Chapter XXIII: Book III: I (7)

Thus Madame Duparque, broken to obedience from her cradle days, was one of the subjugated daughters of the Church, one of those creatures whom it distrusts, strikes, and disciplines, turning them into docile instruments, which enable it to attack men and conquer them in their turn. When, after losing her husband and liquidating her business, Madame Duparque had installed herself at Maillebois, her one occupation, her one passion had become the practice of that authoritarian piety, by which she strove to remedy the spoiling of her life, and obtain compensation for all the natural joys, all the human forms of happiness, which she had never known. And the roughness with which she tried to impose her narrow, chilling faith upon her granddaughter Geneviève was due, in some degree certainly, to the regret she felt at having never experienced the felicity of love, which she would have liked to forbid her grandchild, as if it were indeed some unknown and perchance delightful hell, where she herself would never set foot.

But between the grandmother and the granddaughter there was the doleful Madame Berthereau. She likewise seemed to be only a devotee bent beneath the rule of the Church, which had taken possession of her from the moment of her birth. Never for a single day had she ceased to follow its observances. With loving weakness her husband, Berthereau the freethinker, had accompanied her to Mass. But she had also known his love, the ardent passion with which he had always encompassed her, and the recollection of it possessed her for ever. Though many years had elapsed since his death, she still belonged to him; she lived on that one memory, ending her days in solitude, in the arms of that dear shade. This explained her long spells of silence, the resigned, retiring manner she preserved in the mournful little house to which, as to a convent, she had withdrawn with her daughter Geneviève. She had never thought of marrying again; she had become a second Madame Duparque, rigidly and meticulously pious, clad invariably in black, and showing a waxen countenance, a cowed and crushed demeanour under the rough hand which weighed so heavily on the house. At the utmost a faint twinge of bitterness appeared on her tired lips, and a fugitive gleam of rebellion shone in her submissive eyes when at times the memory of her dead husband, awakening within her, filled her amid the frigid empty life of religious observances in which she agonised with bitter regret for all the old happiness of love. And of recent times only the sight of her daughter Geneviève's frightful torment, that struggle of a woman for whom priest and husband were contending, had been able to draw her from the shrinking self-surrender of a recluse taking no interest in the cares of worldly life, and lend her enough courage to face her terrible mother.

And now Madame Berthereau was near her death, well pleased, personally, by the prospect of that deliverance. Nevertheless, as her strength ebbed away, day by day, she felt more and more grieved at having to leave Geneviève struggling in torture, and at the mercy of Madame Duparque. When she herself was gone, what would become of her poor daughter in that abode of agony, where she had suffered so dreadfully already? To the poor dying woman the thought of going off like that, without doing anything, saying anything that might save her daughter, and help her to recover a little health and happiness, became intolerable. It haunted her, and one evening, when it was still possible for her to speak gently and very slowly, she mustered sufficient courage to satisfy her heart.

It was an evening in September--a mild and rainy one. Night was at hand, and the little room, which, with its few old pieces of walnut furniture, had an aspect of conventual simplicity, was gradually growing dim. As the sick woman could not lie down, for she then at once began to stifle, she remained in a sitting posture, propped up by pillows, on a couch. Although she was only fifty-six, her long sad face, crowned by snowy hair, looked very aged indeed, worn and blanched by the emptiness of her life. Geneviève sat near her in an armchair, and Louise had just come upstairs with a cup of milk, the only nourishment which the ailing woman could still take. A heavy silence was lulling the house to sleep, the last clang of the bells of the Capuchin Chapel having just died away in the lifeless atmosphere of the little deserted square.

'My daughter,' at last said Madame Berthereau in accents which came from her lips very faintly and slowly, 'as we are alone, I beg you to listen to me, for I have various things to tell you, and it is quite time I should do so.'

Geneviève, surprised, and anxious as to the effect which this supreme effort might have on her mother, wished her to remain silent. But Madame Berthereau made such a resolute gesture that the young woman merely inquired: 'Do you wish to speak to me alone, mother? Would you like Louise to go away?'

