Poor Isa, who had spent so many nights at the bedside of that little cry-baby; who had taken her into her own room, because her parents wanted to get some sleep and no nurse would put up with her!...Janine was talking sharply, in a tone which would have sufficed to make me beside myself. She added:
“It hurts me to say these things to you, Grandmamma. But it is my duty.”
Her duty! That was what she called the demands of her flesh, her terror of being deserted by that blackguard whose idiotic laugh I could hear....
Geneviève backed up her daughter. It was quite true that weakness might amount to being an accomplice. Isa sighed.
“Perhaps, my children, the best thing would be to write to him.”
“Oh, no, not a letter, above all!” protested Hubert. “Letters always let us down. I hope you haven’t written to him already, Mamma?”
She confessed that she had written to me, two or three times.
“Not letters of threats or insults?”
Isa hesitated about admitting it. And I—I laughed to myself....Yes, indeed, she had written to me: letters that I had carefully preserved, two which contained the gravest insults, and a third almost affectionate, quite enough to make her lose any suit for separation which her fools of children might try and persuade her to bring against me. They were all disturbed now, as when one dog growls and the rest of the pack start growling.
“You haven’t written anything like that, Grandmother? He hasn’t got any letter which might be dangerous to us?”
“No, I don’t think so....Well, there was once when Bourru—that little lawyer at Saint Vincent, whom my husband must have under his thumb in some way or other (but he’s a cad and a hypocrite)—said to me: ‘Oh, Madame, you were very imprudent to write to him....”
“What did you write to him? No insults, I hope?”
“Just once—some rather violent reproaches, after Marie’s death. And then there was another time, in 1909: it was about a liaison more serious than the others.”
When Hubert groaned: “That’s bad, that’s very bad!” she thought to reassure him by telling him that she had settled matters all right afterwards, that she had expressed her regrets, recognised that she was in the wrong.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, that puts the lid on it!...”
So there was no fear of a separation suit now....
“But what makes you think, after all, that his intentions are so black for us?”
“Why, they stare you in the face!—the impenetrable mystery of his financial operations; the hints he dropped; what he let slip to Bourru, before a witness: ‘They’ll make a face, when the old man dies...’”
They went on talking as though the old woman were no longer there. She got up from her chair with a groan. It was wrong of her, with her rheumatism, she said, to sit outside at night. The children did not even answer her. I heard some careless “Good-nights” that they threw her without interrupting their conversation. It was she who had to go the rounds and kiss them; they did not disturb themselves.
I went back to bed, to be on the safe side. Her heavy steps echoed on the staircase. She came to my door, and I could hear her Breathing. She put her candle down on the floor, and opened the door. She was quite close to my bed. She bent over me, doubtless to make sure that I was asleep. What a long time she stayed! I was afraid of giving myself away. Her Breath was coming short. Finally she shut my door again. When she had locked her own, I went back to the dressing-room, to my listening-post.
The children were still there. They were talking in low voices now. Many of their words escaped me.
“He wasn’t of her social position,” Janine was saying. “There was that, too. Phili, my dear, you’re coughing. Put your coat on.”
“Really, it isn’t his wife he hates most; it’s us. You couldn’t imagine such a thing, could you? It’s something you don’t find even in books. It is not for us to judge our mother,” Geneviève wound up, “but I think that Mamma isn’t hard enough on him....”
“Well, of course” (it was Phili’s voice), “she’ll always get her dowry back. Her father Fondaudèges Suez shares...those must have gone up since 1884....”
“The Suez shares? But they’re sold....”
I recognised the hesitancy, the hemming and hawing, of Geneviève’s husband. It was the first remark that poor Alfred had made. Geneviève interrupted him, in that bitter, nagging tone which she keeps for him.
“Are you mad? The Suez shares sold?”
Alfred related how, in the month of May, he had gone to see his mother-in-law and found her in the act of signing papers. She had said to him: “It seems that this is the moment to sell them. They are at the peak, they’ll go down.”
“And you never told us?” cried Geneviève. “What a fool you are! He made her sell her Suez shares? And you tell us that as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world!...”
“But Geneviève, I thought that your mother kept you in touch with things. In any case, by the marriage settlement she remained mistress of her own property....”
“Yes, but won’t he pocket the profits of the transaction? What do you think about it, Hubert? Imagine his never telling us! And that’s the man I’ve had to spend my life with....”
Janine intervened to ask them to speak lower: they would waken her little girl. For a few moments I could hear nothing more. Then Hubert’s voice became distinguishable again.
“I’ve been thinking about what you were saying just now. We can’t try anything in that direction, through Mamma. At least, we should have to lead her up to it, little by little....”
“She might rather have that than separation. Since separation would necessarily end in divorce, a case of conscience arises....Of course, what Phili proposes seems shocking at first sight. But, after all, we are not the judges. It is not we who decide in the last resort. Our rôle is limited to getting the thing started. It would only happen if it is recognised as necessary by the competent authorities.”
“And I tell you that it would be a wasted effort,” declared Olympia.
