Monsieur Parent
Little Georges, on all fours on the path, was making sand castles. He shovelled the sand together with both hands, heaped it up into a pyramid, and planted a chestnut leaf on the top.
His father, seated on an iron chair, was watching him with concentrated and loving attention, and had no eyes for anyone else in the small crowded park.
All along the circular path which runs past the lake, encircles the lawn, and comes back again by way of the Church of the Trinity, other children were thus busied, like young animals at their sport, while the bored nursemaids gazed into the air with their dull stupid eyes, or the mothers talked together, casting incessant, watchful glances on the troop of youngsters.
Nurses walked gravely up and down, two by two, trailing behind them the long bright ribbons of their caps, and carrying in their arms white objects wrapped in lace, while little girls in short dresses revealing their bare legs held grave conversations between two hoop races, and the keeper of the garden, in a green tunic, wandered through this crowd of children, constantly stepping aside lest he should demolish the earthworks and destroy the ant-like labours of these tiny human larvae.
The sun was sinking behind the roofs of the Rue Saint-Lazare, and throwing its great slanting rays upon the myriad-hued crowd of children. The chestnut-trees were lit up with gleams of yellow, and the three cascades in front of the lofty portals of the church looked as though they ran liquid silver.
Monsieur Parent watched his son squatting in the dust; he followed lovingly his slightest gestures, and seemed to throw kisses from his lips to Georges’s every movement.
But raising his eyes to the clock on the steeple, he discovered that he was five minutes slow. Thereupon he rose, took the little boy by the arm, shook his earthy garments, wiped his hands, and led him away towards the Rue Blanche. He hastened his steps, anxious not to reach home later than his wife, and the youngster, who could not keep up with him, trotted along at his side.
His father accordingly took him in his arms and, quickening his pace still more, began to pant with exhaustion as he mounted the sloping pavement. He was a man of forty, already grey, somewhat stout, and he bore uneasily before him the round jolly paunch of a gay bachelor rendered timid by circumstances.
Some years earlier he had married a young woman whom he had loved tenderly, and who was now treating him with the insolence and authority of an all-powerful despot. She was incessantly scolding him for everything he did, and everything he omitted to do, bitterly upbraiding him for his slightest actions, his habits, his simple pleasures, his tastes, his ways, his movements, the rotundity of his figure, and the placid tones of his voice.
He still loved her, however, but he loved yet more the child she had given him, Georges, now three years old, the greatest joy and the most precious burden of his heart. Possessed of a modest income, he lived on his twenty thousand francs a year without having to work, and his wife, who had had no marriage portion, lived in a state of perpetual fury at her husband’s inaction.
At last he reached his house and, setting the child down on the first step of the staircase, wiped his forehead and began to ascend.
At the second story, he rang the bell.
An old servant who had brought him up, one of those servant-mistresses who become family tyrants, came and opened the door.
“Has Madame come in yet?” he asked in an agony of fear.
The servant shrugged her shoulders.
“When has Monsieur ever known Madame to be in by half past six?” she answered.
He replied with some embarrassment:
“That’s good, so much the better: it gives me time to change my clothes, for I’m very hot.”
The servant stared at him with angry and contemptuous pity.
“Oh, yes, I can see that,” she grumbled; “Monsieur is streaming with perspiration; Monsieur has been running; carrying the little one, very likely, and all in order to wait for Madame till half past seven. As for me, no one will ever persuade me to be ready to time, now. I get dinner for eight o’clock, and if people have to wait, so much the worse for them; a joint must not be burnt!”
Monsieur Parent pretended not to listen.
“Very good, very good,” he murmured; “Georges’s hands must be washed; he’s been making sand castles. I will go and change. Tell the maid to give the little one a thorough cleaning.”
And he went to his room. Once there, he thrust home the bolt, so as to be alone, quite alone. He was so accustomed by now to seeing himself bullied and ill-used that he only judged himself safe when under the protection of a lock. He no longer even dared to think, to reflect, or to reason with himself, unless he felt secure against the eyes and imaginations of others by the turn of a key. He collapsed into a chair in order to get a little rest before putting on a clean shirt, and realised that Julie was beginning to be a new peril in the house. She hated his wife, that was plainly to be seen. Above all, she hated his chum Paul Limousin, who had continued to be that rare thing, an intimate and familiar friend in the home, after having been the inseparable comrade of his bachelor life. It was Limousin who acted as oil and buffer between Henriette and himself, who even defended him with vigour and sternness against the undeserved reproaches, the painful scenes, all the miseries which made up his daily existence.