For a moment Madame Berthereau preserved silence. She had turned her face towards the girl, who, tall and charming, with a lofty brow and frank eyes, gazed at her in affectionate distress. And the old lady ended by murmuring: 'I prefer Louise to remain. She is seventeen, she also ought to know.... Come and sit here, close beside me, my darling.'

Then, the girl having seated herself on a chair by the side of the couch, Madame Berthereau took hold of her hands. 'I know how sensible and brave you are,' she said, 'and if I have sometimes blamed you, I none the less acknowledge how frank you are.... To-day, do you know, now that I am near my last hour, I believe in nothing save kindness.'

Again she paused for a moment, reflecting, and turning her eyes towards the open window, towards the paling sky, as if she were seeking her long life of dejection and resignation in the farewell gleam of the sun. Then her eyes came back to her daughter, at whom for a while she remained gazing with an expression of indescribable compassion.

'It grieves me extremely, my Geneviève, to leave you so unhappy,' she said. 'Ah! do not say no. I sometimes hear you sobbing overhead, at night, when you are unable to sleep. And I can picture your wretchedness, the battle which rends your heart.... For years now you have been suffering, and I have not had even enough bravery to succour you.'

Hot tears gathered suddenly in Geneviève's eyes. The evocation of her sufferings at that tragic hour quite upset her. 'Mother, I beg you, do not think of me,' she stammered; 'my only grief will be that of losing you.'

'No, no, my girl; each has to go in turn, satisfied or in despair, according to the life which he or she has chosen. But those who remain behind ought not to persevere obstinately in useless suffering when they may still be happy.' And joining her hands, and raising them with a gesture of ardent entreaty, Madame Berthereau added: 'Oh! my girl, I beg you, do not remain a day longer in this house. Make haste, take your children, and go back to your husband.'

Geneviève did not even have time to answer. A tall black form was before her, for Madame Duparque had slipped noiselessly into the room. Always prowling about the house, haunted by an everlasting suspicion of sin, she began to worry herself directly she was at a loss to tell where Geneviève and Louise might be. If they had hidden themselves did it not follow that they must be doing something evil? Moreover, the old woman never liked to leave them long with Madame Berthereau for fear lest something forbidden should be said. That evening, therefore, she had crept up the stairs as quietly as possible, with her ears on the alert; and, hearing certain words, she had gently opened the door, thus catching the others _in flagrante delicto_.

'What is that you say, my daughter?' she demanded, her rasping voice ringing with angry imperiousness.

The sick woman, pale already, became quite ghastly at that sudden intervention, while Geneviève and Louise remained thunderstruck, alarmed also as to what might now happen.

'What is that you say, my daughter?' Madame Duparque repeated. 'Are you not aware that God can hear you?'

Madame Berthereau had sunk back on her pillows, closing her eyes as if to collect her courage. She had so greatly hoped that she might be able to speak to Geneviève alone, and avoid a battle with her redoubtable mother. All her life long she had avoided any such collision, any such struggle, feeling that she would be beaten in it. But now she had only a few hours left her to be good and brave; and so she opened her eyes, and dared--at last--to speak out.

'May God indeed hear me, mother! I am doing my duty,' she said. 'I have told my daughter to take her children and return to her husband, for she will only find real health and happiness in the home which she quitted so imprudently.'

Madame Duparque, who waved her arms violently, had been minded to interrupt her at the first word she spoke. But awed, perhaps, by the majesty of death, which was already gathering in the room, embarrassed too by the heartfelt cry of that poor enslaved creature, whose reason and whose love were at last freeing themselves from their shackles, the terrible old lady allowed her daughter to finish her sentence. A pause, fraught with infinite anguish, then followed between those four women who were thus gathered together, and who represented four generations of their line.

