We dined at the common table; but you Fondaudèges ate by yourselves. I remember that round table, near the windows, and that obese grandmother of yours, who hid her bald skull under black lace from which jet dangled. I always used to think that she was smiling at me; but it was the shape of her tiny eyes and the disproportionate gap of her mouth which created this illusion. A nun waited upon her, with a bloated, bilious face, swathed in starched linen.
Your mother—how beautiful she was! Clad in black, in perpetual mourning for her two lost children. It was she, and not you, whom I first admired, furtively. The bareness of her neck, arms and hands disturbed me. She wore no jewelry. I imagined Stendhalian summonses, and gave myself until the evening to speak to her or slip a letter to her.
As for you, I hardly noticed you. I thought that girls did not interest me. Besides, you had that insolent air of never looking at other people, which is one way of suppressing them.
One day, when I came back from the Casino, I surprised my mother in conversation with Madame Fondaudège. She was being too condescending, too friendly, like somebody who despaired of lowering herself to the level of her companion. On the contrary, Mamma was taking a haughty tone; this was a tenant whom she had between her paws, and the Fondaudèges were nothing more in her eyes than negligent debtors. A peasant, a landowner, she distrusted commerce and its fragile, perhaps fleeting fortunes. I interrupted her as she was saying: “Of course, I trust Monsieur Fondaudège’s signature, but...”
For the first time I took part in a business conversation. Madame Fondaudège obtained the delay in payment that she wanted.
I have very often thought, since then, that my mother’s peasant instinct did not mislead her. Your family has cost me dearly enough, and, if I had let myself be devoured, your son, your daughter, your grandson-in-law would soon have annihilated my fortune and swallowed it up in their business. Those businesses of theirs! A first-floor office, a telephone, a typist....Behind this setting, money disappears by the hundred-thousands.
But I digress....We are in 1885, at Bagnères-de-Luchon.
Now I saw this influential family smiling at me. Your grandmother never stopped talking, because she was deaf. But when I had a chance of exchanging a few words with your mother, after meals, she bored me and upset the romantic ideas which I had formed about her. You will not be angry with me if I recall that her conversation was banal, and that she inhabited a world so limited, and used a vocabulary so restricted, that at the end of three minutes I was in despair of carrying on the conversation.
My attention, turned away from the mother, devoted itself to the daughter. I did not realise all at once that no obstacle was put in the way of our intercourse. How should I have imagined that the Fondaudèges saw a good match in me?
I remember a drive in the valley of the Lys: your grandmother on the back seat of the victoria, with the nun; and we two on the bracket-seat. God knows there were carriages enough in Luchon! One had to be a Fondaudège to bring one’s own turn-out.
The horses went at a walk, in a cloud of flies. The Sister’s face shone; her eyes were half-closed. Your grandmother fanned herself with a fan, bought in the Allées d’Etigny, on which was designed a matador giving the death-thrust to a black bull. You were wearing long gloves, in spite of the heat. Everything you had on you was white, down to your high-legged boots.
You were “devoted to white,” you told me, since the death of your two brothers. I did not know what “devoted to white” meant. I have learned, since, what a taste your family has for these rather odd devotions. Such was my state of mind that I found that highly poetical.
How can I make you understand what you aroused in me? All at once I had the feeling that I was no longer displeasing; I had ceased to repel, I was not hateful. One of the most important dates in my life was that evening when you said to me:
“It’s extraordinary for a man to have such long lashes.”
I carefully concealed my advanced ideas. I remember how, during that drive, the two of us got out to lighten the carriage up a hill, and your grandmother and the nun said their rosary, and from the top of his box-seat the old coachman, trained for years, responded to the Ave Maria. You looked at me with a smile yourself; but I kept a straight face.
It cost me nothing to accompany you to eleven o’clock Mass on Sundays. For me no metaphysical idea was attached to this ceremony. It was the form of worship of a class, to which I was proud to feel myself admitted; a kind of religion of ancestors for the use of the upper classes, a body of ritual lacking any significance other than social.
Because, sometimes, you looked at me sidelong, the memory of those Masses remains associated with that marvellous discovery which I was in process of making: I was capable of interesting, of pleasing, of exciting. The love that I felt was merged with the love that I inspired—that I believed I inspired. My own feelings had nothing real about them. What counted was my faith in the love which you had for me.
I saw my own reflection in another human being; and my image, thus reflected, had nothing repulsive about it. I stretched my petals with a delightful sense of relaxing. I remember that thawing of my whole personality under the warmth of your eyes, that gushing of emotions, that unbinding of springs. The most ordinary little expressions of affection, a handshake, a flower pressed in a book—everything was new to me, everything enchanted me.
Only my mother did not reap the benefit of this renewal of myself—in the first place because I felt that she was hostile to the dream (which I thought mad) that was slowly taking shape within me. I was angry with her because she was not dazzled. “Don’t you see that these people are trying to attract you?” she kept on saying, without any idea that she was thus running the risk of destroying my immense joy in having at last found favour in a girl’s eyes.
There really did exist in the world a girl who liked me, and perhaps wanted to marry me. I believed it, despite my mother’s distrust; for your family was too big, too influential, to find any advantage in an alliance with us. That did not stop my cherishing a resentment, bordering on hatred, towards my mother, because she put my happiness in doubt.
Nor did that stop her making inquiries through her sources of information in the leading banks. It was a triumph for me when she had to admit that the Fondaudège business, despite a temporary embarrassment, was in a very strong credit position. “They make any amount of money, but they live in too much style,” said Mamma. “Everything goes into stables and livery. They prefer to throw dust in people’s eyes, rather than lay aside...
The banks’ information rounded off my assurance of my happiness. I had proof of your people’s disinterestedness; they smiled upon me because they liked me. Suddenly it seemed to me quite natural that everybody should like me. They used to leave me alone with you in the evening in the walks of the Casino.
How strange it is that, at those beginnings of life when a little happiness is handed out to us, there is no voice which warns us: “However old you may live to be, you will never have any other joy in the world than these few hours. Savour them to the very dregs, because, after this, there is nothing left for you. This first spring on which you have stumbled is also the last. Quench your thirst, once and for all; you shall not drink again.”
But I was persuaded, on the contrary, that this was the beginning of a long, impassioned life; and I did not pay enough heed to those evenings that we spent, not stirring, under the sleeping leaves.
Nevertheless there were signs; but I interpreted them badly. Do you remember that night when we were sitting on a bench, on the path that winds up behind the Baths? Suddenly, for no apparent reason, you burst into tears. I recall the scent of your wet cheeks, the scent of that grief without a name. I believed in the tears of happy love. My youth was unable to interpret those sobs, those chokings. It is true that you said to me:
“It isn’t anything—it’s just being with you.”
You were not lying, you liar. It was, indeed, because you were with me that y
ou cried—with me and not with somebody else; not with the man whose name you were at last to confess to me, some months later, in this room where I am writing: I, an old man near death, amid a family on the alert, awaiting the moment of the kill.
And I, on that bench on the winding path of Superbagnѐres—I nestled my face in between your shoulder and your neck, and breathed in that little girl in tears. The moist, warm Pyrenean night, which smelt of damp grass and mint, had acquired something of the scent of you as well. In the Place des Thermes, on which we looked down, the foliage of the lime-trees around the bandstand gleamed with the lamps. An old Englishman, staying at the hotel, was catching with a long net the moths that they lured.
You said to me: “Lend me your handkerchief.” I dried your eyes, and tucked that handkerchief away between my shirt and my heart.
It is not too much to say that I had become another man. Even my face—a light had touched it. I knew it by the way in which women looked at me. No suspicion came to me, after that night of tears.
Besides, for one night like that, how many were there when you were sheer joy; when you leant against me, when you clung to my arm? I walked too fast for you, and you panted to keep up with me.
I was a chaste lover. You appealed to an intact part of me. Never once was I tempted to take advantage of the trust which your people placed in me. I was a thousand miles from believing that it could be calculated.
Yes, I was another man, to such a point that one day...Forty years afterwards, I finally pluck up courage to make this confession to you. It will not give you the taste of triumph now, when you read this letter.
It was one day on the road through the Lys valley. We had got out of the victoria. The waters murmured. I rubbed fennel between my hands. Night was gathering at the foot of the mountains, but on the summits light was still encamped....
I suddenly had an intense feeling, an almost physical certitude, that another world existed, a reality of which we knew nothing but the shadow....
It was only for an instant—an instant which, in the course of my sad life, has repeated itself, at very long intervals. But it’s very rarity gives it an enhanced value in my eyes. And so, later on, during the long religious strife that tore us asunder, I had to brush away that memory....
This is a confession which I owe you. But it is not time yet to touch upon this subject.
It is unnecessary to recall our engagement. It was arranged one evening; and it took place without my intending that it should. You interpreted, I think, something I said in quite a different sense from what I meant. I found myself bound to you, and I let it go at that. It is unnecessary to recall all this. But there was something horrible on which my mind is condemned to rest.
You informed me of one of your conditions at once. “In the interests of good understanding,” you refused to have a common household with my mother, or even to live in the same house. Your parents and yourself had made up your minds to have no compromise about this.
After all these years, how vividly it remains present in my memory—that stifling hotel room, that window open on the Allées d’Etigny! Golden dust, the cracking of whips, the sound of bells, a Tyrolean air came in through the closed shutters.
My mother, who had a headache, was lying on the sofa, in skirt and camisole—she had never had such a thing as a wrap, a peignoir, or a dressing-gown. I took advantage of her saying that she would leave us the lower rooms and content herself with one on the third floor.
“Listen, Mother. Isa thinks that it would be better...”
As I spoke, I looked at that old face furtively; and then I turned my eyes away. With her deformed fingers, Mother was plucking at the frill of her camisole. If she had protested, I should have known how to take it; but her silence did not encourage anger.
She pretended not to be hurt, or even surprised. Finally she spoke, choosing words which might make me believe that she had been expecting our separation.
“I shall live most of the year at Aurigne,” she said; “it is the most habitable of our farms, and I’ll leave you Calѐse. I shall have a bungalow built at Aurigne; three rooms will be enough for me. It won’t cost much, but, even so, it’s annoying to go to this expense, when I may be dead next year. But you can use it later on, for the pigeon-shooting. You yourself don’t like shooting but you may have children with a taste for it.”
However far my ingratitude might go, it was impossible to come to the end of that love of hers. Dislodged from its position, it re-established itself elsewhere. It organised itself with what I left it, and made the best of it. But, that evening, you asked me:
“What’s the matter with your mother?”
She recovered her normal appearance the very next day. Your father arrived from Bordeaux with his elder daughter and his son-in-law. They must have been kept informed. They looked me up and down. I imagined I could hear them asking one another:
“Do you think he’s ‘eligible’? The mother’s impossible.”
I shall never forget how surprised I was to see your sister Marie Louise, whom you called Marinette, your elder by a year, but looking younger than you, a slim girl, with that long neck, that too heavy chignon, and those infantile eyes of hers. The old man to whom your father had handed her over, Baron Philipot, filled me with horror. But, since his death, I have often thought of that sexagenarian as one of the most unhappy men I have ever known. What a martyrdom that idiot suffered, to try and make his young wife forget that he was an old man!
A corset pressed him to suffocation-point. His starched collar, high and wide, juggled away his jowls and dewlaps. The shining dye of his moustache and whiskers accentuated the purple of his ravaged face. He scarcely listened to what anybody said to him, and was always looking for a mirror; and, when he found one, don’t you remember our smiles when we surprised the glance which the unhappy man gave his image: that perpetual examination which he imposed on himself?
His false teeth prevented him from smiling. His lips were sealed by an unfailing will. We used to make remarks, too, about the way in which he put on his Kronstadt hat, so as not to disarrange that extraordinary strand of hair, starting at his nape, which scattered over his skull like the delta of a river in low water.
Your father, who was his contemporary, despite his white beard, his baldness and his stomach, still pleased the ladies. Even in his business he set himself to charm. Only my mother resisted him. Perhaps the blow which I had just given her had hardened her. She discussed every clause of the marriage settlement as she would have done in the case of a sale or a lease. I pretended to be indignant over her stiffness and disowned her—secretly glad to know that my interests were in such good hands.
If my fortune is today completely separate from yours, if you have so little hold upon me, I owe it to my mother, who demanded the most drastic system of settlement, as though I were a girl resolved to marry a debauchee. So long as the Fondaudѐges did not draw back before her demands, I could sleep with an easy mind. They stuck to me, I thought, because you stuck to me.
Mamma would not hear of an annual income; she insisted that your dowry should be paid in cash.
“They hold up to me the example of Baron Philipot,” she said, “who took the elder daughter without a halfpenny....I dare say! To give that poor girl to that old man they must have got something out of it! But we’re another matter. They thought that I should be dazzled by their alliance. They don’t know me....”
We “turtle-doves” pretended to take no interest in the discussion. I imagine that you had as much confidence in your father’s shrewdness as I had in my mother’s. And after all, perhaps we did not know, either of us, how very fond of money we were....
No, I’m unfair. You were never fond of it except for your children’s sake. You would kill me, perhaps, to enrich them; but you would take the bread out of your own mouth for them.
While I...I am fond of money, I admit. It comforts me. So long as I remain master of my fortune, you can do nothing against me.
>
“We need so little at our age,” you keep on telling me. How wrong you are! An old man only lives by virtue of what he possesses. Once he ceases to possess anything, he is thrown on the scrap-heap. We have only the choice between the almshouse, the workhouse, and our fortunes. Those stories of peasants who let their old relations die of hunger after robbing them of everything—how often have I stumbled on the equivalent, with a little more form and ceremony, in upper-class families!
Yes, indeed, I am afraid of being poor. I feel as though I could never accumulate enough money. It attracts you; but it protects me.
The hour of the Angelus has passed, and I have not heard it....But it hasn’t been rung: today is Good Friday. The men of the family are motoring here this evening. I shall go down to dinner. I want to see them all together. I feel stronger against all of them than when I talk to them separately.
Besides, I insist on eating my cutlet, on this day of penitence—not out of bravado, but to show all of you that I have kept my strength of will intact and that I shall not give way on any point.
All the positions which I have occupied for the past forty-five years, and from which you have failed to dislodge me, would fall one by one if I made a single concession. In the face of this family feeding itself on haricot beans and sardines in oil, my Good Friday cutlet will be the sign that there is no hope of despoiling me while I am still alive.
Chapter IV
I was quite right. My presence in your midst, yesterday evening, upset your plans. They were happy only at the children’s table because, on Good Friday evening, they were dining on chocolate and bread and butter. I cannot tell them one from another: my grand-daughter Janine already has a child old enough to walk....
I regaled them all with the spectacle of an excellent appetite. You made allusion to my state of health and my great age, by way of excusing the cutlet in the eyes of the children.
Viper's Tangle Page 3
