A Widow
It was during the hunting season, at the de Banville country seat. The autumn was rainy and dull. The red leaves, instead of crackling under foot, rotted in the hollows beneath the heavy showers.
The almost leafless forest was as humid as a bathroom. When you entered it beneath the huge trees shaken by the winds, a mouldy odour, a vapour from fallen rain, soaking grass and damp earth, enveloped you. And the hunters, bending beneath this continuous downpour, the dogs with their tails hanging and their coats matted, and the young huntswomen in their close-fitting habits drenched with rain, returned each evening depressed in body and spirit.
In the great drawing room, after dinner, they played lotto, but without enthusiasm, while the wind shook the shutters violently, and turned the old weathervanes into spinning-tops. Someone suggested telling stories, in the way we read of in books; but no one could invent anything very amusing. The hunters narrated some of their adventures with the gun, the slaughter of rabbits, for example; and the ladies racked their brains without finding anywhere the imagination of Scheherazade.
They were about to abandon this form of diversion, when a young lady, carelessly playing with the hand of her old, unmarried aunt, noticed a little ring made of blond hair, which she had often seen before but thought nothing about.
Moving it gently about the finger she said, suddenly: “Tell us the story of this ring, Auntie; it looks like the hair of a child—”
The old maid reddened and then grew pale, and in a trembling voice she replied: “It is sad, so sad that I never care to speak about it. All the unhappiness of my life is centred in it. I was young then, but the memory of it remains so painful that I weep whenever I think of it.”
They wished very much to hear the story, but the aunt refused to tell it; finally, they urged so much that she at length consented.
“You have often heard me speak of the Santèze family, now extinct. I knew the last three men of this family. They all died within three months in the same manner. This hair belonged to the last one. He was thirteen years old, when he killed himself for me. That appears very strange to you, doesn’t it?
“They were an extraordinary race, a race of fools, if you will, but of charming fools, of fools for love. All, from father to son, had these violent passions, waves of emotion which drove them to most exalted deeds, to fanatical devotion, and even to crime. It was to them what ardent devotion is to certain souls. Those who become monks are not of the same nature as drawing room favourites. Their relatives used to say: ‘as amorous as a Santèze.’
“To see them was to divine this characteristic. They all had curly hair, growing low upon the brow, curly beards and large eyes, very large, whose rays seemed to penetrate and disturb you, without your knowing just why.
“The grandfather of the one of whom this is the only souvenir, after many adventures, and some duels on account of entanglements with women, when about sixty-five fell passionately in love with the daughter of his farmer. I knew them both. She was blond, pale, distinguished looking, with a soft voice and a sweet look, so sweet that she reminded one of a madonna. The old lord took her home with him, and immediately became so captivated that he could not do without her for a minute. His daughter and his daughter-in-law, who lived in the house, found this perfectly natural, so much was love a tradition of the family. When one was moved by a great passion, nothing surprised them, and, if anyone spoke in their presence of thwarted desires, of disunited lovers, or revenge upon some treachery, they would both say, in the same sad tones: ‘Oh! how he (or she) must have suffered before coming to that!’ Nothing more. They were moved with pity by all dramas of the heart and never spoke slightingly of them, even when they were criminal.
“One autumn, a young man, M. de Gradelle, invited for the hunting, eloped with the young woman.
“M. de Santèze remained calm, as if nothing had happened. But one morning they found him hanging in the kennel in the midst of the dogs.
“His son died in the same fashion, in a hotel in Paris, while on a journey in 1841, after having been deceived by an opera singer.
“He left a child twelve years old, and a widow, the sister of my mother. She came with the little boy to live at my father’s house, on our Bertillon estate. I was then seventeen.
“You could not imagine what an astonishing, precocious child this little Santèze was. One would have said that all the power of tenderness, all the exaltation of his race had fallen upon this one, the last. He was always dreaming and walking alone in a great avenue of elms that led from the house to the woods. I often watched this sentimental youngster from my window, as he walked up and down with his hands behind his back, with bowed head, sometimes stopping to look up, as if he saw and comprehended things beyond his age and experience.