There was a certain family resemblance between them; they were all tall, they had long faces and somewhat prominent noses. But Madame Duparque, now eight and seventy, and displaying a harsh jaw and rigidly wrinkled cheeks, had grown lean and sallow in the practice of narrow piety; whereas Madame Berthereau, who had reached her fifty-sixth year, showed more flesh and suppleness, in spite of her malady, and still retained on her livid face the gentleness bequeathed by the brief love which she had tasted, and which she had ever mourned. From those two solemn women, dark-haired in their younger days, had sprung Geneviève, fair and gay, refined by paternal heredity, loving and lovable, and still very charming at seven and thirty years of age. And Louise, the last, who would soon be in her eighteenth year, was in her turn a brunette, with hair of a deep gilded brown, inherited from her father, Marc, who had also bestowed on her his broad forehead, and his large bright eyes, glowing with passion for truth.

In like way one detected among those four women the progress of moral evolution. First there was the great-grandmother, a serf of the Church, one whose flesh and mind had been absolutely subjugated, who had become a passive instrument of error and domination; next there was the daughter, who had remained a practising and conquered Catholic, but who was disturbed, tortured by her brief experience of human happiness; then came the struggling granddaughter, in whose poor heart and mind Catholicism was fighting its last battle, who was almost rent atwain between the mendacious nothingness of her mystical education, and the living reality of her wifely love and motherly tenderness, who needed, too, all her strength to free herself; and finally there was the great-granddaughter, who was at last freed, who had escaped the clutch which the priest sets upon women and children, and who, all youth and health, had reverted to happy nature, to the glorious beneficence of the sunlight.

But in faint, slow accents Madame Berthereau was repeating: 'Listen, my Geneviève! Do not remain here any longer. As soon as I am gone, go away--go as speedily as you can.... My misfortunes began on the day when I lost your father. He adored me. The only hours that I ever really lived were those that I spent beside him; and I have often reproached myself for not having then appreciated them more, for in my stupidity I was ignorant of their value, and I only understood how delightful, how unique they had been, when I came here, a widow, loveless, for ever cut off from the world.... Ah! the icy cold of this house, how often has it made me shiver! Ah! the silence and the gloom in which I have gone on dying for years, not even daring to open a window to inhale a little life, so foolish and so cowardly I was!'

Erect and motionless, Madame Duparque still refrained from interrupting her daughter; but on hearing that cry of dolorous rebellion she could not restrain a gesture of protest. 'I will not prevent you from speaking, my daughter,' she said when the other paused, 'though if you have a confession to make it would be better to send for Father Théodose.... But since you were not wholly God's, why did you seek refuge in this house? You knew very well that here you would find none but God.'

'I have confessed,' the dying woman answered gently. 'I shall not go off without receiving extreme unction, for I belong to God entirely, I can only belong to Him now.... And even if I suffered so much from the loss of my husband, I never regretted having come here. Where else could I have gone? I had no other refuge. I was too closely linked to religion to attempt to seek other happiness, even for an instant. Thus I have lived the life I was bound to live.... But my daughter, in her turn, is suffering too cruelly, and I will not have her begin my sorry story over again, and fade away in the void in which I have agonised for so many years, for she is free, and she still has a husband who adores her.... You hear me, you hear me, do you not, my daughter?'

With a gesture of tender entreaty, she held out her poor waxen hands, and Geneviève fell upon her knees beside her, with big tears rolling down her cheeks, so deeply was she stirred by that extraordinary scene, that poignant awakening of love at the very hour of death.

'Mother, I beg you, mother,' she said, 'do not continue to grieve about my sufferings. You rend my heart by thinking only of me when we are all here, with the one desire to give you a little comfort, whereas you, it seems, wish to go off in despair.'

Increasing excitement had now gained possession of Madame Berthereau. Taking Geneviève's head between her hands, she gazed into her eyes and answered, 'No, no, listen to me. There is only one thing that can make me happy before I leave you, and that is a certainty that you will not lead a life of sacrifice and torture as I have done. Give me that last consolation, do not let me go without your promise.... I shall repeat what I have said as long as I have strength to do so. Leave this house of error and death, return to your home, your husband. Give him back his children, love each other with all your strength. Life lies in that, and truth, aye, and happiness also.... I beg you, my girl, promise me, swear to me that you will comply with my last desire.'

