Kabanata Kabanata 14 · 第14章（1）

After her return from Paris, Jeanne would not go out or take any

interest in anything. She rose at the same hour every morning, looked

out of the window to see what sort of day it was, then went downstairs

and sat before the fire in the dining-room. She stayed there the whole

day, sitting perfectly still with her eyes fixed on the flames while

she thought of all the sorrows she had passed through. The little room

grew darker and darker, but she never moved, except to put more wood on

the fire, and when Rosalie brought in the lamp she cried:

"Come, Madame Jeanne, you must stir about a bit, or you won't be able to

eat any dinner again this evening."

Often she was worried by thoughts which she could not dismiss from her

mind, and she allowed herself to be tormented by the veriest trifles,

for the most insignificant matters appeared of the greatest importance

to her diseased mind. She lived in the memories of the past, and she

would think for hours together of her girlhood and her wedding tour in

Corsica. The wild scenery that she had long forgotten suddenly appeared

before her in the fire, and she could recall every detail, every event,

every face connected with the island. She could always see the features

of Jean Ravoli, the guide, and sometimes she fancied she could even hear

his voice.

At other times she thought of the peaceful years of Paul's childhood--of

how he used to make her tend the salad plants, and of how she and Aunt

Lison used to kneel on the ground, each trying to outdo the other in

giving pleasure to the boy, and in rearing the greater number of plants.

Her lips would form the words, "Poulet, my little Poulet," as if she

were talking to him, and she would cease to muse, and try for hours to

write in the air the letters which formed her son's name, with her

outstretched finger. Slowly she traced them before the fire, fancying

she could see them, and, thinking she had made a mistake, she began the

word over and over again, forcing herself to write the whole name

though her arm trembled with fatigue. At last she would become so

nervous that she mixed up the letters, and formed other words, and had

to give it up.

She had all the manias and fancies which beset those who lead a solitary

life, and it irritated her to the last degree to see the slightest

change in the arrangement of the furniture. Rosalie often made her go

out with her along the road, but after twenty minutes or so Jeanne would

say: "I cannot walk any further, Rosalie," and would sit down by the

roadside. Soon movement of any kind became distasteful to her, and she

stayed in bed as late as she could. Ever since a child she had always

been in the habit of jumping out of bed as soon as she had drunk her

_cafe au lait_. She was particularly fond of her morning coffee, and she

would have missed it more than anything. She always waited for Rosalie

to bring it with an impatience that had a touch of sensuality in it, and

as soon as the cup was placed on the bedside table she sat up, and

emptied it, somewhat greedily. Then she at once drew back the bedclothes

and began to dress. But gradually she fell into the habit of dreaming

for a few moments after she had placed the empty cup back in the saucer,

and from that she soon began to lie down again, and at last she stayed

in bed every day until Rosalie came back in a temper and dressed her

almost by force.

She had no longer the slightest will of her own. Whenever her servant

asked her advice, or put any question to her, or wanted to know her

opinion, she always answered: "Do as you like, Rosalie." So firmly did

she believe herself pursued by a persistent ill luck that she became as

great a fatalist as an Oriental, and she was so accustomed to seeing

her dreams unfulfilled, and her hopes disappointed, that she did not

dare undertake anything fresh, and hesitated for days before she

commenced the simplest task, so persuaded was she that whatever she

touched would be sure to go wrong.

"I don't think anyone could have had more misfortune than I have had all

my life," she was always saying.

"How would it be if you had to work for your bread, and if you were

obliged to get up every morning at six o'clock to go and do a hard day's

work?" Rosalie would exclaim. "That's what a great many people have to

do, and then when they get too old to work, they die of want."

"But my son has forsaken me, and I am all alone," Jeanne would reply.

That enraged Rosalie.

"And what if he has? How about those whose children enlist, or settle in

America?" (America, in her eyes, was a shadowy country whither people

went to make their fortune, and whence they never returned). "Children

always leave their parents sooner or later; old and young people aren't

meant to stay together. And then, what if he were dead?" she would

finish up with savagely, and her mistress could say nothing after that.

Jeanne got a little stronger when the first warm days of spring came,

but she only took advantage of her better health to bury herself still

deeper in her gloomy thoughts.

