Lucie. Listen, Julien, since we are talking about this, I wanted to tell you—I haven't had much leisure since our marriage. We have not been able to take advantage of a single one of your holidays. I really have a right to a little rest.... Consider, we have not had any time to know one another, or to love one another. Besides, remember that we already have to find dowries for three girls.
Brignac. I tell you this is going to be a boy.
Lucie. A boy is expensive.
Brignac. We are going to be rich!
Lucie. How?
Brignac. Luck may come in several ways. I may stay in the civil service and get promoted quickly. I may go back to the bar.... I am certain we shall be rich. After all, it's not much good your saying so, if I say yes.
Lucie. Evidently. My consent was asked for before I was given a husband, but my consent is not asked for before I am given a child.... This is slavery—yes, slavery. After all you are disposing of my health, my sufferings, my life—of a year of my existence, calmly, without consulting me.
Brignac. Do I do it out of selfishness? Do you suppose I am not a most unhappy husband all the time I have a future mother at my side instead of a loving wife?... A father is a man all the same.
Lucie. Rubbish! You evidently take me for a fool. I know what you do at those times.... Don't deny it. You must see that I know all about it.... Do you want me to tell you the name of the person you go to see over at Villeneuve, while I am nursing or "a future mother," as you call it? We had better say no more about it.
Brignac goes off to his political meeting to proclaim to his constituency the sacredness of motherhood,—the deepest and highest function of woman.
Lucie has a younger sister, Annette, a girl of eighteen. Their parents being dead, Lucie takes the place of the mother. She is passionately fond of her little sister and makes it her purpose to keep the girl sheltered and protected from the outside world. Annette arrives and announces with great enthusiasm that the son of the wealthy Bernins has declared his love and asked her to marry him, and that his mother, Mme. Bernin, is coming to talk the matter over with Lucie.
Mme. Bernin does arrive, but not for the purpose poor Annette had hoped. Rather is it to tell Lucie that her son cannot marry the girl. Oh, not because she isn't beautiful, pure or attractive. Indeed not! Mme. Bernin herself says that her son could not wish for a more suitable match. But, then, she has no money, and her son must succeed in the world. He must acquire social standing and position; that cannot be had without money. When Lucie pleads with her that after all the Bernins themselves had begun at the bottom, and that it did not prevent their being happy, Mme. Bernin replies:
No, no; we are not happy, because we have worn ourselves out hunting after happiness. We wanted to "get on," and we got on. But what a price we paid for it! First, when we were both earning wages, our life was one long drudgery of petty economy and meanness. When we set up on our own account, we lived in an atmosphere of trickery, of enmity, of lying; flattering the customers, and always in terror of bankruptcy. Oh, I know the road to fortune! It means tears, lies, envy, hate; one suffers—and one makes other people suffer. I have had to go through it: my children shan't. We've only had two children: we meant only to have one. Having two we had to be doubly hard upon ourselves. Instead of a husband and wife helping one another, we have been partners spying upon one another; calling one another to account for every little expenditure or stupidity; and on our very pillows disputing about our business. That's how we got rich; and now we can't enjoy our money because we don't know how to use it; and we aren't happy because our old age is made bitter by the memories and the rancor left by the old bad days; because we have suffered too much and hated too much. My children shall not go through this. I endured it that they might be spared.
Learning the price Mme. Bernin has paid for her wealth, we need not blame her for turning a deaf ear to the entreaties of Lucie in behalf of her sister. Neither can Lucie be held responsible for her stupidity in keeping her sister in ignorance until she was incapable of protecting herself when the occasion demanded. Poor Annette, one of the many offered up to the insatiable monster of ignorance and social convention!
When Annette is informed of the result of Mme. Bernin's visit, the girl grows hysterical, and Lucie learns that her little sister is about to become a mother. Under the pretext of love and marriage young, pampered Jaques Bernin has taken advantage of the girl's inexperience and innocence. In her despair Annette rushes out in search of her lover, only to be repelled by him in a vulgar and cruel manner. She then attempts suicide by trying to throw herself under the train which is to carry off her worthless seducer. She is rescued by the faithful nurse Catherine, and brought back to her anxious sister Lucie. Annette, in great excitement, relates:
Annette. You'll never guess what he said. He got angry, and he began to abuse me. He said he guessed what I was up to; that I wanted to make a scandal to force him to marry me—oh, he spared me nothing—to force him to marry me because he was rich. And when that made me furious, he threatened to call the police! I ought to have left him, run away, come home, oughtn't I? But I couldn't believe it of him all at once, like that! And I couldn't go away while I had any hope.... As long as I was holding to his arm it was as if I was engaged. When he was gone I should only be a miserable ruined girl, like dozens of others.... My life was at stake: and to save myself I went down into the very lowest depths of vileness and cowardice. I cried, I implored. I lost all shame.... What he said then I cannot tell you—not even you—it was too much—too much—I did not understand at first. It was only afterwards, coming back, going over all his words, that I made out what he meant.... Then he rushed to the train, and jumped into a carriage, and almost crushed my fingers in the door; and he went and hid behind his mother, and she threatened, too, to have me arrested.... I wish I was dead! Lucie, dear, I don't want to go through all that's coming—I am too little—I am too weak, I'm too young to bear it. Really, I haven't the strength.
But Lucie has faith in her husband. In all the years of their married life she has heard him proclaim from the very housetops that motherhood is the most sacred function of woman; that the State needs large numbers; that commerce and the army require an increase of the population, and "the government commands you to further this end to the best of your ability, each one of you in his own commune." She has heard her husband repeat, over and over again, that the woman who refuses to abide by the command of God and the laws to become a mother is immoral, is criminal. Surely he would understand the tragedy of Annette, who had been placed in this condition not through her own fault but because she had been confiding and trusting in the promise of the man. Surely Brignac would come to the rescue of Annette; would help and comfort her in her trying and difficult moment. But Lucie, like many wives, does not know her husband; she does not know that a man who is so hidebound by statutes and codes cannot have human compassion, and that he will not stand by the little girl who has committed the "unpardonable sin." Lucie does not know, but she is soon to learn the truth.