Chương Chương 13 · 第13章

After a two hours' drive the gig drew up before a little brick house,

standing by the high road in the middle of an orchard planted with

pear-trees. Four lattice-work arbors covered with honeysuckle and

clematis stood at the four corners of the garden, which was planted with

vegetables, and laid out in little beds with narrow paths bordered with

fruit-trees running between them, and both garden and orchard were

entirely surrounded by a thickset hedge which divided them from a field

belonging to the next farm. About thirty yards lower down the road was a

forge, and that was the only dwelling within a mile. All around lay

fields and plains with farms scattered here and there, half-hidden by

the four double rows of big trees which surrounded them.

Jeanne wanted to rest as soon as they arrived, but Rosalie, wishing to

keep her from thinking, would not let her do so. The carpenter from

Goderville had come to help them put the place in order, and they all

began to arrange the furniture which was already there without waiting

for the last cart-load which was coming on. The arrangement of the rooms

took a long time, for everyone's ideas and opinions had to be consulted,

and then the cart from Les Peuples arrived, and had to be unloaded in

the rain. When night fell the house was in a state of utter disorder,

and all the rooms were full of things piled anyhow one on top of the

other. Jeanne was tired out and fell asleep as soon as her head touched

the pillow.

The next few days there was so much to do that she had no time to fret;

in fact, she even found a certain pleasure in making her new home

pretty, for all the time she was working she thought that her son would

one day come and live there. The tapestry from her bedroom at Les

Peuples was hung in the dining-room, which was also to serve as

drawing-room, and Jeanne took especial pains over the arrangement of one

of the rooms on the first floor, which in her own mind she had already

named "Poulet's room;" she was to have the other one on that floor, and

Rosalie was to sleep upstairs next to the box-room. The little house

thus tastefully arranged, looked pretty when it was all finished, and at

first Jeanne was pleased with it though she was haunted by the feeling

that there was something missing though she could not tell what.

One morning a clerk came over from the attorney at Fecamp with the three

thousand six hundred francs, the price at which an upholsterer had

valued the furniture left at Les Peuples. Jeanne felt a thrill of

pleasure as she took the money, for she had not expected to get so

much, and as soon as the man had gone she put on her hat and hurried off

to Goderville to send Paul this unlooked-for sum as quickly as possible.

But as she was hastening along the road she met Rosalie coming back from

market; the maid suspected that something had happened though she did

not at once guess the truth. She soon found it out, however, for Jeanne

could not hide anything from her, and placing her basket on the ground

to give way to her wrath at her ease, she put her hands on her hips and

scolded Jeanne at the top of her voice; then she took hold of her

mistress with her right hand and her basket with her left and walked on

again towards the house in a great passion. As soon as they were indoors

Rosalie ordered the money to be given into her care, and Jeanne gave it

her with the exception of the six hundred francs which she said nothing

about; but this trick was soon detected and Jeanne had to give it all

up. However, Rosalie consented to these odd hundreds being sent to the

young man, who in a few days wrote to thank his mother for the money.

"It was a most welcome present, mother dear," he said, "for we were

reduced to utter want."

Time went on but Jeanne could not get accustomed to her new home. It

seemed as if she could not breathe freely at Batteville, and she felt

more alone and forsaken than ever. She would often walk as far as the

village of Verneuil and come back through Trois-Mares, but as soon as

she was home she started up to go out again as if she had forgotten to

go to the very place to which she had meant to walk. The same thing

happened time after time and she could not understand where it was she

longed to go; one evening, however, she unconsciously uttered a sentence

which at once revealed to her the secret of her restlessness. "Oh! how

I long to see the ocean," she said as she sat down to dinner.

The sea! That was what she missed. The sea with its salt breezes, its

never-ceasing roar, its tempests, its strong odors; the sea, near which

she had lived for five and twenty years, which had always felt near her

and which, unconsciously, she had come to love like a human being.

Massacre, too, was very uneasy. The very evening of his arrival at the

new house he had installed himself under the kitchen-dresser and no one

could get him to move out. There he lay all day long, never stirring,

except to turn himself over with a smothered grunt, until it was dark;

then he got up and dragged himself towards the garden door, grazing

himself against the wall as he went. After he had stayed out of doors a

few minutes he came in again and sat down before the stove which was

still warm, and as soon as Jeanne and Rosalie had gone to bed he began

to howl. The whole night long he howled, in a pitiful, deplorable way,

sometimes ceasing for an hour only to recommence in a still more doleful

tone. A barrel was put outside the house and he was tied up to it, but

he howled just the same out of doors as in, and as he was old and almost

dying, he was brought back to the kitchen again.

