quick! let us be off.”
When they were together in the brougham, Boutan told Mathieu that it was precisely for the Seguins that he was going to the nurse-agency. There was a terrible time at the house in the Avenue d’Antin. A few months previously Valentine had given birth to a daughter, and her husband had obstinately resolved to select a fit nurse for the child himself, pretending that he knew all about such matters. And he had chosen a big, sturdy young woman of monumental appearance. Nevertheless, for two months past Andree, the baby, had been pining away, and the doctor had discovered, by analyzing the nurse’s milk, that it was deficient in nutriment. Thus the child was simply perishing of starvation. To change a nurse is a terrible thing, and the Seguins’ house was in a tempestuous state. The husband rushed hither and thither, banging the doors and declaring that he would never more occupy himself about anything.
“And so,” added Boutan, “I have now been instructed to choose a fresh nurse. And it is a pressing matter, for I am really feeling anxious about that poor little Andree.”
“But why did not the mother nurse her child?” asked Mathieu.
The doctor made a gesture of despair. “Ah! my dear fellow, you ask me too much. But how would you have a Parisienne of the wealthy bourgeoisie undertake the duty, the long brave task of nursing a child, when she leads the life she does, what with receptions and dinners and soirees, and absences and social obligations of all sorts? That little Madame Seguin is simply trifling when she puts on an air of deep distress and says that she would so much have liked to nurse her infant, but that it was impossible since she had no milk. She never even tried! When her first child was born she could doubtless have nursed it. But to-day, with the imbecile, spoilt life she leads, it is quite certain that she is incapable of making such an effort. The worst is, my dear fellow, as any doctor will tell you, that after three or four generations of mothers who do not feed their children there comes a generation that cannot do so. And so, my friend, we are fast coming, not only in France, but in other countries where the odious wet-nurse system is in vogue, to a race of wretched, degenerate women, who will be absolutely powerless to nourish their offspring.”
Mathieu then remembered what he had witnessed at Madame Bourdieu’s and the Foundling Hospital. And he imparted his impressions to Boutan, who again made a despairing gesture. There was a great work of social salvation to be accomplished, said he. No doubt a number of philanthropists were trying their best to improve things, but private effort could not cope with such widespread need. There must be general measures; laws must be passed to save the nation. The mother must be protected and helped, even in secrecy, if she asked for it; she must be cared for, succored, from the earliest period, and right through all the long months during which she fed her babe. All sorts of establishments would have to be founded – refuges, convalescent homes, and so forth; and there must be protective enactments, and large sums of money voted to enable help to be extended to all mothers, whatever they might be. It was only by such preventive steps that one could put a stop to the frightful hecatomb of newly-born infants, that incessant loss of life which exhausted the nation and brought it nearer and nearer to death every day.
“And,” continued the doctor, “it may all be summed up in this verity: ‘It is a mother’s duty to nurse her child.’ And, besides, a mother, is she not the symbol of all grandeur, all strength, all beauty? She represents the eternity of life. She deserves a social culture, she should be religiously venerated. When we know how to worship motherhood, our country will be saved. And this is why, my friend, I should like a mother feeding her babe to be adopted as the highest expression of human beauty. Ah! how can one persuade our Parisiennes, all our French women, indeed, that woman’s beauty lies in being a mother with an infant on her knees? Whenever that fashion prevails, we shall be the sovereign nation, the masters of the world!”
He ended by laughing in a distressed way, in his despair at being unable to change manners and customs, aware as he was that the nation could be revolutionized only by a change in its ideal of true beauty.
“To sum up, then, I believe in a child being nursed only by its own mother. Every mother who neglects that duty when she can perform it is a criminal. Of course, there are instances when she is physically incapable of accomplishing her duty, and in that case there is the feeding-bottle, which, if employed with care and extreme cleanliness, only sterilized milk being used, will yield a sufficiently good result. But to send a child away to be nursed means almost certain death; and as for the nurse in the house, that is a shameful transaction, a source of incalculable evil, for both the employer’s child and the nurse’s child frequently die from it.”
Just then the doctor’s brougham drew up outside the nurse-agency in the Rue Roquepine.
