The Catalans

by Patrick O'Brian

  Later he had come to appreciate her usefulness, but it was not until the divorce that she had taken on the proportions of a human being. As her lawyer he had talked with her a good deal, and he had been very much struck by the contrast between her and her family; the family interminably loquacious, raucous, bitterly vindictive, crammed with rhetoric; Madeleine quiet, restrained, wishing only to be finished with the whole business.

  “One of the hardest things about being a lawyer in a case of this kind,” he said, “is that it is very nearly impossible to interview your client alone. There is not one of the family who does not feel like a principal in the affair, and you find your office stuffed with father, mother, aunts, cousins, everybody, and each one is determined to present his or her view of the case. They justify themselves and they pour hatred on the other side as if you were the judge, as if they gained something by winning you over to their side. They always reach your house in an overexcited condition, and very soon their company manners and respect give way and they are all shouting away together, striking attitudes, red in the face and sweating, vociferating: it is very tedious and very difficult to manage. It is also nearly impossible to get a clear and truthful answer to the essential questions: the family always knows better than the man or woman concerned, always interrupts, and always, always, they either lie or distort the answer to improve the appearance of their case. You can never convince their idiot cunning that it is useless, worse than useless, to deceive their own lawyer. There is nothing that gives you a lower opinion of humanity than a divorce case, unless perhaps it is a disputed succession: in either some of the bile and venom spills over on to the lawyer. However experienced and hardened you may be, you feel dirty after one of these scenes.”

  Generally, he said, the injured party enjoys the scene as much as anyone—more than most, indeed, being the center of attraction, dressed for the part in a kind of mourning and supported and cosseted by one or more toad-eaters. But here it was different: the one desire and aim of Madeleine was to dispatch the business in hand, be shut of it; she loathed the whole proceeding, and sometimes she was short with her family. They, for their part, bitterly resented her reserve: they were nearly as angry with her as with Francisco. They could not understand that she had not come to them long ago when she had first known that Francisco was deceiving her; they felt that they had been wrongfully deprived, and in their indignation they filled the interview with as many hard words about her willfulness, headstrong ingratitude, and self-sufficiency as Francisco’s crime.

  Xavier had a certain talent for mimicry, and he reproduced part of one of the early interviews.

  XAVIER: Did you ever see any letters that he received from women?

  MADELEINE: No.

  DOMINIQUE: How can you say so? There were dozens of them, I’m sure.

  THERESE: She tries to keep things back, Monsieur Xavier: I know very well that she has seen them. I’ll swear to it in any court: I don’t mind what they say.

  MIMI: How about that bitch at Paulilles? Do you mean to say she couldn’t write? Eh? Of course she did.

  JEAN: What bitch at Paulilles?

  MIMI: The one he got into trouble, of course. She wrote to him: ask the postman.

  JEAN: Oh, the thief. When I get my hands

  DOMINIQUE (weeping): It’s no good. If she won’t confide in her own mother she won’t confide in Monsieur Xavier. It’s always been the same.

  JEAN: on him

  THERESE: For shame, Madeleine, for shame. Why don’t you show the letters?

  JEAN: he’ll get no more girls into trouble.

  MIMI: I’d give her such a shake if she were my daughter.

  THERESE: Don’t you know your duty to your parents? Of course you must have seen some letters when you have been going through his things, the traitor.

  JEAN: The bandit.

  MADELEINE: I never did go through his things.

  DOMINIQUE: It’s no good talking. It’s always the same. She would marry the good-for-nothing. For all we could say she would have him. I went down on my bended knees . . .

  XAVIER: Now—

  THERESE: Oh but it’s true, Monsieur Xavier; she never would come and confide in her mother or her aunts.

  JEAN: The pederast.

  MIMI: Listen to me, Madeleine. You answer Monsieur Xavier properly and tell him what letters you have seen or I will . . .

  XAVIER: Quiet, quiet, quiet.

