A Love Story

by Emile Zola

  ‘Hurry up!’ said Jeanne to Monsieur Rambaud, who seemed quite unable to finish his biscuit. ‘I want to show you what I’ve been doing.’

  He was in no hurry to do so; but when Rosalie started to clear the table, he had to get up.

  ‘Wait a moment, wait,’ he murmured when the little girl wanted to make him come into the bedroom.

  And he kept away from the door, embarrassed and uneasy. Then as the abbé raised his voice, he felt so weak that he had to sit down once more at the empty table. He took a newspaper out of his pocket.

  ‘I’ll make you a little cart,’ he offered.

  Jeanne immediately stopped talking about going into the bedroom. Monsieur Rambaud astonished her with his skill in making all sorts of things to play with out of his newspaper. He made paper hens, boats, hats, carts, cages. But today his fingers shook as they twisted the paper and he had difficulty folding the small corners. At the least noise from the room next door he bent his head. Meanwhile Jeanne, very absorbed, leaned over the table next to him.

  ‘Afterwards you can make a little bird to harness to the cart,’ she said.

  At the back of the bedroom, Abbé Jouve remained standing in the pale shadow cast by the lampshade. Hélène sat in her usual seat again, by the little table, and, as she did not stand on ceremony on a Tuesday amongst friends, she was doing her needlework. Her small white hands sewing a child’s bonnet were the only things to be seen in the circle of bright light.

  ‘Is Jeanne not a worry to you at all any more?’ asked the abbé.

  She shook her head before she spoke.

  ‘Doctor Deberle seems quite confident now,’ she said. ‘But the poor little thing is still very highly strung. Yesterday I found her half unconscious on a chair.’

  ‘She doesn’t take enough exercise,’ the priest said. ‘You don’t get out enough, you don’t have a very normal life.’

  He stopped and there was silence. He had no doubt found the opportunity he was looking for to broach the subject. But just as he was going to speak, he contained himself. He took a chair, sat down at Hélène’s side and said:

  ‘Listen, my child, I’ve been wanting to have a serious talk with you for some time... The life you are living is not good. Such a cloistered existence at your age is not recommended and this renunciation is as bad for your daughter as it is for you... There are many, many dangers; it’s dangerous for your health and for other things besides.’

  Hélène looked up at him in surprise.

  ‘What are you trying to say, my friend?’ she asked.

  ‘Heaven knows I am not a man of the world,’ the priest continued, rather embarrassed, ‘but I know that a woman is very vulnerable when she is left without anyone to look after her... I mean that you are very much on your own and this degree of solitude is not healthy, believe you me. The day will come when you will suffer because of it.’

  ‘But I’m not complaining, I think I’m very well off as I am!’ she cried, with some feeling.

  The old priest shook his large head gently.

  ‘That’s all well and good. And I understand that you feel perfectly contented. Only one never knows where it will lead, this slippery slope of solitude and reverie. Oh, I know you, I know you are incapable of wrongdoing... But sooner or later you might lose that sense of peace and quiet. And one morning it will be too late, the void in your life will be filled by feelings that are painful and that you cannot speak of.’

  In the shadows Hélène’s face had turned pink. Could the abbé read her secret thoughts? Was he aware then of the feelings which had been growing in her, this agitation in her heart which filled her life and which she herself had not wanted to question until now? Her needlework fell on to her lap. She became rather limp, she was expecting a kind of complicity from this man of the cloth, which would allow her finally to confess it aloud and define those vague things that she was shutting away in the back of her mind. Since he knew everything, he could ask her questions and she would try to answer them.

  ‘I put myself in your hands, my friend,’ she murmured. ‘You know I’ve always listened to you.’

  The priest was quiet for a moment, then slowly and solemnly he said:

  ‘You must marry again, my child.’

  She was dumbstruck, her arms had fallen to her side, she was flabbergasted by this piece of advice. She was expecting something different, she didn’t follow him. But the priest carried on, giving her reasons why she should make up her mind to remarry.

  ‘Remember you are still young... You can’t stay in this backwater of Paris any longer, hardly daring to go out, not knowing anything of life. You must return to living in society, or you may bitterly regret your isolation later on. You don’t realize how this reclusive behaviour gradually affects you, but your friends see how pale you are and worry about you.’

  He stopped at every phrase, hoping she would interrupt him and discuss his proposition. But she remained very cold, as though frozen in disbelief.

  ‘Of course you have a child,’ he went on, ‘so it’s always a delicate matter... But remember that in the interests of Jeanne herself, a man would be a real support... Oh, I know you would have to find a perfectly good man, who would be a proper father to her.’

  She did not allow him to finish. She answered him tersely and with unusual revulsion and rebellion.

  ‘No no, I don’t want that. How can you give me such advice, my friend? Never, do you hear, never!’

  Her heart rose in her mouth, she frightened herself by the vehemence of her refusal. The priest’s proposition had just touched that hidden place inside her which she shied away from knowing. And by the way it hurt, she at last realized the extent of her suffering. She felt the fearful modesty of a woman whose last item of clothing is being torn away.

  Then beneath the clear and smiling gaze of the old priest, she struggled to defend herself.

  ‘But I don’t want to! I’m not in love with anyone!’

  Yet as he continued to look at her, she thought he could read the lie written all over her face. She reddened and stammered:

  ‘But just think, I only came out of mourning two weeks ago... no, it’s not possible...’

  ‘My child,’ said the priest, ‘I have thought for a long time before speaking out. I think your happiness lies there. Calm yourself. You will never be forced to do anything against your will.’

  The conversation came to an end. Hélène tried to swallow the flood of protests which rose to her lips. She took up her work again, sewed a stitch or two, her head bowed. And in the midst of the silence the fluting tones of Jeanne could be heard from the dining room:

  ‘You don’t harness a little bird to a cab, you harness a horse. Don’t you know how to make a horse?’

  ‘Oh no, horses are too difficult,’ said Monsieur Rambaud. ‘But if you like, I’ll teach you how to make carts.’

  The game always ended that way. Jeanne, concentrating hard, watched her friend fold the paper into lots of little squares. Then she tried to make one herself. But she got it wrong, stamped her foot. Yet she already knew how to make boats and hats.

  ‘It’s like this,’ Monsieur Rambaud said patiently, ‘you fold down the four corners like that and then you turn it over...’

  For a minute or two, cocking his ear, he must have heard something of what was being said in the room next door; and his poor hands shook even more, he was so tongue-tied he swallowed half his words.

  Hélène, who could not compose herself, resumed the conversation.

  ‘But who would I get married to?’ she asked the priest suddenly, putting her sewing back on the little table. ‘You have someone in mind, do you?’

  Abbé Jouve had risen to his feet and was walking slowly around the room. He nodded his head, but carried on walking.

  ‘Well, tell me who you are thinking of,’ she said. For one moment he stood in front of her, then shrugged slightly:

  ‘What’s the point, if you are set against it?’

  ‘It
doesn’t matter, I want to know,’ she said. ‘How am I to decide if I don’t know?’

  He did not answer immediately, but stood there looking straight at her. He gave a rather sad smile. It was almost in a whisper that he said finally:

  ‘What, you can’t guess?’

  No she couldn’t. She thought hard, in puzzlement. Then he simply gestured. He nodded in the direction of the dining room.

  ‘Him!’ she exclaimed, struggling to keep her voice down.

  And she grew very solemn. She no longer protested with such violence. On her face there was only surprise and sorrow. For a long time she remained with her eyes cast down, reflecting. No, she would surely never have guessed. And yet she couldn’t find any objection to it. Monsieur Rambaud was the only man in whose hand she would have faithfully placed her own, without a qualm. She knew how kind he was, she did not find his bourgeois heaviness laughable. But despite all her affection for him, the idea that he loved her made her freeze.

  Meanwhile the abbé had started walking up and down the room again, and as he passed in front of the door to the dining room, he called to Hélène softly.

  ‘Come over here and see.’

  She got up and went to look.

