Fruitfulness

atch the seven-o'clock train which every day conveyed him from Janville to Paris. It was already half-past six, and there were fully two thousand paces from the pavilion to Janville. Aft

ice at the factory before

hastily returned to the principal bedroom, he found his wife, Marianne, in bed there, but awake and sitting up. She had risen a moment before in order to pull back a curtain, and all the glow

r I fear I may miss the train-and so manage as well as

ver-recurring pecuniary worries of the household left her brave and joyous. Yet she had been m

r little debts at Janville to-morrow. There are only the Lepailleurs, who worry me with their bill for milk and eggs, for they a

eld out her firm white arms for

hurry. I will go to meet you

re half-past eleven. Ah! what a day I have before me! I had to promise the Moranges that I would take dejeuner with them; and this evening Beauch

that the rain comes into the children's bedroom. It's not right that we should be soaked here as if we were on the high

orgotten that. I will cal

o laugh again, while giving him many a kiss in return for his own. There was all the love of bounding health between

tance that, before she goes into the country, she

tell her-till to

e, and pressed to her lips a long, loving kiss, which sh

home he bravely went through Paris on foot. It was, too, a very fine walk by way of the Rue la Fayette, the Opera-house, the B

the height of Passy, beyond the Seine; whilst on the right arose the campanile of the Trocadero palace. On one side, skirting the Rue de la Federation, one could still see a garden and a little house, which had been the modest dwelling of Leon Beauchene in the heroic days of desperate toil when he had laid the foundations of his fortune. Then the factory buildings and sheds, quite a mass of grayish structures, overtopped by two huge chimneys, occupied both the back p

, with its paving stones invariably black and often streaked by rivulets of steaming water. Dense smoke arose from the high chimneys, strident je

a salary of one hundred francs a month. His father, Pierre Froment,* had four sons by Marie his wife-Jean the eldest, then Mathieu, Marc, and Luc-and while leaving them free to choose a particular career he had striven to give each of them some manual calling. Leon Beauchene, the founder of the works, had been dead a year, and his son Alexandre had succeeded him and m

es, Rome,

e, whose companionship was rather dull, and his younger sister, Seraphine, a big, vicious, and flighty girl of eighteen, who, as it happened, soon left the house amid a frightful scandal-an elopement with a certain Baron Lowicz, a genuine baron, but a swindler and forger, to whom it became necessary to marry her. She then received a dowry of 300,000 francs. Alexandre, after his father's death, made a money match with Constance, who brought him half a million francs, and Marianne then found herself still more a stranger, still more isolated beside her new cousin, a thin, dry, authoritative woman, who ruled the home with absolute sway. Mathieu was there, howev

hat Seraphine eagerly opposed her brother's interests, demanding her personal share of the inheritance, and even suggesting the sale of the works. The property had narrowly escaped being cut up, annihilated. And Alexandre Beauchene still shivered with terror and anger at the recollection of that time, amidst all his delight at having at last rid himself of his sister by paying her in money the liberally estimated value of her share. It was in order to fill up the void thus created in his finances that he had espoused the half-million represented by Constance

he doorway as soon as he heard the young man installing himself at his drawing-table. "I

t's understood. I will look i

m thresher, an invention of his own, on which he had been working for some time past, and

care, as he likewise did on his hair, which was carefully combed over his head in order to conceal the serious baldness that was already coming upon him, although he was scarcely two-and-thirty. Frock-coated the first thing in the morning, he was alrea

hat I'm going to take you to the restaurant with him this evening; for one can never induce those fellows to give orders unless one plies the

I shall return by the quart

I dined in town last night; I got to bed only at one o'clock. And there was a terrib

table undertakings. Invariably the first to appear at the works, he looked after everything, foresaw everything, filling the place with his bustling zeal, and doubling his output year by year. Recently, ho

nough, you do!" he said. "How is it

ke brow of the Froments. He wore his thick hair cut quite short, and his beard, which curled slightly, in a point. But the chief expression of his face rested in his eyes, which were at once d

d with a laugh, "I

r Denis to begin with! And then your boy Ambroise and your little girl Rose. Without counting the other little girl that you lost at her birth. Including her, you would no

ndignation; for he deemed the young couple to be over-careless of their interests

e was scarcely three-and-forty years of age. Short and thick-set, he had a bullet head, a bull's neck, and face and hands scarred and dented by more than a quarter of a century of toil. By calling he was a fitter, and he

d, how many children

he workman replied, somewhat t

ten? Well, that's a nice state of things

n noticing it, and, indeed, he was really fond of them, so long as they remained at home. And, besides, they worked as they gr

en's workshop open, determined to pass that way, so that he might give his customary look around. It was a long, spacious place, where the polishers, in smocks of black serge, sat in double rows poli

with whom she had previously started a dispute. She and the other were sisters, and, as it happened, daughters of old Moineaud. Euphrasie, the younger one, she who was shouting, was a skinny creature of seventeen, light-haired, with a long, lean, pointed face, uncomely and malignant; whereas the elder, Norin

ne. He habitually evinced great severity in the women's workshop, for he had hitherto held the view that an employer who jested with his workgirls was a lost man. Thus, in spite of the

nd to be quiet? This is quite improper. You are fined twenty so

h conscious of her attractiveness, continued smiling, looking her employer full in the face, as if certain that she had nothing to fear from him. Their eyes met, and for a couple of seconds their glances mingled. T

and she who slyly gazed at him-were not his own daughters. And now the round was resumed and the three men

e's invitation to Constance. A gallery connected the black factory buildings with the luxurious private house on the quay. And they found Constance in a little drawing-room hung with

