IX
George Duroy had returned to all his old habits.
Installed at present in the little ground-floor suite of rooms in theRue de Constantinople, he lived soberly, like a man preparing a newexistence for himself.
Madame Forestier had not yet returned. She was lingering at Cannes. Hereceived a letter from her merely announcing her return about the middleof April, without a word of allusion to their farewell. He was waiting,his mind was thoroughly made up now to employ every means in order tomarry her, if she seemed to hesitate. But he had faith in his luck,confidence in that power of seduction which he felt within him, a vagueand irresistible power which all women felt the influence of.
A short note informed him that the decisive hour was about to strike: "Iam in Paris. Come and see me.--Madeleine Forestier."
Nothing more. He received it by the nine o'clock post. He arrived at herresidence at three on the same day. She held out both hands to himsmiling with her pleasant smile, and they looked into one another's eyesfor a few seconds. Then she said: "How good you were to come to me thereunder those terrible circumstances."
"I should have done anything you told me to," he replied.
And they sat down. She asked the news, inquired about the Walters, aboutall the staff, about the paper. She had often thought about the paper.
"I miss that a great deal," she said, "really a very great deal. I hadbecome at heart a journalist. What would you, I love the profession?"
Then she paused. He thought he understood, he thought he divined in hersmile, in the tone of her voice, in her words themselves a kind ofinvitation, and although he had promised to himself not to precipitatematters, he stammered out: "Well, then--why--why should you notresume--this occupation--under--under the name of Duroy?"
She suddenly became serious again, and placing her hand on his arm,murmured: "Do not let us speak of that yet a while."
But he divined that she accepted, and falling at her knees began topassionately kiss her hands, repeating: "Thanks, thanks; oh, how I loveyou!"
She rose. He did so, too, and noted that she was very pale. Then heunderstood that he had pleased her, for a long time past, perhaps, andas they found themselves face to face, he clasped her to him and printeda long, tender, and decorous kiss on her forehead. When she had freedherself, slipping through his arms, she said in a serious tone: "Listen,I have not yet made up my mind to anything. However, it may be--yes. Butyou must promise me the most absolute secrecy till I give you leave tospeak."
He swore this, and left, his heart overflowing with joy.
He was from that time forward very discreet as regards the visits hepaid her, and did not ask for any more definite consent on her part, forshe had a way of speaking of the future, of saying "by-and-by," and ofshaping plans in which these two lives were blended, which answered himbetter and more delicately than a formal acceptation.
Duroy worked hard and spent little, trying to save money so as not to bewithout a penny at the date fixed for his marriage, and becoming asclose as he had been prodigal. The summer went by, and then the autumn,without anyone suspecting anything, for they met very little, and onlyin the most natural way in the world.
One evening, Madeleine, looking him straight in the eyes said: "You havenot yet announced our intentions to Madame de Marelle?"
"No, dear, having promised you to be secret, I have not opened my mouthto a living soul."
"Well, it is about time to tell her. I will undertake to inform theWalters. You will do so this week, will you not?"
He blushed as he said: "Yes, to-morrow."
She had turned away her eyes in order not to notice his confusion, andsaid: "If you like we will be married in the beginning of May. That willbe a very good time."
"I obey you in all things with joy."
"The tenth of May, which is a Saturday, will suit me very nicely, for itis my birthday."
"Very well, the tenth of May."
"Your parents live near Rouen, do they not? You have told me so, atleast."
"Yes, near Rouen, at Canteleu."
"What are they?"
"They are--they are small annuitants."
"Ah! I should very much like to know them."
He hesitated, greatly perplexed, and said: "But, you see, they are--"Then making up his mind, like a really clever man, he went on: "My dear,they are mere country folk, innkeepers, who have pinched themselves tothe utmost to enable me to pursue my studies. For my part, I am notashamed of them, but their--simplicity--their rustic manners--might,perhaps, render you uncomfortable."
She smiled, delightfully, her face lit up with gentle kindness as shereplied: "No. I shall be very fond of them. We will go and see them. Iwant to. I will speak of this to you again. I, too, am a daughter ofpoor people, but I have lost my parents. I have no longer anyone in theworld." She held out her hand to him as she added: "But you."
He felt softened, moved, overcome, as he had been by no other woman.
"I had thought about one matter," she continued, "but it is ratherdifficult to explain."
"What is it?" he asked.
"Well, it is this, my dear boy, I am like all women, I have myweaknesses, my pettinesses. I love all that glitters, that catches theear. I should have so delighted to have borne a noble name. Could younot, on the occasion of your marriage, ennoble yourself a little?"
She had blushed in her turn, as if she had proposed somethingindelicate.
He replied simply enough: "I have often thought about it, but it did notseem to me so easy."
