Madame (taking a little soon, filling it with her precious paste and holding it to her husband's lips)--I want to see the face you will make, love.

Monsieur--(Puts out his lips, buries his two front teeth, with marked disgust, in the paste, makes a horrible face and spits into the fireplace)--Eugh.

Madame--(still holding the spoon and with much interest) Well?

Monsieur--Well! it is awful! oh! awful! taste it.

Madame--(dreamily stirring the paste with the spoon, her little finger in the air)--I should never have believed that it was so nasty.

Monsieur--You will soon see for yourself, taste it, taste it.

Madame--I am in no hurry, I have plenty of time.

Monsieur--To see what it is like. Taste a little, come.

Madame--(pushing away the plate with a look of horror)--Oh! how you worry me. Be quiet, do; for a trifle I could hate you. It is disgusting, this paste of yours!

CHAPTER XXII. FAMILY LIFE

It was the evening of the 15th of February. It was dreadfully cold. The snow drove against the windows and the wind whistled furiously under the doors. My two aunts, seated at a table in one corner of the drawing-room, gave vent from time to time to deep sighs, and, wriggling in their armchairs, kept casting uneasy glances toward the bedroom door.

One of them had taken from a little leather bag placed on the table her blessed rosary and was repeating her prayers, while her sister was reading a volume of Voltaire's correspondence which she held at a distance from her eyes, her lips moving as she perused it.

For my own part, I was striding up and down the room, gnawing my moustache, a bad habit I have never been able to get rid of, and halting from time to time in front of Dr. C., an old friend of mine, who was quietly reading the paper in the most comfortable of the armchairs. I dared not disturb him, so absorbed did he seem in what he was reading, but in my heart I was furious to see him so quiet when I myself was so agitated.

Suddenly he tossed the paper on to the couch and, pa.s.sing his hand across his bald and shining head, said:

"Ah! if I were a minister, it would not take long, no, it would not be very long.... You have read that article on Algerian cotton. One of two things, either irrigation.... But you are not listening to me, and yet it is a more serious matter than you think."

He rose, and with his hands in his pocket, walked across the room humming an old medical student's song. I followed him closely.

"Jacques," said I, as he turned round, "tell me frankly, are you satisfied?"

"Yes, yes, I am satisfied... observe my untroubled look," and he broke into his hearty and somewhat noisy laugh.

"You are not hiding anything from me, my dear fellow?"

"What a donkey you are, old fellow. I tell you that everything is going on well."

And he resumed his song, jingling the money in his pockets.

"All is going on well, but it will take some time," he went on. "Let me have one of your dressing-gowns. I shall be more comfortable for the night, and these ladies will excuse me, will they not?"

"Excuse you, I should think so, you, the doctor, and my friend!" I felt devotedly attached to him that evening.

"Well, then, if they will excuse me, you can very well let me have a pair of slippers."

At this moment a cry came from the next room and we distinctly heard these words in a stifled voice:

"Doctor... oh! mon Dieu!... doctor!"

"It is frightful," murmured my aunts.

"My dear friend," I exclaimed, seizing the doctor's arm, "you are quite sure you are not concealing anything from me?"

"If you have a very loose pair they will suit me best; I have not the foot of a young girl.... I am not concealing anything, I am not concealing anything.... What do you think I should hide from you? It is all going on very well, only as I said it will take time--By the way, tell Joseph to get me one of your smokingcaps; once in dressing-gown and slippers a smokingcap is not out of the way, and I am getting bald, my dear Captain. How infernally cold it is here! These windows face the north, and there are no sand-bags. Mademoiselle de V.," he added, turning to my aunt, "you will catch cold."

Then as other sounds were heard, he said: "Let us go and see the little lady."

"Come here," said my wife, who had caught sight of me, in a low voice, "come here and shake hands with me." Then she drew me toward her and whispered in my ear: "You will be pleased to kiss the little darling, won't you?" Her voice was so faint and so tender as she said this, and she added: "Do not take your hand away, it gives me courage."

I remained beside her, therefore, while the doctor, who had put on my dressing-gown, vainly strove to b.u.t.ton it.

From time to time my poor little wife squeezed my hand violently, closing her eyes, but not uttering a cry. The fire sparkled on the hearth. The pendulum of the clock went on with its monotonous ticking, but it seemed to me that all this calm was only apparent, that everything about me must be in a state of expectation like myself and sharing my emotion. In the bedroom beyond, the door of which was ajar, I could see the end of the cradle and the shadow of the nurse who was dozing while she waited.

What I felt was something strange. I felt a new sentiment springing up in my heart, I seemed to have some foreign body within my breast, and this sweet sensation was so new to me that I was, as it were, alarmed at it. I felt the little creature, who was there without yet being there, clinging to me; his whole life unrolled itself before me. I saw him at the same time a child and a grown-up man; it seemed to me that my own life was about to be renewed in his and I felt from time to time an irresistible need of giving him something of myself.

Toward half-past eleven, the doctor, like a captain consulting his compa.s.s, pulled out his watch, muttered something and drew near the bed.

"Come, my dear lady," said he to my wife, "courage, we are all round you and all is going well; within five minutes you will hear him cry out."

My mother-in-law, almost beside herself, was biting her lips and each pang of the sufferer was reflected upon her face. Her cap had got disarranged in such a singular fashion that, under any other circ.u.mstances, I should have burst out laughing. At that moment I heard the drawing-room door open and saw the heads of my aunts, one above the other, and behind them that of my father, who was twisting his heavy white moustache with a grimace that was customary to him.

"Shut the door," cried the doctor, angrily, "don't bother me."

And with the greatest coolness in the world he turned to my mother-in-law and added, "I ask a thousand pardons."

But just then there was something else to think of than my old friend's bluntness.

"Is everything ready to receive him?" he continued, growling.

"Yes, my dear doctor," replied my mother-in-law.

At length, the doctor lifted into the air a little object which almost immediately uttered a cry as piercing as a needle. I shall never forget the impression produced on me by this poor little thing, making its appearance thus, all of a sudden, in the middle of the family. We had thought and dreamed of it; I had seen him in my mind's eye, my darling child, playing with a hoop, pulling my moustache, trying to walk, or gorging himself with milk in his nurse's arms like a gluttonous little kitten; but I had never pictured him to myself, inanimate, almost lifeless, quite tiny, wrinkled, hairless, grinning, and yet, charming, adorable, and be loved in spite of all-poor, ugly, little thing. It was a strange impression, and so singular that it is impossible to understand it, without having experienced it.

"What luck you have!" said the doctor, holding the child toward me; "it is a boy."

"A boy!"

"And a fine one."

"Really, a boy!"

That was a matter of indifference to me now. What was causing me indescribable emotion was the living proof of paternity, this little being who was my own. I felt stupefied in presence of the great mystery of childbirth. My wife was there, fainting, overcame, and the little living creature, my own flesh, my own blood, was squalling and gesticulating in the hands of Jacques. I was overwhelmed, like a workman who had unconsciously produced a masterpiece. I felt myself quite small in presence of this quivering piece of my own handiwork, and, frankly, a little bit ashamed of having made it so well almost without troubling about it. I can not undertake to explain all this, I merely relate my impressions.

My mother-in-law held out her ap.r.o.n and the doctor placed the child on his grandmother's knees, saying: "Come, little savage, try not to be any worse than your rascal of a father. Now for five minutes of emotion.