The constant sight of dissipation, precocious dissipation, in addition
to her constant sickly state, had extinguished in her mind all the
knowledge of good and evil that God had perhaps given her, but that no
one had ever thought of developing. I shall always remember her, as
she passed along the boulevards almost every day at the same hour,
accompanied by her mother as assiduously as a real mother might have
accompanied her daughter. I was very young then, and ready to accept for
myself the easy morality of the age. I remember, however, the
contempt and disgust which awoke in me at the sight of this scandalous
chaperoning. Her face, too, was inexpressibly virginal in its expression
of innocence and of melancholy suffering. She was like a figure of
Resignation.
One day the girl's face was transfigured. In the midst of all the
debauches mapped out by her mother, it seemed to her as if God had left
over for her one happiness. And why indeed should God, who had made her
without strength, have left her without consolation, under the sorrowful
burden of her life? One day, then, she realized that she was to have a
child, and all that remained to her of chastity leaped for joy. The soul
has strange refuges. Louise ran to tell the good news to her mother.
It is a shameful thing to speak of, but we are not telling tales of
pleasant sins; we are telling of true facts, which it would be better,
no doubt, to pass over in silence, if we did not believe that it is
needful from time to time to reveal the martyrdom of those who are
condemned without bearing, scorned without judging; shameful it is, but
this mother answered the daughter that they had already scarce enough
for two, and would certainly not have enough for three; that such
children are useless, and a lying-in is so much time lost.
Next day a midwife, of whom all we will say is that she was a friend of
the mother, visited Louise, who remained in bed for a few days, and then
got up paler and feebler than before.
Three months afterward a man took pity on her and tried to heal her,
morally and physically; but the last shock had been too violent, and
Louise died of it. The mother still lives; how? God knows.
This story returned to my mind while I looked at the silver toilet
things, and a certain space of time must have elapsed during these
reflections, for no one was left in the room but myself and an
attendant, who, standing near the door, was carefully watching me to see
that I did not pocket anything.