She went up to the garret one morning to look for something, and, while

she was there, happened to open a box full of old almanacs. It seemed as

if she had found the past years themselves, and she was filled with

emotion as she looked at the pile of cards. They were of all sizes, big

and little, and she took them every one down to the dining-room and

began to lay them out on the table in the right order of years. Suddenly

she picked up the very first one--the one she had taken with her from

the convent to Les Peuples. For a long time she gazed at it with its

dates which she had crossed out the day she had left Rouen, and she

began to shed slow, bitter tears--the weak, pitiful tears of an aged

woman--as she looked at these cards spread out before her on the table,

and which represented all her wretched life.

Then the thought struck her that by means of these almanacs she could

recall all that she had ever done, and giving way to the idea, she at

once devoted herself to the task of retracing the past. She pinned all

the cards, which had grown yellow with age, up on the tapestry, and then

passed hours before one or other of them, thinking, "What did I do in

that month?"

She had put a mark beside all the important dates in her life, and

sometimes, by means of linking together and adding one to the other, all

the little circumstances which had preceded and followed a great event,

she succeeded in remembering a whole month. By dint of concentrated

attention, and efforts of will and of memory, she retraced nearly the

whole of her first two years at Les Peuples, recalling without much

difficulty this far-away period of her life, for it seemed to stand out

in relief. But the following years were shrouded in a sort of mist and

seemed to run one into the other, and sometimes she pored over an

almanac for hours without being able to remember whether it was even in

that year that such and such a thing had happened. She would go slowly

round the dining-room looking at these images of past years, which, to

her, were as pictures of an ascent to Calvary, until one of them

arrested her attention and then she would sit gazing at it all the rest

of the day, absorbed in her recollections.

Soon the sap began to rise in the trees; the seeds were springing up,

the leaves were budding and the air was filled with the faint, sweet

smell of the apple blossoms which made the orchards a glowing mass of

pink. As summer approached Jeanne became very restless. She could not

keep still; she went in and out twenty times a day, and, as she rambled

along past the farms, she worked herself into a perfect state of fever.

A daisy half hidden in the grass, a sunbeam falling through the leaves,

or the reflection of the sky in a splash of water in a rut was enough to

agitate and affect her, for their sight brought back a kind of echo of

the emotions she had felt when, as a young girl, she had wandered

dreamily through the fields; and though now there was nothing to which

she could look forward, the soft yet exhilarating air sent the same

thrill through her as when all her life had lain before her. But this

pleasure was not unalloyed with pain, and it seemed as if the universal

joy of the awakening world could now only impart a delight which was

half sorrow to her grief-crushed soul and withered heart. Everything

around her seemed to have changed. Surely the sun was hardly so warm as

in her youth, the sky so deep a blue, the grass so fresh a green, and

the flowers, paler and less sweet, could no longer arouse within her the

exquisite ecstasies of delight as of old. Still she could enjoy the

beauty around her, so much that sometimes she found herself dreaming

and hoping again; for, however cruel Fate may be, is it possible to give

way to utter despair when the sun shines and the sky is blue?

She went for long walks, urged on and on by her inward excitement, and

sometimes she would suddenly stop and sit down by the roadside to think

of her troubles. Why had she not been loved like other women? Why had

even the simple pleasure of an uneventful existence been refused her?

Sometimes, again forgetting for a moment that she was old, that there

was no longer any pleasure in store for her, and that, with the

exception of a few more lonely years, her life was over and done, she

would build all sorts of castles in the air and make plans for such a

happy future, just as she had done when she was sixteen. Then suddenly

remembering the bitter reality she would get up again, feeling as if a

heavy load had fallen upon her, and return home, murmuring:

"Oh, you old fool! You old fool!"

Now Rosalie was always saying to her:

"Do keep still, madame. What on earth makes you want to run about so?"

"I can't help it," Jeanne would reply sadly. "I am like Massacre was

before he died."

One morning Rosalie went into her mistress's room earlier than usual.

"Make haste and drink up your coffee," she said as she placed the cup on

the table. "Denis is waiting to take us to Les Peuples. I have to go

over there on business."

Jeanne was so excited that she thought she would have fainted, and, as

she dressed herself with trembling fingers, she could hardly believe

she was going to see her dear home once more.

