The Child
After dinner we were talking about an abortion which had recently been committed in the parish. The Baroness grew indignant: “How are such things possible! The girl, seduced by a butcher’s boy, had thrown her child into a pickling vat! Horrible! It had even been proved that the poor little thing was not killed outright.”
The doctor, who was dining at the house that evening, gave us ghastly details with an air of imperturbable calm. Apparently he was amazed at the courage of the wretched mother who, having given birth to the child all alone, had then walked nearly two miles to kill it. “This woman,” he repeated, “has a will of iron! What savage strength she needed to go through the wood at night with her baby crying in her arms! Such moral suffering impresses me. Think of the terror in her soul, of the torture of her heart! How hateful and vile life is! Infamous prejudices, yes, infamous, I say; a false notion of honour which is worse than the crime itself, a whole host of artificial feelings, odious respectability and revolting virtuousness—these are the things that drive to murder and infanticide poor girls who have surrendered to the imperative call of life. What a shame for humanity to have established such morality, and to have made a crime of the natural union of two human beings!”
The Baroness had grown pale with indignation. “Ah, Doctor,” she replied, “so you put vice above virtue, the prostitute above the honest woman! A woman who abandons herself to her shameful instincts is in your eyes the equal of the irreproachable wife who fulfills her duty in the integrity of her conscience!”
The doctor, who had seen many of life’s sores in his long career, stood up and said with emphasis:
“You are talking, Madame, about matters of which you are ignorant, since you have never felt an invincible passion. Let me tell you of a recent adventure, of which I was a witness. Ah, Madame, you should be kind, indulgent, and full of pity, for you do not understand. Wretched, indeed, are those whom perfidious nature has endowed with strong passions. Quiet people, born without violent instincts, live respectably of necessity. Those who are never tortured by frenzied desires have no difficulty in being good. I see cold-blooded little middle-class women, of rigid morals, of moderate intelligence, and limited affections, who cry out indignantly when they hear of the sins of fallen women. You sleep calmly in a peaceful bed haunted by no desperate dreams. Everyone about you is like you, acts like you, and is protected by the instinctive moderation of their senses. You have a slight struggle with the phantoms of temptation, but it is only your mind which sometimes plays with evil thoughts. Your body does not immediately respond to the slightest whisper of a tempting idea.
“In people whom chance has made passionate the senses are invincible. Can you command the winds, or a stormy sea? Can you thwart the forces of nature? No. The senses are also forces of nature, as invincible as wind and sea. They arouse men and sweep them off their feet, impelling them towards pleasure with a desire whose vehemence they cannot resist. Women who are above reproach are women without temperament, and there are many of them. I do not thank them for their virtue, for they have no struggle. But never, I tell you, never will the Messalinas and Catherines of Russia be virtuous. They cannot be. They are born for wild caresses. Their organs are not like yours, their flesh is different, more sensitive, more easily maddened by the contact of another, and their nerves drive, disturb and conquer them when yours have felt nothing whatever. Just try to feed a hawk, on the little seeds which you give to a parrot! Yet, they are both birds with a crooked beak. But their instincts are different.
“Ah, if you only knew the power of the senses! How they keep you on the rack for whole nights, with burning skin and beating heart, your mind tortured by maddening visions! You see, people of inflexible principles are simply cold natures desperately jealous of others, without knowing it. Listen to this story:
“A woman whom I shall call Madame Hélène had a sensual temperament, even when she was a little girl, for her senses were awakened as soon as she was learning to talk. You will argue that her case was pathological. Why? Is it not even more arguable that you are weaklings? When she was twelve years old I was consulted, and I discovered that she was already a woman and constantly torn by sexual desire. Her very appearance showed this. She had thick, pouting lips, as ripe as full-blown flowers, a powerful neck, warm skin, a large nose with rather wide, sensitive nostrils, and great blue eyes whose glance fired the senses of men. Who could calm the blood of this ardent animal? She spent her nights weeping for no discernible reason. She was suffering agonies for want of a man. Finally, when she was fifteen her parents married her. Two years later her husband died of consumption. She had exhausted him. The same fate overtook her second husband eighteen months after. The third held out for four years, and then left her. It was high time.