?" inquire

t he was pale and there was a faint ring round his heavy eyelids. His mother, that "bag of bones," a littl

complaining of his legs. And so I made him lie down, and I

are all the same! A child who is as strong as a Turk! I

ace. He at once examined the child, felt and sounded him; then with his kindly yet serious air he said: "No, no, there's nothing. It is the mere effect of

so!" cried

r unprepossessing might be her features. The doctor had seated himself, for he was fond of lingering and chatting in the houses of friends. A general practitioner, and one who more particularly tended the ailments of women and children, he

ll," said he, "if you are soon leaving for the country, you must come one Sunday to J

ly a dozen plates and five egg-cups. But Beauchene knew the pavilion, for he went shooting in the neighborhood every winter

of mine. I have lunched at your

eguin-to whom she referred as Valentine-had told her of the dilapidated conditio

was born I advised her to stay at that pavilion. The atmosphere is

there would probably be no end to Mathieu's progeny, numerous as it already was. But this elicited an angry protest from

both meant. They regarded him and his wi

a mere pauper's hovel. And yet, in spite of Beauchene's sneers and Constance's angry remarks, Mathieu outwardly remained very calm. Constance and Marianne had never been ab

centuries. It was the poor's own fault, said he, if they led a life of starvation; they had only to limit themselves to as many children as they could provide for. The rich were falsely accused of social wrong-doing; they were by no means responsible for poverty. Indeed, they were the only reasonable people; they alone, by limiting their families, acted as good citizens should act. And he became quite triumphant, repeating that he knew of no cause for self-reproach, and that his ever-growing fortune left him with an easy conscience. It was so much the worse for the poor, if they were bent on remaining poor. In vain did the doctor urge that the Malthusian theories were shatter

way among us. Numerically the rank we occupy in Europe is already very inferior to what it formerly was; and yet number means power more than ever nowadays. It has been calculated th

rench machinery!... Yes, certainly I see families, acquaintances around me who may well allow themselves four children; and I grant that they dese

ed only by means of a large pecuniary sacrifice which had long crippled their prosperity. And people imagined that he would be as imprudent as his father! Why, if Maurice should have a brother or a sister, he might hereafter find himself in the same dire embarrassment, in which the family property might already have been destroyed. No, no! He would not expose t

s never been any progress but such as has been determined by increase of births. If nations have accomplished evolutions, if civilization has advanced, it is because the nations have multiplied and subsequently spread through

ldren that he already had, and was disturbed by the counsels of prudence addressed to him by the Beauchenes. But within him the

's commission, and at the first favorable opportunity exclaimed: "Well,

her arms desired to see Madame. And Beauchene, having recognized the wife of Moineaud, the fitter,

time, with ashen face, pale eyes, thin faded hair, and a weak mouth which already lacked man

Constance inquired, "wh

those people whom she had not expected to find there. She

hene asked her as he looked at

gene, is a soldier in Tonquin. You have my two big girls, Euphrasie and Norine, at the works. And I have three left at home-Victor, who is now fifteen, then Cecile and Irma, who are ten and sev

n wretched children-the boys fated to become food for powder, the girls always liable to misfortune. And he gave the woman to understand that it was her own fault if she was in distress; for people with a tribe of children about them could never become rich. And the poor creature sadly answered that he was quite r

l, a feeling of uneasiness was springing up, and so Constance made h

r Beauchene. For my part I hoped to find you alone and beg you to intercede for us. The fact

ed Beauchene. "You must wait till

just tell a little fib. It would

is imp

t. Ah! that wretched toil-doomed flesh that hastened to offer itself without waiting until it was even ripe for wo

r babe force her to remain at home, or else grievous infirmities may ensue for her and her offspring. As for the child, it becomes anemic, sometimes crippled; besides, it helps to keep wages down by being taken to work at a low scale

e me confess that I accept Moineaud's seven children and need them, whereas I, with my fixed determination to rest content with an only son, suppress, as it were, a family in order that I may not

sive measures. He willingly recognized that children were necessary, that the army required soldiers, and the factories workmen. Only he also invoked

' ratio wrests all nobility from labor, which is regarded as the worst misfortune a man can be condemned to, when in reality it is the most precious of boons. Such, then, is the cancer preying upon mankind. In countries of political equality and economical inequality the capitalist regime, the faulty distribution of wealth, at once restrains and precipitates the birth-rate by perpetually increasing the wrongful

of it-alcoholism, militarism, excessive mortality among infants, and other numerous matters. Then he indicated remedies; first, reductions in taxation, fiscal means in which he had littl

our notions of what is moral and what is not, our very conceptions of the beautiful in life-all must be changed. If France is becoming depopu

cry: "Well! we'll create it. I

the subject. And so she at last replied to his invitation, saying that she would do her bes

sting, like a man well pleased with life, one who was satisfied with himself and others, and wh

ere, in that spacious gallery, already deserted and silent, he came upon an unexpected scene which utterly amazed him. On some pretext or other Norine had lingered there the last, and Beauchene was with her, clasping her around the