"
Lowering her beautiful soft eyes towards her boy, she watched him with a
look of infinite love, while he continued nursing gluttonously. And in a
dreamy voice she continued: "To give a child of mine to another--oh no,
never! I should feel too jealous. I want my children to be entirely my
own. And it isn't merely a question of a child's physical health. I speak
of his whole being, of the intelligence and heart that will come to him,
and which he ought to derive from me alone. If I should find him foolish
or malicious later on, I should think that his nurse had poisoned him.
Dear little fellow! when he pulls like that it is as if he were drinking
me up entirely."
Then Mathieu, deeply moved, turned towards the others, saying: "Ah! she
is quite right. I only wish that every mother could hear her, and make it
the fashion in France once more to suckle their infants. It would be
sufficient if it became an ideal of beauty. And, indeed, is it not of the
loftiest and brightest beauty?"
The Angelins complaisantly began to laugh, but they did not seem
convinced. Just as they rose to take their leave an extraordinary uproar
burst forth beneath the window, the piercing clamor of little wildings,
freely romping in the fields.
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