Overhead was a bright, blue sky, and, as they went along, Denis's pony

would every now and then break into a gallop. When they reached

Etouvent, Jeanne could hardly breathe, her heart beat so quickly, and

when she saw the brick pillars beside the chateau gate, she exclaimed,

"Oh," two or three times in a low voice, as if she were in the presence

of something which stirred her very soul, and she could not help

herself.

They put up the horse at the Couillards' farm, and, when Rosalie and her

son went to attend to their business, the farmer asked Jeanne if she

would like to go over the chateau, as the owner was away, and gave her

the key.

She went off alone, and when she found herself opposite the old manor

she stood still to look at it. The outside had not been touched since

she had left. All the shutters were closed, and the sunbeams were

dancing on the gray walls of the big, weather-beaten building. A little

piece of wood fell on her dress, she looked up and saw that it had

fallen from the plane tree, and she went up to the big tree and stroked

its pale, smooth bark as if it had been alive. Her foot touched a piece

of rotten wood lying in the grass; it was the last fragment of the seat

on which she had so often sat with her loved ones--the seat which had

been put up the very day of Julien's first visit to the chateau.

Then she went to the hall-door. She had some difficulty in opening it as

the key was rusty and would not turn, but at last the lock gave way, and

the door itself only required a slight push before it swung back. The

first thing Jeanne did was to run up to her own room. It had been hung

with a light paper and she hardly knew it again, but when she opened one

of the windows and looked out, she was moved almost to tears as she saw

again the scene she loved so well--the thicket, the elms, the common,

and the sea covered with brown sails which, at this distance, looked as

if they were motionless.

Then she went all over the big, empty house. She stopped to look at a

little hole in the plaster which the baron had made with his cane, for

he used to make a few thrusts at the wall whenever he passed this spot,

in memory of the fencing bouts he had had in his youth. In her mother's

bedroom she found a small gold-headed pin stuck in the wall behind the

door, in a dark corner near the bed. She had stuck it there a long while

ago (she remembered it now), and had looked everywhere for it since, but

it had never been found; and she kissed it and took it with her as a

priceless relic.

She went into every room, recognizing the almost invisible spots and

marks on the hangings which had not been changed and again noting the

odd forms and faces which the imagination so often traces in the designs

of the furniture coverings, the carvings of mantelpieces and the shadows

on soiled ceilings. She walked through the vast, silent chateau as

noiselessly as if she were in a cemetery; all her life was interred

there.

She went down to the drawing-room. The closed shutters made it very

dark, and it was a few moments before she could distinguish anything;

then, as her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she gradually made

out the tapestry with the big, white birds on it. Two armchairs stood

before the fireplace, looking as if they had just been vacated, and the

very smell of the room--a smell that had always been peculiar to it, as

each human being has his, a smell which could be perceived at once, and

yet was vague like all the faint perfumes of old rooms--brought the

memories crowding to Jeanne's mind.

Her breath came quickly as she stood with her eyes fixed on the two

chairs, inhaling this perfume of the past; and, all at once, in a sudden

hallucination occasioned by her thoughts, she fancied she saw--she did

see--her father and mother with their feet on the fender as she had so

often seen them before. She drew back in terror, stumbling against the

door-frame, and clung to it for support, still keeping her eyes fixed on

the armchairs. The vision disappeared and for some minutes she stood

horror-stricken; then she slowly regained possession of herself and

turned to fly, afraid that she was going mad. Her eyes fell on the

wainscoting against which she was leaning and she saw Poulet's ladder.

There were all the faint marks traced on the wall at unequal intervals

and the figures which had been cut with a penknife to indicate the

month, and the child's age and growth. In some places there was the

baron's big writing, in others her own, in others again Aunt Lison's,

which was a little shaky. She could see the boy standing there now, with

his fair hair, and his little forehead pressed against the wall to have

his height measured, while the baron exclaimed: "Jeanne, he has grown

half an inch in six weeks," and she began to kiss the wainscoting in a

frenzy of love for the very wood.

Then she heard Rosalie's voice outside, calling: "Madame Jeanne! Madame

Jeanne! lunch is waiting," and she went out with her head in a whirl.

