A Love Story Read online

  Jeanne, her sleeves soaked, had a fit of coughing. But, so preoccupied with the thought that her mother had gone down into Paris, she did not feel the cold penetrating her body. She managed to recognize three monuments, Les Invalides, the Panthéon, the Tour Saint-Jacques. She repeated their names, she could pick them out with her finger without being able to imagine how they would look close to. Probably her mother would be over there, and she thought likely she was in the Panthéon, because that was the building she found most astonishing, enormous as it was and sticking up in the air like the city’s plume. She pondered the matter. For her, Paris was still the place where children did not go. Nobody ever took her there. She would have liked to know, to be able to tell herself quietly: ‘Maman is there, she is doing such and such a thing’, but it seemed too vast and you could not see anyone. Her eyes skipped to the other end of the plain. Was she not rather among that pile of houses on the left, on a hill? Or really close by under the tall trees, whose bare branches resembled logs of dead wood? Oh, to be able to lift off their roofs! And what was that very black monument? And that street in which there was something big running? And all that district she was afraid of, because for certain there were fights going on there. She could not make it out clearly. But truth to tell, there was something moving there, it was very ugly, little girls ought not to look. All sorts of vague suppositions which made her want to cry were troubling her in her childish ignorance. At this time of melt and thaw, Paris the unknown, with its smoke, its constant rumbling, its powerful life, was breathing out an odour of poverty, putrefaction, and crime which made her young head spin, as if she was leaning over one of those pestilential wells, which exhale their invisible mud and suffocate you. Les Invalides, the Panthéon, the Tour Saint-Jacques, she named them all, she counted them. Then, at a loss, she remained there, afraid and ashamed, and she couldn’t rid herself of the idea that her mother was there among these sordid things, exactly where, she couldn’t tell, over there in the distance.

  Abruptly Jeanne turned. She could have sworn that there was a footstep in the bedroom, and even that there had been a light touch on her shoulder. But the room was empty, and still in the very untidy state Hélène had left it. The dressing gown was still lying prostrate and crumpled, apparently weeping into the bolster. Then Jeanne, pale as a ghost, looked quickly round the room, and her heart broke. She was alone, all alone. Oh God! Her mother, leaving, had pushed her, and so very violently she had fallen to the floor. That came back to her with anguish, she could feel once more the pain of that brutal action in her wrists and shoulders. Why had she struck her? She was a good little girl, she wasn’t to blame for anything. Usually people spoke kindly to her, she was disgusted by this punishment. She felt as she had when she was scared as a little girl, when they threatened her with the wolf and she looked for it but couldn’t see it; it was as if in the shadows there were things coming to crush her. However, she was suspicious and her face grew deathly pale with jealous rage. Suddenly the thought that her mother must love the people she had rushed to see more than her, throwing her so roughly out of the way, caused her to clutch her chest with both hands. Now she knew. Her mother was betraying her.

  A great anxiety hung over Paris, in expectation of another squall. The darkened sky muttered, thick clouds were amassing. Jeanne at the window coughed violently. But she felt that by being cold she was getting her revenge, she wanted to be ill. Her hands held against her chest, she felt her discomfort increase. She was suffering and her body was delivering itself up to it. She shook with fear and dared not turn her head, the thought of looking at the bedroom again made her blood run cold. We do not have much strength when we are small. So what was the nature of this new pain, whose crisis filled her with both shame and a bitter satisfaction? When they teased her, tickled her, in spite of her laughter, she had felt this shudder of exasperation. She waited, her innocent, virgin limbs stiff and tense in revolt. And deep in her heart, from her loins where her womanhood was stirring, a sharp pain pierced her as if it were a blow she had received from somewhere far off. Then, half-fainting, she uttered a stifled cry: ‘Maman, Maman!’ without it being possible to detect if she was crying to her mother for help or if she was accusing her of sending her those ills which were causing her such agony.

