"If you really love him you should think first of his future. Plenty of other people have been obliged to accept a disagreeable marriage for the sake of the child."
"You revolt me," said Annette, "praising those women who condemn themselves to a false marriage, sometimes one built on hatred, out of love for the child. You remind me of that mother who told her daughter she had endured hell for her sake by remaining married. The daughter replied: 'Do you think hell is a good home for a child?'"
"The child needs a father."
"But how about the thousands of people who have gone without one? How many have never known one at all! How many have lost their fathers in early childhood and have been brought up by their mothers alone! Are they inferior to other people? The child needs a protecting love. Why should not mine be enough?"
"You overestimate your strength. Do you know what is awaiting you?"
"I know, I know! The little arms of a child about my neck."
"But do you know the price the world will make you pay for it? It would be much better for you to be married and an adulteress four times over than to have people brand you with the name of an unmarried mother. To dare to assume the pains and responsibilities of motherhood without having first accepted the stamp of their official marriage is something for which a woman of their class is never pardoned. It would be all right for me. What people like myself do is of no consequence. Your bourgeois people even find that it pays to have things so. They are ready enough to praise free love in the working-class, as they do in Louise, but a girl of the bourgeoisie belongs in a private preserve. You are their property. They can buy you by contract, before a lawyer; you can't give yourself in the presence of heaven and say, 'It's my right.' Good Lord, where would we end if property revolted against its master and said, 'I am free! Let anyone who wishes come and cultivate me.'"
Even when she was indignant Sylvie could not speak seriously.
Annette smiled and said, "Customs are made by man. I know. He condemns the woman who dares to have her children outside of marriage without dedicating herself for life to the father of her children. But for many women this means slavery, for they do not love their husbands. Many a woman would remain free and alone with her little ones if she had the courage. I shall try to have it."
Sylvie said, with a touch of pity, "Poor innocent! Your life has been shielded from hardships by the double windows of this bourgeoisie that shuts you in with its prejudices—and its privileges also. Once you leave it, you will never be allowed to enter it again, and you will have a glimpse then of what life is!"