Damaged Goods
 The great play "Les avariés" by Brieux, novelized with the approval of the author

DAMAGED GOODS

The Great Play “Les Avaries” of Eugene Brieux

Novelized with the approval of the author

by Upton Sinclair

THE PRODUCTION OF EUGENE BRIEUX’S PLAY, “LES AVARIES,” OR, TO GIVE IT

ITS ENGLISH TITLE, “DAMAGED GOODS,” HAS INITIATED A MOVEMENT IN THIS

COUNTRY WHICH MUST BE REGARDED AS EPOCH-MAKING.--New York Times

+++Page 4 is a virtually unreadable letter in handwritten script from M.

Brieux.+++

PREFACE

My endeavor has been to tell a simple story, preserving as closely as

possible the spirit and feeling of the original. I have tried, as it

were, to take the play to pieces, and build a novel out of the same

material. I have not felt at liberty to embellish M. Brieux’s ideas, and

I have used his dialogue word for word wherever possible. Unless I have

mis-read the author, his sole purpose in writing LES AVARIES was to

place a number of most important facts before the minds of the public,

and to drive them home by means of intense emotion. If I have been able

to assist him, this bit of literary carpentering will be worth while. I

have to thank M. Brieux for his kind permission to make the attempt, and

for the cordial spirit which he has manifested.

Upton Sinclair

PRESS COMMENTS ON THE PLAY

DAMAGED GOODS was first presented in America at a Friday matinee on

March 14th, 1913, in the Fulton Theater, New York, before members of

the Sociological Fund. Immediately it was acclaimed by public press and

pulpit as the greatest contribution ever made by the Stage to the cause

of humanity. Mr. Richard Bennett, the producer, who had the courage to

present the play, with the aid of his co-workers, in the face of most

savage criticism from the ignorant, was overwhelmed with requests for a

repetition of the performance.

Before deciding whether of not to present DAMAGED GOODS before the

general public, it was arranged that the highest officials in the United

States should pass judgment upon the manner in which the play teaches

its vital lesson. A special guest performance for members of the

Cabinet, members of both houses of Congress, members of the United

States Supreme Court, representatives of the Diplomatic corps and others

prominent in national life was given in Washington, D.C.

Although the performance was given on a Sunday afternoon (April 6,

1913), the National Theater was crowded to the very doors with the most

distinguished audience ever assembled in America, including exclusively

the foremost men and women of the Capital. The most noted clergymen of

Washington were among the spectators.

The result of this remarkable performance was a tremendous endorsement

of the play and of the manner in which Mr. Bennett and his co-workers

were presenting it.

This reception resulted in the continuance of the New York performances

until mid-summer and is responsible for the decision on the part of Mr.

Bennett to offer the play in every city in America where citizens feel

that the ultimate welfare of the community is dependent upon a higher

standard of morality and clearer understanding of the laws of health.

The WASHINGTON POST, commenting on the Washington performance, said:

The play was presented with all the impressiveness of a sermon; with all

the vigor and dynamic force of a great drama; with all the earnestness

and power of a vital truth.

In many respects the presentation of this dramatization of a great

social evil assumed the aspects of a religious service. Dr. Donald C.

Macleod, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, mounted the rostrum

usually occupied by the leader of the orchestra, and announced that the

nature of the performance, the sacredness of the play, and the character

of the audience gave to the play the significance of a tremendous sermon

in behalf of mankind, and that as such it was eminently fitting that

a divine blessing be invoked. Dr. Earle Wilfley, pastor of the Vermont

Avenue Christian Church, asked all persons in the audience to bow

their heads in a prayer for the proper reception of the message to be

presented from the stage. Dr. MacLeod then read the Bernard Shaw preface

to the play, and asked that there be no applause during the performance,

a suggestion which was rigidly followed, thus adding greatly to the

effectiveness and the seriousness of the dramatic portrayal.

The impression made upon the audience by the remarkable play is

reflected in such comments as the following expressions voiced after the

performance:

RABBI SIMON, OF THE WASHINGTON HEBREW CONGREGATION--If I could preach

from my pulpit a sermon one tenth as powerful, as convincing, as

far-reaching, and as helpful as this performance of DAMAGED GOODS must

be, I would consider that I had achieved the triumph of my life.

COMMISSIONER CUNO H. RUDOLPH--I was deeply impressed by what I saw, and

I think that the drama should be repeated in every city, a matinee one

day for father and son and the next day for mother and daughter.

REV. EARLE WILFLEY--I am confirmed in the opinion that we must take up

our cudgels in a crusade against the modern problems brought to the

fore by DAMAGED GOODS. The report that these diseases are increasing is

enough to make us get busy on a campaign against them.

SURGEON GENERAL BLUE--It was a most striking and telling lesson. For

years we have been fighting these condition in the navy. It is high time

that civilians awakened to the dangers surrounding them and crusaded

against them in a proper manner.

MRS. ARCHIBALD HOPKINS--The play was a powerful presentation of a very

important question and was handled in a most admirable manner. The

drama is a fine entering wedge for this crusade and is bound to do

considerable good in conveying information of a very serious nature.

MINISTER PEZET, OF PERU--There can be no doubt but that the performance

will have great uplifting power, and accomplish the good for which it

was created. Fortunately, we do not have the prudery in South America

that you of the north possess, and have open minds to consider these

serious questions.

JUSTICE DANIEL THEW WRIGHT--I feel quite sure that DAMAGED GOODS will

have considerable effect in educating the people of the nature of the

danger that surrounds them.

SENATOR KERN, OF INDIANA--There can be no denial of the fact that it is

time to look at the serious problems presented in the play with an open

mind.

Brieux has been hailed by Bernard Shaw as “incomparably the greatest

writer France has produced since Moliere,” and perhaps no writer ever

wielded his pen more earnestly in the service of the race. To quote from

an article by Edwin E. Slosson in the INDEPENDENT:

Brieux is not one who believes that social evils are to be cured by laws

and yet more laws. He believes that most of the trouble is caused

by ignorance and urges education, public enlightenment and franker

recognition of existing conditions. All this may be needed, but still we

may well doubt its effectiveness as a remedy. The drunken Helot argument

is not a strong one, and those who lead a vicious life know more about

its risks than any teacher or preacher could tell them. Brieux also

urges the requirement of health certificates for marriage, such as many

clergymen now insist upon and which doubtless will be made compulsory

before long in many of our States.

Brieux paints in black colors yet is no fanatic; in fact, he will

be criticised by many as being too tolerant of human weakness. The

conditions of society and the moral standards of France are so different

from those of America that his point of view and his proposals for

reform will not meet with general acceptance, but it is encouraging to

find a dramatist who realizes the importance of being earnest and who

uses his art in defense of virtue instead of its destruction.

Other comments follow, showing the great interest manifested in the play

and the belief in the highest seriousness of its purpose:

There is no uncleanness in facts. The uncleanness is in the glamour, in

the secret imagination. It is in hints, half-truths, and suggestions the

threat to life lies.

This play puts the horrible truth in so living a way, with such clean,

artistic force, that the mind is impressed as it could possibly be

impressed in no other manner.

Best of all, it is the physician who dominates the action. There is no

sentimentalizing. There is no weak and morbid handling of the theme.

The doctor appears in his ideal function, as the modern high-priest of

truth. Around him writhe the victims of ignorance and the criminals

of conventional cruelty. Kind, stern, high-minded, clear-headed, yet

human-hearted, he towers over all, as the master.

This is as it should be. The man to say the word to save the world of

ignorant wretches, cursed by the clouds and darkness a mistaken modesty

has thrown around a life-and-death instinct, is the physician.

The only question is this: Is this play decent? My answer is that it is

the decentest play that has been in New York for a year. It is so decent

that it is religious.--HEARST’S MAGAZINE.

The play is, above all, a powerful plea for the tearing away of the veil

of mystery that has so universally shrouded this subject of the penalty

of sexual immorality. It is a plea for light on this hidden danger, that

fathers and mothers, young men and young women, may know the terrible

price that must be paid, not only by the generation that violates the

law, but by the generations to come. It is a serious question just how

the education of men and women, especially young men and young women, in

the vital matters of sex relationship should be carried on. One thing is

sure, however. The worst possible way is the one which has so often been

followed in the past--not to carry it on at all but to ignore it.--THE

OUTLOOK.

It (DAMAGED GOODS) is, of course, a masterpiece of “thesis drama,”--an

argument, dogmatic, insistent, inescapable, cumulative, between science

and common sense, on one side, and love, of various types, on the other.

It is what Mr. Bernard Shaw has called a “drama of discussion”; it

has the splendid movement of the best Shaw plays, unrelieved--and

undiluted--by Shavian paradox, wit, and irony. We imagine that many

audiences at the Fulton Theater were astonished at the play’s showing

of sheer strength as acted drama. Possibly it might not interest the

general public; probably it would be inadvisable to present it to them.

But no thinking person, with the most casual interest in current social

evils, could listen to the version of Richard Bennett, Wilton Lackaye,

and their associates, without being gripped by the power of Brieux’s

message.--THE DIAL.

It is a wonder that the world has been so long in getting hold of this

play, which is one of France’s most valuable contributions to the drama.

Its history is interesting. Brieux wrote it over ten years ago. Antoine

produced it at his theater and Paris immediately censored it, but soon

thought better of it and removed the ban. During the summer of 1910

it was played in Brussels before crowded houses, for then the city was

thronged with visitors to the exposition. Finally New York got it last

spring and eugenic enthusiasts and doctors everywhere have welcomed it.

--THE INDEPENDENT.

A letter to Mr. Bennett from Dr. Hills, Pastor of Plymouth Church,

Brooklyn.

23 Monroe Street Bklyn. August 1, 1913.

Mr. Richard Bennett, New York City, N.Y. My Dear Mr. Bennett:

During the past twenty-one years since I entered public life, I have

experienced many exciting hours under the influence of reformer, orator

and actor, but, in this mood of retrospection, I do not know that I

have ever passed through a more thrilling, terrible, and yet hopeful

experience than last evening, while I listened to your interpretation of

Eugene Brieux’ “DAMAGED GOODS.”

I have been following your work with ever deepening interest. It is not

too much to say that you have changed the thinking of the people of our

country as to the social evil. At last, thank God, this conspiracy of

silence is ended. No young man who sees “Damaged Goods” will ever be the

same again. If I wanted to build around an innocent boy buttresses of

fire and granite, and lend him triple armour against temptation and the

assaults of evil, I would put him for one evening under your influence.

That which the teacher, the preacher and the parent have failed to

accomplish it has been given to you to achieve. You have done a work for

which your generation owes you an immeasurable debt of gratitude.

I shall be delighted to have you use my Study of Social Diseases and

Heredity in connection with your great reform.

With all good wishes, I am, my dear Mr. Bennett, Faithfully yours,

Newell Dwight Hillis

CHAPTER I

It was four o’clock in the morning when George Dupont closed the door

and came down the steps to the street. The first faint streaks of dawn

were in the sky, and he noticed this with annoyance, because he knew

that his hair was in disarray and his whole aspect disorderly; yet he

dared not take a cab, because he feared to attract attention at home.

When he reached the sidewalk, he glanced about him to make sure that no

one had seen him leave the house, then started down the street, his eyes

upon the sidewalk before him.

George had the feeling of the morning after. There are few men in this

world of abundant sin who will not know what the phrase means. The fumes

of the night had evaporated; he was quite sober now, quite free from

excitement. He saw what he had done, and it seemed to him something

black and disgusting.

Never had a walk seemed longer than the few blocks which he had to

traverse to reach his home. He must get there before the maid was

up, before the baker’s boy called with the rolls; otherwise, what

explanation could he give?--he who had always been such a moral man, who

had been pointed out by mothers as an example to their sons.

George thought of his own mother, and what she would think if she could

know about his night’s adventure. He thought again and again, with a

pang of anguish, of Henriette. Could it be possible that a man who was

engaged, whose marriage contract had actually been signed, who was soon

to possess the love of a beautiful and noble girl--that such a man could

have been weak enough and base enough to let himself be trapped into

such a low action?

He went back over the whole series of events, shuddering at them, trying

to realize how they had happened, trying to excuse himself for them.

He had not intended such a culmination; he had never meant to do such a

thing in his life. He had not thought of any harm when he had accepted

the invitation to the supper party with his old companions from the law

school. Of course, he had known that several of these chums led “fast”

lives--but, then, surely a fellow could go to a friend’s rooms for a

lark without harm!

He remembered the girl who had sat by his side at the table. She had

come with a friend who was a married woman, and so he had assumed that

she was all right. George remembered how embarrassed he had been when

first he had noticed her glances at him. But then the wine had begun

to go to his head--he was one of those unfortunate wretches who cannot

drink wine at all. He had offered to take the girl home in a cab, and on

the way he had lost his head.

Oh! What a wretched thing it was. He could hardly believe that it was he

who had spoken those frenzied words; and yet he must have spoken them,

because he remembered them. He remembered that it had taken a long

time to persuade her. He had had to promise her a ring like the one her

married friend wore. Before they entered her home she had made him take

off his shoes, so that the porter might not hear them. This had struck

George particularly, because, even flushed with excitement as he was,

he had not forgotten the warnings his father had given him as to the

dangers of contact with strange women. He had thought to himself, “This

girl must be safe. It is probably the first time she has ever done such

a thing.”

But now George could get but little consolation out of that idea. He

was suffering intensely--the emotion described by the poet in the bitter

words about “Time’s moving finger having writ.” His mind, seeking some

explanation, some justification, went back to the events before that

night. With a sudden pang of yearning, he thought of Lizette. She was a

decent girl, and had kept him decent, and he was lonely without her. He

had been so afraid of being found out that he had given her up when he

became engaged; but now for a while he felt that he would have to break

his resolution, and pay his regular Sunday visit to the little flat in

the working-class portion of Paris.

It was while George was fitting himself for the same career as his

father--that of notary--that he had made the acquaintance of the young

working girl. It may not be easy to believe, but Lizette had really been

a decent girl. She had a family to take care of, and was in need. There

was a grandmother in poor health, a father not much better, and three

little brothers; so Lizette did not very long resist George Dupont, and

he felt quite virtuous in giving her sufficient money to take care of

these unfortunate people. Among people of his class it was considered

proper to take such things if one paid for them.

All the family of this working girl were grateful to him. They adored

him, and they called him Uncle Raoul (for of course he had not been so

foolish as to give them his true name).

Since George was paying for Lizette, he felt he had the right to control

her life. He gave her fair warning concerning his attitude. If she

deceived him he would leave her immediately. He told this to her

relatives also, and so he had them all watching her. She was never

trusted out alone. Every Sunday George went to spend the day with his

little “family,” so that his coming became almost a matter of tradition.

He interested her in church affairs--mass and vespers were her regular

occasions for excursions. George rented two seats, and the grandmother

went with her to the services. The simple people were proud to see their

name engraved upon the brass plate of the pew.

The reason for all these precautions was George’s terror of disease.

He had been warned by his father as to the dangers which young men

encounter in their amours. And these lessons had sunk deep into George’s

heart; he had made up his mind that whatever his friends might do, he,

for one, would protect himself.

That did not mean, of course, that he intended to live a virtuous life;

such was the custom among young men of his class, not had it probably

ever occurred to his father that it was possible for a young man to do

such a thing. The French have a phrase, “l’homme moyen sensuel”--the

average sensual man. And George was such a man. He had no noble

idealisms, no particular reverence for women. The basis of his attitude

was a purely selfish one; he wanted to enjoy himself, and at the same

time to keep out of trouble.

He did not find any happiness in the renunciation which he imposed

upon himself; he had no religious ideas about it. On the contrary,

he suffered keenly, and was bitter because he had no share in the

amusements of his friends. He stuck to his work and forced himself to

keep regular hours, preparing for his law examinations. But all the

time he was longing for adventures. And, of course, this could not go

on forever, for the motive of fear alone is not sufficient to subdue the

sexual urge in a full-blooded young man.

The affair with Lizette might have continued much longer had it not been

for the fact that his father died. He died quite suddenly, while George

was away on a trip. The son came back to console his broken-hearted

mother, and in the two week they spent in the country together the

mother broached a plan to him. The last wish of the dying man had

been that his son should be fixed in life. In the midst of his intense

suffering he had been able to think about the matter, and had named the

girl whom he wished George to marry. Naturally, George waited with some

interest to learn who this might be. He was surprised when his mother

told him that it was his cousin, Henriette Loches.

He could not keep his emotion from revealing itself in his face. “It

doesn’t please you?” asked his mother, with a tone disappointment.

“Why no, mother,” he answered. “It’s not that. It just surprises me.”

“But why?” asked the mother. “Henriette is a lovely girl and a good

girl.”

“Yes, I know,” said George; “but then she is my cousin, and--” He

blushed a little with embarrassment. “I had never thought of her in that

way.”

Madame Dupont laid her hand upon her son’s. “Yes, George,” she said

tenderly. “I know. You are such a good boy.”

Now, of course, George did not feel that he was quite such a good boy;

but his mother was a deeply religious woman, who had no idea of the

truth about the majority of men. She would never have got over the shock

if he had told her about himself, and so he had to pretend to be just

what she thought him.

“Tell me,” she continued, after a pause, “have you never felt the least

bit in love?”

“Why no--I don’t think so,” George stammered, becoming conscious of a

sudden rise of temperature in his cheeks.

“Because,” said his mother, “it is really time that you were settled in

life. Your father said that we should have seen to it before, and now it

is my duty to see to it. It is not good for you to live alone so long.”

“But, mother, I have YOU,” said George generously.

“Some day the Lord may take me away,” was the reply. “I am getting

old. And, George, dear--” Here suddenly her voice began to tremble with

feeling--“I would like to see my baby grandchildren before I go. You

cannot imagine what it would mean to me.”

Madame Dupont saw how much this subject distressed her son, so she went

on to the more worldly aspects of the matter. Henriette’s father was

well-to-do, and he would give her a good dowry. She was a charming and

accomplished girl. Everybody would consider him most fortunate if the

match could be arranged. Also, there was an elderly aunt to whom Madame

Dupont had spoken, and who was much taken with the idea. She owned a

great deal of property and would surely help the young couple.

George did not see just how he could object to this proposition, even if

he had wanted to. What reason could he give for such a course? He could

not explain that he already had a family--with stepchildren, so to

speak, who adored him. And what could he say to his mother’s obsession,

to which she came back again and again--her longing to see her

grandchildren before she died? Madame Dupont waited only long enough for

George to stammer out a few protestations, and then in the next breath

to take them back; after which she proceeded to go ahead with the match.

The family lawyers conferred together, and the terms of the settlement

were worked out and agreed upon. It happened that immediately afterwards

George learned of an opportunity to purchase the practice of a notary,

who was ready to retire from business in two months’ time. Henriette’s

father consented to advance a portion of her dowry for this purpose.

