A Love Story Read online

  Gradually a deep peace stole over Jeanne’s face. The lamp lit her with its soft yellow light. Her face returned to its lovely oval shape, slightly elongated, as graceful and fine as a young fawn’s. You could imagine the dark expression of her closed eyes under their wide, blue, translucent lids. The breath came lightly from her small nose, her rather wide mouth wore a vague smile. And so she slept, her hair, black as ink, spread out like a cloth around her.

  ‘It’s over this time,’ the doctor said in a low voice. And he turned to put away his bottles, getting ready to leave. Hélène went over to him.

  ‘Oh, Doctor,’ she begged, ‘don’t leave me. Wait a few minutes. If she were to have another attack... You are the one who has saved her.’

  He indicated that now there was nothing to worry about. But he stayed, wanting to reassure her. She had sent Rosalie back to bed. Soon daylight came, a soft grey light on the snow that whitened the roofs. The doctor went over and closed the window. And the two of them exchanged a few whispered words, in the deep silence.

  ‘It’s not serious, I assure you,’ he was saying. ‘Only at her age you have to be very careful... Make sure that she’s leading a regular life, is happy, and doesn’t get upset.’

  After a moment it was Hélène’s turn to say:

  ‘She’s so delicate, so nervous... I don’t always have any influence on her. She gets joyful or sad over the most trivial things, it worries me, they are so intense... She loves me with a jealous passion; it makes her weep when I kiss another child.’

  He nodded, repeating:

  ‘Yes, yes. Delicate, nervous, jealous... It’s Doctor Bodin who looks after her, isn’t it? I’ll talk to him about her. We’ll put her on a course of intense treatment. She is at a stage in her life which will determine her health when she’s a woman.’

  When she saw he was so trustworthy, Hélène had a surge of gratitude:

  ‘Oh, Monsieur, thank you so much for all the trouble you have taken!’

  Then, having raised her voice, she went and leaned over the bed, afraid she had woken Jeanne. The child was asleep, flushed pink, a vague smile on her lips. In the bedroom, now restored to calm, there was a feeling of languor. It was as though a quiet, comfortable lassitude had returned to the curtains, the furniture, the scattered clothes. Everything seemed to relax, as if swallowed up by the light of dawn coming in through the two windows.

  Once again Hélène was standing by the bed. The doctor was on the other side. And between them was Jeanne, slumbering, breathing lightly.

  ‘Her father was often ill,’ Hélène went on quietly, returning to his question. ‘I have always been in good health.’

  The doctor, who had not yet looked at her at all, raised his eyes and could not help smiling, she seemed to him so strong and healthy. She smiled back, a happy, quiet smile. She enjoyed her good health.

  Meanwhile his eyes remained on her. He had never seen a woman with such a regular, beautiful face. She was Junoesque, tall, magnificent, with golden lights in her chestnut hair. When she slowly turned her head, her profile took on the gravity of a statue. Her grey eyes and white teeth lit up her entire face. She had a round chin, a little pronounced, which gave her a look of common sense and determination. But what surprised the doctor was her superb figure. The shawl had slipped down again, her shoulders were uncovered, her arms were bare. A thick plait, the colour of burnished gold, hung down her shoulder and disappeared between her breasts. And in her half-undone petticoat, with her hair untidy and disarranged, she yet retained her stateliness, a decent, honest dignity, chaste beneath this male gaze, which was beginning to disturb him greatly.

  For a moment she studied him too. Doctor Deberle was a man of thirty-five, with a longish, clean-shaven face, an intelligent expression and thin lips. As she looked at him she, in her turn, noticed his neck was bare. And they remained there face to face with little Jeanne asleep between them. But this space, which had been immense a little while ago, seemed to have got smaller. The child’s breath was too light. Then Hélène slowly pulled up her shawl and wrapped it around her, while the doctor buttoned up the collar of his waistcoat.

  ‘Maman, Maman,’ stammered the child in her sleep.

  She was waking. When she opened her eyes she saw the doctor and was worried.

  ‘Who is that? Who is that?’ she asked.

