A Life (30 page)

That same evening she gave birth to a stillborn child: a daughter.

She saw nothing of Julien's funeral; she knew nothing about it. She noticed only that one or two days later Aunt Lison had returned; and in the feverish nightmares which haunted her, she tried stubbornly to recall how long the old maid had been gone from Les Peuples, when she had left and in what circumstances. But she could not remember, even in her more lucid moments, and knew only that she had seen her after the death of Mama.

XI

She did not leave her bedroom for three months, and had become so weak and pale that people thought, indeed predicted, that her end was near. Then, little by little, her strength returned. Papa and Aunt Lison did not leave her again, having both taken up residence at Les Peuples. After the shock she had been left with some sort of nervous illness; the slightest noise made her feel faint, and she would lapse into long periods of unconsciousness from the most trivial of causes.

Never once had she asked for details of Julien's death. What did it matter to her? Didn't, she know enough already? Everyone thought that it had been an accident, but she knew better; and though it tortured her, she kept the secret to herself: the fact of the adultery, and the vision of the Comte's sudden and terrible visit on the day of the tragedy.

And now her soul was filled with fond, bittersweet memories of the brief moments of joyful love her husband had once brought her. She was continually startled as things unexpectedly came back to her; and she saw Julien once more as he had been during the period of their engagement, and the Julien, too, whom she had loved during those few hours of sensual passion that had blossomed beneath the Corsican sun. Now, as they receded into the gathering distance of the sealed tomb, all his faults seemed less evident, all the cruelty vanished away, and even the infidelities became less stark. And Jeanne, overcome by a sort of posthumous gratitude for this man who had held her in his arms, forgave the past suffering so that she might remember only the moments of happiness. Then, with the passage of time, as month followed on month, the dust of oblivion gathered as in layers upon her recollections and her sorrows; and she devoted herself entirely to her son.

For the three persons now assembled round him he became an idol, the unique centre of their thoughts; and he ruled as a despot rules. A sort of jealousy began even to manifest itself between  these three slaves of his, as Jeanne nervously observed the big kisses given to the Baron after the child had played at horse-riding on his knee. And Aunt Lison, neglected by him as she always had been by everyone else, and treated sometimes even like a maid by this young master who could as yet barely talk, would depart to her room to cry, as she compared the perfunctory kisses which she had to beg for and then very nearly did not receive with the hugs he reserved for his mother and grandfather.

Two peaceful, uneventful years elapsed, during which the child was the constant focus of attention. At the beginning of the third winter they decided to go and live in Rouen until the spring; and the whole family migrated. But on arriving in their former house, now damp and deserted, Paul contracted bronchitis so severely that it was thought it might develop into pleurisy; and his three distraught relatives decided that he evidently needed the air at Les Peuples. They took him back there as soon as he had recovered.

There then followed a succession of agreeable years, each one like the last.

Always gathered round the little one, whether in his bedroom or in the drawing-room or in the garden, they went into ecstasies at his first words, at the funny expressions on his face, at his gestures.

His mother affectionately called him Paulie, but he could not say the word properly and pronounced it 'Pullie', which caused endless laughter. The nickname 'Pullie' stuck.
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He was never called anything else.

As he was growing rapidly, one of the favourite occupations of his three relatives (the Baron called them his 'three mothers') was to measure his height.

On the door-frame leading into the drawing-room they had cut a series of little notches with a penknife which recorded his growth month by month. This measuring device, christened the 'Pullie scale', assumed considerable importance in everyone's life.

Then a new individual began to play a significant role as a member of the familynamely Slaughter the dog, whom Jeanne had neglected in her exclusive devotion to her son. Ludivine fed  him. He slept in an old barrel outside the stable, where he lived a lonely life forever tethered to a chain.

Paul noticed him one morning and began to scream and shout that he wanted to give him a hug. They led him over to the dog with great misgivings. But the dog was delighted to see the child, and barked when they tried to part them. So Slaughter was let off his chain and installed in the house.

