A Love Story Page 36

  ‘Don’t go so far off!’ cried Pauline.

  ‘Well, let’s go,’ said Madame Deberle. ‘We are not doing anything here and the children must be hungry.’

  They had to round up the little girls who had scattered like a boarding school at recreation. They counted them. The little Guiraud girl was missing. At last they spied her in a distant avenue solemnly toddling along holding her mother’s sunshade. Then the ladies headed for the gate, pushing the stream of white dresses in front of them. Madame Berthier congratulated Pauline on her marriage which was to take place the following month. Madame Deberle said she was leaving in three days’ time for Naples with her husband and Lucien. The crowd dissolved. Zéphyrin and Rosalie were last to leave, but finally moved away. They took each other’s arm, pleased to be out walking despite their great sorrow. They slowed down and the backs of the lovers moved in rhythm together for a moment more in the light at the end of the avenue.

  ‘Come,’ said Monsieur Rambaud.

  But Hélène, with a gesture, begged him to wait. She remained there alone, it seemed to her that a page of her life had been torn out. When she saw the last people vanish, she knelt, suffering, in front of the vault. Abbé Jouve in his surplice had not yet risen. Both prayed for some time. Then saying nothing, his eyes showing a lovely charity and forgiveness, the priest helped her to her feet.

  ‘Give her your arm,’ he said simply to Monsieur Rambaud.

  On the horizon Paris leaped up in the radiant spring morning. In the cemetery a chaffinch sang.

  Chapter 5

  Two years had gone by. One December morning the little cemetery was sleeping in the bitter cold. It had been snowing since the day before, a fine snow whipped up by the north wind. The snowflakes, rarer now, were falling soft and light as feathers from the pale sky. The snow was getting thicker, there was a deep ledge of swansdown along the parapet of the terrace. Beyond that pure line, Paris spread out towards a blurred pale horizon.

  Madame Rambaud was still on her knees in the snow in front of Jeanne’s tomb. Her husband had just silently got to his feet. They had married in November in Marseilles. Monsieur Rambaud had sold his house in Les Halles, and was in Paris for three days to conclude this business. And the carriage awaiting them in the Rue des Réservoirs was to call at the hotel, pick up their trunks, and take them thence to the railway. Hélène’s one thought in making the journey was to pray in that spot. She remained motionless with her head bowed, as though in another world, not feeling the cold earth turn her knees to ice. Meanwhile the wind was dying down. Monsieur Rambaud had gone to stand on the terrace in order to leave her to the silent grief of her memories. A mist was rising over the furthest parts of the city, its immensity was vanishing in that pale blur of cloud. At the foot of the Trocadéro, Paris was the colour of lead, and looked dead beneath the slow falling of the last shreds of snow. In the air, which had grown very still, they were pale flecks on a murky background, steadily, imperceptibly, incessantly falling. Beyond the chimneys of the Military Depot, whose brick towers took on the tones of old copper, the endless gliding whiteness grew thicker, you would have said it was gauze floating, unravelling thread by thread. Not a sound rose from this dreamlike precipitation, miraculously transformed in the air and sinking as though it had been lulled asleep. The flying snowflakes seemed to slow down when they met the roofs. They dropped, one by one, never ceasing, millions of them, so silently that flowers dropping their petals make more noise than did they. And a sovereign peace, a forgetting of life and of the world, descended in that moving multitude silently falling through space. The sky grew steadily and uniformly bright, all at once, a milky hue, still troubled at times by wisps of snow. Gradually the sparkling islets of houses appeared, in a bird’s-eye view of the city, criss-crossed by its streets and squares with their lines and gaps of shadow throwing the gigantic skeleton of the quartiers into relief.

