A Love Story Page 22

  Hélène had got to her feet. She had to let her plant two kisses on her cheeks and to do so in her turn. These kisses made her freeze. She stammered:

  ‘Please excuse us for invading your garden.’

  ‘You are joking!’ responded Juliette impetuously. ‘You are at home here, aren’t you?’

  She left them a moment, went up the steps again to shout through the open rooms:

  ‘Pierre, don’t forget anything, there are seventeen bags!’ But she came back straight away and talked about her journey.

  ‘Oh, it was a delightful holiday. We were in Trouville,* you know. So many people on the beach, what a crush! Oh, we had a lovely time... I had visitors, lots of visitors... Papa came with Pauline for two weeks. All the same it’s nice to be back. Oh, I was going to tell you... No, I’ll tell you later.’

  She bent down to give Jeanne another kiss, then became serious and asked:

  ‘Am I sunburnt?’

  ‘No, I can’t see that you are,’ replied Hélène, looking at her.

  Juliette’s eyes were clear and limpid, her hands dimpled, her pretty face agreeable to look at. She never seemed to age. The sea air itself had not made an impact on that serene unconcern. She might have just been returning from a trip to Paris, from a shopping expedition, all aglow with the excitement of making her purchases. And yet she was gushing with affection, and Hélène was all the more embarrassed because she felt she was being stiff and ungracious. Jeanne, sitting on the rug, did not move. All she did was raise her sorrowful, delicate head, her hands clasped together in the sunshine as though she was chilly.

  ‘But wait, you haven’t seen Lucien,’ cried Juliette. ‘You must see him, he’s enormous!’

  And when the little boy had been brought out to her, the chambermaid having cleaned him up after getting dirty on the journey, she gave him a little push and turned him round to show him off. Lucien, round-faced, sturdy, and all sunburnt from playing on the beach in the sea breezes, looked the picture of health, and as though he had put on weight, although he was grumpy because he had just been washed. He wasn’t properly dry, one cheek was still wet, pink with the rubbing of the towel. When he saw Jeanne he stopped in surprise. She looked at him with her poor thin face, white as a sheet, the black tresses falling to her shoulders. Her wide eyes, so sad and beautiful, seemed to occupy the whole of her face. And in spite of the great heat, she trembled a little, while her hands, feeling chilly, constantly reached out as if to a great fire.

  ‘Well, are you not going to give her a kiss?’ asked Juliette.

  But Lucien seemed nervous. He finally made up his mind and was careful as he put out his lips to keep his distance from the sick girl as much as possible. Then he withdrew quickly. Hélène had tears in her eyes. How healthy this boy was! And her own Jeanne, who was so out of breath when she had walked round the lawn once! Some mothers were very fortunate! Suddenly Juliette understood how cruel she was being. Then she got cross with Lucien.

  ‘You silly little boy!... You don’t kiss young ladies like that! My dear, you can’t imagine how impossible he was in Trouville.’

  She was getting into a muddle. Luckily for her the doctor appeared. She got out of it by exclaiming:

  ‘Oh, there’s Henri!’

  He wasn’t expecting them till evening. But she had caught another train. And she went into long explanations why, without managing to be clear. The doctor listened with a smile.

  ‘Well, you are here,’ he said. ‘That’s the main thing.’

  He had just acknowledged Hélène with a silent nod. His eyes for a moment fell on Jeanne, then, embarrassed, he turned aside. The little girl had looked back at him gravely; and unlocking her hands in an instinctive gesture, pulled her mother closer.

  ‘Oh, what a big boy!’ the doctor said again, lifting up Lucien, who was kissing him on the cheeks. ‘He’s shooting up.’

  ‘And what about me, do I get a kiss?’ Juliette asked.

  She leaned towards him. He did not put Lucien down, he kept him on one arm at the same time as he kissed his wife. All three smiled at each other.

  Hélène, very pale, said she must go back. But Jeanne refused. She wanted to see, she gave the Deberles a long stare and then looked back at her mother. When Juliette held out her lips to her husband to be kissed, the child’s eyes had brightened.

