And what a long, void existence hers had been since then, with the thought of that child always, always floating before her.  She had never seen her son, that little creature that had been part of herself, even once since then; they had taken him from her, carried him away and hidden him.  All she knew was, that he had been brought up by some peasants in Normandy, that he had become a peasant himself, had married well, and that his father, whose name he did not know, had settled a handsome sum of money on him.

How often during the last forty years had she wished to go and see him, and to embrace him.  She could not imagine to herself that he had grown!  She always thought of that small, human larva, which she had held in her arms and pressed to her side for a day.

How often she had said to her lover:  “I cannot bear it any longer; I must go and see him.”

But he had always stopped her, and kept her from going.  She would not be able to restrain and to master herself; their son would guess it and take advantage of her, blackmail her; she would be lost.

* * * * *

“What is he like?” she said.

“I do not know; I have not seen him again, either.”

“Is it possible?  To have a son, and not to know him; to be afraid of him and to repulse him as if he were a disgrace!  It is horrible.”

They went along the dusty road, overcome by the scorching sun, and continually ascending that interminable hill.

“One might take it for a punishment,” she continued; “I have never had another child, and I could no longer resist the longing to see him, which has possessed me for forty years.  You men cannot understand that.  You must remember that I shall not live much longer, and suppose I had never seen him again! never have seen him!...  Is it possible?  How could I wait so long?  I have thought about him every day since, and what a terrible existence mine has been!  I have never awakened, never, do you understand, without my first thoughts being of him, of my child.  How is he?  Oh!  How guilty I feel towards him!  Ought one to fear what the world may say, in a case like this?  I ought to have left everything to go after him, to bring him up and to show love for him.  I should certainly have been much happier, but I did not dare, I was a coward.  How I have suffered!  Oh!  How those poor, abandoned children must hate their mothers!”

She stopped suddenly, for she was choked by her sobs.  The whole valley was deserted and silent in the dazzling light, and the overwhelming heat, and only the grasshoppers uttered their shrill, continuous chirp among the sparse, yellow grass on both sides of the road.

“Sit down a little,” he said.

She allowed herself to be led to the side of the ditch, and sank down with her face in her hands.  Her white hair, which hung in curls on both sides of her face, had become all of a lump, and she wept, overcome by profound grief, while he stood facing her, uneasy and not knowing what to say, and he merely murmured:  “Come, have courage.”