  JEAN: Quiet, can’t you? Let Monsieur Xavier . . .

  ALL THE WOMEN: Be quiet, Madeleine, and answer Monsieur Xavier properly.

  In the end he was obliged to forbid the family, and rather than have set interviews he obtained the remaining facts by scribbling her a note and attaching it to her work: she would type her response and so it would pass without words.

  “I have never known another case where I could do that,” he said, “because in general it is essential to interrogate your witness, to have a personal interview with him, to be able to estimate the amount of falsehood in the reply. You must not be suddenly let down in court by your own witness, who has successfully deceived you, but who is penetrated by the other side. But with her I knew that what she replied was true; and that is a very unusual certitude, believe me, and a very agreeable one.

  But in spite of my shutting the family out, I am afraid she still had—still has—but a sad time of it with them. They want to know every detail of what I have said, what she has replied (and they tell her what she should have replied), and what the exact state of progress the case is in. They never believe what she tells them: they are always certain that she is keeping something back, and they harangue her about openness, a mother’s rights, and so on. It is the women mostly, but Pou-naou does his share when he is at home.

  Yet these are not bad people at all: I should emphasize this point. I know that Dominique has kept many families going by giving them credit through hard times—giving it decently, with no grudging or unkindness. Old Jeanne, for example, Espourteille’s widow, has not paid the shop a sou in three years, although she is no relation at all. They are kindly, reasonably honest, hard-working and loyal and they are very well liked in their quarter; but they are utterly at sea with a woman like Madeleine. They have no conception of how her mind works. They have not a single scrap of self-discipline or restraint in their natures, and they regard a person who suffers quietly with indignation and resentment.

  They have calmed down a little now, but at first they were beyond all bounds. For example, they went to that dismal house where Madeleine lives and destroyed every vestige of painting or drawing that the fellow had left behind him, and when Mimi—that is the strong-minded one—found that Madeleine had put some of his work in a cupboard, she gave the poor, miserable, suffering girl a blow that knocked her flat.

  I think that those women between them would have picked and badgered her to madness if they had had her to themselves; they never left her alone for an instant, and all the time they were harrying her to come and live with her mother: she wanted to have a place of her own where she could at least be sure of peace at night. She held out for a long time, but they are untiring, that sort of women, and I dare say they would have worn her down: in the end I told Pou-naou that they would have to stop it, and he told them, effectively enough, to leave her alone at least to the extent of living where she chose.”

  In spite of his efforts to keep awake, torpor had been creeping over Alain: he held his cigar near the ash, so that the advancing heat would spur him every few moments, but still his eyes would glaze and his mouth would open and the voice at his side would become an even, soporific, united sound, not words at all but a kind of drone; then he would blink, and the blink would prolong itself and his head would sway forward until he was brought up with a jerk by the imminent loss of balance or by the fiery sting of his cigar. But these last words of Xavier’s pierced his dulled ears and brought him suddenly to life.

  “You said that to Pou-naou?” he exclaimed.

  “Said what?
” asked Xavier with a frown; he was five sentences farther on, and Alain had interrupted him.

  “Told him to make them leave Madeleine alone and let her stay by herself in her house.”

  “Yes. Does that strike you as odd?”

  “Very, for a lawyer.”

  “I think it was fairly evident to Pou-naou by this time that a special relationship existed.”

  “Oh: I see. I had my chronology wrong. I had supposed—but it’s of no consequence.”

  At what period, then, had this occurred? It would be so much easier to have it all tabulated. His tired brain could not cope with the arrangement of events now. And after all he had the main facts, the main facts.

  Now Xavier was talking about her loneliness: how sweet the opportunity for unkindness had been to many in the village; the ugly, spotted girls and their loud whisperings and runnings to see; the laughter behind her. Yes, he could understand that.

