A Life (35 page)

Each night Jeanne dreamt that she was still living at Les Peuples.

She was back there with Papa and Mama, as in the old days, and sometimes even with Aunt Lison. She would do over again all the things that were now finished with and forgotten, imagine herself supporting Madame Adélaïde on her journeys up and down her avenue. And each waking was followed by tears.

She thought of Paul all the time, wondering 'What's he doing? How is he now? Does he think of me sometimes?'

As she strolled slowly along the sunken footpaths between the  farms, she would ponder in her mind all the things which tormented her; but she suffered above all from uncompromising jealousy at the thought of the unknown woman who had robbed her of her son. It was this hatred alone which gave her pause and stopped her from doing something, from going to find him, from seeing where he lived. She could picture his mistress standing at the door and asking: 'And what brings you here, Madame?' Her maternal pride rebelled at the possibility of such an encounter; and the haughty pride of a woman still pure and unbesmirched, who had never lapsed, made her rage all the more at the cravenness of human beings, slaves to the foul procedures of carnal love that makes cowards of the heart as well as the body. Mankind seemed to her unclean when she thought of all the dirty secrets of the senses, the degrading caresses, and the dimly discerned mysteries of inseparable couplings.

Spring and summer came and went once more.

But when autumn returned with its long periods of rain, its grey skies and dark clouds, such a weariness of living seized hold of her that she decided to make one final effort to get her Pullie back.

The young man's passion must surely now be spent.

She wrote him a tearful letter:

'My dear child, I am writing to beseech you to come home to me. You must remember that I am old and ill, and all alone from one year's end to the next, with a maid for company. I am now living in a small house on the main road. It is very dismal. But if you were here, everything would be different for me. You're all I have in the world, and I haven't seen you for seven years! You will never know how unhappy I've been, and how much my heart depended on you. You were my life, my dreams, my one and only hope for the future, my one and only love, and I miss you, and you have deserted me!

Oh, do come back, my dear little Pullie, come back and kiss me, come back to your old mother who holds out her arms to you in despair.

Jeanne'

He replied a few days later.

'My dear Mother, There is nothing I should like better than to come and see you, but I haven't a farthing to my name. Send me some money
a
nd then I shall come. I had in any case intended to come and see you to talk about a plan I have which would allow me to do as you ask.

The selfless affection shown for me by the person who has been my constant companion throughout these bad times remains boundless. It is no longer possible for me to continue like this without acknowledging publicly such faithful love and devotion on her part. Moreover she is very refined in her ways, as you will be able to discover for yourself. Also, she is very well educated and reads a lot. And, lastly, you have simply no idea how much she has always meant to me. I would be a brute not to show her my gratitude. I am writing therefore to ask your permission to marry her. You would forgive me my various escapades, and we should all live together in your new house.

If you knew her, you would grant me your consent at once. I assure you that she is quite perfect, and very genteel. You would love her, I am certain. For my own part, I could not live without her.

I await your reply with impatience, my dear Mama, and we send you all our love.
Your son,

Vicomte Paul de Lamare'

Jeanne was aghast. She sat quite still, with the letter on her lap, and reflected on the cunning of this girl who had continually prevented her son from leaving, who had not once let him come and see her, all the while biding her time and waiting for the moment when the old mother, in desperation, and no longer able to resist the longing to embrace her own child, would weaken and consent to everything.

And the great sorrow of Paul's stubborn preference for this creature tore her heart asunder. She repeated over and over again:

'He doesn't love me, he doesn't love me.

Rosalie came in. Jeanne stammered:

'Now he wants to marry her.'

The maid started in surprise:

'Oh, Madame, you can't allow it. Monsieur Paul's not going to saddle himself with that slut.'

And Jeanne, heartbroken but unbowed, replied:

'No, never, Rosalie. And since he won't come to me, I shall go and find him, and then we'll see which of us shall prevail, she or I.'

And she wrote at once to Paul to tell him of her forthcoming visit, and asking to meet him somewhere other than in the house inhabited by this trollop.

Then, as she waited for a reply, she made ready for the journey. Rosalie began to pack her mistress's linen and personal effects into an old trunk. But as she was folding a dress, an old one of the type worn in the country, she exclaimed:

'You haven't a single thing to wear. I shan't let you go like this. Everyone would look down on you, and the ladies of Paris would think you were a servant.'

Jeanne let her have her way. So the two women went into Goderville together and chose a green check material, which was then entrusted to a local seamstress. Afterwards they went to see the notary, M. Roussel, who spent a fortnight in the capital every year, and asked him for information. For Jeanne had not been to Paris for twenty-eight years.

He gave them plentiful advice about how to avoid getting run over, and how not to be robbed, suggesting that they sew their money into the lining of their garments and that they keep an absolute minimum in their pocket. He talked at length about moderately priced restaurants, indicating two or three which were frequented by women; and he recommended the Hôtel de Normandie, where he had stayed himself, next to the railway station. They could mention his name.

For six years one of these railways that everyone talked about had been operating between Paris and Le Havre.
*
But Jeanne, full of her own woes, had not yet seen these steam engines that were revolutionizing the whole area.

Meanwhile Paul did not reply.

She waited a week, then a fortnight, each morning going out to meet the postman on the road and approaching him with trepidation:

'Anything for me this morning, Père Malandrain?'

And each time the man would reply in a voice made hoarse by the inclemency of the season:

'No, nothing again, my good lady.'

Clearly that woman was stopping Paul from replying!

Jeanne then resolved to leave at once. She wanted to take Rosalie with her, but the maid refused so as not to add to the cost of the journey.

Indeed, she would not let her mistress take more than three hundred francs with her:

'If you need more, you can write to me, and I'll go to the notary and have him send it to you. If I give you any more, Monsieur Paul will simply pocket it.'