  ‘He’s such a heavy boy,’ the doctor went on, putting Lucien down. ‘So did you have a good holiday? I saw Malignon yesterday, he told me about his trip over there... Did you let him come home before you then?’

  ‘Oh, he’s impossible!’ Juliette said, becoming serious and looking embarrassed. ‘He annoyed us the whole time.’

  ‘Your father had hopes for Pauline... Did our friend not declare himself?’

  ‘Who, him, Malignon?’ she cried in surprise and as if offended.

  Then she made a gesture of annoyance.

  ‘Oh, don’t go on about him, he’s crazy! What a relief to be home!’

  And without any apparent transition, she surprised everyone in her charming, birdlike way with an effusive gesture. She pressed against her husband, looking up at him. Indulgent and tender, he held her a moment in his arms, they seemed to have forgotten they were not on their own.

  Jeanne did not take her eyes off them. Her pale lips trembled and coloured, she looked like any jealous, vindictive woman... The pain she suffered was so acute that she had to look away. And it was at that moment that she caught sight of Rosalie and Zéphyrin at the bottom of the garden still looking for parsley. No doubt in order to avoid disturbing the others, they had slipped into the denser part of the copse, both crouching down. Zéphyrin had slyly caught hold of one of Rosalie’s feet, while she was beating him off. Between two branches, Jeanne could see the little soldier’s face, a pleasant, very red moonlike face, creasing in amorous laughter. There was a shove and the little soldier and the maid rolled over behind the greenery. The sun beat down, the trees slept, unmoving in the warm air, not a leaf stirred. From under the elms rose a scent, the rich scent of earth which was never dug. Slowly the last tea roses showered their petals one by one on to the steps. Then Jeanne, her heart full, looked back at her mother, and seeing that she was standing stock-still and silent in front of what was going on there, she gave her a look of terrible anguish, one of those childish looks that you don’t dare question.

  Meanwhile Madame Deberle had drawn near, saying:

  ‘I hope we shall see you... Since Jeanne is better, she must come down every afternoon.’

  Hélène was already searching for an excuse, pretending she did not want to tire her. But Jeanne intervened swiftly:

  ‘No, no, the sun is really nice. We’ll come down, Madame. You’ll keep my place won’t you?’

  And as the doctor stayed back, she smiled at him.

  ‘Doctor, tell Maman the fresh air is good for me.’

  He came forward and this man who was so used to human pain reddened a little because the child was talking to him so sweetly.

  ‘Of course,’ he said softly. ‘Fresh air can only make you better more quickly.’

  ‘So you see, Maman dear, we have to,’ she said, looking at them cajolingly, but her sobs were choking her.

  Pierre had reappeared on the steps. Madame’s seventeen bags had all been brought in. Juliette, followed by her husband and Lucien, slipped away declaring that she was horribly dirty and was going to take a bath. When they were alone, Hélène knelt on the rug as if to fix the shawl around Jeanne’s neck again. Then in a low voice:

  ‘So aren’t you cross with the doctor any more?’

  The child shook her head slowly.

  ‘No, Maman.’

  Silence fell. Hélène, hands trembling and fumbling, seemed unable to tie the knot in the shawl. Then Jeanne murmured:

  ‘Why does he love other people? I don’t want...’

  And her dark expression hardened, while her tense little hands stroked her mother’s shoulders. The latter was about to exclaim but was af
raid of the words that rose to her lips. The sun was going down. They both went upstairs again. Meanwhile Zéphyrin had reappeared with a bunch of parsley which he was trimming, throwing murderous glances at Rosalie the while. The maid, keeping her distance, did not trust him now that no one else was there. And as he pinched her the minute she bent over to roll up the rug, she gave him a punch in the back which made a sound like an empty barrel. That gave him great pleasure. He was still laughing about it as he went back into the kitchen, still trimming his parsley.

