but their hopes, always sustained, always renewed, ended in nothing. from month to month their expectations declined, in spite of the persistence of lesable and the co-operation of his wife. they were consumed with anxiety. each without ceasing reproached the other for their want of success, and the husband in despair, emaciated, fatigued, had to suffer all the vulgarity of cachelin, who in their domestic warfare called him "m. lecoq," in remembrance, no doubt, of the day that he missed receiving a bottle in his face for having called his son-in-law a capon.
he and his daughter, whose interests were in league, enraged by the constant thought of this great fortune so near, and yet impossible to seize, racked their invention to humiliate and torture this impotent man, who was the cause of all their misfortune.
as they sat at table, cora repeated each day: "there is very little for dinner. if we were rich, it would be otherwise. it is not my fault."
when lesable set out for his office, she called from her room: "do not forget your umbrella or you will come back as muddy as an omnibus wheel. it's not my fault that you are still obliged to follow the trade of a quill-driver."
when she went out herself, she never failed to cry: "if i had married another man, i should have a carriage of my own."
every hour and on every occasion she harped on this subject. she pricked her husband with reproaches, lashed him with insult, held him alone guilty, and made him responsible for the loss of the fortune that should have been hers.
at last, one evening, losing all patience, lesable exclaimed: "in the dog's name, can't you hold your tongue? from first to last it is your fault, and yours alone, do you hear, if we have not a child, because i have already had one."
he lied, preferring anything to this eternal reproach, to this shame of appearing impotent. she looked at him, astonished at first, seeking the truth in his eyes; at last comprehending, and full of disdain, she cried: "you have a child, have you?"
he replied with effrontery: "yes, an illegitimate child, that i am bringing up at asnières."
she answered quietly: "we will go and see it tomorrow, so that i may find out how what he is like."
he only blushed to the ears and stammered: "just as you please."
she rose the next morning at seven o'clock, very much to her husband's astonishment.
"are we not going to see your child? you promised me yesterday evening. perhaps you haven't got it any more to-day."
he sprang from the bed hastily. "it is not my child we are going to see, but a physician, who will give us his opinion on your case."
she replied in the tone of a woman who was sure of herself: "i shall ask nothing better."
cachelin was instructed to inform the chief that his son-in-law was ill, and lesable and his wife advised by a neighbouring chemist, rang at one o'clock exactly the office-bell of dr. lefilleul, author of several works on the hygiene of generation.
they were shown into a salon decorated in white and gold, but scantily furnished in spite of the number of chairs and sofas. they seated themselves and waited. lesable was excited, trembling, and also ashamed. their turn came at last, and they were shown into a sort of office, where they were received by a short, stout man of dignified and ceremonious demeanour.
he waited till they should explain their case, but lesable had not courage to utter a word, and blushed up to the roots of his hair. it therefore devolved on his wife to speak, and with a resolute manner and in a tranquil voice, she made known their errand.
"monsieur, we have come to discover the reason why we cannot have children. a large fortune depends upon this for us."
the consultation was long, minute, and painful. cora alone seemed unembarrassed, and submitted to the critical examination of the medical expert, sustained by the great interest she had at stake.
after having studied for nearly two hours the constitutions of the married pair, the practitioner said: "i discover nothing either abnormal or special. your case is by no means an uncommon one. there is as much divergence in constitutions as in characters. when we see so many households out of joint through incompatibility of temper, it is not astonishing to see others sterile through incompatibility of physique. madame appears to be particularly well fitted for the offices of motherhood. monsieur, on his side, although presenting no conformation outside of the general rule, seems to me enfeebled, perhaps the consequence of his ardent desire to become a parent. will you permit me to make an auscultation?"
lesable, greatly disturbed, removed his waistcoat, and the doctor glued his ear to the thorax, and then to the back of his patient, tapping him continuously from the throat to the stomach, and from the loins to the nape of his neck. he discovered a slight irregularity in the action of the heart, and even a menace to the right lung. "—it is necessary for you to be very careful, monsieur, very careful. this is anaemia, and comes from exhaustion—nothing else. these conditions, although now insignificant, may in a short time become incurable."