  “. . . case of this kind. It is very strange to see that in some way the virtuous women feel themselves offended. The deserted woman is despised, not because she has failed to retain her man . . .

  wounded animal hated by the others . . .

  the strong element of possession: they seemed to feel that now that she was no longer owned by Francisco she reverted to them . . .

  status of widows in India . . .

  and for ever they said ‘I told you so’ . . .

  the only pleasant aspect, and that a very small one . . .”

  The cigar was out now. It had been out for some time, and Alain’s chin was sagging down nearer and nearer to his chest. The words were seeping through to him now like the sunlight through the leaves, separate splashes of gold in the great dark shade that grew and grew.

  “was old Camairerrou . . .

  sit with her . . .

  would bring her fish . . .

  Aunt Margot, too, at first; and there I must admit

  mistaken . . .

  though in general could not advise the association

  but natural good breeding . . .

  and innate good sense . . .

  expressed in beauty.”

  Alain’s breath was coming deep; he could hear it, and though the words which passed on the surface now were alive with interest for him, he could not forego the luxury of his closed eyelids, and slowly, slowly, with a sense of wrongdoing, he let it drop, let it drop, and let his light go out.

  CHAPTER SIX

  YOU HAVE BEEN here a long time now, Alain,” said Aunt Marinette, with heavy meaning in her voice.

  “Yes; yes, indeed,” replied Alain, thinking quickly for some remark that might divert her. “It seems as if I had been home for ever. The vendanges will soon be here. I am looking forward to that. It is true, isn’t it, that they have already started in the plain?”

  “We had all hoped that this dreadful business would be over before the vendanges,” said his aunt.

  “Yet still it persists,” said Uncle Joseph. “Still it persists. I ask myself, why does it still persist?”

  “Be quiet, Joseph. And we begin to wonder whether you are not on Xavier’s side.”

  “You have been encouraging him, Alain,” said Uncle Thomas, accusingly.

  “He is afraid of Xavier,” said Côme.

  “Perhaps you want Xavier to marry this woman?” asked Renée.

  Alain glanced toward Aunt Margot, but she was aloof, a neutral, and she would not catch his eye.

  “No,” he said to the family in general, “I disapprove of Xavier’s plan. I disapprove of it entirely, and I have told him so.”

  “Then why are you still staying there?”

  “If he has not given in and come to his senses, why are you still staying there?”

  “You ought to make your disapproval publicly known, and make a common front with the rest of the family.”

  “I am staying there for a good many reasons,” said Alain. “One of them is that I want to see more of Xavier and of Madeleine . . .”

  “You’ve seen plenty of her, haw haw haw,” said Côme.

  “Be quiet, Côme,” said Renée.

  “What influence I may have is . . .”

  “I wish I’d seen half as much, haw haw haw,” said dirty Côme.

  Uncle Joseph began again, “I ask myself, why does it still persist?” And in a tone of preternatural cunning he answered, “It is because of the iron vehicles that the Germans brought in nineteen forty-two, and the iron mines on the coast.” His voice rose, “But when the garden god his weapon waves . . .” They led him away, and in the confusion Alain slipped out of the room, out of the house altogether. For a moment he was inclined to disregard his Aunt Margot’s voice behind him, to feign not to hear it—and indeed it was but a weak and bleating sound as the old lady hurried after him.

  “There,” she said, panting as she took his arm. “How fast you walk, Alain; I had to run. What a basket of crabs they are.”

  “You might have said something,” said Alain crossly.

  “My dear, what is the use? The only thing to do with this sort of people is to tell them clearly what to think before they get overexcited, repeat it once or twice, and then be silent. It is of no use to attempt an explanation. Besides, I had no idea at all of what you meant. When I went to stay with Eulalie you were breathing fire on behalf of Xavier: now you say that you disapprove of his plan. How was I to know whether you meant that or whether it was just for the benefit of the family?”

  “Oh, it was true enough. How was Eulalie?”

  “Quite well, I thank you. But you must not try to put me off, Alain. So you told him that you disapproved?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you are still staying with Xavier?”

