Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

George Sand (1804–1876). The Devil’s Pool.
The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction. 1917.

II

Father Maurice

“GERMAIN,” said his father-in-law one day, “you must decide about marrying again. It is almost two years now since you lost my daughter, and your eldest boy is seven years old. You are almost thirty, my boy, and you know that in our country a man is considered too old to go to housekeeping again after that age; you have three nice children, and thus far they have not proved a burden to us at all. My wife and my daughter-in-law have looked after them as well as they could, and loved them as they ought. Here is Petit-Pierre almost grown up. He goads the oxen very well; he knows how to look after the cattle; and he is strong enough to drive the horses to the trough. So it is not he that worries us. But the other two, love them though we do, God knows the poor little innocents give us trouble enough this year; my daughter-in-law is about to lie in, and she has yet another baby to attend to. When the child we are expecting comes, she will not be able to look after your little Solange, and above all your Sylvain, who is not four years old, and who is never quiet day or night. He has a restless disposition like yours; that will make a good workman of him, but it makes a dreadful child, and my old wife cannot run fast enough to save him when he almost tumbles into the ditch, or when he throws himself in front of the tramping cattle. And then with this other that my daughter-in-law is going to bring into the world, for a month at least her next older child will fall on my wife’s hands. Besides, your children worry us, and give us too much to do; we hate to see children badly looked after, and when we think of the accidents that may befall them, for want of care, we cannot rest. So you need another wife, and I another daughter-in-law. Think this over, my son. I have called it to your mind before. Time flies, and the years will not wait a moment for you. It is your duty to your children and to the rest of us, who wish all well at home, to marry as soon as you can.”

“Very well, father,” answered the son-in-law, “if you really wish it, I must do as you say. But I do not wish to hide it from you that it will make me very sad, and that I hardly wish for anything but to drown myself. We know who it is we lose, we never know whom we find. I had a good wife, a pretty wife, sweet, brave, good to her father and mother, good to her husband, good to her children, good to toil in the fields and in the house, well fitted to work—in short, good for everything; and when you had given her to me, and I took her, we did not place it among our promises that I should go and forget about her if I had the misfortune to lose her.”

“What you say shows your good heart, Germain,” answered Father Maurice. “I know that you loved my daughter and that you made her happy, and that had you been able to satisfy Death by going in her place, Catherine would be alive to-day, and you would be in the graveyard. She deserved all your love, and if you are not consoled, neither are we. But I do not speak to you of forgetting her. God wished her to leave us, and we do not let a day go by without telling Him in our prayers and thoughts, and words and actions, that we keep her memory and still sorrow for her loss. But if she could speak to you from the other world, and let you know what she wishes, she would tell you to find a mother for her little orphans. So the question is to find a woman who will be worthy to take her place. It will not be easy, but it is not impossible. And when we shall find her for you, you will love her as you used to love my daughter, because you are a good man, and because you will be thankful to her for helping us and for loving your children.”

“Very well, Father Maurice, I shall do as you wish, as I have always done.”

“It is only justice, my son, to say that you have always listened to the friendly advice and good judgement of the head of the house. So let us consult about your choice of a new wife. First, I don’t advise you to take a young girl. That is not what you need. Youth is careless, and, as it is hard work to bring up three children, especially when they are of another bed, you must have a good soul, wise and gentle, and well used to work. If your wife is not about the same age as you, she will have no reason to accept such a duty. She will find you too old and your children too young. She will be complaining, and your children will suffer.”

“This is just what makes me uneasy. Suppose the poor little things should be badly treated, hated, beaten?”

“God grant not,” answered the old man. “But bad women are more rare with us than good, and we shall be stupid if we cannot pick out somebody who will suit us.”

“That is true, father. There are good girls in our village. There is Louise, Sylvaine, Claudie, Marguerite—yes, anybody you want.”

“Gently, gently, my boy. All these girls are too young, or too poor, or too pretty; for surely we must think of that too, my son. A pretty woman is not always as well behaved as another!”

“Then you wish me to take an ugly wife?” said Germain, a little uneasy.

“No, not ugly at all, for this woman will bear you other children, and there is nothing more miserable than to have children who are ugly and weak and sickly. But a woman still fresh and in good health, who is neither pretty nor ugly, would suit you exactly.”

“I am quite sure,” said Germain, smiling rather sadly, “that to get such a woman as you wish, you must have her made to order. All the more because you don’t wish her to be poor, and the rich are not easy to get, particularly for a widower.”

“And suppose she were a widow herself, Germain? A widow without children and with a good portion?”

“For the moment, I cannot think of anybody like this in our parish.”

“Nor I either. But there are others elsewhere.”

“You have somebody in mind, father. Then tell me, at once, who it is.”