"Why so?"
He began to laugh, saying: "Because I was afraid of making myself lookridiculous."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Not at all, not at all Every one does it,and nobody laughs. Separate your name in two--Du Roy. That looks verywell."
He replied at once like a man who understands the matter in question:"No, that will not do at all. It is too simple, too common, toowell-known. I had thought of taking the name of my native place, as aliterary pseudonym at first, then of adding it to my own by degrees, andthen, later on, of even cutting my name in two, as you suggest."
"Your native place is Canteleu?" she queried.
"Yes."
She hesitated, saying: "No, I do not like the termination. Come, cannotwe modify this word Canteleu a little?"
She had taken up a pen from the table, and was scribbling names andstudying their physiognomy. All at once she exclaimed: "There, there itis!" and held out to him a paper, on which read--"Madame Duroy deCantel."
He reflected a few moments, and then said gravely: "Yes, that does verywell."
She was delighted, and kept repeating "Duroy de Cantel, Duroy de Cantel,Madame Duroy de Cantel. It is capital, capital." She went on with an airof conviction: "And you will see how easy it is to get everyone toaccept it. But one must know how to seize the opportunity, for it willbe too late afterwards. You must from to-morrow sign your descriptivearticles D. de Cantel, and your 'Echoes' simply Duroy. It is done everyday in the press, and no one will be astonished to see you take apseudonym. At the moment of our marriage we can modify it yet a littlemore, and tell our friends that you had given up the 'Du' out of modestyon account of your position, or even say nothing about it. What is yourfather's Christian name?"
"Alexander."
She murmured: "Alexander, Alexander," two or three times, listening tothe sonorous roll of the syllables, and then wrote on a blank sheet ofpaper:
"Monsieur and Madame Alexander Du Roy de Cantel have the honor to informyou of the marriage of Monsieur George Du Roy de Cantel, their son, toMadame Madeleine Forestier." She looked at her writing, holding it at adistance, charmed by the effect, and said: "With a little method we canmanage whatever we wish."
When he found himself once more in the street, firmly resolved to callhimself in future Du Roy, and even Du Roy de Cantel, it seemed to himthat he had acquired fresh importance. He walked with more swagger, hishead higher, his moustache fiercer, as a gentleman should walk. He feltin
himself a species of joyous desire to say to the passers-by: "My nameis Du Roy de Cantel."
But scarcely had he got home than the thought of Madame de Marelle madehim feel uneasy, and he wrote to her at once to ask her to make anappointment for the next day.
"It will be a tough job," he thought. "I must look out for squalls."
Then he made up his mind for it, with the native carelessness whichcaused him to slur over the disagreeable side of life, and began to
write a fancy article on the fresh taxes needed in order to make theBudget balance. He set down in this the nobiliary "De" at a hundredfrancs a year, and titles, from baron to prince, at from five hundred tofive thousand francs. And he signed it "D. de Cantel."
He received a telegram from his mistress next morning saying that shewould call at one o'clock. He waited for her somewhat feverishly, hismind made up to bring things to a point at once, to say everything rightout, and then, when the first emotion had subsided, to argue cleverly inorder to prove to her that he could not remain a bachelor for ever, andthat as Monsieur de Marelle insisted on living, he had been obliged tothink of another than herself as his legitimate companion. He feltmoved, though, and when he heard her ring his heart began to beat.
She threw herself into his arms, exclaiming: "Good morning, Pretty-boy."Then, finding his embrace cold, looked at him, and said: "What is thematter with you?"
"Sit down," he said, "we have to talk seriously."
She sat down without taking her bonnet off, only turning back her veil,and waited.
He had lowered his eyes, and was preparing the beginning of his speech.He commenced in a low tone of voice: "My dear one, you see me veryuneasy, very sad, and very much embarrassed at what I have to admit toyou. I love you dearly. I really love you from the bottom of my heart,so that the fear of causing you pain afflicts me more than even the newsI am going to tell you."
She grew pale, felt herself tremble, and stammered out: "What is thematter? Tell me at once."
He said in sad but resolute tones, with that feigned dejection which wemake use of to announce fortunate misfortunes: "I am going to bemarried."
She gave the sigh of a woman who is about to faint, a painful sigh fromthe very depths of her bosom, and then began to choke and gasp withoutbeing able to speak.
Seeing that she did not say anything, he continued: "You cannot imaginehow much I suffered before coming to this resolution. But I have neitherposition nor money. I am alone, lost in Paris. I needed beside mesomeone who above all would be an adviser, a consoler, and a stay. It isa partner, an ally, that I have sought, and that I have found."
