human
You may well call her beautiful.
gpt
How old do you think she is?
human
Wait a moment. I can tell you exactly, for I have known her since she was a child, and I saw her make her _debut_ into society when she was quite a girl. She is ... she is ... thirty ... thirty-six.
gpt
Impossible!
human
I am sure of it.
gpt
She looks twenty-five.
human
She has had seven children.
gpt
It is incredible.
human
And what is more, they are all seven alive, as she is a very good mother. I go to the house, which is a very quiet and pleasant one, occasionally, and she realizes the phenomenon of the family in the midst of the world.
gpt
How very strange! And have there never been any reports about her?
human
Never.
gpt
But what about her husband? He is peculiar, is he not?
human
Yes, and no. Very likely there has been a little drama between them, one of those little domestic dramas which one suspects, which one never finds out exactly, but which one guesses pretty nearly.
gpt
What is it?
human
I do not know anything about it. Mascaret leads a very fast life now, after having been a model husband. As long as he remained a good spouse, he had a shocking temper and was crabbed and easily took offense, but since he has been leading his present, rackety life, he has become quite indifferent; but one would guess that he has some trouble, a worm gnawing somewhere, for he has aged very much.
gpt
It is almost incredible that that woman has had seven children!
human
Yes, in eleven years; after which, when she was thirty, she put a stop to her period of production in order to enter into the brilliant period of representation, which does not seem near coming to an end.
gpt
Poor women!
human
Why do you pity them?
gpt
Why? Ah! my dear fellow, just consider! eleven years of pregnancy, for such a woman! What a hell! All her youth, all her beauty, every hope of success, every poetical ideal of a bright life, sacrificed to that abominable law of reproduction which turns the normal woman into a mere machine for reproduction.
human
What would you have? It is only nature!