For nearly six months now, Julie had been constantly indulging in malicious remarks and criticisms of her mistress. She was perpetually condemning her, declaring twenty times a day: “If I were Monsieur, I wouldn’t let myself be led by the nose like that. Well, well … there it is … everyone according to his own nature.”
One day she had even insulted Henriette to her face, who had been contented with saying to her husband that night: “You know, the first sharp word I get from that woman, out she goes.” She seemed, however, to be afraid of the old servant, though she feared nothing else; and Parent attributed this meekness to her esteem for the nurse who had brought him up and had closed his mother’s eyes.
But this was the end; things could not go on any longer, and he was terrified at the thought of what would happen. What was he to do? To dismiss Julie seemed to him a decision so formidable that he dared not let his thoughts dwell upon it. It was equally impossible to admit her right and his wife wrong; and before another month had gone by, the situation between the two of them would become insupportable.
He sat there, his arms hanging down, vaguely searching his mind for a method of complete conciliation, and finding none. “Luckily I have Georges,” he murmured. “Without him I should be utterly wretched.”
Then the idea came to him to ask Limousin for his advice; he decided to do so, but immediately the remembrance of the enmity between his servant and his friend made him fear that his friend would suggest her dismissal; and he fell once more into an agony of indecision.
The clock struck seven. He started. Seven o’clock, and he had not yet changed his shirt! Scared and panting, he undressed, washed, put on a white shirt, and hurriedly dressed again, as though he were being awaited in the next room on a matter of urgent importance.
Then he went into the drawing room, happy to feel that he needn’t be afraid of anything now.
He glanced at the newspaper, went and looked into the street, and came back and sat down on the sofa; but a door opened and his son came in, washed, his hair combed, and smiling. Parent took him in his arms and kissed him with passionate emotion. He kissed him first on the hair, then on the eyes, then on the cheeks, then on the mouth, and then on the hands. Then he made him jump up in the air, lifting him up to the ceiling, at the full stretch of his arms. Then he sat down again, tired by these exertions, and, taking Georges on his knee, he made him play “ride a-cockhorse.”
The child laughed with delight, waved his arms, and uttered shrieks of joy, and his father laughed as well, and shrieked with pleasure, shaking his great paunch, enjoying himself even more than the little boy.
This poor, weak, resigned, bullied man loved the child with all his kind heart. He loved him with wild transports of affection, with violent, unrestrained caresses, with all the shamefaced tenderness hidden in the secret places of his heart that had never been able to come into the light and grow, not even in the first few hours of his married life; for his wife had always been cold and reserved in her behaviour.
Julie appeared in the doorway, her face pale and her eyes gleaming, and announced, in a voice trembling with exasperation:
“It is half past seven, Monsieur.”
Parent threw an anxious and submissive glance at the clock, and murmured:
“Yes, it certainly is half past seven.”
“Well, dinner’s ready now.”
Seeing the storm imminent, he tried to dispel it:
“But didn’t you tell me, when I came in, that you would only have dinner ready at eight?”
“At eight! … Why, you can’t be thinking what it means! You don’t want to give the child his dinner at eight! One says eight, but, Lord, that’s only a manner of speaking. Why, it would ruin the child’s stomach to make him eat at eight. Oh, if it were only his mother that was concerned! She takes good care of her child! Oh, yes, talk of mothers, she’s a mother, she is! It’s down right pitiful to see a mother like that!”
Parent, positively quivering with anguish, felt that he must cut short this threatening scene.
“Julie,” he said, “I will not have you speak of your mistress like that. You hear, don’t you? Don’t forget for the future.”
The old servant, breathless with astonishment, turned on her heel and went out, pulling the door to with such violence that all the crystals on the chandelier jingled. For a few seconds a sound like the soft murmurous ringing of little invisible bells fluttered in the silent air of the drawing room.
Georges, surprised at first, began to clap his hands with pleasure, and, puffing out his cheeks, uttered a loud Boom with all the strength of his lungs, in imitation of the noise of the door.
Then his father began to tell him stories; but his mind was so preoccupied that again and again he lost the thread of his narrative, and the child, no longer understanding, opened his eyes wide in amazement.
