“It is in pain,” she thought.
“But why should I interest myself in its sufferings—I, the most unfortunate of living creatures?”
The babe uttered a sharper and more painful cry.
Then the mother seemed to know that a new voice spoke within her, and she felt her heart drawn towards the abandoned little one who lamented.
What had been foreseen by the doctor came to pass. Nature had accomplished one of her preparations: physical pain, that powerful bond, had soldered the heartstrings of the mother to the progeny.
“This little one must not appeal to heaven for vengeance,” thought Andrea. “To kill them may exempt them from suffering, but they must not be tortured. If we had any right, heaven would not let them protest so touchingly.”
She called the servant but that robust peasant slept too soundly for her weak voice. However, the babe cried no more.
“I suppose,” mused Andrea, “that the nurse has come. Yes I hear steps in the next room, and the little mite cries not—as if protection was extended over it, and soothed its unshaped intelligence. So, this then is a poor mother who sells her place for a few crowns. The child of my bosom will find this other mother, and when I pass by it will turn from me as a stranger and call on the hireling as more worthy of its love. It will be my just reward! No, this shall not be. I have undergone enough to entitle me to look mine own in the face: I have earned the right to love it with all my cares and make it respect me for my sorrow and my sacrifice.”
Slowly the servant was aroused by her renewed cries and went heavily into the next room for the removed child or to welcome the wetnurse; but the latter had not arrived and she returned to say that the babe was not to be seen.
“Bring it to me, and shut that door.”