  Slowly Hélène stood up. On the ground her two knees had left marks in the snow. Wrapped in a capacious dark cloak edged with fur, she looked tall and stately against all the white. The barrette through her hat, of black velvet braid, shaded her forehead like a diadem. Her face had recovered its refined, peaceful expression, her grey eyes and white teeth, her round, somewhat determined chin, gave her a confident, sensible air. When she turned her head, her profile again took on the grave purity of a statue. Her lifeblood lay somewhere beneath the quiet pallor of her cheeks, you felt she had returned to a dignified respectability. Two tears had rolled down her cheeks, her calm reflected her former grief. And she remained standing in front of the tomb, a simple column where Jeanne’s name was followed by two dates, that measured the brief existence of the little twelve-year-old girl.

  Around her, the whiteness spread like a sheet over the cemetery, pierced by the edge of a rusty tomb, or an iron cross, raised like the arms of a mourner. Only the footsteps of Hélène and Monsieur Rambaud had made a path in this deserted place. It was an unsullied solitude in which the dead were sleeping. The avenues vanished among the frail ghosts of the trees. The occasional parcel of snow fell noiselessly off an overloaded branch. Nothing stirred. At the far end were the black footsteps of people who had passed that way. They were burying someone under that shroud. A second cortège was approaching from the left. The biers and the carriages drove silently along like silhouettes cut out of white linen.

  Hélène was just emerging from her reverie when she caught sight of a beggarwoman hovering nearby. It was Mother Fétu, the sound of her men’s boots muffled by the snow, split and mended with string. Never had she seen her in such a miserable state of poverty, wearing such filthy rags, even more gross and half-witted. The old woman, in bad weather, icy-cold, drenching rain, followed the funeral processions nowadays to try her luck with charitable folk who might take pity on her. And she was well aware that in a cemetery the fear of death makes people give money. She visited each tomb, approaching people on their knees at exactly the moment they burst into tears, since at that point they could scarcely refuse. She had gone in with the last cortège, and had been observing Hélène for a while from a distance. But she did not recognize her, and told her, snivelling, and with her palm held out, that she had two children at home dying of starvation. Hélène listened, dumbfounded by this apparition. The children didn’t have any fire, the eldest was dying of consumption. Suddenly Mother Fétu stopped. Amid her myriad wrinkles her face started to change, her narrow eyes blinked. What! Was it the good lady? God had answered her prayers then! And without amending the story of the children, she began to groan and a ceaseless babble came pouring out. She had lost even more teeth, you could scarcely make out what she said. God had sent all His misfortunes upon her. Her gentleman had fired her, she had been in bed for three months. Yes, she was still poorly, she was itching all over, a neighbour had said that she must have swallowed a spider while she was asleep. If she only had a little fire she would be able to keep her belly warm. That was the only thing that would bring her any relief. But she had nothing — not a scrap of wood to burn. Perhaps Madame had been travelling? Well, that was her business. Anyway, she thought she was looking very well and very pretty. God would reward her for everything. As Hélène was getting out her purse, Mother Fétu leaned against Jeanne’s tomb, breathing heavily.

  The cortèges had left. Somewhere in a nearby pit you could hear the regular blows of a pickaxe, wielded by an invisible gravedigger. By now the old woman, with her eyes fixed on the purse, got her breath again. Then, to increase the amount, she grew very ingratiating and talked about the other lady. You couldn’t deny she was a kind lady. But she didn’t give her enough to make a difference. She looked warily at Hélène as she said that. Then she went so far as to mention the doctor. Oh, he was good as gold. Last summer he had gone travelling with his wife. Their little son was growing. But Hélène’s fingers shook as she opened the purse, and suddenly Mother Fétu changed her tune. Stupid, shocked, she had only just realized that the good lady was there next to her daughter�
��s grave. She faltered, sighed, tried to bring her to tears. A little sweetheart with such lovely little hands, she could see them now giving her silver coins. And what lovely long hair she had, and her eyes brimful of tears when she looked at poor people! Oh, you couldn’t replace an angel like that. They didn’t exist, you couldn’t find one in the whole of Passy. On fine days she would always pick a bunch of daisies in the ditch by the ramparts and bring along for her. She stopped speaking, anxious at the gesture Hélène made to cut her short. So didn’t she have the right words any more? The good lady wasn’t in tears and she only gave her a twenty-sou coin.