“Often after dinner, on clear nights, he would say to me: ‘Let us go and dream, Cousin.’ And we would go together into the park. He would stop abruptly in the clear spaces, where the white vapour floats, that soft cotton with which the moon decorates the clearings in the woods, and say to me, seizing my hand: ‘Look! Look there! But you do not understand me, I feel it. If you understood me, you would be happy. In order to know, one must love.’ I would laugh and embrace him, this boy, who adored me so much as to die of love.
“Often, too, after dinner, he would seat himself upon my mother’s knee. ‘Come, Aunt,’ he would say to her, ‘tell us some love story.’ And my mother, as a joke, would tell him all the family legends, the passionate adventures of his fathers, for thousands of them were mentioned, true and false. It was their reputation that was the undoing of all these men. They got fancies, and then took pride in living up to the fame of their house.
“The little boy would get excited by these terrible or affecting tales, and sometimes he would clap his hands and cry out: ‘I, too; I, too, know how to love, better than any of them.’
“Then he began to pay me his court, so timidly, with such grave tenderness, that we laughed at it. Each morning I had flowers picked by him, and each evening, before going to his room, he would kiss my hand, murmuring: ‘I love you!’
“I was guilty, very guilty, and I have wept since, unceasingly, doing penance all my life, by remaining an old maid—or rather, an affianced widow, his widow. I amused myself with this childish devotion, even inciting him. I was coquettish, and seductive, as if I were dealing with a grown man, caressing and deceiving. I excited this child. It was a joke to me, and a pleasing diversion to his mother and mine. He was twelve years old! Think of it! Who would have taken seriously this diminutive passion! I kissed him as much as he wished. I even wrote love letters to him that our mothers read. And he responded with letters of fire, that I still have. He thought our love intimacy was a secret, regarding himself as a man. We had forgotten that he was a Santèze!
“This lasted nearly a year. One evening, in the park, he threw himself down at my knees, kissing the hem of my dress, in a furious burst of passion, repeating: ‘I love you! I love you! I love you! I am dying of love for you. If you ever deceive me, understand, if you ever leave me for another, I shall do as my father did—’ And he added in a low voice that gave one the shivers: ‘You know what he did!’
“Then, as I remained dumbfounded, he got up and, stretching himself on tiptoe, for I was much taller than he, he repeated in my ear, my name, my first name, ‘Geneviève!’ in a voice so sweet, so pretty, so tender that I trembled to my very feet.
“I stammered: ‘Let us return to the house!’ He said nothing further, but followed me. As we were going up the steps, he stopped me and said: ‘You know if you abandon me, I shall kill myself.’
“I understood now that I had gone too far, and immediately became more reserved. When he reproached me for it, one day, I answered him: ‘You are now too big for this kind of joking, and too young for serious love. I will wait.’
“I believed myself freed from him.
“He was sent away to school in the autumn. When he returned, the following summer, I had become engaged. He understood at once, and for over a week he looked so preoccupied that I was much disturbed.
“The ninth day, in the morning, I perceived, on rising, a little piece of paper slipped under my door. I seized it and read: ‘You have abandoned me, and you know what I said. You have ordered my death. As I do not wish to be found by anyone but you, come into the park, to the place where last year I said that I loved you, and look up.’
“I felt myself becoming mad. I dressed as quickly as possible, and ran, so that I nearly fell exhausted, to the designated spot. His little school cap was on the ground in the mud. It had rained all night. I raised my eyes and saw something swinging amongst the leaves, for there was a wind blowing, a strong wind.
“After that, I knew nothing of what I did. I must have shouted, fainted, perhaps, and fallen, then got up and run to the house. I came to my senses in bed, with my mother at my side.
“I at first believed that I had dreamed all this in a frightful delirium. I muttered: ‘And he, he—Gontran?’ They did not answer.
“It was all true.
“I dared not look at him again, but I asked for a lock of his blond hair. Here—it—is—” And the old lady held out her hand in a gesture of despair.
Then, she used her handkerchief several times, and dried her eyes, and continued: “I broke off my engagement without saying why—and I—have remained always the—widow of this child thirteen years old.” Then her head fell upon her breast and she wept pensively for a long time.
And, as they dispersed to their rooms for the night, a burly huntsman, whose quiet she had disturbed somewhat, whispered in the ear of his neighbour:
“What a misfortune to be so sentimental! Don’t you think so?”