What learned man would take upon himself to say
that the child unborn is on some neutral ground, where the emotions of
its mother do not penetrate during those hours when soul clasps body
and communicates its impressions, when thought permeates blood with
healing balm or poisonous fluids? The terror that shakes the tree, will
it not hurt the fruit? Those words, "Poor babe!" were they dictated by
a vision of the future? The shuddering of this mother was violent; her
look piercing.
The bloody answer given by the count at the banquet was a link
mysteriously connecting the past with this premature confinement. That
odious suspicion, thus publicly expressed, had cast into the memories
of the countess a dread which echoed to the future. Since that fatal
gala, she had driven from her mind, with as much fear as another woman
would have found pleasure in evoking them, a thousand scattered scenes
of her past existence. She refused even to think of the happy days
when her heart was free to love. Like as the melodies of their native
land make exiles weep, so these memories revived sensations so
delightful that her young conscience thought them crimes, and sued
them to enforce still further the savage threat of the count.
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