Then, as Geneviève, utterly upset, choking with sobs, gave her no answer, Madame Berthereau turned towards Louise, who, likewise distracted, was now kneeling at the other side of the couch. 'Help me, my dear granddaughter,' she said, 'I know what your views are. I have noticed your efforts to lead your mother home. You are a little fairy, a very sensible little person, and you have done a great deal to give a little quietness to all four of us.... Your mother must make me a promise, is it not so? Tell her that she will make me very joyful indeed by promising me to be happy.'

Louise had caught hold of the poor woman's hands, and kissing them she stammered: 'Oh! grandmother, grandmother, how good you are, and how I love you!... Mother will remember your last wishes, she will reflect, and act as her heart bids her, you may be sure of it.'

Madame Duparque meanwhile had not for a moment departed from her rigidity. Her eyes alone seemed to be alive in her frigid, wrinkled face. And furious anger blazed in them while she strove to restrain herself from any brutal action. At last she growled huskily: 'Be quiet, all three of you! You are unhappy infidels, rebelling against God, who will punish you with the flames of hell.... Be quiet, I tell you, don't let me hear another word! Am I no longer mistress here? You, my daughter, your illness has impaired your mind, I am willing to grant it. You, my granddaughter, have Satan in you, and I excuse you for having failed as yet to drive him out, in spite of your penitence. And you, my great-granddaughter, I still hope that when I am free to correct you I shall prevent you from going to damnation.... Be quiet, my children, I tell you. If it were not for me you would not exist! It is I who command here, and you would be guilty of yet another mortal sin if you should not obey me!'

Her stature seemed to have increased, and her voice had risen while, with fierce gestures, she thus spoke in the name of her Deity of anger and vengeance. But, in spite of her commands, her daughter, who already felt freed from her domination by the approach of death, was bold enough to continue: 'I have been obeying for more than twenty years, mother, I have preserved silence for more than twenty years; and if my last hour were not at hand, perhaps I should be so cowardly as to obey and keep silent now.... But I have gone through too much. All that has tortured me, all that I have left unsaid would choke me in my grave, and even there the cry I have stifled so long would rise from my lips.... Oh! my daughter, promise me, promise me what I ask!'

Then Madame Duparque, beside herself, exclaimed in a rougher voice: 'Geneviève, I, your grandmother, forbid you to speak!'

It was Louise who, seeing that her mother was still sobbing, waging a most frightful battle, with her face close pressed to the blanket spread over the couch, took upon herself to answer in her resolute yet deferential way: 'Grandmother, one must be kind to grandmother who is so ill. Mother also is very ailing, and it is cruel to upset her like this. Is it not right that each should act according to her conscience?'

Thereupon, without giving Madame Duparque time to intervene again, Geneviève, whose heart melted, touched as it was by her daughter's courageous gentleness, raised her head, and kissed the dying woman with intense emotion: 'Mother, mother, you may sleep in peace, I will not let you carry away any bitter thought on my account.... Yes, I promise you I will remember your desire, I promise you I will do all that my love for you may advise me to do.... Yes, yes, there is only kindness, there is only love: therein lies the only truth.'

Then, as Madame Berthereau, exhausted, but with a divine smile brightening her face, pressed her daughter to her bosom, Madame Duparque made a last threatening gesture. The twilight had now fallen, and only the pale gleam of the broad, cloudless sky, where the first stars were shining, lighted up the room; while the open window admitted the deep silence that rose from the deserted square, broken only by the laugh of a child. And as everything thus sank into a quiescence through which swept the august breath of coming death, the old woman, who in her obstinacy would neither see nor hear, added these words: 'You belong to me no more, neither daughter, nor granddaughter, nor great-granddaughter. One impelling the other, you are, all three of you, on the road to eternal damnation! Go, go! God casts you off, and I cast you off also!'

Then she departed, shutting the door roughly behind her. In the dim quiet room the mother remained agonising between her daughter and her granddaughter, all three united in the same embrace. And for a long, long while they continued weeping, their tears full of delightful comfort as well as bitter grief.

