A Life (37 page)

Then she had quivered with the same sudden stirrings, had savoured this sweet tenderness, this head-turning intoxication of warm days, as she awaited her future. And here she was now reliving it all, now that the future was closed to her. She could still feel the pleasure of it in her heart; but it pained her too, as if the eternal joy of the world's revival could exert only a scant and poignant charm as it entered her withered flesh, her thinned blood, her prostrate soul.

It seemed to her too that, all around her, things were somehow not quite the same. The sun was surely just a little less warm than in her youth, the sky a little less blue, the grass a little less green; and the flowers, less brightly coloured now and less strongly scented, were no longer quite as intoxicating as once they had been.

Some days, nevertheless, it felt so good to be alive that she began once more to dream, to hope, to anticipate; for, despite the relentless cruelty of fate, is there not always hope when the weather is fine?

She would walk on and on, for hours and hours, as though spurred by the excitement in her soul. And sometimes she would stop suddenly and sit down at the edge of the road to think sad thoughts. Why had she not been loved like other women? Why  had she not known even the simple happiness of a peaceful existence?

And sometimes she could still forget that she was old, with nothing to look forward to but a few dismal years of loneliness, that she had reached journey's end; and she would make fond plans, just as she had when she was sixteen, a charming patch work of tiny hopes for the future. Then the harsh awareness of reality would descend upon her; she would struggle to her feet once more, stiff and aching, as though some heavy weight had fallen and crushed her spine; and she would set off home again, walking more slowly this time and muttering to herself: 'You stupid old woman, you stupid old woman!'

And now Rosalie was forever saying to her: 'Calm yourself, Madame, calm yourself. Why must you always be in such a pother?'

And Jeanne answered sadly:

'I can't help it. I'm like Slaughter was at the end.'

One morning the maid came into her room earlier than usual and, putting the bowl of café au lait down on her bedside table, said:

'Come along, drink up. Denis is waiting for us at the gate. We're off to Les Peuples, I've a matter to attend to there.'

Jeanne was so affected by this news that she thought she was going to faint; and as she dressed, she trembled with excitement and nervous trepidation at the prospect of seeing her dear home again.

A brilliant, sunny morning shone across the land; and the trap-pony was full of such cheer that it would periodically break into a gallop. When they entered the village of Etouvent, Jeanne's heart was beating so wildly that she felt as though she could scarcely breathe; and when she saw the brick pillars of the front gate, she muttered two or three times, in spite of herself: 'Oh, oh, oh,' as one does at moments of particular emotional consequence.

They unhitched the trap at the Couillards'. Then, while Rosalie and her son went about their business, the farm-tenants suggested that Jeanne might like to look round the chateau, since the owners were away, and they gave her the keys.

She set off on her own, and when she had reached the side of the old manor-house which faced the sea, she stopped to gaze at it. Nothing had changed on the outside. And that day the weathered façades of the huge grey house were wreathed in smiles of sunlight. All the shutters were closed.

A twig from a dead branch fell on her dress, and she looked up; it had come from the plane-tree. She walked up to the thick tree-trunk, with its smooth, pale bark, and stroked it like an animal. Her foot trod on a piece of rotten wood lying in the grass; it was the last remains of the bench on which she had sat so often with her family, the bench they had installed the very day Julien first came to call.

Then she reached the double doors at the front and found great difficulty in opening them, as the heavy, rusty key refused to turn. Eventually the lock gave with a harsh grinding of springs; and one of the doors, itself a little stiff, yielded to a shove.

At once, and almost running, Jeanne went upstairs to her bedroom. She did not recognize it with its bright wallpaper; but when she opened the window, her heart stopped at the sight of the view she had loved so much, the copse, the elms, the heath, the sea dotted with brown sails which at this distance seemed not to move.

Then she began to wander all over the big, empty house. She noticed familiar-looking marks on the walls. She stopped by a small hole which the Baron had made in the plaster when, in memory of younger days, he frequently delighted in poking his stick into the wall as he went past, as if he were fencing.

