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1 66 Brieux
I ought to have left him, run away, come home, oughtn t
I ? But I couldn t believe it of him all at once, like that !
And I couldn t go away while I had any hope. ... As
long as I was holding to his arm it was as if I was en
gaged. When he was gone I should only be a miserable
ruined girl, like dozens of others. . . .
My life was at
stake : and to save myself I went down into the very low
est depths of vileness and cowardice. I cried, I im
plored. I lost all shame. . . . What he said then I can
not tell you not even you it was too much too
much I did not understand at first. It was only after
wards, coming back, going over all his words, that I made
out what he meant. . . . Then he rushed to the train,
and jumped into a carriage, and almost crushed my fin
gers in the door ;
and he went and hid behind his mother,
and she threatened, too, to have me arrested. ... I wish
I was dead !
Lucie, dear, I don t want to go through all
that s coming I am too little I am too weak, I m
too young to bear it. Really, I haven t the strength.
But Lucie has faith in her husband. In all the
years of their married life she has heard him pro
claim from the very housetops that motherhood is
the most sacred function of woman; that the State
needs large numbers; that commerce and the army
require an increase of the population, and
"
the
government commands you to further this end to
the best of your ability, each one of you in his own
commune." She has heard her husband repeat,
over and over again, that the woman who refuses
to abide by the command of God and the laws to
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