  “Yes, of course I am. Why not? We did not start knocking one another about, you know, or throwing knives. Women always tend to take a very melodramatic view of a disagreement between men: in just the same way they are always very forward in urging them to go off to a war. No: we are on perfectly civil terms; and I have no doubt we shall remain on them.”

  “Alain, that is not a respectful way to speak to your aunt.”

  “No, it is not. I beg pardon. It has been a trying morning.”

  “You must remember, my dear, that I am very much older than you. When you were an ugly little fat boy in a black pinafore I was already a middle-aged woman.”

  They had reached Aunt Margot’s house. “Come in for a little while,” she said. “We will sit on the bench under the vine, and you can tell me everything that has happened.”

  Passing from the hard, brilliant glare of the white sun into the shade of the trellised vine was wonderfully agreeable: they sat not so much in a green shadow as in a soft, diffused green light, a positive light that sprang from the leaves themselves. The air was fresher, more breathable by far, and Alain, sitting on the smooth, worn marble, looked up at the great hanging bunches and felt his temper improve.

  “Now have you got everything you want?” asked his aunt. “Have you got something to smoke, and have you got something to light it with?”

  Alain patted his pockets. “No,” he said, “I smoked my last cigarette at Aunt Marinette’s.”

  “I thought as much. Then we will send Thérèsine for a pack: I have no intention of sitting down for a long gossip with a man who is fidgety and cross for want of tobacco.”

  Old Thérèsine had bobbed and taken the money: “I will go to Mimi l’Empereur,” she had said, fixing Alain with her beady eye, and nodding her head with emphasis.

  “Jean-Paul’s is nearer,” said Alain, staring along the path where she had gone. “It is nearer by quite five minutes.”

  “That is where she will go, no doubt. She only said it to see what you would answer. She is an impudent old woman, and I shall be obliged to turn her off one day.”

  Alain was not sure what to make of this. Was he being stupid, he wondered, or was it really not worth while being so tortuous?

  “If you will stretch for that bunch over yo
ur head, my dear,” she said, “you will be able to reach it without getting up.”

  They sat for a while in silence, sharing the grapes, and then she said, “Did you enjoy the concert, Alain?”

  “The concert? Oh yes: it was not bad at all. It was all very passionate, and there were lots of drums. They played bits of Scheherazade and Prince Igor and Liszt’s noisiest piece. I enjoyed it very much. I like that kind of music.”

  “You used not to. It used to be Bach or nothing for you, or Bach and English madrigals.”

  “Yes. I was a very cultured young man, was I not?”

  “You were a very solemn young man for a time. But do you really like that kind of music now, Alain?”

  “Yes, I do. I like having my emotions thumped now and then. I have a record of Ravel’s Bolero in Prabang that I have nearly worn through. But one does not have to dislike the one to like the other, surely? They seem to me different things; or addressed to different parts of one’s body, at any rate.”

  “Still, I should have thought that all that banging and leaping about would have appealed only to a more . . . What did Xavier and Madeleine think of it?”

  “Xavier was not able to come” (as you know very well), said Alain, turning to her with an ingenuous expression, “but Madeleine enjoyed it very much. It was the first concert she had been to.”

  “So you pointed out all the instruments?”

  “Yes, I pointed out all the instruments.”

  “How kind you are, Alain.”

  Thérèsine brought the cigarettes, and Alain, who had been expecting her with some impatience, lit a cigarette at once. He wondered how Aunt Margot would come round to the aquarium, which he had also visited. Ah, the luxury of a cigarette when one has waited for it, not too long, but longer than one wished. He drew deeply on the tight, frail tube, and it gave, subsided a little between his fingers and thumb as he forced the air in through the glowing end. The saltpeter spat and crackled, the little core of heat warmed the inside of his palm, and he swept all the smoke down into his lungs.

  “She will certainly come round to it,” he thought, as he let the smoke out in a long sigh, “but how?”