So one December morning they climbed into Denis Lecoq's cart when he came to take them to the station, this being as far as Rosalie was to accompany her mistress.

First they enquired about the price of tickets; then, when everything had been paid for and the trunk registered, they waited by the railway line, trying to understand how it all worked and so preoccupied by its mystery that they forgot the sad reasons for the journey.

Eventually the distant sound of a whistle made them look round, and they caught sight of a black engine looming into view. It came past with a terrifying roar, pulling a long chain of wheeled vehicles behind it; and when a porter opened one of the doors, Jeanne embraced Rosalie tearfully and climbed into one of the compartments.

Rosalie, overcome with emotion, shouted:

'Goodbye, Madame. Have a good journey. We'll see each other again soon.'

'Goodbye, my dear.'

Another whistle went, and the whole rosary of carriages began to move forward, slowly at first, then faster, and finally at a terrifying speed.

In Jeanne's compartment two gentlemen were sitting in the corners, asleep.

She watched the countryside slip by, with its fields, its trees, its farms and villages, frightened by this speed and feeling as though she were caught up in some new way of life, being borne off into a new world that was no longer her own, no longer the world of her tranquil youth and her present monotonous existence.

Evening was falling when the train entered Paris.

A hotel doorman took Jeanne's trunk; and she followed him anxiously, bumping into people, unskilled at moving through the bustling crowd, almost running after the man for fear of losing him from sight.

When she reached the reception office at the hotel, she hurriedly announced:

'I have been recommended to you by Monsieur Roussel.'

'Monsieur Roussel? Who's he?' asked the Patronne, an enormous, unsmiling woman, sitting at her desk.

Taken aback, Jeanne replied:

'But he's the notary at Goderville. He stays here every year.'

'Perhaps he does. I don't know him,' the large lady declared. 'Do you want a room?'

'Yes, Madame.'

And a porter picked up her luggage and climbed the staircase ahead of her.

She felt very miserable. She sat down at a small table and asked them to send up some broth and a chicken wing. She had had nothing to eat since dawn.

She ate glumly by the light of a candle, thinking of a thousand different things, remembering her brief visit to this same city on her return from honeymoon, and how the first signs of Julien's character had manifested themselves during that stay in Paris. But she had been young then, and confident, and ready for anything. Now she felt old, awkward, timid even, and the slightest thing made her feel nervous and incapable. When she had finished her meal, she stood by the window and gazed down into the street, which was full of people. She wanted to go out, but did not dare. She would most assuredly get lost, she thought. She went to bed, and blew out the light.

But the noise, the sensation of being in a strange city, and the upheaval of the journey combined to keep her awake. The hours ticked by. The sounds from outside gradually subsided, but still she could not sleep, made restless by this semi-slumber of large cities. She was used to the deep, peaceful sleep of the fields, which exercises its soporific effect on everything, whether man, beast, or plant; whereas now she was aware of a whole mysterious  stirring going on around her. The barely audible sound of voices reached her, as though they had secreted themselves in the hotel walls. From time to time a floorboard would creak, a door would shut, a bell would ring.

Suddenly, about two o'clock, just as she was beginning to doze off, a woman screamed in a room nearby. Jeanne sat up in bed with a start; then she thought she heard a man's laugh.

Later, as dawn approached, she began thinking about Paul; and she got dressed at the first sign of daybreak.

He lived in the rue du Sauvage, in the Cité. She intended to walk there, in order to save money as Rosalie had advised her. The weather was fine; the cold air pricked her skin; people in a hurry were rushing past along the pavements. She was walking as quickly as she could along a street which had been pointed out to her, at the end of which she was to turn right, then left; when she reached the square, she would need to ask the way again. She did not find any square and asked at a baker's, where she was given different directions. She set off again, got lost, wandered around, asked the way again several times, and in the end had not the faintest idea where she was.

In her panic she was now walking almost without direction. She was about to call a cab when she saw the Seine. Then she followed the river.

About an hour later she entered the rue du Sauvage, which was a sort of dark alleyway. She stopped outside the door, so overcome with emotion that she was unable to move another inch.

Pullie was here, in this house.

She could feel her hands and knees trembling. Finally she went in, followed a long corridor, saw the concierge in his lodge, and, giving him a coin, made her request:

'Could you go up and tell Monsieur Paul de Lamare that an old lady, a friend of his mother's, is waiting downstairs?'

'He doesn't live here any more, Madame,' the porter replied.

A great shudder ran through her. She stammered:

'Ah, where . . . where does he live now?'

'I don't know.'

She felt dazed as though she were about to fall, and she stood  there for some time unable to speak. Eventually, with immense effort, she recovered her wits and murmured:

'How long has he been gone?'

The man informed her expansively:

'A fortnight now. They left just like that, one evening, and they haven't been back. They owed money everywhere around here. So, as you will appreciate, they didn't leave their address.'

Jeanne could see flashes of light, great jets of flame, as though someone were firing a gun right in front of her eyes. But her one ambition sustained her and enabled her to stand there, apparently calm and collected. She wanted information, she wanted to find Pullie.

'So he didn't say anything when he left?'

'Oh, no, not a word. They cleared off so they wouldn't have to pay, and that's the long and the short of it.'

'But he must send someone to fetch his letters.'

'More often than I'd give him any. And anyway they never got more than maybe ten in a year. I did take one up to them, though, two days before they left.

Her own letter, presumably. She said hurriedly:

'Look here, I am his mother, and I've come to find him. Here's ten francs for you. If you hear from him or have any information about him, bring it to me at the Hôtel de Normandie, in the rue du Havre, and I'll make it worth your while.'

He replied:

'You can count on me, Madame.'