Marie Claire
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Marguerite Audoux >> Marie Claire
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While I talked his eyes were fixed on my face, but they seemed to look
much further. After a silence he asked again, "Have you no friends
here?" "No," I said; "all those whom I loved have gone;" and I added
rather angrily, "They have even turned out Jean le Rouge." "And yet,"
he said, "Madame Alphonse is not unkind?" I told him that she was
neither unkind, nor kind, and that I should leave her without any
regret.
Then we heard the sound of M. Alphonse's cart-wheels, and I got up to
go. He stood aside a little to let me pass him, and I left him alone
in the shrubbery.
That evening I took advantage of the unusually good humour of Adele to
ask her if she knew any of the ploughmen at the Lost Ford. She said
she only knew some of the old ones, for since Madame Deslois had been a
widow the new ones never stayed with her. A sort of fear which I could
not have explained kept me from mentioning the young man in the white
smock, and Adele added with a wag of her chin: "Fortunately her eldest
son has come back from Paris. The farm hands will be happier."
Next day, while Madame Alphonse was working at her lace, I sewed and
thought about the ploughman in the white smock. I could not in my mind
help comparing him to Eugene. He spoke like Eugene did, and they
seemed like one another somehow.
That evening I thought I saw him near the stables, and a moment later
he came into the linen-room. His eyes just glanced at me and then he
looked straight at Madame Alphonse. He held his head high and the left
side of his mouth drooped a little. Madame Alphonse said, in a happy
voice, when she saw him, "Why, there's Henri!" and she let him kiss her
on both cheeks, and told him to bring a chair up next to her. But he
sat sideways on the table, pushing the linen to one side. Adele came
into the room, and Madame Alphonse said, "If you see my husband, tell
him that my brother is here."
It was some minutes before I understood. Then I realized suddenly that
the young man in the white smock was Madame Deslois's eldest son. A
sense of shame which I had never felt before made me blush fiercely,
and I was ever so sorry that I had spoken about Sister Marie-Aimee. I
felt that I had thrown the thing that I loved best to the winds, and do
what I could, I could not keep back two big tears which tickled the
corners of my mouth and then fell on the linen napkin I was hemming.
Henri Deslois remained sitting on the corner of the table for a long
time. I could feel that he was looking at me, and his eyes were like a
heavy weight which prevented me from lifting up my head.
Two days afterwards I found him in the shrubbery. When I saw him
sitting there my legs felt weak under me, and I stood still. He got up
at once so that I should sit down; but I remained standing and looking
at him. He had the same gentleness in his eyes that I had noticed the
first time, and, as if he expected me to tell him another story, "Have
you nothing to tell me this evening?" he asked. Words danced across my
brain, but they did not seem to be worth speaking, and I shook my head
to say no. He said, "I was your friend the other day." Recollection
of what I had said the other day made me feel worse than ever, and I
only said, "You are Madame Alphonse's brother." I left him and did not
dare to go back to the shrubbery again. He often came back to
Villevieille. I never used to look at him, but his voice always made
me feel very uncomfortable.
Since Jean le Rouge had gone I had never known what to do with my time
after mass. Every Sunday I used to pass the house on the hill.
Sometimes I would look in through the gaps in the shutters, and when,
as I sometimes did, I bumped my head, the noise it made used to
frighten me. One Sunday I noticed that there was no lock on the door.
I put my finger on the latch and the door fell open with a loud noise.
I had not expected it to open so quickly, and I stood there longing to
shut it and go away. Then as there was no more noise, and as the sun
had streamed into the house making a big square of light, I made up my
mind to go in, and went in, leaving the door open. The big fireplace
was empty. There was no hook, there was no pot, and the big andirons
had gone. The only things left in the room were the logs of wood which
Jean le Rouge's children used to use as stools. The bark was worn off
them, and the tops of them were polished, as if with wax, from the
children sitting on them.
The second room was quite empty. There were no tiles on the floor, and
the feet of the beds had made little holes in the beaten earth. There
was no lock to the other door either, and I went out into the garden.