She felt unable to understand anything that was said to her. She ate

what was placed before her, listened to what was being said without

realizing the sense of the words, answered the farmers' wives when they

inquired after her health, passively received their kisses and kissed

the cheeks which were offered to her, and then got into the chaise

again.

When she could no longer see the high roof of the chateau through the

trees, something within her seemed to break, and she felt that she had

just said good-bye to her old home for ever.

They went straight back to Batteville, and as she was going indoors

Jeanne saw something white under the door; it was a letter which the

postman had slipped there during their absence. She at once recognized

Paul's handwriting and tore open the envelope in an agony of anxiety. He

wrote:

"My Dear Mother: I have not written before because I did not want

to bring you to Paris on a fruitless errand, for I have always been

meaning to come and see you myself. At the present moment I am in

great trouble and difficulty. My wife gave birth to a little girl

three days ago, and now she is dying and I have not a penny. I do

not know what to do with the child; the doorkeeper is trying to

nourish it with a feeding-bottle as best she can, but I fear I

shall lose it. Could not you take it? I cannot send it to a wet

nurse as I have not any money, and I do not know which way to turn.

Pray answer by return post.

"Your loving son,

"Paul."

Jeanne dropped on a chair with hardly enough strength left to call

Rosalie. The maid came and they read the letter over again together, and

then sat looking at each other in silence.

"I'll go and fetch the child myself, madame," said Rosalie at last. "We

can't leave it to die."

"Very well, my girl, go," answered Jeanne.

"Put on your hat, madame," said the maid, after a pause, "and we will go

and see the lawyer at Goderville. If that woman is going to die, M. Paul

must marry her for the sake of the child."

Jeanne put on her hat without a word. Her heart was overflowing with

joy, but she would not have allowed anyone to see it for the world, for

it was one of those detestable joys in which people can revel in their

hearts, but of which they are all the same ashamed; her son's mistress

was going to die.

The lawyer gave Rosalie detailed instructions which the servant made him

repeat two or three times; then, when she was sure she knew exactly what

to do, she said:

"Don't you fear; I'll see it's all right now." And she started for Paris

that very night.

Jeanne passed two days in such an agony of mind that she could fix her

thoughts on nothing. The third morning she received a line from Rosalie

merely saying she was coming back by that evening's train; nothing more;

and in the afternoon, about three o'clock, Jeanne sent round to a

neighbor to ask him if he would drive her to the Beuzeville railway

station to meet her servant.

She stood on the platform looking down the rails (which seemed to get

closer together right away as far off as she could see), and turning

every now and then to look at the clock. Ten minutes more--five

minutes--two--and at last the train was due, though as yet she could see

no signs of it. Then, all at once, she saw a cloud of white smoke, and

underneath it a black speck which got rapidly larger and larger. The big

engine came into the station, snorting and slackening its speed, and

Jeanne looked eagerly into every window as the carriages went past her.

The doors opened and several people got out--peasants in blouses,

farmers' wives with baskets on their arms, a few _bourgeois_ in soft

hats--and at last Rosalie appeared, carrying what looked like a bundle

of linen in her arms. Jeanne would have stepped forward to meet her, but

all strength seemed to have left her legs and she feared she would fall

if she moved. The maid saw her and came up in her ordinary, calm way.

"Good-day, madame; here I am again, though I've had some bother to get

along."

"Well?" gasped Jeanne.

"Well," answered Rosalie, "she died last night. They were married and

here's the baby," and she held out the child which could not be seen for

its wraps. Jeanne mechanically took it, and they left the station and

got into the carriage which was waiting.

"M. Paul is coming directly after the funeral. I suppose he'll be here

to-morrow, by this train."

"Paul--" murmured Jeanne, and then stopped without saying anything more.

The sun was sinking towards the horizon, bathing in a glow of light the

green fields which were flecked here and there with golden colewort

flowers or blood-red poppies, and over the quiet country fell an

infinite peace.

The peasant who was driving the chaise kept clicking his tongue to urge

on his horse which trotted swiftly along, and Jeanne looked straight up

into the sky which the circling flight of the swallows seemed to cut

asunder.

All at once she became conscious of a soft warmth which was making

itself felt through her skirts; it was the heat from the tiny being

sleeping on her knees, and it moved her strangely. She suddenly drew

back the covering from the child she had not yet seen, that she might

look at her son's daughter; as the light fell on its face the little

creature opened its blue eyes, and moved its lips, and then Jeanne

hugged it closely to her, and, raising it in her arms, began to cover it

with passionate kisses.