Thus George was safely started upon the same career as his father, and

this was to him a source of satisfaction which he did not attempt to

deny, either to himself of to any one else. George was a cautious young

man, who came of a frugal and saving stock. He had always been taught

that it was his primary duty to make certain of a reasonable amount of

comfort. From his earliest days, he had been taught to regard material

success as the greatest goal in life, and he would never have dreamed

of engaging himself to a girl without money. But when he had the good

fortune to meet one who possessed desirable personal qualities in

addition to money, he was not in the least barred from appreciating

those qualities. They were, so to speak, the sauce which went with the

meat, and it seemed to him that in this case the sauce was of the very

best.

George--a big fellow of twenty-six, with large, round eyes and a

good-natured countenance--was full blooded, well fed, with a hearty

laugh which spoke of unimpaired contentment, a soul untroubled in its

deeps. He seemed to himself the luckiest fellow in the whole round

world; he could not think what he had done to deserve the good fortune

of possessing such a girl as Henriette. He was ordinarily of a somewhat

sentimental turn--easily influenced by women and sensitive to their

charms. Moreover, his relationship with Lizette had softened him. He had

learned to love the young working girl, and now Henriette, it seemed,

was to reap the benefit of his experience with her.

In fact, he found himself always with memories of Lizette in his

relationships with the girl who was to be his wife. When the engagement

was announced, and he claimed his first kiss from his bride-to-be, as

he placed a ring upon her finger, he remembered the first time he had

kissed Lizette, and a double blush suffused his round countenance. When

he walked arm and arm with Henriette in the garden he remembered how he

had walked just so with the other girl, and he was interested to compare

the words of the two. He remembered what a good time had had when he

had taken Lizette and her little family for a picnic upon one of the

excursion steamers which run down the River Seine. Immediately he

decided that he would like to take Henriette on such a picnic, and he

persuaded an aunt of Henriette’s to go with her as a chaperon. George

took his bride-to-be to the same little inn where he had lunch before.

Thus he was always haunted by memories, some of which made him cheerful

and some of which made him mildly sad. He soon got used to the idea, and

did not find it awkward, except when he had to suppress the impulse to

tell Henriette something which Lizette had said, or some funny incident

which had happened in the home of the little family. Sometimes he found

himself thinking that it was a shame to have to suppress these impulses.

There must be something wrong, he thought, with a social system which

made it necessary for him to hide a thing which was so obvious and so

sensible. Here he was, a man twenty-six years of age; he could not

have afforded to marry earlier, nor could he, as he thought, have been

expected to lead a continent life. And he had really loved Lizette; she

was really a good girl. Yet, if Henriette had got any idea of it, she

would have been horrified and indignant--she might even have broken off

the engagement.

And then, too, there was Henriette’s father, a personage of great

dignity and importance. M. Loches was a deputy of the French Parliament,

from a district in the provinces. He was a man of upright life, and a

man who made a great deal of that upright life--keeping it on a pedestal

where everyone might observe it. It was impossible to imagine M. Loches

in an undignified or compromising situation--such as the younger man

found himself facing in the matter of Lizette.

The more he thought about it the more nervous and anxious George became.

Then it was decided it would be necessary for him to break with

the girl, and be “good” until the time of his marriage. Dear little

soft-eyed Lizette--he did not dare to face her personally; he could

never bear to say good-by, he felt. Instead, he went to the father,

who as a man could be expected to understand the situation. George was

embarrassed and not a little nervous about it; for although he had never

misrepresented his attitude to the family, one could never feel entirely

free from the possibility of blackmail in such cases. However, Lizette’s

father behaved decently, and was duly grateful for the moderate sum of

money which George handed him in parting. He promised to break the news

gently to Lizette, and George went away with his mind made up that he

would never see her again.

This resolution he kept, and he considered himself very virtuous in

doing it. But the truth was that he had grown used to intimacy with a

woman, and was restless without it. And that, he told himself, was why

he yielded to the shameful temptation the night of that fatal supper

party.

He paid for the misadventure liberally in remorse. He felt that he had

been a wretch, that he had disgraced himself forever, that he had proved

himself unworthy of the pure girl he was to marry. So keen was his

feeling that it was several days before he could bring himself to see

Henriette again; and when he went, it was with a mind filled with a

brand-new set of resolutions. It was the last time that he would ever

fall into error. He would be a new man from then on. He thanked God

that there was no chance of his sin being known, that he might have an

opportunity to prove his new determination.

So intense were his feelings that he could not help betraying a part of

them to Henriette. They sat in the garden one soft summer evening, with

Henriette’s mother occupied with her crocheting at a decorous distance.

George, in reverent and humble mood, began to drop vague hints that he

was really unworthy of his bride-to-be. He said that he had not always

been as good as he should have been; he said that her purity and

sweetness had awakened in him new ideals; so that he felt his old life

had been full of blunders. Henriette, of course, had but the vaguest of

ideas as to what the blunders of a tender and generous young man like

George might be. So she only loved him the more for his humility, and

was flattered to have such a fine effect upon him, to awaken in him such

moods of exaltation. When he told her that all men were bad, and that

no man was worthy of such a beautiful love, she was quite ravished, and

wiped away tears from her eyes.

It would have been a shame to spoil such a heavenly mood by telling the

real truth. Instead, George contented himself with telling of the new

resolutions he had formed. After all, they were the things which really

mattered; for Henriette was going to live with his future, not with his

past.

It seemed to George a most wonderful thing, this innocence of a young

girl, which enabled her to move through a world of wickedness with

unpolluted mind. It was a touching thing; and also, as a prudent young

man could not help realizing, a most convenient thing. He realized the

importance of preserving it, and thought that if he ever had a daughter,

he would protect her as rigidly as Henriette had been protected. He

made haste to shy off from the subject of his “badness” and to turn the

conversation with what seemed a clever jest.

“If I am going to be so good,” he said, “don’t forget that you will have

to be good also!”

“I will try,” said Henriette, who was still serious.

“You will have to try hard,” he persisted. “You will find that you have

a very jealous husband.”

“Will I?” said Henriette, beaming with happiness--for when a woman is

very much in love she doesn’t in the least object to the man’s being

jealous.

“Yes, indeed,” smiled George. “I’ll always be watching you.”

“Watching me?” echoed the girl with a surprised look.

And immediately he felt ashamed of himself for his jest. There could be

no need to watch Henriette, and it was bad taste even to joke about it

at such a time. That was one of the ideas which he had brought with him

from his world of evil.

The truth was, however, that George would always be a suspicious

husband; nothing could ever change that fact, for there was something in

his own conscience which he could not get out, and which would make it

impossible for him to be at ease as a married man. It was the memory of

something which had happened earlier in his life before he met Lizette.

There had been one earlier experience, with the wife of his dearest

friend. She had been much younger than her husband, and had betrayed an

interest in George, who had yielded to the temptation. For several years

the intrigue continued, and George considered it a good solution of a

young man’s problem. There had been no danger of contamination, for he

knew that his friend was a man of pure and rigid morals, a jealous

man who watched his wife, and did not permit her to contract those new

relations which are always dangerous. As for George, he helped in this

worthy work, keeping the woman in terror of some disease. He told her

that almost all men were infected, for he hoped by this means to keep

her from deceiving him.

I am aware that this may seem a dreadful story. As I do not want anyone

to think too ill of George Dupont, I ought, perhaps, to point out that

people feel differently about these matters in France. In judging the

unfortunate young man, we must judge him by the customs of his own

country, and not by ours. In France, they are accustomed to what is

called the MARIAGE DE CONVENANCE. The young girl is not permitted to go

about and make her own friends and decide which one of them she prefers

for her husband; on the contrary, she is strictly guarded, her training

often is of a religious nature, and her marriage is a matter of

business, to be considered and decided by her parents and those of the

young man. Now, whatever we may think right, it is humanly certain that

where marriages are made in that way, the need of men and women for

sympathy and for passionate interest will often lead to the forming of

irregular relationships after marriage. It is not possible to present

statistics as to the number of such irregular relationships in Parisian

society; but in the books which he read and in the plays which he saw,

George found everything to encourage him to think that it was a romantic

and delightful thing to keep up a secret intrigue with the wife of his

best friend.

It should also, perhaps, be pointed out that we are here telling the

truth, and the whole truth, about George Dupont; and that it is not

customary to tell this about men, either in real life or in novels.

There is a great deal of concealment in the world about matters of sex;

and in such matters the truth-telling man is apt to suffer in reputation

in comparison with the truth-concealing one.

Nor had George really been altogether callous about the thing. It had

happened that his best friend had died in his arms; and this had so

affected the guilty pair that they had felt their relationship was no

longer possible. She had withdrawn to nurse her grief alone, and

George had been so deeply affected that he had avoided affairs and

entanglements with women until his meeting with Lizette.

All this was now in the far distant past, but it had made a deeper

impression upon George than he perhaps realized, and it was now working

in his mind and marring his happiness. Here was a girl who loved him

with a noble and unselfish and whole-hearted love--and yet he would

never be able to trust her as she deserved, but would always have

suspicions lurking in the back of his mind. He would be unable to have

his friends intimate in his home, because of the memory of what he had

once done to a friend. It was a subtle kind of punishment. But so it

is that Nature often finds ways of punishing us, without our even being

aware of it.

That was all for the future, however. At present, George was happy. He

put his black sin behind him, feeling that he had obtained absolution

by his confession to Henriette. Day by day, as he realized his good

fortune, his round face beamed with more and yet more joy.

He went for a little trip to Henriette’s home in the country. It was

a simple village, and they took walks in the country, and stopped to

refresh themselves at a farmhouse occupied by one of M. Loches’ tenants.

Here was a rosy and buxom peasant woman, with a nursing child in her

arms. She was destined a couple of years later to be the foster-mother

of Henriette’s little girl and to play an important part in her life.

But the pair had no idea of that at present. They simply saw a proud

and happy mother, and Henriette played with the baby, giving vent to

childish delight. Then suddenly she looked up and saw that George was

watching her, and as she read his thoughts a beautiful blush suffused

her cheeks.

As for George, he turned away and went out under the blue sky in a kind

of ecstasy. Life seemed very wonderful to him just then; he had found

its supreme happiness, which was love. He was really getting quite mad

about Henriette, he told himself. He could hardly believe that the day

was coming when he would be able to clasp her in his arms.

But in the blue sky of George’s happiness there was one little cloud of

storm. As often happens with storm-clouds, it was so small that at first

he paid no attention to it at all.

He noted upon his body one day a tiny ulcer. At first he treated it with

salve purchased from an apothecary. Then after a week or two, when this

had no effect, he began to feel uncomfortable. He remembered suddenly he

had heard about the symptoms of an unmentionable, dreadful disease, and

a vague terror took possession of him.

For days he tried to put it to one side. The idea was nonsense, it was

absurd in connection with a woman so respectable! But the thought would

not be put away, and finally he went to a school friend, who was a man

of the world, and got him to talk on the subject. Of course, George had

to be careful, so that his friend should not suspect that he had any

special purpose in mind.

The friend was willing to talk. It was a vile disease, he said; but one

was foolish to bother about it, because it was so rare. There were other

diseases which fellows got, which nearly every fellow had, and to which

none of them paid any attention. But one seldom met anyone who had the

red plague that George dreaded.

“And yet,” he added, “according to the books, it isn’t so uncommon.

I suppose the truth is that people hide it. A chap naturally wouldn’t

tell, when he knew it would damn him for life.”

George had a sick sensation inside of him. “Is it as bad as that?” he

asked.

“Of course,” said the other, “Should you want to have anything to do

with a person who had it? Should you be willing to room with him or

travel with him? You wouldn’t even want to shake hands with him!”

“No, I suppose not,” said George, feebly.

“I remember,” continued the other, “an old fellow who used to live out

in the country near me. He was not so very old, either, but he looked

it. He had to be pushed around in a wheel-chair. People said he had

locomotor ataxia, but that really meant syphilis. We boys used to poke

all kinds of fun at him because one windy day his hat and his wig were

blown off together, and we discovered that he was as bald as an egg.

We used to make jokes about his automobile, as we called it. It had a

little handle in front, instead of a steering-wheel, and a man behind to

push, instead of an engine.”

“How horrible!” remarked George with genuine feeling.

“I remember the poor devil had a paralysis soon after,” continued the

friend, quite carelessly. “He could not steer any more, and also he lost

his voice. When you met him he would look at you as it he thought he was

talking, but all he could say was ‘Ga-ga-ga’.”

George went away from this conversation in a cold sweat. He told himself

over and over again that he was a fool, but still he could not get the

hellish idea out of his mind. He found himself brooding over it all day

and lying awake at night, haunted by images of himself in a wheel-chair,

and without any hair on his head. He realized that the sensible thing

would be for him to go to a doctor and make certain about his condition;

but he could not bring himself to face the ordeal--he was ashamed to

admit to a doctor that he had laid himself open to such a taint.

He began to lose the radiant expression from his round and rosy face. He

had less appetite, and his moods of depression became so frequent that

he could not hide then even from Henriette. She asked him once or twice

if there were not something the matter with him, and he laughed--a

forced and hurried laugh--and told her that he had sat up too late the

night before, worrying over the matter of his examinations. Oh, what a

cruel thing it was that a man who stood in the very gateway of such

a garden of delight should be tormented and made miserable by this

loathsome idea!

The disturbing symptom still continued, and so at last George purchased

a medical book, dealing with the subject of the disease. Then, indeed,

he opened up a chamber of horrors; he made up his mind an abiding place

of ghastly images. In the book there were pictures of things so awful

that he turned white, and trembled like a leaf, and had to close the

volume and hide it in the bottom of his trunk. But he could not banish

the pictures from his mind. Worst of all, he could not forget the

description of the first symptom of the disease, which seemed to

correspond exactly with his own. So at last he made up his mind he must

ascertain definitely the truth about his condition.

He began to think over plans for seeing a doctor. He had heard somewhere

a story about a young fellow who had fallen into the hands of a quack,

and been ruined forever. So he decided that he would consult only the

best authority.

He got the names of the best-known works on the subject from a

bookstore, and found that the author of one of these books was

practicing in Paris as a specialist. Two or three days elapsed before he

was able to get up the courage to call on this doctor. And oh, the shame

and horror of sitting in his waiting-room with the other people, none of

whom dared to look each other in the eyes! They must all be afflicted,

George thought, and he glanced at them furtively, looking for the

various symptoms of which he had read. Or were there, perhaps, some like

himself--merely victims of a foolish error, coming to have the hag of

dread pulled from off their backs?

And then suddenly, while he was speculating, there stood the doctor,

signaling to him. His turn had come!

CHAPTER II

The doctor was a man about forty years of age, robust, with every

appearance of a strong character. In the buttonhole of the frock coat

he wore was a red rosette, the decoration of some order. Confused and

nervous as George was, he got a vague impression of the physician’s

richly furnished office, with its bronzes, marbles and tapestries.

The doctor signaled to the young man to be seated in the chair before

his desk. George complied, and then, as he wiped away the perspiration

from his forehead, stammered out a few words, explaining his errand. Of

course, he said, it could not be true, but it was a man’s duty not

to take any chances in such a matter. “I have not been a man of loose

life,” he added; “I have not taken so many chances as other men.”

The doctor cut him short with the brief remark that one chance was all

that was necessary. Instead of discussing such questions, he would make

an examination. “We do not say positively in these cases until we have

made a blood test. That is the one way to avoid the possibility of

mistake.”

A drop of blood was squeezed out of George’s finger on to a little glass

plate. The doctor retired to an adjoining room, and the victim sat

alone in the office, deriving no enjoyment from the works of art which

surrounded him, but feeling like a prisoner who sits in the dock with

his life at stake while the jury deliberates.

The doctor returned, calm and impassive, and seated himself in his

office-chair.

“Well, doctor?” asked George. He was trembling with terror.

“Well,” was the reply, “there is no doubt whatever.”

George wiped his forehead. He could not credit the words. “No doubt

whatever? In what sense?”

“In the bad sense,” said the other.

He began to write a prescription, without seeming to notice how George

turned page with terror. “Come,” he said, after a silence, “you must

have known the truth pretty well.”

“No, no, sir!” exclaimed George.

“Well,” said the other, “you have syphilis.”

George was utterly stunned. “My God!” he exclaimed.

The doctor, having finished his prescription, looked up and observed his

condition. “Don’t trouble yourself, sir. Out of every seven men you meet

upon the street, in society, or at the theater, there is at least one

who has been in your condition. One out of seven--fifteen per cent!”

George was staring before him. He spoke low, as if to himself. “I know

what I am going to do.”

“And I know also,” said the doctor, with a smile. “There is your

prescription. You are going to take it to the drugstore and have it put

up.”

George took the prescription, mechanically, but whispered, “No, sir.”

“Yes, sir, you are going to do as everybody else does.”

“No, because my situation is not that of everybody else. I know what I

am going to do.”

Said the doctor: “Five times out of ten, in the chair where you are

sitting, people talk like that, perfectly sincerely. Each one believes

himself more unhappy than all the others; but after thinking it over,

and listening to me, they understand that this disease is a companion

with whom one can live. Just as in every household, one gets along at

the cost of mutual concessions, that’s all. Come, sir, I tell you again,

there is nothing about it that is not perfectly ordinary, perfectly

natural, perfectly common; it is an accident which can happen to any

one. It is a great mistake that people speak if this as the ‘French

Disease,’ for there is none which is more universal. Under the picture

of this disease, addressing myself to those who follow the oldest

profession in the world, I would write the famous phrase: ‘Here is your

master. It is, it was, or it must be.’”

George was putting the prescription into the outside pocket of his

coat, stupidly, as if he did not know what he was doing. “But, sir,” he

exclaimed, “I should have been spared!”

“Why?” inquired the other. “Because you are a man of position, because

you are rich? Look around you, sir. See these works of art in my

room. Do you imagine that such things have been presented to me by

chimney-sweeps?”

“But, Doctor,” cried George, with a moan, “I have never been a

libertine. There was never any one, you understand me, never any one

could have been more careful in his pleasures. If I were to tell you

that in all my life I have only had two mistresses, what would you

answer to that?”

“I would answer, that a single one would have been sufficient to bring

you to me.”

“No, sir!” cried George. “It could not have been either of those women.”

He went on to tell the doctor about his first mistress, and then about

Lizette. Finally he told about Henriette, how much he adored her. He

could really use such a word--he loved her most tenderly. She was so

good--and he had thought himself so lucky!

As he went on, he could hardly keep from going to pieces. “I had

everything,” he exclaimed, “everything a man needed! All who knew me

envied me. And then I had to let those fellows drag me off to that

miserable supper-party! And now here I am! My future is ruined, my whole

existence poisoned! What is to become of me? Everybody will avoid me--I

shall be a pariah, a leper!”

He paused, and then in sudden wild grief exclaimed, “Come, now! Would

it not be better that I should take myself out of the way? At least, I

should not suffer any more. You see that there could not be any one

more unhappy than myself--not any one, I tell you, sir, not any one!”

Completely overcome, he began to weep in his handkerchief.

The doctor got up, and went to him. “You must be a man,” he said, “and

not cry like a child.”

“But sir,” cried the young man, with tears running down his cheeks,

“if I had led a wild life, if I had passed my time in dissipation with

chorus girls, then I could understand it. Then I would say that I had

deserved it.”

