“When one does one’s duty, the government does the same,” murmured he, mechanically reckoning that he still had thirty-six years to wait before obtaining the right to wear a piece of red ribbon and to enjoy a pension of two thousand francs.
Then he turned towards Octave.
“You see, sir, it is the children who are such a heavy weight.”
“No doubt,” said Madame Vuillaume. “If we had had another we should never have made both ends meet. Therefore, remember Jules, what I insisted upon when I gave you Marie: one child and no more, or else we shall quarrel! It is only workpeople who have children like fowls lay eggs, without troubling themselves as to what it will cost them. It is true that they turn the youngsters out on to the streets, like flocks of animals, which make me feel sick when I pass by.”
Octave had looked at Marie, thinking that this delicate subject would make her cheeks crimson; but she remained pale, approving her mother’s words with ingenuous serenity. He was feeling awfully bored, and did not know how to retire. In the little cold dining-room these people thus spent their afternoon, slowly muttering a few words every five minutes, and always about their own affairs. Even dominoes disturbed them too much.
Madame Vuillaume now explained her notions. At the end of a long silence, which left all four of them in no way embarrassed as though they had felt the necessity of rearranging their ideas, she resumed:
“You have no child, sir? It will come in time. Ah! it is a responsibility, especially for a mother! When my little one was born I was forty-nine, sir, an age when luckily one knows how to behave. A boy will get on anyhow, but a girl! And I have the consolation of knowing that I have done my duty, oh, yes!”
Then, she explained her plan of education, in short sentences. Honesty first. No playing on the stairs, the little one always kept at home and watched closely, for children think of nothing but evil. The doors and windows shut, never any draughts, which bring the wicked things of the street with them. Out of doors, never leave go of the child’s hand, teach it to keep its eyes lowered to avoid seeing anything wrong. With regard to religion, it should not be overdone, just sufficient as a moral restraint. Then, when she has grown up, engage teachers instead of sending her to school, where the innocent ones are corrupted; and assist also at the lessons, see that she does not learn what she should not know, hide all newspapers of course, and keep the bookcase locked.
“A young person always knows too much,” declared the old lady coming to an end.
Whilst her mother spoke, Marie kept her eyes vaguely fixed on space. She once more beheld the little convent-like lodging, those narrow rooms in the Rue Durantin, where she was not even allowed to lean out of a window. It was one prolonged childhood, all sorts of prohibitions which she did not understand, lines which her mother inked out on their fashion paper, the black marks of which made her blush, lessons purified to such an extent that even her teachers were embarrassed when she questioned them. A very gentle childhood, however, the soft warm growth of a greenhouse, a waking dream in which the words uttered by the tongue, and the facts of every day life acquired ridiculous meanings. And, even at that hour as she gazed vacantly, and was filled with these recollections, a childish smile hovered about her lips, as though she had remained in ignorance spite even of her marriage.