Parent’s eyes never left the clock. He fancied he could see the hand moving. He would have liked to stop the clock, to make time stand still until his wife returned. He did not blame Henriette for being late, but he was afraid, afraid of her and Julie, afraid of everything that might happen. Ten minutes more would suffice to bring about an irreparable catastrophe, revelations, and scenes of violence that he dared not even imagine. The mere thought of the quarrel, the sudden outbursts of voices, the insults rushing through the air like bullets, the two women staring into one another’s eyes, hurling bitter remarks at one another, made his heart beat and his mouth feel as dry as if he were walking in the sun; it made him as limp as a rag, so limp that he lost the strength to lift up the child and make him jump upon his knee.
Eight o’clock struck; the door reopened and Julie reappeared. She no longer wore her air of exasperation, but an air of cold, malicious resolution still more formidable.
“Monsieur,” she said, “I served your mother till her last day; I brought you up from your birth to this very day. I may say that I’m devoted to the family. …”
She awaited a reply.
“Why, yes, my good Julie,” stammered Parent.
“You know very well,” she continued, “that I’ve never done aught for the sake of money, but always in your interests, that I’ve never deceived you or lied to you; that you’ve never had any fault to find with me. …”
“Why, yes, my good Julie.”
“Well, Monsieur, this can’t go on any longer. It was out of friendship for you that I never spoke, that I left you in your ignorance; but it is too much; the neighbourhood is making too merry at your expense. You can do what you like about it, but everybody knows; and I must tell you too, though it goes sore against the grain. If Madame comes home at these absurd hours, it’s because she’s doing abominable things.”
He sat there bewildered, not understanding. He could only stammer:
“Be silent. … You know I forbade you …”
She cut him short with ruthless determination.
“No, Monsieur, I must tell you all now. For a long time now Madame has been deceiving you with Monsieur Limousin. More than twenty times I’ve caught them kissing behind doors. Oh, don’t you see? If Monsieur Limousin had been rich, it would not have been Monsieur Parent that Madame married. If Monsieur would only remember how the marriage came about, he would understand the business from beginning to end.”
Parent had risen, livid, stammering:
“Be silent. … Be silent … or …”
“No,” she continued, “I will tell you all. Madame married Monsieur for his money; and she has deceived him from the very first day. Why, Lord-a-mercy, it was an understood thing between them; a minute’s thought is enough to realise that. Then, as Madame was not pleased at having married Monsieur, whom she did not love, she made his life a burden to him, such a burden that it broke my heart to see it. …”
He advanced two steps, his fists clenched, repeating:
“Be silent. … Be silent …” for he could find no reply.
The old servant did not draw back; she looked ready to go to any lengths.
But Georges, at first bewildered, then frightened by these harsh voices, began to utter shrill cries. He stood there behind his father, and howled, with his mouth wide open and his face puckered up.
Parent was exasperated by his son’s uproar; it filled him with courage and rage. He rushed upon Julie with uplifted arms, prepared to smite with both hands, and crying:
“You wretch! You’ll turn the child’s brain.”
His hands were almost on her; she flung the words in his face.
“Monsieur can strike me if he likes, me that brought him up: it won’t stop his wife deceiving him, nor her child not being his.”
He stopped dead, and let his arms fall to his sides; and stood facing her, so astounded that he no longer understood what she was saying.
“You’ve only to look at the little one to recognise the father,” she added. “Why, Lord-a-mercy, he’s the living image of Monsieur Limousin. You’ve only to look at his eyes and his forehead. Why, a blind man wouldn’t be deceived. …”
But he had seized her by the shoulders and was shaking her with all his strength, muttering:
“Viper … viper! Out of here, viper! … Be off, or I’ll kill you! … Be off! … Be off! …”
With a desperate effort he flung her into the next room. She fell upon the table set for dinner, and the glasses tumbled and smashed; then she got up again and put the table between herself and her master, and while he pursued her in order to seize her again, spat hideous remarks at him.
“Monsieur has only to go out … this evening, after dinner … and come back again at once. … He will see! … he will see if I have lied! … Let Monsieur try … he will see.”
She had reached the door of the kitchen and fled through it. He ran after her, rushed up the back stairs to her bedroom, where she had locked herself in, and, beating on the door, cried out:
“You will leave the house this instant.”