Two days later Madame Berthereau died, in a very Catholic spirit, after receiving extreme unction, as she had desired. At the church the stern demeanour of Madame Duparque, clad in the deepest mourning, was much remarked. Only Louise accompanied her. Geneviève had been obliged to take to her bed again, overcome by such a nervous shock that she seemed no longer able to see or hear. For three days longer she thus remained in bed with her face turned to the wall, unwilling to answer anybody, even her daughter. She must have suffered terribly; distressful moans escaped her, fits of weeping shook her from head to foot. When the grandmother went up to her, obstinately remaining there, lecturing her, and pointing out the necessity of appeasing the divine anger, the attacks became yet more violent, there were convulsions and shrieks. And Louise, who wished her mother to be spared any such aggravation of her torment, in the supreme struggle which was almost rending her asunder, ended by bolting the door, and remaining there as a sentinel, forbidding access to everybody.

On the fourth day came the _dénouement_. Pélagie alone managed to force an occasional entry in order to attend to certain work. Sixty years of age, with a sullen face, a large nose, and thin lips, the servant had become not only very thin, almost withered, but also insufferable in manner. Ever mumbling sour words, she actually overruled her terrible mistress, and often turned the work-girls, whom the latter engaged to help her, into the street. Madame Duparque kept her, however, for she was an old retainer, an old instrument who had always been ready at hand. Indeed, her mistress could hardly have lived if she had not had that underling, that serf beside her to extend, as it were, her domination over all around. She employed her as a spy, as the executor of base designs, and in return she herself belonged to her, having to put up with all the bad temper, all the additional worry and dolefulness with which the other filled the house.

On the morning of the fourth day, after the first breakfast, Pélagie, having gone upstairs to fetch the cups and plates, hastened down again, quite scared, and said to her mistress: 'Does madame know what is going on up there? They are packing their trunks!'

'The mother and daughter?'

'Yes, madame. Oh! they are making no secret of it. The girl goes from one room to the other, carrying armfuls of linen.... If madame cares to go up, the door is wide open.'

Frigidly, without answering, Madame Duparque went up. And she indeed found Geneviève and Louise actively engaged in packing two trunks, as if for immediate departure, while little Clément, who was scarcely six years old, sat very quietly on a chair, watching the preparations. The mother and daughter just raised their heads when the old lady entered, then went on with their work again.

A moment of silence followed; finally, Madame Duparque, not a muscle of whose face stirred, but who seemed to become yet more frigid and stern, inquired: 'Do you feel better, then, Geneviève?'

'Yes, grandmother. I have still some fever, but I shall never get well if I remain shut up here.'

'So you have decided to go elsewhere, I see. Where are you going?'

A quiver came over Geneviève, who once more raised her head, showing her eyes, which were still red with weeping: 'I am going where I promised my mother I would go. For four days past the struggle has been killing me.'

Another pause ensued. 'Your promise did not seem to me a formal one; I regarded your words as mere words of consolation,' said Madame Duparque at last. 'So you are going back to that man? You can have very little pride!'

'Pride! Ah, yes, I know, it is by pride that you have kept me here so long.... But I have had plenty of pride. Many a time, though I have wept all night long, I have refused to admit my error.... But now I understand the stupidity of my pride, the wretchedness into which I have sunk is too great.'

'You unhappy creature! Has neither prayer nor penitence been able to rid you of the poison, then? That poison is mastering you again, and it will end by casting you into eternal punishment should you relapse into your abominable sin.'

'What poison are you talking of, grandmother? My husband loves me, and, in spite of everything, I love him still. Is that poison? I have struggled for five years; I wished to give myself entirely to God; why did not God fill the aching void of my being, in which I desired to receive Him alone? Religion has satisfied me neither as to wifely happiness nor as to motherly tenderness, and if I am now going back to that happiness and tenderness, it is because of the downfall of that heaven in which I have found only deception and falsehood.'

'You are blaspheming, my girl, and you will be punished for it by the most cruel sufferings.... If the poison which has tortured you did not come from Satan, it follows that it must have come from God. Faith is forsaking you; you are on the high road to negation, to absolute perdition.'