  From that day Jeanne obstinately insisted on going down into the garden as soon as she heard Madame Deberle’s voice. She listened eagerly to Rosalie’s gossip about the neighbours, concerned about what was going on there, sometimes slipping away from the bedroom and coming to watch at the kitchen window too. Down in the garden, she settled back in a little armchair that Juliette had had brought out from the drawing room, she seemed to be keeping an eye on the whole family, reserved with Lucien, impatient at his questions and his games, especially when the doctor was there. Then she stretched out as if weary, eyes open, looking. For Hélène these afternoons were very difficult to bear. Yet she went down there, she went down though her whole being revolted against it. Each time Henri came back and planted a kiss on Juliette’s head, her heart missed a beat. And if at those moments to hide her distress she pretended to be busy looking after Jeanne, she could see that the child was paler than herself, with her great black eyes and her chin tense with mute anger. Jeanne was going through torture. Those days when her mother, at the end of her tether, was hiding her face in agonies of love, she herself remained so glum and so exhausted that they had to take her upstairs again and put her to bed. She could no longer watch the doctor embrace his wife without her face dropping, but watched him nervously with the angry look of a betrayed mistress.

  ‘I am coughing in the mornings,’ she said to him. ‘You ought to come and see.’

  It started raining. Jeanne wanted the doctor to begin visiting her again. Yet she was in much better health. In order to please her, her mother had been forced to accept an invitation to two or three dinners at the Deberles. The child, whose heart had for so long been broken by her hidden struggle, seemed to calm down when her health was completely restored. She repeated her question:

  ‘Are you happy, Maman?’

  ‘Yes, very happy, darling.’

  Then she was radiant. She said they must forgive her for her past behaviour. She talked about it as if she was being attacked, independent of her will, as of a headache that she might suddenly have. Something was growing inside her, and of course she didn’t know what. All sorts of conflicting ideas in her head, vague thoughts, bad dreams which she could not tell anyone about. But it was over, she was getting better, it would not return.

  Chapter 5

  Night was falling. From the pale sky where the first stars were shining, a fine ash seemed to be raining down on the city, that slowly but surely was disappearing. Shadows were already massing in the dips while an ink-black line rose from below the horizon, devouring the remains of the day, the hesitant glow that was retreating towards the setting sun. Beneath Passy there remained only a few stretches of roof still visible. Then came the black flood as darkness fell.

  ‘How hot it is tonight!’ Hélène said softly, as she sat languidly in front of her window, in the warm breeze blowing across from Paris.

  ‘A good night for the poor,’ said the abbé standing behind her. ‘We shall have a lovely autumn.’

  That Tuesday Jeanne had been drowsy at dessert and her mother had put her to bed when she saw she was rather tired. She was already asleep in her little bed while at the little table Monsieur Rambaud concentrated on mending a toy, a clockwork doll that walked and talked, which he had given her as a present and she had broken. He was extremely good at this kind of thing. Hélène, needing some air and suffering from this last September heatwave, had just opened wide the window, comforted by the great sea of shadow, this black immensity stretching out before her. She had pushed a chair forward to be on her own and was surprised to hear the priest’s voice. He gently remarked:

  ‘Did you cover her up properly? The air is still quite cool up here.’

  But she needed to be quiet, and made no reply. She was enjoying the delights of the twilight, the final extinguishing of things, the noise slowly abating. A night light was burning on top of the spires and towers. Saint-Augustin’s was the first to go out, the Panthéon retained its bluish glow for a moment, the dazzling Dôme des Invalides disappeared like the moon in a rising tide of cloud. It was the ocean, the night, stretching great distances into the darkness, an abyss of blackness where you could imagine whole worlds. A strong, warm gust of wind came from the invisible city. In the roaring, sustained voice, there were still sounds, some faint, some distinct, the sudden rumble of a bus travelling along the banks, the whistle of a train crossing the bridge at the Point-du-Jour. And the Seine, higher after the recent thunderstorms, flowed by, much wider, breathing hard like a living being, longer right at the bottom, in a fold of shadow. A warm smell emanated from the roofs that were still burning; the river, in this slow exhalation of the heat of the day, sent up little breaths of cool air. Paris had vanished and was dreaming in its sleep, like a colossus which allows the night to wrap it round and remains there motionless for a moment with its eyes open. Nothing moved Hélène more than this suspended moment in the life of the city. In the three months she had been confined there next to Jeanne’s bed, her only companion in keeping watch over the invalid had been the great city of Paris stretching out to the horizon. In this July and August heatwave the windows were almost continuously open; she couldn’t cross the room, move, turn her head, without seeing its eternal picture on display for her. It was there in all weathers sharing her sufferings and her hopes like a friend who called on her regularly. But she still did not know it properly, she had never been so far away from it, or more indifferent to its streets and its inhabitants. Yet it filled her solitude. These few square feet, this sickroom whose door she kept so firmly shut, opened out and received the city through the two windows. She had very often wept to see it when she came over and leaned on the sill to hide her tears from the invalid. Once, the day she had thought she was lost, she had stood there choking and unable to catch her breath for a long time, looking at the smoke from the Military Depot floating up. Often too in the hours of hope she had entrusted the happiness of her heart to the distant faubourgs. There was not one monument that did not recall a sad or happy feeling. Paris lived through her life. But she never loved it so much as when the twilight came, when at the end of the day, it allowed itself a quarter of an hour’s peace, forgetfulness and dreaming, before the lighting of the lamps.