“You may be sure I shall,” she replied through the panel. “Another hour, and I’ll be gone.”
At that he slowly descended the stairs again, clinging to the banisters to keep from falling, and went back to the drawing room where Georges was crying, sitting on the floor.
Parent collapsed into a chair and stared dully at the child. He could not understand anything now; he was no longer conscious of anything; he felt dazed, stupefied, crazy, as though he had just fallen on to his head; he could scarcely remember the horrible things his servant had told him. Then, little by little, his reason, like a turbid pool, grew calm and clear, and the revolting secret he had learned began to turn and twist in his breast.
Julie had spoken so clearly, with such vigour, certainty, and sincerity, that he did not question her good faith, but he persisted in questioning her perspicacity. She might well have been mistaken, blinded by her devotion to him, impelled by an unconscionable hatred of Henriette. But the more he tried to reassure and convince himself, a thousand little facts awakened in his memory, remarks made by his wife, glances of Limousin’s, a host of trifles, unnoticed, almost unperceived, departures late at night, simultaneous absences, even gestures, almost insignificant, but strange, movements he had not been able to see or understand, and which now assumed vast importance in his eyes, and became evidence of complicity between them. Everything which had occurred since his wedding rose up suddenly in a memory sharpened by pain. It all recurred to him, the strange intonations, the suspicious attitudes. The slow mind of this quiet, kindly man, harassed now with doubt, displayed to him as certainties things which could not as yet be more than suspicions.
With furious pertinacity he rummaged amid the five years of his married life, striving to recall everything, month by month, day by day; and each disturbing fact he discovered pierced his heart like a wasp’s sting.
He gave no thought to Georges, who was quiet now, lying on his back on the carpet. But, seeing that no attention was being paid to him, the child began to cry again.
His father started up, seized him in his arms, and covered his head with kisses. His child, at any rate, remained to him! What did the rest matter? He held him, clasped him, his mouth buried in the fair hair, comforted, consoled, murmuring: “Georges … my little Georges, my dear little Georges! …” But suddenly he remembered what Julie had said! … Yes, she had said that he was Limousin’s child. … Oh, it was not possible, it couldn’t be possible! No, he could not believe it, could not even suspect it for one moment. This was one of the odious infamies that germinate in the mean minds of servants! “Georges,” he repeated, “my dear Georges!” The boy was silent again now, under his caresses.
Parent felt the warmth of his little breast penetrate through the clothes to his own. It filled him with love, with courage, with joy; the child’s sweet warmth caressed him, strengthened him, saved him.
Then he thrust the beloved head with its curly hair a little further from him, and gazed at it passionately. He stared at it hungrily, desperately; the sight of it intoxicated him.
“Oh, my little one … my little Georges!” he repeated over and over again.
Suddenly he thought: “Supposing he were like Limousin … all the same!”
The thought was a strange cruel thing entering into him, a poignant, violent sensation of cold through his body, in all his limbs, as though his bones were suddenly turned to ice. Oh, if he were like Limousin! … and he continued to gaze at Georges, who was now laughing. He gazed at him with wild, distressed, haggard eyes. And he searched his features, the brow, the nose, the mouth, the cheeks, to see whether he could not find in them something of Limousin’s brow, nose, mouth, or cheeks.
His thoughts wandered, like the thoughts of a man going mad; and the face of his child altered beneath his eyes, and took on strange appearances and preposterous resemblances.
Julie had said: “A blind man would not be deceived.” There must be something striking, something quite undeniable! But what? The brow? Yes, perhaps. But Limousin’s brow was narrower! The mouth, then? But Limousin wore a full beard! How could one establish a resemblance between the child’s fat chin and this man’s hairy one?
Parent thought: “I cannot see it, I cannot look at it any longer; I am too distressed; I could not recognise anything now. … I must wait; I must look properly tomorrow morning, when I get up.”
Then he thought: “But if he were like me, I should be saved, saved!”
He crossed the room in two strides, in order to examine his child’s face side by side with his own in the mirror.
He held Georges seated on his arm, in order that their faces might be close together, and spoke out loud, so great was his bewilderment.
“Yes … we have the same nose … the same nose … perhaps … I’m not sure … and the same eyes. … No, his eyes are blue. … Then … Oh, my God! … my God! … my God! … I’m going mad. … I will not look any more. … I’m going mad!”
