There is nothing human in her! For how could she
live, how could she sleep with the thought that somewhere in the
world her own child, the flesh of her flesh, was exposed to all
the temptations of poverty, and the horrors of shame and vice? And
she, the possessor of millions, she, the inmate of a palace,
thinking only of dress and pleasure! How was it that she didn't
ask herself every minute, 'Where is my daughter now, and what is
she doing? What is she living on? Has she shelter, clothes and
food? To what depths of degradation she may have sunk? Perhaps she
has so far lived by honest toil, and perhaps at this very moment
this support fails her, and she is abandoning herself to a life of
infamy.' Great God! how does this woman dare to step out of doors?
On seeing the poor wretches who have been driven to vice by want,
how can she fail to say to herself: 'That, perhaps, is my
daughter!'"
Pascal turned pale, moved to the depths of his soul by his
mother's extraordinary vehemence. He trembled lest she should
say: "And you, my son, would you marry the child of such a
mother?" For he knew his mother's prejudices, and the great
importance she attached to a spotless reputation transmitted from
parent to child, from generation to generation. "The baroness
knew that her husband adored her, and hearing of his return she
became terrified; she lost her senses," he ventured to say in
extenuation.
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