'That is true; for months now I have believed a little less each day. I did not dare to confess it to myself, but amid all my bitterness of feeling something was slowly destroying the beliefs of my childhood and youth.... How strange it was! All my childhood full of chimeras, all my pious youth had revived within me, with all the fine mysteries and ceremonies of worship, when I first sought refuge here. But when I again endeavoured to plunge into the _au delà_ of the mysteries, when I strove to give myself to Jesus amid the chants and the flowers, those dreams gradually faded, became mere deceptive fancies, in which nought of my being found contentment.... Yes, the poison must have been my training, the errors in which I grew up, which brought me so much suffering when they revived, and of which I shall only be cured when the evil ferment is completely eliminated.... Shall I ever be cured? I hardly know. There is still such strife within me!'

Madame Duparque was restraining herself, for she well understood that violence on her part would seal her rupture with the young woman and the girl, who, with the little boy, seated on his chair, listening attentively without understanding, were all that remained of her race. Thus she was minded to make a last effort, and addressing herself to Louise, she said: 'You, my poor child, are the most to be pitied, and I shudder when I think of the pit of abomination into which you are casting yourself.... If you had made your first Communion all these sorrows would have been spared us. God is punishing us for having failed to overcome your impious resistance. Yet there is still time, and what favours would you not obtain from His infinite mercy if you would only submit, and approach the Holy Table as a humble handmaiden of Jesus!'

But the girl responded gently: 'Why revert to that, grandmother? You know very well what promise I gave my father. I cannot vary in my answer; I will come to a decision when I am twenty; I shall then see if I have faith.'

'But, you unhappy, obstinate child, if you go back to that man, who has wrecked both your mother's life and your own, your decision can be told in advance! You will remain without any belief, any religion at all, like a mere beast of the fields!'

Then, as the daughter and mother deferentially preserved silence, and even resumed their packing in order to curtail a useless and painful discussion, the old lady gave expression to a last desire: 'Well, if you have both resolved to go, at least leave me the little boy--leave me Clément. He will redeem your folly, I will bring him up in the love of God, I will make a holy priest of him, and at least I shall not be alone; there will be two of us to pray that the divine anger may not fall upon you on the terrible Day of Judgment.'

But Geneviève had sprung to her feet. 'Leave Clément!' she exclaimed; 'why, it is largely on his account that I am going. I no longer know how to bring him up; I wish to restore him to his father, in order that we may come to an understanding and endeavour to make a man of him.... No, no, I am taking him with me!'

Then Louise, who also stepped forward, added very gently and respectfully: 'Why do you say that you will remain alone, grandmother? We do not wish to forsake you, we will often come to see you, every day if you will allow us. And we will love you well, and try to show you how much we desire to make you happy.'

Madame Duparque could restrain herself no longer. The flood of anger which she had found it so difficult to check flowed over and carried her away with a rush of furious words: 'That's enough! Keep quiet! I will listen to you no longer! But you are quite right, pack your boxes and be off! Be off, all three of you, I cast you out! Go and join that cursed man, that bandit who spat on God and His ministers to endeavour to save that filthy Jew, who has been twice condemned!'

'Simon is innocent!' cried Geneviève, in her turn losing all restraint; 'and those who caused him to be condemned are liars and forgers!'

'Yes, yes, I know; it is that affair which has ruined you and is separating us. You imagine the Jew to be innocent; you can no longer believe in God. But your imbecile justice is the negation of divine authority. And for that reason all is quite over between us.... Go, go as quickly as possible with your children! Don't soil this house any longer, don't bring any more thunderbolts upon it! You are the sole cause of its misfortunes.... And, mind, don't set foot here again; I cast you off, I cast you off for ever! When once you have crossed the threshold you need never knock at the door, it will not be opened to you. I have no children left, I am alone in the world, and I will live and die alone!'

As she spoke, the old woman, nearly in her eightieth year, drew up her lofty figure with a fierce energy. Her voice was still strong, her gestures were commanding ones. She cursed, she punished, she exterminated after the fashion of her Deity of wrath and death. And afterwards she descended the stairs with a pitiless tread, and shut herself in her room, waiting there till the last children of her flesh should be gone for ever.

