by dying, if their parents did not quickly take them away and put them
again under the protection of home. The cure of Nanterre had to go so
often to Bethlehem with his black vestments and his silver cross, the
undertaker had so many orders from the house, that it became known
in the district, and indignant mothers shook their fists at the model
nurse; from a long way off, it is true, for they might chance to have in
their arms pink-and-white babies to be preserved from all the contagions
of the place. It was these things that gave to the poor place so
heart-rending an aspect. A house in which children die cannot be gay;
you cannot see trees break into flower there, birds building, streams
flowing like rippling laughter.

The thing seemed altogether false. Excellent in itself, Jenkins's scheme
was difficult, almost impracticable in its application. Yet, God knows,
the affair had been started and carried out with the greatest enthusiasm
to the last details, with as much money and as large a staff as were
requisite. At its head, one of the most skilful of practitioners, M.
Pondevez, who had studied in the Paris hospitals; and by his side, to
attend to the more intimate needs of the children, a trusty matron, Mme.
Polge. Then there were nursemaids, seamstresses, infirmary-nurses. And
how many the arrangements and how thorough was the maintenance of the
establishment, from the water distributed by a regular system from fifty
taps to the omnibus trotting off with jingling of its posting bells
to meet every train of the day at Rueil station! Finally, magnificent
goats, Thibetan goats, silky, swollen with milk. In regard to
organization, everything was admirable; but there was a point where
it all failed. This artificial feeding, so greatly extolled by the
advertisements, did not agree with the children. It was a singular piece
of obstinacy, a word which seemed to have been passed between them by
a signal, poor little things! for they couldn't yet speak, most of them
indeed were never to speak at all: "Please, we will not suck the goats."
And they did not suck them, they preferred to die one after another
rather than suck them. Was Jesus of Bethlehem in his stable suckled by a
goat? On the contrary, did he not press a woman's soft breast, on which
he could go to sleep when he was satisfied? Who ever saw a goat between
the ox and the ass of the story on that night when the beasts spoke to
each other? Then why lie about it, why c