‘As often as I have time. I take him out for walks. I run with him till we reach the woods, where I can have him to myself alone. I never stop; I avoid people. No one except my parents knows that he is my child. One supposes he is a nurse-child, received by my parents. But all the world will know now,’ she added, after a pause. ‘Last Monday I went to Meudon with my friend Alice, and Alice wanted to buy him some sweets at the grocer’s. In the shop I asked him if he would like dragées, and he said “Yes.” The grocer said to him, “Yes who, young man?” “Yes, petite mère,” he said, very loudly and bravely. The grocer understood. We all lowered our heads.’
There was something so affecting in the way she half whispered the last phrase, that I could have wept; and yet it was comical, too, and she appreciated that.
‘You have no child, madame?’ she asked me.
‘No,’ I said. ‘How I envy you!’
‘You need not,’ she observed, with a touch of hardness. ‘I have been so unhappy, that I can never be as unhappy again. Nothing matters now. All I wish is to save enough money to be able to live quietly in a little cottage in the country.’
‘With your child,’ I put in.
‘My child will grow up and leave me. He will become a man, and he will forget his petite mère.‘
‘Do not talk like that,’ I protested.
She glanced at me almost savagely. I was astonished at the sudden change in her face.
‘Why not?’ she inquired coldly. ‘Is it not true, then? Do you still believe that there is any difference between one man and another? They are all alike—all, all, all! I know. And it is we who suffer, we others.’