LUCIE. Sent away unwillingly, if you like, coming to this place, suddenly thrust into contact with all the sadness and the misery and the vice of Paris! Think of her waiting all those months, in the midst of the women there, while a poor little creature is growing into life that she knows beforehand is condemned to all the risks and cruelty suffered by children whom their mothers abandon! And when she is torn with the torturing pain that I know so well, at that moment of martyrdom when a woman feels death hovering over her bed and watching jealously for mother and child, when the full horror of the sacred mystery she has accomplished is on her, then she’ll only have strangers round her! And if her poor eyes look round, like a victim’s, perhaps for the last time, for a friendly glance, if she feels for a hand to press, she will only see round her bed unknown men performing a duty and women carrying on their trade. And then? Then she must resist her highest instincts, stifle the cry of love that consoles all women for what they have gone through, and say she doesn’t want her child—look aside, and say: ‘Take him away! I don’t want to see him.’ That’s the price for which she will be pardoned the crime of someone else! That’s your justice! Justice! Social hypocrisy rather—that’s what you stand up for. Nothing but that. And that’s why, if Annette stayed to bring up her child here, she would be an object of reproach; whereas, if she is confined secretly in Paris and gets rid of the baby, nobody will say anything. Let’s be frank about it. If she had a lover, but no child, she would be let off. It isn’t immorality that’s condemned, but having children! You cry out for a higher birth rate, and at the same time you say to women: ‘No children without marriage, and no marriage without a dowry.’ Well, so long as you don’t change that, all your circulars and your speeches will only succeed in arousing laughter of pity and of rage! BRIGNAC. Well, is it my fault? LUCIE. No; it’s not your fault. It’s the fault of all of us, of our prejudice, our silly vanity, our hypocrisy. But you stand up for it all and justify it. You have the typical window dressing, middle class virtues. You publicly preach the repopulation of France, and then find it in your conscience to get rid of a child whose only fault is that its parents had it without first going through a stupid ceremony, and without the whole town being told that Monsieur X and Mademoiselle Y were going to bed together! [_A pause_]. Go and make your speech. Go and defend the morals of society. That’s about what you’re worth. _Enter Madeleine._ MADELEINE. She’s not come back? LUCIE. No. Haven’t you seen her? MADELEINE. No. BRIGNAC. Since you take it like that, then, you will kindly find another home than my house for your sister from now onwards. LUCIE. Ah, yes; say it outright! You long to get rid of her!