  But her mother gave her a kiss.

  ‘Go to sleep, darling, you were a bit poorly... He’s a friend.’

  The child seemed surprised. She remembered nothing. Sleep came over her again and she dozed off, murmuring fondly:

  ‘Oh, I’m so sleepy!... Goodnight, Mother dear... If he’s your friend, he’ll be mine too.’

  The doctor had cleared away his array of medicines. He quietly said goodbye and left. Hélène listened to the child’s breathing for a moment. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, gazing at nothing, lost in her thoughts. The lamp, left burning, paled in the light of day.

  Chapter 2

  Next day Hélène thought it would be polite to go and thank Doctor Deberle. The hasty manner in which she had forced him to come with her, the good turn he had done her in spending that whole night at Jeanne’s bedside, embarrassed her when she thought about it — it seemed to her beyond the call of duty for a doctor. However, she hesitated for a couple of days, reluctant to go, for reasons she could not quite articulate. While in this state of indecision, she was busy thinking about the doctor; one morning she saw him and hid, like a child. She was cross with herself afterwards for being so timid. Her calm, forthright character was at variance with this emotion that had entered her life. So she decided she would go and thank the doctor that very day.

  Her little daughter’s crisis had taken place in the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, and it was now Saturday. Jeanne had completely recovered. Doctor Bodin, much concerned, had hurried over to visit, and spoken of Doctor Deberle with the reverence a poor old local doctor has for a young, well-off colleague who has already made a name for himself. But he let people know, with a sly smile, that his money came from his father, Monsieur Deberle, a man venerated by the whole of Passy. The son had simply had the trouble of inheriting one and a half million francs and a superb clientele. A clever boy, though, Doctor Bodin was quick to add, with whom he would be honoured to consult on the subject of the precious health of his young friend Jeanne.

  Towards three o’clock, Hélène and her daughter went down and had gone only a few steps along the Rue Vineuse before they were ringing the bell at the big house next door. Both were still in deep mourning. A uniformed servant in a white tie opened the door. Hélène recognized the wide hall hung with oriental door-curtains; but now she could see a multitude of flowers to right and left blooming in the jardinières. The valet ushered them into a small sitting room with dark green hangings and furniture, and stood waiting. Hélène gave her name.

  ‘Madame Grandjean.’

  The servant opened the door to an extraordinarily bright yellow and black salon, before withdrawing and repeating:

  ‘Madame Grandjean.’

  Hélène, in the doorway, shrank back a moment. She had just caught sight of a young lady at the other end of the room, sitting by the fire with her wide skirts taking up the whole of a narrow sofa. Opposite her, an elderly person, still wearing her hat and shawl, was visiting.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hélène faltered, ‘I was hoping to see Doctor Deberle.’

  And she caught hold of her daughter’s hand, having ushered her into the room in front of her. She was surprised and embarrassed to have intruded on this lady in this fashion. Why had she not asked for the doctor? She knew he was married.

  Madame Deberle was just finishing an anecdote in a rapid and rather shrill voice:

  ‘Oh, she’s marvellous, just marvellous!... She dies so realistically!... Look, she clutches at her breast like this, throws her head back, and turns green... I swear you have to go and see it, Mademoiselle Aurélie.’

  She rose then and came over to the
door with a loud rustling of skirts, and said with a charmingly courteous manner:

  ‘Do come in, Madame... My husband isn’t at home... But you are most welcome, most welcome... And this must be the beautiful young lady who was so poorly the other night... Do come and sit down a moment.’

  Hélène was obliged to sit in an armchair, while Jeanne perched shyly on the edge of a seat. Madame Deberle had sunk once more on to her small sofa, adding with a pretty laugh:

  ‘It’s my day. Yes, I have people round on Saturdays... Pierre introduces them. The week before last he brought along a colonel who had gout.’

  ‘You are mad, Juliette!’ murmured Mademoiselle Aurélie, the stiff elderly lady, an old and indigent friend, who had known her from the cradle.