He was silent, hoping that she would reply, expecting furious rage,violence, and insults. She had placed one hand on her heart as though torestrain its throbbings, and continued to draw her breath by painfulefforts, which made her bosom heave spasmodically and her head nod toand fro. He took her other hand, which was resting on the arm of thechair, but she snatched it away abruptly. Then she murmured, as thoughin a state of stupefaction: "Oh, my God!"
He knelt down before her, without daring to touch her, however, and moredeeply moved by this silence than he would have been by a fit of anger,stammered out: "Clo! my darling Clo! just consider my situation,consider what I am. Oh! if I had been able to marry you, what happinessit would have been. But you are married. What could I do? Come, think ofit, now. I must take a place in society, and I cannot do it so long as Ihave not a home. If you only knew. There are days when I have felt alonging to kill your husband."
He spoke in his soft, subdued, seductive voice, a voice which enteredthe ear like music. He saw two tears slowly gather in the fixed andstaring eyes of his mistress and then roll down her cheeks, while twomore were already formed on the eyelids.
He murmured: "Do not cry, Clo; do not cry, I beg of you. You rend myvery heart."
Then she made an effort, a strong effort, to be proud and dignified, andasked, in the quivering tone of a woman about to burst into sobs: "Whois it?"
He hesitated a moment, and then understanding that he must, said:
"Madeleine Forestier."
Madame de Marelle shuddered all over, and remained silent, so deep inthought that she seemed to have forgotten that he was at her feet. Andtwo transparent drops kept continually forming in her eyes, falling andforming again.
She rose. Duroy guessed that she was going away without saying a word,without reproach or forgiveness, and he felt hurt and humiliated to thebottom of his soul. Wishing to stay her, he threw his arms about theskirt of her dress, clasping through the stuff her rounded legs, whichhe felt stiffen in resistance. He implored her, saying: "I beg of you,do not go away like that."
Then she looked down on him from above with that moistened anddespairing eye, at once so charming and so sad, which shows all thegrief of a woman's heart, and gasped out: "I--I have nothing to say. Ihave nothing to do with it. You--you are right. You--you have chosenwell."
And, freeing herself by a backward movement, she left the room withouthis trying to detain her further.
Left to himself, he rose as bewildered as if he had received a blow onthe head. Then, making up his mind, he muttered: "Well, so much theworse or the better. It is over, and without a scene; I prefer that,"and relieved from an immense weight, suddenly feeling himself free,delivered, at ease as to his future life, he began to spar at the wall,hitting out with his fists in a kind of intoxication of strength andtriumph, as if he had been fighting Fate.
When Madame Forestier asked: "Have you told Madame de Marelle?" hequietly answered, "Yes."
She scanned him closely with her bright eyes, saying: "And did it notcause her any emotion?"
"No, not at all. She thought it, on the contrary, a very good idea."
The news was soon known. Some were astonished, others asserted that theyhad foreseen it; others, again, smiled, and let it be understood thatthey were not surprised.
The young man who now signed his descriptive articles D. de Cantel, his"Echoes" Duroy, and the political articles which he was beginning towrite from time to time Du Roy, passed half his time with his betrothed,who treated him with a fraternal familiarity into which, however,entered a real but hidden love, a species of desire concealed as aweakness. She had decided that the marriage should be quite private,only the witnesses being present, and that they should leave the sameevening for Rouen. They would go the next day to see the journalist'sparents, and remain with them some days. Duroy had striven to get her torenounce this project, but not having been able to do so, had ended bygiving in to it.
So the tenth of May having come, the newly-married couple, havingconsidered the religious ceremony useless since they had not invitedanyone, returned to finish packing their boxes after a brief visit tothe Town Hall. They took, at the Saint Lazare terminus, the six o'clocktrain, which bore them away towards Normandy. They had scarcelyexchanged twenty words up to the time that they found themselves alonein the railway carriage. As soon as they felt themselves under way, theylooked at one another and began to laugh, to hide a certain feeling ofawkwardness which they did not want to manifest.
The train slowly passed through the long station of Batignolles, andthen crossed the mangy-looking plain extending from the fortificationsto the Seine. Duroy and his wife from time to time made a few idleremarks, and then turned again towards the windows. When they crossedthe bridge of Asnieres, a feeling of greater liveliness was aroused inthem at the sight of the river covered with boats, fishermen, andoarsmen. The sun, a bright May sun, shed its slanting rays upon thecraft and upon the smooth stream, which seemed motionless, withoutcurrent or eddy, checked, as it were, beneath the heat and brightness ofthe declining day. A sailing boat in the middle of the river havingspread two large triangular sails of snowy canvas, wing and wing, tocatch the faintest puffs of wind, looked like an immense bird preparingto take flight.
Duroy murmured: "I adore the neighborhood of Paris. I have memories ofdinners which I reckon among the pleasantest in my life."
