A Life (19 page)

'If you don't mind, darling. To be quite honest, I'm not feeling very well. I'm sure I'll be better by tomorrow.'

He did not insist:

'As you wish, my dear. If you're ill, you must take care of yourself.'

And they changed the subject.

She went to bed early. Julien, for once, had the fire lit in his bedroom. When he was told that it was 'burning nicely', he kissed his wife on the forehead and departed.

It was as though the entire house were being kneaded by the frost; as it penetrated the walls, they gave off little sounds as though they too were shivering; and Jeanne lay in bed shaking with the cold.

Twice she got up to put more logs on the fire and to fetch skirts, dresses, and old clothes to pile on her bed. She could not get warm; her feet were turning numb, and tremors ran up and down her calves and even her thighs, making her toss and turn without respite, leaving her excessively restless and unsettled.

Soon her teeth began to chatter; her hands trembled; her chest grew tight; her heart was pounding in slow, dull thumps and even seemed occasionally to miss a beat altogether; and she was gasping for air as though it could no longer find a way through to her throat.

A terrible sense of panic took hold of her entire being as the implacable cold chilled her to the marrow. Never before had she felt like this, never had she felt so evidently as though life were departing from her body and she was on the point of breathing her last.

She thought:

'I'm going to die . . . I
am
dying . . .'

And in sheer terror she jumped out of bed, rang for Rosalie, waited, rang again, waited again, shuddering, frozen to the bone.

The maid did not come. No doubt she was in that first, deep sleep from which nothing would rouse her; and so, not knowing what she was doing, Jeanne rushed barefoot out onto the landing. Silently she groped her way up the stairs, found the door, opened it, called out 'Rosalie!', continued forward, bumped into the bed, ran her hands across it, and then realized it was empty. It was empty and completely cold, as though no one had slept in it.

Surprised, she thought to herself:

'What! But she can't have gone running off again in weather like this!'

But with her heart now suddenly in a tumult, beating wildly and making her gasp for breath, she went downstairs again, her legs almost giving way beneath her, to wake Julien.

She burst into his room, driven by the conviction that she was going to die and wanting to see him before she lost consciousness.

In the light of the dying embers, she saw, beside her husband's, the head of Rosalie resting on the pillow.

On hearing her scream, they both shot up in bed. She remained standing there for an instant, motionless with the shock of this discovery. Then she fled back to her room; and hearing Julien desperately calling her name, a horrible dread took hold of her that she would have to see him, to hear his voice, to listen to his excuses, his lies, to look him in the face; and once more she dashed out onto the landing and ran downstairs.

She was now rushing headlong through the darkness, in danger of tumbling down the stairs and breaking her limbs on the stone. She just kept going, impelled by an overwhelming need to get away, to make no further discoveries, to see no one ever again.

When she reached the bottom, she sat down on a step, still in her bare feet and dressed only in her nightdress; and there she remained, at her wits' end.

Julien had jumped out of bed and was quickly getting dressed. She could hear his movements, the sound of his footsteps. She stood up again, determined to flee him. Already he, too, was coming down the stairs, and shouting: 'Jeanne, listen!'

No, she didn't want to listen, didn't want him to come anywhere near her; and she rushed into the dining-room as though she were being pursued by a murderer. She looked for a means of escape, somewhere to hide, a dark corner, any means of avoiding him. She huddled beneath the table. But already he was opening the door, a lamp in his hand, still calling 'Jeanne' over and over again, and she darted away once more, like a hare, rushed into the kitchen and ran round it twice like a cornered animal; and when he caught up with her again, she immediately tore open the door that led into the garden and rushed outside.

All at once the icy contact of the snow into which she sank, sometimes up to her knees, lent her a desperate energy. She was not cold, although she was scarcely dressed; she could feel nothing, so numbed had she been by the shock to her soul, and on she ran, as white as the ground itself.

Down the main avenue she went, then through the copse and over the ditch, before heading off across the heath.

