But yes, it is: Josiane transformed, embellished, her soul full of devotion and nobility.
You don’t understand that, you men, do you, because your indiscretions and disorderly ways bring no consequences?
Provided you remain honest, decent, generous, it matters very little if you have set tongues wagging, if you have cast hearts and money to the winds with equal abandon, changed your mistress every day, drunk from every cup! No one calls you to account for any of it; and when it suits you, you emerge all shiny and new from those pits of pleasure, those escapades in private rooms and boudoirs to lead some fresh young girl to the altar. You love her, she loves you, and all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
But the Suzanne de Colognes, the Mathilde de Courcelles, the Louise Martins and the Valneiges, that’s a different matter! And I shall never be in a position to undo what has been done and today, in the dream that I am living, in this love that is regenerating me, this is what is eating at me and killing me.
And yet, my friend, amidst all these miseries, would you believe I had just this one thought, one desire: to see him again!
And so, in the hope of a chance meeting – for lovers, happy accidents are often the way – I rediscovered my earlier passion for roaming the countryside. I spent long hours in Sénart forest, and there, in nature’s all-enveloping peace, I would forget, I would hope, I would wait!
To wait in hope for happiness, isn’t that already a kind of happiness? And often more reliable!
I had been coming here like this for several days, not at all discouraged at finding myself all alone, with only my dreams for company; when one time…
I had found a comfortable place on a carpet of moss growing thickly under an old oak tree. Nothing could be heard in the silence but the vague stirrings of invisible creatures, flies performing their buzzing quadrilles and, close by, water splashing over white pebbles.
The heat was gradually fading, and among the golden shadows of the setting sun there stole a powerful sense of calm. It stole powerfully over me too, so that I was about to fall asleep and had completely forgotten the good little creature who follows me everywhere, when suddenly I heard in the distance Musette’s clear bark and at the same time a sharp and piercing whistle, a sort of alarm signal.
The wood was ringing with this long blast when I saw my Musette dashing back in a panic with a pale brown terrier I vaguely remembered having noticed somewhere, I couldn’t recall where. It was dancing round Musette, and growing bolder, when its ears pricked up.
Someone was calling it: ‘Moka! Moka!’
It immediately ran towards its master, who was just emerging from a small side path.
It was him! Paul!
He was, I noticed, as startled as I was.
‘You here, madame, alone… all alone… in this wood?’ he said, hurrying over.
‘It seemed so nice here in the calm and cool of the evening, I have lingered longer than I meant. This time of day has a melancholy charm all of its own…’
‘Which I have clumsily come along and interrupted, no doubt. Forgive me…’
‘Will you feel better if I assure you it is quite the contrary, or better still if I tell you your presence only increases it?’
He looked up at me then, a veiled tenderness in his eyes, and said with a sigh, ‘If only it were so, if only it were so…’
‘Come along now: if my very makeshift hospitality doesn’t scare you off, sit down here with me. There’s a little piece of this moss carpet to spare that looks just made for you.’
He didn’t need to be asked twice and folded himself at my feet, smiling broadly, as happy as a king.
We chatted like real… friends. I wanted to know everything: I asked about his childhood, his youth, his studies, his favourite things, his ambitions.
He was supposed to enrol at Saint-Cyr military school, his father’s long-held hope; but with his health a little delicate, his mother fought against this idea and he had had to abandon it. So he had begun law studies, and he was now aiming to enter the magistracy, to please his mother.
For his own part, he had always liked books and poetry; during classes he used to scribble verses; his mother had found scraps everywhere, in his pockets, under his pillows, in his books and despite all her attempts to deflect him from a path full of nervous upsets, of unhealthy over-excitement and especially disappointment, she had been obliged to allow him, he said, to keep for a mistress… his muse; and he had just, after many setbacks, published a small volume, of which he would be glad to give me a copy.
I listened without interrupting, in a state of dreamy happiness, the way a mother listens to her son, or a woman her lover. I would have liked to go on listening, to let darkness come, the mystery of the woods beneath the star-studded vault, listening to him for ever.
But suddenly the two little dogs, who had run off, reappeared looking suspiciously pleased with themselves and leapt into our laps.
They were made a tremendous fuss of: Paul Duvert praised and petted Musette, whilst I let Moka lick my hands.
“Love me, love my dog,” as the English say.
It was charming. But all at once I said, ‘Come along, we must get back, it’s getting dark. Mme Duvert, I’m sure, is waiting for you, and I…’
‘Please, please, just a little longer,’ he begged. ‘I’m so happy. To hold your hand in mine, and your sweet look making me giddy: would you deprive me so soon of the joys I’ve always hoped for?’
And taking out, still bloodstained, the little handkerchief I had used to wipe his forehead in the forester’s cottage, he said, ‘Here, do you recognise this…? I’ve kept it like a treasured relic. I had a presentiment I was going to love you; and now, today, I love you, I adore you…!’
Oh, my friend, I was moved to the depths of my being!
Our hands sought each other’s, fingers clasped fingers, and he laid his head on my knees, overcome with happiness, whilst I, inhaling the soft perfume of his hair, already I was struggling against a mounting intoxication.