"And the boats," she replied. "How nice it is to glide along at sunset."
Then they became silent, as though afraid to continue their outpouringsas to their past life, and remained so, already enjoying, perhaps, thepoesy of regret.
Duroy, seated face to face with his wife, took her hand and slowlykissed it. "When we get back again," said he, "we will go and dinesometimes at Chatou."
She murmured: "We shall have so many things to do," in a tone of voicethat seemed to imply, "The agreeable must be sacrificed to the useful."
He still held her hand, asking himself with some uneasiness by whattransition he should reach the caressing stage. He would not have feltuneasy in the same way in presence of the ignorance of a young girl, butthe lively and artful intelligence he felt existed in Madeleine,rendered his attitude an embarrassed one. He was afraid of appearingstupid to her, too timid or too brutal, too slow or too prompt. He keptpressing her hand gently, without her making any response to thisappeal. At length he said: "It seems to me very funny for you to be mywife."
She seemed surprised as she said: "Why so?"
"I do not know. It seems strange to me. I want to kiss you, and I feelastonished at having the right to do so."
She calmly held out her cheek to him, which he kissed as he would havekissed that of a sister.
He continued: "The first time I saw you--you remember the dinnerForestier invited me to--I thought, 'Hang it all, if I could only find awife like that.' Well, it's done. I have one."
She said, in a low tone: "That is very nice," and looked him straight inthe face, shrewdly, and with smiling eyes.
He reflected, "I am too cold. I am stupid. I ought to get along quickerthan this," and asked: "How did you make Forestier's acquaintance?"
She replied, with provoking archness: "Are we going to Rouen to talkabout him?"
He reddened, saying: "I am a fool. But you frighten me a great deal."
She was delighted, saying: "I--impossible! How is it?"
He had seated himself close beside her. She suddenly exclaimed: "Oh! astag."
The train was passing through the forest of Saint Germaine, and she hadseen a frightened deer clear one of the paths at a bound. Duroy, leaningforward as she looked out of the open window, printed a long kiss, alover's kiss, among the hair on her neck. She remained still for a fewseconds, and then, raising her head, said: "You are tickling me. Leaveoff."
But he would not go away, but kept on pressing his curly moustacheagainst her white skin in a long and thrilling caress.
She shook herself, saying: "Do leave off."
He had taken her head in his right hand, passed around her, and turnedit towards him. Then he darted on her mouth like a hawk on its prey. Shestruggled, repulsed him, tried to free herself. She succeeded at last,and repeated: "Do leave off."
He remained seated, very red and chilled by this sensible remark; then,having recovered more self-possession, he said, with some liveliness:"Very well, I will wait, but I shan't be able to say a dozen words tillwe get to Rouen. And remember that we are only passing through Poissy."
"I will do the talking then," she said, and sat down quietly beside him.
She spoke with precision of what they would do on their return. Theymust keep on the suite of apartments that she had resided in with herfirst husband, and Duroy would also inherit the duties and salary ofForestier at the _Vie Francaise_. Before their union, besides, she hadplanned out, with the certainty of a man of business, all the financialdetails of their household. They had married under a settlementpreserving to each of them their respective estates, and every incidentthat might arise--death, divorce, the birth of one or more children--wasduly provided for. The young fellow contributed a capital of fourthousand francs, he said, but of that sum he had borrowed fifteenhundred. The rest was due to savings effected during the year in view ofthe event. Her contribution was forty thousand francs, which she saidhad been left her by Forestier.
She returned to him as a subject of conversation. "He was a very steady,economical, hard-working fellow. He would have made a fortune in a veryshort time."
Duroy no longer listened, wholly absorbed by other thoughts. She stoppedfrom time to time to follow out some inward train of ideas, and thenwent on: "In three or four years you can be easily earning thirty toforty thousand francs a year. That is what Charles would have had if hehad lived."
George, who began to find the lecture rather a long one, replied: "Ithought we were not going to Rouen to talk about him."
She gave him a slight tap on the cheek, saying, with a laugh: "That isso. I am in the wrong."
He made a show of sitting with his hands on his knees like a very goodboy.
"You look very like a simpleton like that," said she.
He replied: "That is my part, of which, by the way, you reminded me justnow, and I shall continue to play it."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because it is you who take management of the household, and even of me.That, indeed, concerns you, as being a widow."
She was amazed, saying: "What do you really mean?"
"That you have an experience that should enlighten my ignorance, andmatrimonial practice that should polish up my bachelor innocence, that'sall."
"That is too much," she exclaimed.
He replied: "That is so. I don't know anything about ladies; no, and youknow all about gentlemen, for you are a widow. You must undertake myeducation--this evening--and you can begin at once if you like."
She exclaimed, very much amused: "Oh, indeed, if you reckon on me forthat!"
He repeated, in the tone of a school boy stumbling through his lesson:"Yes, I do. I reckon that you will give me solid information--in twentylessons. Ten for the elements, reading and grammar; ten for finishingaccomplishments. I don't know anything myself."
She exclaimed, highly amused: "You goose."
He replied: "If that is the familiar tone you take, I will follow yourexample, and tell you, darling, that I adore you more and more everymoment, and that I find Rouen a very long way off."
He spoke now with a theatrical intonation and with a series of changesof facial expression, which amused his companion, accustomed to the waysof literary Bohemia. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye,finding him really charming, and experiencing the longing we have topluck a fruit from the tree at once, and the check of reason whichadvises us to wait till dinner to eat it at the proper time. Then sheobserved, blushing somewhat at the thoughts which assailed her: "My dearlittle pupil, trust my experience, my great experience. Kisses in arailway train are not worth anything. They only upset one." Then sheblushed still more as she murmured: "One should never eat one's corn inthe ear."
He chuckled, kindling at the double meanings from her pretty mouth, andmade the sign of the cross, with a movement of the lips, as thoughmurmuring a prayer, adding aloud: "I have placed myself under theprotection of St. Anthony, patron-saint of temptations. Now I amadamant."
Night was stealing gently on, wrapping in its transparent shadow, like afine gauze, the broad landscape stretching away to the right. The trainwas running along the Seine, and the young couple began to watch thecrimson reflections on the surface of the river, winding like a broadstrip of polished metal alongside the line, patches fallen from the sky,which the departing sun had kindled into flame. These reflections slowlydied out, grew deeper, faded sadly. The landscape became dark with thatsinister thrill, that deathlike quiver, which each twilight causes topass over the earth. This evening gloom, entering the open window,penetrated the two souls, but lately so lively, of the now silent pair.
They had drawn more closely together to watch the dying day. At Nantesthe railway people had lit the little oil lamp, which shed its yellow,
trembling light upon the drab cloth of the cushions. Duroy passed hisarms round the waist of his wife, and clasped her to him. His recentkeen desire had become a softened one, a longing for consoling littlecaresses, such as we lull children with.
He murmured softly: "I sha
ll love you very dearly, my little Made."
The softness of his voice stirred the young wife, and caused a rapidthrill to run through her. She offered her mouth, bending towards him,for he was resting his cheek upon the warm pillow of her bosom, untilthe whistle of the train announced that they were nearing a station. Sheremarked, flattening the ruffled locks about her forehead with the tipsof her fingers: "It was very silly. We are quite childish."
But he was kissing her hands in turn with feverish rapidity, andreplied: "I adore you, my little Made."
Until they reached Rouen they remained almost motionless, cheek againstcheek, their eyes turned to the window, through which, from time totime, the lights of houses could be seen in the darkness, satisfied withfeeling themselves so close to one another, and with the growinganticipation of a freer and more intimate embrace.
They put up at a hotel overlooking the quay, and went to bed after avery hurried supper.
The chambermaid aroused them next morning as it was striking eight. Whenthey had drank the cup of tea she had placed on the night-table, Duroylooked at his wife, then suddenly, with the joyful impulse of thefortunate man who has just found a treasure, he clasped her in his arms,exclaiming: "My little Made, I am sure that I love you ever so much,ever so much, ever so much."
She smiled with her confident and satisfied smile, and murmured, as shereturned his kisses: "And I too--perhaps."
But he still felt uneasy about the visit of his parents. He had alreadyforewarned his wife, had prepared and lectured her, but he thought fitto do so again.
"You know," he said, "they are only rustics--country rustics, nottheatrical ones."
She laughed.
"But I know that: you have told me so often enough. Come, get up and letme get up."
He jumped out of bed, and said, as he drew on his socks:
"We shall be very uncomfortable there, very uncomfortable. There is onlyan old straw palliasse in my room. Spring mattresses are unknown atCanteleu."
She seemed delighted.
"So much the better. It will be delightful to sleepbadly--beside--beside you, and to be woke up by the crowing of thecocks."
She had put on her dressing-gown--a white flannel dressing-gown--whichDuroy at once recognized. The sight of it was unpleasant to him. Why?His wife had, he was aware, a round dozen of these morning garments. Shecould not destroy her trousseau in order to buy a new one. No matter, hewould have preferred that her bed-linen, her night-linen, herunder-clothing were not the same she had made use of with the other. Itseemed to him that the soft, warm stuff must have retained somethingfrom its contact with Forestier.