  There was a short silence. Hélène looked around at the richly furnished salon, the curtains and the black and gold seats that shone bright as stars. Flowers bloomed on the mantelpiece, the piano, the tables, and the daylight from the garden came in through the windows, through which you could see the leafless trees and the bare earth. It was very warm, the stove giving out an even heat and in the hearth one single log burning away to ashes. Then, with another glance, Hélène realized that the flame-coloured salon was a decor that had been chosen with taste.

  Madame Deberle had jet-black hair and a skin as white as milk. She was small, dimpled, relaxed, and graceful. In all this gold, under her heavy dark coiffure, her pale complexion was lit by a rosy blush. Hélène thought her really lovely.

  ‘Convulsions are terrible,’ drawled Madame Deberle. ‘My little boy Lucien had them, but it was when he was a baby... You must have been so worried, Madame! Well, the dear child seems quite well again now.’

  And she in her turn looked at Hélène, surprised and delighted by her beauty. She had never seen a woman of such regal splendour, her black mourning draping her tall, grave figure. Her admiration was expressed in an involuntary smile, while she exchanged glances with Mademoiselle Aurélie. The two women studied her with such open admiration that Hélène also smiled.

  Then Madame Deberle lay back comfortably on her sofa and, taking the fan which hung from her sash, asked:

  ‘You didn’t go to the premiere at the Vaudeville* yesterday, Madame?’

  ‘I never go to the theatre,’ Hélène replied.

  ‘Oh, young Noëmi was wonderful, just wonderful! Her death is so realistic! She clutches at her bodice like this, throws back her head, turns quite green... The effect is remarkable.’

  For a minute or two she discussed the actress’s performance — approvingly, moreover. Then she went on to the other things happening in Paris, a painting exhibition where she had seen some amazing canvases, a silly novel that was receiving a great deal of publicity, some risqué affair which she hinted at to Mademoiselle Aurélie. And she passed from one subject to the next, tirelessly, rapidly, reliving it, in her element. Hélène, a stranger to this world, simply listened and now and then uttered a word or made a brief remark.

  The door opened and the valet announced:

  ‘Madame de Chermettes... Madame Tissot...’

  Two very smartly-dressed ladies came in. Madame Deberle went forward eagerly. And the train of her much-ornamented black silk dress was so long that she had to sweep it out of the way with her heel every time she turned round. For a short time there was a rapid chattering of shrill voices.

  ‘How lovely to see you! It’s been so long...’

  ‘We’ve come about this lottery, you know.’

  ‘Yes, of course, of course.’

  ‘Oh, we mustn’t stay. We have twenty more houses to do.’

  ‘Oh no, you can’t go yet.’

  And the two ladies perched on the edge of a sofa. Then the shrill voices piped up again, at an even higher pitch.

  ‘Well, what did you think of the Vaudeville?’

  ‘Oh, superb!’

  ‘You know how she unfastens her hair and lets it down. That creates the whole effect.’

  ‘They say she takes something to make herself turn green.’

  ‘No no, the movements are carefully worked out... But they had to be planned beforehand.’

  ‘Marvellous!’

  The two ladies had risen. They vanished. The salon resumed its cosy tranquillity. On the mantelpiece hyacinths exhaled their penetrating perfume. A quarrelsome flock of sparrows could be heard for a moment fighting as they landed on the lawn. Before she took a seat, Madame Deberle went over and pulled down the embroidered tulle blind on a window opposite. And she took up her place again in the now softer gold of the salon.

  ‘I do beg your pardon,’ she said. ‘We are being invaded.’

  And she went on comfortably chatting to Hélène in the most affectionate tones. She appeared to know something of her background, no doubt through the servants’ talking in the house, which belonged to her. With some boldness but also with tact, she spoke sympathetically of Hélène’s husband and of his terrible death in a hotel in the Rue de Richelieu, the Hôtel du Var.