He followed Paul everywhere, a companion for every moment, of his life. They rolled about on the floor together and went to sleep side by side on the carpet. And soon Slaughter had made his friend's bed his own, since Paul now refused to leave him. From time to time Jeanne worried about the fleas; and Aunt Lison resented the fact that the dog had come to occupy such a large place in the child's affection, affection which the animal had stolen, she felt, and which she would so much have liked for herself.

Occasional visits were exchanged with the Brisevilles and the Courteliers. Only the mayor and the doctor regularly disturbed the solitude of the old house. Since the murder of the dog and the suspicions which Jeanne had entertained about the priest at the time of the dreadful deaths of Julien and the Comtesse, she had ceased going to church, vexed with a God who could have such ministers.

From time to time the Abbé Tolbiac would denounce the chateau in unambiguous terms as a place haunted by the Spirit of Evil, the Spirit of Eternal Revolt, the Spirit of Error and Falsehood,the Spirit of Iniquity, and the Spirit of Corruption and Impurity. He meant the Baron.

His church in any case was deserted; and when he walked along the edge of the fields where the ploughmen were pushing their plough, the peasants did not stop to speak to him or even turn round to say hello. Moreover he was considered a sorcerer, because he had exorcized a woman possessed by the devil. He knew mysterious words, it was said, that could break spells, which, according to him, were just Satan's little jokes. By means of a laying on of hands he treated cows who gave blue milk or had curly tails, and after a few unintelligible words from him lost objects would suddenly turn up again.

His narrow, fanatical mind was passionately interested in the study of religious-books about the history of the Devil's apparitions on earth, the different manifestations of his power, his diverse occult influences, the various resources at his disposal, and the techniques he usually employed in the performance of his cunning tricks. And as he believed that his particular calling was to combat this mysterious and fateful Power, he had learned off by heart all the formulae for exorcism contained in the ecclesiastical manuals.

He was always imagining that he could sense the Evil One roaming abroad in the shadow of darkness; and the Latin phrase'Sicut leo rugiens circuit quaerens quem devoret'
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was never far from his lips.

Whereupon fear began to spread through the district, terror at his hidden powers. And even his colleaguesignorant country priests of the kind for whom Beelzebub is an article of faith and who are so troubled by the minutely prescribed rituals to be observed in the event of any manifestation of this power of evil that they end up mistaking religion for magicthey, too, considered the Abbé Tolbiac to be something of a sorcerer; and. they respected him as much for the obscure power which they supposed him to possess as for the unimpeachable austerity with which he governed his life.

Whenever he met Jeanne, he refused to acknowledge her.

This situation worried and upset Aunt Lison, who, in her timid, old maid's soul, could not understand people not going to church. For presumably she was pious, and presumably she went to confession and took communion; though nobody knew for certain, or sought to know.

When she found herself on her own and all alone with Paul, she would talk to him, very quietly, about God. He would listen more or less in silence when she told him the miracle stories of the early days of creation; but when she told him that he had to love God very, very much, he would occasionally respond: 'But where is he, Auntie?' Then she would point towards the sky: 'Up there, Pullie, but you mustn't say anything.' She was afraid of the Baron.

But one day Pullie told her:

'God is everywhere but he's not in the church.'

He had spoken to his grandfather about his aunt's mysterious revelations.

The child was nearly ten; his mother looked forty. He was strong, boisterous, bold enough to climb trees, but he knew very little. His lessons bored him, and he would interrupt them at the drop of a hat. And every time the Baron kept him reading a book a little longer than usual, Jeanne would appear immediately and say:

'Do let him go and play now. You musn't tire him out, he's still so young.'

In her eyes he was still no more than six months or a year old. She had scarcely taken in the fact that he could now walk, run, talk, just like a little person! And she lived in constant fear that he might fall, or that he was cold, or too hot from running around, that he was eating too much for the size of his stomach, or else not enough if he was to grow properly.