In Mama's bedroom, stuck into the back of a door in a dark corner over by the bed, she found a fine gold-topped pin which she had put there once (as she now remembered) and which she had looked for for years afterwards. No one had ever found it. She took in her hand as though it were some priceless relic and kissed it.

She went everywhere, seeking and finding almost invisible marks in the drapery of the rooms which had not been redecorated, seeing once more the strange shapes which the imagination is given to perceiving in the pattern of material or marble, or in the shadows on the ceilings blackened with age.

She moved about noiselessly, all alone in the vast, silent chateau, as though she were walking through a graveyard. Her whole life lay buried there.

She went down to the drawing-room. It lay in darkness behind closed shutters, and it took her some time to make things out. Then, as her eyes got used to the gloom, she gradually recognized the tall tapestries with their strutting birds. Two armchairs still stood by the fireplace as though they had just been vacated; and the very smell of the rooma smell which it had always possessed, just as people have their own, a faint but easily recognizable smell, the sweet, indeterminate aroma of old apartmentstook possession of Jeanne, surrounding her with memories and making her head spin in giddy recollection. She stood there gasping, breathing in this exhalation of the past, and staring at the two chairs. And all at once, in a sudden hallucination born of her one, single, overriding memory, she thought she saw, in fact she did see, as she had so often seen them in the past, her father and mother warming their feet by the fire.

She stepped back in terror, colliding with the edge of the open door, and grabbed on to it to prevent herself from falling, still staring at the two armchairs.

The vision had gone.

She remained in a daze for a few minutes. Then gradually she returned to her senses, and was about to flee the room, afraid that mind when her eyes fell by chance on the door-jamb was leaning; and she saw Pullie's scale.

The sequence of faint marks ran up the paintwork at uneven intervals, together with the numbers which had been scratched with a penknife to indicate the month and year and her son's height. Sometimes they were in the Baron's handwriting, which was bigger, and sometimes in her own, smaller, hand, and sometimes in Aunt Lison's, which was rather shaky. And at once it was as though the child of old was standing there in front of her, with his blond hair, pressing his little forehead to the wall so that they could measure his height.

'Jeanne,' the Baron would shout, ' he's grown a centimetre in six weeks.'

She began to kiss the door-frame in a frenzy of affection.

But someone was calling for her outside. It was Rosalie's voice:

'Madame Jeanne, Madame Jeanne, it's lunchtime, we're waiting for you.'

She went outside, her mind elsewhere, no longer capable of taking in whatever anyone said to her. She ate what was put in front of her, she heard people talking but had no idea what they were talking about, she conversed with the farmers' wives presumably, since they asked after her health, and she allowed herself to be kissed, and herself kissed various cheeks that were proffered, before climbing back onto the trap.

When she lost sight of the high roof of the chateau through the trees, she felt as though her breast were being rent asunder. She knew in her heart that she had just said goodbye to her house for the last time.

They returned to Batteville.

Just as she was about to enter her new home once more, she caught sight of something white beneath the door; it was a letter that the postman had slipped underneath while she was out. She saw at once that it was from Paul, and she opened it, trembling with anxiety. It said:

'My dear Mama, I have not written sooner because I did not wish to cause you an unnecessary journey to Paris, seeing that I would be coming to visit you soon myself. A great misfortune has befallen me at the present time, and I am faced with a great difficulty. My wife is dying, having given birth to a little girl three days ago; and I have not a penny in the world. I don't know what to do with the baby; my concierge is feeding her with a bottle as best she can, but I fear I may lose the child. Could you not look after her? I really do not know what to do, and I have no money to pay a wet-nurse. Reply by return.

Your loving son, Paul'

Jeanne collapsed onto a chair, hardly able to summon Rosalie. When the maid arrived, they read the letter again together, and then they just sat in silence, opposite each other, for a long time.

Finally Rosalie spoke:

'I'll go and fetch the little girl myself, Madame. We just can't leave her there like that.'

Jeanne replied:

'Go, my dear.'