It was impossible for Jeanne to sleep, for the whole night she could

hear the old dog moaning and scratching as he tried to get used to this

new house which he found so different from his old home. Nothing would

quiet him; his eyes were dim and it seemed as if the knowledge of his

infirmity made him keep still while everyone else was awake and

downstairs, and at night he wandered restlessly about until daybreak, as

if he only dared to move in the darkness which makes all beings

sightless for the time. It was an intense relief to everyone when one

morning he was found dead.

Winter wore on, and Jeanne gave way more and more to an insuperable

hopelessness; it was no longer a keen, heartrending grief that she felt,

but a dull, gloomy melancholy. There was nothing to rouse her from it,

no one came to see her, and the road which passed before her door was

almost deserted. Sometimes a gig passed by driven by a red-faced man

whose blouse, blown out by the wind, looked like a blue balloon, and

sometimes a cart crawled past, or a peasant and his wife could be seen

coming from the distance, growing larger and larger as they approached

the house and then diminishing again when they had passed it, till they

looked like two insects at the end of the long white line which

stretched as far as the eye could reach, rising and falling with the

undulation of the earth. When the grass again sprang up a little girl

passed the gate every morning with two thin cows which browsed along the

side of the road, and in the evening she returned, taking, as in the

morning, one step every ten minutes as she followed the animals.

Every night Jeanne dreamt that she was again at Les Peuples. She thought

she was there with her father and mother and Aunt Lison as in the old

times. Again she accomplished the old, forgotten duties and supported

Madame Adelaide as she walked in her avenue; and each time she awoke she

burst into tears.

Paul was continually in her thoughts and she wondered what he was doing,

if he were well and if he ever thought of her. She revolved all these

painful thoughts in her mind as she walked along the low-lying roads

between the farms, and what was more torture to her than anything else

was the fierce jealousy of the woman who had deprived her of her son. It

was this hatred alone which restrained her from taking any steps towards

finding Paul and trying to see him. She could imagine her son's mistress

confronting her at the door and asking, "What is your business here,

madame?" and her self-respect would not permit her to run the risk of

such an encounter. In the haughty pride of a chaste and spotless woman,

who had never stooped to listen to temptation, she became still more

bitter against the base and cowardly actions to which sensual love will

drive a man who is not strong enough to throw off its degrading chains.

The whole of humanity seemed to her unclean as she thought of the

obscene secrets of the senses, of the caresses which debase as they are

given and received, and of all the mysteries which surround the

attraction of the sexes.

Another spring and summer passed away, and when the autumn came again

with its rainy days, its dull, gray skies, its heavy clouds, Jeanne felt

so weary of the life she was leading that she determined to make a

supreme attempt to regain possession of her Poulet. Surely the young

man's passion must have cooled by this time, and she wrote him a

touching, pitiful letter:

"My Dear Child--I am coming to entreat you to return to me. Think

how I am left, lonely, aged and ill, the whole year with only a

servant. I am living now in a little house by the roadside and it

is very miserable for me, but if you were here everything would

seem different. You are all I have in the world, and I have not

seen you for seven years. You will never know how unhappy I have

been and how my every thought was centered in you. You were my

life, my soul, my only hope, my only love, and you are away from

me, you have forsaken me.

"Oh! come back, my darling Poulet, come back, and let me hold you

in my arms again; come back to your old mother who so longs to see

you.

JEANNE."

A few days later came the following reply:

"My Dear Mother--I should only be too glad to come and see you, but

I have not a penny; send me some money and I will come. I had

myself been thinking of coming to speak to you about a plan which,

if carried out, would permit me to do as you desire.

"I shall never be able to repay the disinterested affection of the

woman who has shared all my troubles, but I can at least make a

public recognition of her faithful love and devotion. Her behavior

is all you could desire; she is well-educated and well-read and you

cannot imagine what a comfort she has been to me. I should be a

brute if I did not make her some recompense, and I ask your

permission to marry her. Then we could all live together in your

new house, and you would forgive my follies. I am convinced that

you would give your consent at once, if you knew her; I assure you

she is very lady-like and quiet, and I know you would like her. As

for me, I could not live without her.