“When she was left alone she tried to remain virtuous. She shared all your prejudices. One day, however, she sent for me, as she had had nervous attacks which alarmed her. I saw at once that her widowhood was going to kill her, and I told her so. She was a respectable woman, and in spite of the tortures she suffered, she would not take my advice and find a lover. The countryside said she was mad. She used to go out at night and go off on wild excursions to tire out her rebellious body. Then she would fall into fainting fits followed by horrible cramps. She lived alone in her château, near the home of her mother and relatives. I used to go to see her from time to time, at a loss to know what to do against the obstinate will of nature and her own will.
“One evening, about eight o’clock, she called at my house just as I was finishing dinner. No sooner were we alone than she said:
“ ‘I am lost. I am pregnant!’
“I started in my chair.
“ ‘What!’
“ ‘I am pregnant.’
“ ‘You?’
“ ‘Yes, I.’
“Then suddenly, looking me straight in the face, she said in agitated tones:
“ ‘Pregnant by my gardener, Doctor. I felt rather faint while walking in the park. The man, seeing me fall, ran up and caught me in his arms to carry me in. What did I do? I cannot remember. Did I embrace and kiss him? Perhaps. You know my shameful affliction. To make a long story short, he had me. I am guilty, because I gave myself to him again the next day, and on other occasions afterwards. It was useless, I could no longer hold out …’
“She stifled a sob, and continued defiantly:
“ ‘I paid him, for I preferred that to the lover whom you advised me to take. He has made me pregnant. I will confess to you without reserve or hesitation. I tried to procure an abortion. I took boiling hot baths. I rode horses that were not properly broken in. I did gymnastic exercises. I took drugs, absinthe, saffron, and others, but I did not succeed. You know my father, my brothers; I am lost. My sister is married to a respectable man. My disgrace will reflect upon them. Then, think of all our friends, our neighbours, our good name … my mother …’
“She began to sob. I took her hands in mine and began to question her. Then I advised her to go off on a long journey and have her child away from home. She said: ‘Yes … Yes … Yes … all right …’ without listening to what I was saying. Then she left.
“I went to see her several times. She was going mad. The idea of this child growing in her womb, of this living shame, had penetrated her brain like a sharp arrow. She thought of it incessantly, and was afraid to go out in the daytime, or see anybody, lest her abominable secret should be discovered. Every night she would undress in front of her wardrobe mirror and examine her misshapen abdomen; then she would throw herself on the ground, stifling her cries by thrusting a towel into her mouth. Twenty times in the night she got out of bed, lit her candle and returned to that large mirror, which showed her the reflection of her deformed naked body. In a frenzy she would strike her belly with her fists, trying to kill the life which threatened hers. The struggle between the two was terrible, but the child did not die. It moved constantly as though it were defending itself. She rolled on the floor in an effort to crush it, and tried to sleep with a weight on her body to choke it. She hated it with the hatred one has for a stubborn enemy that threatens one’s life.
“After these vain struggles, these impotent efforts to get rid of her child, she dashed out madly into the fields, running in a frenzy of misery and fear. One morning she was found, with her feet in a stream, and a look of madness in her eyes. People thought she had had an attack of delirium, but did not notice what was really the matter with her. She was pursued by an obsession, to remove this accursed child from her body.
“One evening her mother said to her laughingly: ‘How stout you are getting, Hélène. If you were married I would think you were going to have a baby.’
“These words must have been like a deadly blow to her. She left immediately, and returned to her own home. What happened then? Probably she looked again at her swollen belly, struck it, bruised it, and knocked it against the corners of the furniture, as she used to do every night. Then she went downstairs in her bare feet to the kitchen, opened the cupboard and took out the big carving-knife. She went upstairs again, lit four candles, and sat down in front of her mirror on a wicker chair. Then, exasperated with hatred of this unknown and redoubtable embryo, desiring to tear it out and kill it at last, to take it in her hands, strangle it and cast it away from her, she felt for the place where it was stirring, and, with a single stroke of the knife, she ripped open her abdomen from top to bottom.
“She performed her task very well, indeed, and very quickly, for she caught hold of this enemy which had hitherto eluded her grasp. She took it by one leg, tore it out and tried to throw it into the fireplace. But it was held by bonds which she had not been able to cut, and perhaps before she had realized what still remained to be done, in order to separate herself and her child, she fell dead on its body, drowned in a pool of blood.
“Do you think she was very wicked, Madame?”
The doctor was silent and waited, but the Baroness made no reply.