The doctor exclaimed with emphasis, “No, no! You would not say it.

However, it is of no matter--go on.”

“I tell you that I would say it. I am honest, and I would say that I

had deserved it. But no, I have worked, I have been a regular grind. And

now, when I think of the shame that is in store for me, the disgusting

things, the frightful catastrophes to which I am condemned--”

“What is all this you are telling me?” asked the doctor, laughing.

“Oh, I know, I know!” cried the other, and repeated what his friend

had told him about the man in a wheel-chair. “And they used to call me

handsome Raoul! That was my name--handsome Raoul!”

“Now, my dear sir,” said the doctor, cheerfully, “wipe your eyes one

last time, blow your nose, put your handkerchief into your pocket, and

hear me dry-eyed.”

George obeyed mechanically. “But I give you fair warning,” he said, “you

are wasting your time.”

“I tell you--” began the other.

“I know exactly what you are going to tell me!” cried George.

“Well, in that case, there is nothing more for you to do here--run

along.”

“Since I am here,” said the patient submissively, “I will hear you.”

“Very well, then. I tell you that if you have the will and the

perseverance, none of the things you fear will happen to you.”

“Of course, it is your duty to tell me that.”

“I will tell you that there are one hundred thousand like you in

Paris, alert, and seemingly well. Come, take what you were just

saying--wheel-chairs. One doesn’t see so many of them.”

“No, that’s true,” said George.

“And besides,” added the doctor, “a good many people who ride in them

are not there for the cause you think. There is no more reason why

you should be the victim of a catastrophe than any of the one hundred

thousand. The disease is serious, nothing more.”

“You admit that it is a serious disease?” argued George.

“Yes.”

“One of the most serious?”

“Yes, but you have the good fortune--”

“The GOOD fortune?”

“Relatively, if you please. You have the good fortune to be infected

with one of the diseases over which we have the most certain control.”

“Yes, yes,” exclaimed George, “but the remedies are worse than the

disease.”

“You deceive yourself,” replied the other.

“You are trying to make me believe that I can be cured?”

“You can be.”

“And that I am not condemned?”

“I swear it to you.”

“You are not deceiving yourself, you are not deceiving me? Why, I was

told--”

The doctor laughed, contemptuously. “You were told, you were told! I’ll

wager that you know the laws of the Chinese concerning party-walls.”

“Yes, naturally,” said George. “But I don’t see what they have to do

with it.”

“Instead of teaching you such things,” was the reply, “it would have

been a great deal better to have taught you about the nature and cause

of diseases of this sort. Then you would have known how to avoid the

contagion. Such knowledge should be spread abroad, for it is the

most important knowledge in the world. It should be found in every

newspaper.”

This remark gave George something of a shock, for his father had owned

a little paper in the provinces, and he had a sudden vision of the way

subscribers would have fallen off, if he had printed even so much as the

name of this vile disease.

“And yet,” pursued the doctor, “you publish romances about adultery!”

“Yes,” said George, “that’s what the readers want.”

“They don’t want the truth about venereal diseases,” exclaimed the

other. “If they knew the full truth, they would no longer think that

adultery was romantic and interesting.”

He went on to give his advice as to the means of avoiding such diseases.

There was really but one rule. It was: To love but one woman, to take

her as a virgin, and to love her so much that she would never deceive

you. “Take that from me,” added the doctor, “and teach it to your son,

when you have one.”

George’s attention was caught by this last sentence.

“You mean that I shall be able to have children?” he cried.

“Certainly,” was the reply.

“Healthy children?”

“I repeat it to you; if you take care of yourself properly for a long

time, conscientiously, you have little to fear.”

“That’s certain?”

“Ninety-nine times out of a hundred.”

George felt as if he had suddenly emerged from a dungeon. “Why, then,”

he exclaimed, “I shall be able to marry!”

“You will be able to marry,” was the reply.

“You are not deceiving me? You would not give me that hope, you would

not expose me? How soon will I be able to marry?”

“In three or four years,” said the doctor.

“What!” cried George in consternation. “In three or four years? Not

before?”

“Not before.”

“How is that? Am I going to be sick all that time? Why, you told me just

now--”

Said the doctor: “The disease will no longer be dangerous to you,

yourself--but you will be dangerous to others.”

“But,” the young man cried, in despair, “I am to be married a month from

now.”

“That is impossible.”

“But I cannot do any differently. The contract is ready! The banns have

been published! I have given my word!”

“Well, you are a great one!” the doctor laughed. “Just now you were

looking for your revolver! Now you want to be married within the month.”

“But, Doctor, it is necessary!”

“But I forbid it.”

“As soon as I knew that the disease is not what I imagined, and that I

could be cured, naturally I didn’t want to commit suicide. And as soon

as I make up my mind not to commit suicide, I have to take up my regular

life. I have to keep my engagements; I have to get married.”

“No,” said the doctor.

“Yes, yes!” persisted George, with blind obstinacy. “Why, Doctor, if I

didn’t marry it would be a disaster. You are talking about something

you don’t understand. I, for my part--it is not that I am anxious to be

married. As I told you, I had almost a second family. Lizette’s little

brothers adored me. But it is my aunt, an old maid; and, also, my mother

is crazy about the idea. If I were to back out now, she would die of

chagrin. My aunt would disinherit me, and she is the one who has the

family fortune. Then, too, there is my father-in-law, a regular dragoon

for his principles--severe, violent. He never makes a joke of serious

things, and I tell you it would cost me dear, terribly dear. And,

besides, I have given my word.”

“You must take back your word.”

“You still insist?” exclaimed George, in despair. “But then, suppose

that it were possible, how could I take back my signature which I put at

the bottom of the deed? I have pledged myself to pay in two months for

the attorney’s practice I have purchased!”

“Sir,” said the doctor, “all these things--”

“You are going to tell me that I was lacking in prudence, that I should

never have disposed of my wife’s dowry until after the honeymoon!”

“Sir,” said the doctor, again, “all these considerations are foreign to

me. I am a physician, and nothing but a physician, and I can only

tell you this: If you marry before three or four years, you will be a

criminal.”

George broke out with a wild exclamation. “No sir, you are not merely a

physician! You are also a confessor! You are not merely a scientist; and

it is not enough for you that you observe me as you would some lifeless

thing in your laboratory, and say, ‘You have this; science says that;

now go along with you.’ All my existence depends upon you. It is

your duty to listen to me, because when you know everything you will

understand me, and you will find some way to cure me within a month.”

“But,” protested the doctor, “I wear myself out telling you that such

means do not exist. I shall not be certain of your cure, as much as any

one can be certain, in less than three or four years.”

George was almost beside himself. “I tell you you must find some means!

Listen to me, sir--if I don’t get married I don’t get the dowry! And

will you tell me how I can pay the notes I have signed?”

“Oh,” said the doctor, dryly, “if that is the question, it is very

simple--I will give you a plan to get out of the affair. You will go

and get acquainted with some rich man; you will do everything you can to

gain his confidence; and when you have succeeded, you will plunder him.”

George shook his head. “I am not in any mood for joking.”

“I am not joking,” replied his adviser. “Rob that man, assassinate him

even--that would be no worse crime than you would commit in taking a

young girl in good health in order to get a portion of her dowry,

when at the same time you would have to expose her to the frightful

consequences of the disease which you would give her.”

“Frightful consequences?” echoed George.

“Consequences of which death would not be the most frightful.”

“But, sir, you were saying to me just now--”

“Just now I did not tell you everything. Even reduced, suppressed a

little by our remedies, the disease remains mysterious, menacing, and

in its sum, sufficiently grave. So it would be an infamy to expose your

fiancee in order to avoid an inconvenience, however great that might

be.”

But George was still not to be convinced. Was it certain that this

misfortune would befall Henriette, even with the best attention?

Said the other: “I do not wish to lie to you. No, it is not absolutely

certain, it is probable. And there is another truth which I wish to

tell you now: our remedies are not infallible. In a certain number of

cases--a very small number, scarcely five per cent--they have remained

without effect. You might be one of those exceptions, your wife might be

one. What then?”

“I will employ a word you used just now, yourself. We should have to

expect the worst catastrophes.”

George sat in a state of complete despair.

“Tell me what to do, then,” he said.

“I can tell you only one thing: don’t marry. You have a most serious

blemish. It is as if you owed a debt. Perhaps no one will ever come to

claim it; on the other hand, perhaps a pitiless creditor will come all

at once, presenting a brutal demand for immediate payment. Come now--you

are a business man. Marriage is a contract; to marry without saying

anything--that means to enter into a bargain by means of passive

dissimulation. That’s the term, is it not? It is dishonesty, and it

ought to come under the law.”

George, being a lawyer, could appreciate the argument, and could think

of nothing to say to it.

“What shall I do?” he asked.

The other answered, “Go to your father-in-law and tell him frankly the

truth.”

“But,” cried the young man, wildly, “there will be no question then of

three or four years’ delay. He will refuse his consent altogether.”

“If that is the case,” said the doctor, “don’t tell him anything.”

“But I have to give him a reason, or I don’t know what he will do. He

is the sort of man to give himself to the worst violence, and again my

fiancee would be lost to me. Listen, doctor. From everything I have said

to you, you may perhaps think I am a mercenary man. It is true that I

want to get along in the world, that is only natural. But Henriette has

such qualities; she is so much better than I, that I love her, really,

as people love in novels. My greatest grief--it is not to give up the

practice I have bought--although, indeed, it would be a bitter blow to

me; my greatest grief would be to lose Henriette. If you could only see

her, if you only knew her--then you would understand. I have her picture

here--”

The young fellow took out his card-case. And offered a photograph to the

doctor, who gently refused it. The other blushed with embarrassment.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “I am ridiculous. That happens to me,

sometimes. Only, put yourself in my place--I love her so!” His voice

broke.

“My dear boy,” said the doctor, feelingly, “that is exactly why you

ought not to marry her.”

“But,” he cried, “if I back out without saying anything they will guess

the truth, and I shall be dishonored.”

“One is not dishonored because one is ill.”

“But with such a disease! People are so stupid. I myself, yesterday--I

should have laughed at anyone who had got into such a plight; I should

have avoided him, I should have despised him!” And suddenly George

broke down again. “Oh!” he cried, “if I were the only one to suffer; but

she--she is in love with me. I swear it to you! She is so good; and she

will be so unhappy!”

The doctor answered, “She would be unhappier later on.”

“It will be a scandal!” George exclaimed.

“You will avoid one far greater,” the other replied.

Suddenly George set his lips with resolution. He rose from his seat. He

took several twenty-franc pieces from his pocket and laid them quietly

upon the doctor’s desk--paying the fee in cash, so that he would not

have to give his name and address. He took up his gloves, his cane and

his hat, and rose.

“I will think it over,” he said. “I thank you, Doctor. I will come back

next week as you have told me. That is--probably I will.”

He was about to leave.

The doctor rose, and he spoke in a voice of furious anger. “No,” he

said, “I shan’t see you next week, and you won’t even think it over. You

came here knowing what you had; you came to ask advice of me, with the

intention of paying no heed to it, unless it conformed to your wishes.

A superficial honesty has driven you to take that chance in order to

satisfy your conscience. You wanted to have somebody upon whom you could

put off, bye and bye, the consequences of an act whose culpability you

understand! No, don’t protest! Many of those who come here think and act

as you think, and as you wish to act; but the marriage made against

my will has generally been the source of such calamities that now I am

always afraid of not having been persuasive enough, and it even seems to

me that I am a little to blame for these misfortunes. I should have been

able to prevent them; they would not have happened if those who are the

authors of them knew what I know and had seen what I have seen. Swear to

me, sir, that you are going to break off that marriage!”

George was greatly embarrassed, and unwilling to reply. “I cannot swear

to you at all, Doctor; I can only tell you again that I will think it

over.”

“That WHAT over?”

“What you have told me.”

“What I have told you is true! You cannot bring any new objections; and

I have answered those which you have presented to me; therefore, your

mind ought to be made up.”

Groping for a reply, George hesitated. He could not deny that he had

made inquiry about these matters before he had come to the doctor. But

he said that he was not al all certain that he had this disease. The

doctor declared it, and perhaps it was true, but the most learned

physicians were sometimes deceived.

He remembered something he had read in one of the medical books. “Dr.

Ricord maintains that after a certain period the disease is no longer

contagious. He has proven his contentions by examples. Today you produce

new examples to show that he is wrong! Now, I want to do what’s right,

but surely I have the right to think it over. And when I think it

over, I realize that all the evils with which you threaten me are only

probable evils. In spite of your desire to terrify me, you have been

forced to admit that possibly my marriage would not have any troublesome

consequence for my wife.”

The doctor found difficulty in restraining himself. But he said, “Go on.

I will answer you afterwards.”

And George blundered ahead in his desperation. “Your remedies are

powerful, you tell me; and for the calamities of which you speak to

befall me, I would have to be among the rare exceptions--also my

wife would have to be among the number of those rare exceptions. If a

mathematician were to apply the law of chance to these facts, the result

of his operation would show but slight chance of a catastrophe, as

compared with the absolute certainty of a series of misfortunes,

sufferings, troubles, tears, and perhaps tragic accidents which

the breaking of my engagement would cause. So I say that the

mathematician--who is, even more than you, a man of science, a man of

a more infallible science--the mathematician would conclude that wisdom

was not with you doctors, but with me.”

“You believe it, sir!” exclaimed the other. “But you deceive yourself.”

And he continued, driving home his point with a finger which seemed to

George to pierce his very soul. “Twenty cases identical with your own

have been patiently observed, from the beginning to the end. Nineteen

times the woman was infected by her husband; you hear me, sir, nineteen

times out of twenty! You believe that the disease is without danger, and

you take to yourself the right to expose your wife to what you call the

chance of your being one of those exceptions, for whom our remedies

are without effect. Very well; it is necessary that you should know the

disease which your wife, without being consulted, will run a chance of

contracting. Take that book, sir; it is the work of my teacher. Read it

yourself. Here, I have marked the passage.”

He held out the open book; but George could not lift a hand to take it.

“You do not wish to read it?” the other continued. “Listen to me.”

And in a voice trembling with passion, he read: “‘I have watched the

spectacle of an unfortunate young woman, turned into a veritable monster

by means of a syphilitic infection. Her face, or rather let me say

what was left of her face, was nothing but a flat surface seamed with

scars.’”

George covered his face, exclaiming, “Enough, sir! Have mercy!”

But the other cried, “No, no! I will go to the very end. I have a

duty to perform, and I will not be stopped by the sensibility of your

nerves.”

He went on reading: “‘Of the upper lip not a trace was left; the ridge

of the upper gums appeared perfectly bare.’” But then at the young man’s

protests, his resolution failed him. “Come,” he said, “I will stop. I am

sorry for you--you who accept for another person, for the woman you say

you love, the chance of a disease which you cannot even endure to hear

described. Now, from whom did that woman get syphilis? It is not I who

am speaking, it is the book. ‘From a miserable scoundrel who was not

afraid to enter into matrimony when he had a secondary eruption.’ All

that was established later on--‘and who, moreover, had thought it best

not to let his wife be treated for fear of awakening her suspicions!’”

The doctor closed the book with a bang. “What that man has done, sir, is

what you want to do.”

George was edging toward the door; he could no longer look the doctor in

the eye. “I should deserve all those epithets and still more brutal ones

if I should marry, knowing that my marriage would cause such horrors.

But that I do not believe. You and your teachers--you are specialists,

and consequently you are driven to attribute everything to the disease

you make the subject of your studies. A tragic case, an exceptional

case, holds a kind of fascination for you; you think it can never be

talked about enough.”

“I have heard that argument before,” said the doctor, with an effort at

patience.

“Let me go on, I beg you,” pleaded George. “You have told me that out of

every seven men there is one syphilitic. You have told me that there are

one hundred thousand in Paris, coming and going, alert, and apparently

well.”

“It is true,” said the doctor, “that there are one hundred thousand

who are actually at this moment not visibly under the influence of the

disease. But many thousands have passed into our hospitals, victims of

the most frightful ravages that our poor bodies can support. These--you

do not see them, and they do not count for you. But again, if it

concerned no one but yourself, you might be able to argue thus. What I

declare to you, what I affirm with all the violence of my conviction,

is that you have not the right to expose a human creature to such

chances--rare, as I know, but terrible, as I know still better. What

have you to answer to that?”

“Nothing,” stammered George, brought to his knees at last. “You are

right about that. I don’t know what to think.”

“And in forbidding you marriage,” continued the doctor, “is it the same

as if I forbade it forever? Is it the same as if I told you that you

could never be cured? On the contrary, I hold out to you every hope; but

I demand of you a delay of three or four years, because it will take me

that time to find out if you are among the number of those unfortunate

ones whom I pity with all my heart, for whom the disease is without

mercy; because during that time you will be dangerous to your wife and

to your children. The children I have not yet mentioned to you.”

Here the doctor’s voice trembled slightly. He spoke with moving

eloquence. “Come, sir, you are an honest man; you are too young for such

things not to move you; you are not insensible to duty. It is impossible

that I shan’t be able to find a way to your heart, that I shan’t be

able to make you obey me. My emotion in speaking to you proves that I

appreciate your suffering, that I suffer with you. It is in the name of

my sincerity that I implore you. You have admitted it--that you have not

the right to expose your wife to such miseries. But it is not only your

wife that you strike; you may attack in her your own children. I exclude

you for a moment from my thought--you and her. It is in the name of

these innocents that I implore you; it is the future, it is the race

that I defend. Listen to me, listen to me! Out of the twenty households

of which I spoke, only fifteen had children; these fifteen had

twenty-eight. Do you know how many out of these twenty-eight survived?

Three, sir! Three out of twenty-eight! Syphilis is above everything a

murderer of children. Herod reigns in France, and over all the earth,

and begins each year his massacre of the innocents; and if it be not

blasphemy against the sacredness of life, I say that the most happy are

those who have disappeared. Visit our children’s hospitals! We know too

well the child of syphilitic parents; the type is classical; the doctors

can pick it out anywhere. Those little old creatures who have the

appearance of having already lived, and who have kept the stigmata of

all out infirmities, of all our decay. They are the victims of fathers

who have married, being ignorant of what you know--things which I should

like to go and cry out in the public places.”

The doctor paused, and then in a solemn voice continued: “I have told

you all, without exaggeration. Think it over. Consider the pros and

cons; sum up the possible misfortunes and the certain miseries. But

disregard yourself, and consider that there are in one side of the

scales the misfortunes of others, and in the other your own. Take care

that you are just.”

George was at last overcome. “Very well,” he said, “I give way. I

won’t get married. I will invent some excuse; I will get a delay of six

months. More than that, I cannot do.”

The doctor exclaimed, “I need three years--I need four years!”

“No, Doctor!” persisted George. “You can cure me in less time than

that.”

The other answered, “No! No! No!”

George caught him by the hand, imploringly. “Yes! Science in all

powerful!”

“Science is not God,” was the reply. “There are no longer any miracles.”