"Come, come, Madame Jeanne, have done," said Rosalie, in sharp, though

good-tempered tones; "you'll make the child cry."

Then she added, as if in reply to her own thoughts:

"After all, life is never so jolly or so miserable as people seem to

think."

* * * * *

HAUTOT SENIOR

AND

HAUTOT JUNIOR

PART I

In front of the building, half farm-house, half manor-house, one of

those rural habitations of a mixed character which were all but

seigneurial, and which are at the present time occupied by large

cultivators, the dogs lashed beside the apple-trees in the orchard near

the house, kept barking and howling at the sight of the shooting-bags

carried by the gamekeepers and the boys. In the spacious dining-room

kitchen, Hautot Senior and Hautot Junior, M. Bermont, the tax-collector,

and M. Mondaru, the notary were taking a pick and drinking a glass

before going out to shoot, for it was the opening day.

Hautot Senior, proud of all his possessions, talked boastfully

beforehand of the game which his guests were going to find on his lands.

He was a big Norman, one of those powerful, sanguineous, bony men, who

lift wagon-loads of apples on their shoulders. Half-peasant,

half-gentleman, rich, respected, influential, invested with authority he

made his son Cesar go as far as the third form at school, so that he

might be an educated man, and there he had brought his studies to a stop

for fear of his becoming a fine gentleman and paying no attention to the

land.

Cesar Hautot, almost as tall as his father, but thinner, was a good

son, docile, content with everything, full of admiration, respect, and

deference, for the wishes and opinions of his sire.

M. Bermont, the tax-collector, a stout little man, who showed on his red

cheeks a thin network of violet veins resembling the tributaries and the

winding courses of rivers on maps, asked:

"And hares--are there any hares on it?"

Hautot Senior answered:

"As much as you like, especially in the Puysatier lands."

"Which direction are we to begin at?" asked the notary, a jolly notary

fat and pale, big paunched too, and strapped up in an entirely new

hunting-costume bought at Rouen.

"Well, that way, through these grounds. We will drive the partridges

into the plain, and we will beat there again."

And Hautot Senior rose up. They all followed his example, took their

guns out of the corners, examined the locks, stamped with their feet in

order to feel themselves firmer in their boots which were rather hard,

not having as yet been rendered flexible by the heat of the blood. Then

they went out; and the dogs, standing erect at the ends of their lashes,

gave vent to piercing howls while beating the air with their paws.

They set forth for the lands referred to. They consisted of a little

glen, or rather a long undulating stretch of inferior soil, which had on

that account remained uncultivated, furrowed with mountain-torrents,

covered with ferns, an excellent preserve for game.

The sportsmen took up their positions at some distance from each other,

Hautot Senior posting himself at the right, Hautot Junior at the left,

and the two guests in the middle. The keeper and those who carried the

game-bags followed. It was the solemn moment when the first shot it

awaited, when the heart beats a little, while the nervous finger keeps

feeling at the gun-lock every second.

Suddenly the shot went off. Hautot Senior had fired. They all stopped,

and saw a partridge breaking off from a covey which was rushing along at

a single flight to fall down into a ravine under a thick growth of

brushwood. The sportsman, becoming excited, rushed forward with rapid

strides, thrusting aside the briers which stood in his path, and he

disappeared in his turn into the thicket, in quest of his game.

Almost at the same instant, a second shot was heard.

"Ha! ha! the rascal!" exclaimed M. Bermont, "he will unearth a hare down

there."

They all waited, with their eyes riveted on the heap of branches through

which their gaze failed to penetrate.

The notary, making a speaking-trumpet of his hands, shouted:

"Have you got them?"

Hautot Senior made no response.

Then Cesar, turning towards the keeper, said to him:

"Just go, and assist him, Joseph. We must keep walking in a straight

line. We'll wait."

And Joseph, an old stump of a man, lean and knotty, all whose joints

formed protuberances, proceeded at an easy pace down the ravine,

searching at every opening through which a passage could be effected

with the cautiousness of a fox. Then, suddenly, he cried:

"Oh! come! come! an unfortunate thing has occurred."

