il!liii;ii|ii'ii!i!i'.':;^^ 3557 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Digitized by Microsoft® Cornell University Library PS 3537.I37D12 Damaged goodsithe great play " Les avari laged goodsittie greal ililiili 3 1924 021 690 783 All books are subject to recall after two weeks. OIJn/Kroch Library DATE DUE /^ . .jkAf^' HH*^ mMNShh 1. Digitized by ^ icrosoft® '"■ ■ QAfLORD ^ PRINTED IN aSA This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation witli Cornell University Libraries, 2007. You may use and print this copy in limited quantity for your personal purposes, but may not distribute or provide access to it (or modified or partial versions of it) for revenue-generating or other commercial purposes. Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS Digitized by Microsoft® Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021690783 Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® DOCTOR PLEADING WITH GEO. DUPONT NOT TO MARRY Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS THE GREAT PLAY "LES AVARIES" OF BRIEUX Novelized toilh the approval of the author By UPTON SINCLAIR PUBLISHERS THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY PHILADELPHIA Digitized by Microsoft® 943095 IB 3 Copyright, 1913, oy Thb John C. Winston Co. Digitized by Microsoft® The production of Eugene Brieux's play, "Les AvariSs," or, to give it its English title, "Damaged Goods," has initiated a movement in this country which must be regarded as epoch-making, — New Yobk Times. Digitized by Microsoft® SS.AvENUfi Trudaine A-MA-v** al\A^ /CwtVv^ ■ eiCt.._ oC\. ; i*-«/vv^. t*>*- 4-yy/yi Digitized by Microsoft® PREFACE My endeavor has been to tell a simple story, preserving as closely as possible the spirit and feeling of the original. I have tried, as it were, to take the play to pieces, and build a novel out of the same material. I have not felt at liberty to embellish M. Brieux's ideas, and I have used his dialogue word for word wherever possi- ble. Unless I have mis-read the author, his sole purpose in writing Les Avaries was to place a number of most important facts before the minds of the pubUc, and to drive them home by means of intense emotion. If I have been able to assist him, this bit of literary carpentering wiU be worth while. I have to thank M. Brieux for his kind permission to make the attempt, and for the cordial spirit which he has manifested. Upton Sinclaie. (5) Digitized by Microsoft® PRESS COMMENTS ON THE PLAY Damaged Goods was first presented in America at a Friday matinee on March 14th, 1913, in the Fulton. Theater, New York, before members of the Socio- logical Fund. Immediately it was acclaimed by public, press and pulpit as the greatest contribution ever made by the Stage to the cause of humanity. Mr. Richard Bennett, the producer, who had the courage to present the play, with the aid of his co- workers, in the face of most savage criticism from the ignorant, was overwhelmed with requests for a repetition of the performance. Before deciding whether or not to present Damaged Goods before the general public, it was arranged that the highest officials in the United States should pass judgment upon the manner in which the play teaches its vital lesson. A special guest performance for members of the Cabinet, members of both houses of Congress, members of the United States Supreme Court, representatives of the Diplomatic corps and others prominent in national life was given in Wash- ington, D. C. (6) Digitized by Microsoft® PRESS COMMENTS Although the performance was given on a Sunday- afternoon (April 6, 1913), the National Theater was crowded to the very doors with the most dis- tinguished audience ever assembled in America, including exclusively the foremost men and women of the Capital. The most noted clergymen of Washington were among the spectators. The result of this remarkable performance was a tremendous indorsement of the play and of the manner in which Mr. Bennett and his co-workers were presenting it. This reception resulted in the continuance of the New York performances until mid-summer and is responsible for the decision on the part of Mr. Ben- nett to offer the play in every city in America where citizens feel that the ultimate welfare of the com- munity is dependent upon a higher standard of morality and clearer understanding of the laws of health. The Washington Post, commenting on the Wash- ington performance, said: The play was presented with all the impressiveneas of a sermon; with all the vigor and dynamic force of a great drama; with all the earnestness and power of a vital truth. In many respects the presentation of this dramatization of a great social evil assmned the aspects of a religious service. Dr. Donald C. MacLeod, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, mounted the rostrum usually occupied by the leader of the orchestra, and announced that the nature of the performance, the saoredness of the day, and the character of the audience gave to the play the significance of a tremen- Digitized by Microsoft® 8 PRESS COMMENTS dous sermon in behalf of mankind, and that as such it was eminently fitting that a divine blessing be invoked. Dr. Earle Wilfley, pastor of the Vermont Avenue Christian Church, asked all persons in the audience to bow their heads in a prayer for the proper reception of the message to be presented from the stage. Dr. MacLeod then read the Ber- nard Shaw preface to the play, and asked that there be no applause during the performance, a suggestion which was rigidly followed, thus adding greatly to the effectiveness and the seriousness of the dramatic portrayal. The impression made upon the audience by the remarkable play is reflected in such comments as the following expressions voiced after the performance: Rabbi Simon, of the Washington Hebrew Congregation — If I could preach from my pulpit a sermon one tenth as powerful, as convincing, as far-reaching, and as helpful as this per- formance of Damaged Goods must be, I would consider that I had achieved the triumph of my life. Commissioner Cuno H. Ritdolph — I was deeply impressed by what I saw, and I think that the drama should be repeated in every city, a matiniSe one day for father and son and the next day for mother and daughter. Rev. Earle, Wilfley — ^I am confirmed in the opinion that we must take up our cudgels in a crusade against the modern problems brought to the fore by Damaged Goods. The report that these diseases are increasing is enough to make us get busy on a campaign against them. Surgeon General Blue — It was a most striking and telling lesson. For years we have been fighting these conditions in the navy. It is high time that civilians awakened to the dangers surrounding them and crusaded against them in a proper manner. Mrs. Archibald Hopkins — The play was a powerful presen- tation of a very important question and was handled in a most admirable manner. The drama is a fine entering wedge for this crusade and is bound to do considerable good in conveying information of a very serious nature. Digitized by Microsoft® PRESS ' COMMENTS 9 Minuter Pezet, of Peru — There can be no doubt but that the performance will have great uplifting power, and accom- plish the good for which it was created. Fortunately, we do not have the prudery in South America that you of the north possess, and have open minds to consider these serious questions. Justice Daniel Theic Wright — I feel quite sure that Damaged Goods will have considerable effect in educating the people of the nature of the danger that surrounds them. Senator Kern, of Indiana — There can be no denial of the fact that it is time to look at the serious problems presented in the play with an open mind. Brieux has been hailed by Bernard Shaw as "incomparably the greatest writer France has produced since Moli^re," and perhaps no writer ever wielded his pen more earnestly in the service of the race. To quote from an article by Edwin E. Slosson in the Independent: Brieux is not one who beUeves that social evils are to be cured by laws and yet more laws. He believes that most of the trouble is caused by ignorance and urges education, public enlightenment and franker recognition of existing conditions. AH this may be needed, but still we may weU doubt its effect- iveness as a remedy. The drunken Helot argument is not a strong one, and those who lead a vicious life know more about its risks than any teacher or preacher could tell them. Brieux also urges the requirement of health certificates for marriage, such as many clergymen now insist upon and which doubtless will be made compulsory before long in many of our States. Brieux paints in black colors yet is no fanatic; in fact, he will be criticised by many as being too tolerant of human weakness. The conditions of society and the moral standards Digitized by Microsoft® 10 PRESS COMMENTS of France are so different from those of America that his point of view and his proposals for reform will not meet with general acceptance, but it is encoiiraging to find a dramatist who realizes the importance of being earnest and who uses his aart in defense of virtue instead of its destruction. Other comments follow, showing the great interest manifested in the play and the belief in the highest seriousness of its purpose: There is no uncleanness in facts. The uncleanness is in the glamour, in the secret imagination. It is in hints, half- truths, and suggestions the threat to life lies. This play puts the horrible truth in so Uving a way, with such clean, artistic force, that the mind is impressed as it could possibly be impressed in no other manner. Best of all, it is the physician who dominates the action. There is no sentimentalizing. There is no weak and morbid handling of the theme. The doctor appears in his ideal fvmction, as the modern high-priest of truth. Aroxmd him writhe the victims of ignorance and the criminals of conven- tional cruelty. Kind, stem, high-minded, clear-headed, yet human-hearted, he towers over all, as the master. This is as it should be. The man to say the word to save the world of ignorant wretches, cursed by the clouds and darkness a mistaken modesty has thrown around a life-and- death instinct, is the physician. The only question is this: Is this play decent? My answer is that it is the decentest play that has been in New York for a year. It is so decent that it is religious. — Hearst's Magazine. The play is, above all, a powerful plea for the tearing away of the veil of mystery that has so universally shrouded this subject of the penalty of sexual immorality. It is a plea for light on this hidden danger, that fathers and mothers, young Digitized by Microsoft® PRESS COMMENTS 11 men and young women, may know the terrible price that must be paid, not only by the generation that violates the law, but by the generations to come. It is a serious question just how the education of men and women, especially young men and young women, in the vital matters of sex relationship should be carried on. One thing is sure, however. The worst possible way is the one which has so often been followed in the past — ^not to carry it on at all but to ignore it. —The Outlook. It {Damaged Goods) is, of course, a masterpiece of "thesis drama," — an argument, dogmatic, insistent, inescapable, cumulative, between science and common sense, on one side, and love, of various types, on the other. It is what Mr. Bernard Shaw has called a "drama of discussion"; it has the splendid movement of the best Shaw plays, unrelieved — and undiluted — by Shavian paradox, wit, and irony. We imagine that many in the audiences at the Fulton Theater were astonished at the play's showing of sheer strength as acted drama. Possibly it might not interest the general public; probably it would be inadvisable to present it to them. But no thinking person, with the most casual interest in current social evils, could listen to the version of Richard Bennett, Wilton Lackaye, and their associates, without being gripped by the power of Brieux's message. — The Dial. It is a wonder that the world has been so long in getting hold of this play, which is one of France's most valuable contributions to the drama. Its history is interesting. Brieux wrote it over ten years ago. Antoine produced it at his theater and Paris immediately censored it, but soon thought better of it and removed the ban. During the summer of 1910 it was played in Brussels before crowded houses, for then the city was thronged with visitors to the exposition. Finally New York got it last spring and eugenic enthusiasts and doctors everywhere have welcomed it. — The Independent. Digitized by Microsoft® A Letter to Mr. Bennett from Dr. Hillls, Pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, 23 Uanroe Street, Bklyn. Angost 1, 1913. llr. Richard Bennett, Hew Tork City, H. t, Hy Dear Ur. Bennett: During the past tventy-oaa years since I en- tered public life, X have experienced many exeitins hours under the infltienea of rafoioer, orator and actor, but, in this nood of retrospection, I do not knov that I have ever paaaed through a more thrill- ing, terrible, and yet hopeful experience than last evening, vfaila I listened to your interpretation of Eageae Brieux' "Damaged Qoode." I have been following your vorc witn ever deep- enlag interest. It is not too much to say that you have changed the thinking of the people of our coun- try ae to the eocial evil. At last, thank Ood, this conspiracy of silence is ended. No young man who sees "Damaged Goods" vill ever be the seme again. If I vented to build around an insBoent bey buttresses of fire and granite, and lend him triple anaoar against temptation and the assaults of «til, I vould put him for oae evening under your influence. That iriilch the teacher, the preacher and the parent hava failed to aecompliah it haa been given to you to achieve. You hava done a work for vhich your genera* tion oves you an immeasurable debt of gratitude, I shall ba delighted to have you use my Study of Social Diseases and Heredity in eonaeetion vith your great reform. Vith all good -wishes, I am, ay dear Ur. Bennett, Faithfully yours. yr^iifiduo^JCM^ Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER I IT was four o'clock in the morning when George Dupont closed the door and came down the steps to the street. The first faint