It was quite a catastrophe. Marie looked as though she dare not touch her child’s naked limbs. She continued contemplating her, with the surprise of a virgin, amazed at having been able to produce such a thing. However, assisted by Octave, who quieted the little one, she succeeded in dressing her again.
“How will you manage when you have a dozen?” asked he, laughing.
“But we shall never have any more!” answered she in a fright.
Then, he joked: she was wrong to be so sure, a child comes so easily?
“No! no!” repeated she obstinately. “You heard what mamma said, the other day. She forbade Jules to have any more. You do not know her; it would lead to endless quarrels, if another came.”
Octave was amused by the quiet way in which she discussed this question. He drew her out, without, however, succeeding in embarrassing her. She, moreover, did as her husband wished. No doubt, she loved children; had she been allowed to desire others, she would not have said no. And, beneath this complacency, which was restricted to her mother’s commands, the indifference of a woman whose maternity was still slumbering could be recognized. Lilitte occupied her like her home, which she looked after through duty. When she had washed up the breakfast things and taken the child for her walk, she continued her former young girl’s existence, of a somnolent emptiness, lulled by the vague expectation of a joy which never came. Octave having remarked that she must feel very dull, being always alone, she seemed surprised: no, she was never dull, the days passed somehow or other, without her knowing, when she went to bed, how she had employed her time. Then, on Sundays, she sometimes went out with her husband; or her parents called, or else she read. If reading did not give her headaches, she would have read from morning till night, now that she was allowed to read everything.
“What is really annoying,” resumed she, “is that they have scarcely anything at the library in the Passage Choiseul. For instance, I wanted ‘André,’ to read it again, because it made me cry so much the other time. Well! their copy has been stolen. Besides that, my father refuses to lend me his, because Lilitte might tear the pictures.”
“But,” said Octave, “my friend Campardon has all George Sand’s works. I will ask him to lend me ‘André’ for you.”
She blushed, and her eyes sparkled. He was really too kind! And, when he left her, she stood before Lilitte, her arms hanging down by her sides, without an idea in her head, in the attitude which she maintained for whole afternoons together. She detested sewing, she did crochet work, always the same piece, which she left lying about the room.
Octave brought her the book on the morrow, a Sunday. Pichon had had to go out, to leave his card on one of his superiors. And, as the young man found her dressed for walking, she having just been on some errand in the neighbourhood, he asked her out of curiosity whether she had been to church, having the idea that she was religious. She answered no. Before marrying her off, her mother used to take her regularly to mass. During the six first months of her married life, she continued going through force of habit, with the constant fear of being too late. Then, she scarcely knew why, after missing a few times, she left off going altogether. Her husband detested priests, and her mother never even mentioned them now. Octave’s question, however, disturbed her, as though it had awakened within her things that had been long buried beneath the idleness of her existence.