  At that moment the storm broke. The wind howled through the heavy, anxious silence hanging over the blackened city. And a prolonged noise of fracturing could be heard across Paris; shutters were rattling, slates were flying, chimney pots and gutters were bouncing down on to the cobbled streets. A few seconds’ calm. Then came a new blast and filled the horizon with such almighty gusts that the ocean of roofs quaked and seemed to rise in waves and disappear in a whirlwind. For an instant all was chaos. Enormous clouds, spreading like ink-stains, ran into the midst of the smaller ones and broke them up, tearing them to bits like rags ripped apart by the wind, and carrying them off strand by strand. For one moment two clouds did battle with one another, broke up noisily, and scattered debris into the copper-coloured space; and every time the hurricane rose like that, blowing from every direction in the sky there was a violent colliding of airborne armies, an immense collapsing whose wreckage, suspended there, would come down and crush Paris. It was not yet raining. But suddenly a cloud burst on the centre of the city, torrents of rain flowed back up the Seine. The green ribbon of river, riddled and soiled by the pounding rain, turned into a stream of mud. And one by one behind the downpour the bridges reappeared, thinner, lighter in the vapour, while to right and left the deserted banks shook their trees in fury along the grey line of paths. In the distance above Notre-Dame, the cloud split and such cataracts poured down, the Cité was drowned. Alone above the submerged quartier the towers floated like wreckage in a pool of light. But the sky opened up in all directions, the Right Bank seemed to be submerged three times over. A first wave from the distant faubourgs, increasing in size, beat against the spires of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul and the Tour Saint-Jacques which whitened under the flood. Two more such torrents, one after the other, streamed down on Montmartre and the Champs-Élysées. At times you could see the glass in the Palais de l’Industrie steaming as the rain bounced off it; Saint-Augustin whose cupola rolled round in the depths of a fog like an extinguished moon, the Madeleine with its flat elongated roof like the thoroughly washed flagstones on some ruined forecourt. Behind these, the enormous, dark mass of the Opéra put you in mind of a dismasted ship, its hull caught between two rocks, resisting the assaults of the storm. On the Left Bank, through a haze of water, you could see the Dôme des Invalides, the towers of Sainte-Clotilde, the towers of Saint-Sulpice blurring at the edges and melting in the damp, soaking air. The cloud got bigger, the colonnade of the Panthéon loosed sheets of water which threatened to inundate the lower quartiers. And from that moment the rain beat down in every part of the city. You would have thought the sky was throwing itself at the earth. Streets foundered, went under entirely and resurfaced again, in great shuddering gusts whose violence seemed to presage the end of the city. A continuous grumbling noise could be heard, the voice of the swollen gutters, the thundering water emptying into the sewers. Meanwhile above the murky city, coloured a uniform dirty yellow by the downpours, the clouds were fraying, turning a pale livid hue, spreading evenly across the sky without fissure or stain. The rain became thinner, straighter, sharper. And when another gust came, great waves made the grey hatching shimmer, you could hear the oblique, almost horizontal rain lashing with a whistling noise against the walls until the wind dropped and it became vertical again, stabbing and stabbing at the ground until it quietened down from the heights of Passy to the flat land in Charenton. Then, as though it had been destroyed and had died in the wake of one final convulsion, the city lay effaced under the sky like a field of toppled stones.

  Jeanne, slumped at the window, stammered ‘Maman, Maman’ again and in an immense fatigue, very weak, saw Paris under water. In this annihilation, her hair hanging down and her face wetted by the raindrops,
she still felt the bittersweet sensation which had just made her tremble, while inside she lamented for something that could never be mended. Everything seemed to be over, she thought she was growing very old. The hours might go by, she would not even look into the bedroom. It was all one to her to be alone and forgotten. Such despair filled her childish heart, everything went dark around her. It would be very unfair of them to scold her like they used to when she was ill. It was burning her, it hurt like a headache. Just now, something in her had been broken, that was certain. She could do nothing about it. She had to put up with whatever they decreed. When all was said and done, she was too tired. She had folded her two little arms on the windowsill and was growing sleepy; her head was propped up and from time to time she opened her eyes very wide to look at the rain.

