by Frank Wynne
Nini sleeps. Her head rests upon a cushion, her little rag and horse-hair body is wrapped in a woollen coverlet, her lids are closed; for Nini raises or lowers her lids according to the position of her body.
Signor Odoardo looks at the clock and then glances out of the window. It is two o’clock and the snow is still falling.
Doretta is struck by another idea.
“Daddy, see if I know my La Fontaine fable: Le corbeau et le renard.”
“Very well, let’s hear it,” Signor Odoardo assents, taking the open book from the little girl’s hands.
Doretta begins:
Maître corbeau, sur un arbre perché,
Tenait en son bec un fromage;
Maître … maître … maître …
“Go on.”
“Maître …”
“Maître renard.”
“Oh, yes, now I remember:
Maître renard, par l’odeur alléché,
Lui tint à peu près ce langage:
Hé! bonjour …”
At this point Doretta, seeing that her father is not listening to her, breaks off her recitation. Signor Odoardo has, in fact, closed the book upon his forefinger, and is looking elsewhere.
“Well, Doretta,” he absently inquires, “why don’t you go on?” “I’m not going to say any more of it,” she answers sullenly. “Why, you cross-patch! What’s the matter?”
The little girl, who had been seated on a low stool, has risen to her feet and now sees why her papa has not been attending to her. The snow is falling less thickly, and the fair head of Signora Evelina has appeared behind the window-panes over the way.
Brave little woman! She has actually opened the window, and is clearing the snow off the sill with a fire-shovel. Her eyes meet Signor Odoardo’s; she smiles and shakes her head, as though to say: What hateful weather!
He would be an ill-mannered boor who should not feel impelled to say a word to the dauntless Signor Evelina. Signor Odoardo, who is not an ill-mannered boor, yields to the temptation of opening the window for a moment.
“Bravo, Signora Evelina! I see you are not afraid of the snow.”
“Oh, Signor Odoardo, what fiendish weather! … But, if I am not mistaken, that is Doretta with you … How do you do, Doretta?”
“Doretta, come here and say how do you do to the lady.”
“No, no—let her be, let her be! Children catch cold so easily—you had better shut the window. I suppose there is no hope of seeing you to-day?”
“Look at the condition of the streets!”
“Oh, you men … you men! … The stronger sex … but no matter. Au revoir!” “Au revoir.”
The two windows are closed simultaneously, but this time Signora Evelina does not disappear. She is sitting there, close to the window, and it snows so lightly now that her wonderful profile is outlined as clearly as possible against the pane. Good heavens, how beautiful she is!
Signor Odoardo walks up and down the room, in the worst of humors. He feels that it is wrong not to go and see the fascinating widow, and that to go and see her would be still more wrong. The cloud has settled again upon Doretta’s forehead, the same cloud that darkened it in the morning.
Not a word is said of La Fontaine’s fable. Instead, Signor Odoardo grumbles irritably:
“This blessed room is as cold as ever.”
“Why shouldn’t it be,” Doretta retorts with a touch of asperity, “when you open the window every few minutes?”
“Oho,” Signor Odoardo says to himself, “it is time to have this matter out.”
And, going up to Doretta, he takes her by the hand, leads her to the sofa, and lifts her on his knee.
“Now, then, Doretta, why is it that you are so disagreeable to Signora Evelina?”
The little girl, not knowing what to answer, grows red and embarrassed. “What has Signora Evelina done to you?” her father continues.
“She hasn’t done anything to me.”
“And yet you don’t like her.”
Profound silence.
“And SHE likes you so much!”
“I don’t care if she does!”
“You naughty child! … And what if, one of these days, you had to live with Signora Evelina?”
“I won’t live with her—I won’t live with her!” the child bursts out.
“Now you are talking foolishly,” Signor Odoardo admonishes her in a severe tone, setting her down from his knee.
She bursts into passionate weeping.
“Come, Doretta, come … Is this the way you keep your daddy company? … Enough of this, Doretta.”
But, say what he pleases, Doretta must have her cry. Her brown eyes are swimming in tears, her little breast heaves, her voice is broken by sobs.
“What ridiculous whims!” Signer Odoardo exclaims, throwing his head back against the sofa cushions.
Signor Odoardo is unjust, and, what is worse, he does not believe what he is saying. He knows that this is no whim of Doretta’s. He knows it better than the child herself, who would probably find it difficult to explain what she is undergoing. It is at once the presentiment of a new danger and the renewal of a bygone sorrow. Doretta was barely six years old when her mother died, and yet her remembrance is indelibly impressed upon the child’s mind. And now it seems as though her mother were dying again.
“When you have finished crying, Doretta, you may come here,” Signor Odoardo says.
Doretta, crouching in a corner of the room, cries less vehemently, but has not yet finished crying. Just like the weather outside,—it snows less heavily, but it still snows.
Signor Odoardo covers his eyes with his hand.
How many thoughts are thronging through his head, how many affections are contending in his heart! If he could but banish the vision of Signora Evelina—but he tries in vain. He is haunted by those blue eyes, by that persuasive smile, that graceful and harmonious presence. He has but to say the word, and he knows that she will be his, to brighten his solitary home, and fill it with life and love. Her presence would take ten years from his age, he would feel as he did when he was betrothed for the first time. And yet—no; it would not be quite like the first time.
He is not the same man that he was then, and she, THE OTHER, ah, how different SHE was from the Signora Evelina! How modest and shy she was! How girlishly reserved, even in the expression of her love! How beautiful were her sudden blushes, how sweet the droop of her long, shyly-lowered lashes! He had known her first in the intimacy of her own home, simple, shy, a good daughter and a good sister, as she was destined to be a good wife and mother. For a while he had loved her in silence, and she had returned his love. One day, walking beside her in the garden, he had seized her hand with sudden impetuosity, and raising it to his lips had said, “I care for you so much!” and she, pale and trembling, had run to her mother’s arms, crying out, “Oh, how happy I am!”
Ah, those dear days—those dear days! He was a poet then; with the accent of sincerest passion he whispered in his love’s ear:
I love thee more than all the world beside,
My only faith and hope thou art,
My God, my country, and my bride—
Sole love of this unchanging heart!
Very bad poetry, but deliciously thrilling to his young betrothed. Oh, the dear, dear days! Oh, the long hours that pass like a flash in delightful talk, the secrets that the soul first reveals to itself in revealing them to the beloved, the caresses longed for and yet half feared, the lovers’ quarrels, the tears that are kissed away, the shynesses, the simplicity, the abandonment of a pure and passionate love—who may hope to know you twice in a lifetime?
No, Signora Evelina can never restore what he has lost to Signor Odoardo. No, this self-possessed widow, who, after six months of mourning, has already started on the hunt for a second husband, cannot inspire him with the faith that he felt in THE OTHER. Ah, first-loved women, why is it that you must die? For the dead give no kisses, no caresses, and the living long to b
e caressed and kissed.
Who talks of kisses? Here is one that has alit, all soft and warm, on Signor Odoardo’s lips, rousing him with a start.—Ah! … Is it you, Doretta?—It is Doretta, who says nothing, but who is longing to make it up with her daddy. She lays her cheek against his, he presses her little head close, lest she should escape from him. He too is silent—what can he say to her?
It is growing dark, and the eyes of the cat Melanio begin to glitter in the corner by the stove. The man-servant knocks and asks if he is to bring the lamp.
“Make up the fire first,” Signor Odoardo says.
The wood crackles and snaps, and sends up showers of sparks; then it bursts into flame, blazing away with a regular, monotonous sound, like the breath of a sleeping giant. In the dusk the firelight flashes upon the walls, brings out the pattern of the wall-paper, and travels far enough to illuminate a corner of the desk. The shadows lengthen and then shorten again, thicken and then shrink; everything in the room seems to be continually changing its size and shape. Signor Odoardo, giving free rein to his thoughts, evokes the vision of his married life, sees the baby’s cradle, recalls her first cries and smiles, feels again his dying wife’s last kiss, and hears the last word upon her lips,—DORETTA. No, no, it is impossible that he should ever do anything to make his Doretta unhappy! And yet he is not sure of resisting Signora Evelina’s wiles; he is almost afraid that, when he sees his enchantress on the morrow, all his strong resolves may take flight. There is but one way out of it.
“Doretta,” says Signor Odoardo.
“Father?”
“Are you going to copy out your letter to your grandmamma this evening?”
“Yes, father.”
“Wouldn’t you rather go and see your grandmamma yourself?”
“With whom?” the child falters anxiously, her little heart beating a frantic tattoo as she awaits his answer.
“With me, Doretta.”
“With YOU, daddy?” she exclaims, hardly daring to believe her ears.
“Yes, with me; with your daddy.”
“Oh, daddy, DADDY!” she cries, her little arms about his neck, her kisses covering his face. “Oh, daddy, my own dear daddy! When shall we start?”
“To-morrow morning, if you’re not afraid of the snow.”
“Why not now? Why not at once?”
“Gently—gently. Good Lord, doesn’t the child want her dinner first?”
And Signor Odoardo, gently detaching himself from his daughter’s embrace, rises and rings for the lamp. Then, instinctively, he glances once more towards the window. In the opposite house all is dark, and Signora Evelina’s profile is no longer outlined against the pane. The weather is still threatening, and now and then a snowflake falls. The servant closes the shutters and draws the curtains, so that no profane gaze may penetrate into the domestic sanctuary.
“We had better dine in here,” Signor Odoardo says. “The dining-room must be as cold as Greenland.”
Doretta, meanwhile, is convulsing the kitchen with the noisy announcement of the impending journey. At first she is thought to be joking, but when she establishes the fact that she is speaking seriously, it is respectfully pointed out to her that the master of the house must be crazy. To start on a journey in the depth of winter, and in such weather! If at least they were to wait for a fine day!
But what does Doretta care for the comments of the kitchen? She is beside herself with joy. She sings, she dances about the room, and breaks off every moment or two to give her father a kiss. Then she pours out the fulness of her emotion upon the cat Melanio and the doll Nini, promising the latter to bring her back a new frock from Milan.
At dinner she eats little and talks incessantly of the journey, asking again and again what time it is, and at what time they are to start.
“Are you afraid of missing the train?” Signor Odoardo asks with a smile.
And yet, though he dissembles his impatience, it is as great as hers. He longs to go away, far away. Perhaps he may not return until spring. He orders his luggage packed for an absence of two months.
Doretta goes to bed early, but all night long she tosses about under the bed-clothes, waking her nurse twenty times to ask: “Is it time to get up?”
Signor Odoardo, too, is awake when the man-servant comes to call him the next morning at six o’clock.
“What sort of a day is it?”
“Very bad, sir—just such another as yesterday. In fact, if I might make the suggestion, sir, if it’s not necessary for you to start to-day—”
“It is, Angelo. Absolutely necessary.”
At the station there are only a few sleepy, depressed-looking travellers wrapped in furs. They are all grumbling about the weather, about the cold, about the earliness of the hour, and declaring that nothing but the most urgent business would have got them out of bed at that time of day. There is but one person in the station who is all liveliness and smiles—Doretta.
The first-class compartment in which Signor Odoardo and his daughter find themselves is bitterly cold, in spite of foot-warmers, but Doretta finds the temperature delicious, and, if she dared, would open the windows for the pleasure of looking out.
“Are you happy, Doretta?”
“Oh, SO happy!”
Ten years earlier, on a pleasanter day, but also in winter, Signor Odoardo had started on his wedding-journey. Opposite him had sat a young girl, who looked as much like Doretta as a woman can look like a child; a pretty, sedate young girl, oh, so sweetly, tenderly in love with Signor Odoardo. And as the train started he had asked her the same question:
“Are you happy, Maria?”