There was no moon, and the stars gleamed like a scattering of fiery seed over the blackness of the sky; but there was sufficient light to see the dull, white expanse of the plain, a frozen stillness amidst an infinity of silence.

Jeanne moved quickly, effortlessly, not knowing where she was going, not thinking of anything at all. And suddenly she found herself at the edge of the cliff. She came to a sudden, instinctive halt and crouched down on her haunches, devoid of all intention and all will.

In the dark hole before her, the mute, invisible sea gave off the salty reek of its seaweed at low tide.

She remained like this for a long time, her mind as calmly passive as her body; then, all at once, she began to tremble, and to tremble wildly, like a sail flapping in the wind. Her arms and hands and feet began, as though set in motion by some irresistible force, to quiver, to vibrate in a series of rapid jerks; and suddenly she became, once more, acutely and painfully conscious.

Scenes from the past now flashed before her eyes; that trip with him in Père Lastique's fishing-smack, their conversation, her incipient love, the christening of the boat; and then she cast her mind even further back to that night of fond dreams when she had first arrived at Les Peuples. And now! Now! Oh, her life lay in pieces, all joy had gone, all hope for the future was henceforth doomed; and that terrible future, full of torment and betrayal and despair, loomed before her. She might as well die; that way it would all be over and done with in a twinkling.

But a voice was shouting in the distance:

'This way, I've found her footprints. Quick, quick, this way!' It was Julien out searching for her.

Oh, she did so not want to see him again. From the abyss,  right there in front of her, she could hear the faint sound of the sea now gently washing over the rocks.

She stood up, already poised to throw herself forward, and then, by way of a final, desperate farewell to life, she groaned the last word of the dying, the last word uttered by young soldiers eviscerated in battle:

'Mother!'

All at once she was transfixed by the thought of Mama; she saw her sobbing; she saw her father kneeling by her crumpled body, and in that single moment she felt the full force of their grief and their despair.

And so she subsided onto the snow, and made no further attempt to escape when Julien and Père Simon, with Marius behind them holding a lantern, grabbed her by the arms to pull her back, so close was she to the edge.

She offered them no resistance, for she could no longer move. She was aware of being carried off; put to bed, and rubbed with scalding cloths. After that all memory faded, all conscious thought disappeared.

Then a nightmareif it was a nightmaretook possession of her. She was lying in bed in her room. It was daylight, but she could not get up. Why? She had no idea. Then she could hear a faint noise on the floor, a sort of scraping or rustling sound, and suddenly a mouse, a tiny grey mouse, was darting across her bedclothes. Another one followed immediately, then a third, which came scampering up towards her chest with quick, tiny steps. Jeanne was not afraid; yet she wanted to catch the beast and stretched out her hand, but to no avail.

Then more mice, ten, twenty, hundreds, thousands of them, appeared from all sides. They were climbing up the bedposts, running along the draperies, crawling all over the bed. And soon they got in beneath the covers; Jeanne could feel them against her skin, tickling her legs, running up and down the entire length of her body. She could see them coming up from the foot of the bed and wriggling under the sheets right beneath her chin; and she tried to fight them off, making sudden grabs to try and catch one but finding herself clutching thin air.

She became frantic and tried to get away, screaming, but it was if she were being held fast, as though powerful arms were twined around her and preventing her from moving; but she saw no one.

She had lost any sense of time. It must all have lasted a long while, a very long while.

Then she awoke, feeling tired and bruised, but calm. She felt weak, so weak. She opened her eyes, and was not at all surprised to find Mama sitting in the room, with some large man she did not know.

What age was she? She had no idea, and thought that she was still a little girl. In fact she could remember nothing.

The large man said:

'Look, she's coming round.'

And Mama began to cry. Then the large man said:

'Come, come, calm yourself, my lady. She will be fine now, I promise you. But don't say anything to her, not a single word. You must let her sleep.'

And it seemed to Jeanne as though she remained in this drowsy state for a long time, overtaken by a deep, heavy sleep whenever she tried to think; and indeed she made no effort to remember the slightest thing, as though she were dimly afraid of the reality that had begun to make its reappearance inside her head.