"I shall await your reply with every impatience, dear mother. We

both send you much love.--Your son,

"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."

Jeanne was thunderstruck. As she sat with the letter on her knees, she

could see so plainly through the designs of this woman who had not once

let Paul return to his friends, but had always kept him at her side

while she patiently waited until his mother should give in and consent

to anything and everything in the irresistible desire of having her son

with her again; and it was with bitter pain that she thought of how Paul

obstinately persisted in preferring this creature to herself. "He does

not love me, he does not love me," she murmured over and over again.

"He wants to marry her now," she said, when Rosalie came in.

The servant started.

"Oh! madame, you surely will not consent to it. M. Paul can't bring that

hussy here."

All the pride in Jeanne's nature rose in revolt at the thought, and

though she was bowed down with grief, she replied decidedly:

"No, Rosalie, never. But since he won't come here I will go to him, and

we will see which of us two will have the greater influence over him."

She wrote to Paul at once, telling him that she was coming to Paris, and

would see him anywhere but at the house where he was living with that

wretch. Then while she awaited his reply, she began to make all her

preparations for the journey, and Rosalie commenced to pack her

mistress's linen and clothes in an old trunk.

"You haven't a single thing to put on," exclaimed the servant, as she

was folding up an old, badly-made dress. "I won't have you go with such

clothes; you'd be a disgrace to everyone, and the Paris ladies would

think you were a servant."

Jeanne let her have her own way, and they both went to Goderville and

chose some green, checked stuff, which they left with the dressmaker to

be made up. Then they went to see Me. Roussel the lawyer, who went to

Paris for a fortnight every year, to obtain a few directions, for it was

twenty-eight years since Jeanne had been to the capital. He gave them a

great deal of advice about crossing the roads and the way to avoid being

robbed, saying that the safest plan was to carry only just as much money

as was necessary in the pockets and to sew the rest in the lining of the

dress; then he talked for a long time about the restaurants where the

charges were moderate, and mentioned two or three to which ladies could

go, and he recommended Jeanne to stay at the Hotel de Normandie, which

was near the railway station. He always stayed there himself, and she

could say he had sent her. There had been a railway between Paris and

Havre for the last six years, but Jeanne had never seen one of these

steam-engines of which everyone was talking, and which were

revolutionizing the whole country.

The day passed on, but still there came no answer from Paul. Every

morning, for a fortnight, Jeanne had gone along the road to meet the

postman, and had asked, in a voice which she could not keep steady:

"You have nothing for me to-day, Pere Malandain?" And the answer was

always the same: "No nothing yet, _ma bonne dame_."

Fully persuaded that it was that woman who was preventing Paul from

answering, Jeanne determined not to wait any longer, but to start at

once. She wanted to take Rosalie with her, but the maid would not go

because of increasing the expense of the journey, and she only allowed

her mistress to take three hundred francs with her.

"If you want any more money," she said, "write to me, and I'll tell the

lawyer to forward you some; but if I give you any more now, Monsieur

Paul will have it all."

Then one December morning, Denis Lecoq's gig came to take them both to

the railway station, for Rosalie was going to accompany her mistress as

far as that. When they reached the station, they found out first how

much the tickets were, then, when the trunk had been labeled and the

ticket bought, they stood watching the rails, both too much occupied in

wondering what the train would be like to think of the sad cause of this

journey. At last a distant whistle made them look round, and they saw a

large, black machine approaching, which came up with a terrible noise,

dragging after it a long chain of little rolling houses. A porter opened

the door of one of these little huts, and Jeanne kissed Rosalie and got

in.

"_Au revoir_, madame. I hope you will have a pleasant journey, and will

soon be back again."

"_Au revoir_, Rosalie."

There was another whistle, and the string of carriages moved slowly off,

gradually going faster and faster, till they reached a terrific speed.

In Jeanne's compartment there were only two other passengers, who were

both asleep, and she sat and watched the fields and farms and villages

rush past. She was frightened at the speed at which she was going, and

the feeling came over her that she was entering a new phase of life,

and was being hurried towards a very different world from that in which

she had spent her peaceful girlhood and her monotonous life.

It was evening when she reached Paris. A porter took her trunk, and she

followed closely at his heels, sometimes almost running for fear of

losing sight of him, and feeling frightened as she was pushed about by

the swaying crowd through which she did not know how to pass.