  ‘And you had just arrived, hadn’t you? You hadn’t been to Paris before... It must be dreadful to be in mourning amongst strangers the day after a long journey, when you don’t yet know your way around.’ Hélène nodded slowly. Yes, she had spent many terrible hours then. The illness which was to carry her husband off had declared itself suddenly the day after their arrival, just when they were about to go out. She wasn’t familiar with a single street, she didn’t even know which quartier she was in; and for a week she had stayed shut up with the dying man, listening to Paris rumbling beneath her window, feeling alone, abandoned, lost, in the depths of her solitude. The thought of that great bare room full of medicine bottles where the trunks were not even unpacked still made her shudder.

  ‘They say your husband was almost twice your age?’ Madame Deberle asked with an air of deep interest, while Mademoiselle Aurélie pricked up her ears so as not to miss anything.

  ‘No no,’ Hélène answered. ‘He was scarcely six years older than me.’

  And she went so far as to tell the history of her marriage in a few sentences: how her husband had fallen deeply in love with her when she was living with her father, Mouret, the hatmaker,* in the Rue des Petites-Maries in Marseilles; how the Grandjeans, a rich family of refiners exasperated by the poverty of his young lady, had been very much opposed to the marriage; and how they had married in haste, without telling anyone, after the banns were read, and had lived on very little until the day when a dying uncle had left them about ten thousand francs. It was then that Grandjean, who nurtured a hatred for Marseilles, had decided they would come and live in Paris.

  ‘So how old were you when you got married?’ Madame Deberle enquired.

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘You must have been so beautiful.’

  The conversation lapsed. Hélène had apparently not heard her.

  ‘Madame Manguelin,’ announced the valet.

  A young woman appeared, discreet and embarrassed. It was one of her protégées who had come to thank her for something she had done. She stayed only a few minutes and curtseyed as she left.

  Then Madame Deberle took up the conversation again, speaking of Abbé Jouve, whom both knew. He was a humble priest of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in the parish of Passy, but his charitable works made him the most beloved and respected in the area.

  ‘Oh, the sweetest man!’ she murmured with a look of devotion.

  ‘He was very good to us,’ said Hélène. ‘My husband used to know him in Marseilles... As soon as he knew about my misfortune he took charge of everything. He’s the one who found us lodgings in Passy.’

  ‘Does he not have a brother?’ enquired Juliette.

  ‘Yes, his mother remarried.’

  ‘Monsieur Rambaud also knew my husband. He set up shop in the Rue de Rambuteau specializing in oils and products from the South of France, and is making a lot of money, I believe.’

  Then she added gaily:

  ‘The abbé and his brother a
re my only admirers!’

  Jeanne, getting bored sitting on the edge of her chair, was eyeing her mother with impatience. Her delicate face, which resembled a young fawn’s, showed signs of distress, as though she did not want to hear the things that were being talked about. And at times she seemed to be breathing in the heavy, suffocating scents of the salon, throwing sidelong glances at the furniture, mistrustful, as though warned of hidden dangers by her extreme sensitivity. Then she brought her gaze back to her mother with a tyrannical adoration.

  Madame Deberle could see the young girl was ill at ease.

  ‘Here’s a little girl who is bored with being sensible like a grown-up... Look, there are some picture books on that little table.’

  Jeanne went to pick up an album; but her eyes, above the book, kept lighting on her mother, pleading with her. Hélène, won over by the welcome she was receiving, did not move. She was naturally calm and would willingly sit for hours. But when the valet announced three ladies, one after the other — Madame Berthier, Madame de Guiraud, and Madame Levasseur — she thought she should take her leave. But Madame Deberle cried:

  ‘Do stay, I must introduce my son to you.’

  The circle around the hearth grew wider. All these ladies talked at once. There was one who said she was ‘all in’. And she told them how, for the last five days, she had not gone to bed until four in the morning. Another was complaining bitterly about her nurses. You couldn’t get one who was trustworthy. Then the conversation turned to dressmakers. Madame Deberle was of the opinion that a woman couldn’t dress one satisfactorily; you needed a man. Meanwhile two women were whispering between themselves, and as there was a break in the conversation, you could hear three or four words. They all began to laugh and fan themselves in a languid fashion.