  And still it fell, the pale sky was melting into water. The last gust had passed and a monotonous rumbling could be heard. The sovereign rain was beating down ceaselessly into the solemn stillness, the silence and abandon of the subdued city. And a ghostly Paris in trembling shapes seemed to be dissolving into the crystalline streaks of this deluge. All it had to offer Jeanne now was the need to sleep, and have horrible dreams, as if all the mystery, the unknown evil, had breathed out its fog and was entering her body and making her cough. Every time she opened her eyes she had a coughing fit and she remained there, looking out for a few seconds; then, letting her head fall again, she carried that image in her, it seemed to her that it was spreading and crushing her.

  It was still raining. Whatever time was it now? Jeanne could not have said. Perhaps the clock had stopped. It seemed to her she was too weary to turn round and look. Her mother had been gone at least a week. She had stopped waiting for her, she was resigned to not seeing her again. Then she forgot everything, the misery they had caused her, the strange pain she had just endured, even being left, abandoned by everyone. It was like a stone-cold weight upon her. But she was very unhappy, oh, she was as unhappy as those poor little lost children in doorways to whom she gave money. It would never end, she would be like that for years, it was too big and too heavy to bear for a little girl. Oh heavens, you coughed so much, you felt so cold when nobody loved you any more! She closed her heavy eyes, dizzy with fever and fatigue, and her last thought was a vague memory of her early childhood, visiting a windmill with yellow corn, very small grains which fell under millstones as big as houses.

  Hours and hours went by. Every minute lasted a hundred years. The rain fell without stopping, at the same unhurried pace as though it had all the time in the world, an eternity, to flood the plain. Jeanne slept. Near her, the doll hanging over the windowsill, with her legs in the room and her head outside, looked as if she were drowned, with her chemise sticking to her pink skin, her eyes staring, her hair streaming wet. And she was pitifully thin, in her comical, desolating posture looking like a little dead thing. Jeanne coughed in her sleep. But she did not open her eyes. Her head dropped on to her folded arms, the cough tailed off in a whistle as she slept. And that was all, she was asleep in the dark, she did not even withdraw her hand; clear drops fell from her reddened fingers, one by one, into the vast spaces opening up under the window. It lasted for hours and hours. On the horizon Paris had vanished like a shadow city, the sky was lost in the bewildering chaos extending everywhere. The grey rain continued to fall, obstinately.

  Part Five

  Chapter 1

  When Hélène returned, night had long fallen.

  As she struggled up the stairs holding on to the banisters, her umbrella dripped on to the steps. Outside her door she stayed there for a second or two to catch her breath, being still rather light-headed from the rain pouring down around her, the jostling elbows of people running, the reflection of the lamps dancing in the puddles. She walked in a dream, stunned by the kisses she had just received and given. And while she was looking for her key she was thinking that she felt neither remorse nor joy. It had happened and there was nothing she could do to change it. But she could not find her key. Probably she had left it in the pocket of her other dress. Then she was very put out, it seemed to her she had been shut out of her own house. She had to ring.

  ‘Oh, it’s Madame,’ said Rosalie as she went to open it. ‘I was beginning to get worried.’ And taking the umbrella into the kitchen, she put it on the stone sink:

  ‘What rain, eh? Zéphyrin has just arrived and is soaked as a sponge... I asked him to stay for supper, Madame, I hope that’s all right? He’s got ten hours’ leave.’

  Mechanically, Hélène followed her. She seemed to need to go into all the rooms in her apartment before taking her hat off.

  ‘That was quite right, my dear,’ she replied.

  She stayed in the kitchen doorway one moment, looking at the lighted stove. Instinctively she opened a cupboard door and shut it again. All the furniture was in its place; she was glad to see it again. Meanwhile Zéphyrin had got up out of respect. She smiled and gave him a slight nod.

  ‘I didn’t know if I should put in the roast,’ said the maid.

  ‘Why, what time is it?’ Hélène asked.

  ‘It will soon be seven, Madame.’

  ‘What? Seven o’clock!’

  And she was very surprised. She had lost all track of time. This woke her.