  Monsieur Rambaud meanwhile had approached the terrace parapet. Hélène went to meet him. Then, seeing this man, Mother Fétu’s eyes lit up. The gentleman was unfamiliar. He must be somebody new. She shuffled along behind Hélène, calling down all the blessings of paradise upon her head. And when she was near Monsieur Rambaud, she again mentioned the doctor. That would be one man who’d have a fine funeral when he died, if the poor folk he’d tended for nothing were following his body! He was a bit of a ladies’ man, nobody could deny that. The ladies of Passy knew all about that. But that didn’t stop him adoring his wife, such a nice woman, she might have misbehaved herself if she’d wanted, but didn’t dream of it now. A pair of turtle doves they were. Had Madame gone to call on them? They were certainly at home, she had just seen the shutters open in the Rue Vineuse. They had been so fond of Madame at one time, they would be so pleased to see her! As she mumbled these disjointed words, the old woman had her eye on Monsieur Rambaud. He was listening to her calmly, good man that he was. The memories she had brought back in his presence cast no shadow on his tranquil face. But he sensed that this insistent beggarwoman was importuning Hélène and he rummaged in his pocket and gave her something too, gesturing her to go away. When she saw a second silver coin Mother Fétu burst into exclamations of gratitude. She would buy a bit of wood, she’d warm her body where it hurt. That was the only thing that would give her belly any comfort. Yes, a real pair of turtle doves, and the proof was that the lady had had a second child the winter before last, a beautiful little girl, pink and bonny, who must be nearly fourteen months by now. The day of the baptism the doctor had put a hundred sous in her hand at the church door. Oh, good people seek each other out, Madame brought her luck. God grant she be spared sorrow, and every good fortune be showered upon her! In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen!

  Hélène stood looking across at Paris while Mother Fétu shuffled off between the tombstones, mumbling three Paters and three Aves. It had stopped snowing, the last flakes had landed, slowly, languidly, on the roofs. And in the vast sky of pearly-grey, beyond the melting mist, a rosy brightness glowed in the golden sun. One single band of blue over Montmartre edged the horizon, of such a light, soft blue that you would have thought it was a shadow on white satin. Paris was rising out of the mist, growing larger among its snowfields, breaking out of the ice which had been freezing it in the immobility of death. Now the feathery flakes no longer sent a great shiver, rippling palely over the city’s rust-coloured façades. The houses emerged, black from the white mass where they had been sleeping, as though mouldy from centuries of damp. Entire streets looked ruined, eaten away by saltpetre, the roofs about to collapse, the windows already broken. You saw a square, its chalky surface seeming to be piled with rubble. But as the blue strip expanded in the direction of Montmartre, light flowed out, as cold and limpid as the waters of a spring so that Paris lay as though under ice and even the distant parts had the clarity of a Japanese print.

  In her fur-lined cloak, with her hands lost in her sleeves, Hélène was thinking. One single thought kept coming back to her, like an echo. They’d had a child, a bonny little rosy girl. And she could imagine her at the age when Jeanne was beginning to talk. Little girls of fourteen months are so sweet! She counted the months; fourteen, so that was almost two years, if you counted the rest. It was just that time, near enough to a fortnight. Then she had a vision of sunny Italy, a dream country with golden fruit, where lovers walked in perfumed nights, their arms around each other. Henri and Juliette were walking in front of her in the moonlight. They loved one another like married couples who have become lovers again. A bonny little rosy, naked girl-child laughing in the sunshine and babbling her muddle of words that her mother stifled with kisses! And she thought about those things without anger, her heart silent, increasing her serenity in her sadness. The land of sunshine disappeared, she contemplated Paris, with its great body hardened by the winter. Colossal marble figures seemed to be lying in the sovereign peace of their frigidity, their limbs weary with an age-old pain they were no longer able to feel. A blue gap had opened up over the Panthéon.