After a further period of silence, the maid continued:

'Put your hat on, Madame, and we'll go to Goderville and see the notary. If that woman's going to die, Monsieur Paul's got to marry her, for the little one's sake, later on.'

And without a word Jeanne put her hat on. A great and unavowable joy filled her heart, a perfidious joy that she sought to conceal at all cost, joy of that abominable kind which makes a person blush and yet which is fervently savoured in the inner most secrecy of the soul: her son's mistress was going to die.

The notary gave the maid detailed instructions which she asked him to repeat several times. Then, when she was confident that she would know precisely what to do, she declared:

'Have no fear. I shall see to the matter now.'

She departed for Paris that night.

Jeanne spent two days in such a state of perturbation that she was incapable of any serious reflection. On the third morning she received a brief message from Rosalie announcing her return by the evening train. Nothing else.

Towards three o'clock she asked a neighbour to harness his trap and drive her to the station at Beuzeville to wait for her maid.

She stood on the platform, with her eyes fixed on the straight line of the rails stretching away into the distance and merging on the far, far horizon. From time to time she looked at the clock.Ten minutes to go.Five minutes to go. Two minutes.Now it's time.Nothing appeared on the distant track. All at once she saw a white blotch, a trail of steam, and then, beneath it, a black dot getting bigger and bigger and racing towards them. Eventually the great locomotive slowed down and began to thunder past Jeanne, who was eagerly scanning the carriage doors. Several opened, and people got out: workmen in smocks, farmers' wives with baskets, tradesmen in soft felt hats. At last she caught sight  of Rosalie, carrying what looked like a bundle of clothing in her arms.

She wanted to walk towards her, but her legs had turned to water and she was afraid she might fall. The maid saw her, approached with her usual calm air, and said:

'Good evening, Madame. Here I am, I'm back. But it's not been easy, I can tell you.'

'Well?' Jeanne stammered.

'Well, she died last night,' replied Rosalie. 'They did get married. Here's the little one.'

And she held out the child, which was invisible wrapped in all its blankets.

Jeanne took her automatically, and they left the station and climbed into the trap.

Rosalie continued:

'Monsieur Paul will be coming as soon as the funeral's over. Tomorrow at the same time, I expect.'

Jeanne murmured 'Paul . . .', but did not finish.

The sun was sinking towards the horizon, pouring brilliant light down onto the greening plains blotched with golden rape and blood-red poppy. An infinite peace lay upon the tranquil earth and the seed that lay germinating within. Meanwhile the trap sped along, its driver busy clicking his tongue to urge his horse forward.

Jeanne was looking straight ahead of her into the distance, where the arcing flights of swallows crisscrossed the sky like rocket trails. And suddenly, through her skirts, a feeling of soft, gentle warmth, the warmth of life, touched her legs and entered her flesh; it was the warmth of the little creature asleep on her lap.

An enormous wave of emotion swept over her. Quickly she uncovered the face of this child that she had not yet seen: her son's daughter. And as the tiny creature, disturbed by the bright light, opened her blue eyes and began to move her lips, Jeanne started to embrace it wildly, lifting it up in her arms and showering it with kisses.

But Rosalie, the happy curmudgeon, stopped her:

'Steady, steady, Madame Jeanne, that's enough. You'll make her cry.'

Then she added, no doubt in response to her own thoughts:

'You see, life's never as good or as bad as we think.'

EXPLANATORY NOTES

2.
in memory of a departed friend
:
A Life
is dedicated to Mme Léonie Brainne, née Rivoire. Daughter of a Rouen newspaper editor and widow of the journalist Charles Brainne (d. 1864), she was a close friend of the novelist Gustave Flaubert, who 'departed' on 8 May 1880. (See Introduction, pp. ixxii.) Mme Brainne had sought to launch Maupassant in Parisian society, and her son Henry was a regular companion of his. She died not long after publication of
A Life
.

3.
as an enthusiastic disciple of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (171278), one of the principal thinkers of the French Enlightenment, argued for the natural goodness of human beings and held 'civilization' responsible for moral corruption. His Deist beliefs were founded on the belief that God's hand is manifest in nature.