lesable turned pale with anguish and begged for a prescription.
the doctor ordered a complicated régime consisting of iron, raw meat, and soup, combined with exercise, rest, and a sojourn in the country during the hot weather. he indicated, moreover, the symptoms that proclaimed the desired fecundity, and initiated them into the secrets which were usually practised with success in such cases.
the consultation cost forty francs.
when they were in the street, cora burst out full of wrath:
"i have discovered what my fate is to be!"
lesable made no reply. he was tormented by anxiety, he was recalling and weighing each word of the physician. had the doctor made a mistake, or had he judged truly? he thought no more of the inheritance now, or the desired offspring; it was a question of life or death. he seemed to hear a whistling in his lungs, and his heart sounded as though it were beating in his ears. in crossing the garden of the tuileries he was overcome with faintness and had to sit down to recover himself. his wife, as though to humiliate him by her superior strength, remained standing in front of him, regarding him from head to foot with pitying contempt. he breathed heavily, exaggerating the effort by his fears, and with the fingers of his left hand on his right wrist he counted the pulsations of the artery.
cora, who was stamping with impatience, cried: "when will you be ready? it's time to stop this nonsense!" he arose with the air of a martyr, and went on his way without uttering a word.
when cachelin was informed of the result of the consultation, his fury knew no bounds. he bawled out: "we know now whose fault it is to a certainty. ah, well!" and he looked at his son-in-law with his ferocious eyes as though he would devour him.
lesable neither listened nor heard, being totally absorbed in thoughts of his health and the menace to his existence. father and daughter might say what they pleased. they were not in his skin, and as for him he meant to preserve his skin at all hazards. he had the various prescriptions of the physician filled, and at each meal he produced an array of bottles with the contents of which he dosed himself regardless of the sneers of his wife and her father. he looked at himself in the glass every instant, placed his hand on his heart each moment to study its action, and removed his bed to a dark room which was used as a clothes closet to put himself beyond the reach of carnal temptation.
he conceived for his wife a hatred mingled with contempt and disgust. all women, moreover, appeared to him to be monsters, dangerous beasts, whose mission it was to destroy men; and he thought no more of the will of aunt charlotte, except as one recalls a past accident which might have been fatal.
some months passed. there remained but one year before the fatal term.
cachelin had suspended in the dining-room an enormous calendar, from which he effaced a day each morning, raging at the impotence of his son-in-law, who was allowing this great fortune to escape week by week. and the thought that he would have to drudge at the office all his life, and limit his expenses to the pitiful sum of two thousand francs a year, filled him with a passion of anger that found vent in the most violent abuse. he could not look at lesable without shaking with rage, with a brutal desire to beat, to crush, to trample on him. he hated him with an inordinate hatred. every time he saw him open the door and enter the room, it seemed to him that a robber had broken into the house and robbed him of a sacred inheritance. he hated him more than his most mortal enemy, and he despised him at the same time for his weakness, and above all for the baseness which caused him to sacrifice their common hope of posterity to the fear of his health. lesable, in fact, lived as completely apart from his wife as if no tie united them. he never approached or touched her; he avoided even looking at her, as much through shame as through fear.
cachelin, every morning asked his daughter: "well, how about your husband? has he made up his mind?"
and she would reply: "no, papa."
each evening saw the most painful scenes take place at table. cachelin continually reiterated: "when a man is not a man, he had better get out and yield his place to another."
and cora added: "the fact is, there are some men who are both useless and wearisome. i do not know why they are permitted to live only to become a burden to everyone."
lesable dosed himself and made no reply. at last one day his father-in-law cried: "say, you, if you do not change your manners now that your health is improving, do you know what my daughter means to do?"
the son-in-law raised his eyes, foreseeing a new outrage. cachelin continued: "she will take somebody else, confound you! you may consider yourself lucky if she hasn't done so already. when a girl has married a weakling like you, she is entitled to do anything."
lesable, turning livid with wrath, replied: "it is not i who prevents her from following your good counsel."
cora: lowered her eyes, and cachelin, knowing that he had said an outrageous thing, remained silent and confused.