He walked to the window, lighting a cigarette. The sight of the port,the broad stream covered with vessels with tapering spars, the steamersnoisily unloading alongside the quay, stirred him, although he had beenacquainted with it all for a long time past, and he exclaimed: "By Jove!it is a fine sight."
Madeleine approached, and placing both hands on one of her husband'sshoulders, leaned against him with careless grace, charmed anddelighted. She kept repeating: "Oh! how pretty, how pretty. I did notknow that there were so many ships as that."
They started an hour later, for they were to lunch with the old people,who had been forewarned some days beforehand. A rusty open carriage borethem along with a noise of jolting ironmongery. They followed a long andrather ugly boulevard, passed between some fields through which flowed astream, and began to ascend the slope. Madeleine, somewhat fatigued, haddozed off beneath the penetrating caress of the sun, which warmed herdelightfully as she lay stretched back in the old carriage as though ina bath of light and country air.
Her husband awoke her, saying: "Look!"
They had halted two-thirds of the way up the slope, at a spot famous forthe view, and to which all tourists drive. They overlooked the long andbroad valley through which the bright river flowed in sweeping curves.It could be caught sight of in the distance, dotted with numerousislands, and describing a wide sweep before flowing through Rouen. Thenthe town appeared on the right bank, slightly veiled in the morningmist, but with rays of sunlight falling on its roofs; its thousand squator pointed spires, light, fragile-looking, wrought like gigantic jewels;its round or square towers topped with heraldic crowns; its belfries;the numerous Gothic summits of its churches, overtopped by the sharpspire of the cathedral, that surprising spike of bronze--strange, ugly,and out of all proportion, the tallest in the world. Facing it, on theother side of the river, rose the factory chimneys of the suburb ofSaint Serves--tall, round, and broadening at their summit. More numerousthan their sister spires, they reared even in the distant country, theirtall brick columns, and vomited into the blue sky their black and coalybreath. Highest of all, as high as the second of the summits reared byhuman labor, the pyramid of Cheops, almost level with its proudcompanion the cathedral spire, the great steam-pump of La Foudre seemedthe queen of the busy, smoking factories, as the other was the queen ofthe sacred edifices. Further on, beyond the workmen's town, stretched aforest of pines, and the Seine, having passed between the two divisionsof the city, continued its way, skirting a tall rolling slope, wooded atthe summit, and showing here and there its bare bone of white stone.Then the river disappeared on the horizon, after again describing a longsweeping curve. Ships could be seen ascending and descending the stream,towed by tugs as big as flies and belching forth thick smoke. Islandswere stretched along the water in a line, one close to the other, orwith wide intervals between them, like the unequal beads of a verdantrosary.
The driver waited until the travelers' ecstasies were over. He knew fromexperience the duration of the admiration of all the breed of tourists.But when he started again Duroy suddenly caught sight of two old peopleadvancing towards them some hundreds of yards further on, and jumpedout, exclaiming: "There they are. I recognize them."
There were two country-folk, a man and a woman, walking with irregularsteps, rolling in their gait, and sometimes knocking their shoulderstogether. The man was short and strongly built, high colored andinclined to stoutness, but powerful, despite his years. The woman wastall, spare, bent, careworn, the real hard-working country-woman who hastoiled afield from childhood, and has never had time to amuse herself,while her husband has been joking and drinking with the customers.Madeleine had also alighted from the carriage, and she watched these twopoor creatures coming towards them with a pain at her heart, a sadnessshe had not anticipated. They had not recognized their son in this finegentleman and would never have guessed this handsome lady in the lightdress to be their daughter-in-law. They were walking on quickly and insilence to meet their long-looked-for boy, without noticing these cityfolk followed by their carriage.
They passed by when George, who was laughing, cried out: "Good-day,Daddy Duroy!"
They both stopped short, amazed at first, then stupefied with surprise.The old woman recovered herself first, and stammered, without advancinga step: "Is't thou, boy?"
The young fellow answered: "Yes, it is I, mother," and stepping up toher, kissed her on both cheeks with a son's hearty smack. Then he rubbednoses with his father, who had taken off his cap, a very tall, blacksilk cap, made Rouen fashion, like those worn by cattle dealers.
Then George said: "This is my wife," and the two country people lookedat Madeleine. They looked at her as one looks at a phenomenon, with anuneasy fear, united in the father with a species of approvingsatisfaction, in the mother with a kind of jealous enmity.
The man, who was of a joyous nature and inspired by a loveliness born ofsweet cider and alcohol, grew bolder, and asked, with a twinkle in thecorner of his eyes: "I may kiss her all the same?"