  ‘What a lot of stars!’ muttered Abbé Jouve. ‘Thousands of them shining.’

  He had just taken a chair and sat down near her. Then she looked up at the summer sky. The night was studded with golden constellations. A planet, almost on the line of the horizon, was shining like a garnet, while a sparkling cloud of almost invisible stars was scattered across the heavens. The Plough was slowly turning, with its shafts uplifted.

  ‘Look’, she said in her turn, ‘at that little blue star in the corner of the sky, I see it every evening... But it is going further away every night.’

  Now she did not mind the abbé being there. She felt him beside her like another reassuring presence. They exchanged a few words with long silences in between. Twice she asked him about the stars’ names; always the view of the sky had tormented her. But he hesitated, he didn’t know.

  ‘Can you see that lovely star with such a pure light?’ she asked.

  ‘On the left?’ he said. ‘Near another smaller one, greenish...? There are too many, I’ve forgotten.’

  They were silent, their eyes still raised, dazzled and trembling a little beneath this, as it seemed, ever vaster teeming in the heavens. Beyond the thousands of stars, thousands more appeared, more and more, in the infinite d
epths of the firmament. It was a continual flowering, an ember fanned into life, of worlds that burned with the quiet brightness of jewels. The Milky Way was already whiter, spreading its starry atoms so innumerable and distant that they were no more than a scarf of light in the round firmament.

  ‘I am frightened,’ said Hélène in a very small voice.

  And she bowed her head so as not to look any more, bringing her eyes back to the open chasm in which Paris seemed to be swallowed up. Not one gleam of light was yet there, the complete blackness was equally dispersed. A blinding darkness. The long high note had grown sweeter.

  ‘Are you weeping?’ the abbé asked, for he had just heard a sob.

  ‘Yes,’ Hélène replied, simply.

  They could not see each other. She was weeping copiously, her whole body trembling. Meanwhile behind them Jeanne was sleeping the sleep of the innocent while Monsieur Rambaud, absorbed, bent his greying head over the doll, whose arms and legs he had dismembered. But now and then muffled noises of springs being unwound could be heard, and childish squeaks which his thick fingers extracted as softly as he could from the broken mechanism. And when the doll squeaked too loudly, he stopped short, worried and annoyed, looking to make sure he had not woken Jeanne. Then he started mending again carefully, with only a pair of scissors and a bradawl for tools.

  ‘Why are you crying, my child?’ asked the abbé. ‘Can I not bring you any consolation?’

  ‘Let me be,’ murmured Hélène. ‘These tears do me good... In a little while...’

  She was too choked to answer. Once before a crisis of weeping had broken her; but then she was on her own, she had been able to weep in the darkness until she was exhausted, waiting for the source of the emotion that was swelling in her to dry up. And yet she was not aware of any great trouble. Her daughter was saved, she herself had gone back again to her monotonous and pleasant routine, her life. Suddenly in her it was like the intense feeling of an immense sadness, an unfathomable emptiness that she would never fill, a boundless despair where she was drowning along with all those people she cared about. She would not have been able to say what misfortune was threatening her in that way, but she was without hope, and she was weeping.