“I dare say you have never been in such a place, although you are the father of five children,” said Boutan to Mathieu, gayly.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, then, come with me. One ought to know everything.”
The office in the Rue Roquepine was the most important and the one with the best reputation in the district. It was kept by Madame Broquette, a woman of forty, with a dignified if somewhat blotched face, who was always very tightly laced in a faded silk gown of dead-leaf hue. But if she represented the dignity and fair fame of the establishment in its intercourse with clients, the soul of the place, the ever-busy manipulator, was her husband, Monsieur Broquette, a little man with a pointed nose, quick eyes, and the agility of a ferret. Charged with the police duties of the office, the supervision and training of the nurses, he received them, made them clean themselves, taught them to smile and put on pleasant ways, besides penning them in their various rooms and preventing them from eating too much. From morn till night he was ever prowling about, scolding and terrorizing those dirty, ill-behaved, and often lying and thieving women. The building, a dilapidated private house, with a damp ground floor, to which alone clients were admitted, had two upper stories, each comprising six rooms arranged as dormitories, in which the nurses and their infants slept. There was no end to the arrivals and departures there: the peasant women were ever galloping through the place, dragging trunks about, carrying babes in swaddling clothes, and filling the rooms and the passages with wild cries and vile odors. And amid all this the house had another inmate, Mademoiselle Broquette, Herminie as she was called, a long, pale, bloodless girl of fifteen, who mooned about languidly among that swarm of sturdy young women.
Boutan, who knew the house well, went in, followed by Mathieu. The central passage, which was fairly broad, ended in a glass door, which admitted one to a kind of courtyard, where a sickly conifer stood on a round patch of grass, which the dampness rotted. On the right of the passage was the office, whither Madame Broquette, at the request of her customers, summoned the nurses, who waited in a neighboring room, which was simply furnished with a greasy deal table in the centre. The furniture of the office was some old Empire stuff, upholstered in red velvet. There was a little mahogany centre table, and a gilt clock. Then, on the left of the passage, near the kitchen, was the general refectory, with two long tables, covered with oilcloth, and surrounded by straggling chairs, whose straw seats were badly damaged. Just a make-believe sweep with a broom was given there every day: one could divine long-amassed, tenacious dirt in every dim corner; and the place reeked with an odor of bad cookery mingled with that of sour milk.
When Boutan thrust open the office door he saw that Madame Broquette was busy with an old gentleman, who sat there inspecting a party of nurses. She recognized the doctor, and made a gesture of regret. “No matter, no matter,” he exclaimed; “I am not in a hurry: I will wait.”
Through the open door Mathieu had caught sight of Mademoiselle Herminie, the daughter of the house, ensconced in one of the red velvet armchairs near the window, and dreamily perusing a novel there, while her mother, standing up, extolled her goods in her most dignified way to the old gentleman, who gravely contemplated the procession of nurses and seemed unable to make up his mind.
“Let us have a look at the garden,” said the doctor, with a laugh.
One of the boasts of the establishment, indeed, as set forth in its prospectus, was a garden and a tree in it, as if there were plenty of good air there, as in the country. They opened the glass door, and on a bench near the tree they saw a plump girl, who doubtless had just arrived, pretending to clean a squealing infant. She herself looked sordid, and had evidently not washed since her journey. In one corner there was an overflow of kitchen utensils, a pile of cracked pots and greasy and rusty saucepans. Then, at the other end, a French window gave access to the nurses’ waiting-room, and here again there was a nauseous spectacle of dirt and untidiness.
All at once Monsieur Broquette darted forward, though whence he had come it was hard to say. At all events, he had seen Boutan, who was a client that needed attention. “Is my wife busy, then?” said he. “I cannot allow you to remain waiting here, doctor. Come, come, I pray you.”
With his little ferreting eyes he had caught sight of the dirty girl cleaning the child, and he was anxious that his visitors should see nothing further of a character to give them a bad impression of the establishment. “Pray, doctor, follow me,” he repeated, and understanding that an example was necessary, he turned to the girl, exclaiming, “What business have you to be here? Why haven’t you gone upstairs to wash and dress? I shall fling a pailful of water in your face if you don’t hurry off and tidy yourself.”