“If only you wanted to do it!” cried the young man, hysterically. “You

are a learned man; seek, invent, find something! Try some new plan with

me; give me double the dose, ten times the does; make me suffer. I give

myself up to you; I will endure everything--I swear it! There ought to

be some way to cure me within six months. Listen to me! I tell you I

can’t answer for myself with that delay. Come; it is in the name of my

wife, in the name of my children, that I implore you. Do something for

them!”

The doctor had reached the limit of his patience. “Enough, sir!” he

cried. “Enough!”

But nothing could stop the wretched man. “On my knees!” he cried. “I

put myself on my knees before you! Oh! If only you would do it! I would

bless you; I would adore you, as one adores a god! All my gratitude, all

my life--half my fortune! For mercy’s sake, Doctor, do something; invent

something; make some discovery--have pity!”

The doctor answered gravely, “Do you wish me to do more for you than for

the others?”

George answered, unblushingly, ‘answered, unblushingly, “Yes!” He was

beside himself with terror and distress.

The other’s reply was delivered in a solemn tone. “Understand, sir,

for every one of out patients we do all that we can, whether it be the

greatest personage, or the last comer to out hospital clinic. We have no

secrets in reserve for those who are more fortunate, or less fortunate

than the others, and who are in a hurry to be cured.”

George gazed at him for a moment in bewilderment and despair, and then

suddenly bowed his head. “Good-by, Doctor,” he answered.

“Au revoir, sir,” the other corrected--with what proved to be prophetic

understanding. For George was destined to see him again--even though he

had made up his mind to the contrary!

CHAPTER III

George Dupont had the most important decision of his life to make; but

there was never very much doubt what his decision would be. One the one

hand was the definite certainty that if he took the doctor’s advice, he

would wreck his business prospects, and perhaps also lose the woman he

loved. On the other hand were vague and uncertain possibilities which it

was difficult for him to make real to himself. It was all very well to

wait a while to be cured of the dread disease; but to wait three or four

years--that was simply preposterous!

He decided to consult another physician. He would find one this time who

would not be so particular, who would be willing to take some trouble

to cure him quickly. He began to notice the advertisements which

were scattered over the pages of the newspapers he read. There were

apparently plenty of doctors in Paris who could cure him, who were

willing to guarantee to cure him. After much hesitation, he picked out

one whose advertisement sounded the most convincing.

The office was located in a cheap quarter. It was a dingy place, not

encumbered with works of art, but with a few books covered with dust.

The doctor himself was stout and greasy, and he rubbed his hands with

anticipation at the sight of so prosperous-looking a patient. But he was

evidently a man of experience, for he knew exactly what was the matter

with George, almost without the formality of an examination. Yes,

he could cure him, quickly, he said. There had recently been great

discoveries made--new methods which had not reached the bulk of the

profession. He laughed at the idea of three or four years. That was

the way with those specialists! When one got forty francs for a

consultation, naturally, one was glad to drag out the case. There were

tricks in the medical trade, as in all others. A doctor had to live;

when he had a big name, he had to live expensively.

The new physician wrote out two prescriptions, and patted George on the

shoulder as he went away. There was no need for him to worry; he would

surely be well in three months. If he would put off his marriage for six

months, he would be doing everything within reason. And meantime, there

was no need for him to worry himself--things would come out all right.

So George went away, feeling as if a mountain had been lifted from his

shoulders.

He went to see Henriette that same evening, to get the matter

settled. “Henriette,” he said, “I have to tell you something very

important--something rather painful. I hope you won’t let it disturb you

too much.”

She was gazing at him in alarm. “What is it?”

“Why,” he said, blushing in spite of himself, and regretting that he had

begun the matter so precipitately, “for some time I’ve not been feeling

quite well. I’ve been having a slight cough. Have you noticed it?”

“Why no!” exclaimed Henriette, anxiously.

“Well, today I went to see a doctor, and he says that there is a

possibility--you understand it is nothing very serious--but it might

be--I might possibly have lung trouble.”

“George!” cried the girl in horror.

He put his hand upon hers. “Don’t be frightened,” he said. “It will be

all right, only I have to take care of myself.” How very dear of her, he

thought--to be so much worried!

“George, you ought to go away to the country!” she cried. “You have

been working too hard. I always told you that if you shut yourself up so

much--”

“I am going to take care of myself,” he said. “I realize that it is

necessary. I shall be all right--the doctor assured me there was no

doubt of it, so you are not to distress yourself. But meantime, here is

the trouble: I don’t think it would be right for me to marry until I am

perfectly well.”

Henriette gave an exclamation of dismay.

“I am sure we should put it off,” he went on, “it would be only fair to

you.”

“But, George!” she protested. “Surely it can’t be that serious!”

“We ought to wait,” he said. “You ought not to take the chance of being

married to a consumptive.”

The other protested in consternation. He did not look like a

consumptive; she did not believe that he WAS a consumptive. She was

willing to take her chances. She loved him, and she was not afraid. But

George insisted--he was sure that he ought not to marry for six months.

“Did the doctor advise that?” asked Henriette.

“No,” he replied, “but I made up my mind after talking to him that I

must do the fair and honorable thing. I beg you to forgive me, and to

believe that I know best.”

George stood firmly by this position, and so in the end she had to give

way. It did not seem quite modest in her to continue persisting.

George volunteered to write a letter to her father; and he hoped this

would settle the matter without further discussion. But in this he was

disappointed. There had to be a long correspondence with long arguments

and protestations from Henriette’s father and from his own mother.

It seemed such a singular whim. Everybody persisted in diagnosing his

symptoms, in questioning him about what the doctor had said, who the

doctor was, how he had come to consult him--all of which, of course, was

very embarrassing to George, who could not see why they had to make such

a fuss. He took to cultivating a consumptive look, as well as he could

imagine it; he took to coughing as he went about the house--and it was

all he could do to keep from laughing, as he saw the look of dismay on

his poor mother’s face. After all, however, he told himself that he

was not deceiving her, for the disease he had was quite as serious as

tuberculosis.

It was very painful and very trying. But there was nothing that could be

done about it; the marriage had been put off for six months, and in the

meantime he and Henriette had to control their impatience and make the

best of their situation. Six months was a long time; but what if it had

been three or four years, as the other doctor had demanded? That would

have been a veritable sentence of death.

George, as we have seen, was conscientious, and regular and careful in

his habits. He took the medicine which the new doctor prescribed

for him; and day by day he watched, and to his great relief saw the

troublesome symptoms gradually disappearing. He began to take heart,

and to look forward to life with his former buoyancy. He had had a bad

scare, but now everything was going to be all right.

Three or four months passed, and the doctor told him he was cured. He

really was cured, so far as he could see. He was sorry, now, that he

had asked for so long a delay from Henriette; but the new date for the

wedding had been announced, and it would be awkward to change it again.

George told himself that he was being “extra careful,” and he was repaid

for the inconvenience by the feeling of virtue derived from the delay.

He was relieved that he did not have to cough any more, or to invent

any more tales of his interviews with the imaginary lung-specialist.

Sometimes he had guilty feelings because of all the lying he had had to

do; but he told himself that it was for Henriette’s sake. She loved him

as much as he loved her. She would have suffered needless agonies had

she known the truth; she would never have got over it--so it would have

been a crime to tell her.

He really loved her devotedly, thoroughly. From the beginning he had

thought as much of her mental sufferings as he had of any physical harm

that the dread disease might do to him. How could he possibly persuade

himself to give her up, when he knew that the separation would break her

heart and ruin her whole life? No; obviously, in such a dilemma, it was

his duty to use his own best judgment, and get himself cured as quickly

as possible. After that he would be true to her, he would take no more

chances of a loathsome disease.

The secret he was hiding made him feel humble--made him unusually gentle

in his attitude towards the girl. He was a perfect lover, and she

was ravished with happiness. She thought that all his sufferings were

because of his love for her, and the delay which he had imposed out of

his excess of conscientiousness. So she loved him more and more, and

never was there a happier bride than Henriette Loches, when at last the

great day arrived.

They went to the Riveria for their honeymoon, and then returned to live

in the home which had belonged to George’s father. The investment in

the notary’s practice had proven a good one, and so life held out every

promise for the young couple. They were divinely happy.

After a while, the bride communicated to her husband the tidings that

she was expecting a child. Then it seemed to George that the cup of his

earthly bliss was full. His ailment had slipped far into the background

of his thoughts, like an evil dream which he had forgotten. He put away

the medicines in the bottom of his trunk and dismissed the whole matter

from his mind. Henriette was well--a very picture of health, as every

one agreed. The doctor had never seen a more promising young mother, he

declared, and Madame Dupont, the elder, bloomed with fresh life and joy

as she attended her daughter-in-law.

Henriette went for the summer to her father’s place in the provinces,

which she and George had visited before their marriage. They drove out

one day to the farm where they had stopped. The farmer’s wife had a

week-old baby, the sight of which made Henriette’s heart leap with

delight. He was such a very healthy baby that George conceived the idea

that this would be the woman to nurse his own child, in case Henriette

herself should not be able to do it.

They came back to the city, and there the baby was born. As George paced

the floor, waiting for the news, the memory of his evil dreams came back

to him. He remembered all the dreadful monstrosities of which he had

read--infants that were born of syphilitic parents. His heart stood

still when the nurse came into the room to tell him the tidings.

But it was all right; of course it was all right! He had been a fool,

he told himself, as he stood in the darkened room and gazed at the

wonderful little mite of life which was the fruit of his love. It was a

perfect child, the doctor said--a little small, to be sure, but that was

a defect which would soon be remedied. George kneeled by the bedside and

kissed the hand of his wife, and went out of the room feeling as if he

had escaped from a tomb.

All went well, and after a couple of weeks Henriette was about the house

again, laughing all day and singing with joy. But the baby did not gain

quite as rapidly as the doctor had hoped, and it was decided that the

country air would be better for her. So George and his mother paid a

visit to the farm in the country, and arranged that the country woman

should put her own child to nurse elsewhere and should become the

foster-mother of little Gervaise.

George paid a good price for the service, far more than would have been

necessary, for the simple country woman was delighted with the idea of

taking care of the grandchild of the deputy of her district. George came

home and told his wife about this and had a merry time as he pictured

the woman boasting about it to the travelers who stopped at her door.

“Yes, ma’am, a great piece of luck I’ve got, ma’am. I’ve got the

daughter of the daughter of our deputy--at your service ma’am. My!

But she is as fat as out little calf--and so clever! She understands

everything. A great piece of luck for me, ma’am. She’s the daughter

of the daughter of our deputy!” Henriette was vastly entertained,

discovering in her husband a new talent, that of an actor.

As for George’s mother, she was hardly to be persuaded from staying in

the country with the child. She went twice a week, to make sure that all

went well. Henriette and she lived with the child’s picture before them;

they spent their time sewing on caps and underwear--all covered with

laces and frills and pink and blue ribbons. Every day, when George

came home from his work, he found some new article completed, and was

ravished by the scent of some new kind of sachet powder. What a lucky

man he was!

You would think he must have been the happiest man in the whole city

of Paris. But George, alas, had to pay the penalty for his early sins.

There was, for instance, the deception he had practiced upon his friend,

away back in the early days. Now he had friends of his own, and he could

not keep these friends from visiting him; and so he was unquiet with the

fear that some one of them might play upon him the same vile trick. Even

in the midst of his radiant happiness, when he knew that Henriette was

hanging upon his every word, trembling with delight when she heard his

latchkey in the door--still he could not drive away the horrible thought

that perhaps all this might be deception.

There was his friend, Gustave, for example. He had been a friend of

Henriette’s before her marriage; he had even been in love with her at

one time. And now he came sometimes to the house--once or twice when

George was away! What did that mean? George wondered. He brooded over

it all day, but dared not drop any hint to Henriette. But he took to

setting little traps to catch her; for instance, he would call her up on

the telephone, disguising his voice. “Hello! Hello! Is that you, Madame

Dupont?” And when she answered, “It is I, sir,” all unsuspecting, he

would inquire, “Is George there?”

“No, sir,” she replied. “Who is this speaking?”

He answered, “It is I, Gustave. How are you this morning?” He wanted to

see what she would answer. Would she perhaps say, “Very well, Gustave.

How are you?”--in a tone which would betray too great intimacy!

But Henriette was a sharp young person. The tone did not sound like

Gustave’s. She asked in bewilderment, “What?” and then again, “What?”

So, at last, George, afraid that his trick might be suspected, had to

burst out laughing, and turn it into a joke. But when he came home and

teased his wife about it, the laugh was not all on his side. Henriette

had guessed the real meaning of his joke! She did not really mind--she

took his jealousy as a sign of love, and was pleased with it. It is

not until a third party come upon the scene that jealousy begins to be

annoying.

So she had a merry time teasing George. “You are a great fellow!

You have no idea how well I understand you--and after only a year of

marriage!”

“You know me?” said the husband, curiously. (It is always so fascinating

when anybody thinks she know us better than we know ourselves!) “Tell

me, what do you think about me?”

“You are restless,” said Henriette. “You are suspicious. You pass your

time putting flies in your milk, and inventing wise schemes to get them

out.”

“Oh, you think that, do you?” said George, pleased to be talked about.

“I am not annoyed,” she answered. “You have always been that way--and I

know that it’s because at bottom you are timid and disposed to suffer.

And then, too, perhaps you have reasons for not having confidence in a

wife’s intimate friends--lady-killer that you are!”

George found this rather embarrassing; but he dared not show it, so he

laughed gayly. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said--“upon my word I

don’t. But it is a trick I would not advise everybody to try.”

There were other embarrassing moments, caused by George’s having things

to conceal. There was, for instance, the matter of the six months’ delay

in the marriage--about which Henriette would never stop talking. She

begrudged the time, because she had got the idea that little Gervaise

was six months younger than she otherwise would have been. “That shows

your timidity again,” she would say. “The idea of your having imagined

yourself a consumptive!”

Poor George had to defend himself. “I didn’t tell you half the truth,

because I was afraid of upsetting you. It seemed I had the beginning of

chronic bronchitis. I felt it quite keenly whenever I took a breath, a

deep breath--look, like this. Yes--I felt--here and there, on each side

of the chest, a heaviness--a difficulty--”

“The idea of taking six months to cure you of a thing like that!”

exclaimed Henriette. “And making our baby six months younger than she

ought to be!”

“But,” laughed George, “that means that we shall have her so much the

longer! She will get married six months later!”

“Oh, dear me,” responded the other, “let us not talk about such things!

I am already worried, thinking she will get married some day.”

“For my part,” said George, “I see myself mounting with her on my arm

the staircase of the Madeleine.”

“Why the Madeleine?” exclaimed his wife. “Such a very magnificent

church!”

“I don’t know--I see her under her white veil, and myself all dressed

up, and with an order.”

“With an order!” laughed Henriette. “What do you expect to do to win an

order?”

“I don’t know that--but I see myself with it. Explain it as you will, I

see myself with an order. I see it all, exactly as if I were there--the

Swiss guard with his white stockings and the halbard, and the little

milliner’s assistants and the scullion lined up staring.”

“It is far off--all that,” said Henriette. “I don’t like to talk of it.

I prefer her as a baby. I want her to grow up--but then I change my

mind and think I don’t. I know your mother doesn’t. Do you know, I don’t

believe she ever thinks about anything but her little Gervaise.”

“I believe you,” said the father. “The child can certainly boast of

having a grandmother who loves her.”

“Also, I adore your mother,” declared Henriette. “She makes me forget my

misfortune in not having my own mother. She is so good!”

“We are all like that in our family,” put in George.

“Really,” laughed the wife. “Well, anyhow--the last time that we went

down in the country with her--you had gone out, I don’t know where you

had gone--”

“To see the sixteenth-century chest,” suggested the other.

“Oh, yes,” laughed Henriette; “your famous chest!” (You must excuse this

little family chatter of theirs--they were so much in love with each

other!)

“Don’t let’s talk about that,” objected George. “You were saying--?”

“You were not there. The nurse was out at mass, I think--”

“Or at the wine merchant’s! Go on, go on.”

“Well, I was in the little room, and mother dear thought she was all

alone with Gervaise. I was listening; she was talking to the baby--all

sorts of nonsense, pretty little words--stupid, if you like, but tender.

I wanted to laugh, and at the same time I wanted to weep.”

“Perhaps she called her ‘my dear little Savior’?”

“Exactly! Did you hear her?”

“No--but that is what she used to call me when I was little.”

“It was that day she swore that the little one had recognized her, and

laughed!”

“Oh, yes!”

“And then another time, when I went into her room--mother’s room--she

didn’t hear me because the door was open, but I saw her. She was in

ecstasy before the little boots which the baby wore at baptism--you

know?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Listen, then. She had taken them and she was embracing them!”

“And what did you say then?”

“Nothing; I stole out very softly, and I sent across the threshold a

great kiss to the dear grandmother!”

Henriette sat for a moment in thought. “It didn’t take her very long,”

she remarked, “today when she got the letter from the nurse. I imagine

she caught the eight-fifty-nine train!”

“Any yet,” laughed George, “it was really nothing at all.”

“Oh no,” said his wife. “Yet after all, perhaps she was right--and

perhaps I ought to have gone with her.”

“How charming you are, my poor Henriette! You believe everything you are

told. I, for my part, divined right away the truth. The nurse was simply

playing a game on us; she wanted a raise. Will you bet? Come, I’ll bet

you something. What would you like to bet? You don’t want to? Come, I’ll

bet you a lovely necklace--you know, with a big pearl.”

“No,” said Henriette, who had suddenly lost her mood of gayety. “I

should be too much afraid of winning.”

“Stop!” laughed her husband. “Don’t you believe I love her as much as

you love her--my little duck? Do you know how old she is? I mean her

EXACT age?”

Henriette sat knitting her brows, trying to figure.

“Ah!” he exploded. “You see you don’t know! She is ninety-one days and

eight hours! Ha, ha! Imagine when she will be able to walk all alone.

Then we will take her back with us; we must wait at least six months.”

Then, too late, poor George realized that he had spoken the fatal phrase

again.

“If only you hadn’t put off our marriage, she would be able to walk

now,” said Henriette.

He rose suddenly. “Come,” he said, “didn’t you say you had to dress and

pay some calls?”

Henriette laughed, but took the hint.

“Run along, little wife,” he said. “I have a lot of work to do in the

meantime. You won’t be down-stairs before I shall have my nose buried in

my papers. Bye-bye.”

“Bye-bye,” said Henriette. But they paused to exchange a dozen or so

kisses before she went away to dress.

Then George lighted a cigarette and stretched himself out in the big

armchair. He seemed restless; he seemed to be disturbed about something.

Could it be that he had not been so much at ease as he had pretended to

be, since the letter had come from the baby’s nurse? Madame Dupont had

gone by the earliest train that morning. She had promised to telegraph

at once--but she had not done so, and now it was late afternoon.

George got up and wandered about. He looked at himself in the glass for

a moment; then he went back to the chair and pulled up another to put

his geet upon. He puffed away at his cigarette until he was calmer. But

then suddenly he heard the rustle of a dress behind him, and glanced

about, and started up with an exclamation, “Mother!”

