But prevarication was useless. Madame Ferailleur's indignation
and disgust were none the less evident. "That woman is a shameless
creature," she said, coldly, when her son's narrative was concluded.

Pascal made no reply. He knew only too well that his mother was right,
and yet it wounded him cruelly to hear her speak in this style. For the
baroness was Marguerite's mother after all.

"So," continued Madame Ferailleur, with increasing indignation,
"creatures do exist who are destitute even of the maternal instincts
of animals. I am an honest woman myself; I don't say it in
self-glorification, it's no credit to me; my mother was a saint, and I
loved my husband; what some people call duty was my happiness, so I may
be allowed to speak on this subject. I don't excuse infidelity, but I
can understand how such a thing is possible. Yes, I can understand how a
beautiful young woman, who is left alone in a city like Paris, may lose
her senses, and forget the worthy man who has exiled himself for her
sake, and who is braving a thousand dangers to win a fortune for her.
The husband who exposes his honor and happiness to such terrible risk,
is an imprudent man. But when this woman has erred, when she has given
birth to a child, how she can abandon it, how she can cast it off as
if it were a dog, I cannot comprehend. I could imagine infanticide more
easily. No, such a woman has no heart, no bowels of compassion. 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,