Hubert’s wife must have been out of all patience to raise 118 her voice as she did. She asserted that I was a man with all his wits about him, of very sound judgment, “with whom,” she added, “I may say that I often agree, and I could twist him round my finger, if you didn’t undo all my work....”
I did not hear what rude reply Phili made; but they all laughed, as they always do whenever Olympia opens her mouth. I caught snatches of sentences.
“For the last five years he hasn’t pleaded—he hasn’t been able to plead.”
“Because of his heart?”
“Yes, now. But when he left the Law Courts he was not yet very ill. The truth is that he had rows with his colleagues. There were scenes in the lobbies, about which I already have some evidence....”
I stretched my ears in vain. Phili and Hubert had drawn their chairs together. I could hear only an indistinct murmur, then this exclamation from Olympia:
“Oh, I say! The only man here to whom I can talk about what I read, with whom I can exchange general ideas—you want to....”
Out of Phili’s reply I caught the word “daft.” One of Hubert’s sons-in-law—the one who hardly ever speaks—said in a tone of stifled rage:
“Please show some manners to my mother-in-law.”
Phili protested that he was only joking. Weren’t they both victims in this business? When Hubert’s son-in-law declared, still in a voice that trembled, that he did not regard himself as a victim and that he had married his wife for love, there was a general chorus: “So did I! So did I! So did I!” Geneviève said to her husband mockingly:
“Oh, you too!—are you bragging that you married me without knowing what my father’s fortune was worth? Just you remember the evening of our engagement! Didn’t you whisper to me: ‘What does it matter if he won’t tell us anything about it, when we know it’s enormous?’”
There was a general burst of laughter, an uproar. Hubert raised h
is voice again, and was the only one to speak for a few moments. I could hear only the last sentences.
“It’s a question of justice, a question of morality, which over-rides everything else. We are defending the patrimony, the sacred rights of the family.”
In the deep silence that precedes the dawn, their conversation came to me more distinctly.
“Have him watched? He is too well in with the police, I have proof of that. He would be warned....” Then, a few moments later: “... His hardness, his greediness, are common knowledge. One may go so far as to say that his honesty has been called in question in one or two cases. But so far as sound understanding, mental balance, are concerned....”
“In any case, nobody can deny the inhuman, the monstrous, the unnatural character of his feelings towards us....”
“If you think, my little Janine,” said Alfred to his daughter, “that that will suffice to obtain a certification....”
I was beginning to understand. I had already understood. A great calm reigned in me, a sense of peace born of this certitude: it was they who were the monsters, and I who was the victim.
Isa’s absence gave me pleasure. She had more or less protested, as long as she had been there; and, before her, they had not dared to make any reference to the project which I had just overheard—and which did not frighten me in the least.
Poor fools! As though I were the kind of man to let myself be put under restraint or shut up! Before they could raise a hand against me, I could very soon place Hubert in a desperate position. He did not realise my hold upon him. As for Phili, I have a file....The idea of making use of it had never occurred to me. But I shall not need to make use of it. It will be enough for me to show my teeth.
For the first time in my life, I experienced the satisfaction of being the least bad. I had no desire to avenge myself upon them. Or, rather, I wanted no other vengeance beyond that of snatching away from them that heritage over which they pined away with impatience and sweated with anxiety.
“A shooting star!” cried Phili. “I had no time to make a wish.”
“One never has time,” said Janine.
Her husband went on, with that gaiety of a child which he had retained:
“When you see one, cry: ‘Millions!’”
“What an ass you are, Phili!”
They all got up. The garden chairs rasped on the gravel. I heard the locking of the front door, Janine’s stifled laughter in the passage. The doors of the bedrooms shut one after the other.
My decision was taken. For the last two months I had had no attack. There was nothing to prevent me from going to Paris. As a rule, I went away without saying anything about it. But I did not want this departure to resemble a flight. Until morning I went over the plans I had already made. I put them in order.
Chapter XIII
WHEN I got up at midday, I did not feel in the least tired. Bourru, summoned by telephone, came after lunch. We walked up and down, for nearly three-quarters of an hour, under the lime-trees. Isa, Geneviève and Janine watched us from a distance, and I enjoyed their anxiety. What a pity that the men were in Bordeaux!
They said of the little old lawyer: “Bourru is his usual self.” Wretched Bourru, whom I hold more tightly than any slave! It was a sight to see the poor devil, that morning, struggling against my giving a weapon against him to my eventual heir. “But,” I told him, “inasmuch as he will give it up, as soon as you have destroyed the receipt signed by him....”
When he left, he made a deep bow to the ladies, who barely responded, and got on his bicycle with his tail between his legs. I joined the three women, and told them that I was leaving for Paris that evening. Isa protested that it was rash for me to travel alone in my state of health.
“I really must see about my investments,” I replied. “Though I may not look like it, I am thinking about you.”
They looked at me with an anxious air. My ironical tone gave me away. Janine glanced at her mother, and plucked up her courage.
“Grandmother or Uncle Hubert could go instead of you, Grandfather.”