But once, as she was waking, she caught sight of Julien, alone next to her; and immediately it all came flooding back to her, as if a curtain had suddenly gone up on the whole of her past life.

She felt a horrible anguish in her heart and wanted to run away again. She threw back the sheets, jumped out of bed, and fell to the floor, her legs unable to support her.

Julien rushed towards her; and she began to scream that he wasn't to touch her. She twisted and rolled about on the floor. The door opened. Aunt Lison came running in with the widow Dentu, followed by the Baron, and then finally Mama, who arrived panting and distraught.

They helped her back into bed; and at once she closed her eyes again, slyly, so as not to have to speak, so that she could reflect in peace.

Her mother and her aunt were tending her, and enquiring anxiously:

'Can you hear us, Jeanne? My dear little Jeanne?'

She pretended not to hear and made no reply; and she saw quite distinctly that the day was drawing to a close. Night came. The nurse took up position by her bed and made her drink a little from time to time.

She drank without a word, but she could no longer sleep; she was painfully trying to piece things together again, trying to remember, as though there were holes in her memory, great blank empty spaces where events had left no mark.

Little by little, with sustained effort, she recalled all the facts.

And then she reflected upon them with unwavering persistence.

Mama, Aunt Lison, and the Baron were there, so she had been very ill. But Julien? What had he told them? Did her parents know? And Rosalie? Where was she? And then, what should she do? What should she do? An idea struck hershe would go back to Rouen, with Papa and Mama, just like before. She would be a widow; that was all.

Then she waited, listening to what was being said around her, understanding perfectly but without letting on, relishing the return of her reason, at once patient and cunning.

Finally, that evening, she found herself alone with the Baroness, and she called to her softly:

'Mama!'

She was astonished at the sound of her own voice: it seemed quite changed. The Baroness clasped her by the hands:

'Jeanne, my dearest, my darling Jeanne! Do you recognize me, my dear?'

'Yes, Mama, but please don't cry. We have a lot to talk about. Did Julien say why I ran off into the snow?'

'Yes, my sweet, you had a very high fever, and you were in great danger.'

'No, that's not it, mother. The fever came afterwards. But did he tell you how I caught the fever, and why I ran off?'

'No, my dear.'

'It was because I found Rosalie in bed with him.'

The Baroness thought that she was still delirious, and stroked her:

'Sleep now, my darling. Calm yourself. Try and get some sleep.'

But stubbornly Jeanne insisted:

'I am completely lucid now, Mama. This isn't more of the nonsense I must have been talking the last few days. I felt unwell one night, so I went to find Julien. Rosalie was in bed with him. I was so upset I just lost my head, and I ran off into the snow to go and throw myself over the cliff.'

But the Baroness kept saying:

'Yes, my darling, you have been very ill, very ill.'

'No, mother, I really did, I found Rosalie in Julien's bed, and I want to leave him. I want you to take me back to Rouen, like before.'

The Baroness, whom the doctor had advised' to humour Jeanne, replied:

'Yes, dear.'

But Jeanne was losing patience:

'I can see you don't believe me. Go and fetch Papa. At least I'll make him understand.'

So Mama struggled to her feet, took hold of her two sticks, and shuffled out of the room, returning some minutes later on the Baron's arm.

They sat down by the bed, and Jeanne began at once. She told them everything, precisely, in a low, faltering voice: about Julien's strange character, his rough ways, his avarice, and lastly about his infidelity.

By the time she had finished, the Baron could see that she was not raving, but he did not know what to think, or say, or do.

He took her hand, tenderly, like in the old days when he used to tell her stories to send her to sleep:

'Listen, my darling we must go carefully. We mustn't rush things. You must try and put up with your husband until we've decided what to do. . . . Will you promise me that?'

'Very well,' she murmured, 'but I shan't stay here any longer once I'm better.'

Then she added in a whisper: