He was not sad. It was a different feeling which made him bow his head as he walked along. Armistice night was over, the war was over, and with it a whole period of his life which he would like to forget completely.
The day which was dawning was a greyish day. It was still raining. The houses were black.
There was not the smallest spark of excitement left in him. He opened the door with his key and went straight upstairs to see his parents, who were still in bed.
‘Is that you, Roger?’
‘Yes … it’s me. I hope you didn’t get worried about me. I’d have liked to let you know I was all right and come home earlier, but I kept getting swept away by the crowds.’
He had the impression that his mother was looking at him in astonishment. It was probably his calm manner which surprised her.
‘You didn’t drink too much?’
‘Not too much, no. I haven’t been sick.’
He spoke in level tones, not like a man who had spent the night singing and drinking, but like a man who had been thinking deeply and carefully.
‘Anybody’d think you weren’t pleased.’
‘But I am pleased, Mother, very pleased. I haven’t kissed you yet. Forgive me.’
He kissed her and then his father, breathing in the smell of their bed with some embarrassment.
‘There now. I’m off to bed. Wake me when you like.’
The two girls, Alice and Marie, were not back yet. One of the Russians had come back by himself early in the evening, already sick from over-drinking. Roger had stepped over his vomit in the hall.
Now that he came to think of it, they would have to leave the house soon, seeing that they had taken it only for the duration of the war.
‘Good night.’
He was alone in his room, and on the boulevard he saw files of defeated troops beginning to go by, their heads bent, following the guns and the field-kitchens in the monotonous rain.
When he closed his eyes he could still hear them. He had the impression that he could see them too, marching endlessly along, and he suddenly remembered a Polish picture-postcard which Mademoiselle Feinstein had once received. He probably still had it in his album, for she had given it to him. It showed an old man sitting on a pavement kerb, his arms dangling, next to a child in rags who was snuggling up against him. He was gazing into space with eyes full of a pathetic inquiry.
Mademoiselle Feinstein had translated for him the caption printed in Polish underneath the picture: ‘Where are we to go?’
The line of men filed past beneath his window and would go on filing past at the same dreary pace for day after day. Roger tossed about in his sleep in the cold dawn of the unshuttered room.
He slept so soundly that when he awoke, with his eyes still shut, his first feeling was a feeling of weariness. Then he sat up with a start and rubbed his eyes, puzzled by the unaccustomed light.
The war was over, he remembered that. The gas-lamp across the street was lit and its glass panes had been stripped of their coat of blue paint. The clear rays, of a brightness which nobody had known for a long time, were piercing the lace curtains and drawing strange patterns on the walls.
Downstairs, he could hear a buzz of voices and the rattle of crockery. His mother poked the fire. Everybody was probably at table.
He was hungry. And yet he remained standing barefoot at the window, until the kitchen door opened and Élise’s voice came up the staircase well.
‘Are you awake, Roger? Aren’t you coming down?’
‘I’m coming, Mother.’
The time it took to get dressed without lighting the lamp, and down he went.
THE END
THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK
PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
www.nyrb.com
Copyright © 1948 by Georges Simenon Ltd (a Chorion Company)
Introduction copyright © 2010 by Luc Sante
All rights reserved.
This translation first published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton, Ltd, 1962
Cover image: Montagne de Bueren, Liège, Belgium, c. 1910; collection of Luc Sante
Cover design: Katy Homans
The Library of Congress has cataloged the earlier printing as follows:
Simenon, Georges, 1903–1989.
[Pedigree. English]
Pedigree / by Georges Simenon ; translated by Robert Baldick ; introduction
by Luc Sante.
p. cm.—(New York Review Books classics) ISBN 978-1-59017-351-0 (alk. paper)
1. Boys—Belgium—Fiction. 2. Liège (Belgium)—Fiction. 3. City and town life—Belgium—History—20th century—Fiction. 4. Belgium—Social conditions—20th century—Fiction. 5. Bildungsromans. I. Baldick, Robert. II. Title.
PQ2637.I53P3913 2010
843’.912—dc22
2009052634
eISBN 978-1-59017-555-2
v1.0
For a complete list of books in the NYRB Classics series, visit www.nyrb.com or write to:
Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
Pedigree Page 63