There were a few winter vegetables in the beds still, and the fruit
trees were all in flower. Most of them were very old. Some of them
looked like hunchbacks, and their branches bent towards the ground, as
though they found that even the flowers were too heavy for them to
carry. At the bottom of the garden the hill ran down to an immense
plain where the cattle used to graze, and right at the end a row of
poplars made a sort of barrier which kept the sky out of the meadow
land. Little by little I recognized one place after another. There
was a little river at the bottom of the hill. I could not see the
water, but the willows looked as though they were standing on one side
to let it pass. The river disappeared behind the buildings of
Villevieille farm. There the roofs were of the same colour as the
chestnut trees, and the river went on on the other side of them. Here
and there I could see it shining between the poplar trees. Then it
plunged into the great pine wood, which looked quite black, in which
the Lost Ford was hidden. That was the road I had taken with Madame
Alphonse, when we went to her mother's house. Her brother must have
come that way that day when he found me in the shrubbery. There was
nobody on the road today. Everything was tender green, and I could see
no white smock among the clumps of trees. I tried to see the shrubbery
but the farm hid it. Henri Deslois had been in the shrubbery several
times since Easter. I could not have told how I knew that he was
there, but on those days I could never prevent myself from walking
round that way.
Yesterday Henri Deslois had come into the linen-room while I was there
alone. He had opened his mouth as though he were going to talk to me.
I had looked at him as I had done the first time, and he went away
without saying anything. And now that I was in the open garden
surrounded by broom in flower I longed to be able to live there always.
There was a big apple tree leaning over me, dipping the end of its
branches in the spring. The spring came out of the hollow trunk of a
tree, and the overflow trickled in little brooks over the beds. This
garden of flowers and clear water seemed to me to be the most beautiful
garden in the world. And when I turned my head towards the house,
which stood open to the sunshine, I seemed to expect extraordinary
people to come out of it. The house seemed full of mystery to me.
Queer little sounds came out of it, and a few moments ago I thought
that I had heard the same sound that Henri Deslois's feet made when he
stepped into the linen-room at Villevieille.
I had been listening as though I expected to see him coming, but I had
not heard his footstep again, and presently I noticed that the broom
and the trees were making all kinds of mysterious sounds. I began to
imagine that I was a little tree, and that the wind stirred me as it
liked. The same fresh breeze which made the broom rock passed over my
head and tangled my hair, and so as to do like the other trees did I
stooped down and dipped my fingers in the clear waters of the spring.
Another sound made me look at the house again, and I was not in the
least surprised when I saw Henri Deslois standing framed in the
doorway. His head was bare, and his arms were swinging. He stepped
out into the garden and looked far off into the plain. His hair was
parted on the side, and was a little thin at the temples. He remained
perfectly still for a long minute, then he turned to me. There were
only two trees between us. He took a step forward, took hold of the
young tree in front of him with one hand, and the branches in flower
made a bouquet over his head. It grew so light that I thought the bark
of the trees was glittering, and every flower was shining. And in
Henri Deslois's eyes there was so deep a gentleness that I went to him
without any shame. He didn't move when I stopped in front of him. His
face became whiter than his smock, and his lips quivered. He took my
two hands and pressed them hard against his temples. Then he said very
low, "I am like a miser who has found his treasure again." At that
moment the bell of Sainte Montagne Church began to ring. The sound of
the bell ran up the hillsides, and after resting over our heads for a
moment ran on and died away in the distance.
The hours passed, the day grew older, and the cattle disappeared from
the plain. A white mist rose from the little river, then a stone
slipped behind the barrier of poplar trees, and the broom flowers began
to grow darker. Henri Deslois went back towards the farm with me. He
walked in front of me on the narrow path, and when he left me just
before we came to the avenue of chestnut trees I knew that I loved him
even more than Sister Marie-Aimee.
The house on the hill became our house. Every Sunday I found Henri
Deslois waiting there, and as I used to do when Jean le Rouge lived
there, I took my blessed bread to the house on the hill after mass and
we used to laugh as we divided it.
We both had the same kind of feeling of liberty which made us run races
round the garden and wet our shoes in the brooklets from the spring.
Henri Deslois used to say, "On Sundays I, too, am seventeen years old."
Sometimes we would go for long walks in the woods which skirted the
hill. Henri Deslois was never tired of hearing me talk about my
childhood, and Sister Marie-Aimee. Sometimes we talked about Eugene,
whom he knew. He used to say that he was one of those men whom one
liked to have for a friend. I told him what a bad shepherdess I had
been, and although I felt sure he would laugh at me, I told him the
story of the sheep which was all swollen up. He didn't laugh. He put
a finger on my forehead and said, "Love is the only thing that will
cure that."
One day we stopped near an immense field of corn. It was so big that
we could not see the end of it. Thousands of white butterflies were
floating about over the corn ears. Henri Deslois didn't speak, and I
watched the ears of corn which were stooping and stretching as though
they were getting ready to fly. It looked as though the butterflies
were bringing them wings to help them, but it was no good for the corn
ears to get excited. They could not get away from the ground. I told
my idea to Henri Deslois, who looked at the corn for a long time, and
then, as though he were speaking to himself, and dragging the words
out, he said, "It is much the same kind of thing with a man. Sometimes
a woman comes to him. She looks like the white butterflies of the
plain. He doesn't know whether she comes up from the earth or whether
she comes down from the sky. He feels that with her he could live on
the wind which passes, and the fresh young flowers. But like the root
which holds the corn to earth a mysterious bond holds him to his duty,
which is as strong as the earth." I thought that his voice had an
accent of suffering, and that the corners of his mouth drooped more
than usual. But almost immediately his eyes looked into mine, and he
said in a stronger voice, "We must have confidence in ourselves."
Summer passed and the autumn, and in spite of the bad weather of
December we could not make up our minds to leave the house on the hill.
Henri Deslois used to bring books with him which we would read, sitting
on the logs of wood in the back room which looked into the garden. I
went back to the farm at nightfall, and Adele, who thought I was
spending my time dancing in the village, was always surprised that I
looked so sad.
Almost every day Henri Deslois came to Villevieille. I could hear him
from a long way off. He rode a great white mare which trotted heavily,
and he rode her without saddle or bridle. She was a patient and a
gentle brute. Her master used to let her run loose in the yard while
he went in to say "good day," to Madame Alphonse. As soon as M.
Alphonse heard him he would come into the linen-room. The two of them
would speak of improvements on the farm or about people whom they knew.
But there was always a word or a sentence in their conversation which
came straight to me from Henri Deslois. I often used to catch M.
Alphonse looking at me, and I could not always keep from blushing.
One afternoon as Henri Deslois came in to the room smiling, M. Alphonse
said, "You know I have sold the house on the hill." The two men looked
at one another. They both grew so pale that I was afraid they were
going to die where they stood. Then M. Alphonse got out of his chair
and stood leaning against the chimney-piece, while Henri Deslois went
to the door and tried to close it. Madame Alphonse put her lace down
on her knee and said, as though she were repeating a lesson, "The house
was of no particular good, and I am very pleased that it has been
sold." Henri Deslois came and stood by the table, so close to me that
he could have touched me. He said in a voice that was not quite firm,
"I am sorry you have sold it without having mentioned it to me, for I
intended to buy it." M. Alphonse wriggled like an earthworm. He made
a great effort to laugh out loud, and as he laughed he said, "You would
have bought it? What would you have done with it?" Henri Deslois put
his hand on the back of my chair and answered, "I would have lived in
it as Jean le Rouge did." M. Alphonse walked up and down in front of
the chimney. His face had changed into a yellow earthy colour. His
hands were in his trouser pockets, and he picked up his feet so quickly
that it looked as though he were pulling at them with a cord which he
held in each hand. Then he came and leaned on the table opposite us,
and looking at us one after the other with his glittering eyes, he bent
forward and said, "Well, I have sold it now, so it is all over."
During the silence which followed we could hear the white mare pawing
the ground with her shoe as though she were calling her master. Henri
Deslois went towards the door. Then he came back to me and picked up
my work which had fallen from my hands without my having noticed it.
He kissed his sister, and before he went, he said, looking at me, "I
shall see you to-morrow."