It so happened that Marc, that very same day, received a visit from Salvan, who found him in the large classroom, which was quite bright with the glow of the September sunshine. The vacation would come to an end in another ten days, and, though Marc hourly expected to be informed of his dismissal, he was consulting his books and notes as if preparing for the new school year. However, by Salvan's grave if smiling demeanour, he at once understood the truth.

'This time it's done, is it not?' he exclaimed.

_'Mon Dieu_, yes, it's done, my friend. Quite a long list of changes, appointments, and promotions, prepared by Le Barazer, has been signed.... Jauffre will leave Jonville and come to Beaumont, which is fine advancement for him. That clerical Chagnat goes from Le Moreux to Dherbecourt, which is scandalous when one remembers what a brute the fellow is.... For my part, I am simply pensioned off to make room for Mauraisin, who triumphs.... And you, my friend----'

'I am dismissed, eh?'

'No, no, you have simply fallen into disgrace. You are sent back to Jonville in the place of Jauffre, and Mignot, your assistant, who is compromised with you, is to take Chagnat's post at Le Moreux.'

Marc raised a cry of happy surprise: 'But I am delighted!'

Salvan, who had come expressly to acquaint him with the news, indulged in a hearty laugh. 'That is Le Barazer's diplomacy, you see! That is what he was preparing, when, according to his habit, he endeavoured to gain time. He has ended by satisfying that terrible Sanglebœuf and all the other reactionaries by appointing Mauraisin to succeed me, and promoting Jauffre and Chagnat. And this has enabled him to retain your services and those of Mignot. Outwardly he seems to blame you, but he does not intend to disown you entirely. Besides, he is leaving Mademoiselle Mazeline here, and in your place is appointing Joulic, one of my best pupils, a man of free and healthy mind. Thus Maillebois, Jonville, and Le Moreux will be henceforth provided with excellent masters, ardent missionaries of the future.... That is the position, and, I tell you once again, nobody can alter Le Barazer; one must take him as he is and feel pleased, even when what he does is only half of what one would like to see.'

'I am delighted,' Marc repeated. 'It was more particularly the prospect of having to quit the profession altogether that grieved me. Thinking of the new term I felt sorrowful all this morning. Where could I have gone, what could I have done? It will certainly pain me to leave the boys here, for I am very fond of them. But my consolation will be to find others yonder, to whom I shall also become attached. And as for the humbleness of the school, what does that matter if I am able to continue my life-work and still sow the seed which alone can yield the harvest of truth and equity? Ah! yes, I shall go back to Jonville right willingly, and with fresh hope.'

Then he strode gaily about the bright, sunshiny classroom as if again taking on himself that teaching mission, the relinquishment of which would have been so hard to bear. And at last, with juvenile ardour and delight, he flung his arms about Salvan and embraced him. At that same moment Mignot, who, also expecting dismissal, had been seeking a situation for some days past, came in, worried at having encountered another refusal on the part of the manager of a neighbouring factory. But when he learnt that he was appointed to Le Moreux, he likewise gave expression to his joy. 'Le Moreux! Le Moreux! a real land of savages!' said he. 'No matter, one will try to civilise them a little. And we sha'n't be separated, the distance is less than three miles. That, you know, is what pleases me most of all!'

But Marc had now calmed down, and, indeed, sorrow was reviving in him, dimming his eyes once more. Silence fell, and the others could feel a quiver pass--the quiver of hope deferred, of a heart-pang which was ever keen. How hard would be the battle that Marc still had before him, how many more tears must he shed before he regained his lost happiness! At that thought he, and the others also, preserved silence; and Salvan, unable to give his friends any further comfort, sank into a sorrowful reverie as he stood gazing through the large sunlit window which faced the square outside.

But all at once he exclaimed: 'Why, are you expecting somebody?'

'Expecting somebody?' rejoined Marc, at a loss to understand.

'Yes, here comes a little hand-cart with some trunks on it.'