"I was recommended here by Me. Roussel," she hastened to say when she

was in the hotel office.

The landlady, a big, stolid-looking woman, was sitting at the desk.

"Who is Me. Roussel?" she asked.

"The lawyer from Goderville, who stays here every year," replied Jeanne,

in surprise.

"Very likely he does," responded the big woman, "but I don't know him.

Do you want a room?"

"Yes, madame."

A waiter shouldered the luggage and led the way upstairs.

Jeanne followed, feeling very low-spirited and depressed, and sitting

down at a little table, she ordered some soup and the wing of a chicken

to be sent up to her, for she had had nothing to eat since day-break.

She thought of how she had passed through this same town on her return

from her wedding tour, as she ate her supper by the miserable light of

one candle, and of how Julien had then first shown himself in his true

character. But then she was young and brave and hopeful; now she felt

old and timid; and the least thing worried and frightened her.

When she had finished her supper, she went to the window and watched

the crowded street. She would have liked to go out if she had dared, but

she thought she should be sure to lose herself, so she went to bed. But

she had hardly yet got over the bustle of the journey, and that, and the

noise and the sensation of being in a strange place, kept her awake. The

hours passed on, and the noises outside gradually ceased, but still she

could not sleep, for she was accustomed to the sound, peaceful sleep of

the country, which is so different from the semi-repose of a great city.

Here she was conscious of a sort of restlessness all around her; the

murmur of voices reached her ears, and every now and then a board

creaked, a door shut, or a bell rang. She was just dozing off, about two

o'clock in the morning, when a woman suddenly began to scream in a

neighboring room. Jeanne started up in bed, and next she thought she

heard a man laughing. As dawn approached she became more and more

anxious to see Paul, and as soon as it was light, she got up and

dressed.

He lived in the Rue du Sauvage, and she meant to follow Rosalie's advice

about spending as little as possible, and walk there. It was a fine day,

though the wind was keen, and there were a great many people hurrying

along the pavements. Jeanne walked along the street as quickly as she

could. When she reached the other end, she was to turn to the right,

then to the left; then she would come to a square, where she was to ask

again. She could not find the square, and a baker from whom she inquired

the way gave her different directions altogether. She started on again,

missed the way, wandered about, and in trying to follow other

directions, lost herself entirely. She walked on and on, and was just

going to hail a cab when she saw the Seine. Then she decided to walk

along the quays, and in about an hour she reached the dark, dirty lane

called Rue du Sauvage.

When she came to the number she was seeking, she was so excited that she

stood before the door unable to move another step. Poulet was there, in

that house! Her hands and knees trembled violently, and it was some

moments before she could enter and walk along the passage to the

doorkeeper's box.

"Will you go and tell M. Paul de Lamare that an old lady friend of his

mother's, is waiting to see him?" she said, slipping a piece of money

into the man's hand.

"He does not live here now, madame," answered the doorkeeper.

She started.

"Ah! Where--where is he living now?" she gasped.

"I do not know."

She felt stunned, and it was some time before she could speak again.

"When did he leave?" she asked at last, controlling herself by a violent

effort.

The man was quite ready to tell her all he knew.

"About a fortnight ago," he replied. "They just walked out of the house

one evening and didn't come back. They owed all over the neighborhood,

so you may guess they didn't leave any address."

Tongues of flame were dancing before Jeanne's eyes, as if a gun were

being fired off close to her face; but she wanted to find Poulet, and

that kept her up and made her stand opposite the doorkeeper, as if she

were calmly thinking.

"Then he did not say anything when he left?"

"No, nothing at all; they went away to get out of paying their debts."

"But he will have to send for his letters."

"He'll send a good many times before he gets them, then; besides, they

didn't have ten in a twelvemonth, though I took them up one two days

before they left."

That must have been the one she sent.

"Listen," she said, hastily. "I am his mother, and I have come to look

for him. Here are ten francs for yourself. If you hear anything from or

about him, let me know at once at the Hotel de Normandie, Rue du Havre,

and you shall be well paid for your trouble."

"You may depend upon me, madame," answered the doorkeeper; and Jeanne

went away.