He fled from the mirror to the other end of the room, fell into an armchair, set the child down in another, and burst into tears. He wept with great, hopeless sobs. Georges, frightened by the sound of his father’s moans, began to cry too.
The front door bell rang. Parent bounded up as though pierced by a bullet.
“There she is,” he said. “What am I to do?”
He ran and shut himself up in his room, so as to have time at least to wipe his eyes. But after some moments, another peal at the bell gave him a second shock; then he remembered that Julie had left and that the housemaid had not been told. So no one would go and open the door? What was to be done? He went himself.
Suddenly he felt brave, resolute, able to play his own part and face the inevitable scene. The appalling shock had matured him in a few moments. And, besides, he wanted to know, he wanted the truth with the fury of a timid man, with the obstinacy of an easygoing man come to the end of his patience.
Nevertheless, he was trembling. Was it with terror? Yes. … Perhaps he was still afraid of her? Who knows how much goaded cowardice has gone to the making of a bold move?
He stopped behind the door that he had reached with furtive steps, and listened. His heart was beating furiously, and he could hear nothing but the sound of it, great dull blows in his chest, and the shrill voice of Georges still crying in the drawing room.
Suddenly the noise of the bell ringing over his head shook him like an explosion; at that he seized the door-handle and, panting, fainting, turned the knob and opened the door.
His wife and Limousin were standing facing him, on the staircase.
“So you are opening the door, now,” she said with an air of astonishment in which a trace of irritation was apparent; “then where is Julie?”
His throat was contracted and his breathing hurried; he strove to answer, unable to utter a word. “Have you gone dumb?” she continued. “I asked you where Julie was.”
At that he stammered:
“She … she … she has gone.”
His wife was beginning to be angry.
“What, gone? Where? Why?”
He was gradually regaining his balance, and felt stirring in him a mordant hatred of this insolent woman standing before him.
“Yes, gone for good. … I dismissed her.”
“You have dismissed her? … Julie? … You must be mad. …”
“Yes, I dismissed her because she was insolent … and because she … because she ill-treated the child.”
“Julie?”
“Yes. … Julie.”
“What was she insolent about?”
“About you.”
“About me?”
“Yes … because dinner was burnt and you had not come in.”
“She said … ?”
“She said … offensive things about you … which I should not … which I could not listen to. …”
“What things?”
“It is of no use to repeat them.”
“I want to know.”
“She said that it was very sad for a man like me to marry a woman like you, unpunctual, with no sense of order, careless, a bad housekeeper, a bad mother, and a bad wife. …”
The young woman had entered the hall, followed by Limousin, who remained silent before this unexpected situation. She shut the door abruptly, threw down her coat on a chair, and walked up to her husband, stammering in exasperation:
“You say … you say … that I’m … ?”
He was very pale, very calm.
“I say nothing, my dear,” he replied; “I am only telling you what Julie said, because you wanted to know; and I want you to realise that it was precisely on account of these remarks that I dismissed her.”
She trembled with her violent desire to tear out his beard and rend his cheeks with her nails. She felt his revulsion from her in his voice, in his expression, in his manner, and she could not outface it; she strove to regain the offensive by some direct and wounding phrase.
“Have you had dinner?” she asked.
“No, I waited.”
She shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
“It is stupid to wait after half past seven. You ought to have known that I was detained, that I was busy, engaged.”
Then, suddenly, she felt the need to explain how she had passed the time, and related, in short, haughty words, that, having been obliged to get some articles of furniture a long way off, a very long way, in the Rue de Rennes, she had met Limousin, after seven o’clock, in the Boulevard Saint-Germain, on her way home, and had asked him to come in with her and have something to eat in a restaurant which she did not like to enter by herself, although she was faint with hunger. That was how she came to have dinner with Limousin, if it could be called a dinner, for they had only had soup and half a chicken, they were in such haste to get home.
“But you were quite right,” replied Parent simply; “I was not blaming you.”
Then Limousin, who had remained silent hitherto, almost hidden behind Henriette, came up and offered his hand, murmuring:
“You are well?”
“Yes, quite well,” replied Parent, taking the outstretched hand and shaking it limply.
But the young woman had seized upon a word in her husband’s last sentence.
“Blame … why do you say ‘blame’? One might think you meant …”
“No, not at all,” he said, excusing himself. “I simply meant to say that I was not at all uneasy at your lateness and was not trying to make a crime of it.”