And she had answered:
“Oh, so happy!” just like Doretta.
The train races and flies. Farewell, farewell, for ever, Signora Evelina.
And did Signora Evelina die of despair?
Oh, no; Signora Evelina has a perfect disposition and a delightful home. The perfect disposition enables her not to take things too seriously, the delightful home affords her a thousand distractions. Its windows do not all look towards Signor Odoardo’s residence. One of them, for example, commands a little garden belonging to a worthy bachelor who smokes his pipe there on pleasant days. Signora Evelina finds the worthy bachelor to her taste, and the worthy bachelor, who is an average-adjuster by profession, admires Signora Evelina’s eyes, and considers her handsomely and solidly enough put together to rank A No. 1 on Lloyd’s registers.
The result is that the bachelor now and then looks up at the window, and the Signora Evelina now and then looks down at the garden. The weather not being propitious to out-of-door conversation, Signora Evelina at length invites her neighbor to come and pay her a visit. Her neighbor hesitates and she renews the invitation. How can one resist such a charming woman? And what does one visit signify? Nothing at all. The excellent average-adjuster has every reason to be pleased with his reception, the more so as Signora Evelina actually gives him leave to bring his pipe the next time he comes. She adores the smell of a pipe. Signora Evelina is an ideal woman, just the wife for a business man who had not positively made up his mind to remain single. And as to that, muses the average-adjuster, have I ever positively made up my mind to remain single, and if I have, who is to prevent my changing it?
And so it comes to pass that when, after an absence of three months, Signor Odoardo returns home with Doretta, he receives notice of the approaching marriage of Signora Evelina Chiocci, widow Ramboldi, with Signor Archimede Fagiuolo.
“Fagiuolo!” shouts Doretta, “FAGIUOLO!”1
The name seems to excite her unbounded hilarity; but I am under the impression that the real cause of her merriment is not so much Signora Evelina’s husband as Signora Evelina’s marriage.
1 Fagiuolo: a simpleton.
L’ARLÉSIENNE
Alphonse Daudet
Translated from the French by Mireille Harmelin and Keith Adams
Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897) was born in Nîmes, to a bourgeois family, and w
orked briefly as a schoolteacher, a profession he despised, before abandoning it in favour of journalism. He was working at Le Figaro when he wrote his first plays, which earned him considerable recognition with Paris literary circles, but it was his collection of stories Letters from My Windmill which finally brought him to a wide readership. Daudet’s political and social positions were controversial and put him at odds with many of his contemporaries. He was a monarchist who reviled the Republic, and an anti-Semitist who befriended Edouard Drumont, founder of the National Antisemitic League of France. Paradoxically, he was a generous patron to younger writers – including Marcel Proust.
As you go down to the village from the windmill, the road passes a farm situated behind a large courtyard planted with tall Mediterranean nettle trees. It’s a typical house of a Provençal tenant farmer with its red tiles, large brown façade, and haphazardly placed doors and windows. It has a weather-cock right on top of the loft, and a pulley to hoist hay, with a few tufts of old hay sticking out….
What was it about this particular house that struck me? Why did the closed gate freeze my blood? I don’t know; but I do know that the house gave me the shivers. It was choked by an eerie silence. No dogs barked. Guinea fowl scattered silently. Nothing was heard from inside the grounds, not even the ubiquitous mule’s bell…. Were it not for white curtains at the windows and smoke rising from the roof, the place could have been deserted.
Yesterday, around midday, I was walking back from the village, by the walls of the farm in the shade of the old nettle trees, when I saw some farm-hands quietly finishing loading a hay wain on the road in front of the farm. The gate had been left open and discovered a tall, white-haired, old man at the back of the yard, with his elbows on a large stone table, and his head in his hands. He was wearing an ill-fitting jacket and tattered trousers…. The sight of him stopped me in my tracks. One of the men whispered, almost inaudibly, to me:
