Kabanata Kabanata 12 · 第12章

In less than a week Rosalie had everything and everybody in the chateau

under her control, and even Jeanne yielded a passive obedience to the

servant, who scolded her or soothed her as if she had been a sick child.

She was very weak now, and her legs dragged along as the baroness's used

to do; the maid supported her when she went out and their conversation

was always about bygone times, of which Jeanne talked with tears in her

eyes, and Rosalie in the calm quiet way of an impassive peasant.

The old servant returned several times to the question of the interest

that was owing, and demanded the papers which Jeanne, ignorant of all

business matters, had hidden away that Rosalie might not know of Paul's

misdoings. Next Rosalie went over to Fecamp each day for a week to get

everything explained to her by a lawyer whom she knew; then one evening

after she had put her mistress to bed she sat down beside her and said

abruptly:

"Now you're in bed, madame, we will have a little talk."

She told Jeanne exactly how matters stood, and that when every claim had

been settled she, Jeanne, would have about seven or eight thousand

francs a year; not a penny more.

"Well, Rosalie," answered Jeanne, "I know I shall not live to be very

old, and I shall have enough until I die."

"Very likely you will, madame," replied Rosalie, getting angry; "but how

about M. Paul? Don't you mean to leave him anything?"

Jeanne shuddered. "Pray, don't ever speak to me about him; I cannot bear

to think of him."

"Yes, but I want to talk to you about him, because you don't look at

things in the right light, Madame Jeanne. He may be doing all sorts of

foolish things now, but he won't always behave the same. He'll marry and

then he'll want money to educate his children and to bring them up

properly. Now listen to what I am going to say; you must sell Les

Peuples--"

But Jeanne started up in bed.

"Sell Les Peuples! How can you think of such a thing? No! I will never

sell the chateau!"

Rosalie was not in the least put out.

"But I say you will, madame, simply because you must."

Then she explained her plans and her calculations. She had already found

a purchaser for Les Peuples and the two adjoining farms, and when they

had been sold Jeanne would still have four farms at Saint Leonard,

which, freed from the mortgages, would bring in about eight thousand

three hundred francs a year. Out of this income thirteen hundred francs

would have to go for the keeping up and repairing of the property; two

thousand would be put by for unforeseen expenses, and Jeanne would have

five thousand francs to live upon.

"Everything else is gone, so there's an end of it," said Rosalie. "But,

in future, I shall keep the money and M. Paul sha'n't have another

penny off you. He'd take your last farthing."

"But if he has not anything to eat?" murmured Jeanne, who was quietly

weeping.

"He can come to us if he's hungry; there'll always be victuals and a bed

for him. He'd never have got into trouble if you hadn't given him any

money the first time he asked for some."

"But he was in debt; he would have been dishonored."

"And don't you think he'll get into debt just the same when you've no

more money to give him? You have paid his debts up to now, so well and

good; but you won't pay any more, I can tell you. And now, good-night,

madame."

And away she went.

The idea of selling Les Peuples and leaving the house where she had

passed all her life threw Jeanne into a state of extreme agitation, and

she lay awake the whole night. "I shall never be able to go away from

here," she said, when Rosalie came into the room next morning.

"You'll have to, all the same, madame," answered the maid with rising

temper. "The lawyer is coming presently with the man who wants to buy

the chateau, and, if you don't sell it, you won't have a blade of grass

to call your own in four years' time."

"Oh, I cannot! I cannot!" moaned Jeanne.

But an hour afterwards came a letter from Paul asking for ten thousand

francs. What was to be done? Jeanne did not know, and, in her distress,

she consulted Rosalie, who shrugged her shoulders, and observed:

"What did I tell you, madame? Oh, you'd both of you have been in a nice

muddle if I hadn't come back."

Then, by her advice, Jeanne wrote back:

"My Dear Son: I cannot help you any more; you have ruined me, and I

am even obliged to sell Les Peuples. But I shall always have a home

for you whenever you choose to return to your poor old mother, who

has suffered so cruelly through you.

Jeanne."

The lawyer came with M. Jeoffrin, who was a retired sugar baker, and

Jeanne herself received them, and invited them to go all over the house

and grounds. Then a month after this visit, she signed the deed of sale,

and bought, at the same time, a little villa in the hamlet of

Batteville, standing on the Montivilliers high-road, near Goderville.