Madame Dupont stood in the doorway. She did not speak. Her veil was

thrown back and George noted instantly the look of agitation upon her

countenance.

“What’s the matter?” he cried. “We didn’t get any telegram from you; we

were not expecting you till tomorrow.”

Still his mother did not speak.

“Henriette was just going out,” he exclaimed nervously; “I had better

call her.”

“No!” said his mother quickly. Her voice was low and trembling. “I did

not want Henriette to be here when I arrived.”

“But what’s the matter?” cried George.

Again there was a silence before the reply came. He read something

terrible in the mother’s manner, and he found himself trembling

violently.

“I have brought back the child and the nurse,” said Madame Dupont.

“What! Is the little one sick?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the matter with her?”

“Nothing dangerous--for the moment, at least.”

“We must send and get the doctor!” cried George.

“I have just come from the doctor’s,” was the reply. “He said it was

necessary to take our child from the nurse and bring her up on the

bottle.”

Again there was a pause. George could hardly bring himself to ask

the next question. Try as he would, he could not keep his voice from

weakening. “Well, now, what is her trouble?”

The mother did not answer. She stood staring before her. At last she

said, faintly, “I don’t know.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“I asked. But it was not to our own doctor that I went.”

“Ah!” whispered George. For nearly a minute neither one of them spoke.

“Why?” he inquired at last.

“Because--he--the nurse’s doctor--had frightened me so--”

“Truly?”

“Yes. It is a disease--” again she stopped.

George cried, in a voice of agony, “and then?”

“Then I asked him if the matter was so grave that I could not be

satisfied with our ordinary doctor.”

“And what did he answer?”

“He said that if we had the means it would really be better to consult a

specialist.”

George looked at his mother again. He was able to do it, because she

was not looking at him. He clenched his hands and got himself together.

“And--where did he send you?”

His mother fumbled in her hand bag and drew out a visiting card. “Here,”

she said.

And George looked at the card. It was all he could do to keep himself

from tottering. It was the card of the doctor whom he had first

consulted about his trouble! The specialist in venereal diseases!

CHAPTER IV

It was all George could do to control his voice. “You--you went to see

him?” he stammered.

“Yes,” said his mother. “You know him?”

“No, no,” he answered. “Or--that is--I have met him, I think. I don’t

know.” And then to himself, “My God!”

There was a silence. “He is coming to talk to you,” said the mother, at

last.

George was hardly able to speak. “Then he is very much disturbed?”

“No, but he wants to talk to you.”

“To me?”

“Yes. When the doctor saw the nurse, he said, ‘Madame, it is impossible

for me to continue to attend this child unless I have had this very day

a conversation with the father.’ So I said ‘Very well,’ and he said he

would come at once.”

George turned away, and put his hands to his forehead. “My poor little

daughter!” he whispered to himself.

“Yes,” said the mother, her voice breaking, “she is, indeed, a poor

little daughter!”

A silence fell; for what could words avail in such a situation? Hearing

the door open, Madame Dupont started, for her nerves were all a-quiver

with the strain she had been under. A servant came in and spoke to her,

and she said to George, “It is the doctor. If you need me, I shall be in

the next room.”

Her son stood trembling, as if he were waiting the approach of an

executioner. The other came into the room without seeing him and he

stood for a minute, clasping and unclasping his hands, almost overcome

with emotion. Then he said, “Good-day, doctor.” As the man stared at

him, surprised and puzzled, he added, “You don’t recognize me?”

The doctor looked again, more closely. George was expecting him to break

out in rage; but instead his voice fell low. “You!” he exclaimed. “It is

you!”

At last, in a voice of discouragement than of anger, he went on, “You

got married, and you have a child! After all that I told you! You are a

wretch!”

“Sir,” cried George, “let me explain to you!”

“Not a word!” exclaimed the other. “There can be no explanation for what

you have done.”

A silence followed. The young man did not know what to say. Finally,

stretching out his arms, he pleaded, “You will take care of my little

daughter all the same, will you not?”

The other turned away with disgust. “Imbecile!” he said.

George did not hear the word. “I was able to wait only six months,” he

murmured.

The doctor answered in a voice of cold self-repression, “That is enough,

sir! All that does not concern me. I have done wrong even to let you see

my indignation. I should have left you to judge yourself. I have nothing

to do here but with the present and with the future--with the infant and

with the nurse.”

“She isn’t in danger?” cried George.

“The nurse is in danger of being contaminated.”

But George had not been thinking about the nurse. “I mean my child,” he

said.

“Just at present the symptoms are not disturbing.”

George waited; after a while he began, “You were saying about the nurse.

Will you consent that I call my mother? She knows better than I.”

“As you wish,” was the reply.

The young man started to the door, but came back, in terrible distress.

“I have one prayer to offer you sir; arrange it so that my wife--so that

no one will know. If my wife learned that it is I who am the cause--! It

is for her that I implore you! She--she isn’t to blame.”

Said the doctor: “I will do everything in my power that she may be kept

ignorant of the true nature of the disease.”

“Oh, how I thank you!” murmured George. “How I thank you!”

“Do not thank me; it is for her, and not for you, that I will consent to

lie.”

“And my mother?”

“Your mother knows the truth.”

“But--”

“I pray you, sir--we have enough to talk about, and very serious

matters.”

So George went to the door and called his mother. She entered and

greeted the doctor, holding herself erect, and striving to keep the

signs of grief and terror from her face. She signed to the doctor to

take a seat, and then seated herself by a little table near him.

“Madame Dupont,” he began, “I have prescribed a course of treatment for

the child. I hope to be able to improve its condition, and to prevent

any new developments. But my duty and yours does not stop there; if

there is still time, it is necessary to protect the health of the

nurse.”

“Tell us what it is necessary to do, Doctor?” said she.

“The woman must stop nursing the child.”

“You mean we have to change the nurse?”

“Madame, the child can no longer be brought up at the breast, either by

that nurse or by any other nurse.”

“But why, sir?”

“Because the child would give her disease to the woman who gave her

milk.”

“But, Doctor, if we put her on the bottle--our little one--she will

die!”

And suddenly George burst out into sobs. “Oh, my poor little daughter!

My God, my God!”

Said the doctor, “If the feeding is well attended to, with sterilized

milk--”

“That can do very well for healthy infants,” broke in Madame Dupont.

“But at the age of three months one cannot take from the breast a baby

like ours, frail and ill. More than any other such an infant has need of

a nurse--is that not true?”

“Yes,” the doctor admitted, “that is true. But--”

“In that case, between the life of the child, and the health of the

nurse, you understand perfectly well that my choice is made.”

Between her words the doctor heard the sobbing of George, whose head was

buried in his arms. “Madame,” he said, “your love for that baby has just

caused you to utter something ferocious! It is not for you to choose. It

is not for you to choose. I forbid the nursing. The health of that woman

does not belong to you.”

“No,” cried the grandmother, wildly, “nor does the health of out child

belong to you! If there is a hope of saving it, that hope is in giving

it more care than any other child; and you would wish that I put it

upon a mode of nourishment which the doctors condemn, even for vigorous

infants! You expect that I will let myself be taken in like that? I

answer you: she shall have the milk which she needs, my poor little one!

If there was a single thing that one could do to save her--I should be

a criminal to neglect it!” And Madame Dupont broke out, with furious

scorn, “The nurse! The nurse! We shall know how to do our duty--we

shall take care of her, repay her. But our child before all! No sir,

no! Everything that can be done to save our baby I shall do, let it cost

what it will. To do what you say--you don’t realize it--it would be as

if I should kill the child!” In the end the agonized woman burst into

tears. “Oh, my poor little angel! My little savior!”

George had never ceased sobbing while his mother spoke; at these last

words his sobs became loud cries. He struck the floor with his foot, he

tore his hair, as if he were suffering from violent physical pain. “Oh,

oh, oh!” he cried. “My little child! My little child!” And then, in a

horrified whisper to himself, “I am a wretch! A criminal!”

“Madame,” said the doctor, “you must calm yourself; you must both calm

yourselves. You will not help out the situation by lamentations. You

must learn to take it with calmness.”

Madame Dupont set her lips together, and with a painful effort recovered

her self-control. “You are right, sir,” she said, in a low voice. “I ask

your pardon; but if you only knew what that child means to me! I lost

one at that age. I am an old woman, I am a widow--I had hardly hoped to

live long enough to be a grandmother. But, as you say--we must be calm.”

She turned to the young man, “Calm yourself, my son. It is a poor way to

show our love for the child, to abandon ourselves to tears. Let us talk,

Doctor, and seriously--coldly. But I declare to you that nothing will

ever induce me to put the child on the bottle, when I know that it might

kill her. That is all I can say.”

The doctor replied: “This isn’t the first time that I find myself in

the present situation. Madame, I declare to you that always--ALWAYS,

you understand--persons who have rejected my advice have had reason to

repent it cruelly.”

“The only thing of which I should repent--” began the other.

“You simply do not know,” interrupted the doctor, “what such a nurse is

capable of. You cannot imagine what bitterness--legitimate

bitterness, you understand--joined to the rapacity, the cupidity, the

mischief-making impulse--might inspire these people to do. For them the

BOURGEOIS is always somewhat of an enemy; and when they find themselves

in position to avenge their inferiority, they are ferocious.”

“But what could the woman do?”

“What could she do? She could bring legal proceedings against you.”

“But she is much too stupid to have that idea.”

“Others will put it into her mind.”

“She is too poor to pay the preliminary expenses.”

“And do you propose then to profit by her ignorance and stupidity?

Besides, she could obtain judicial assistance.”

“Why, surely,” exclaimed Madame Dupont, “such a thing was never heard

of! Do you mean that?”

“I know a dozen prosecutions of that sort; and always when there has

been certainty, the parents have lost their case.”

“But surely, Doctor, you must be mistaken! Not in a case like ours--not

when it is a question of saving the life of a poor little innocent!”

“Oftentimes exactly such facts have been presented.”

Here George broke in. “I can give you the dates of the decisions.” He

rose from his chair, glad of an opportunity to be useful. “I have

the books,” he said, and took one from the case and brought it to the

doctor.

“All of that is no use--” interposed the mother.

But the doctor said to George, “You will be able to convince yourself.

The parents have been forced once or twice to pay the nurse a regular

income, and at other times they have had to pay her an indemnity, of

which the figure has varied between three and eight thousand francs.”

Madame Dupont was ready with a reply to this. “Never fear, sir! If there

should be a suit, we should have a good lawyer. We shall be able to pay

and choose the best--and he would demand, without doubt, which of the

two, the nurse or the child, has given the disease to the other.”

The doctor was staring at her in horror. “Do you not perceive that would

be a monstrous thing to do?”

“Oh, I would not have to say it,” was the reply. “The lawyer would see

to it--is not that his profession? My point is this: by one means or

another he would make us win our case.”

“And the scandal that would result,” replied the other. “Have you

thought of that?”

Here George, who had been looking over his law-books, broke in. “Doctor,

permit me to give you a little information. In cases of this sort, the

names are never printed.”

“Yes, but they are spoken at the hearings.”

“That’s true.”

“And are you certain that there will not be any newspaper to print the

judgment?”

“What won’t they stoop to,” exclaimed Madame Dupont--“those filthy

journals!”

“Ah,” said the other, “and see what a scandal? What a shame it would be

to you!”

“The doctor is right, mother,” exclaimed the young man.

But Madame Dupont was not yet convinced. “We will prevent the woman from

taking any steps; we will give her what she demands from us.”

“But then,” said the other, “you will give yourselves up to the risk of

blackmail. I know a family which has been thus held up for over twelve

years.”

“If you will permit me, Doctor,” said George, timidly, “she could be

made to sign a receipt.”

“For payment in full?” asked the doctor, scornfully.

“Even so.”

“And then,” added his mother, “she would be more than delighted to go

back to her country with a full purse. She would be able to buy a little

house and a bit of ground--in that country one doesn’t need so much in

order to live.”

At this moment there was a tap upon the door, and the nurse entered. She

was a country woman, robust, rosy-cheeked, fairly bursting with health.

When she spoke one got the impression that her voice was more than she

could contain. It did not belong in a drawing-room, but under the open

sky of her country home. “Sir,” she said, addressing the doctor, “the

baby is awake.”

“I will go and see her,” was the reply; and then to Madame Dupont, “We

will take up this conversation later on.”

“Certainly,” said the mother. “Will you have need of the nurse?”

“No, Madame,” the doctor answered.

“Nurse,” said the mother, “sit down and rest. Wait a minute, I wish to

speak to you.” As the doctor went out, she took her son to one side and

whispered to him, “I know the way to arrange everything. If we let

her know what is the matter, and if she accepts, the doctor will have

nothing more to say. Isn’t that so?”

“Obviously,” replied the son.

“I am going to promise that we will give her two thousand francs when

she goes away, if she will consent to continue nursing the child.”

“Two thousand francs?” said the other. “Is that enough?”

“I will see,” was the reply. “If she hesitates, I will go further. Let

me attend to it.”

George nodded his assent, and Madame Dupont returned to the nurse. “You

know,” she said, “that our child is a little sick?”

The other looked at her in surprise. “Why no, ma’am!”

“Yes,” said the grandmother.

“But, ma’am, I have taken the best of care of her; I have always kept

her proper.”

“I am not saying anything to the contrary,” said Madame Dupont, “but the

child is sick, the doctors have said it.”

The nurse was not to be persuaded; she thought they were getting ready

to scold her. “Humph,” she said, “that’s a fine thing--the doctors! If

they couldn’t always find something wrong you’d say they didn’t know

their business.”

“But our doctor is a great doctor; and you have seen yourself that our

child has some little pimples.”

“Ah, ma’am,” said the nurse, “that’s the heat--it’s nothing but the heat

of the blood breaking out. You don’t need to bother yourself; I tell you

it’s only the child’s blood. It’s not my fault; I swear to you that she

had not lacked anything, and that I have always kept her proper.”

“I am not reproaching you--”

“What is there to reproach me for? Oh, what bad luck! She’s tiny--the

little one--she’s a bit feeble; but Lord save us, she’s a city child!

And she’s getting along all right, I tell you.”

“No,” persisted Madame Dupont, “I tell you--she has got a cold in her

head, and she has an eruption at the back of the throat.”

“Well,” cried the nurse, angrily, “if she has, it’s because the doctor

scratched her with that spoon he put into her mouth wrong end first! A

cold in the head? Yes, that’s true; but if she has caught cold, I can’t

say when, I don’t know anything about it--nothing, nothing at all. I

have always kept her well covered; she’s always had as much as three

covers on her. The truth is, it was when you came, the time before last;

you were all the time insisting upon opening the windows in the house!”

“But once more I tell you,” cried Madame Dupont, “we are not putting any

blame on you.”

“Yes,” cried the woman, more vehemently. “I know what that kind of talk

means. It’s no use--when you’re a poor country woman.”

“What are you imagining now?” demanded the other.

“Oh, that’s all right. It’s no use when you’re a poor country woman.”

“I repeat to you once more,” cried Madame Dupont, with difficulty

controlling her impatience, “we have nothing whatever to blame you for.”

But the nurse began to weep. “If I had known that anything like this was

coming to me--”

“We have nothing to blame you for,” declared the other. “We only wish to

warn you that you might possibly catch the disease of the child.”

The woman pouted. “A cold in the head!” she exclaimed. “Well, if I catch

it, it won’t be the first time. I know how to blow my nose.”

“But you might also get the pimples.”

At this the nurse burst into laughter so loud that the bric-a-brac

rattled. “Oh, oh, oh! Dear lady, let me tell you, we ain’t city folks,

we ain’t; we don’t have such soft skins. What sort of talk is that?

Pimples--what difference would that make to poor folks like us? We don’t

have a white complexion like the ladies of Paris. We are out all day in

the fields, in the sun and the rain, instead of rubbing cold cream

on our muzzles! No offense, ma’am--but I say if you’re looking for an

excuse to get rid of me, you must get a better one than that.”

“Excuse!” exclaimed the other. “What in the world do you mean?”

“Oh, I know!” said the nurse, nodding her head.

“But speak!”

“It’s no use, when you’re only a poor country woman.”

“I don’t understand you! I swear to you that I don’t understand you!”

“Well,” sneered the other, “I understand.”

“But then--explain yourself.”

“No, I don’t want to say it.”

“But you must; I wish it.”

“Well--”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m only a poor country woman, but I am no more stupid than the others,

for all that. I know perfectly well what your tricks mean. Mr. George

here has been grumbling because you promised me thirty francs more a

month, if I came to Paris.” And then, turning upon the other, she went

on--“But, sir, isn’t it only natural? Don’t I have to put my own child

away somewheres else? And then, can my husband live on his appetite?

We’re nothing but poor country people, we are.”

“You are making a mistake, nurse,” broke in George. “It is nothing at

all of that sort; mother is quite right. I am so far from wanting

to reproach you, that, on the contrary, I think she had not promised

enough, and I want to make you, for my part, another promise. When you

go away, when baby is old enough to be weaned, by way of thanking you,

we wish to give you--”

Madame Dupont broke in, hurriedly, “We wish to give you,--over and above

your wages, you understand--we wish to give you five hundred francs, and

perhaps a thousand, if the little one is altogether in good health. You

understand?”

The nurse stared at her, stupefied. “You will give me five hundred

francs--for myself?” She sought to comprehend the words. “But that was

not agreed, you don’t have to do that at all.”

“No,” admitted Madame Dupont.

“But then,” whispered the nurse, half to herself, “that’s not natural.”

“Yes,” the other hurried on, “it is because the baby will have need of

extra care. You will have to take more trouble; you will have to give

it medicines; your task will be a little more delicate, a little more

difficult.”

“Oh, yes; then it’s so that I will be sure to take care of her? I

understand.”

“Then it’s agreed?” exclaimed Madame Dupont, with relief.

“Yes ma’am,” said the nurse.

“And you won’t come later on to make reproaches to us? We understand one

another clearly? We have warned you that the child is sick and that you

could catch the disease. Because of that, because of the special need of

care which she has, we promise you five hundred francs at the end of the

nursing. That’s all right, is it?

“But, my lady,” cried the nurse, all her cupidity awakened, “you spoke

just now of a thousand francs.”

“Very well, then, a thousand francs.”

George passed behind the nurse and got his mother by the arm, drawing

her to one side. “It would be a mistake,” he whispered, “if we did not

make her sign an agreement to all that.”

His mother turned to the nurse. “In order that there may be no

misunderstanding about the sum--you see how it is, I had forgotten

already that I had spoken of a thousand francs--we will draw up a little

paper, and you, on your part, will write one for us.”

“Very good, ma’am,” said the nurse, delighted with the idea of so

important a transaction. “Why, it’s just as you do when you rent a

house!”

“Here comes the doctor,” said the other. “Come, nurse, it is agreed?”

“Yes, ma’am,” was the answer. But all the same, as she went out she

hesitated and looked sharply first at the doctor, and then at George

and his mother. She suspected that something was wrong, and she meant to

find out if she could.