They all hurried forward, plunging through the briers.

The elder Hautot, who had fallen on his side, in a fainting condition,

kept both his hands over his stomach, from which flowed down upon the

grass through the linen vest torn by the lead, long streamlets of blood.

As he was laying down his gun, in order to seize the partridge, within

reach of him, he had let the firearm fall, and the second discharge

going off with the shock, had torn open his entrails. They drew him out

of the trench; they removed his clothes, and they saw a frightful wound,

through which the intestines came out. Then, after having bandaged him

the best way they could, they brought him back to his own house, and

they awaited the doctor, who had been sent for, as well as a priest.

When the doctor arrived, he gravely shook his head, and, turning towards

young Hautot, who was sobbing on a chair:

"My poor boy," said he, "this has not a good look."

But, when the dressing was finished, the wounded man moved his fingers,

opened his mouth, then his eyes, cast around his troubled, haggard

glances, then appeared to search about in his memory, to recollect, to

understand, and he murmured:

"Ah! good God! this has done for me!"

The doctor held his hand.

"Why no, why no, some days of rest merely--it will be nothing."

Hautot returned:

"It has done for me! My stomach is split! I know it well."

Then, all of a sudden:

"I want to talk to the son, if I have the time."

Hautot Junior, in spite of himself, shed tears, and kept repeating like

a little boy.

"P'pa, p'pa, poor p'ps!"

But the father, in a firmer tone:

"Come! stop crying--this is not the time for it. I have to talk to you.

Sit down there quite close to me. It will be quickly done, and I will be

more calm. As for the rest of you, kindly give me one minute."

They all went out, leaving the father and son face to face.

As soon as they were alone:

"Listen, son! you are twenty-four years; one can say things like this to

you. And then there is not such mystery about these matters as we import

into them. You know well that your mother is seven years dead, isn't

that so? and that I am not more than forty-five years myself, seeing

that I got married at nineteen. Is not that true?"

The son faltered:

"Yes, it is true."

"So then your mother is seven years dead, and I have remained a widower.

Well! a man like me cannot remain without a wife at thirty-seven isn't

that true?"

The son replied:

"Yes, it is true."

The father, out of breath, quite pale, and his face contracted with

suffering, went on:

"God! what pain I feel! Well, you understand. Man is not made to live

alone, but I did not want to take a successor to your mother, since I

promised her not to do so. Then--you understand?"

"Yes, father."

"So, I kept a young girl at Rouen, Reu de l'Eperlan 18, in the third

story, the second door--I tell you all this, don't forget--but a young

girl, who has been very nice to me, loving, devoted, a true woman, eh?

You comprehend, my lad?"

"Yes, father."

"So then, if I am carried off, I owe something to her, but something

substantial, that will place her in a safe position. You understand?"

"Yes, father."

"I tell you that she is an honest girl, and that, but for you, and the

remembrance of your mother, and again but for the house in which we

three lived, I would have brought her here, and then married her, for

certain--listen--listen, my lad. I might have made a will--I haven't

done so. I did not wish to do so--for it is not necessary to write down

things--things of this sort--it is too hurtful to the legitimate

children--and then it embroils everything--it ruins everyone! Look you,

the stamped paper, there's no need of it--never make use of it. If I am

rich, it is because I have not made use of what I have during my own

life. You understand, my son?"

"Yes, father."

"Listen again--listen well to me! So then, I have made no will--I did

not desire to do so--and then I knew what you were; you have a good

heart; you are not niggardly, not too near, in any way, I said to myself

that when my end approached I would tell you all about it, and that I

would beg of you not to forget the girl. And then listen again! When I

am gone, make your way to the place at once--and make such arrangements

that she may not blame my memory. You have plenty of means. I leave it

to you--I leave you enough. Listen! You won't find her at home every day

in the week. She works at Madame Moreau's in the Rue Beauvoisine. Go

there on a Thursday. That is the day she expects me. It has been my day

for the past six years. Poor little thing! she will weep!--I say all

this to you, because I have known you so well, my son. One does not tell

these things in public either to the notary or to the priest. They

happen--everyone knows that--but they are not talked about, save in case

of necessity. Then there is no outsider in the secret, nobody except the

family, because the family consists of one person alone. You

understand?"