After she had signed the deeds she went out to the baroness's avenue,

and walked up and down, heart-broken and miserable while she bade

tearful, despairing farewells to the trees, the worm-eaten bench under

the plane tree, the wood, the old elm trunk, against which she had leant

so many times, and the hillock, where she had so often sat, and whence

she had watched the Comte de Fourville running towards the sea on the

awful day of Julien's death. She stayed out until the evening, and at

last Rosalie went to look for her and brought her in. A tall peasant of

about twenty-five was waiting at the door. He greeted Jeanne in a

friendly way, as if he had known her a long while:

"Good-day, Madame Jeanne, how are you? Mother told me I was to come and

help with the moving, and I wanted to know what you meant to take with

you, so that I could move it a little at a time without it hindering the

farm work."

He was Rosalie's son--Julien's son and Paul's brother. Jeanne's heart

almost stood still as she looked at him, and yet she would have liked to

kiss the young fellow. She gazed at him, trying to find any likeness to

her husband or her son. He was robust and ruddy-cheeked and had his

mother's fair hair and blue eyes, but there was something in his face

which reminded Jeanne of Julien, though she could not discover where the

resemblance lay.

"I should be very much obliged if you could show me the things now,"

continued the lad.

But she did not know herself yet what she should be able to take, her

new house was so small, and she asked him to come again in a week's

time.

For some time the removal occupied Jeanne's thoughts, and made a change,

though a sad one, in her dull, hopeless life. She went from room to

room, seeking the pieces of furniture which were associated in her mind

with various events in her life, for the furniture among which we live

becomes, in time, part of our lives--almost of ourselves--and, as it

gets old, and we look at its faded colors, its frayed coverings, its

tattered linings, we are reminded of the prominent dates and events of

our existence by these time-worn objects which have been the mute

companions of our happy and of our sad moments alike.

As agitated as if the decisions she were making had been of the last

importance, Jeanne chose, one by one, the things she should take with

her, often hesitating and altering her mind at every moment, as she

stood unable to decide the respective merits of two armchairs, or of

some old escritoire and a still older worktable. She opened and searched

every drawer, and tried to connect every object with something that had

happened in bygone days, and when at last she made up her mind and said:

"Yes, I shall take this," the article she had decided upon was taken

downstairs and put into the dining-room. She wished to keep the whole of

her bedroom furniture, the bed, the tapestry, the clock--everything, and

she also took a few of the drawing-room chairs, choosing those with the

designs she had always liked ever since she could remember--the fox and

the stork, the fox and the crow, the ant and the grasshopper, and the

solitary heron.

One day, as she was wandering all over this house she should so soon

have to leave, Jeanne went up into the garret. She was amazed when she

opened the door; there lay articles of furniture of every description,

some broken, others only soiled, others again stored away simply because

fresh things had been bought and put in their places. She recognized a

hundred little odds and ends which used to be downstairs and had

disappeared without her noticing their absence--things of no value which

she had often used, insignificant little articles, which had stood

fifteen years beneath her eyes and had never attracted her attention,

but which now--suddenly discovered in the lumber-room, lying side by

side with other things older still and which she could quite distinctly

remember seeing when she first returned from the convent--became as

precious in her eyes as if they had been valued friends that had been a

long time absent from her. They appeared to her under a new light, and

as she looked at them she felt as she might have done if any very

reserved acquaintances had suddenly begun to talk and to reveal thoughts

and feelings she had never dreamed they possessed.

As she went from one thing to another, and remembered little incidents

in connection with them, her heart felt as if it would break. "Why, this

is the china cup I cracked a few days before I was married, and here is

mamma's little lantern, and the cane papa broke trying to open the

wooden gate the rain had swollen."

Besides all these familiar objects there were a great many things she

had never seen before, which had belonged to her grandparents or her

great-grandparents. Covered with dust they looked like sad, forsaken

exiles from another century, their history and adventures for ever lost,

for there was no one living now who had known those who had chosen,

bought and treasured them, or who had seen the hands which had so often

touched them or the eyes which had found such pleasure in looking at

them. Jeanne touched them, and turned them about, her fingers leaving

their traces on the thick dust; and she stayed for a long, long time

amidst these old things, in the garret which was dimly lighted by a

little skylight.

She tried to find other things with associations to them, and very

carefully she examined some three-legged chairs, a copper warming-pan, a

dented foot-warmer (which she thought she remembered) and all the other

worn-out household utensils. Then she put all the things she thought she

should like to take away together, and going downstairs, sent Rosalie up

to fetch them. The latter indignantly refused to bring down "such

rubbish," but Jeanne, though she hardly ever showed any will of her own,

now would have her own way this time, and the servant had to obey.

One morning young Denis Lecoq (Julien's son) came, with his cart, to

take way the first lot of things, and Rosalie went off with him to look

after the unloading, and to see that the furniture was put into the

right rooms.