The doctor seated himself in George’s office chair, as if to write

a prescription. “The child’s condition remains the same,” he said;

“nothing disturbing.”

“Doctor,” said Madame Dupont, gravely, “from now on, you will be able

to devote your attention to the baby and the nurse without any scruple.

During your absence we have arranged matters nicely. The nurse has been

informed about the situation, and she does not mind. She has agreed to

accept an indemnity, and the amount has been stated.”

But the doctor did not take these tidings as the other had hoped he

might. He replied: “The malady which the nurse will almost inevitably

contract in feeding the child is too grave in its consequences. Such

consequences might go as far as complete helplessness, even as far as

death. So I say that the indemnity, whatever it might be, would not pay

the damage.”

“But,” exclaimed the other, “she accepts it! She is mistress of herself,

and she has the right--”

“I am not at all certain that she has the right to sell her own health.

And I am certain that she has not the right to sell the health of her

husband and her children. If she becomes infected, it is nearly certain

that she will communicate the disease to them; the health and the life

of the children she might have later on would be greatly compromised.

Such things she cannot possibly sell. Come, madame, you must see that a

bargain of this sort isn’t possible. If the evil has not been done, you

must do everything to avoid it.”

“Sir,” protested the mother, wildly, “you do not defend our interests!”

“Madame,” was the reply, “I defend those who are weakest.”

“If we had called in our own physician, who knows us,” she protested,

“he would have taken sides with us.”

The doctor rose, with a severe look on his face. “I doubt it,” he said,

“but there is still time to call him.”

George broke in with a cry of distress. “Sir, I implore you!”

And the mother in turn cried. “Don’t abandon us, sir! You ought to make

allowances! If you knew what that child is to me! I tell you it seems to

me as if I had waited for her coming in order to die. Have pity upon us!

Have pity upon her! You speak of the weakest--it is not she who is the

weakest? You have seen her, you have seen that poor little baby, so

emaciated! You have seen what a heap of suffering she is already; and

cannot that inspire in you any sympathy? I pray you, sir--I pray you!”

“I pity her,” said the doctor, “I would like to save her--and I will do

everything for her. But do not ask me to sacrifice to a feeble infant,

with an uncertain and probably unhappy life, the health of a sound and

robust woman. It is useless for us to continue such a discussion as

that.”

Whereupon Madame Dupont leaped up in sudden frenzy. “Very Well!” she

exclaimed. “I will not follow your counsels, I will not listen to you!”

Said the doctor in a solemn voice: “There is already some one here who

regrets that he did not listen to me.”

“Yes,” moaned George, “to my misfortune, to the misfortune of all of

us.”

But Madame Dupont was quite beside herself. “Very well!” she cried. “If

it is a fault, if it is a crime, if I shall have to suffer remorse for

it in this life, and all the punishments in the life to come--I accept

it all for myself alone! Myself alone, I take that responsibility! It is

frightfully heavy, but I accept it. I am profoundly a Christian sir; I

believe in eternal damnation; but to save my little child I consent to

lose my soul forever. Yes, my mind is made up--I will do everything to

save that life! Let God judge me; and if he condemns me, so much the

worse for me!”

The doctor answered: “That responsibility is one which I cannot let

you take, for it will be necessary that I should accept my part, and I

refuse it.”

“What will you do?”

“I shall warn the nurse. I shall inform her exactly,

completely--something which you have not done, I feel sure.”

“What?” cried Madame Dupont, wildly. “You, a doctor, called into a

family which gives you its entire confidence, which hands over to you

its most terrible secrets, its most horrible miseries--you would betray

them?”

“It is not a betrayal,” replied the man, sternly. “It is something which

the law commands; and even if the law were silent, I would not permit a

family of worthy people to go astray so far as to commit a crime. Either

I give up the case, or you have the nursing of the child stopped.”

“You threaten! You threaten!” cried the woman, almost frantic. “You

abuse the power which your knowledge gives you! You know that it is you

whose attention we need by that little cradle; you know that we believe

in you, and you threaten to abandon us! Your abandonment means the death

of the child, perhaps! And if I listen to you, if we stop the nursing of

the child--that also means her death!”

She flung up her hands like a mad creature. “And yet there is no other

means! Ah, my God! Why do you not let it be possible for me to sacrifice

myself? I would wish nothing more than to be able to do it--if only

you might take my old body, my old flesh, my old bones--if only I might

serve for something! How quickly would I consent that it should infect

me--this atrocious malady! How I would offer myself to it--with what

joys, with what delights--however disgusting, however frightful it

might be, however much to be dreaded! Yes, I would take it without fear,

without regret, if my poor old empty breasts might still give to the

child the milk which would preserve its life!”

She stopped; and George sprang suddenly from his seat, and fled to her

and flung himself down upon his knees before her, mingling his sobs and

tears with hers.

The doctor rose and moved about the room, unable any longer to control

his distress. “Oh, the poor people!” he murmured to himself. “The poor,

poor people!”

The storm passed, and Madame Dupont, who was a woman of strong

character, got herself together. Facing the doctor again, she said,

“Come, sir, tell us what we have to do.”

“You must stop the nursing, and keep the woman here as a dry nurse, in

order that she may not go away to carry the disease elsewhere. Do not

exaggerate to yourself the danger which will result to the child. I am,

in truth, extremely moved by your suffering, and I will do everything--I

swear it to you--that your baby may recover as quickly as possible its

perfect health. I hope to succeed, and that soon. And now I must leave

you until tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Doctor, thank you,” said Madame Dupont, faintly.

The young man rose and accompanied the doctor to the door. He could not

bring himself to speak, but stood hanging his head until the other was

gone. Then he came to his mother. He sought to embrace her, but she

repelled him--without violence, but firmly.

Her son stepped back and put his hands over his face. “Forgive me!” he

said, in a broken voice. “Are we not unhappy enough, without hating each

other?”

His mother answered: “God has punished you for your debauch by striking

at your child.”

But, grief-stricken as the young man was, he could not believe that.

“Impossible!” he said. “There is not even a man sufficiently wicked or

unjust to commit the act which you attribute to your God!”

“Yes,” said his mother, sadly, “you believe in nothing.”

“I believe in no such God as that,” he answered.

A silence followed. When it was broken, it was by the entrance of the

nurse. She had opened the door of the room and had been standing there

for some moments, unheeded. Finally she stepped forward. “Madame,” she

said, “I have thought it over; I would rather go back to my home at

once, and have only the five hundred francs.”

Madame Dupont stared at her in consternation. “What is that you are

saying? You want to return to your home?”

“Yes, ma’am,” was the answer.

“But,” cried George, “only ten minutes ago you were not thinking of it.”

“What has happened since then?” demanded Madame Dupont.

“I have thought it over.”

“Thought it over?”

“Well, I am getting lonesome for my little one and for my husband.”

“In the last ten minutes?” exclaimed George.

“There must be something else,” his mother added. “Evidently there must

be something else.”

“No!” insisted the nurse.

“But I say yes!”

“Well, I’m afraid the air of Paris might not be good for me.”

“You had better wait and try it.”

“I would rather go back at once to my home.”

“Come, now,” cried Madame Dupont, “tell us why?”

“I have told you. I have thought it over.”

“Thought what over?”

“Well, I have thought.”

“Oh,” cried the mother, “what a stupid reply! ‘I have thought it over! I

have thought it over!’ Thought WHAT over, I want to know!”

“Well, everything.”

“Don’t you know how to tell us what?”

“I tell you, everything.”

“Why,” exclaimed Madame Dupont, “you are an imbecile!”

George stepped between his mother and the nurse. “Let me talk to her,”

he said.

The woman came back to her old formula: “I know that we’re only poor

country people.”

“Listen to me, nurse,” said the young man. “Only a little while ago you

were afraid that we would send you away. You were satisfied with the

wages which my mother had fixed. In addition to those wages we had

promised you a good sum when you returned to your home. Now you tell

us that you want to go away. You see? All at once. There must be some

reason; let us understand it. There must certainly be a reason. Has

anybody done anything to you?”

“No, sir,” said the woman, dropping her eyes.

“Well, then?”

“I have thought it over.”

George burst out, “Don’t go on repeating always the same thing--‘I have

thought it over!’ That’s not telling us anything.” Controlling himself,

he added, gently, “Come, tell me why you want to go away?”

There was a silence. “Well?” he demanded.

“I tell you, I have thought--”

George exclaimed in despair, “It’s as if one were talking to a block of

wood!”

His mother took up the conversation again. “You must realize, you have

not the right to go away.”

The woman answered, “I WANT to go.”

“But I will not let you leave us.”

“No,” interrupted George angrily, “let her go; we cannot fasten her

here.”

“Very well, then,” cried the exasperated mother, “since you want to go,

go! But I have certainly the right to say to you that you are as stupid

as the animals on your farm!”

“I don’t say that I am not,” answered the woman.

“I will not pay you the month which has just begun, and you will pay

your railroad fare for yourself.”

The other drew back with a look of anger. “Oho!” she cried. “We’ll see

about that!”

“Yes, we’ll see about it!” cried George. “And you will get out of here

at once. Take yourself off--I will have no more to do with you. Good

evening.”

“No, George,” protested his mother, “don’t lose control of yourself.”

And then, with a great effort at calmness, “That cannot be serious,

nurse! Answer me.”

“I would rather go off right away to my home, and only have my five

hundred francs.”

“WHAT?” cried George, in consternation.

“What’s that you are telling me?” exclaimed Madame Dupont.

“Five hundred francs?” repeated her son.

“What five hundred francs?” echoed the mother.

“The five hundred francs you promised me,” said the nurse.

“We have promised you five hundred francs? WE?”

“Yes.”

“When the child should be weaned, and if we should be satisfied with

you! That was our promise.”

“No. You said you would give them to me when I was leaving. Now I am

leaving, and I want them.”

Madame Dupont drew herself up, haughtily. “In the first place,” she

said, “kindly oblige me by speaking to me in another tone; do you

understand?”

The woman answered, “You have nothing to do but give me my money, and I

will say nothing more.”

George went almost beside himself with rage at this. “Oh, it’s like

that?” he shouted. “Very well; I’ll show you!” And he sprang to the door

and opened it.

But the nurse never budged. “Give me my five hundred francs!” she said.

George seized her by the arm and shoved her toward the door. “You clear

out of here, do you understand me? And as quickly as you can!”

The woman shook her arm loose, and sneered into his face. “Come now,

you--you can talk to me a little more politely, eh?”

“Will you go?” shouted George, completely beside himself. “Will you go,

or must I go out and look for a policeman?”

“A policeman!” demanded the woman. “For what?”

“To put you outside! You are behaving yourself like a thief.”

“A thief? I? What do you mean?”

“I mean that you are demanding money which doesn’t belong to you.”

“More than that,” broke in Madame Dupont, “you are destroying that poor

little baby! You are a wicked woman!”

“I will put you out myself!” shouted George, and seized her by the arm

again.

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” retorted the nurse. “Then you really want

me to tell you why I am going away?”

“Yes, tell me!” cried he.

His mother added, “Yes, yes!”

She would have spoken differently had she chanced to look behind her and

seen Henriette, who at that moment appeared in the doorway. She had been

about to go out, when her attention had been caught by the loud voices.

She stood now, amazed, clasping her hands together, while the nurse,

shaking her fist first at Madame Dupont and then at her son, cried

loudly, “Very well! I’m going away because I don’t want to catch a

filthy disease here!”

“HUSH!” cried Madame Dupont, and sprang toward her, her hands clenched

as if she would choke her.

“Be silent!” cried George, wild with terror.

But the woman rushed on without dropping her voice, “Oh, you need not

be troubling yourselves for fear anyone should overhear! All the world

knows it! Your other servants were listening with me at your door! They

heard every word your doctor said!”

“Shut up!” screamed George.

Her mother seized the woman fiercely by the arm. “Hold your tongue!” she

hissed.

But again the other shook herself loose. She was powerful, and now her

rage was not to be controlled. She waved her hands in the air, shouting,

“Let me be, let me be! I know all about your brat--that you will never

be able to raise it--that it’s rotten because it’s father has a filthy

disease he got from a woman of the street!”

She got no farther. She was interrupted by a frenzied shriek from

Henriette. The three turned, horrified, just in time to see her fall

forward upon the floor, convulsed.

“My God!” cried George. He sprang toward her, and tried to lift her, but

she shrank from him, repelling him with a gesture of disgust, of hatred,

of the most profound terror. “Don’t touch me!” she screamed, like a

maniac. “Don’t touch me!”

CHAPTER V

It was in vain that Madame Dupont sought to control her daughter-in-law.

Henriette was beside herself, frantic, she could not be brought to

listen to any one. She rushed into the other room, and when the older

woman followed her, shrieked out to be left alone. Afterwards, she fled

to her own room and barred herself in, and George and his mother waited

distractedly for hours until she should give some sign.

Would she kill herself, perhaps? Madame Dupont hovered on guard about

the door of the nursery for fear that the mother in her fit of insanity

might attempt some harm to her child.

The nurse had slunk away abashed when she saw the consequences of

her outburst. By the time she had got her belongings packed, she had

recovered her assurance. She wanted her five hundred; also she wanted

her wages and her railroad fare home. She wanted them at once, and she

would not leave until she got them. George and his mother, in the midst

of all their anguish of mind, had to go through a disgusting scene with

this coarse and angry woman.

They had no such sum of money in the house, and the nurse refused to

accept a check. She knew nothing about a check. It was so much paper,

and might be some trick that they were playing on her. She kept

repeating her old formula, “I am nothing but a poor country woman.” Nor

would she be contented with the promise that she would receive the money

the next day. She seemed to be afraid that if she left the house she

would be surrendering her claim. So at last the distracted George to

sally forth and obtain the cash from some tradesmen in the neighborhood.

The woman took her departure. They made her sign a receipt in full for

all claims and they strove to persuade themselves that this made them

safe; but in their hearts they had no real conviction of safety. What

was the woman’s signature, or her pledged word, against the cupidity of

her husband and relatives. Always she would have the dreadful secret

to hold over them, and so they would live under the shadow of possible

blackmail.

Later in the day Henriette sent for her mother-in-law. She was white,

her eyes were swollen with weeping, and she spoke in a voice choked with

sobs. She wished to return at once to her father’s home, and to take

little Gervaise with her. Madame Dupont cried out in horror at this

proposition, and argued and pleaded and wept--but all to no purpose. The

girl was immovable. She would not stay under her husband’s roof, and she

would take her child with her. It was her right, and no one could refuse

her.

The infant had been crying for hours, but that made no difference.

Henriette insisted that a cab should be called at once.

So she went back to the home of Monsieur Loches and told him the hideous

story. Never before in her life had she discussed such subjects with

any one, but now in her agitation she told her father all. As George had

declared to the doctor, Monsieur Loches was a person of violent temper;

at this revelation, at the sight of his daughter’s agony, he was almost

beside himself. His face turned purple, the veins stood out on his

forehead; a trembling seized him. He declared that he would kill

George--there was nothing else to do. Such a scoundrel should not be

permitted to live.

The effort which Henriette had to make to restrain him had a calming

effect upon herself. Bitter and indignant as she was, she did not want

George to be killed. She clung to her father, beseeching him to promise

her that he would not do such a thing; and all that day and evening she

watched him, unwilling to let him out of her sight.

There was a matter which claimed her immediate attention, and which

helped to withdraw them from the contemplation of their own sufferings.

The infant must be fed and cared for--the unhappy victim of other

people’s sins, whose life was now imperiled. A dry nurse must be found

at once, a nurse competent to take every precaution and give the

child every chance. This nurse must be informed of the nature of the

trouble--another matter which required a great deal of anxious thought.

That evening came Madame Dupont, tormented by anxiety about the child’s

welfare, and beseeching permission to help take care of it. It was

impossible to refuse such a request. Henriette could not endure to

see her, but the poor grandmother would come and sit for hours in the

nursery, watching the child and the nurse, in silent agony.

This continued for days, while poor George wandered about at home,

suffering such torment of mind as can hardly be imagined. Truly, in

these days he paid for his sins; he paid a thousand-fold in agonized and

impotent regret. He looked back upon the course of his life, and traced

one by one the acts which had led him and those he loved into this

nightmare of torment. He would have been willing to give his life if he

could have undone those acts. But avenging nature offered him no such

easy deliverance as that. We shudder as we read the grim words of the

Jehovah of the ancient Hebrews; and yet not all the learning of modern

times has availed to deliver us from the cruel decree, that the sins of

the fathers shall be visited upon the children.

George wrote notes to his wife, imploring her forgiveness. He poured

out all his agony and shame to her, begging her to see him just once, to

give him a chance to plead his defense. It was not much of a defense, to

be sure; it was only that he had done no worse than the others did--only

that he was a wretched victim of ignorance. But he loved her, he had

proven that he loved her, and he pleaded that for the sake of their

child she would forgive him.

When all this availed nothing, he went to see the doctor, whose advice

he had so shamefully neglected. He besought this man to intercede for

him--which the doctor, of course, refused to do. It was an extra-medical

matter, he said, and George was absurd to expect him to meddle in it.

But, as a matter of fact, the doctor had already been interceding--he

had gone farther in pleading George’s cause than he was willing to have

George know. For Monsieur Loches had paid him a visit--his purpose being

to ask the doctor to continue attendance upon the infant, and also

to give Henriette a certificate which she could use in her suit for a

divorce from her husband.

So inevitably there had been a discussion of the whole question between

the two men. The doctor had granted the first request, but refused the

second. In the first place, he said, there was a rule of professional

secrecy which would prevent him. And when the father-in-law requested

to know if the rule of professional secrecy compelled him to protect

a criminal against honest people, the doctor answered that even if

his ethics permitted it, he would still refuse the request. “I would

reproach myself forever,” he said, “if I had aided you to obtain such a

divorce.”

“Then,” cried the old man, vehemently, “because you profess such and

such theories, because the exercise of your profession makes you the

constant witness of such miseries--therefore it is necessary that my

daughter should continue to bear that man’s name all her life!”

The doctor answered, gently, “Sir, I understand and respect your grief.

But believe me, you are not in a state of mind to decide about these

matters now.”

“You are mistaken,” declared the other, controlling himself with an

effort. “I have been thinking about nothing else for days. I have

discussed it with my daughter, and she agrees with me. Surely, sir, you

cannot desire that my daughter should continue to live with a man who

has struck her so brutal, so cowardly, a blow.”

“If I refuse your request,” the doctor answered, “it is in the interest

of your daughter.” Then, seeing the other’s excitement returning, he

continued, “In your state of mind, Monsieur Loches, I know that you will

probably be abusing me before five minutes has passed. But that will not

trouble me. I have seen many cases. And since I have made the mistake

of letting myself be trapped into this discussion, I must explain to you

the reason for my attitude. You ask of me a certificate so that you may

prove in court that your son-in-law is afflicted with syphilis.”

“Precisely,” said the other.

“And have you not reflected upon this--that at the same time you will be

publicly attesting that your daughter has been exposed to the contagion?