She hastened along the streets as if she were bent on an important

mission, but she was not looking or caring whither she was going. She

walked close to the walls, pushed and buffeted by errand boys and

porters; crossed the roads, regardless of the vehicles and the shouts of

the drivers; stumbled against the curbstones, which she did not see; and

hurried on and on, unconscious of everything and everyone. At last she

found herself in some gardens, and, feeling too weary to walk any

further, she dropped on a seat. She sat there a long while, apparently

unaware that the tears were running down her cheeks, and that passersby

stopped to look at her. At last the bitter cold made her rise to go, but

her legs would hardly carry her, so weak and exhausted was she. She

would have liked some soup, but she dared not go into a restaurant, for

she knew people could see she was in trouble, and it made her feel timid

and ashamed. When she passed an eating-place she would stop a moment at

the door, look inside, and see all the people sitting at the tables

eating, and then go on again, saying to herself: "I will go into the

next one"; but when she came to the next her courage always failed her

again. In the end she went into a baker's shop, and bought a little

crescent-shaped roll, which she ate as she went along. She was very

thirsty, but she did not know where to go to get anything to drink, so

she went without.

She passed under an arch, and found herself in some more gardens with

arcades running all round them, and she recognized the Palais Royal. Her

walk in the sun had made her warm again, so she sat down for another

hour or two. A crowd of people flowed into the gardens--an elegant crowd

composed of beautiful women and wealthy men, who only lived for dress

and pleasure, and who chatted and smiled and bowed as they sauntered

along. Feeling ill at ease amidst this brilliant throng, Jeanne rose to

go away; but suddenly the thought struck her that perhaps she might meet

Paul here, and she began to walk from end to end of the gardens, with

hasty, furtive steps, carefully scanning every face she met.

Soon she saw that people turned to look and laugh at her, and she

hurried away, thinking it was her odd appearance and her green-checked

dress, which Rosalie had chosen and had made up, that attracted

everyone's attention and smiles. She hardly dared ask her way, but she

did at last venture, and when she had reached her hotel, she passed the

rest of the day sitting on a chair at the foot of the bed. In the

evening she dined off some soup and a little meat, like the day before,

and then undressed and went to bed, performing all the duties of her

toilet quite mechanically, from sheer habit.

The next morning she went to the police office to see if she could get

any help there towards the discovery of her son's whereabouts. They told

her they could not promise her anything, but that they would attend to

the matter. After she had left the police office, she wandered about the

streets, in the hopes of meeting her child, and she felt more friendless

and forsaken among the busy crowds than she did in the midst of the

lovely fields.

When she returned to the hotel in the evening, she was told that a man

from M. Paul had asked for her, and was coming again the next day. All

the blood in her body seemed to suddenly rush to her heart and she could

not close her eyes all night. Perhaps it was Paul himself! Yes, it must

be so, although his appearance did not tally with the description the

hotel people had given of the man who had called, and when, about nine

o'clock in the morning, there came a knock at her door, she cried, "Come

in!" expecting her son to rush into her arms held open to receive him.

But it was a stranger who entered--a stranger who began to apologize for

disturbing her and to explain that he had come about some money Paul

owed him. As he spoke she felt herself beginning to cry, and she tried

to hide her tears from the man by wiping them away with the end of her

finger as soon as they reached the corners of her eyes. The man had

heard of her arrival from the concierge at the Rue du Sauvage, and as he

could not find Paul he had come to his mother. He held out a paper which

Jeanne mechanically took; she saw "90 francs" written on it, and she

drew out the money and paid the man. She did not go out at all that day,

and the next morning more creditors appeared. She gave them all the

money she had left, except twenty francs, and wrote and told Rosalie how

she was placed.

Until her servant's answer came she passed the days in wandering

aimlessly about the streets. She did not know what to do or how to kill

the long, miserable hours; there was no one who knew of her troubles, or

to whom she could go for sympathy, and her one desire was to get away

from this city and to return to her little house beside the lonely road,

where, a few days before, she had felt she could not bear to live

because it was so dull and lonely. Now she was sure she could live

nowhere else but in that little home where all her mournful habits had

taken root.

At last, one evening, she found a letter from Rosalie awaiting her with

two hundred francs enclosed.

"Come back as soon as possible, Madame Jeanne," wrote the maid,

"for I shall send you nothing more. As for M. Paul, I will go and

fetch him myself the next time we hear anything from him.--With

best respects, your servant,

ROSALIE."

And Jeanne started back to Batteville one bitterly cold, snowy morning.

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