streaks of dawn were in the sky, and he noticed this with annoyance, because he knew that his hair was in dis- array and his whole aspect disorderly; yet he dared not take a cab, because he feared to attract attention at home. When he reached the sidewalk, he glanced about him to make sure that no one had seen him leave the house, then started down the street, his eyes upon the sidewalk before him. George had the feeling of the morning after. There are few men in this world of abundant sin who will not know what the phrase means. The fumes of the night had evaporated; he was quite sober now, quite free from excitement. (13) Digitized by Microsoft® 14 DAMAG ED GOODS He saw what he had done, and it seemed to him something black and disgusting. Never had a walk seemed longer than the few blocks which he had to traverse to reach his home. He must get there before the maid was up, before the baker's boy called with the rolls; otherwise, what explanation could he give? — ^he who had always been such a moral man, who had been pointed out by mothers as an example to their sons. George thought of his own mother, and what she would think if she could know about his night's adventure. He thought again and again, with a pang of anguish, of Henriette. Could it be possible that a man who was engaged, whose marriage contract had actually been signed, who was soon to possess the love of a beautiful and noble girl — ^that such a man could have been weak enough and base enough to let him- self be trapped into such a low action? He went back over the whole series of events, shuddering at them, trying to realize how they had happened, trying to excuse himself for them. He had not Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 15 intended such a culmination; he had never meant to do such a thing in his life. He had not thought of any harm when he had accepted the invitation to the supper- party with his old companions from the law school. Of course, he had known that several of these chums led "fast" Uves — ^but, then, surely a fellow could go to a friend's rooms for a lark without harm! He remembered the girl who had sat by his side at the table. She had come with a friend who was a married woman, and so he had assumed that she was all right. George remembered how embar- rassed he had been when first he had noticed her glances at him. But then the wine had begun to go to his head — ^he was one of those unfortunate wretches who cannot drink wine at aU. He had offered to take the girl home in a cab, and on the way he had lost his head. Oh! what a wretched thing it was. He could hardly believe that it was he who had spoken those frenzied words; and yet he must have spoken them, because Digitized by Microsoft® 16 DAMAGED GOODS he remembered them. He remembered that it had taken a long time to persuade her. He had had to promise her a ring hke the one her married friend wore. Before they entered her home she had made him take off his shoes, so that the porter might not hear them. This had struck George particularly, because, even flushed with excitement as he was, he had not forgotten the warnings his father had given him as to the dangers of contact with strange women. He had thought to himseK, "This girl must be safe. It is probably the first time she has ever done such a thing." But now George could get but little consolation out of that idea. He was suf- fering intensely — ^the emotion described by the poet in the bitter words about "Time's moving finger having writ." His , mind, seeking some explanation, some justifica- tion, went back to the events before that night. With a sudden pang of yearning, he thought of Lizette. She was a decent girl, and had kept him decent, and he was lonely without her. He had been so afraid Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 17 of being found out that he had given her up when he became engaged; but now for a while he felt that he would have to break his resolution, and pay his regular Sunday- visit to the little flat in the working-class portion of Paris. It was while George was fitting himself for the same career as his father — ^that of notary — that he had made the acquaintance of the young working girl. It may not be easy to believe, but Lizette had really been a decent girl. She had a family to take care of, and was in need. There was a grandmother in poor health, a father not much better, and three little brothers; so Lizette did not very long resist George Dupont, and he felt quite virtuous in giving her sufficient money to take care of these unfortunate people. Among people of his class it was considered proper to take such things if one paid for them'. All the family of this working girl were grateful to him. They adored him, and they called him Uncle Raoul (for of course he had not been so foolish as to give them his true name). Digitized by Microsoft® 18 DAMAGED GOODS Since George was paying for Lizette, he felt he had the right to control her life. He gave her fair warning concerning his attitude. If she deceived him he would leave her immediately. He told this to her relatives also, and so he had them aU watching her. She was never trusted out alone. Every Sunday George went to spend the day with his little "family/' so that his coming became almost a matter of tradition. He interested her in church affairs — ^mass and vespers were her regular occasions for excursions. George rented two seats, and the grand- mother went with her to the services. The simple people were proud to see their name engraved upon the brass plate of the pew. The reason for all these precautions was George's terror of disease. He had been warned by his father as to the dangers which young men encounter in their amours. And these lessons had sunk deep into George's heart; he had made up his mind that whatever his friends might do, he, for one, would protect himself. That did not mean, of course, that he Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 19 intended to live a virtuous life; such was not the custom among young men of his class, nor had it probably ever occurred to his father that it was possible for a yoimg man to do such a thing. The French have a phrase, "Fhomme moyen sensuel" — ^the average sensual man. And George was such a man. He had no noble ideaUsms, no particular reverence for women. The basis of his attitude was a piu-ely selfish one; he wanted to enjoy himseK, and at the same time to keep out of trouble. He did not find any happiness in the renunciation which he imposed upon him- self; he had no religious ideas about it. On the contrary, he suffered keenly, and was bitter because he had no share in the amusements of his friends. He stuck to his work and forced himself to keep regular hours, preparing for his law exami- nations. But all the time he was longing for adventures. And, of course, this could not go on forever, for the motive of fear alone is not sufficient to subdue the sexual urge in a fuU-blooded young man. Digitized by Microsoft® 20 DAMAGED GOODS The affair with Lizette might have con- tinued much longer had it not been for the fact that his father died. He died quite suddenly, while George was away on a trip. The son came back to console his broken- hearted mother, and in the two weeks which they spent in the country together the mother broached a plan to him. The last wish of the dying man had been that his son should be fixed in life. In the midst of his intense suffering he had been able to think about the matter, and had named the girl whom he wished George to marry. Naturally, George waited with some interest to learn who this might be. He was surprised when his mother told him that it was his cousin, Henriette Loches. He could not keep his emotion from revealing itself in his face. "It doesn't please you?" asked his mother, with a tone of disappointment. "Why no, mother," he answered. "It's not that. It just surprises me." "But why?" asked the mother. "Hen- riette is a lovely girl and a good girl." "Yes, I know," said George; "but then Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 2i she is my cousin, and — " He blushed a little with embarrassment. "I had never thought of her in that way." Madame Dupont laid her hand upon her son's. "Yes, George," she said, tenderly. "I know. You are such a good boy." Now, of course, George did not feel that he was quite such a good boy; but his mother was a deeply religious woman, who had no idea of the truth about the majority of men. She would never have got over the shock if he had told her about himself, and so he had to pretend to be just what she thought him. "Tell me," she continued, after a pause, "have you never felt the least bit in love?" "Why no — ^I don't think so," George stammered, becoming conscious of a sudden rise of temperature in his cheeks. "Because," said his mother, "it is really time that you were settled in life. Your father said that we should have seen to it before, and now it is my duty to see to it. It is not good for you to live alone so long." "But, mother, I have you," said George, generously. Digitized by Microsoft® 22 DAMAGED GOODS "Some day the Lord may take me away," was the reply. "I am getting old. And, George, dear — " Here suddenly her voice began to tremble with feeling — "I would hke to see my baby grand- children before I go. You cannot imagine what it would mean to me." Madame Dupont saw how much this subject distressed her son, so she went on to the more worldly aspects of the mat- ter. Henriette's father was well-to-do, and he would give her a good dowry. She was a charming and accomplished girl. Everybody would consider him most fortunate if the match could be arranged. Also, there was an elderly aunt to whom Madame Dupont had spoken, and who was much taken with the idea. She owned a great deal of property and would surely help the young couple. George did not see just how he could object to this proposition, even if he had wanted to. What reason could he give for such a course? He could not explain that he already had a family — ^with step- children, so to speak, who adored him. Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 23 And what could he say to his mother's obsession, to which she came back again and again — her longing to see her grand- children before she died? Madame Dupont waited only long enough for George to stammer out a few protestations, and then in the next breath to take them back; after which she proceeded to go ahead with the match. The family lawyers conferred together, and the terms of the settlement were worked out and agreed upon. It happened that immediately afterwards George learned of an opportunity to pur- chase the practice of a notary, who was ready to retire from business in two months' time. Henriette's father consented to advance a portion of her dowry for this purpose. Thus George was safely started upon the same career as his father, and this was to him a source of satisfaction which he did not attempt to deny, either to him- self or to any one else. George was a cautious young man, who came of a frugal and saving stock. He had always been taught that it was his primary duty to Digitized by Microsoft® 24 DAMAGED GOODS make certain of a reasonable amount of comfort. From his earliest days, he had been taught to regard material success as the greatest goal in life, and he would never have dreamed of engaging himself to a girl without money. But when he had the good fortune to meet one who possessed desirable personal qualities in addition to money, he was not in the least barred from appreciating those qualities. They were, so to speak, the sauce which went with the meat, and it seemed to him that in this case the sauce was of the very best. George — a big fellow of twenty-six, with large, round eyes and a good-natured countenance — ^was full blooded, weU fed, with a hearty laugh which spoke of un- impaired contentment, a soul untroubled in its deeps. He seemed to himself the luckiest fellow in the whole round world; he could not think what he had done to deserve the good fortune of possessing such a girl as Henriette. He was ordinarily of a somewhat sentimental turn — easily influenced by women and sensitive to their Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 25 charms. Moreover, his relationship with Lizette had softened him. He had learned to love the young working girl, and now Henriette, it seemed, was to reap the benefit of his experience with her. In fact, he found himseK always with memories of Lizette in his relationships with the girl who was to be his wife. When the engagement was announced, and he claimed his first kiss from his bride-to-be, as he placed a ring upon her finger, he remembered the first time he had kissed Lizette, and a double blush suffused his round countenance. When he walked arm and arm with Henriette in the garden he remembered how he had Vfalked just so with the other girl, and he was interested to compare the words of the two. He remembered what a good time he had had when he had taken Lizette and her little family for a picnic upon one of the excursion steamers which rim down the River Seine. Immediately he decided that he would like to take Henriette on such a picnic, and he per- suaded an aunt of Henriette's to go with Digitized by Microsoft® 26 DAMAGED GOODS her as chaperon. George took his bride- to-be to the same little inn where he had had lunch before. Thus he was always haunted by memo- ries, some of which made him cheerful and some of which made him mildly sad. He soon got used to the idea, and did not find it awkward, except when he had to suppress the impulse to teU Henrietta something which Lizette had said, or some funny incident which had happened in the home of the little family. Sometimes he found himself thinking that it was a shame to have to suppress these impulses. There must be something wrong, he thought, with a social system which made it necessary for him to hide a thing which was so obvious and so sensible. Here he was, a man twenty-six years of age; he could not have afforded to marry earlier, nor could he, as he thought, have been expected to lead a continent life. And he had really loved Lizette; she was really a good girl. Yet, if Henriette had got any idea of it, she would have been horrified and indignant — she might even have broken off the engagement. Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 27 And then, too, there was Henriette's father, a personage of great dignity and importance. M. Loches was a deputy of the French Parliament, from a district in the provinces. He was a man of upright life, and a man who made a great deal of that upright life — ^keeping it on a pedestal where everyone might observe it. It was impossible to imagine M. Loches ia an undignified or compromising situation — such as the younger man foimd himseK facing in the matter of Lizette. The more he thought about it the more nervous and anxious George became. Then it was that he decided it would be necessary for him to break with the girl, and be "good" until the time of his marriage. Dear little soft-eyed Lizette— he did not dare to face her personally; he could never bear to say good-by, he felt. Instead, he went to the father, who as a man could be expected to understand the situation. George was embarrassed and not a little nervous about it; for although he had never misrepresented his attitude to the family, one could never feel entirely free Digitized by Microsoft® 28 DAMAGED GOODS from the possibility of blackmail in such cases. However, Lizette's father behaved decently, and was duly grateful for the moderate sum of money which George handed him in parting. He promised to break the news gently to Lizette, and George went away with his mind made up that he would never see her again. This resolution he kept, and he con- sidered himself very virtuous in doing it. But the truth was that he had grown used to intimacy with a woman, and was restless without it. And that, he told himseK, was why he had yielded to the shameful temptation the night of that fatal supper party. He paid for the misadventure liberally in remorse. He felt that he had been a wretch, that he had disgraced himseK forever, that he had proved himself un- worthy of the pure girl he was to marry. So keen was his feeling that it was several days before he could bring himself to see Henriette again; and when he went, it was with a mind fiUed with a brand-new set of resolutions. It was the last time Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 29 that he would ever fall into error. He would be a new man from then on. He thanked God that there was no chance of his sin being known, that he might have an opportunity to prove his new determina- tion. So intense were his feelings that he could not help betraying a part of them to Henriette. They sat in the garden one soft simmaer evening, with Henriette's mother occupied with her crocheting at a decorous distance. George, in reverent and humble mood, began to drop vague hints that he was really unworthy of his bride-to-be. He said that he had not always been as good as he should have been; he said that her purity and sweetness had awakened in him new ideals; so that he felt his old life had been full of blunders. Henriette, of course, had but the vaguest of ideas as to what the blunders of a tender and generous young man like George might be. So she only loved him the more for his humility, and was flattered to have such a fine effect upon him, to awaken in him such moods of exaltation. When he Digitized by Microsoft® 30 DAMAGED GOODS told her that all men were bad, and that no man was worthy of such a beautiful love, she was quite ravished, and wiped away tears from her eyes. It would have been a shame to spoil such a heavenly mood by telling the real truth. Instead, George contented him- seK with telling of the new resolutions he had formed. After aU, they were the things which really mattered; for Henriette was going to live with his future, not with his past. It seemed to George a most wonderful thing, this innocence of a young girl, which enabled her to move through a world of wickedness with unpolluted mind. It was a touching thing; and also, as a prudent young man could not help realizing, a most convenient thing. He reaUzed the importance of preserving it, and thought that if he ever had a daughter, he would protect her as rigidly as Henriette had been protected. He made haste to shy off from the subject of his "badness" and to turn the conversation with what seemed a clever jest. Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 31 "If I am going to be so good," he said, "don't forget that you will have to be good also!" "I will try," said Henriette, who was still serious. "You will have to try hard," he per- sisted. "You will find that you have a very jealous husband." "Will I?" said Henriette, beaming with happiness — ^for when a woman is very much in love she doesn't in the least object to the man's being jealous. "Yes, indeed," smiled George. "I'll always be watching you." "Watching me?" echoed the girl with a surprised look. And immediately he felt ashamed of himself for his jest. There could be no need to watch Henriette, and it was bad taste even to joke about it at such a time. That was one of the ideas which he had brought with him from his world of evil. The truth was, however, that George would always be a suspicious husband; nothing could ever change that fact, for there was something in his own con- Digitized by Microsoft® 32 DAMAGED GOODS science which he could not get out, and which would make it impossible for him to be at ease as a married man. It was the memory of something which had hap- pened earher in his life, before he met Lizette. There had been one earlier expe^ rience, with the wife of his dearest friend. She had been much younger than her husband, and had betrayed an interest in George, who had yielded to the tempta- tion. For several years the intrigue con- tinued, and George considered it a good solution of a young man's problem. There had been no danger of contamination, for he knew that his friend was a man of piu-e and rigid morals, a jealous man who watched his wife, and did not permit her to contract those new relations which are always dangerous. As for George, he helped in this worthy work, keeping the woman in terror of some disease. He told her that almost aU men were infected, for he hoped by this means to keep her from deceiving him. I am aware that this may seem a dreadful story. As I do not want anyone to think Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 33 too ill of George Dupont, I ought, perhaps, to point out that people feel differently about these matters in France. In judging the unfortunate young man, we must judge him by the customs of his own country, and not by ours. In France, they are accustomed to what is called the mariage de convenance. The young girl is not permitted to go about and make her own friends and decide which one of them she prefers for her husband; on the contrary, she is strictly guarded, her train- ing often is of a religious nature, and her marriage is a matter of business, to be considered and decided by her parents and those of the young man. Now, whatever we may think right, it is hu- manly certain that where marriages are made in that way, the need of men and women for sympathy and for passionate interest will often lead to the forming of irregular relationships after marriage. It is not possible to present statistics as to the number of such irregular relationships in Parisian society; but in the books which he read and in the plays which he saw, Digitized by Microsoft® 34 DAMAGED GOODS George found everything to encourage him to think that it was a romantic and delightful thing to keep up a secret intrigue with the wife of his best friend. It should also, perhaps, be pointed out that we are here telling the truth, and the whole truth, about George Dupont; and that it is not customary to tell this about men, either in real life or in novels. There is a great deal of concealment in the world about matters of sex; and in such matters the truth-telling man is apt to suffer in reputation in comparison with the truth-concealing one. Nor had George really been altogether callous about the thing. It had happened that his best friend had died in his arms; and this had so affected the guilty pair that they had felt their relationship was no longer possible. She had withdrawn to nurse her grief alone, and George had been so deeply affected that he had avoided affairs and entanglements with women until his meeting with Lizette. All this was now in the far distant past, but it had made a deeper impres- Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 35 sion upon George than he perhaps realized, and it was now working in his mind and marring his happiness. Here was a girl who loved him with a noble and imselfish and whole-hearted love — and yet he wovdd never be able to trust her as she deserved, but would always have suspicions lurking in the back of his mind. He would be unable to have his friends intimate in his home, because of the memory of what he had once done to a friend. It was a subtle kind of punishment. But so it is that Natiu-e often finds ways of punishing us, without oiu- even being aware of it. That was all for the future, however. At present, George was happy. He put his black sin behind him, feeling that he had obtained absolution by his confession to Henriette. Day by day, as he realized his good fortime, his round face beamed with more and yet more joy. He went for a httle trip to Henriette's home in the coimtry. It was a simple village, and they took walks in the country, and stopped to refresh themselves at a farmhouse occupied by one of M. Loches' Digitized by Microsoft® 36 DAMAGED GOODS tenants. Here was a rosy and buxom peasant woman, with a nursing child in her arms. She was destined a couple of years later to be the foster-mother of Henriette's little girl and to play an impor- tant part in her hfe. But the pair had no idea of that at present. They simply saw a proud and happy mother, and Henriette played with the baby, giving vent to childish delight. Then suddenly she looked up and saw that George was watching her, and as she read his thoughts a beautiful blush suffused her cheeks. As for George, he turned away and went out under the blue sky in a kind of ecstasy. Life seemed very wonderful to him just then; he had found its supreme happiness, which was love. He was really getting quite mad about Henriette, he told himself. He could hardly believe that the day was coming when he would be able to clasp her in his arms. ****** But in the blue sky of George's happi- ness there was one little cloud of storm. As often happens with storm-clouds, it was Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 37 so small that at first he paid no attention to it at all. He noted upon his body one day a tiny ulcer. At first he treated it with salve pur- chased from an apothecary. Then after a week or t"VYO, when this had no effect, he began to feel uncomfortable. He remem- bered suddenly something he had heard about the symptoms of an unmentionable, dreadful disease, and a vague terror took possession of him. For days he tried to put it to one side. The idea was nonsense, it was absurd in connection with a woman so respecta- ble! But the thought would not be put away, and finally he went to a school friend, who was a man of the world, and got him to talk on the subject. Of course, George had to be careful, so that his friend should not suspect that he had any special purpose in mind. The friend was willing to talk. It was a vile disease, he said; but one was fool- ish to bother about it, because it was so rare. There were other diseases which fellows got, which nearly every fellow Digitized by Microsoft® 38 DAMAGED GOODS had, and to which none of them paid any attention. But one seldom met anyone who had the red plague that George dreaded. "And yet," he added, "according to the books, it isn't so uncommon. I suppose the truth is that people hide it. A chap naturally wouldn't teU, when he knew it would damn him for life." George had a sick sensation inside of him. "Is it as bad as that?" he asked. "Of course," said the other. "Should you want to have anything to do with a person who had it? Should you be willing to room with him or travel with him? You wouldn't even want to shake hands with him!" "No, I suppose not," said George, feebly. "I remember," continued the other, "an old fellow who used to live out in the country near me. He was not so very old, either, but he looked it. He had to be pushed around in a wheel-chair. People said he had locomotor ataxia, but that really meant syphilis. We boys used to poke aU kinds of fun at him because one windy day his hat and his wig were Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 39 blown off together, and we discovered that he was as bald as an egg. We used to make jokes about his automobile, as we called it. It had a little handle in front, instead of a steering-wheel, and a man behind to push, instead of an engine." "How horrible!" remarked George with genuine feeling. "I remember the poor devil had a stroke of paralysis soon after," continued the friend, quite carelessly. "He could not steer any more, and also he lost his voice. When you met him he would look at you as if he thought he was talk- ing, but all he could say was 'Ga-ga-ga'." George went away from this conversa- tion in a cold sweat. He told himseK over and over again that he was a fool, but still he could not get the hellish idea out of his mind. He foxmd himseK brood- ing over it aU day and lying awake at night, haunted by images of himseK in a wheel- chair, and without any hair on his head. He realized that the sensible thing would be for him to go to a doctor and make certain about his condition; but he could Digitized by Microsoft® 40 DAMAGED GOODS not bring himself to face the ordeal — ^he was ashamed to admit to a doctor that he had laid himseK open to such a taint. He began to lose the radiant ex- pression from his round and rosy face. He had less appetite, and his moods of depression became so frequent that he could not hide them even from Henriette. She asked him once or twice if there were not something the matter with him, and he laughed — a, forced and hurried laugh — and told her that he had sat up too late the night before, worrying over the 'mat- ter of his examinations. Oh, what a cruel thing it was that a man who stood in the very gateway of such a garden of delight should be tormented and made miserable by this loathsome idea! The disturbing symptom still continued, and so at last George purchased a medical book, deaUng with the subject of the disease. Then, indeed, he opened up a chamber of horrors; he made his mind an abiding place of ghastly images. In the book there were pictures of things so awful that he turned white, and trembled Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 41 like a leaf, and had to close the volume and hide it in the bottom of his trunk. But he could not banish the pictures from his mind. Worst of aU, he could not forget the description of the first symptom of the disease, which seemed to correspond exactly with his own. So at last he made up his mind he must ascertain definitely the truth about his condition. He began to think over plans for seeing a doctor. He had heard somewhere a story about a young fellow who had fallen into the hands of a quack, and been ruined forever. So he decided that he would consult only the best authority. He got the names of the best-known works on the subject from a bookstore, and found that the author of one of these books was practicing in Paris as a specialist. Two or three days elapsed before he was able to get up the courage to call on this doctor. And oh, the shame and horror of sitting in his waiting-room with the other people, none of whom dared to look each other in the eyes! They must all be aflaicted, George thought, and he Digitized by Microsoft® 42 DAMAGED GOODS glanced at them furtively, looking for the various symptoms of which he had read. Or were there, perhaps, some like himself — merely victims of a foohsh error, coming to have the hag of dread pulled from off their backs? And then suddenly, while he was specu- lating, there stood the doctor, signaling to him. His turn had come! Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER n THE doctor was a man about forty years of age, robust, with every appearance of a strong character. In the buttonhole of the frock coat he wore was a red rosette, the decoration of some order. Confused and nervous as George was, he got a vague impression of the physician's richly furnished office, with its bronzes, marbles and tapestries. The doctor signaled to the young man to be seated in the chair before his desk. George complied, and then, as he wiped away the perspiration from his forehead, stammered out a few words, explaining his errand. Of course, he said, it could not be true, but it was a man's duty not to take any chances in such a matter. "I have not been a man of loose life," he added; "I have not taken so many chances as other men." (43) Digitized by Microsoft® 44 DAMAGED GOODS The doctor cut him short with the brief remark that one chance was all that was necessary. Instead of discussing such ques- tions, he would make an examination. "We do not say positively in these cases until we have made a blood test. That is the one way to avoid the possibility of mistake." A drop of blood was squeezed out of George's finger on to a little glass plate. The doctor retired to an adjoining room, and the victim sat alone in the office, deriv- ing no enjojonent from the works of art which surrounded him, but feeling like a prisoner who sits in the dock with his life at stake while the jury deliberates. The doctor returned, calm and impas- sive, and seated himseK in his office-chair. "Well, doctor?" asked George. He was trembling with terror. "Well," was the reply, "there is no doubt whatever." George wiped his forehead. He could not credit the words. "No doubt what- ever? In what sense?" "In the bad sense," said the other. Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 45 He began to write a prescription, with- out seeming to notice how George turned pale with terror. "Come," he said, after a silence, "you must have known the truth pretty well." "No, no, sir!" exclaimed George. "WeU," said the other, "you have syphilis." George was utterly stunned. "My God!" he exclaimed. The doctor, having finished his pre- scription, looked up and observed his condition. "Don't trouble yourseK, sir. Out of every seven men you meet upon the street, in society, or at the theater, there is at least one who has been in your condi- tion. One out of seven — ^fifteen per cent!" George was staring before him. He spoke low, as if to himself. "I know what I am going to do!" "And I know also," said the doctor, with a smile. "There is your prescrip- tion. You are going to take it to the drug- store and have it put up." George took the prescription, mechani- cally, but whispered, "No, sir." Digitized by Microsoft® 46 DAMAGED GOODS "Yes, sir, you are going to do as every- body else does." "No, because my situation is not that of everybody else. I know what I am going to do." Said the doctor: "Five times out of ten, in the chair where you are sitting, people talk hke that, perfectly sincerely. Each one believes himself more unhappy than all the others; but after thinking it over, and listening to me, they imderstand that this disease is a companion with whom one can live. Just as in every household, one gets along at the cost of mutual concessions, that's aU. Come, sir, I tell you again, there is nothing about it that is not perfectly ordinary, perfectly natural, perfectly common; it is an accident which can happen to any one. It is a great mistake that people speak of this as the Trench disease,' for there is none which is more universal. Under the pic- ture of this disease, addressing myseK to those who foUow the oldest profession in the world, I would write the famous phrase: 'Here is your master. It is, it was, or it must be.' " Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 47 George was putting the prescription into the outside pocket of his coat, stupidly, as if he did not know what he was doing. "But, sir," he exclaimed, "I should have been spared!" "Why?" inquired the other. "Because you are a man of position, because you are rich? Look aroxmd you, sir. See these works of art in my room. Do you imagine that such things have been presented to me by chimney-sweeps?" "But, Doctor," cried George, with a moan, "I have never been a libertine. There was never any one, you understand me, never any one could have been more careful in his pleasures. If I were to tell you that in aU my life I have only had two mistresses, what would you answer to that?" "I would answer, that a single one would have been sufficient to bring you to me." "No, sir!" cried George. "It could not have been either of those women." He went on to tell the doctor about his first mistress, and then about Lizette. Finally he told about Henriette, how much .he Digitized by Microsoft® 48 DAMAGED GOODS adored her. He coiild really use such a word — hQ loved her most tenderly. She was so good — ^and he had thought himself so lucky! As he went on, he could hardly keep from going to pieces. "I had everything," he exclaimed, "everything a man needed! All who knew me envied me. And then I had to let those fellows drag me off to that miserable supper-party! And now here I am! My future is ruined, my whole exist- ence poisoned! What is to become of me? Everybody will avoid me — ^I shall be a pariah, a leper!" He paused, and then in sudden wild grief exclaimed, "Come now! Would it not be better that I should take myself out of the way? At least, I should not suffer any more. You see that there could not be any one more imhappy than my- seK — ^not any one, I tell you, sir, not any one!" Completely overcome, he began to weep in his handkerchief. The doctor got up, and went to him. "You must be a man," he said, "and not cry like a child." Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 49 "But sir," cried the young man, with tears running down his cheeks, "if I had led a wild life, if I had passed my time in dissipation with chorus girls, then I could understand it. Then I would say that I had deserved it." The doctor exclaimed with emphasis, '•'No, no! You would not say it. How- ever, it is of no matter — go on." "I tell you that I would say it. I am honest, and I would say that I had deserved it. But no, I have deprived my- seK of every pleasure. I have worked, I have been a regular grind. And now, when I think of the shame that is in store for me, the disgusting things, the fright- ful catastrophes to which I am con- demned " "What is all this you are teUing me?" asked the doctor, laughing. "Oh, I know, I know!" cried the other, and repeated what his friend had told him about the man in a wheel-chair. "And they used to call me handsome Raoul! That was my name — ^handsome Raoul!" "Now, my dear sir," said the doctor, Digitized by Microsoft® 50 DAMAGED GOODS cheerfully, "wipe your eyes one last time, blow your nose, put your handkerchief into your pocket, and hear me dry-eyed." George obeyed mechanically. "But I give you fair warning," he said, "you are wasting your time." "I tell you — " began the other. "I know exactly what you are going to tell me!" cried George. "Well, in that case, there is nothing more for you to do here — rim along." "Since I am here," said the patient submissively, "I wiU hear you." "Very well, then. I tell you that if you have the wiU and the perseverance, none of the things you fear will happen to you." "Of course, it is your duty to tell me that." "I tell you that there are one himdred thousand like you in Paris, alert, and seemingly well. Come, take what you were just saying— wheel-chairs. One doesn't see so many of them." "No, that's true," said George. "And besides," added the doctor, "a good many people who ride in them are Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 51 not there for the cause you think. There is no more reason why you should be the victim of a catastrophe than any of the one hundred thousand. The disease is serious, nothing more." "You admit that it is a serious disease?" argued George. "Yes." "One of the most serious?" "Yes, but you have the good fortune — " " The ^ooc^ fortune?" "Relatively, if you please. You have the good fortime to be infected with one of the diseases over which we have the most certain control." "Yes, yes," exclaimed George, "but the remedies are worse than the disease." "You deceive yourself," replied the other. "You are trying to make me believe that I can be cured?" "You can be." "And that I am not condemned?" "I swear it to you." "You are not deceiving yourself, you are not deceiving me? Why, I was told—" Digitized by Microsoft® 52 DAMAGED GOODS The doctor laughed, contemptuously. "You were told, you were told! I'll wager that you know the laws of the Chinese concerning party- walls." "Yes, naturally," said George. "But I don't see what they have to do with it." "Instead of teaching you such things," was the reply, "it would have been a great deal better to have taught you about the nature and cause of diseases of this sort. Then you would have knovm how to avoid the contagion. Such knowl- edge should be spread abroad, for it is the most important knowledge in the world. It should be found in every newspaper." This remark gave George something of a shock, for his father had owned a httle paper in the provinces, and he had a sudden vision of the way subscribers would have fallen off, if he had printed even so much as the name of this vile disease. "And yet," pursued the doctor, "you publish romances about adultery!" "Yes," said George, "that's what the readers want." "They don't want the truth about vene- Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 53 real diseases," exclaimed the other. "If they knew the full truth, they would no longer think that adultery was romantic and interesting." He went on to give his advice as to the means of avoiding such diseases. There was really but one rule. It was: To love but one woman, to take her as a virgin, and to love her so much that she would never deceive you. "Take that from me," added the doctor, "and teach it to yom* son, when you have one." George's attention was caught by this last sentence. "You mean that I shall be able to have children?" he cried. "Certainly," was the reply. "Healthy children?" "I repeat it to you; if you take care of yourself properly for a long time, con- scientiously, you have little to fear." "That's certain?" "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred." George . felt as if he had suddenly emerged from a dungeon. "Why then," he exclaimed, "I shall be able to marry!" Digitized by Microsoft® 54 DAMAGED GOODS "You will be able to marry," was the reply. "You are not deceiving me? You would not give me that hope, you would not expose me? How soon will I be able to marry?" "In three or four years," said the doctor. "What!" cried George, in consternation. "In three or four years? Not before?" "Not before." "How is that? Am I going to be sick aU that time? Why, you told me just now — " Said the doctor: "The disease will no longer be dangerous to you, yourself — ^but you will be dangerous to others." "But," the young man cried, in despair, "I am to be married a month from now^" "That is impossible." "But I cannot do any differently. The contract is ready! The banns have been published! I have given my word!" "Well, you are a great one!" the doctor laughed. "Just now you were looking for your revolver! Now you want to be married within the month." Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 55 "But, Doctor, it is necessary!" "But I forbid it." "As soon as I knew that the disease is not what I imagined, and that I could be cured, naturally I didn't want to commit suicide. And as soon as I make up my mind not to commit suicide, I have to take up my regular life. I have to keep my engagements; I have to get married." "No," said the doctor. "Yes, yes!" persisted George, with blind obstinacy, "Why, Doctor, if I didn't marry it would be a disaster. You are talking about something you don't understand. I, for my part — ^it is not that I am anxious to be married. As I told you, I had almost a second family. Lizette's little brothers adored me. But it is my aimt, an old maid; and, also, my mother is crazy about the idea. If I were to back out now, she would die of chagrin. My aunt would disinherit me, and she is the one who has the family fortune. Then, too, there is my father-in-law, a regular dragoon for his principles — severe, violent. He never makes a joke of serious things, and I teU Digitized by Microsoft® 56 DAMAGED GOODS you it wovild cost me dear, terribly dear. And, besides, I have given my word." "You must take back your word." "You still insist?" exclaimed George, in despair. "But then, suppose that it were possible, how could I take back my sig- nature which I put at the bottom of the deed? I have pledged myself to pay in two months for the attorney's practice I have purchased!" "Sir," said the doctor, "all these things — " "You are going to tell me that I was lacking in prudence, that I should never have disposed of my wife's dowry imtil after the honeymoon!" "Sir," said the doctor, again, "all these considerations are foreign to me. I am a physician, and nothing but a physician, and I can only tell you this : If you marry before three or four years, you wiU be a criminal." George broke out with a wild exclama- tion. "No sir, you are not merely a physician! You are also a confessor! You are not merely a scientist; and it is not Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 57 enough for you that you observe me as you would some lifeless thing in your labora- tory, and say, 'You have this; science says that; now go along with you.' All my existence depends upon you. It is your duty to Usten to me, because when you know everything you wiU imderstand me, and you wiU find some way to cure me within a month." "But," protested the doctor, "I wear myself out telling you that such means do not exist. I shall not be certain of your cure, as much as any one can be certain, An less than three or four years." George was almost beside himself. "I tell you you must find some means! Listen to me, sir — ^if I don't get married I don't get the dowry! And will you tell me how I can pay the notes I have signed?" "Oh," said the doctor, dryly, "if that is the question, it is very simple — ^I will give you a plan to get out of the affair. You wiU go and get acquainted with some rich man; you will do everything you can to gain his confidence; and when you have succeeded, you will plunder him." Digitized by Microsoft® 58 DAMAGED GOODS George shook his head. "I am not in any mood for joking," "I am not joking," replied his adviser. " Rob that man, assassinate him even — ^that would be no worse crime than you would commit in taking a yoimg girl in good health in order to get a portion of her dowry, when at the same time you would have to expose her to the frightful con- sequences of the disease which you would give her." " Frightful consequences?" echoed George. "Consequences of which death would not be the most frightful." "But sir, you were saying to me just now — " "Just now I did not tell you everything. Even reduced, suppressed a little by our remedies, the disease remains mysterious, menacing, and in its sum, sufficiently grave. So it would be an infamy to expose your fiancee in order to avoid an incon- venience, however great that might be." But George was still not to be convinced. Was it certain that this misfortime wotdd befall Henriette, even with the best atten- tion? Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 59 Said the other: "I do not wish to lie to you. No, it is not absolutely certain, it is probable. Aid there is another truth which I wish to teU you now: our remedies are not infallible. In a certain number of cases — a, very small nmnber, scarcely five per cent — ^they have remained without effect. You might be one of those excep- tions, your wife might be one. What then?" "What then?" "I will employ a word you used just now, yourself. We should have to expect the worst catastrophes." George sat in a state of complete despair. "Tell me what to do, then," he said. "I can tell you only one thing: don't marry. You have a most serious blemish. It is as if you owed a debt. Perhaps no one wiU ever come to claim it; on the other hand, perhaps a pitiless creditor wiU come all at once, presenting a brutal demand for immediate payment. Come now — ^you are a businesss man. Marriage is a contract; to marry without saying anything — ^that means to enter into a Digitized by Microsoft® 60 DAMAGED GOODS bargain by means of passive dissimulation. That's the term, is it not? It is dishonesty, and it ought to come under the law." George, being a lawyer, could appreciate the argument, and could think of nothing to say to it. "What shaU I do?" he asked. The other answered, "Go to your father- in-law and teU him frankly the truth." "But," cried the yoimg man, wildly, "there will be no question then of three or four years' delay. He will refuse his con- sent altogether." "If that is the case," said the doctor, "don't teU him anything." "But I have to give him a reason, or I don't know what he wiU do. He is the sort of man to give himself to the worst violence, and again my fiancee would be lost to me. Listen, Doctor. From every- thing I have said to you, you may perhaps think I am a mercenary man. It is true that I want to get along in the world, that is only natural. But Henriette has such quaUties; she is so much better than I, that I love her, really, as people love in Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 61 novels. My greatest grief — ^it is not to give up the practice I have bought — although, indeed, it would be a bitter blow to me; my greatest grief would be to lose Henriette. If you could only see her, if you only knew her — ^then you would under- stand. I have her picture here — " The young fellow took out his card-case, and offered a photograph to the doctor, who gently refused it. The other blushed with embarrassment. "I beg your pardon," he said, "I am ridiculous. That happens to me, some- times. Only, put yourself in my place — ^I love her so!" His voice broke. "My dear boy," said the doctor, feel- ingly, "that is exactly why you ought not to marry her." "But," he cried, "if I back out without saying anything they will guess the truth, and I shall be dishonored." "One is not dishonored because one is iU." "But with such a disease! People are so stupid. I myseK, yesterday — ^I should have laughed at anyone I knew who had Digitized by Microsoft® 62 DAMAGED GOODS got into such a plight; I should have avoided him, I should have despised him!" And suddenly George broke down again. "Oh!" he cried, "if I were the only one to suffer; but she — she is in love with me. I swear it to you! She is sc good; and she will be so unhappy!" The doctor answered, '"She would be unhappier later on." "It will be a scandal!" George exclaimed. "You will avoid one far greater," the other replied. Suddenly George set his lips with resolu- tion. He rose from his seat. He took several twenty-franc pieces from his pocket and laid them quietly upon the doctor's desk — ^paying the fee in cash, so that he would not have to give his name and address. He took up his gloves, his cane and his hat, and rose. "I wiU think it over," he said. "I thank you, Doctor. I wiU come back next week as you have told me. That is — probably I wiU." He was about to leave. The doctor rose, and he spoke in a voice Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 63 of furious anger. "No," he said, "I shan't see you next week, and you won't even think it over. You came here knowing what you had; you came to ask advice of me, with the intention of paying no heed to it, unless it conformed to your wishes. A superficial honesty has driven you to take that chance in order to satisfy your conscience. You wanted to have some- body upon whom you could put off, bye and bye, the consequences of an act whose culpabiUty you understand! No, don't protest! Many of those who come here think and act as you think, and as you wish to act; but the marriage made against my will has generally been the source of such calamities that now I am always afraid of not having been per- su?-«iive enough, and it even seems to me that I am a Uttle to blame for these mis- fortunes. I should have been able to pre- vent them; they would not have happened if those who are the authors of them knew what I know and had seen what I have seen. Swear to me, sir, that i you are going to break off that marriage!" Digitized by Microsoft® 64 DAMAGED GOODS George was greatly embarrassed, and unwilling to reply. "I cannot swear to you at all, Doctor; I can only tell you again that I will think it over." "Think what over?" "What you have told me." "What I have told you is true! You cannot bring any new objections; and I have answered those which you have pre- sented to me; therefore, your mind ought to be made up." Groping for a reply, George hesitated. He could not deny that he had made inquiry about these matters before he had come to the doctor. But he said that he was not at all certain that he had this disease. The doctor declared it, and per- haps it was true, but the most learned physicians were sometimes deceived. He remembered something he had read in one of the medical books. "Dr. Ricord maintains that after a certain period the disease is no longer contagious. He has proven his contentions by examples. Today you produce new examples to show that he is wrong! Now, I want to do Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 65 what's right, but surely I have the right to think it over. And when I think it over, I realize that all the evils with which you threaten me are only probable evils. In spite of your desire to terrify me, you have been forced to admit that possibly my marriage would not have any trouble- some consequence for my wife." The doctor found difficulty in restraining himseU. But he said, "Go on. I will answer you afterwards." And George blundered ahead in his desperation. "Your remedies are power- ful, you teU me; and for the calamities of which you speak to befall me, I would have to be among the rare exceptions — ^also my wife would have to be among the number of those rare exceptions. If a mathemati- cian were to apply the law of chance to these facts, the result of his operation would show but slight chance of a catas- trophe, as compared with the absolute certainty of a series of misfortunes, suffer- ings, troubles, tears, and perhaps tragic accidents which the breaking of my engage- ment would cause. So I say that the Digitized by Microsoft® 66 DAMAGED GOODS mathematician — ^who is, even more than you, a man of science, a man of a more infallible science — ^the mathematician would conclude that wisdom was not with you doctors, but with me." "You believe it, sir!" exclaimed the other. "But you deceive yourself." And he continued, driving home his point with a finger which seemed to George to pierce his very soul. "Twenty cases identical with your own have been patiently ob- served, from the beginning to the end. Nineteen times the woman was infected by her husband; you hear me, sir, nineteen times out of twenty! You believe that the disease is without danger, and you take to yourself the right to expose your wife to what you call the chance of your being one of those exceptions, for whom our remedies are without effect. Very well; it is necessary that you should know every- thing; it is necessary that you should know the disease which your wife, without being consulted, will run a chance of con- tracting. Take that book, sir; it is the work of my teacher. Read it yourself. Here, I have marked the passage." Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 67 He held out the open book; but George could not lift a hand to take it. "You do not wish to read it?" the other continued. "Listen to me." And in a voice trembling with passion, he read: " 'I have watched the spectacle of an unfor- tunate young woman, turned into a veri- table monster by means of a syphilitic infection. Her face, or rather let me say what was left of her face, was nothing but a flat surface seamed with scars.' " George covered his face, exclaiming, "Enough, sir! Have mercy!" But the other cried, "No, no! I will go to the very end. I have a duty to per- form, and I will not be stopped by the sensibility of your nerves." He went on reading: " 'Of the upper lip not a trace was left; the ridge of the upper gums appeared perfectly bare.' " But then, at the young man's protests, his resolution failed him. "Come," he said, "I will stop. I am sorry for you — ^you who accept for another person, for the woman you say you love, the chance of a disease which you cannot even endure to hear described. Digitized by Microsoft® 68 DAMAGED GOODS Now, from whom did that woman get syphilis? It is not I who am speaking, it is the book. 'From a miserable scomidrel who was not afraid to enter into matrimony when he had a secondary eruption.' All that was estabhshed later on — 'and who, moreover, had thought it best not to let his wife be treated for fear of awakening her suspicions!' " The doctor closed the book with a bang. "What that man has done, sir, is what you want to do." George was edging toward the door; he could no longer look the doctor in the eye. "I should deserve all those epithets and still more brutal ones if I should marry, knowing that my marriage would cause such horrors. But that I do not believe. You and your teachers — ^you are specialists, and consequently you are driven to at- tribute everything to the disease you make the subject of your studies. A tragic case, an exceptional case, holds a kind of fascina- tion for you; you think it can never be talked about enough." "I have heard that argument before," said the doctor, with an effort at patience. Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 69 "Let me go on, I beg you," pleaded George. "You have told me that out of every seven men there is one syphilitic. You have told me that there are one hun- dred thousand in Paris, coming and going, alert, and apparently well." "It is true," said the doctor, "that there are one hundred thousand who are actually at this moment not visibly under the influence of the disease. But many thou- sands have passed into our hospitals, vic- tims of the most frightful ravages that our poor bodies can support. These — ^you do not see them, and they do not count for you. But again, if it concerned no one but yourseK, you might be able to argue thus. What I declare to you, what I affirm with aU the violence of my conviction, is that you have not the right to expose a human creature to such chances — ^rare, as I know, but terrible, as I know still better. What have you to answer to that?" "Nothing," stammered George, brought to his knees at last. "You are right about that. I don't know what to think." "And in forbidding you marriage," con- Digitized by Microsoft® 70 DAMAGED GOODS tinued the doctor, "is it the same as if I forbade it forever? Is it the same as if I told you that you could never be cured? On the contrary, I hold out to you every hope; but I demand of you a delay of three or foiir years, because it will take me that time to find out if you are among the number of those unfortunate ones whom I pity with all my heart, for whom the disease is without mercy; because during that time you will be dangerous to your wife and to your children. The children I have not yet mentioned to you." Here the doctor's voice trembled slightly. He spoke with moving eloquence. "Come, sir, you are an honest man; you are too young for such things not to move you; you are not insensible to duty. It is impossible that I shan't be able to find a way to your heart, that I shan't be able to make you obey me. My emotion in speak- ing to you proves that I appreciate your suffering, that I suffer with you. It is in the name of my sincerity that I implore you. You have admitted it — ^that you have not the right to expose your wife to Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 71 such miseries. But it is not only your wife that you strike; you may attack in her your own children. I exclude you for a moment from my thought — ^you and her. It is in the name of these innocents that I implore you; it is the future, it is the race that I defend. Listen to me, listen to me! Out of the twenty households of which I spoke, only fifteen had children; these fifteen had twenty-eight. Do you know how many out of these twenty-eight sur- vived? Three, sir! Three out of twenty- eight! Syphilis is above everything a mur- derer of children. Herod reigns in France, and over all the earth, and begins each year his massacre of the innocents; and if it be not blasphemy against the sacred- ness of life, I say that the most happy are those who have disappeared. Visit our children's hospitals! We know too well the child of syphihtic parents; the type is classical; the doctors can pick it out any- where. Those little old creatures who have the appearance of having already lived, and who have kept the stigmata of aU our infirmities, of all our decay. They Digitized by Microsoft® 72 DAMAGED GOODS are the victims of fathers who have mar- ried, being ignorant of what you know — things which I should like to go and cry out in the public places." The doctor paused, and then in a solemn voice continued: "I have told you all, without exaggeration. Think it over. Consider the pros and cons; sum up the possible misfortunes and the certain miseries. But disregard yourseK, and consider that there are in one side of the scales the mis- fortunes of others, and in the other your own. Take care that you are just," George was at last overcome, "Very well," he said, "I give way. I won't get married. I will invent some excuse; I will get a delay of six months. More than that, I cannot do," The doctor exclaimed, "I need three years — ^I need four years!" "No, Doctor!" persisted George. "You can cure me in less time than that." The other answered, "No! no! no!" George caught him by the hand, implor- ingly, "Yes! Science is all powerful!" "Science is not God," was the reply, "There are no longer any miracles." Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 73 "If only you wanted to do it!" cried the young man, hysterically. "You are a learned man; seek, invent, find something! Try some new plan with me; give me double the dose, ten times the dose; make me suffer. I give myself up to you; I will endure everything — ^I swear it! There ought to be some way to cure me within six months. Listen to me! I tell you I can't answer for myself with that delay. Come; it is in the name of my wife, in the name of my children, that I implore you. Do something for them!" The doctor had reached the limit of his patience. "Enough, sir!" he cried. "Enough!" But nothing could stop the wretched man. "On my knees!" he cried. "I put myseM on my knees before you! Oh! if only you would do it! I would bless you; I would adore you, as one adores a god! All my gratitude, all my life — ^half my fortune! For mercy's sake. Doctor, do something; invent something; make some discovery — ^have pity!" The doctor answered, gravely, "Do you Digitized by Microsoft® 74' DAMAGED GOODS wish me to do more for you than for the others?" George answered, unblushingly, "Yes!" He was beside himself with terror and distress. The other's reply was delivered in a solemn tone. "Understand, sir, for every one of our patients we do all that we can, whether it be the greatest personage, or the last comer to our hospital clinic. We have no secrets in reserve for those who are more fortunate, or less fortunate than the others, and who are in a hurry to be cured." George gazed at him for a moment in bewilderment and despair, and then sud- denly bowed his head. "Good-by, Doctor," he answered. "Au revoir, sir," the other corrected — with what proved to be prophetic under- standing. For George was destined to see him again — even though he had made up his mind to the contrary! Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER III GEORGE DUPONT had the most important decision of his Ufe to make; but there was never very much doubt what his decision would be. On the one hand was the definite certainty that if he took the doctor's advice, he would wreck his business prospects, and perhaps also lose the woman he loved. On the other hand were vague and uncertain possibilities which it was difficult for him to make real to himself. It was all very weU to wait awhile to be cured of the dread disease; but to wait three or four years — ^that was simply preposterous! He decided to consult another physi- cian. He would find one this time who would not be so particular, who would be willing to take some trouble to cure him quickly. He began to notice the advertisements which were scattered over (75) Digitized by Microsoft® 76 DAMAGED GOODS the pages of the newspapers he read. There were apparently plenty of doctors in Paris who could cure him, who were wiUing to guarantee to cure him. After much hesitation, he picked out one whose advertisement sounded the most convincing. The office was located in a cheap quar- ter. It was a dingy place, not encum- bered with works of art, but with a few books covered with dust. The doctor himself was stout and greasy, and he rubbed his hands with anticipation at the sight of so prosperous-looking a patient. But he was evidently a man of experience, for he knew exactly what was the matter with George, almost without the formality of an examination. Yes, he could cure him, quickly, he said. There had recently been great discoveries made — ^new meth- ods which had not reached the bulk of the profession. He laughed at the idea of three or four years. That was the way with those specialists! When one got forty francs for a consultation, naturally, one was glad to drag out the case. There were tricks in the medical trade, as in Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 77 all others. A doctor had to live; when he had a big name, he had to live expensively. The new physician wrote out two prescriptions, and patted George on the shoulder as he went away. There was no need for him to worry; he would surely be well in three months. If he would put off his marriage for six months, he would be doing everything within reason. And meantime, there was no need for him to worry himself — ^things would come out all right. So George went away, feehng as if a moxmtain had been lifted from his shoulders. He went to see Henriette that same evening, to get the matter settled. "Hen- riette," he said, "I have to tell you some- thing very important — something rather painful. I hope you won't let it disturb you too much." She was gazing at him in alarm. "What is it?" "Why," he said, blushing in spite of himself, and regretting that he had begun the matter so precipitately, "for some time I've not been feeling quite well. I've Digitized by Microsoft® 78 DAMAGED GOODS been having a slight cough. Have you noticed it?" "Why no!" exclaimed Henriette, anx- iously. "Well, today I went to see a doctor, and he says that there is a possibility — you understand it is nothing very serious — ^but it might be — ^I might possibly have lung trouble. "George!" cried the girl, in horror. He put his hand upon hers. "Don't be frightened," he said. "It will be all right, only I have to take care of myseK." How very dear of her, he thought — ^to be so much worried! "George, you ought to go away to the country!" she cried. "You have been working too hard. I always told you that if you shut yourseK up so much — " "I am going to take care of myself," he said. "I realize that it is necessary. I shall be all right — ^the doctor assured me there was no doubt of it, so you are not to distress yom-self. But meantime, here is the trouble: I don't think it would be right for me to marry until I am perfectly wen." Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 79 Henriette gave an exclamation of dismay. "I am sure we should put it off," he went on, "it would be only fair to you." "But, George!" she protested. "Surely it can't be that serious!" "We ought to wait," he said. "You ought not to take the chance of being married to a consumptive." The other protested in consternation. He did not look like a consumptive; she did not believe that he was a consumptive. She was willing to take her chances. She loved him, and she was not afraid. But George insisted — ^he was sure that he ought not to marry for six months. "Did the doctor advise that?" asked Henriette. "No," he replied, "but I made up my mind after talking to him that I must do the fair and honorable thing. I beg you to forgive me, and to believe that I know best." George stood firmly by this position, and so in the end she had to give way. It did not seem quite modest in her to con- tinue persisting. Digitized by Microsoft® 80 DAMAGED GOODS George volunteered to write a letter to her father; and he hoped this would settle the matter without further dis- cussion. But in this he was disappointed. There had to be a long correspondence with long arguments and protestations from Henriette's father and from his own mother. It seemed such a singular whim. Everybody persisted in diagnosing his symp- toms, in questioning him about what the doctor had said, who the doctor was, how he had come to consult him — aU of which, of course, was very embarrassing to George, who could not see why they had to make such a fuss. He took to cultivating a consumptive look, as well as he could imagine it; he took to coughing as he went about the house — ^and it was aU he could do to keep from laughing, as he saw the look of dismay on his poor mother's face. After aU, however, he told himself that he was not deceiving her, for the disease he had was quite as serious as tuberculosis. It was very painful and very trying. But there was nothing that could be done about it; the marriage had been put off Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 81 for six months, and in the meantime he and Henriette had to control their impa- tience and make the best of their situation. Six months was a long time; but what if it had been three or four years, as the other doctor had demanded? That would have been a veritable sentence of death. George, as we have seen, was conscien- tious, and regular and careful in his habits. He took the medicine which the new doctor prescribed for him; and day by day he watched, and to his great rehef saw the troublesome symptoms gradu- ally disappearing. He began to take heart, and to look forward to life with his former buoyancy. He had had a bad scare, but now everything was going to be all right. Three or four months passed, and the doctor told him he was cured. He really was cured, so far as he could see. He was sorry, now, that he had asked for so long a delay from Henriette; but the new date for the wedding had been announced, and it would be awkward to change it again. George told himself that he was being Digitized by Microsoft® 82 DAMAGED GOODS "extra careful," and he was repaid for the inconvenience by the feeling of virtue derived from the delay. He was relieved that he did not have to cough any more, or to invent any more tales of his interviews with the imaginary lung-specialist. Some- times he had guilty feelings because of aU the lying he had had to do; but he told himself that it was for Henriette's sake. She loved him as much as he loved her. She would have suffered needless agonies had she known the truth; she would never have got over it — so it would have been a crime to teU her. He really loved her devotedly, thoroughly. From the beginning he had thought as much of her mental sufferings as he had of any physical harm that the dread disease might do to him. How could he possibly persuade himself to give her up, when he knew that the separation would break her heart and ruin her whole life? No; obviously, in such a dilemma, it was his duty to use his own best judg- ment, and get himself cured as quickly as possible. After that he would be true Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 83 to her, he would take no more chances of a loathsome disease. The secret he was hiding made him feel humble — ^made him unusually gentle in his attitude towards the girl. He was a perfect lover, and she was ravished with happiness. She thought that all his suf- ferings were because of his love for her, and the delay which he had imposed out of his excess of conscientiousness. So she loved him more and more, and never was there a happier bride than Henriette Loches, when at last the great day arrived. They went to the Riviera for their honeymoon, and then returned to live in the home which had belonged to George's father. The investment in the notary's practice had proven a good one, and so life held out every promise for the young couple. They were divinely happy. After a while, the bride commvmicated to her husband the tidings that she was expecting a child. Then it seemed to George that the cup of his earthly bhss was full. His aihnent had shpped far into the backgroimd of his thoughts, hke an evil Digitized by Microsoft® 84 DAMAGED GOODS dream which he had forgotten. He put away the medicines in the bottom of his trmik and dismissed the whole matter from his mind. Henriette was well — a very- picture of health, as every one agreed. The doctor had never seen a more prom- ising young mother, he declared, and Ma- dame Dupont, the elder, bloomed with fresh life and joy as she attended her daughter- in-law. Henriette went for the summer to her father's place in the provinces, which she and George had visited before their mar- riage. They drove out one day to the farm where they had stopped. The farmer's wife had a week-old baby, the sight of which made Henriette's heart leap with delight. He was such a very healthy baby that George conceived the idea that this would be the woman to nurse his own child, in case Henriette herself should not be able to do it. They came back to the city, and there the baby was bom. As George paced the floor, waiting for the news, the memory of his evil dreams came back to him. Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 85 He remembered all the dreadful mon- strosities of which he had read — ^infants that were born of syphUitic parents. His heart stood still when the nurse came into the room to tell him the tidings. But it was all right; of course it was aU right! He had been a fool, he told him- self, as he stood in the darkened room and gazed at the wonderful little mite of life which was the fruit of his love. It was a perfect child, the doctor said — a, little small, to be sure, but that was a defect which would soon be remedied. George kneeled by the bedside and kissed the hand of his wife, and went out o^ the room feeling as if he had escaped from a tomb. All went well, and after a couple of weeks Henriette was about the house again, laughing all day and singing with joy. But the baby did not gain quite as rapidly as the doctor had hoped, and it was de- cided that the country air would be better for her. So George and his mother paid a visit to the farm in the country, and ar- ranged that the country woman should put her own child to nurse elsewhere and Digitized by Microsoft® 86 DAMAGED GOODS should become the foster-mother of little Gervaise. George paid a good price for the service, far more than would have been necessary, for the simple coimtry woman was de- lighted with the idea of taking care of the grandchild of the deputy of her district. George came home and told his wife about this and had a merry time as he pictured the woman boasting about it to the travelers who stopped at her door. "Yes, ma'am, a great piece of luck I've got, ma'am. I've got the daughter of the daughter of our deputy — at your service, ma'am. My! but she is as fat as our Uttle calf — ^and so clever! She understands everything. A great piece of luck for me, ma'am. She's the daughter of the daughter of our deputy!" Henriette was vastly entertained, discover- ing in her husband a new talent, that of an actor. As for George's mother, she was hardly .to be persuaded from staying in the country with the child. She went once a week, and sometimes twice a week, to make sure that all went weU. Henriette and she Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 87 lived with the child's picture before them; they spent their time sewing on caps and underwear — all covered with laces and frills and pink and blue ribbons. Every- day, when George came home from his work, he found some new article completed, and was ravished by the scent of some new kind of sachet powder. What a lucky man he was! You would think he miist have been the happiest man in the whole city of Paris. But George, alas, had to pay the penalty for his early sins. There was, for instance, the deception he had practiced upon his friend, away back in the early days. Now he had friends of his own, and he could not keep these friends from visiting him; and so he was imquiet with the fear that some one of them might play upon him the same vile trick. Even in the midst of his radiant happiness, when he knew that Henriette was hanging upon his every word, trembling with delight when she heard his latchkey in the door — still he could not drive away the horrible thought that per- haps all this might be deception. Digitized by Microsoft® 88 DAMAGED GOODS There was his friend, Gustave, for exam- ple. He had been a friend of Henriette's before her marriage; he had even been in love with her at one time. And now he came sometimes to the house — once or twice when George was away! What did that mean? George wondered. He brooded over it aU day, but dared not drop any hint to Henriette. But he took to setting little traps to catch her; for instance, he would caU her up on the telephone, dis- guising his voice. "Hello! hello! Is that you, Madame Dupont?" And when she answered, "It iS I, sir," aU unsuspecting, he would inquire, "Is George there?" "No, sir," she replied. "Who is this speaking?" He answered, "It is I, Gustave. How are you this morning?" He wanted to see what she would answer. Would she per- haps say, "Very well, Gustave. How are you?" — ^in a tone which would betray too great intimacy! But Henriette was a sharp young person. The tone did not sound hke Gustave's. She asked in bewilderment, "What?" And then again, "What?" Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 89 So, at last, George, afraid that his trick might be suspected, had to burst out laughing, and turn it into a joke. But when he came home and teased his wife about it, the laugh was not aU on his side. Henriette had guessed the real meaning of his joke! She did not really mind — she took his jealousy as a sign of his love, and was pleased with it. It is not until a third party comes upon the scene that jealousy begins to be annoying. So she had a merry time teasing George. "You are a great fellow! You have no idea how weU I understand you — ^and after only a year of marriage!" "You know me?" said the husband, curiously. (It is always so fascinating when anybody thinks she know us better than we know ourselves!) "TeU me, what do you think about me?" "You are restless," said Henriette. "You are suspicious. You pass your time putting flies in your milk, and inventing wise schemes to get them out." "Oh, you think that, do you?" said George, pleased to be talked about. Digitized by Microsoft® 90 DAMAGED GOODS "I am not annoyed," she answered. "You have always been that way — and I know that it's because at bottom you are timid and disposed to suffer. And then, too, perhaps you have reasons for not having confidence in a wife's intimate friends — ^lady-killer that you are!" George found this rather embarrassing; but he dared not show it, so he laughed gayly. "I don't know what you mean," he said — "upon my word I don't. But it is a trick I would not advise every- body to try." There were other embarrassing moments, caused by George's having things to con- ceal. There was, for instance, the matter of the six months' delay in the marriage — about which Henriette would never stop talking. She begrudged the time, because she had got the idea that little Gervaise was six months younger than she otherwise would have been. "That shows your timidity again," she would say. "The idea of your having imagined yourself a consumptive!" Poor George had to defend himseU. "I Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 91 didn't tell you half the truth, because I was afraid of upsetting you. It seemed I had the beginning of chronic bronchitis. I felt it quite keenly whenever I took a breath, a deep breath — ^look, like this. Yes — ^I felt — ^here and there, on each side of the chest, a heaviness — a difficulty — " "The idea of taking six months to cure you of a thing like that!" exclaimed Henriette. "And making our baby six months younger than she ought to be!" "But," laughed George, "that means that we shall have her so much the longer! She wiU get married six months later!" "Oh, dear me," responded the other, "let us not taUc about such things! I am already worried, thinking she wiU get married some day." "For my part," said George, "I see my- self mounting with her on my arm the staircase of the Madeleine." "Why the Madeleine?" exclaimed his wife. "Such a very magnificent church!" "I don't know — ^I see her under her white veil, and myself all dressed up, and with an order." Digitized by Microsoft® 92 DAMAGED GOODS "With an order!" laughed Henrietta. "What do you expect to do to win an order?" "I don't know that — ^but I see myself with it. Explain it as you will, I see my- self with an order. I see it aU, exactly as if I were there — ^the Swiss guard with his white stockings and the halbard, and the little milliner's assistants and the scullion lined up staring." "It is far off — all that," said Henriette. "I don't like to tallc of it. I prefer her as a baby. I want her to grow up — but then I change my mind and think I don't. I know your mother doesn't. Do you know, I don't believe she ever thinks about anything but her little Gervaise." "I believe you," said the father. "The child can certainly boast of having a grand- mother who loves her." "Also, I adore your mother," declared Henriette. "She makes me forget my misfortune in not having my own mother. She is so good!" "We are all like that in our family," put in George. Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 93 "ReaUy!" laughed the wife. "Well, anyhow — ^the last time that we went down in the country with her — ^you had gone out, I don't know where you had gone — " "To see the sixteenth-century chest," suggested the other. "Oh, yes," laughed Henriette; "your famous chest!" (You must excuse this little family chatter of theirs — ^they were so much in love with each other!) "Don't let's talk about that," objected George. "You were saying — ?" "You were not there. The nurse was out at mass, I think — " "Or at the wine merchant's! Go on, go on." "Well, I was in the little room, and mother dear thought she was all alone with Gervaise. I was listening; she was talking to the baby — all sorts of nonsense, pretty little words — stupid, if you like, but tender. I wanted to laugh, and at the same time I wanted to weep." "Perhaps she called her 'my dear little Savior'?" ' ' Exactly ! Did you hear her? ' ' Digitized by Microsoft® 94 DAMAGED GOODS "No — ^but that is what she used to call me when I was little." "It was that day she swore that the little one had recognized her, and laughed!" "Oh, yes!" "And then another time, when I went into her room — smother's room — she didn't hear me because the door was open, but I saw her. She was in ecstasy before the little boots which the baby wore at baptism — ^you know?" "Yes, yes." "Listen, then. She had taken them and she was embracing them!" "And what did you say then?" "Nothing; I stole out very softly, and I sent across the threshold a great kiss to the dear grandmother!" Henriette sat for a moment in thought. "It didn't take her very long," she re- marked, "today when she got the letter from the nurse. I imagine that she caught the eight-fifty-nine train!" "And yet," laughed George, "it was really nothing at all." "Oh no," said his wife. "Yet after aU, Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 95 perhaps she was right — and perhaps I ought to have gone with her." "How charming you are, my poor Hen- riette! You believe everything you are told. I, for my part, divined right away the truth. The nurse was simply playing a game on us; she wanted a raise. Will you bet? Come, I'll bet you something. What would you hke to bet? You don't want to? Come, I'll bet you a lovely necklace — ^you know, with a big pearl." "No," said Henriette, who had suddenly lost her mood of gayety. "I should be too much afraid of winning." "Stop!" laughed her husband. "Don't you believe I love her as much as you love her — ^my little duck? Do you know how old she is? I mean her exact age?" Henriette sat knitting her brows, trying to figure. "Ah!" he exploded. "You see you don't know! She is ninety-one days and eight hours! Ha, ha! Imagine when she will be able to walk all alone. Then we will take her back with us; we must wait at least six months." Then, too late, poor Digitized by Microsoft® 96 DAMAGED GOODS George realized that he had spoken the fatal phrase again. "If only you hadn't put off our marriage, she would be able to walk now," said Henriette. He rose suddenly. "Come," he said, "didn't you say you had to dress and pay some calls?" Henriette laughed, but took the hint. "Run along, Uttle wife," he said. "I have a lot of work to do in the meantime. You won't be down-stairs before I shall have my nose buried in my papers. Bye- bye." "Bye-bye," said Henriette. But they paused to exchange a dozen or so kisses before she went away to dress. Then George lighted a cigarette and stretched himseK out in the big arm- chair. He seemed restless; he seemed to be disturbed about something. Could it be that he had not been so much at ease as he had pretended to be, since the letter had come from the baby's nurse? Madame Dupont had gone by the earliest train that morning. She had promised to tele- Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 97 graph at once — ^but she had not done so, and now it was late afternoon. George got up and wandered about. He looked at himseK in the glass for a mo- ment; then he went back to the chair and pulled up another to put his feet upon. He puffed away at his cigarette imtil he was cahner. But then suddenly he heard the rustle of a dress behind him, and glanced about, and started up with an exclamation, ' ' Mother ! ' ' Madame Dupont stood in the doorway. She did not speak. Her veil was thrown back and George noted instantly the look of agitation upon her countenance. "What's the matter?" he cried. "We didn't get any telegram from you; we were not expecting you till tomorrow." Still his mother did not speak. "Henriette was just going out," he exclaimed, nervously; "I had better call her." "No!" said his mother quickly. Her voice was low and trembling. "I did not want Henriette to be here when I arrived." "But what's the matter?" cried George, Digitized by Microsoft® 98 DAMAGED GOODS Again there was a silence before the reply came. He read something terrible in the mother's manner, and he found him- self trembling violently. "I have brought back the child and the nurse," said Madame Dupont. "What! Is the little one sick?" "Yes." "What's the matter with her?" "Nothing dangerous — ^for the moment, at least." "We must send and get the doctor!" cried George. "I have just come from the doctor's," was the reply. "He said it was necessary to take our child from the nurse and bring her up on the bottle." Again there was a pause. George could hardly bring himself to ask the next question. Try as he would, he could not keep his voice from weakening. "Well, now, what is her trouble?" The mother did not answer. She stood staring before her. At last she said, faintly, "I don't know." "You didn't ask?" Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 99 "I asked. But it was not to our own doctor that I went." "Ah!" whispered George. For nearly a minute neither of them spoke. "Why?" he inquired at last. "Because — ^he — ^the nurse's doctor — ^had frightened me so — " "Truly?" "Yes. It is a disease — " Again she stopped. George cried, in a voice of agony, "And then?" "Then I asked him if the matter was so grave that I could not be satisfied with our ordinary doctor." "And what did he answer?" "He said that if we had the means it would really be better to consult a specialist." George looked at his mother again. He was able to do it, because she was not looking at him. He clenched his hands and got himself together. "And — ^where did he send you?" His mother fumbled in her hand bag and drew out a visiting card. "Here," she said. Digitized by Microsoft® 100 DAMAGED GOODS And George looked at the card. It was all he could do to keep himself from tot- tering. It was the card of the doctor whom he had first consiilted about his trouble ! The specialist in venereal diseases ! Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER IV IT was all George could do to control his voice. "You — ^you went to see him?" he stammered. "Yes," said his mother. "You know him?" "No, no," he answered. "Or — ^that is — I have met him, I think. I don't know." And then to himself, "My God!" There was a silence. "He is coming to talk to you," said the mother, at last. George was hardly able to speak. "Then he is very much disturbed?" "No, but he wants to talk to you." "To me?" "Yes. When the doctor saw the nurse he said, 'Madame, it is impossible for me to continue to attend this child unless I have had this very day a conversation with the father.' So I said 'Very well,' and he said he would come at once." (101) Digitized by Microsoft® 102 DAMAGED GOODS George turned away, and put his hands to his forehead. "My poor Uttle daughter!" he whispered to himself. "Yes," said the mother, her voice break- ing, "she is, indeed, a poor httle daughter!" A silence fell; for what could words avail in such a situation? Hearing the door open, Madame Dupont started, for her nerves were all a-quiver with the strain she had been under. A servant came in and spoke to her, and she said to George, "It is the doctor. If you need me, I shall be in the next room." Her son stood trembling, as if he were waiting the approach of an executioner. The other came into the room without seeing him and he stood for a minute, clasping and unclasping his hands, almost overcome with emotion. Then he said, "Good-day, Doctor." As the man stared at him, surprised and puzzled, he added, "You don't recognize me?" The doctor looked again, more closely. George was expecting him to break out in rage; but instead his voice fell low. "You!" he exclaimed. "It is you!" Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 103 At last, in a voice rather of discourage- ment than of anger, he went on, "You got married, and you have a child! After all that I told you! You are a wretch!" "Sir," cried George, "let me explain to you!" "Not a word!" exclaimed the other. "There can be no explanation for what you have done." A silence followed. The young man did not know what to say. Finally, stretching out his arms, he pleaded, "You will take care of my little daughter aU the same, will you not?" The other turned away with a look of disgust. "Imbecile!" he said. George did not hear the word. "I was able to wait only six months," he murmured. The doctor answered in a voice of cold seK-repression, "That is enough, sir! All that does not concern me. I have done wrong even to let you see my indignation. I should have left you to judge yourself. I have nothing to do here but with the present and with the future — ^with the infant and with the nurse." Digitized by Microsoft® 104 DAMAGED GOODS "She isn't in danger?" cried George. "The nurse is in danger of being con- taminated." But George had not been thinking about the nurse. "I mean my child," he said. "Just at present the symptoms are not disturbing." George waited; after a while he began, "You were saying about the nurse. Will you consent that I call my mother? She knows better than I." "As you wish," was the reply. The young mari started to the door, but came back, in terrible distress. "I have one prayer to offer you, sir; arrange it so that my wife — so that no one wiU know. If my wife learned that it is I who am the cause — ! It is for her that I implore you! she — she isn't to blame." Said the doctor: "I wiU do everything in my power that she may be kept ignorant of the true nature of the disease." "Oh, how I thank you!" murmured George. "How I thank you!" "Do not thank me; it is for her, and not for you, that I will consent to he." Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 105 "And my mother?" "Your mother knows the truth." "But—" "I pray you, sir — we have enough to talk about, and very serious matters." So George went to the door and called his mother. She entered and greeted the doctor, holding herself erect, and striving to keep the signs of grief and terror from her face. She signed to the doctor to take a seat, and then seated herself by a little table near him. "Madame Dupont," he^ began, "I have prescribed a course of treatment for the child. I hope to be able to improve its condition, and to prevent any new develop- ments. But my duty arid yours does not stop there; if there is still time, it is neces- sary to protect the health of the nurse." "Tell us what it is necessary to do, Doctor?" said she. "The woman must stop nursing the child." "You mean we have to change the nurse?" "Madame, the child can no longer be brought up at the breast, either by that nurse or by any other nurse." Digitized by Microsoft® 106 DAMAGED GOODS "But why, sir?" "Because the child would give her disease to the woman who gave her milk." " But, Doctor, if we put her on the bottle — our little one — she will die!" And suddenly George burst into sobs. "Oh, my poor Uttle daughter! My God, my God!" Said the doctor, "If the feeding is well attended to, with steriUzed milk — " "That can do very weU for healthy infants," broke in Madame Dupont. "But at the age of three months one cannot take from the breast a baby like ours, frail and ill. More than any other such an infant has need of a nurse — ^is not that true?" "Yes," the doctor admitted, "that is true. But—" "In that case, between the life of the child, and the health of the nurse, you understand perfectly weU that my choice is made," Between her words the doctor heard the sobbing of George, whose head was buried in his arms. "Madame," he said, "your love for that baby has just caused you to Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 107 utter something ferocious! It is not for you to choose. I forbid the nursing. The health of that woman does not belong to you." "No," cried the grandmother, wildly, "nor does the health of our child belong to you! If there is a hope of saving it, that hope is in giving it more care than any other child; and you would wish that I put it upon a mode of nourishment which the doctors condemn, even for vigorous infants! You expect that I will let myseK be taken in like that? I answer you: she shall have the milk which she needs, my poor little one! If there was a single thing that one could do to save her — ^I should be a criminal to neglect it!" And Madame Dupont broke out, with furious scorn, "The nurse! the nurse! We shall know how to do our duty — ^we shall take care of her, repay her. But our child before all! No sir, no! Everything that can be done to save our baby I shall do, let it cost what it will. To do what you say — ^you don't realize it — ^it would be as if I should kill the child!" In the end the agonized woman Digitized by Microsoft® 108 DAMAGED GOODS burst into tears. "Oh, my poor little angel! My little Savior!" George had never ceased sobbing while his mother spoke; at these last words his sobs became loud cries. He struck the floor with his foot, he tore his hair, as if he were suffering from violent physical pain. "Oh, oh, oh!" he cried. "My little child! My little child!" And then, in a horrified whisper to himself, "I am a wretch! A criminal!" "Madame," said the doctor, "you must calm yourseK; you must both calm your- selves. You win not help out the situation by lamentations. You must learn to take it with calmness." Madame Dupont set her hps together, and with a painful effort recovered her seK- control. "You are right, sir," she said, in a low voice. "I ask your pardon; but if you only knew what that child means to me! I lost one at that age. I am an old woman, I am a widow — ^I had hardly hoped to live long enough to be a grandmother. But, as you say — ^we must be calm." She turned to the young man, "Calm yourself. Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 109 my son. It is a poor way to show our love for the child, to abandon ourselves to tears. Let us talk, Doctor, and seriously — coldly. But I declare to you that nothing will ever induce me to put the child on the bottle, when I know that it might kill her. That is all I can say." The doctor replied: "This isn't the first time that I find myself in the present situation. Madame, I declare to you that always — always, you understand — ^persons who have rejected my advice have had reason to repent it cruelly." "The only thing of which I should repent — " began the other. "You simply do not know," interrupted the doctor, "what such a nurse is capable of. You cannot imagine what bitterness — legitimate bitterness, you understand — joined to the rapacity, the cupidity, the mischief-making impulse — ^might inspire these people to do. For them the bourgeois is always somewhat of an enemy; and when they find themselves in position to avenge their inferiority, they are ferocious." "But what could the woman do?" Digitized by Microsoft® 110 DAMAGED GOODS "What could she do? She could bring legal proceedings against you." "But she is much too stupid to have that idea." " Others will put it into her mind." "She is too poor to pay the preliminary expenses." "And do you propose then to profit by her ignorance and stupidity? Besides, she could obtain judicial assistance." "Why surely," exclaimed Madame Dupont, "such a thing was never heard of! Do you mean that?" "I know a dozen prosecutions of that sort; and always when there has been certainty, the parents have lost their case." "But surely. Doctor, you must be mis^ taken! Not in a case like ours — ^not when it is a question of saving the life of a poor little innocent!" "Oftentimes exactly such facts have been presented." Here George broke in. "I can give you the dates of the decisions." He rose from his chair, glad of an opportunity to be useful. "I have the books," he said, and Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 111 took one from the case and brought it to the doctor. "All that is of no use — " interposed the mother. But the doctor said to George, "You will be able to convince yourself. The parents have been forced once or twice to pay the nurse a regular income, and at other times they have had to pay her an indemnity, of which the figure has varied between three and eight thousand francs." Madame Dupont was ready with a reply to this. "Never fear, sir! If there should be a suit, we should have a good lawyer. We shall be able to pay and choose the best — ^and he would demand, without doubt, which of the two, the nurse or the child, has given the disease to the other." The doctor was staring at her in horror. "Do you not perceive that that would be a monstrous thing to do?" "Oh, I would not have to say it," was the reply. "The lawyer would see to it — is not that his profession? My point is this: by one means or another he would make us win our case." 8 Digitized by Microsoft® 112 DAMAGED GOODS "And the scandal that would result," replied the other. "Have you thought of that?" Here George, who had been looking over his law-books, broke in. "Doctor, permit me to give you a little information. In cases of this sort, the names are never printed." "Yes," said the other, "but they are spoken at the hearings." "That's true." "And are you certain that there will not be any newspaper to print the judg- ment?" "What won't they stoop to," exclaimed Madame Dupont — "those filthy journals!" "Ah," said the other, "and see what a scandal? What a shame it would be to you!" "The doctor is right, mother," exclaimed the young man. But Madame Dupont was not yet con- vinced. "We wiU prevent the woman from taking any steps; we will give her what she demands from us." "But then," said the other, "you will Digitized by Microsoft® DAMAGED GOODS 113 give yourselves up to the risk of blackmail. I know a family which has been thus held up for over twelve years." "If you wiU permit me, Doctor," said George, timidly, "she could be made to sign a receipt." "For payment in fuU?" asked the doctor, scornfuUy. "Even so." "And then," added his mother, "she would be more than delighted to go back to her country with a full purse. She would be able to buy a little house and a bit of groimd — ^in that country one doesn't need so much in order to live." At this moment there was a tap upon the door, and the nurse entered. . She was a country woman, robust, rosy-cheeked, fairly bursting with health. When she spoke one got the impression that her voice was more than she could contain. It did not belong in a drawing-room, but under the open sky of her country home. "Sir," she said, addressing the doctor, "the baby is awake." 'I will go and see her," was the reply; Digitized by Microsoft®