With such an admission, an admission officially registered in the public

records, do you believe that she will find it easy to re-marry later

on?”

“She will never re-marry,” said the father.

“She says that today, but can you affirm that she will say the same

thing five years from now, ten years from now? I tell you you will

not obtain that divorce, because I will most certainly refuse you the

necessary certificate.”

“Then,” cried the other, “I will find other means of establishing

proofs. I will have the child examined by another doctor!”

The other answered. “Then you do not find that that poor little one has

been already sufficiently handicapped at the outset of its life? Your

granddaughter has a physical defect. Do you wish to add to that a

certificate of hereditary syphilis, which will follow her all her life?”

Monsieur Loches sprang from his chair. “You mean that if the victims

seek to defend themselves, they will be struck the harder! You mean that

the law gives me no weapon against a man who, knowing his condition,

takes a young girl, sound, trusting, innocent, and befouls her with the

result of his debauches--makes her the mother of a poor little creature,

whose future is such that those who love her the most do not know

whether they ought to pray for her life, or for her immediate

deliverance? Sir,” he continued, in his orator’s voice, “that man has

inflicted upon the woman he has married a supreme insult. He has made

her the victim of the most odious assault. He has degraded her--he has

brought her, so to speak, into contact with the woman of the streets. He

has created between her and that common woman I know not what mysterious

relationship. It is the poisoned blood of the prostitute which poisons

my daughter and her child; that abject creature, she lives, she lives in

us! She belongs to our family--he has given her a seat at our hearth! He

has soiled the imagination and the thoughts of my poor child, as he

has soiled her body. He has united forever in her soul the idea of

love which she has placed so high, with I know not what horrors of the

hospitals. He has tainted her in her dignity and her modesty, in her

love as well as in her baby. He has struck her down with physical and

moral decay, he has overwhelmed her with vileness. And yet the law is

such, the customs of society are such, that the woman cannot separate

herself from that man save by the aid of legal proceedings whose scandal

will fall upon herself and upon her child!”

Monsieur Loches had been pacing up and down the room as he spoke, and

now he clenched his fists in sudden fury.

“Very well! I will not address myself to the law. Since I learned the

truth I have been asking myself if it was not my duty to find that

monster and to put a bullet into his head, as one does to a mad dog. I

don’t know what weakness, what cowardice, has held me back, and decided

me to appeal to the law. Since the law will not protect me, I will seek

justice for myself. Perhaps his death will be a good warning for the

others!”

The doctor shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that this was no affair

of his and that he would not try to interfere. But he remarked, quietly:

“You will be tried for your life.”

“I shall be acquitted!” cried the other.

“Yes, but after a public revelation of all your miseries. You will make

the scandal greater, the miseries greater--that is all. And how do you

know but that on the morrow of your acquittal, you will find yourself

confronting another court, a higher and more severe one? How do you

know but that your daughter, seized at last by pity for the man you have

killed, will not demand to know by what right you have acted so, by what

right you have made an orphan of her child? How can you know but that

her child also may some day demand an accounting of you?”

Monsieur Loches let his hands fall, and stood, a picture of crushed

despair. “Tell me then,” he said, in a faint voice, “what ought I to

do?”

“Forgive!”

For a while the doctor sat looking at him. “Sir,” he said, at last,

“tell me one thing. You are inflexible; you feel you have the right to

be inflexible. But are you really so certain that it was not your duty,

once upon a time, to save your daughter from the possibility of such

misfortune?”

“What?” cried the other. “My duty? What do you mean?”

“I mean this, sir. When that marriage was being discussed, you certainly

took precautions to inform yourself about the financial condition of

your future son-in-law. You demanded that he should prove to you that

his stocks and bonds were actual value, listed on the exchange. Also,

you obtained some information about his character. In fact, you forgot

only one point, the most important of all--that was, to inquire if he

was in good health. You never did that.”

The father-in-law’s voice had become faint. “No,” he said.

“But why not?”

“Because that is not the custom.”

“Very well, but that ought to be the custom. Surely the father of a

family, before he gives his daughter to a man, should take as much

precaution as a business concern which accepts an employee.”

“You are right,” was the reply, “there should be a law.” The man spoke

as a deputy, having authority in these matters.

But the doctor cried, “No, no, sir! Do not make a new law. We have

too many already. There is no need of it. It would suffice that people

should know a little better what syphilis is. The custom would establish

itself very quickly for a suitor to add to all the other documents

which he presents, a certificate of a doctor, as proof that he could

be received into a family without bringing a pestilence with him. That

would be very simple. Once let the custom be established, then the

suitor would go to the doctor for a certificate of health, just as he

goes to the priest for a certificate that he has confessed; and by that

means you would prevent a great deal of suffering in the world. Or let

me put it another way, sir. Nowadays, before you conclude a marriage,

you get the lawyers of the two families together. It would be of at

least equal importance to get their two doctors together. You see, sir,

your inquiry concerning your son-in-law was far from complete. So your

daughter may fairly ask you, why you, being a man, being a father who

ought to know these things, did not take as much care of her health as

you took of her fortune. So it is, sir, that I say to you, forgive!”

But Monsieur Loches said again, “Never!”

And again the doctor sat and watched him for a minute. “Come, sir,” he

began, finally, “since it is necessary to employ the last argument, I

will do so. To be so severe and so pitiless--are you yourself without

sin?”

The other answered, “I have never had a shameful disease.”

“I do not ask you that,” interrupted the doctor. “I ask you if you have

never exposed yourself to the chance of having it.” And then, reading

the other’s face, he went on, in a tone of quiet certainty. “Yes, you

have exposed yourself. Then, sir, it was not virtue that you had; it

was good fortune. That is one of the things which exasperate me the

most--that term ‘shameful disease’ which you have just used. Like all

other diseases, that is one of our misfortunes, and it is never shameful

to be unfortunate--even if one has deserved it.” The doctor paused,

and then with some excitement he went on: “Come, sir, come, we must

understand each other. Among men the most exacting, among those who with

their middle-class prudery dare not pronounce the name of syphilis,

or who make the most terrifying faces, the most disgusted, when they

consent to speak of it--who regard the syphilitic as sinners--I should

wish to know how many there are who have never exposed themselves to a

similar misadventure. They and they alone have the right to speak. How

many are there? Among a thousand men, are there four? Very well, then.

Excepting those four, between all the rest and the syphilitic there is

nothing but the difference of chance.”

There came into the doctor’s voice at this moment a note of intense

feeling; for these were matters of which evidence came to him every day.

“I tell you, sir, that such people are deserving of sympathy, because

they are suffering. If they have committed a fault, they have at least

the plea that they are expiating it. No, sir, let me hear no more of

that hypocrisy. Recall your own youth, sir. That which afflicts your

son-in-law, you have deserved it just as much as he--more than he,

perhaps. Therefore, have pity on him; have for him the toleration which

the unpunished criminal ought to have for the criminal less fortunate

than himself upon whom the penalty has fallen. Is that not so?”

Monsieur Loches had been listening to this discourse with the feeling of

a thief before the bar. There was nothing that he could answer. “Sir,”

he stammered, “as you present this thing to me--”

“But am I not right?” insisted the doctor.

“Perhaps you are,” the other admitted. “But--I cannot say all that to my

daughter, to persuade her to go back to her husband.”

“You can give her other arguments,” was the answer.

“What arguments, in God’s name?”

“There is no lack of them. You will say to her that a separation would

be a misfortune for all; that her husband is the only one in the world

who would be devoted enough to help her save her child. You will say to

her that out of the ruins of her first happiness she can build herself

another structure, far stronger. And, sir, you will add to that whatever

your good heart may suggest--and we will arrange so that the next child

of the pair shall be sound and vigorous.”

Monsieur Loches received this announcement with the same surprise that

George himself had manifested. “Is that possible?” he asked.

The doctor cried: “Yes, yes, yes--a thousand times yes! There is a

phrase which I repeat on every occasion, and which I would wish to post

upon the walls. It is that syphilis is an imperious mistress, who only

demands that one should recognize her power. She is terrible for

those who think her insignificant, and gentle with those who know how

dangerous she is. You know that kind of mistress--who is only vexed when

she is neglected. You may tell this to your daughter--you will restore

her to the arms of her husband, from whom she has no longer anything

to fear, and I will guarantee that you will be a happy grandfather two

years from now.”

Monsieur Loches at last showed that he was weakened in his resolution.

“Doctor,” he said, “I do not know that I can ever go so far as

forgiveness, but I promise you that I will do no irreparable act, and

that I will not oppose a reconciliation if after the lapse of some

time--I cannot venture to say how long--my poor child should make up her

mind to a reconciliation.”

“Very good,” said the other. “But let me add this: If you have another

daughter, take care to avoid the fault which you committed when you

married off the first.”

“But,” said the old man, “I did not know.”

“Ah, surely!” cried the other. “You did not know! You are a father, and

you did not know! You are a deputy, you have assumed the responsibility

and the honor of making our laws--and you did not know! You are ignorant

about syphilis, just as you probably are ignorant about alcoholism and

tuberculosis.”

“No,” exclaimed the other, quickly.

“Very well,” said the doctor, “I will leave you out, if you wish. I am

talking of the others, the five hundred, and I don’t know how many

more, who are there in the Chamber of Deputies, and who call themselves

representatives of the people. They are not able to find a single hour

to discuss these three cruel gods, to which egotism and indifference

make every day such frightful human sacrifices. They have not sufficient

leisure to combat this ferocious trinity, which destroys every day

thousands of lives. Alcoholism! It would be necessary to forbid the

manufacture of poisons, and to restrict the number of licenses; but as

one has fear of the great distillers, who are rich and powerful, and of

the little dealers, who are the masters of universal suffrage, one

puts one’s conscience to sleep by lamenting the immorality of

the working-class, and publishing little pamphlets and sermons.

Imbeciles!...Tuberculosis! Everybody knows the true remedy, which would

be the paying of sufficient wages, and the tearing down of the filthy

tenements into which the laborers are packed--those who are the most

useful and the most unfortunate among our population! But needless to

say, no one wants that remedy, so we go round begging the workingmen not

to spit on the sidewalks. Wonderful! But syphilis--why do you not occupy

yourself with that? Why, since you have ministers whose duty it is to

attend to all sorts of things, do you not have a minister to attend to

the public health?”

“My dear Doctor,” responded Monsieur Loches, “you fall into the French

habit of considering the government as the cause of all evils. Show us

the way, you learned gentlemen! Since that is a matter about which you

are informed, and we are ignorant, begin by telling us what measures you

believe to be necessary.”

“Ah, ah!” exclaimed the other. “That’s fine, indeed! It was about

eighteen years ago that a project of that nature, worked out by the

Academy of Medicine, and approved by it UNANIMOUSLY, was sent to the

proper minister. We have not yet heard his reply.”

“You really believe,” inquired Monsieur Loches, in some bewilderment,

“you believe that there are some measures--”

“Sir,” broke in the doctor, “before we get though, you are going to

suggest some measures yourself. Let me tell you what happened today.

When I received your card I did not know that you were the father-in-law

of George Dupont. I say that you were a deputy, and I thought that you

wanted to get some information about these matters. There was a woman

patient waiting to see me, and I kept her in my waiting-room--saying to

myself, This is just the sort of person that our deputies ought to talk

to.”

The doctor paused for a moment, then continued: “Be reassured, I will

take care of your nerves. This patient has no trouble that is apparent

to the eye. She is simply an illustration of the argument I have been

advancing--that our worst enemy is ignorance. Ignorance--you understand

me? Since I have got you here, sir, I am going to hold you until I have

managed to cure a little of your ignorance! For I tell you, sir, it is

a thing which drives me to distraction--we MUST do something about these

conditions! Take this case, for example. Here is a woman who is very

seriously infected. I told her--well, wait; you shall see for yourself.”

The doctor went to the door and summoned into the room a woman whom

Monsieur Loches had noticed waiting there. She was verging on old age,

small, frail, and ill-nourished in appearance, poorly dressed, and yet

with a suggestion of refinement about her. She stood near the door,

twisting her hands together nervously, and shrinking from the gaze of

the strange gentleman. The doctor began in an angry voice. “Did I not

tell you to come and see me once every eight days? Is that not true?”

The woman answered, in a faint voice, “Yes, sir.”

“Well,” he exclaimed, “and how long has it been since you were here?”

“Three months, sir.”

“Three months! And you believe that I can take care of you under such

conditions? I give you up! Do you understand? You discourage me, you

discourage me.” There was a pause. Then, seeing the woman’s suffering,

he began, in a gentler tone, “Come now, what is the reason that you

have not come? Didn’t you know that you have a serious disease--most

serious?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” replied the woman, “I know that very well--since my

husband died of it.”

The doctor’s voice bore once again its note of pity. “Your husband died

of it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He took no care of himself?”

“No, sir.”

“And was not that a warning to you?”

“Doctor,” the woman replied, “I would ask nothing better than to come as

often as you told me, but the cost is too great.”

“How--what cost? You were coming to my free clinic.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the woman, “but that’s during working hours, and

then it is a long way from home. There are so many sick people, and I

have to wait my turn, It is in the morning--sometimes I lose a whole

day--and then my employer is annoyed, and he threatens to turn me off.

It is things like that that keep people from coming, until they dare not

put it off any longer. Then, too, sir--” the woman stopped, hesitating.

“Well,” demanded the doctor.

“Oh, nothing, sir,” she stammered. “You have been too good to me

already.”

“Go on,” commanded the other. “Tell me.”

“Well,” murmured the woman, “I know I ought not to put on airs, but you

see I have not always been so poor. Before my husband’s misfortune,

we were well fixed. So you see, I have a little pride. I have always

managed to take care of myself. I am not a woman of the streets, and to

stand around like that, with everybody else, to be obliged to tell

all one’s miseries out loud before the world! I am wrong, I know it

perfectly well; I argue with myself--but all the same, it’s hard, sir; I

assure you, it is truly hard.”

“Poor woman!” said the doctor; and for a while there was a silence. Then

he asked: “It was your husband who brought you the disease?”

“Yes, sir,” was the reply. “Everything which happened to us came from

him. We were living in the country when he got the disease. He went half

crazy. He no longer knew how to manage his affairs. He gave orders here

and there for considerable sums. We were not able to find the money.”

“Why did he not undergo treatment?”

“He didn’t know then. We were sold out, and we came to Paris. But we

hadn’t a penny. He decided to go to the hospital for treatment.”

“And then?”

“Why, they looked him over, but they refused him any medicine.”

“How was that?”

“Because we had been in Paris only three months. If one hasn’t been a

resident six months, one has no right to free medicine.”

“Is that true?” broke in Monsieur Loches quickly.

“Yes,” said the doctor, “that’s the rule.”

“So you see,” said the woman, “it was not our fault.”

“You never had children?” inquired the doctor.

“I was never able to bring one to birth,” was the answer. “My husband

was taken just at the beginning of our marriage--it was while he

was serving in the army. You know, sir--there are women about the

garrisons--” She stopped, and there was a long silence.

“Come,” said the doctor, “that’s all right. I will arrange it with you.

You can come here to my office, and you can come on Sunday mornings.”

And as the poor creature started to express her gratitude, he slipped a

coin into her hand. “Come, come; take it,” he said gruffly. “You are not

going to play proud with me. No, no, I have no time to listen to you.

Hush!” And he pushed her out of the door.

Then he turned to the deputy. “You heard her story, sir,” he said. “Her

husband was serving his time in the army; it was you law-makers who

compelled him to do that. And there are women about the garrisons--you

heard how her voice trembled as she said that? Take my advice, sir, and

look up the statistics as to the prevalence of this disease among our

soldiers. Come to some of my clinics, and let me introduce you to other

social types. You don’t care very much about soldiers, perhaps--they

belong to the lower classes, and you think of them as rough men. But let

me show you what is going on among our college students--among the men

our daughters are some day to marry. Let me show you the women who prey

upon them! Perhaps, who knows--I can show you the very woman who was the

cause of all the misery in your own family!”

And as Monsieur Loches rose from his chair, the doctor came to him and

took him by the hand. “Promise me, sir,” he said, earnestly, “that you

will come back and let me teach you more about these matters. It is a

chance that I must not let go--the first time in my life that I ever got

hold of a real live deputy! Come and make a study of this subject, and

let us try to work out some sensible plan, and get seriously to work to

remedy these frightful evils!”

CHAPTER VI

George lived with his mother after Henriette had left his home. He was

wretchedly unhappy and lonely. He could find no interest in any of the

things which had pleased him before. He was ashamed to meet any of his

friends, because he imagined that everyone must have heard the dreadful

story--or because he was not equal to making up explanations for his

mournful state. He no longer cared much about his work. What was the

use of making a reputation or earning large fees when one had nothing to

spend them for?

All his thoughts were fixed upon the wife and child he had lost. He was

reminded of Henriette in a thousand ways, and each way brought him a

separate pang of grief. He had never realized how much he had come to

depend upon her in every little thing--until now, when her companionship

was withdrawn from him, and everything seemed to be a blank. He would

come home at night, and opposite to him at the dinner-table would be his

mother, silent and spectral. How different from the days when Henriette

was there, radiant and merry, eager to be told everything that had

happened to him through the day!

There was also his worry about little Gervaise. He might no longer hear

how she was doing, for he could not get up courage to ask his mother

the news. Thus poor George was paying for his sins. He could make no

complaints against the price, however high--only sometimes he

wondered whether he would be able to pay it. There were times of such

discouragement that he thought of different ways of killing himself.

A curious adventure befell him during this period. He was walking one

day in the park, when he saw approaching a girl whose face struck him as

familiar. At first he could not recollect where he had seen her. It was

only when she was nearly opposite him that he realized--it was the girl

who had been the cause of all his misery!

He tried to look away, but he was too late. Her eyes had caught his, and

she nodded and then stopped, exclaiming, “Why, how do you do?”

George had to face her. “How do you do?” he responded, weakly.

She held out her hand and he had to take it, but there was not much

welcome in his clasp. “Where have you been keeping yourself?” she asked.

Then, as he hesitated, she laughed good-naturedly, “What’s the matter?

You don’t seem glad to see me.”

The girl--Therese was her name--had a little package under her arm, as

if she had been shopping. She was not well dressed, as when George had

met her before, and doubtless she thought that was the reason for his

lack of cordiality. This made him rather ashamed, and so, only half

realizing what he was doing, he began to stroll along with her.

“Why did you never come to see me again?” she asked.

George hesitated. “I--I--” he stammered--“I’ve been married since then.”

She laughed. “Oh! So that’s it!” And then, as they came to a bench under

some trees, “Won’t you sit down a while?” There was allurement in her

glance, but it made George shudder. It was incredible to him that he

had ever been attracted by this crude girl. The spell was now broken

completely.

She quickly saw that something was wrong. “You don’t seem very

cheerful,” she said. “What’s the matter?”

And the man, staring at her, suddenly blurted out, “Don’t you know what

you did to me?”

“What I did to you?” Therese repeated wonderingly.

“You must know!” he insisted.