"Certainly," replied his son, and Madeleine, ill at ease, held out bothcheeks to the sounding smacks of the rustic, who then wiped his lipswith the back of his hand. The old woman, in her turn, kissed herdaughter-in-law with a hostile reserve. No, this was not thedaughter-in-law of her dreams; the plump, fresh housewife, rosy-cheekedas an apple, and round as a brood mare. She looked like a hussy, t
hefine lady with her furbelows and her musk. For the old girl all perfumeswere musk.
They set out again, walking behind the carriage which bore the trunk ofthe newly-wedded pair. The old fellow took his son by the arm, andkeeping him a little in the rear of the others, asked with interest:"Well, how goes business, lad?"
"Pretty fair."
"So much the better. Has thy wife any money?"
"Forty thousand francs," answered George.
His father gave vent to an admiring whistle, and could only murmur,"Dang it!" so overcome was he by the mention of the sum. Then he added,in a tone of serious conviction: "Dang it all, she's a fine woman!" Forhe found her to his taste, and he had passed for a good judge in hisday.
Madeleine and her mother-in-law were walking side by side withoutexchanging a word. The two men rejoined them. They reached the village,a little roadside village formed of half-a-score houses on each side ofthe highway, cottages and farm buildings, the former of brick and thelatter of clay, these covered with thatch and those with slates. FatherDuroy's tavern, "The Bellevue," a bit of a house consisting of a groundfloor and a garret, stood at the beginning of the village to the left. Apine branch above the door indicated, in ancient fashion, that thirstyfolk could enter.
The things were laid for lunch, in the common room of the tavern, on twotables placed together and covered with two napkins. A neighbor, come into help to serve the lunch, bowed low on seeing such a fine lady appear;and then, recognizing George, exclaimed: "Good Lord! is that theyoungster?"
He replied gayly: "Yes, it is I, Mother Brulin," and kissed her as hehad kissed his father and mother. Then turning to his wife, he said:"Come into our room and take your hat off."
He ushered her through a door to the right into a cold-looking room withtiled floor, white-washed walls, and a bed with white cotton curtains. Acrucifix above a holy-water stoup, and two colored pictures, onerepresenting Paul and Virginia under a blue palm tree, and the otherNapoleon the First on a yellow horse, were the only ornaments of thisclean and dispiriting apartment.
As soon as they were alone he kissed Madeleine, saying: "Thanks, Made. Iam glad to see the old folks again. When one is in Paris one does notthink about it; but when one meets again, it gives one pleasure all thesame."
But his father, thumbing the partition with his fist, cried out: "Comealong, come along, the soup is ready," and they had to sit down totable.
It was a long, countrified repast, with a succession of ill-assorteddishes, a sausage after a leg of mutton, and an omelette after asausage. Father Duroy, excited by cider and some glasses of wine, turnedon the tap of his choicest jokes--those he reserved for great occasionsof festivity, smutty adventures that had happened, as he maintained, tofriends of his. George, who knew all these stories, laughed,nevertheless, intoxicated by his native air, seized on by the innatelove of one's birthplace and of spots familiar from childhood, by allthe sensations and recollections once more renewed, by all the objectsof yore seen again once more; by trifles, such as the mark of a knife ona door, a broken chair recalling some pretty event, the smell of thesoil, the breath of the neighboring forest, the odors of the dwelling,the gutter, the dunghill.
Mother Duroy did not speak, but remained sad and grim, watching herdaughter-in-law out of the corner of her eye, with hatred awakened inher heart--the hatred of an old toiler, an old rustic with fingers wornand limbs bent by hard work--for the city madame, who inspired her withthe repulsion of an accursed creature, an impure being, created foridleness and sin. She kept getting up every moment to fetch the dishesor fill the glasses with cider, sharp and yellow from the decanter, orsweet, red, and frothing from the bottles, the corks of which poppedlike those of ginger beer.
Madeleine scarcely ate or spoke. She wore her wonted smile upon herlips, but it was a sad and resigned one. She was downcast. Why? She hadwanted to come. She had not been unaware that she was going amongcountry folk--poor country folk. What had she fancied them to be--she,who did not usually dream? Did she know herself? Do not women alwayshope for something that is not? Had she fancied them more poetical? No;but perhaps better informed, more noble, more affectionate, moreornamental. Yet she did not want them high-bred, like those in novels.Whence came it, then, that they shocked her by a thousand trifling,imperceptible details, by a thousand indefinable coarsenesses, by theirvery nature as rustics, by their words, their gestures, and their mirth?She recalled her own mother, of whom she never spoke to anyone--agoverness, brought up at Saint Denis--seduced, and died from poverty andgrief when she, Madeleine, was twelve years old. An unknown hand had hadher brought up. Her father, no doubt. Who was he? She did not exactlyknow, although she had vague suspicions.
