"So it was with my wife. Whether there was one child or five, the
feeling remained the same. In fact, it was a little better when there
had been five. Life was always poisoned with fear for the children, not
only from their real or imaginary diseases, but even by their simple
presence. For my part, at least, throughout my conjugal life, all my
interests and all my happiness depended upon the health of my children,
their condition, their studies. Children, it is needless to say, are a
serious consideration; but all ought to live, and in our days parents
can no longer live. Regular life does not exist for them. The whole life
of the family hangs by a hair. What a terrible thing it is to suddenly
receive the news that little Basile is vomiting, or that Lise has a
cramp in the stomach! Immediately you abandon everything, you forget
everything, everything becomes nothing. The essential thing is the
doctor, the enema, the temperature. You cannot begin a conversation but
little Pierre comes running in with an anxious air to ask if he may eat
an apple, or what jacket he shall put on, or else it is the servant who
enters with a screaming baby.

"Regular, steady family life does not exist. Where you live, and
consequently what you do, depends upon the health of the little ones,
the health of the little ones depends upon nobody, and, thanks to the
doctors, who pretend to aid health, your entire life is disturbed. It is
a perpetual peril. Scarcely do we believe ourselves out of it when a new
danger comes: more attempts to save. Always the situation of sailors
on a foundering vessel. Sometimes it seemed to me that this was done on
purpose, that my wife feigned anxiety in order to conquer me, since that
solved the question so simply for her benefit. It seemed to me that all
that she did at those times was done for its effect upon me, but now I
see that she herself, my wife, suffered and was tortured on account of
the little ones, their health, and their diseases.

"A torture to both of us, but to her the children were also a means of
forgetting herself, like an intoxication. I often noticed, when she was
very sad, that she was relieved, when a child fell sick, at being able
to take refuge in this intoxication. It was involuntary intoxication,
because as yet there was nothing else. On every side we heard that Mrs.
So-and-so had lost children, that Dr. So-and-so had saved the child
of Mrs. So-and-so, and that in a certain family all ha