|
II.THE INFANT.
She is a child--a little thing--an infant. She has a mother and father. Let us suppose, for example, they are married. Let us be moral if we cannot be happy and free--they are married--perhaps--they love one another--who knows? But she knows nothing of this; she is an infant--a small thing--a trifle! She is not lovely at first. It is cruel, perhaps, but she is red, and positively ugly. She feels this keenly and cries. She weeps. Ah, my God, how she weeps! Her cries and lamentations now are really distressing. Tears stream from her in floods. She feels deeply and copiously like M. Alphonse de Lamartine in his Confessions. If you are her mother, Madame, you will fancy worms; you will examine her linen for pins, and what not. Ah, hypocrite! you, even YOU, misunderstand her. Yet she has charming natural impulses. See how she tosses her dimpled arms. She looks longingly at her mother. She has a language of her own. She says, "goo goo," and "ga ga." She demands something--this infant! She is faint, poor thing. She famishes. She wishes to be restored. Restore her, Mother! It is the first duty of a mother to restore her child!
|