Abruptly I rose to my feet; he stood up as well, and without another word between us, we walked side by side along the path that took us back to the edge of the wood.
There, holding hands in a long farewell, and just as we were about to separate, the same words sprang to the lips of each of us: ‘We’ll come here again!’
And descending darkness shrouded this sweet mystery until the next day.
You are no doubt thinking, my dear friend, that the Josiane you once knew is adopting poetic airs that don’t suit her at all.
My God, yes! Even I didn’t recognise myself. I was seeing everything in a different light. People, objects, nature were all showing new faces, and I, who had always lived in an alluringly moneyed atmosphere, was now falling into ecstasies over a blade of grass and the twittering of a bird.
What does worry me, on the other hand, is that I’m wearying you and abusing your kindness in reading this. And for that reason I am not going to write to you for a few days. It will allow you a little rest from,
Your old friend, who finds herself terribly shaken by turning over all these memories.
XIX
To the Same
On one of our walks one day, we had gone further than usual and we were walking side by side along the pretty Epinay road, exchanging tender words and savouring the delights of being out in the fresh air, when we noticed coming towards us a pony-trap carrying two men, one stout, the other thin.
‘Good day, Josiane!’ the stout one said, lifting his arm in a greeting at once familiar and patronising. The eye behind his gold-rimmed monocle winked.
It was that appalling de Raincourt. I must have been under a curse! Just because I had once allowed him through my door, or rather he had forced it, he must pester me for the rest of my life!
In any case, how did this prowler of the boulevards come to be in Brunoy, I ask you!
It was aggravating, I felt tense and on edge, I was casting in my mind
for a way to explain his casual manners when Paul Duvert said to me sharply: ‘What kind of person is that, the impertinent fellow, daring to greet you in such cavalier fashion? If I knew him…’ Then he looked at me intently. ‘But you, my friend, you must… know him.’
I became confused, yes, my dear, and went all red.
‘No, no… I couldn’t say…’ I stammered. ‘He must have mistaken me for someone. There are so many women with my blonde hair…’
I could see my reply only half satisfied him. He remained thoughtful, wondering, worried, and did not press the matter. But when it came for us to part, he said: ‘Will you do me a great favour? When we see each other tomorrow, can it be at your house? There’s something too public, too common about the roads, anyone can come along. Sudden encounters upset me, get on my nerves. I feel that if we had some little corner where we’d be on our own, just the two of us…’
‘Yes, yes, that’s it. Tomorrow,’ I said, remembering all at once that we could indeed be on our own. ‘Tomorrow at eight.’
For the last two days preparations had been going on in Brunoy for a public entertainment. It was the village fair!
The large square in front of the church was beginning to take on a festive look. Roundabouts and helter-skelters were setting up. A raffle stall was unpacking its arrays of coloured glass trinkets. A fortune-teller of amazing powers, specialising in lovers, robberies and inheritances, was rigging her red velvet tent against the side of her caravan. A tooth-puller was fixing to his cart his advertising display with its gleaming rows of three-franc dentures. The waffle and penny-tart sellers were blowing on their fires like blacksmiths and already a disgusting smell of fried potatoes and paraffin was polluting our pure air. The fair was due to open the following day.
Brilliant illuminations were promised for the evening – probably a few miserable coloured lanterns strung in the trees. But Gérard, brought up exclusively on Paris pavements and never having witnessed a village fair, had dreamed up a scheme with Brunet, the coachman: they would ask Madame permission to go and have a bit of fun and spend the evening taking in the spectacle of the fair.
And since “Madame” wanted nothing better than to have a free hand, those excellent servants were granted all the time they desired, and even a little extra, since with a generosity that left them even more surprised, I gave them until past midnight.
Oh, my friend, the time spent getting ready, waiting for the appointed hour, how delicious! Anyone who hasn’t felt it hasn’t lived! I took joy in everything. Joy in the dress I was going to put on so that he would find me beautiful, joy in the flowers I had arranged in their vases with my own hands, joy even in listening to the tick-tock of the clock that brought the hour closer, made my heart beat in double measure.
It was real love that I felt for him, then, and what a different feeling it was this time!
And when I thought of the way I used to set the scene back in my days of triumph, the farce I staged for the happiness of others and my own foolish vanity, the layers of make-up I applied to my cheeks, my lips, my heart, I recoiled in disgust, in horror. And this reaction in itself made my love all the greater and dearer to me.
It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening when my old Gérard, all dressed up, came to find me.
‘We’re going now, Madame, and I came to see if Madame needed anything. Madame has not dined.’
‘Yes, I’ll have something. Put out some tea and cold chicken in my room, and then off you go, quickly, it’s time.’
I had indeed not eaten dinner. In the first place I was not hungry, and then I didn’t want them to be late setting off!
So I was alone, quite alone in the house, which had never happened before.
He was coming! I was within touching distance of the happiness I had dreamed of, it was within my grasp; I was going to be able to close my arms round it, embrace it: love, such love!
Screened by the half-closed blinds, I leant at the window. From the baskets of roses and mignonettes exquisite scents filled the air.
