Madame Savin, who since Marc's entry into the room had not spoken a word, escorted the young man to the door of the flat, where, while still retaining an air of embarrassment amid her submissiveness—that of a slave-wife superior to her harsh master—she contented herself with smiling divinely. Then at the bottom of the stairs Marc encountered the children whom the neighbour was bringing home. Hortense, the girl, now nine years old, was already a pretty and coquettish little person, with artful eyes which gleamed with maliciousness when she did not veil them with the expression of hypocritical piety which she had learnt to acquire at Mademoiselle Rouzaire's. But Marc was more interested in the twin boys, Achille and Philippe, two thin pale lads, sickly like their father, and very unruly and sly for their seven years. They pushed their sister against the banister, and almost made her fall; and when they had climbed the stairs, and the door of the flat opened, an infant's wail was heard, that of little Jules, who had awoke and was already in the arms of his mother, eager for her breast.
As Marc walked down the street, he caught himself talking aloud. So they were all agreed, from the ignorant peasant to the timid and idiotic clerk, passing by way of the brutified workman, the spoilt fruit of barrack-life and the salary system. In ascending the social scale one merely found error aggravated by narrow egotism and base cowardice. Men's minds remained steeped in darkness; the semi-education which was nowadays acquired without method, and which reposed on no serious scientific foundation, led simply to a poisoning of the brain, to a state of disquieting corruption. There must be education certainly, but complete education, whence hypocrisy and falsehood would be banished—education which would free the mind by acquainting it with truth in its entirety. Marc trembled at the thought of the abyss of ignorance, error, and hatred which opened before him. What an awful bankruptcy there would be if those folk were needed some day for some work of truth and justice! And those folk typified France; they were the multitude, the heavy, inert mass, many of them worthy people no doubt, but none the less a mass of lead, which weighed the nation down to the ground, incapable as they were of leading a better life, of becoming free, just, and truly happy, because they were steeped in ignorance and poison.
As Marc went slowly towards the school to acquaint his friend Simon with the sad result of his visits, he suddenly remembered that he had not yet called on the Mesdames Milhomme, the stationers of the Rue Courte; and although he anticipated no better result with them than with the others he resolved to fulfil his commission to the very end.
The Milhommes, the ladies' husbands, had been two brothers, born at Maillebois. Edouard, the elder, had inherited a little stationery business from an uncle, and, being of a stay-at-home and unaspiring disposition, had made a shift to live on it with his wife; while his younger, more active, and ambitious brother Alexandre laid the foundations of a fortune while hurrying about the country as a commercial traveller. But death swooped down on both: the elder brother was the first to die, as the result of a tragic accident, a fall into a cellar; the second succumbing six months later to an attack of pulmonary congestion while he was at the other end of France. Their widows remained—one with her humble shop, the other with a capital of some twenty thousand francs, the first savings on which her husband had hoped to rear a fortune. It was to Madame Edouard, a woman of decision and diplomatic skill, that the idea occurred of inducing her sister-in-law, Madame Alexandre, to enter into a partnership, and invest her twenty thousand francs in the little business at Maillebois, which might be increased by selling books, stationery, and other articles for the schools. Each of the two widows had a son, and from that time forward the Mesdames Milhomme, as they were called, Madame Edouard with her little Victor, and Madame Alexandre with her little Sébastien, had kept house together, living in the close intimacy which their interests required, although their natures were radically different.
Madame Edouard followed the observances of the Church, but this did not mean that her faith was firm. She simply placed the requirements of her business before everything else. Her customers were chiefly pious folk whom she did not wish to displease. Madame Alexandre, on the contrary, had given up church-going at the time of her marriage, for her husband had been a gay companion and freethinker, and she refused to take up religion again. It was Madame Edouard, the clever diplomatist, who ingeniously indicated that these divergencies might become a source of profit. Their business was spreading; their shop, situated midway between the Brothers' school and the Communal school, supplied articles suitable for both—lesson books, copybooks, diagrams, and drawing copies, without speaking of pens, pencils, and similar things. Thus it was decided that each of the two women should retain her views and ways, the one with the priests, the other with the freethinkers, in such wise as to satisfy both sides. And in order that nobody might remain ignorant of the understanding, Sébastien was sent to the secular Communal school, where Simon the Jew was master, while Victor remained at the Brothers' school. Matters being thus settled, engineered with superior skill, the partnership prospered, and Mesdames Milhomme now owned one of the most thriving shops in Maillebois.
Marc, on reaching the Rue Courte, in which there were only two houses, the Milhommes' and the parsonage, slackened his steps, and for a moment examined the windows of the stationery shop, in which religious prints were mingled with school pictures glorifying the Republic, whilst illustrated newspapers, hanging from strings, almost barred the doorway. He was about to enter when Madame Alexandre—a tall and gentle-looking blonde, whose face, faded already, though she was only thirty, was still lighted by a faint smile—appeared upon the threshold. Close beside her was her little Sébastien, of whom she was very fond: a child of seven, fair and gentle like his mother, very handsome also, with blue eyes, a delicately shaped nose, and a mouth bespeaking amiability.
Madame Alexandre was acquainted with Marc, and she at once referred to the abominable crime which seemed to haunt her. 'How dreadful, Monsieur Froment!' said she. 'To think also that it occurred so near to us! I frequently saw poor little Zéphirin go by, either on his way to school or returning home. And he often came here to buy copybooks and pens. I can no longer sleep since I saw him dead!'
Then she spoke compassionately of Simon and his grief. She considered him to be very kind-hearted and upright, particularly as he took a great interest in her little Sébastien, who was one of his most intelligent and docile pupils. Whatever other people might say, she would never be able to think the master capable of such a frightful deed as that crime. As for the copy-slip of which people talked so much, nothing would have been proved even if similar ones had been found in the school.
'We sell such slips, you know, Monsieur Froment,' she continued, 'and I have already searched through those which we have in stock. It is true that none bear those particular words, "Love one another"——'