And what she felt when she heard the child’s feeble cries, that wail, that first effort of a human’s voice!

And the next day! the next day! the only day of her life on which she had seen and kissed her son; for, from that time, she had never even caught a glimpse of him.

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 had 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 atom which she had held in her arms and pressed to her bosom for a day.

How often she had said to M. d’Apreval:  “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 be unable 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 reject 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 should never see him, 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 toward 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 my 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.