She took it haughtily, seeking a pretext for a quarrel:
“My lateness? … Anyone would think it was one o’clock in the morning and I had been out all night.”
“No, my dear, I said ‘lateness’ because I had no other word. You should have been home by half past six, and you come in at half past eight. That is lateness! I quite understand; I … I’m not … not even surprised. … But … but … it is difficult for me to use any other word.”
“But you pronounce it as though I had slept away from home.”
“No … not at all.”
She saw that he meant to go on yielding the point and was about to enter her room when at last she noticed that Georges was crying.
“What is the matter with the child?” she asked, with a troubled look on her face.
“I told you that Julie had been rather rough with him.”
“What has the creature been doing to him?”
“Oh, hardly anything! She pushed him and he fell.”
She was eager to see her child, and rushed into the dining room; then stopped dead at sight of the table covered with spilt wine, broken bottles and glasses, and overturned saltcellars.
“What is the meaning of this scene of destruction?”
“Julie …”
But she cut short his utterance in a rage:
“This is too much, the last straw! Julie treats me as though I were a dissolute woman, beats my child, breaks my crockery, and turns my house upside down, and you seem to think it perfectly natural.”
“No, I don’t. … I dismissed her.”
“Really! … You actually dismissed her! Why, you ought to have put her in charge. The police are the people to go to on these occasions!”
“But, my dear,” he stammered, “I … couldn’t very well … there was no reason. … It was really very awkward.”
She shrugged her shoulders in infinite contempt.
“Ah, well, you’ll never be anything but a limp rag, a poor, miserable creature with no will of your own, no energy, no firmness. Your precious Julie must have been pretty outrageous for you to have made up your mind to get rid of her. How I wish I could have been there for a minute, just a single minute!”
She had opened the drawing room door, and ran to Georges, lifted him up, and clasped him in her arms, kissing him and murmuring: “Georgy, what’s the matter, my lamb, my little love, my duck?”
He stopped crying, at his mother’s caresses.
“What’s the matter?” she repeated.
The frightened eyes of the child perceived that there was trouble.
“It was Zulie, who beat daddy,” he replied.
Henriette turned to her husband, bewildered at first. Then a wild desire to laugh woke in her eyes, quivered on her thin cheeks, curved her lip, curled the outer edges of her nostrils, and finally issued from her mouth in a clear bubbling rush of merriment, a cascade of gaiety, as melodious and lively as the trill of a bird.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” she repeated, with little malicious cries that escaped between her white teeth and inflicted a biting agony on Parent. “She b … b … beat you. … Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! … How funny! … how funny! … Do you hear, Limousin? Julie beat him … beat him … Julie beat my husband. … Ha! … Ha! … Ha! … How funny!”
“No! No!” stammered Parent. “It’s not true … it’s not true. … It was I, on the contrary, who flung her into the dining room, so hard that she knocked the table over. The child couldn’t see. It was I who beat her.”
“Tell me again, ducky,” said Henriette to her son. “It was Julie who beat Papa?”
“Yes, it was Zulie,” he replied.
Then, passing suddenly to another thought, she went on:
“But hasn’t the child had his dinner? Haven’t you had anything to eat, darling?”
“No, mummy.”
At that she turned furiously upon her husband.
“You’re mad, absolutely crazy! It’s half past eight and Georges has not had his dinner!”
He made excuses, hopelessly lost in the scene and his explanation, crushed at the utter ruin of his life.
“But we were waiting for you, my dear. I did not want to have dinner without you. You always come in late, so I thought you would come in any moment.”
She threw her hat, which she had kept on until this point, into an armchair and broke out in a tone of exasperation:
“Really, it’s intolerable to have to deal with people who can’t understand anything or guess anything or do anything for themselves. If I had come home at midnight, I suppose the child would not have had anything to eat at all. As if you could not have understood, when it was half past seven, that I’d been hindered, delayed, held up! …”
Parent was trembling, feeling his anger getting the upper hand; but Limousin intervened, and, turning to the young woman, remarked:
“You are quite unjust, dear. Parent could not guess that you would be so late, for you never have been; and, besides, how could he manage everything by himself, after dismissing Julie?”
But Henriette had thoroughly lost her temper, and replied:
“Well, he’ll have to manage somehow, for I won’t help him. Let him get out of the mess as best he can!”
And she ran into her room, having already forgotten that her son had had nothing to eat.