  In the end Monsieur Rambaud had seated Jeanne on his own chair. He had been leaning against the table and now was kneeling down in front of the little girl, one arm around her waist. On the table was the cart harnessed to the little paper hen, then some boats, boxes, bishops’ mitres.

  ‘So do you love me then?’ he asked. ‘Tell me you love me.’

  ‘Yes, of course I do, you know I do.’

  He hesitated, trembling as though he were about to make a declaration of love.

  ‘And if I asked if I could stay here with you always, what would you say?’

  ‘Oh, I’d be very happy. We’d play together, wouldn’t we? It would be fun.’

  ‘Always, do you understand? I’d always be here.’ Jeanne had picked up a boat and was shaping it into a gendarme’s helmet. She said quietly:

  ‘Only Maman would have to say it was all right.’

  At this reply all his worries seemed to return. His fate was being decided.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But if Maman said it was all right, you wouldn’t say no, would you?’

  Jeanne, who was finishing her gendarme’s cap, was full of glee and started singing a little song she made up:

  ‘I’d say yes, yes, yes... Look at my pretty cap!’

  Monsieur Rambaud, moved to tears, kneeled up and put his arms around her and she threw her arms around his neck. He had charged his brother with asking Hélène’s consent and now he was trying to obtain Jeanne’s.

  ‘As you see,’ said the priest, ‘the child wants him to.’

  Hélène remained grave. She no longer disputed it. The abbé had started to plead on his behalf again and was emphasizing Monsieur Rambaud’s qualities. Was he not a ready-made father for Jeanne? She knew him well, she would not be leaving anything to chance if she entrusted herself to him. Then, as she was still silent, the abbé added with feeling and great dignity that, though he was responsible for this proposal, it was not of his brother’s happiness but of hers that he was thinking.

  ‘I believe you, I know how much you care for me,’ said Hélène quickly. ‘Wait, I will give your brother an answer and you shall be there too.’

  Ten o’clock struck. Monsieur Rambaud came into the bedroom.

  She went to meet him, her hand stretched out, saying:

  ‘Thank you for your offer, my friend. I am very grateful to you. You did right to speak out.’

  She looked at him calmly and kept his large hand in her own. He did not dare to raise his eyes, in his trembling state.

  ‘The only thing is, I ask you to let me think about it,’ she went on. ‘I may need a lot of time.’

  ‘Oh, as long as you like, six months, a year, even more,’ he stammered, relieved, happy not to be shown the door straight away.

  Then she smiled faintly.

  ‘But of course we shall remain friends. You will come as you have always done, only you must promise to wait until I bring up the subject again. Is that all right?’

  He had withdrawn his hand, looked around feverishly for his hat, agreed to everything, with a constant nodding of his head. Then just when he was about to leave he found his tongue again.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘you know now that I am there for you, don’t you? Well, you may be certain that I always will be, come what may. That’s what the abbé should have made clear... In ten years, if it’s your wish, you will only have to give me a sign. I shall do whatever you ask.’

  And it was he who took Hélène’s hand one last time and squeezed it so hard that it hurt. On the stairs, the two brothers turned round in the usual way and said:

  ‘See you on Tuesday.’

  ‘Yes, till Tuesday,’ Hélène answered.

  When she went back into her room, she was depressed by the sound of another downpour beating against the blinds. My goodness, this rain went on and on, her poor friends would get soaked! She opened the window and glanced out into the street. Sudden gusts of wind were blowing against the gas lamps. And among the pale puddles and the hatching of the gleaming raindrops she caught sight of the round form of the disappearing Monsieur Rambaud as he waltzed off happily into the night, not seeming to notice the deluge.

  Jeanne, however, had grown very serious since hearing something of what her good friend had said at the end. She had just taken off her little boots and was sitting in her nightdress on the edge of her bed, deep in thought. When her mother came in to kiss her goodnight that was how she found her.

  ‘Goodnight Jeanne. Give me a kiss.’

  Then, as the child did not apparently hear, Hélène crouched down beside her and put her arms round her waist. And she questioned her in a low voice.

  ‘Would you like it if he came to live with us?’

  Jeanne apparently was not surprised by the question. No doubt she was mulling it over in her head. Slowly she nodded.