Then he forced her to rise and drove her off, all scared and terrified, in front of him. When she had gone upstairs he led the two gentlemen to the office entrance and began to complain: “Ah! doctor, if you only knew what trouble I have even to get those girls to wash their hands! We who are so clean! who put all our pride in keeping the house clean. If ever a speck of dust is seen anywhere it is certainly not my fault.”
Since the girl had gone upstairs a fearful tumult had arisen on the upper floors, whence also a vile smell descended. Some dispute, some battle, seemed to be in progress. There were shouts and howls, followed by a furious exchange of vituperation.
“Pray excuse me,” at last exclaimed Monsieur Broquette; “my wife will receive you in a minute.”
Thereupon he slipped off and flew up the stairs with noiseless agility. And directly afterwards there was an explosion. Then the house suddenly sank into death-like silence. All that could be heard was the voice of Madame in the office, as, in a very dignified manner, she kept on praising her goods.
“Well, my friend,” said Boutan to Mathieu, while they walked up and down the passage, “all this, the material side of things, is nothing. What you should see and know is what goes on in the minds of all these people. And note that this is a fair average place. There are others which are real dens, and which the police sometimes have to close. No doubt there is a certain amount of supervision, and there are severe regulations which compel the nurses to bring certificates of morality, books setting forth their names, ages, parentage, the situations they have held, and so on, with other documents on which they have immediately to secure a signature from the Prefecture, where the final authorization is granted them. But these precautions don’t prevent fraud and deceit of various kinds. The women assert that they have only recently begun nursing, when they have been doing it for months; they show you superb children which they have borrowed and which they assert to be their own. And there are many other tricks to which they resort in their eagerness to make money.”
As the doctor and Mathieu chatted on, they paused for a moment near the door of the refectory, which chanced to be open, and there, among other young peasant women, they espied La Couteau hastily partaking of cold meat. Doubtless she had just arrived from Rougemont, and, after disposing of the batch of nurses she had brought with her, was seeking sustenance for the various visits which she would have to make before returning home. The refectory, with its wine-stained tables and greasy walls, cast a smell like that of a badly-kept sink.
“Ah! so you know La Couteau!” exclaimed Boutan, when Mathieu had told him of his meetings with the woman. “Then you know the depths of crime. La Couteau is an ogress! And yet, think of it, with our fine social organization, she is more or less useful, and perhaps I myself shall be happy to choose one of the nurses that she has brought with her.”
At this moment Madame Broquette very amiably asked the visitors into her office. After long reflection, the old gentleman had gone off without selecting any nurse, but saying that he would return some other time.
“There are folks who don’t know their own minds,” said Madame Broquette sententiously. “It isn’t my fault, and I sincerely beg you to excuse me, doctor. If you want a good nurse you will be satisfied, for I have just received some excellent ones from the provinces. I will show you.”
Herminie, meanwhile, had not condescended to raise her nose from her novel. She remained ensconced in her armchair, still reading, with a weary, bored expression on her anaemic countenance. Mathieu, after sitting down a little on one side, contented himself with looking on, while Boutan stood erect, attentive to every detail, like a commander reviewing his troops. And the procession began.
Having opened a door which communicated with the common room, Madame Broquette, assuming the most noble airs, leisurely introduced the pick of her nurses, in groups of three, each with her infant in her arms. About a dozen were thus inspected: short ones with big heavy limbs, tall ones suggesting maypoles, dark ones with coarse stiff hair, fair ones with the whitest of skins, quick ones and slow ones, ugly ones and others who were pleasant-looking. All, however, wore the same nervous, silly smile, all swayed themselves with embarrassed timidity, the anxious mien of the bondswoman at the slave market, who fears that she may not find a purchaser. They clumsily tried to put on graceful ways, radiant with internal joy directly a customer seemed to nibble, but clouding over and casting black glances at their companions when the latter seemed to have the better chance. Out of the dozen the doctor began by setting three aside, and finally he detained but one, in order that he might study her more fully.
“One can see that Monsieur le Docteur knows his business,” Madame Broquette allowed herself to say, with a flattering smile. “I don’t often have such pearls. But she has only just arrived, otherwise she would probably have been engaged already. I can answer for her as I could for myself, for I have put her out before.”