Limousin became suddenly strenuous in aiding his friend. He gathered up and removed the broken glass with which the table was covered, put the knives and forks back, and settled the child in his little high chair, while Parent went in search of the housemaid and told her to serve dinner.
She arrived in some surprise; she had been working in Georges’s room and had heard nothing.
She brought in the soup, an overcooked leg of mutton, and mashed potatoes.
Parent had sat down beside his child, his brain in a whirl, his reason undermined by the catastrophe. He gave the little boy his food, and tried to eat himself; he cut up the meat, chewed it, and swallowed it with an effort, as though his throat were paralysed.
Then, little by little, there awoke in his soul a wild longing to look at Limousin, who was sitting opposite him, rolling little pills of bread. He wanted to see if he were like Georges. But he dared not raise his eyes. He made up his mind, however, and looked abruptly up at the face he knew so well, although it seemed to him that he had never studied it, so much it differed from his imagination of it. Time and again he cast a swift glance over the man’s face, trying to recognise the faintest lines and features and their significance; then, instantly, he would look at his son, pretending that he was merely giving him his food.
Two words roared in his ears: “His father! His father! His father!” They hummed in his temples with every beat of his heart. Yes, that man, that man sitting calmly on the other side of the table, was perhaps the father of his son, Georges, his little Georges. Parent stopped eating; he could not eat any longer. A frightful pain, the sort of pain that makes a man cry out, roll on the ground, and bite the furniture, tore at the very depths of his body. He longed to take his knife and plunge it into his belly. It would be a relief, it would save him; all would be over.
For how could he go on living now? How could he live, get up in the morning, eat his meals, walk along the streets, go to bed in the evening, and sleep at night, with this thought drilled into him, as with a gimlet: “Limousin, Georges’s father”? No, he would no longer have strength to walk one step, put on his clothes, think of anything, speak to anyone! Every day, every hour, every second, he would be asking himself that question, seeking to know, to guess, to surprise the horrible secret. And the child, his dear child—he could no longer see him without enduring the fearful agony of this uncertainty, without feeling himself torn to the bowels, tortured to the marrow of his bones. He would have to go on living here, stay in this house, side by side with the child he would love and hate. Yes, assuredly he would end by hating him. What torment! Oh, if only he were certain that Limousin was the father, perhaps he might succeed in growing calm, in falling asleep amid his misery, his grief! But not to know was intolerable!
Not to know, always to be trying to find out, always suffering, and every moment embracing the child, another man’s child, taking him for walks in the town, carrying him in his arms, feeling the caress of his soft hair against his lips, adoring him, and endlessly thinking: “Perhaps he is not mine?” Would it not be better to see no more of him, to abandon him, lose him in the streets, or flee far away, so far that he would never again hear anyone speak of anything?
He started, as the door opened. His wife came in.
“I’m hungry,” she said; “are you, Limousin?”
“Yes, by Jove, I am,” replied Limousin with some hesitation.
She had the mutton brought back.
“Have they had dinner,” Parent wondered, “or were they late because they’ve been lovemaking?”
Both were now eating with an excellent appetite. Henriette, quite calm, was laughing and joking. Her husband kept her under observation too, looking quickly at her and as quickly away again. She wore a pink tea-gown trimmed with white lace, and her fair hair, her white neck, and her plump hands emerged from the pretty, dainty, scented gown as from a sea shell edged with foam. What had she been doing all day long with that man? Parent saw them kissing, murmuring passionate words. How was it possible for him not to know, not to guess, seeing them thus side by side, facing him?
How they must be mocking at him, if he had been their dupe since the very first day! Was it possible that a man, a good man, should be thus tricked, merely because his father left him a little money? Why were such things not visible in the sinners’ souls, how was it possible that nothing revealed the deceit of the wicked to the upright heart, that the same voice should lie and adore, and the sly eyes of deceit look the same as the eyes of truth?
He watched them, waiting for a gesture, a word, an intonation. Suddenly he thought: “I will surprise them this evening.”
“My dear,” he said, “as I have just dismissed Julie, I must start today to try and find another servant. I’m going out directly, so as to get someone for tomorrow morning. I may be back rather late.”
“Very well, go,” she replied, “I shan’t move from here. Limousin will keep me company. We will wait for you.” And, turning to the housemaid, she added:
“Put Georges to bed, then you can clear the table and go to bed yourself.”
