THE FOUR GOSPELS (Les Quatre Évangiles). Эмиль Золя
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why I insisted, like you, on having mine taken there at once. You know I belong in that woman’s region — yes, I come from Berville, which is barely four miles from Rougemont, and I can’t help knowing La Couteau, for folks talk enough about her in our village. She’s a nice creature and no mistake! And it’s a fine trade that she plies, selling other people’s milk. She was no better than she should be at one time, but at last she was lucky enough to marry a big, coarse, brutal fellow, whom at this time of day she leads by the nose. And he helps her. Yes, he also brings nurses to Paris and takes babies back with him, at busy times. But between them they have more murders on their consciences than all the assassins that have ever been guillotined. The mayor of Berville, a bourgeois who’s retired from business and a worthy man, said that Rougemont was the curse of the Department. I know well enough that there’s always been some rivalry between Rougemont and Berville; but, the folks of Rougemont ply a wicked trade with the babies they get from Paris. All the inhabitants have ended by taking to it, there’s nothing else doing in the whole village, and you should just see how things are arranged so that there may be as many funerals as possible. Ah! yes, people don’t keep their stockin-trade on their hands. The more that die, the more they earn. And so one can understand that La Couteau always wants to take back as many babies as possible at each journey she makes.”
Victoire recounted these dreadful things in her simple way, as one whom Paris has not yet turned into a liar, and who says all she knows, careless what it may be.
“And it seems things were far worse years ago,” she continued. “I have heard my father say that, in his time, the agents would bring back four or five children at one journey — perfect parcels of babies, which they tied together and carried under their arms. They set them out in rows on the seats in the waiting-rooms at the station; and one day, indeed, a Rougemont agent forgot one child in a waiting-room, and there was quite a row about it, because when the child was found again it was dead. And then you should have seen in the trains what a heap of poor little things there was, all crying with hunger. It became pitiable in winter time, when there was snow and frost, for they were all shivering and blue with cold in their scanty, ragged swaddling-clothes. One or another often died on the way, and then it was removed at the next station and buried in the nearest cemetery. And you can picture what a state those who didn’t die were in. At our place we care better for our pigs, for we certainly wouldn’t send them travelling in that fashion. My father used to say that it was enough to make the very stones weep. Nowadays, however, there’s more supervision; the regulations allow the agents to take only one nursling back at a time. But they know all sorts of tricks, and often take a couple. And then, too, they make arrangements; they have women who help them, and they avail themselves of those who may be going back into the country alone. Yes, La Couteau has all sorts of tricks to evade the law. And, besides, all the folks of Rougemont close their eyes — they are too much interested in keeping business brisk; and all they fear is that the police may poke their noses into their affairs. Ah! it is all very well for the Government to send inspectors every month, and insist on registers, and the Mayor’s signature and the stamp of the Commune; why, it’s just as if it did nothing. It doesn’t prevent these women from quietly plying their trade and sending as many little ones as they can to kingdom-come. We’ve got a cousin at Rougemont who said to us one day: ‘La Malivoire’s precious lucky, she got rid of four more during last month.’”
Victoire paused for a moment to thread her needle. Norine was still weeping, while Mathieu listened, mute with horror, and with his eyes fixed upon the sleeping child.
“No doubt folks say less about Rougemont nowadays than they used to,” the girl resumed; “but there’s still enough to disgust one. We know three or four baby-farmers who are not worth their salt. The rule is to bring the little ones up with the bottle, you know; and you’d be horrified if you saw what bottles they are — never cleaned, always filthy, with the milk inside them icy cold in the winter and sour in the summer. La Vimeux, for her part, thinks that the bottle system costs too much, and so she feeds her children on soup. That clears them off all the quicker. At La Loiseau’s you have to hold your nose when you go near the corner where the little ones sleep — their rags are so filthy. As for La Gavette, she’s always working in the fields with her man, so that the three or four nurslings that she generally has are left in charge of the grandfather, an old cripple of seventy, who can’t even prevent the fowls from coming to peck at the little ones.* And things are worse even at La Cauchois’, for, as she has nobody at all to mind the children when she goes out working, she leaves them tied in their cradles, for fear lest they should tumble out and crack their skulls. You might visit all the houses in the village, and you would find the same thing everywhere. There isn’t a house where the trade isn’t carried on. Round our part there are places where folks make lace, or make cheese, or make cider; but at Rougemont they only make dead bodies.”
* There is no exaggeration in what M. Zola writes on this subject.
I have even read in French Government reports of instances in
which nurslings have been devoured by pigs! And it is a well-known
saying in France that certain Norman and Touraine villages are
virtually “paved with little Parisians.” — Trans.
All at once she ceased sewing, and looked at Mathieu with her timid, clear eyes.
“But the worst of all,” she continued, “is La Couillard, an old thief who once did six months in prison, and who now lives a little way out of the village on the verge of the wood. No live child has ever left La Couillard’s. That’s her specialty. When you see an agent, like La Couteau, for instance, taking her a child, you know at once what’s in the wind. La Couteau has simply bargained that the little one shall die. It’s settled in a very easy fashion: the parents give a sum of three or four hundred francs on condition that the little one shall be kept till his first communion, and you may be quite certain that he dies within a week. It’s only necessary to leave a window open near him, as a nurse used to do whom my father knew. At winter time, when she had half a dozen babies in her house, she would set the door wide open and then go out for a stroll. And, by the way, that little boy in the next room, whom La Couteau has just gone to see, she’ll take him to La Couillard’s, I’m sure; for I heard the mother, Mademoiselle Rosine, agree with her the other day to give her a sum of four hundred francs down on the understanding that she should have nothing more to do in the matter.”
At this point Victoire ceased speaking, for La Couteau came in to fetch Norine’s child. Norine, who had emerged from her distress during the servant girl’s stories, had ended by listening to them with great interest. But directly she perceived the agent she once more hid her face in her pillows, as though she feared to see what was about to happen. Mathieu, on his side, had risen from his chair and stood there quivering.
“So it’s understood, I’m going to take the child,” said La Couteau. “Madame Bourdieu has given me a slip of paper bearing the date of the birth and the address. Only I ought to have some Christian names. What do you wish the child to be called?”
Norine did not at first answer. Then, in a faint distressful voice, she said: “Alexandre.”
“Alexandre, very well. But you would do better to give the boy a second Christian name, so as to identify him the more readily, if some day you take it into your head to run after him.”
It was again necessary to tear a reply from Norine. “Honore,” she said.
“Alexandre Honore — all right. That last name is yours, is it not?* And the first is the father’s? That is settled; and now I’ve everything I need. Only it’s four o’clock already, and I shall never get back in time for the six o’clock train if I don’t take a cab. It’s such a long way off — the other side of the Luxembourg. And a cab costs money. How shall we manage?”
* Norine is, of course, a diminutive of Honorine, which is the
feminine form of Honore. — Trans.
While she continued whining, to see if she could not extract a few francs from the distressed girl, it suddenly occurred to Mathieu to carry out his mission to the very end by driving with her himself to the Foundling