on the infant in its swaddling clothes. She,
the mother, while he drank life in long draughts, was dreaming already
of his future. What would he be when she should have made him tall and
strong, giving herself to him entirely? A scientist, perhaps, who would
reveal to the world something of the eternal truth; or a great captain,
who would confer glory on his country; or, still better, one of those
shepherds of the people who appease the passions and bring about the
reign of justice. She saw him, in fancy, beautiful, good and powerful.
Hers was the dream of every mother--the conviction that she had brought
the expected Messiah into the world; and there was in this hope, in this
obstinate belief, which every mother has in the certain triumph of her
child, the hope which itself makes life, the belief which gives humanity
the ever renewed strength to live still.

What would the child be? She looked at him, trying to discover whom
he resembled. He had certainly his father's brow and eyes, there
was something noble and strong in the breadth of the head. She saw a
resemblance to herself, too, in his fine mouth and his delicate chin.
Then, with secret uneasiness, she sought a resemblance to the others,
the terrible ancestors, all those whose names were there inscribed on
the tree, unfolding its growth of hereditary leaves. Was it this one, or
this, or yet this other, whom he would resemble? She grew calm, however,
she could not but hope, her heart swelled with eternal hope. The
faith in life which the master had implanted in her kept her brave and
steadfast. What did misery, suffering and wickedness matter! Health was
in universal labor, in the effort made, in the power which fecundates
and which produces. The work was good when the child blessed love. Then
hope bloomed anew, in spite of the open wounds, the dark picture of
human shame. It was life perpetuated, tried anew, life which we can
never weary of believing good, since we live it so eagerly, with all its
injustice and suffering.

Clotilde had glanced involuntarily at the ancestral tree spread out
beside her. Yes, the menace was there--so many crimes, so much filth,
side by side with so many tears, and so much patient goodness; so
extraordinary a mixture of the best and the most vile, a humanity in
little, with all its defects and all its struggles. It was a question
whether it would not be better that a thunderbolt should come and
destroy all this corrupt and miserabl