“That’s a good idea, my child—quite a good idea; but there it is: I have always been in the habit of doing things for myself. Besides, it’s a bad thing, I know, but I don’t trust anybody.”
“Not even your children? Oh, Grandfather!”
She emphasised the word “grandfather” in a rather affected way. She assumed a coaxing, irresistible air. Oh, that exasperating voice of hers, that voice which I had heard during the night, mingling with the others!...
Then I burst out laughing—that dangerous laugh which makes me cough, and visibly terrified them. I shall never forget poor Isa’s face, her worn-out appearance. She must have had to withstand some pressure already. Janine would probably return to the charge, as soon as my back was turned. “Don’t let him go, Grandmamma....”
But my wife was in no condition to attack. Her race was run, and her weariness was too much for her. I had heard her saying to Geneviève, the other day: “I should like to lie down, and sleep, and never waken up....”
She saddened me, now, as my poor mother had saddened me. The children were trying to bring into action against me this old, used-up machine, incapable of serving them. Still, they loved her, in their own way. They forced her to see the doctor, to be careful about her diet.
Her daughter and her grand-daughter moved away, and she came closer to me.
“Listen,” she said, very quickly, “I want some money.”
“This is the 10th. I gave you your month’s allowance on the 1st.”
“Yes, but I had to lend money to Janine. They are very hard up. I save money out of the housekeeping; I’ll give it back to you out of the August allowance.”
I replied that it was no affair of mine, and that I was not going to support that fellow Phili.
“I have overdue accounts at the butcher’s, the grocer’s....Look, here they are.”
She pulled them out of her handbag. I felt sorry for her. I offered to sign cheques for them; “in that way I should be sure that the money did not go elsewhere....” She agreed to that. As I took out my cheque-book, I noticed Janine and her mother watching us from the rose-walk.
“I’m sure,” I said, “that they think you are talking to me about something else....”
Isa trembled. She asked in a low voice: “What else?” At that moment I felt that tightening of my chest. I put my two hands together to it in the way that she knew so well. She came close to me.
“Are you in pain?”
I held on to her arm for a moment. We looked, there in the middle of the lime-tree walk, like an old married couple who were ending their lives together after years of deep unitedness. I murmured in a low voice: “I’m better now.” She must have thought that this was the time to speak, a unique opportunity. But she had no strength left. I noticed that she, too, was fighting for Breath. Actually ill as I was, I had made an effort. She had let herself go, surrendered; there was nothing of her left.
She sought for something to say, and looked furtively towards her daughter and grand-daughter to give herself courage. In the eyes that she turned back to me I read an indescribable weariness, perhaps pity, and certainly a little shame. The children must have hurt her, that night.
“I’m anxious about your going away alone.”
I told her that if anything happened to me on the way, she might spare herself the trouble of having me brought back. And, when she begged me not to say things like that, I added:
“It would be an unnecessary expense, Isa. Cemetery soil is the same everywhere.”
“I feel the same as you do,” she sighed. Let them put me where they like. Once I wanted so much to sleep beside Marie...but what is there left of Marie?
Once more I realised that, to her, her little Marie meant that dust, those bones. I did not dare to protest that I, for years, had felt my child to be alive; that I Breathed the atmosphere of her; that she often crossed the darkness of my life, like a sudden gust o
f wind.
In vain did Geneviève and Janine keep watch upon her; Isa seemed tired of trying. Did she measure the nothingness of what she had fought for, all these years? Geneviève and Hubert, urged on themselves by their own children, had set against me this old woman, Isa Fondaudège, the scented girl of the nights of Bagnères.
For nearly half a century we had been confronting one another. Yet now, in that heavy afternoon, we two adversaries felt the link which, despite that long struggle, was created by our participation in old age. Seeming to hate one another, we had reached the same point. There was nothing, there was nothing any more beyond that promontory where we awaited death. There was nothing for me, at least. For her there still remained her God; her God must still remain for her.
All that she had held as doggedly as myself fell away from her all at once: all those desires which had interposed themselves between her and the Infinite Being. Could she see Him now, Him from Whom nothing separated her any more?
No; there remained to her the ambitions, the demands of her children. She was charged with the fulfilment of their desires. She had to start being hard all over again as a proxy. Anxiety about money, health, calculations based on ambition, on jealousy—all this was there before her, like a student’s homework on which the master writes: “To be done again.”
She turned her eyes again towards the walk where Geneviève and Janine, armed with pruning scissors, were pretending to trim the roses. From the bench where I had sat down to get my Breath again, I watched my wife going away from me, with her head down, like a child on its way to be scolded. The excessive heat of the sun heralded a storm. She walked with the steps of those to whom walking means suffering. I imagined I could hear her moaning: “Oh, my poor legs!” An old married couple never hate one another as much as they think.
She had rejoined her children, who were evidently addressing reproaches to her. Suddenly I saw her coming towards me again, red in the face, Breathless. She sat down beside me and groaned.
“This stormy weather tires me. I’ve very high blood-pressure, these days....Listen, Louis, there is something I’m anxious about. Those Suez shares of my dowry—how have you reinvested them? I remember that you asked me to sign some papers....”
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