Next morning Madame Deslois came into the linen-room. She came
straight to me, and was very rude. But M. Alphonse told her to be
quiet, and, turning to me, he said, "Madame Alphonse has asked me to
tell you that she would like to keep you in her service. But she wants
you in future to come to mass with us." He tried to smile, and added,
"We will drive you there and back." It was the first time that he had
ever spoken directly to me. His voice was rather husky, as though he
felt some awkwardness in saying these things to me. I don't know what
made me think that he was lying, and that Madame Alphonse had not said
anything of the kind. Besides, he looked so much like the Mother
Superior that I could not help defying him. I told him that I didn't
care about driving, and that I should go to mass at Sainte Montagne as
before. He sucked in his lower lip and began biting it. Then Madame
Deslois stepped forward threateningly, and told me that I was insolent.
She kept on repeating this word as though she could not find any
others. She shouted it more and more loudly, and lost all control of
herself. The white of her eyes was becoming quite red, and she raised
her hand to strike me. I stepped back quickly behind my chair. Madame
Deslois bumped into the chair and knocked it over, and caught at the
table so as not to fall down. Her harsh voice terrified me. I wanted
to leave the linen-room, but M. Alphonse had placed himself in front of
the door, and I came back into the room and faced Madame Deslois across
the table. She began to speak again in a strangled sort of voice. She
used words which I didn't understand, but there was something about
what she said and the way in which she said it which I hated. At last
she stopped speaking, and shouted at the top of her voice, "Don't
forget that I am his mother."
M. Alphonse came towards me. He took hold of my arm and said, "Come,
now, listen to me." I shook myself loose, pushed him away and ran out
of the house. The last words that Madame Deslois had said hammered on
my brain as though they really were a hammer with one end of it
pointed. "I am his mother, do you hear?--his mother." Oh, mother
Marie-Aimee, how beautiful you were when compared to this other mother,
and how I loved you! How your many-coloured eyes beamed and lit up
your black dress, and how pure your face was under your white cap! I
could see you as clearly as though you were really in front of me.
I was quite astonished to find myself in front of the house on the
hill, and when I got there I saw that snow was falling in a regular
hurricane. I went into the house for shelter, and went straight into
the room which looked out on the garden. I tried to think, but my
ideas whirled round in my head like the snow-flakes, which looked as
though they were climbing up from the ground and falling from the sky
at the same time. And every time that I made an effort to think, the
only things I could think of were little bits of a song which the
children used to sing in the convent, and which ran--
The old girl jumped and jumped about
And jumped until she died.
The old girl jumped and jumped about
And jumped until she died.[1]
I felt less unhappy in this silent house. The softly falling snow was
pretty, and the trees were as beautiful as on that day when I had seen
them all in bloom. Then suddenly I remembered, quite clearly all that
had just happened. I saw Madame Deslois's hand with its square
fingers, and shivered all over. What an ugly hand it was, and what a
large one! Then I remembered the expression on M. Alphonse's face when
he took hold of my arm, and I remembered as I thought of it that I had
seen the same expression once before on a little girl's face. It was
one day when I had picked up a pear which had fallen from the tree.
She had rushed at me, saying, "Give me half of it, and I won't tell."
I felt so disgusted at the idea of sharing it with her that, although
Sister Marie-Aimee might have seen me, I had gone back to the tree and
put the pear down where it had fallen.
Thinking of all these things, I longed and longed to see Sister
Marie-Aimee again. I should have liked to have gone to her at once,
but I remembered that Henri Deslois had said as he went, "I shall see
you to-morrow." Perhaps he was at the farm already, waiting for me,
and wondering what had become of me. I went out of the house to run
back to Villevieille. I had only gone a few steps when I saw him
coming up. The white mare didn't find it very easy to climb the
snow-covered path. Henri Deslois was bareheaded, as he had been the
first time he came. His smock billowed out with the wind, and he had a
hand on the mane of the mare. The mare stood in front of me. Her
master leaned down and took my two hands which I held up to him. There
was on his face a look of worry which I had never seen before. I
noticed, too, that his eyebrows met, like those of Madame Deslois. He
was a little out of breath, and said, "I knew that I should find you
here." He opened his mouth again, and I felt quite certain that his
words were going to bring me happiness. He held my hands tighter, and
said in the same breathless voice as before, "I can no longer be your
friend." I thought that somebody had struck me a violent blow on the
head. There was a noise of a saw in my ears. I could see Henri
Deslois trembling, and I heard him say, "How cold I am!" Then I no
longer felt the warmth of his hand on mine. And when I realized that I
was standing all alone in the path, I saw nothing but a great white
shape which was slipping noiselessly across the snow.