  Yet memory fetched back her days. She had lived in a trance in Marseilles. One morning, as she went along the Rue des Petites-Maries, she had started sobbing outside her childhood home. That was the last time she had wept. Monsieur Rambaud came to visit frequently; she felt him at her side protecting her. He demanded nothing, never declared himself to her. Then towards autumn she saw him arrive one evening, his eyes red, crushed by a great sorrow. His brother, Abbé Jouve, had died. It was her turn to console him. From then on she couldn’t remember exactly what happened. The abbé seemed to be always behind them, pressing her to resign herself, and she gave in. Since that was still what he wanted, she found no reason to refuse him. That seemed to her very sensible. As she was coming to the end of her period of mourning she had calmly sorted out the details with Monsieur Rambaud. The hands of her old friend shook with uncontrollable delight. It was as she wished, he had been waiting for her for months, all she had to do was give him some sign. They had married in black. The night of the wedding he too had kissed her bare feet, her beautiful feet, like those of a statue turning into marble again. And so life went on.

  While the blue sky widened on the horizon, this awakening of her memories was a surprise to Hélène. Had she been out of her mind, then, for a whole year? Today when she remembered that woman who had lived for three years in the room in the Rue Vineuse, she seemed to be passing judgement on a stranger, whose conduct she despised and found shocking. What a time of peculiar folly, what an abominable evil act, like a blinding thunderclap! And yet she had not asked for it. She had been living quietly, hidden away in her little corner of the world, absorbed in the adoration of her daughter. The path before her had stretched out without curiosity or desire. But a puff of wind had knocked her over and she had fallen. She could not find a reason for it even now. Her being had ceased to belong to her, the other person was acting inside her. Was it possible? She had actually done those things! Then she went ice-cold, Jeanne was vanishing beneath the roses. In the rigidity of grief, she became calm again, without desire, without curiosity, continuing slowly forward on the dead straight path. Her life was taken up again where it had left off, in stern tranquillity and proud respectability.

  Monsieur Rambaud stepped forward, to lead her away from this place of sorrow. But with a gesture Hélène indicated she wanted to stay there a little longer. She had gone over to the parapet and was looking down on to the Avenue de la Muette, where the carriages, a line of them, old and ramshackled, were pulled up beside the pavement. The whitened hoods and wheels, the horses bathed in lather, seemed to have been rotting away there for centuries. Coachmen stiff in their frozen coats sat unmoving. One by one, more coaches were trundling with difficulty over the snow. The animals were slipping and sliding, stretching out their necks, while the men had got down from their seats and were leading them by the reins, swearing at them. And you could see behind the glass the faces of the patient travellers, leaning back on the cushions, resigned to spending three-quarters of an hour on a ten-minute journey. The cotton-wool snow muffled the sounds. Only the sound of voices rose from the streets, shrill and distinctive, each with a particular resonance: shouting, the laughter of people slipping down on the ice, the bad temper of the carters cracking their whips, the snorting and
puffing of a frightened horse. Further off on the right the tall trees on the banks were a sight to behold. You would have thought they were made of spun glass, enormous Venetian chandeliers on which artists had whimsically twisted branches studded with flowers. The north wind had transformed the tree trunks into the shafts of columns. Above them was a tangle of downy branches, plumes of feathers, an exquisite cut-out of black twigs, edged with white net. It was freezing, and there was not a breath in the limpid air.

  And Hélène told herself that she didn’t really know Henri. For a year she had seen him almost every day. He had stayed for hours and hours close to her, chatting, and looking into her eyes. Yet she did not know him. One evening she had given herself and he had taken her. But she didn’t know him, she was trying her utmost, but she couldn’t understand. Where had he come from? How did he come to be near her? What kind of man was he to make her give herself, she who would have died rather than yield to another? She did not know, she felt giddy, her mind reeled. To the last, as on that first day, he had remained a stranger to her. Vainly she mustered the sparse details, his words, his actions, everything she could remember about the way he looked. He loved his wife and child, he had a distinguished smile, he always behaved properly, like a gentleman. Then she saw his passionate face again, his hands all over her body, desiring her. Weeks had gone by, he had vanished, he was gone. At this moment she wouldn’t be able to say where she had spoken to him for the last time. He passed on, his ghost went with him. And their story had no other ending. She did not know him.