I remained, but tried in vain to calm the unfortunate mother. She was constantly breaking our hearts with her lamentations—her convulsive efforts to take her own life. Every minute she was crying, “My child! my darling Lucy! Just when thy little arms were so gently caressing me, and thy angelic kisses were so sweet on my lips, I have slaughtered thee! When thou wert pressing me on thy loving heart and kissing me, I, thy drunken mother, gave thee the death blow! My hands are reddened with thy blood! My breast is covered with thy brains! Oh! for God’s sake, my dear husband, take my life. I cannot consent to live a day longer! My dear Father Chiniquy, give me a knife, that I may mingle my blood with the blood of my child! O that I could be buried in the same grave with her!”
In vain I tried to speak to her of the mercies of God towards sinners; she would not listen to anything I could say; she was absolutely deaf to my voice. At about ten o’clock, she had a most terrible fit of anguish and terror. Though we were four men to keep her quiet, she was stronger than we all. She was stronger than a giant. She slipped from our hands and ran to the room where the dead child was lying in her cradle. Grasping the cold body in her hands, she tore the bands of white linen which had been put round the head to cover the horrible wound, and with cries of desolation she pressed her lips, her cheeks, her very eyes, on the horrible gap from which the brain and blood were oozing, as if wanting to heal it and recall the poor dear one to life.
“My darling, my beloved, my own dear Lucy,” she cried, “open thy eyes—look again at thy mother! Give me a kiss! Press me again to thy bosom! But thine eyes are shut! Thy lips are cold! Thou dost not smile on me any longer! Thou art dead, and I, thy mother, have slaughtered thee! Canst thou forgive me thy death? Canst thou ask Jesus Christ, our Saviour, to forgive me? Canst thou ask the blessed Virgin Mary to pray for me? Will I never see thee again? Ah, no! I am lost—I am damned! I am a drunken mother who has murdered her own darling Lucy! There is no mercy for the drunken mother, the murderess of her own child.”
And when speaking thus to her child, she was sometimes kneeling down, then running around the room as if flying before a phantom.