  ‘And what about Jeanne?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, she’s been very good, Madame. I think she might even have fallen asleep because I haven’t heard her.’

  ‘So did you not take her a light?’

  Rosalie was embarrassed, unwilling to admit that Zéphyrin had brought pictures. Mademoiselle had not made a sound, therefore Mademoiselle did not need anything. But Hélène was not listening. She went into the bedroom and went very cold all over.

  ‘Jeanne, Jeanne!’ she called.

  There was no answering voice. She bumped into an armchair. The dining-room door which she had left half-open threw some light on a corner of the rug. She shivered, the rain seemed to be pouring in, blowing continuously right into the room. Turning, she saw the pale square of the window etched against the grey sky.

  ‘Whoever opened that window!’ she cried. ‘Jeanne! Jeanne!’

  Still no answer. She was worried to death. She tried to look out of the window, but as she groped towards it she felt someone’s hair. Jeanne was there. And as Rosalie arrived with a lamp she could see the child, all white and sleeping with her cheek on her folded arms, the raindrops falling off the roof and wetting her. She was stricken with fatigue and despair, but she was no longer wheezing. Her large bluish eyelids still held two great tears on the lashes.

  ‘Oh, my poor child!’ Hélène stammered. ‘What on earth! Oh God, she is so cold! Going to sleep there in such weather when she’s forbidden to go near the window! Jeanne, Jeanne, answer me, wake up!’ Rosalie had prudently kept out of the way. The little girl, whom her mother had taken in her arms, let her head flop as though she couldn’t shake off the leaden sleep which had taken possession of her. But finally she opened her eyelids and remained there rigid, dazed, her eyes hurting in the light from the lamp.

  ‘Jeanne, it’s me. What’s the matter? Look, I’ve just come in.’

  But she did not understand, muttering stupidly:

  ‘Oh... oh!’

  She gazed at her mother as though she did not know her. Then suddenly she shivered as though she could feel how cold it was in the room. Her head cleared, the tears on her lashes rolled down her cheeks. She struggled, not wanting her mother to touch her.

  ‘It’s you, you! Oh, let me go, you are squeezing me. I was all right before.’

  And, as if afraid of her, she slipped out of her arms. With an anxious look, she put her arms up to her mother’s shoulders. One of her hands did not have a glove on and she shrank back from the bare wrist, the damp palm, the warm fingers, as wildly as she would flee from the caress of a stranger’s hand. It wasn’t the same verbena scent, the fingers had grown longer, her palm was softer. And she was unnerved by the contact of that skin, which seemed t
o have altered.

  ‘Look, I’m not scolding you,’ Hélène went on. ‘But really, are you being a sensible girl? Give me a kiss.’

  Jeanne still shrank from her. She could not recall seeing that dress, nor that coat her mother was wearing. The belt was loose, the folds fell in a way that she found irritating. Why then had she come back in such disarray, with something so very ugly and dowdy about her person? She had mud on her skirt, her slippers were bursting at the seams, nothing was right, as she was wont to say herself when she got angry with little girls who couldn’t dress themselves properly.

  ‘Give me a kiss, Jeanne.’

  But this voice, which seemed louder to her, wasn’t recognizable either. She looked up at her face and was surprised at how small and tired her eyes were, how feverishly red her lips, how strange the shadow which bathed the whole of her face. She did not like what she saw, she was starting to have a pain in her chest again, like when they hurt her. So, unhappy at all these things — subtle or crass — that she sensed, and realizing that she was breathing in the odour of treachery, she burst out sobbing.

  ‘No no, please don’t! Oh, you left me all alone, oh, I’ve been so unhappy!’

  ‘But I’ve come back, darling... Don’t cry, I’m here.’

  ‘No, I can’t any more... I don’t want you... Oh, I’ve been waiting so long, I’m so poorly.’

  Hélène had caught hold of her again and was drawing her gently towards her, but the little girl was obstinate:

  ‘No, it’s not the same any more, you are not the same.’

  ‘What? What in the world are you saying, child?’

  ‘I don’t know, you are not the same.’