"But the worst of all," she continued, "is La Couillard, an old thief who once did six months in prison, and who now lives a little way out of the village on the verge of the wood. No live child has ever left La Couillard's. That's her specialty. When you see an agent, like La Couteau, for instance, taking her a child, you know at once what's in the wind. La Couteau has simply bargained that the little one shall die. It's settled in a very easy fashion: the parents give a sum of three or four hundred francs on condition that the little one shall be kept till his first communion, and you may be quite certain that he dies within a week. It's only necessary to leave a window open near him, as a nurse used to do whom my father knew. At winter time, when she had half a dozen babies in her house, she would set the door wide open and then go out for a stroll. And, by the way, that little boy in the next room, whom La Couteau has just gone to see, she'll take him to La Couillard's, I'm sure; for I heard the mother, Mademoiselle Rosine, agree with her the other day to give her a sum of four hundred francs down on the understanding that she should have nothing more to do in the matter."
At this point Victoire ceased speaking, for La Couteau came in to fetch Norine's child. Norine, who had emerged from her distress during the servant girl's stories, had ended by listening to them with great interest. But directly she perceived the agent she once more hid her face in her pillows, as though she feared to see what was about to happen. Mathieu, on his side, had risen from his chair and stood there quivering.
"So it's understood, I'm going to take the child," said La Couteau. "Madame Bourdieu has given me a slip of paper bearing the date of the birth and the address. Only I ought to have some Christian names. What do you wish the child to be called?"
Norine did not at first answer. Then, in a faint distressful voice, she said: "Alexandre."
"Alexandre, very well. But you would do better to give the boy a second Christian name, so as to identify him the more readily, if some day you take it into your head to run after him."
It was again necessary to tear a reply from Norine. "Honoré," she said.
"Alexandre Honoré—all right. That last name is yours, is it not?[6] And the first is the father's? That is settled; and now I've everything I need. Only it's four o'clock already, and I shall never get back in time for the six o'clock train if I don't take a cab. It's such a long way off—the other side of the Luxembourg. And a cab costs money. How shall we manage?"
[6]Norine is, of course, a diminutive of Honorine, which is the feminine form of Honoré.—Trans.
While she continued whining, to see if she could not extract a few francs from the distressed girl, it suddenly occurred to Mathieu to carry out his mission to the very end by driving with her himself to the Foundling Hospital, so that he might be in a position to inform Beauchêne that the child had really been deposited there, in his presence. So he told La Couteau that he would go down with her, take a cab, and bring her back.
"All right; that will suit me. Let us be off! It's a pity to wake the little one, since he's so sound asleep; but all the same, we must pack him off, since it's decided."