It was a fine evening, and in the silence that surrounded me I could hear only the drumming of the wooden horses on the roundabouts, snatches of tunes and the shrill voices of the clowns!
Excellent people, how glad I was they were enjoying themselves!
Suddenly a little squeaking sound came from the gate. I pushed the blind aside a fraction. It was him!
I was trembling so much I could hardly walk to the door to let him in.
Joy makes you terrified!
‘At last, at last!’ he sighed, holding me tightly.
And, holding hands, we moved towards the large red-tapestried sofa between the windows.
Gazing into each other’s eyes, we seemed to be reading the depths of our souls. He knelt at my feet. His whole being quivering with hope and desire, he covered my hands with kisses; and to see the provocative fire in his eyes was like drinking a magic potion.
‘I love you so much, Josiane! I love you so much!’
I listened, charmed, enraptured, transported, drinking in these words of love as if I was hearing them for the first time. It was a form of divine music that penetrated to the very marrow of my bones, it was the tremor of new life, it was love.
And the hidden reason behind this ecstasy, my friend, is one you know. People have said to me many times, ‘I love you, I adore you.’ But however magical those three little words that make the world go round, they had left my heart cold, since I was not in love myself. But how I loved this man!
And yet, would you believe it, I felt a sort of reticence that prevented me from telling him so. Words rose from my heart, burned on my lips, but my love was so real, so pure, so immense that it seemed a profanity to utter now words I had flung about so freely before!
And even as I surrendered to him my feverish hand, even as I felt his own ardour burning ever stronger in myself, I left him to guess the things I was unwilling to say to him.
But suddenly a dark cloud, like doubt, passed across his face.
‘You have to tell me, my friend,’ he said, abruptly, ‘do you really not know the gentleman in the pony-trap at all? I’m curious about him, and I’ve been finding out what I can. He appears to be a baron, Baron de… de… de… it begins with an R… come on, help me.’
‘I told you,’ I said, hiding my irritation, ‘I do not know him. And why bring up this strange character at a moment like this? Please: leave him be, and let’s not talk about it any more.’
And to make a diversion, I briskly stood up.
‘Will you make me some tea?’ I asked him. ‘I haven’t mentioned it, but I missed dinner to wait for you.’
A look of joy spread over his face.
‘So you do love me a little, my adored Josiane!’
And embracing me with renewed passion, he said with a sigh, ‘I’m so happy!’
Gérard had set everything out to perfection.
On a side table, the samovar only needed a match; two chicken wings lay appetisingly in a delicious-looking jelly.
Clearly, love and plain water were not always enough, and my stomach felt horribly empty…!
‘What if we made an omelette?’ I said. ‘It would be fun! We’ve still got a good two hours, plenty of time to do a little cooking…’
‘And some loving,’ he added, laughing, to my delight.
He followed me to the kitchen, getting tangled in my long silk train as he tried to stay close, eager to do anything to please me, to satisfy my smallest desire.
The kitchen was gleaming. In the glow of the gas jets, which Gérard had left turned up high, the copper pans shone like golden discs, and the blue and white mosaic of the stove sparkled in its multifaceted glories.
‘Now then, let’s look for some eggs,’ I said, crouching in front of the ancient store cupboard. But whilst I was giving my full attention to exploring the contents of various baskets and bowls, at some cost to my nails, I felt on the back of my neck the warm impress… of a kiss! It was heavenly.<
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I’d promised to make an omelette. I’d managed to find the eggs, but the butter, where was that? It was Paul who found it.
Playing cooks like this gave us as much pleasure as children holding a dolls’ tea party.
For my part, I hadn’t done a stroke of housework since the days of little Louise Aubertin; it all seemed very comical to me, and Paul Duvert said he thought my ineptness was adorable.
Triumph at last, it was ready!
Creamy and golden and, bless me, speckled with herbs that we had found already prepared on the chopping board.
Like the Holy Sacrament, Paul carried it into my room.
But we had acclaimed the victory too soon. At the very moment of setting it on the side table, where there was hardly any space left, our dinner slid off its dish, and the omelette… spent the evening on the floor.
And we… we spent it consoling each other with laughter and kisses.
I relate all these trifles from a vanished past to show you how vast and all-encompassing love is if it can be found even in such simple things.
What a good evening! My dream was a reality, and in my soul I felt an opening-out, an overflowing that made me a thousand times happier, for sure, than diamond necklaces and ropes of pearls.
We talked with growing intimacy, leaning close to one another. We planned the times when we would be able to meet, we couldn’t carry on without seeing each other.
It was not an easy thing to arrange. Already Mme Duvert seemed suspicious, had begun to question him, or come upon him lost in his thoughts, and he had given thanks for the charming village fair, at which she believed him to be enjoying himself and which had given us this opportunity to be so free.
‘But let me assure you, the woman I adore, that nothing will come between us, nothing, and if my mother is not happy…’
These words showed me the full measure of his love. I knew that he adored his mother, that her wishes were his command, and that to be ready to sacrifice them for me, he really must love me.
I pressed his beloved head against my overflowing heart. I put my lips to his hair.
Chasing the Dream Page 9