When he was twelve, a major difficulty arose: the question of his first communion.

Lise came to Jeanne, one morning and pointed out that the boy could not continue for much longer without receiving instruction and carrying out his first duties. She presented her case from every angle and gave a thousand reasons in support of it, above all what the people they knew would say. Jeanne, at a loss and uncertain what to do, hesitated to say yes, maintaining that they Could leave things a little longer.

But a month later, as she was returning one of the Vicomtesse de Briseville's visits, the lady happened to enquire:

'I suppose your Paul will be making his first communion this year, will he?'

And Jeanne, taken off guard, replied:

'Yes, Madame.'

This simple answer decided her, and without saying a word to her father, she asked Lise to take the child to catechism classes.

For a month all went well; but one evening Paul returned home with a sore throat. And next day he was coughing. His anxious  mother questioned him, and she discovered that the priest had ordered him to go and wait in the draughty porch outside the church door until the lesson was over, because he had misbehaved.

So she stopped him going and taught him this alphabet of religion herself. But in spite of Lison's entreaties the Abbé Tolbiac refused to accept him as one of the communicants, on the ground that he had been inadequately prepared.

It was the same the following year. Then the Baron, infuriated, swore that the child had no need to believe all this nonsense, all this infantile symbolism of transsubstantiation, just to be a decent human being; and it was decided that he would be brought up as a Christian, but not as a practising Catholic, and that when he reached the age of majority he would be free to choose for himself.

And when Jeanne made a visit to the Brisevilles some time later, this visit was not returned. She was surprised, knowing how meticulously polite her neighbours were; but the Marquise haughtily informed her of the reason for their omission.

On account of her husband's position, which derived both from his well-established title and from his considerable fortune, the Marquise regarded herself as a sort of queen among the Norman nobility, and she reigned accordingly, expressing her opinions freely, gracious or cutting as the occasion demanded, admonishing, rebuking, or congratulating as she saw fit. Jeanne having therefore presented herself at her home, this lady began with a few icy remarks and then declared tersely:

'Society is divided into two classes: those who believe in God, and those who do not. The former, even the humblest among them, are our friends, our equals; as for the latter, they simply do not exist in our eyes.'

Jeanne, alive to the implied criticism, retorted:

'But can one not believe in God without going to church?' The Marquise replied:

'No, Madame. The faithful go and pray to God in His church just as one goes to visit people in their houses.'

Conscious of the slight, Jeanne continued:

'God is everywhere, Madame. For my part, as one who believes in His goodness, with all my heart, I no longer feel His presence when certain priests come between us.'

The Marquise rose to her feet:

'The priest carries the church's banner, Madame. Whoever chooses not to follow this banner is against him, and against us.'

Jeanne had risen in her turn, shaking:

'You believe in the God of one party, Madame. I believe in the God of decent human beings.'

She bowed and left the room.

The peasants, too, privately blamed her for not having had Pullie make his first communion. They were not regular churchgoers, did not take the sacraments, or else received them only at Easter in deference to the strict rules of the Church; but it was a different matter for the little ones; and none of them would have had the audacity to bring up a child outside this common law, because Religion is Religion.

She was well aware of this disapproval, and in her soul she felt indignant at all these accommodations and squaring of consciences, this universal timidity, this great cowardice lurking deep down in everyone's heart and dressed in the mask of respectability whenever it showed itself to the light.

The Baron oversaw Paul's education, and started him off learning Latin. The child's mother had only one piece of advice: 'Whatever you do, don't tire him out;' and she would hover anxiously outside the bedroom door during lesson times, Papa having forbidden her to enter because she kept interrupting his lessons with questions like: 'Are your feet warm enough, Pullie?', or 'Are you sure you haven't got a headache, Pullie?', or else, to stop the teacher: 'Don't make, him talk so much, you'll strain his throat.'