The nurse was a dark woman of about twenty-six, of average height, built strongly enough, but having a heavy, common face with a hard-looking jaw. Having already been in service, however, she held herself fairly well.
“So that child is not your first one?” asked the doctor.
“No, monsieur, he’s my third.”
Then Boutan inquired into her circumstances, studied her papers, took her into Madame Broquette’s private room for examination, and on his return make a minute inspection of her child, a strong plump boy, some three months old, who in the interval had remained very quiet on an armchair. The doctor seemed satisfied, but he suddenly raised his head to ask, “And that child is really your own?”
“Oh! monsieur, where could I have got him otherwise?”
“Oh! my girl, children are borrowed, you know.”
Then he paused for a moment, still hesitating and looking at the young woman, embarrassed by some feeling of doubt, although she seemed to embody all requirements. “And are you all quite well in your family?” he asked; “have none of your relatives ever died of chest complaints?”
“Never, monsieur.”
“Well, of course you would not tell me if they had. Your books ought to contain a page for information of that kind. And you, are you of sober habits? You don’t drink?”
“Oh! monsieur.”
This time the young woman bristled up, and Boutan had to calm her. Then her face brightened with pleasure as soon as the doctor – with the gesture of a man who is taking his chance, for however careful one may be there is always an element of chance in such matters – said to her: “Well, it is understood, I engage you. If you can send your child away at once, you can go this evening to the address I will give you. Let me see, what is your name?”
“Marie Lebleu.”
Madame Broquette, who, without presuming to interfere with a doctor, had retained her majestic air which so fully proclaimed the high respectability of her establishment, now turned towards her daughter: “Herminie, go to see if Madame Couteau is still there.”
Then, as the girl slowly raised her pale dreamy eyes without stirring from her chair, her mother came to the conclusion that she had better execute the commission herself. A moment later she came back with La Couteau.
The doctor was now settling money matters. Eighty francs a month for the nurse; and forty-five francs for her board and lodging at the agency and Madame Broquette’s charges. Then there was the question of her child’s return to the country, which meant another thirty francs, without counting a gratuity to La Couteau.
“I’m going back this evening,” said the latter; “I’m quite willing to take the little one with me. In the Avenue d’Antin, did you say? Oh! I know, there’s a lady’s maid from my district in that house. Marie can go there at once. When I’ve settled my business, in a couple of hours, I will go and rid her of her baby.”
On entering the office, La Couteau had glanced askance at Mathieu, without, however, appearing to recognize him. He had remained on his chair silently watching the scene – first an inspection as of cattle at a market, and then a bargaining, the sale of a mother’s milk. And by degrees pity and revolt had filled his heart. But a shudder passed through him when La Couteau turned towards the quiet, fine-looking child, of which she promised to rid the nurse. And once more he pictured her with her five companions at the St. – Lazare railway station, each, like some voracious crow, with a new-born babe in her clutches. It was the pillaging beginning afresh; life and hope were again being stolen from Paris. And this time, as the doctor said, a double murder was threatened; for, however careful one may be, the employer’s child often dies from another’s milk, and the nurse’s child, carried back into the country like a parcel, is killed with neglect and indigestible pap.
But everything was now settled, and so the doctor and his companion drove away to Grenelle. And there, at the very entrance of the Beauchene works, came a meeting which again filled Mathieu with emotion. Morange, the accountant, was returning to his work after dejeuner, accompanied by his daughter Reine, both of them dressed in deep mourning. On the morrow of Valerie’s funeral, Morange had returned to his work in a state of prostration which almost resembled forgetfulness. It was clear that he had abandoned all ambitious plans of quitting the works to seek a big fortune elsewhere. Still he could not make up his mind to leave his flat, though it was now too large for him, besides being too expensive. But then his wife had lived in those rooms, and he wished to remain in them. And, moreover, he desired to provide his daughter with all comfort. All the affection of his weak heart was now given to that child, whose resemblance to her mother distracted him. He would gaze at her for hours with tears in his eyes. A great passion was springing up within him; his one dream now was to dower her richly and seek happiness through her, if indeed he could ever be happy again. Thus feelings of avarice had come to him; he economized with respect to everything that was not connected with her, and secretly sought supplementary work in order that he might give her more luxury and increase her dower. Without her he would have died of weariness and self-abandonment. She was indeed fast becoming his very life.
“Why, yes,” said she with a pretty smile, in answer to a question which Boutan put to her, “it is I who have brought poor papa back. I wanted to be sure that he would take a stroll before setting to work again. Other wise he shuts himself up in his room and doesn’t stir.”
Morange made a vague apologetic gesture. At home, indeed, overcome as he was by grief and remorse, he lived in his bedroom in the company of a collection of his wife’s portraits, some fifteen photographs, showing her at all ages, which he had hung on the walls.
“It is very fine to-day, Monsieur Morange,” said Boutan, “you do right in taking a stroll.”
The unhappy man raised his eyes in astonishment, and glanced at the sun as if he had not previously noticed it. “That is true, it is fine weather – and besides it is very good for Reine to go out a little.”
Then he tenderly gazed at her, so charming, so pink and white in her black mourning gown. He was always fearing that she must feel bored during the long hours when he left her at home, alone with the servant. To him solitude was so distressful, so full of the wife whom he mourned, and whom he accused himself of having killed.
“Papa won’t believe that one never feels ennui at my age,” said the girl gayly. “Since my poor mamma is no longer there, I must needs be a little woman. And, besides, the Baroness sometimes calls to take me out.”
Then she gave a shrill cry on seeing a brougham draw up close to the curb. A woman was leaning out of the window, and she recognized her.
“Why, papa, there is the Baroness! She must have gone to our house, and Clara must have told her that I had accompanied you here.”
This, indeed, was what had happened. Morange hastily led Reine to the carriage, from which Seraphine did not alight. And when his daughter had sprung in joyously, he remained there another moment, effusively thanking the Baroness, and delighted to think that his dear child was going to amuse herself. Then, after watching the brougham till it disappeared, he entered the factory, looking suddenly aged and shrunken, as if his grief had fallen on his shoulders once more, so overwhelming him that he quite forgot the others, and did not even take leave of them.
“Poor fellow!” muttered Mathieu, who had turned icy cold on seeing Seraphine’s bright mocking face and red hair at the carriage window.
Then he was going to his office when Beauchene beckoned to him from one of the windows of the house to come in with the doctor. The pair of them found Constance and Maurice in the little drawing-room, whither the father had repaired to finish his coffee and smoke a cigar. Boutan immediately attended to the child, who was much better with respect to his legs, but who still suffered from stomachic disturbance, the slightest departure from the prescribed diet leading to troublesome complications.
Constance, though she did not confess it, had become really anxious about the boy, and questioned the doctor, and listened to him with all eagerness. While she was thus engaged Beauchene drew Mathieu on one side.
“I say,” he began, laughing, “why did you not tell me that everything was finished over yonder? I met the pretty blonde in the street yesterday.”
Mathieu quietly replied that he had waited to be questioned in order to render an account of his mission, for he had not cared to be the first to raise such a painful subject. The money handed to him for expenses had proved sufficient, and whenever the other desired it, he could produce receipts for his various disbursements. He was already entering into particulars when Beauchene jovially interrupted him.
“You know what happened here? She had the audacity to come and ask for work, not of me of course, but of the foreman of the women’s work-room. Fortunately I had foreseen this and had given strict orders; so the foreman told her that considerations of order and discipline prevented him from taking her back. Her sister Euphrasie, who is to be married next week, is still working here. Just fancy them having another set-to! Besides, her place is not here.”
Then he went to take a little glass of cognac which stood on the mantelpiece.
Mathieu had learnt only the day before that Norine, on leaving Madame Bourdieu’s, had sought a temporary refuge with a female friend, not caring to resume a life of quarrelling at her parents’ home. Besides her attempt to regain admittance at Beauchene’s, she had applied at two other establishments; but, as a matter of fact, she did not evince any particular ardor in seeking to obtain work. Four months’ idleness and coddling had altogether disgusted her with a factory hand’s life, and the inevitable was bound to happen. Indeed Beauchene, as he came back sipping his cognac, resumed: “Yes, I met her in the street. She was quite smartly dressed, and leaning on the arm of a big, bearded young fellow, who did nothing but make eyes at her. It was certain to come to that, you know. I always thought so.”