The lunch still dragged on. Customers were now coming in and shakinghands with the father, uttering exclamations of wonderment on seeing hisson, and slyly winking as they scanned the young wife out of the cornerof their eye, which was as much as to say: "Hang it all, she's not aduffer, George Duroy's wife." Others, less intimate, sat down at thewooden tables, calling for "A pot," "A jugful," "Two brandies," "Araspail," and began to play at dominoes, noisily rattling the littlebits of black and white bone. Mother Duroy kept passing to and fro,serving the customers, with her melancholy air, taking money, and wipingthe tables with the corner of her blue apron.
The smoke of clay pipes and sou cigars filled the room. Madeleine beganto cough, and said: "Suppose we go out; I cannot stand it."
They had not quite finished, and old Duroy was annoyed at this. Then shegot up and went and sat on a chair outside the door, while herfather-in-law and her husband were finishing their coffee and their nipof brandy.
George soon rejoined her. "Shall we stroll down as far as the Seine?"said he.
She consented with pleasure, saying: "Oh, yes; let us go."
They descended the slope, hired a boat at Croisset, and passed the restof the afternoon drowsily moored under the willows alongside an island,soothed to slumber by the soft spring weather, and rocked by thewavelets of the river. Then they went back at nightfall.
The evening's repast, eaten by the light of a tallow candle, was stillmore painful for Madeleine than that of the morning. Father Duroy, whowas half drunk, no longer spoke. The mother maintained her doggedmanner. The wretched light cast upon the gray walls the shadows of headswith enormous noses and exaggerated movements. A great hand was seen toraise a pitchfork to a mouth opening like a dragon's maw whenever anyone of them, turning a little, presented a profile to the yellow,flickering flame.
As soon as dinner was over, Madeleine drew her husband out of the house,in order not to stay in this gloomy room, always reeking with an acridsmell of old pipes and spilt liquor. As soon as they were outside, hesaid: "You are tired of it already."
She began to protest, but he stopped her, saying: "No, I saw it veryplainly. If you like, we will leave to-morrow."
"Very well," she murmured.
They strolled gently onward. It was a mild night, the deep,all-embracing shadow of which seemed filled with faint murmurings,rustlings, and breathings. They had entered a narrow path, overshadowedby tall trees, and running between two belts of underwood ofimpenetrable blackness.
"Where are we?" asked she.
"In the forest," he replied.
"Is it a large one?"
"Very large; one of the largest in France."
An odor of earth, trees, and moss--that fresh yet old scent of thewoods, made up of the sap of bursting buds and the dead and molderingfoliage of the thickets, seemed to linger in the path. Raising her head,Madeleine could see the stars through the tree-tops; and although nobreeze stirred the boughs, she could yet feel around her the vaguequivering of this ocean of leaves. A strange thrill shot through hersoul and fleeted across her skin--a strange pain gripped her at theheart. Why, she did not understand. But it seemed to her that she waslost, engulfed, surrounded by perils, abandoned by everyone; alone,alone in the world beneath this living vault quivering there above her.
She murmured: "I am
rather frightened. I should like to go back."
"Well, let us do so."
"And--we will leave for Paris to-morrow?"
"Yes, to-morrow."
"To-morrow morning?"
"To-morrow morning, if you like."
They returned home. The old folks had gone to bed. She slept badly,continually aroused by all the country sounds so new to her--the cry ofthe screech owl, the grunting of a pig in a sty adjoining the house, andthe noise of a cock who kept on crowing from midnight. She was up andready to start at daybreak.
When George announced to his parents that he was going back they wereboth astonished; then they understood the origin of his wish.
The father merely said: "Shall I see you again soon?"
"Yes, in the course of the summer."
"So much the better."
The old woman growled: "I hope you won't regret what you have done."
He left them two hundred francs as a present to assuage theirdiscontent, and the carriage, which a boy had been sent in quest of,having made its appearance at about ten o'clock, the newly-marriedcouple embraced the old country folk and started off once more.
As they were descending the hill Duroy began to laugh.
"There," he said, "I had warned you. I ought not to have introduced youto Monsieur and Madame du Roy de Cantel, Senior."
She began to laugh, too, and replied: "I am delighted now. They are goodfolk, whom I am beginning to like very well. I will send them somepresents from Paris." Then she murmured: "Du Roy de Cantel, you willsee that no one will be astonished at the terms of the notification ofour marriage. We will say that we have been staying for a week with yourparents on their estate." And bending towards him she kissed the tip ofhis moustache, saying: "Good morning, George."
He replied: "Good morning, Made," as he passed an arm around her waist.
In the valley below they could see the broad river like a ribbon ofsilver unrolled beneath the morning sun, the factory chimneys belchingforth their clouds of smoke into the sky, and the pointed spires risingabove the old town.
Bel Ami (A Ladies' Man) Page 9