[1] On a tant fait sauter la vieille,
Qu'elle est morte en sautillant,
Tireli,
Sautons, sautons, la vieille!
I went slowly down the other side of the hill, walking in the snow,
which squeaked under my feet. About half-way a peasant offered me a
lift in his cart. He was going to town too, and it was not long before
we got to the Orphanage. I rang the bell, and the porteress looked out
at me through the peephole. I recognized her. It was "Ox Eye" still.
We had named her Ox Eye because her eyes were big and round like a
daisy. She opened the gate when she recognized me, and told me to come
in; but before she shut the gate behind me she said, "Sister
Marie-Aimee is not here." I didn't answer, so she said again, "Sister
Marie-Aimee is not here." I heard what she said quite well, but I
didn't pay any attention to it. It was like a dream where the most
extraordinary things happen without seeming to be of any importance at
all. I looked at her great big eyes and said, "I have come back." She
closed the gate behind me and left me standing under the eaves of her
little house in the gateway, while she went to tell the Mother
Superior. She came back, saying that the Mother Superior wanted to
speak to Sister Desiree-des-Anges before she saw me.
A bell rang. Ox Eye got up and told me to go with her. It was snowing
again. It was almost dark in the Mother Superior's room. At first I
saw nothing but the fire, which was whistling and flaming. Then I
heard the Mother Superior's voice. "So you have come back?" she said.
I tried to think steadily, but I was not quite sure whether I had come
back or not. She said, "Sister Marie-Aimee is not here." I thought
that my bad dream was coming on again, and coughed to try and wake
myself. Then I looked at the fire and tried to find out why it
whistled like that. The Mother Superior spoke again. "Are you ill?"
she said. I answered "No." The heat did me good, and I felt better.
I was beginning to understand at last that I had come back to the
Orphanage, and that I was in the Mother Superior's room. My eyes met
hers, and I remembered everything. She laughed a little, and said,
"You have not changed much. How old are you now?"
I told her that I was eighteen years old. "Really," she said. "Going
out into the world has not made you grow much." She leaned one elbow
on the table, and asked me why I had come back. I wanted to tell her
that I had come back to see Sister Marie-Aimee, but I was afraid of
hearing her say once more that Sister Marie-Aimee was not there, and I
remained silent. She opened a drawer, took out a letter, which she
covered with her open hand, and said in the weary voice of a person who
has been bothered unnecessarily, "This letter had already told me that
you had become a bold, proud girl." She pushed the letter from her as
though she were tired, and in a long breath she said, "You can work in
the kitchen here until we find you something else to do." The fire
went on whistling. I went on looking at it, but I could not make out
which of the three logs was making the noise. The Mother Superior
raised her monotonous voice to draw my attention. She warned me that
Sister Desiree-des-Anges would watch me very closely, and that I should
not be allowed to talk to my former companions. I saw her point to the
door, and I went out into the snow.
At the other side of the yard I could see the kitchens. Sister
Desiree-des-Anges, who was tall and slim, was waiting for me at the
door. I could see nothing of her but her cap and her black dress, and
I imagined her to be old and withered. I thought of running away. I
need only run to the gate and tell Ox Eye that I had come on a visit.
She would let me out, and that would be all.
Instead of going to the gate I went towards the buildings where I had
lived when I was a child. I didn't know why I went there, but I could
not help it. I felt very tired, and I should have liked to lie down
and sleep for a long time.
The old bench was in the same place. I wiped some of the snow off it
with my hands, and sat down leaning against the linden tree as M. le
Cure used to do. I was waiting for something, and I didn't know what.
I looked up at the window of Sister Marie-Aimee's room. The pretty
embroidered curtains were no longer there, and although the window was
just like the other windows now, I thought it quite different. And
though the thick calico curtains were the same in this room as in the
others, they seemed to me to make that window look like a face with its
eyes shut.
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