At that same moment the door opened, and they turned round. It was Geneviève who came in, holding little Clément by the hand, and having Louise also beside her. The surprise and the emotion were so great that at first nobody spoke. Marc was trembling. But Geneviève, in a halting voice, began at last: 'My dear Marc, I have brought you back your son. Yes, I give him back to you--he belongs to you--he belongs to us both. Let us try to make a man of him.'

The boy had stretched out his little arms, and the father caught him up wildly, and pressed him to his heart, while the mother, the wife, continued: 'And I have come back to you with him, my good Marc. You told me that I should bring him back, and come back myself.... It was truth that first conquered me; then all that you had set in me germinated, no doubt, and I have no pride left.... And here I am, for I still love you.... I vainly sought other happiness, but only your love exists. Apart from us and our children there is only unreason and wretchedness.... Take me back, my good Marc! I give myself to you as you give yourself to me.'

Thus speaking, she had slowly drawn near to her husband, and she was about to cast her arms around his neck when Louise's gay voice was heard: 'And I, and I, father! I must share in it too, you know. You must not forget me.'

'Yes, indeed, she must share in it, the dear girl!' said Geneviève. 'She strove so much to bring about this happiness, she showed such gentleness and skill.'

Then she caught Louise also in her embrace, and kissed both her and Marc, who was already holding Clément to his heart. All four were at last reunited, held in the same bond of flesh and love, having but one heart, one breath between them. And what a quiver of deep humanity, of fruitful and healthy joy now filled that large classroom, which looked so bare and empty, pending the return of the boys for the new term! Big tears welled into the eyes of Salvan and Mignot, whom emotion quite upset.

At last Marc was able to speak, and his whole heart rose to his lips: 'Ah! my dear wife, as you return to me you must at last be cured. I knew it would be so. You turned to more and more rigid religious practices as to stronger and stronger stupefacients for the purpose of sending your nature to sleep; but, in spite of everything, nature was bound to eliminate the poison when at last you again felt that you were a wife and a mother.... Yes, yes, you are right: love has delivered you; you are won from that religion of error and death, from which human society has suffered for eighteen centuries past.'

But Geneviève quivered again, becoming anxious and disturbed. 'Ah! no, no, my good Marc, do not say that! Who can tell if I am really cured? Never, perhaps, shall I be cured completely.... Our Louise will be entirely free, but the mark set on me is ineffaceable, I shall always be afraid of relapsing into those mystical dreams.... And if I have come back, it is to seek a refuge in your embrace, and to enable you to complete the work that has begun. Keep me, perfect me, try to prevent anything from ever separating us again!'

They caught each other in a tighter clasp: it was as if they were but one. Even as Geneviève had said, was not that the great work which needed to be accomplished--the work of taking woman from the Church, and setting her in her true place as companion and mother, by the side of man? For only the freed woman can free man: her slavery is ours.

But all at once Louise, who a moment previously had disappeared, opened the door again, bringing with her Mademoiselle Mazeline, who entered breathless and smiling. 'Mamma,' said the girl, 'mademoiselle must have a share in our happiness. If you only knew how she has loved me, and how kind and useful she was here!'

Geneviève stepped forward and embraced the schoolmistress affectionately. 'I knew it,' she said. 'Thank you, my friend, for all you did for us during our long worries.'

The good woman laughed, with tears in her eyes. 'Oh! don't thank me, my dear. It is I who am grateful to you for all the happiness you give me to-day.'

Salvan and Mignot were also laughing now. More handshakes were exchanged. And as Salvan, amid the babel of voices which burst forth, informed the schoolmistress of the appointments signed the previous day, Geneviève raised a cry of joy.

'What! we are going back to Jonville? Is it really true?... Ah! Jonville, that charming, lonely village where we loved each other so well, where we first lived together so happily! What a good omen it is that we are going back there, to begin our life afresh in affection and quietude! Maillebois made me feel nervous, but Jonville is hope and certainty.'

Renewed courage and infinite confidence in the future were now upbuoying Marc, filling him with superb enthusiasm. 'Love has returned to us,' said he; 'henceforth we are all-powerful. And even though falsehood, iniquity, and crime triumphed to-day, eternal victory will to-morrow be ours.'