  ‘But you know,’ said her mother, ‘he would be there all the time, by night, by day, when we eat, everywhere.’

  The little girl’s bright eyes clouded over gradually. She put her cheek against her mother’s shoulder, kissed her neck, and then whispering in her ear, said, trembling:

  ‘Maman, would he kiss you?’

  A flush crept up Hélène’s face. At first she couldn’t think how to answer this childish question. Finally she whispered:

  ‘He would be like your father, darling.’

  Then Jeanne’s little arms stiffened and without warning she burst out in a wild sobbing. She stammered:

  ‘Oh no, no, I don’t want him to come any more. Oh, Maman, I beg you, tell him I don’t, I don’t...’

  And she was choking, she threw herself on her mother’s breast, and covered her with tears and kisses. Hélène tried to calm her, saying again and again that they would sort things out. But Jeanne wanted a decisive answer straight away.

  ‘Oh, say no, Maman, say no... It would kill me, you can see it would. Never — say you never would!’

  ‘Well, all right, I promise. Be a good girl now and get into bed.’

  For a few minutes longer the silent, passionate child hugged her tightly, as though she couldn’t let her go, and was guarding her against people who wanted to take her away from her. At last Hélène managed to get her into bed, but she had to sit there for some of the night. In her sleep she was racked by shaking and every half-hour she opened her eyes to make certain Hélène was there, and then fell asleep again with her mouth still pressed to her mother’s hand.

  Chapter 3

  It was a wonderful month. The garden grew green in the April sun, a soft green as light and fine as lace. The unruly stems of the clematis pushed their thin shoots up the iron fence, while from the honeysuckle wafted a delicate, almost sugary scent. At the two sides of the lawn, which was cared for and well trimmed, red geraniums
and white stocks were flowering in tubs. And at the bottom in the clump of elms, between the neighbouring buildings which pressed against it on either side, there hung a green canopy of branches, whose tiny leaves fluttered at the merest breath of wind.

  For more than three weeks the sky remained blue and cloudless. It was as if the miracle of spring was celebrating the new lease of life, the blossoming, that Hélène was feeling in her heart. Each afternoon she went down into the garden with Jeanne. She had her own place by the first elm tree on the right. Her chair was waiting. And the day after she sat there she could see the bits of cotton that she had dropped the previous day.

  ‘Please treat this as your home,’ said Madame Deberle each evening, having become obsessed by her for the last six months. ‘Goodbye till tomorrow. Try to come earlier, won’t you?’

  And Hélène did indeed feel at home there. She had got used to this verdant spot, and, like a child, she looked forward to when it would be time to visit. What she found especially attractive about this bourgeois family’s garden was the cleanliness and tidiness of the lawn and the flower beds. No stray weed spoiled the symmetry of the greenery. The paths, raked every morning, were soft as carpet underfoot. She lived there in a state of calm repose, not suffering from the rising sap. There was nothing to trouble her in these corbeils which had been so carefully designed, in the cloaks of ivy whose yellow leaves were removed one by one by the gardener. In the secure shadow of the elms, in this hidden bower, perfumed with a note of musk whenever Madame Deberle was present, she could imagine herself in a salon; but the mere sight of the sky when she looked up, reminded her she was in the fresh air, and she took great breaths of it into her lungs.

  The two of them often spent the afternoon there without seeing a soul. Jeanne and Lucien played around them. There were long interludes when it was quiet. Then Madame Deberle, who could not stand periods of contemplation, chatted for hours, contenting herself with the silent approval of Hélène, and at the slightest nod from her would continue her chatter more energetically than ever. She told endless stories about the ladies of her acquaintance, plans for parties next winter, chattering like a magpie about current events, and all the chaotic tittle-tattle that collided in that pretty little head of hers. It was mixed with abrupt outbursts of affection towards the children, and passionate words extolling the delights of friendship. Hélène let her catch hold of her hands. She didn’t always listen, but living as she was in a tenderly emotional state, she showed she was very touched by Juliette’s affection and said she was immensely kind, a real angel.