And then she tried to meet his gaze and could not. “Why--” she

stammered.

There was silence between them. When George spoke again his voice was

low and trembling. “You ruined my whole life,” he said--“not only mine,

but my family’s. How could you do it?”

She strove to laugh it off. “A cheerful topic for an afternoon stroll!”

For a long while George did not answer. Then, almost in a whisper, he

repeated, “How could you do it?”

“Some one did it to me first,” was the response. “A man!”

“Yes,” said George, “but he didn’t know.”

“How can you tell whether he knew or not?”

“You knew?” he inquired, wonderingly.

Therese hesitated. “Yes, I knew,” she said at last, defiantly. “I have

known for years.”

“And I’m not the only man.”

She laughed. “I guess not!”

There followed a long pause. At last he resumed, “I don’t want to blame

you; there’s nothing to be gained by that; it’s done, and can’t

be undone. But sometimes I wonder about it. I should like to

understand--why did you do it?”

“Why? That’s easy enough. I did it because I have to live.”

“You live that way?” he exclaimed.

“Why of course. What did you think?”

“I thought you were a--a--” He hesitated.

“You thought I was respectable,” laughed Therese. “Well, that’s just a

little game I was playing on you.”

“But I didn’t give you any money!” he argued.

“Not that time,” she said, “but I thought you would come back.”

He sat gazing at her. “And you earn your living that way still?” he

asked. “When you know what’s the matter with you! When you know--”

“What can I do? I have to live, don’t I?”

“But don’t you even take care of yourself? Surely there must be some

way, some place--”

“The reformatory, perhaps,” she sneered. “No, thanks! I’ll go there

when the police catch me, not before. I know some girls that have tried

that.”

“But aren’t you afraid?” cried the man. “And the things that will happen

to you! Have you ever talked to a doctor--or read a book?”

“I know,” she said. “I’ve seen it all. If it comes to me, I’ll go over

the side of one of the bridges some dark night.”

George sat lost in thought. A strange adventure it seemed to him--to

meet this girl under such different circumstances! It was as if he were

watching a play from behind the scenes instead of in front. If only he

had had this new view in time--how different would have been his life!

And how terrible it was to think of the others who didn’t know--the

audience who were still sitting out in front, watching the spectacle,

interested in it!

His thoughts came back to Therese. He was curious about her and the life

she lived. “Tell me a little about it,” he said. “How you came to be

doing this.” And he added, “Don’t think I want to preach; I’d really

like to understand.”

“Oh, it’s a common story,” she said--“nothing especially romantic.

I came to Paris when I was a girl. My parents had died, and I had no

friends, and I didn’t know what to do. I got a place as a nursemaid.

I was seventeen years old then, and I didn’t know anything. I believed

what I was told, and I believed my employer. His wife was ill in a

hospital, and he said he wanted to marry me when she died. Well, I liked

him, and I was sorry for him--and then the first thing I knew I had a

baby. And then the wife came back, and I was turned off. I had been a

fool, of course. If I had been in her place should have done just what

she did.”

The girl was speaking in a cold, matter-of-fact voice, as of things

about which she was no longer able to suffer. “So, there I was--on the

street,” she went on. “You have always had money, a comfortable home,

education, friends to help you--all that. You can’t imagine how it is

to be in the world without any of these things. I lived on my savings as

long as I could; then I had to leave my baby in a foundling’s home, and

I went out to do my five hours on the boulevards. You know the game, I

have no doubt.”

Yes, George knew the game. Somehow or other he no longer felt bitter

towards this poor creature. She was part of the system of which he was

a victim also. There was nothing to be gained by hating each other.

Just as the doctor said, what was needed was enlightenment. “Listen,” he

said, “why don’t you try to get cured?”

“I haven’t got the price,” was the answer.

“Well,” he said, hesitatingly, “I know a doctor--one of the really good

men. He has a free clinic, and I’ve no doubt he would take you in if I

asked him to.”

“YOU ask him?” echoed the other, looking at George in surprise.

The young man felt somewhat uncomfortable. He was not used to playing

the role of the good Samaritan. “I--I need not tell him about us,” he

stammered. “I could just say that I met you. I have had such a wretched

time myself, I feel sorry for anybody that’s in the same plight. I

should like to help you if I could.”

The girl sat staring before her, lost in thought. “I have treated you

badly, I guess,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m ashamed of myself.”

George took a pencil and paper from his pocket and wrote the doctor’s

address. “Here it is,” he said, in a business-like way, because he felt

that otherwise he could become sentimental. He was half tempted to tell

the woman what had happened to him, and all about Henriette and the

sick child; but he realized that that would not do. So he rose and shook

hands with her and left.

The next time he saw the doctor he told him about this girl. He decided

to tell him the truth--having already made so many mistakes trying

to conceal things. The doctor agreed to treat the woman, making the

condition that George promise not to see her again.

The young man was rather shocked at this. “Doctor,” he exclaimed, “I

assure you you are mistaken. The thing you have in mind would be utterly

impossible.”

“I know,” said the other, “you think so. But I think, young man, that

I know more about life than you do. When a man and a woman have once

committed such a sin, it is easy for them to slip back. The less time

they spend talking about their misfortunes, and being generous and

forbearing to each other, the better for them both.”

“But, Doctor,” cried George. “I love Henriette! I could not possibly

love anyone else. It would be horrible to me!”

“Yes,” said the doctor. “But you are not living with Henriette. You are

wandering round, not knowing what to do with yourself next.”

There was no need for anybody to tell George that. “What do you think?”

he asked abruptly. “Is there any hope for me?”

“I think there is,” said the other, who, in spite of his resolution, had

become a sort of ambassador for the unhappy husband. He had to go to

the Loches house to attend the child, and so he could not help seeing

Henriette, and talking to her about the child’s health and her own

future. He considered that George had had his lesson, and urged upon the

young wife that he would be wiser in future, and safe to trust.

George had indeed learned much. He got new lessons every time he went to

call at the physician’s office--he could read them in the faces of the

people he saw there. One day when he was alone in the waiting-room, the

doctor came out of his inner office, talking to an elderly gentleman,

whom George recognized as the father of one of his classmates at

college. The father was a little shopkeeper, and the young man

remembered how pathetically proud he had been of his son. Could it be,

thought George, that this old man was a victim of syphilis?

But it was the son, and not the father, who was the subject of the

consultation. The old man was speaking in a deeply moved voice, and he

stood so that George could not help hearing what he said. “Perhaps you

can’t understand,” he said, “just what it means to us--the hopes we had

of that boy! Such a fine fellow he was, and a good fellow, too, sir! We

were so proud of him; we had bled our veins to keep him in college--and

now just see!”

“Don’t despair, sir,” said the doctor, “we’ll try to cure him.” And he

added with that same note of sorrow in his voice which George had heard,

“Why did you wait so long before you brought the boy to me?”

“How was I to know what he had?” cried the other. “He didn’t dare tell

me, sir--he was afraid of my scolding him. And in the meantime the

disease was running its course. When he realized that he had it, he went

secretly to one of the quacks, who robbed him, and didn’t cure him. You

know how it is, sir.”

“Yes, I know,” said the doctor.

“Such things ought not to be permitted,” cried the old man. “What is

our government about that it allows such things to go on? Take the

conditions there at the college where my poor boy was ruined. At the

very gates of the building these women are waiting for the lads! Ought

they to be permitted to debauch young boys only fifteen years old?

Haven’t we got police enough to prevent a thing like that? Tell me,

sir!”

“One would think so,” said the doctor, patiently.

“But is it that the police don’t want to?”

“No doubt they have the same excuse as all the rest--they don’t know.

Take courage, sir; we have cured worse cases than your son’s. And some

day, perhaps, we shall be able to change these conditions.”

So he went on with the man, leaving George with something to think

about. How much he could have told them about what had happened to that

young fellow when only fifteen years old! It had not been altogether the

fault of the women who were lurking outside of the college gates; it was

a fact that the boy’s classmates had teased him and ridiculed him, had

literally made his life a torment, until he had yielded to temptation.

It was the old, old story of ignorant and unguided schoolboys all over

the world! They thought that to be chaste was to be weak and foolish;

that a fellow was not a man unless he led a life of debauchery like the

rest. And what did they know about these dreadful diseases? They had the

most horrible superstitions--ideas of cures so loathsome that they could

not be set down in print; ideas as ignorant and destructive as those

of savages in the heart of Africa. And you might hear them laughing

and jesting about one another’s condition. They might be afflicted with

diseases which would have the most terrible after-effects upon their

whole lives and upon their families--diseases which cause tens of

thousands of surgical operations upon women, and a large percentage of

blindness and idiocy in children--and you might hear them confidently

express the opinion that these diseases were no worse than a bad cold!

And all this mass of misery and ignorance covered over and clamped

down by a taboo of silence, imposed by the horrible superstition of

sex-prudery! George went out from the doctor’s office trembling with

excitement over this situation. Oh, why had not some one warned him in

time? Why didn’t the doctors and the teachers lift up their voices and

tell young men about these frightful dangers? He wanted to go out in

the highways and preach it himself--except that he dared not, because he

could not explain to the world his own sudden interest in this forbidden

topic.

These was only one person he dared to talk to: that was his mother--to

whom he ought to have talked many, many years before. He was moved to

mention to her the interview he had overheard in the doctor’s office. In

a sudden burst of grief he told her of his struggles and temptations; he

pleaded with her to go to Henriette once more--to tell her these things,

and try to make her realize that he alone was not to blame for them,

that they were a condition which prevailed everywhere, that the only

difference between her husband and other men was that he had had the

misfortune to be caught.

There was pressure being applied to Henriette from several sides. After

all, what could she do? She was comfortable in her father’s home, so far

as the physical side of things went; but she knew that all her friends

were gossiping and speculating about her separation from her husband,

and sooner or later she would have to make up her mind, either to

separate permanently from George or to return to him. There was not much

happiness for her in the thought of getting a divorce from a man whom

deep in her heart she loved. She would be practically a widow the rest

of her life, and the home in which poor little Gervaise would be brought

up would not be a cheerful one.

George was ready to offer any terms, if only she would come back to his

home. They might live separate lives for as long as Henriette wished.

They would have no more children until the doctor declared it was quite

safe; and in the meantime he would be humble and patient, and would try

his best to atone for the wrong that he had done her.

To these arguments Madame Dupont added others of her own. She told the

girl some things which through bitter experience she had learned about

the nature and habits of men; things that should be told to every girl

before marriage, but which almost all of them are left to find out

afterwards, with terrible suffering and disillusionment. Whatever

George’s sins may have been, he was a man who had been chastened by

suffering, and would know how to value a woman’s love for the rest of

his life. Not all men knew that--not even those who had been fortunate

in escaping from the so-called “shameful disease.”

Henriette was also hearing arguments from her father, who by this time

had had time to think things over, and had come to the conclusion

that the doctor was right. He had noted his son-in-law’s patience and

penitence, and had also made sure that in spite of everything Henriette

still loved him. The baby apparently was doing well; and the Frenchman,

with his strong sense of family ties, felt it a serious matter to

separate a child permanently from its father. So in the end he cast

the weight of his influence in favor of a reconciliation, and Henriette

returned to her husband, upon terms which the doctor laid down.

The doctor played in these negotiations the part which he had not been

allowed to play in the marriage. For the deputy was now thoroughly awake

to the importance of the duty he owed his daughter. In fact, he had

become somewhat of a “crank” upon the whole subject. He had attended

several of the doctor’s clinics, and had read books and pamphlets on the

subject of syphilis, and was now determined that there should be some

practical steps towards reform.

At the outset, he had taken the attitude of the average legislator, that

the thing to do was to strengthen the laws against prostitution, and to

enforce them more strictly. He echoed the cry of the old man whom George

had heard in the doctor’s office: “Are there not enough police?”

“We must go to the source,” he declared. “We must proceed against these

miserable women--veritable poisoners that they are!”

He really thought this was going to the source! But the doctor was quick

to answer his arguments. “Poisoners?” he said. “You forget that they

have first been poisoned. Every one of these women who communicates the

disease has first received it from some man.”

Monsieur Loches advanced to his second idea, to punish the men. But the

doctor had little interest in this idea either. He had seen it tried so

many times--such a law could never be enforced. What must come first was

education, and by this means a modification of morals. People must cease

to treat syphilis as a mysterious evil, of which not even the name could

be pronounced.

“But,” objected the other, “one cannot lay it bare to children in our

educational institutions!”

“Why not?” asked the doctor.

“Because, sir, there are curiosities which it would be imprudent to

awaken.”

The doctor became much excited whenever he heard this argument. “You

believe that you are preventing these curiosities from awakening?”

he demanded. “I appeal to those--both men and women--who have passed

through colleges and boarding schools! Such curiosities cannot be

smothered, and they satisfy themselves as best they can, basely,

vilely. I tell you, sir, there is nothing immoral about the act which

perpetuates life by means of love. But we organize around it, so far as

concerns our children, a gigantic and rigorous conspiracy of silence.

The worthy citizen takes his daughter and his son to popular musical

comedies, where they listen to things which would make a monkey blush;

but it is forbidden to discuss seriously before the young that act

of love which people seem to think they should only know of through

blasphemies and profanations! Either that act is a thing of which

people can speak without blushing--or else, sir, it is a matter for

the innuendoes of the cabaret and the witticisms of the messroom!

Pornography is admitted, but science is not! I tell you, sir, that is

the thing which must be changed! We must elevate the soul of the young

man by taking these facts out of the realm of mystery and of slang. We

must awaken in him a pride in that creative power with which each one of

us is endowed. We must make him understand that he is a sort of temple

in which is prepared the future of the race, and we must teach him that

he must transmit, intact, the heritage entrusted to him--the precious

heritage which has been built out of the tears and miseries and

sufferings of an interminable line of ancestors!”

So the doctor argued. He brought forth case after case to prove that the

prostitute was what she was, not because of innate vileness, but because

of economic conditions. It happened that the deputy came to one of the

clinics where he met Therese. The doctor brought her into his consulting

room, after telling her that the imposing-looking gentleman was a friend

of the director of the opera, and might be able to recommend her for

a position on the stage to which she aspired. “Tell him all about

yourself,” he said, “how you live, and what you do, and what you would

like to do. You will get him interested in you.”

So the poor girl retold the story of her life. She spoke in a

matter-of-fact voice, and when she came to tell how she had been obliged

to leave her baby in the foundling asylum, she was surprised that

Monsieur Loches showed horror. “What could I do?” she demanded. “How

could I have taken care of it?”

“Didn’t you ever miss it?” he asked.

“Of course I missed it. But what difference did that make? It would have

died of hunger with me.”

“Still,” he said, “it was your child--”

“It was the father’s child, too, wasn’t it? Much attention he paid to

it! If I had been sure of getting money enough, I would have put it out

to nurse. But with the twenty-five or thirty francs a month I could have

earned as a servant, could I have paid for a baby? That’s the situation

a girl faces--so long as I wanted to remain honest, it was impossible

for me to keep my child. You answer, perhaps, ‘You didn’t stay honest

anyway.’ That’s true. But then--when you are hungry, and a nice young

fellow offers you dinner, you’d have to be made of wood to refuse him.

Of course, if I had had a trade--but I didn’t have any. So I went on the

street--You know how it is.”

“Tell us about it,” said the doctor. “This gentleman is from the

country.”

“Is that so?” said the girl. “I never supposed there was anyone who

didn’t know about such things. Well, I took the part of a little

working-girl. A very simple dress--things I had made especially for

that--a little bundle in a black napkin carried in my hand--so I walked

along where the shops are. It’s tiresome, because to do it right, you

have to patter along fast. Then I stop before a shop, and nine times out

of ten, there you are! A funny thing is that the men--you’d imagine

they had agreed on the words to approach you with. They have only two

phrases; they never vary them. It’s either, ‘You are going fast, little

one.’ Or it’s, ‘Aren’t you afraid all alone?’ One thing or the other.

One knows pretty well what they mean. Isn’t it so?” The girl paused,

then went on. “Again, I would get myself up as a young widow. There,

too, one has to walk fast: I don’t know why that should be so, but it

is. After a minute or two of conversation, they generally find out that

I am not a young widow, but that doesn’t make any difference--they go on

just the same.”

“Who are the men?” asked the deputy. “Clerks? Traveling salesmen?”

“Not much,” she responded. “I keep a lookout for gentlemen--like

yourself.”

“They SAY they are gentlemen,” he suggested.

“Sometimes I can see it,” was the response. “Sometimes they wear orders.

It’s funny--if they have on a ribbon when you first notice them, they

follow you, and presto--the ribbon is gone! I always laugh over that.

I’ve watched them in the glass of the shop windows. They try to look

unconcerned, but as they walk along they snap out the ribbon with their

thumb--as one shells little peas, you know.”

She paused; then, as no one joined in her laugh, she continued, “Well,

at last the police got after me, That’s a story that I’ve never been

able to understand. Those filthy men gave me a nasty disease, and then I

was to be shut in prison for it! That was a little too much, it seems to

me.”

“Well,” said the doctor, grimly, “you revenged yourself on them--from

what you have told me.”

The other laughed. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I had my innings.” She turned

to Monsieur Loches. “You want me to tell you that? Well, just on the

very day I learned that the police were after me, I was coming home

furious, naturally. It was on the Boulevard St. Denis, if you know the

place--and whom do you think I met? My old master--the one who got me

into trouble, you know. There it was, God’s own will! I said to myself,

‘Now, my good fellow, here’s the time where you pay me what you owe me,

and with interest, too!’ I put on a little smile--oh, it didn’t take

very long, you may be sure!”

The woman paused; her face darkened, and she went on, in a voice

trembling with agitation: “When I had left him, I was seized with a

rage. A sort of madness got into my blood. I took on all the men who

offered themselves, for whatever they offered me, for nothing, if they

didn’t offer me anything. I took as many as I could, the youngest ones

and the handsomest ones. Just so! I only gave them back what they had

given to me. And since that time I haven’t really cared about anyone any

more. I just turned it all into a joke.” She paused, and then looking

at the deputy, and reading in his face the horror with which he was

regarding her, “Oh, I am not the only one!” she exclaimed. “There

are lots of other women who do the same. To be sure, it is not for

vengeance--it is because they must have something to eat. For even if

you have syphilis, you have to eat, don’t you? Eh?”

She had turned to the doctor, but he did not answer. There was a long

silence; and then thinking that his friend, the deputy, had heard enough

for one session, the doctor rose. He dismissed the woman, the cause of

all George Dupont’s misfortunes, and turning to Monsieur Loches, said:

“It was on purpose that I brought that wretched prostitute before

you. In her the whole story is summed up--not merely the story of your

son-in-law, but that of all the victims of the red plague. That woman

herself is a victim, and she is a symbol of the evil which we have

created and which falls upon our own heads again. I could add nothing to

her story, I only ask you, Monsieur Loches--when next you are proposing

new laws in the Chamber of Deputies, not to forget the horrors which

that poor woman has exposed to you!”

End of ’s Damaged Goods, by Upton Sinclair and Eugene Brieux