When she was alone Jeanne began to visit every room in the chateau, and

to kiss in a transport of passionate sorrow and regret everything that

she was forced to leave behind her--the big white birds in the

drawing-room tapestry, the old candlesticks, anything and everything

that came in her way. She went from room to room, half mad with grief,

and the tears streaming from her eyes, and, when she had gone all over

the house, she went out to "say good-bye" to the sea. It was the end of

September, and the dull yellowish waves stretched away as far as the eye

could reach, under the lowering gray sky which hung over the world. For

a long, long while, Jeanne stood on the cliff, her thoughts running on

all her sorrows and troubles, and it was not till night drew on that she

went indoors. In that day she had gone through as much suffering as she

had ever passed through in her greatest griefs.

Rosalie had returned enchanted with the new house, "which was much

livelier than this big barn of a place that was not even on a main

road," but her mistress wept the whole evening.

Now they knew the chateau was sold the farmers showed Jeanne barely the

respect that was due to her, and, though they hardly knew why, among

themselves they always spoke of her as "that lunatic." Perhaps, with

their brute-like instinct, they perceived her unhealthy and increasing

sentimentality, her morbid reveries, and the disordered and pitiful

state of her mind which so much sorrow and affliction had unhinged.

Happening to go through the stables the day before she was to leave Les

Peuples, Jeanne came upon Massacre, whose existence she had entirely

forgotten. Long past the age at which dogs generally die, he had become

blind and paralyzed, and dragged out his life on a bed of straw, whither

Ludivine, who never forgot him, brought him his food. Jeanne took him up

in her arms, kissed him and carried him into the house; he could hardly

creep along, his legs were so stiff, and he barked like a child's wooden

toy-dog.

At length the last day dawned. Jeanne had passed the night in Julien's

old room, as all the furniture had been moved out of hers, and when she

rose she felt as tired and exhausted as if she had just been running a

long distance.

In the court-yard stood the gig in which Rosalie and her mistress were

to go, and a cart on which the remainder of the furniture and the trunks

were already loaded. Ludivine and old Simon were to stay at the chateau

until its new owner arrived, and then, too old to stay in service any

longer, they were going to their friends to live on their savings and

the pensions Jeanne had given them. Marius had married and left the

chateau long ago.

About eight o'clock a fine, cold rain, which the wind drove in slanting

lines, began to fall, and the furniture on the cart had to be covered

over with tarpaulins. Some steaming cups of coffee stood on the

kitchen-table, and Jeanne sat down and slowly drank hers up; then

rising:

"Let us go," she said.

She began to put on her hat and shawl, while Rosalie put on her

goloshes. A great lump rose in her throat, and she whispered:

"Rosalie, do you remember how it rained the day we left Rouen to come

here?"

She broke off abruptly, pressed her hands to her heart, and fell

backwards in a sort of fit. For more than an hour she lay as if she were

dead, then, when she at length recovered consciousness, she went into

violent hysterics. Gradually she became calmer, but this attack had left

her so weak that she could not rise to her feet. Rosalie, fearing

another attack if they did not get her away at once, went for her son,

and between them, they carried her to the gig, and placed her on the

leather-covered seat. Rosalie got up beside her, wrapped up her legs,

threw a thick cloak over her shoulders, then, opening an umbrella over

her head, cried:

"Make haste, and let's get off, Denis."

The young man climbed up by his mother, sat down with one leg right

outside the gig, for want of room, and started off his horse at a quick

jerky trot, which shook the two women from side to side. As they turned

the corner of the village, they saw someone walking up and down the

road; it was the Abbe Tolbiac, apparently waiting to see their

departure. He was holding up his cassock with one hand to keep it out of

the wet, regardless of showing his thin legs which were encased in black

stockings, and his huge, muddy boots. When he saw the carriage coming he

stopped, and stood on one side to let it pass. Jeanne looked down to

avoid meeting his eyes, while Rosalie, who had heard all about him,

furiously muttered: "You brute, you brute!" and seizing her son's hand,

"Give him a cut with the whip!" she exclaimed. The young man did not do

that, but he urged on his horse and then, just as they were passing the

Abbe, suddenly let the wheel of the gig drop into a deep rut. There was

a splash, and, in an instant, the priest was covered with mud from head

to foot. Rosalie laughed all over her face, and turning round, she shook

her fist at the abbe as he stood wiping himself down with his big

handkerchief.

"Oh, we have forgotten Massacre!" suddenly cried Jeanne. Denis pulled

up, gave Rosalie the reins to hold, and jumped down to run and fetch the

dog. Then in a few minutes he came back with the big, shapeless animal

in his arms and placed him in the gig between the two women.

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