The Adopted Son
The two cottages stood beside each other at the foot of a hill near a little seashore resort. The two peasants labored hard on the unproductive soil to rear their little ones, and each family had four.
Before the adjoining doors a whole troop of urchins played and tumbled about from morning till night. The two eldest were six years old, and the youngest were about fifteen months; the marriages, and afterward the births, having taken place nearly simultaneously in both families.
The two mothers could hardly distinguish their own offspring among the lot, and as for the fathers, they were altogether at sea. The eight names danced in their heads; they were always getting them mixed up; and when they wished to call one child, the men often called three names before getting the right one.
The first of the two cottages, as you came up from the bathing beach, Rolleport, was occupied by the Tuvaches, who had three girls and one boy; the other house sheltered the Vallins, who had one girl and three boys.
They all subsisted frugally on soup, potatoes and fresh air. At seven o'clock in the morning, then at noon, then at six o'clock in the evening, the housewives got their broods together to give them their food, as the gooseherds collect their charges. The children were seated, according to age, before the wooden table, varnished by fifty years of use; the mouths of the youngest hardly reaching the level of the table. Before them was placed a bowl filled with bread, soaked in the water in which the potatoes had been boiled, half a cabbage and three onions; and the whole line ate until their hunger was appeased. The mother herself fed the smallest.
A small pot roast on Sunday was a feast for all; and the father on this day sat longer over the meal, repeating: "I wish we could have this every day."
One afternoon, in the month of August, a phaeton stopped suddenly in front of the cottages, and a young woman, who was driving the horses, said to the gentleman sitting at her side:
"Oh, look at all those children, Henri! How pretty they are, tumbling about in the dust, like that!"
The man did not answer, accustomed to these outbursts of admiration, which were a pain and almost a reproach to him. The young woman continued:
"I must hug them! Oh, how I should like to have one of them--that one there--the little tiny one!"
Springing down from the carriage, she ran toward the children, took one of the two youngest--a Tuvache child--and lifting it up in her arms, she kissed him passionately on his dirty cheeks, on his tousled hair daubed with earth, and on his little hands, with which he fought vigorously, to get away from the caresses which displeased him.
Then she got into the carriage again, and drove off at a lively trot. But she returned the following week, and seating herself on the ground, took the youngster in her arms, stuffed him with cakes; gave candies to all the others, and played with them like a young girl, while the husband waited patiently in the carriage.
She returned again; made the acquaintance of the parents, and reappeared every day with her pockets full of dainties and pennies.
Her name was Madame Henri d'Hubieres.
One morning, on arriving, her husband alighted with her, and without stopping to talk to the children, who now knew her well, she entered the farmer's cottage.
They were busy chopping wood for the fire. They rose to their feet in surprise, brought forward chairs, and waited expectantly.
Then the woman, in a broken, trembling voice, began:
"My good people, I have come to see you, because I should like--I should like to take-- your little boy with me--"
The country people, too bewildered to think, did not answer.
She recovered her breath, and continued: "We are alone, my husband and I. We would keep it. Are you willing?"
The peasant woman began to understand. She asked: "You want to take Charlot from us? Oh, no, indeed!" Then M. d'Hubieres intervened:
"My wife has not made her meaning clear. We wish to adopt him, but he will come back to see you. If he turns out well, as there is every reason to expect, he will be our heir. If we, perchance, should have children, he will share equally with them; but if he should not reward our care, we should give him, when he comes of age, a sum of twenty thousand francs, which shall be deposited immediately in his name, with a lawyer. As we have thought also of you, we should pay you, until your death, a pension of one hundred francs a month. Do you understand me?"
The woman had arisen, furious.
"You want me to sell you Charlot? Oh, no, that's not the sort of thing to ask of a mother! Oh, no! That would be an abomination!"
The man, grave and deliberate, said nothing; but approved of what his wife said by a continued nodding of his head.
Madame d'Hubieres, in dismay, began to weep; turning to her husband, with a voice full of tears, the voice of a child used to having all its wishes gratified, she stammered:
"They will not do it, Henri, they will not do it."
Then he made a last attempt: "But, my friends, think of the child's future, of his happiness, of--"
The peasant woman, however, exasperated, cut him short:
"It's all considered! It's all understood! Get out of here, and don't let me see you again-- the idea of wanting to take away a child like that!"
Madame d'Hubieres remembered that there were two children, quite little, and she asked, through her tears, with the tenacity of a wilful and spoiled woman:
"But is the other little one not yours?"
Father Tuvache answered: "No, it is our neighbors'. You can go to them if you wish." And he went back into his house, whence resounded the indignant voice of his wife.
The Vallins were at table, slowly eating slices of bread which they parsimoniously spread with a little rancid butter on a plate between the two.
M. d'Hubieres recommenced his proposals, but with more insinuations, more oratorical precautions, mor