Parent had risen. He was swaying upon his legs, dazed, tottering. “See you again presently,” he murmured, and reached the door by dint of leaning against the wall, for the floor was heaving like a ship.
Georges had gone off in the arms of the maid. Henriette and Limousin passed into the drawing room.
“Are you mad,” he said, as soon as the door was shut, “that you bully your husband so?”
She turned to him.
“You know, I’m beginning to find your long established habit of setting up Parent as a martyr rather trying.”
Limousin sat down in an armchair and, crossing his legs, replied:
“I’m not setting him up as a martyr in the least, but I do think that, as things are, it’s preposterous to defy the man from morning to night.”
She took a cigarette from the mantelpiece, lit it, and answered:
“But I don’t defy him—on the contrary; only he irritates me by his stupidity … and I treat him as he deserves.”
“What you are doing is extraordinarily silly,” replied Limousin impatiently, “but all women are alike. Here you have an excellent fellow, too good, idiotic in his faith and goodness, who in no way annoys us, does not for one instant suspect us, and leaves us as free and easy as we could wish; and you do all that you can to make him lose his temper and ruin our lives.”
“You disgust me,” she said, turning towards him. “You’re a coward, like all men! You’re afraid of the fool!”
He sprang up, and burst out furiously:
“If it comes to that, I should very much like to know how he has treated you, and what possible grudge you can have against him! Does he make you unhappy? Does he beat you? Does he deceive you? No, it really is too much to make that poor chap suffer just because he’s too kind, and have a grudge against him simply because you are deceiving him.”
She went up to Limousin and, staring into his eyes, answered:
“And it is you who blame me for deceiving him—you, you? Must you be utterly beastly too?”
He defended himself, rather shamefacedly.
“But I don’t blame you at all, my dear, I only ask you to treat your husband with a little consideration, because we both of us need his trust. I thought you would realise that.”
They were standing close to one another; he, tall and dark, with drooping whiskers, and the rather vulgar carriage of a good-looking fellow very pleased with himself; she, dainty, pink and fair, a little Parisian, half cocotte and half suburban young woman, born in the back room of a shop, brought up to stand on its doorstep and entice customers with her glances, and married off, by the happy chance of this accomplishment, to the innocent passerby who fell in love with her because he saw her standing there at the door every day as he went in the morning and came home in the evening.
“But, you great booby,” she said, “you don’t understand that I hate him just because he married me, because he bought me, in fact; because everything that he says, everything that he does, everything that he thinks, gets on my nerves. Every instant he exasperates me by the stupidity you call his kindness, by the dullness you call his trust, and, above all, because he is my husband, instead of you. Although he hardly troubles us, I feel him between us. And then? … And then? … No, he really is too big a fool to suspect anything. I wish he were at least a little jealous; there are moments when I long to shout at him: ‘Can’t you see anything, you ass? Don’t you realise that Paul is my lover?’ ”
Limousin burst out laughing.
“In the meantime you would do better to keep your mouth shut, and leave our existence untroubled.”
“Oh, I won’t trouble it. There is nothing to fear from that imbecile. But it really is incredible that you should not realise how hateful he is to me, how he grates on my nerves. You always seem to love him, to shake hands frankly with him. Men are extraordinary creatures at times.”
“One must know how to dissemble, my dear.”
“It’s not a question of dissimulation, dear, but of feeling. When you men deceive another man, anyone would think you immediately began to like him better; we women hate him from the very moment that we have deceived him.”
“I don’t in the least see why a man should hate a good sort of fellow whose wife he’s taking.”
“You don’t see? … you don’t see? All you men are lacking in decent feeling. Well, it’s one of those things one feels and cannot express. And, anyhow, I oughtn’t to try. … No, it’s no use, you wouldn’t understand. You’ve no intuition, you men.”
She smiled, the gay, malicious smile of a wanton, and set her hands upon his shoulders, holding up her lips to his; he bowed his head to hers as he caught her in his arms, and their lips met. And as they were standing in front of the mirror on the mantelpiece, another couple exactly like them embraced behind the clock.
They had heard nothing, neither the sound of the key nor the creaking of the door; but suddenly Henriette uttered a shrill scream and thrust Limousin away with both arms; and they saw Parent watching them, livid, with clenched fists, his shoes off, and his hat over his brow.
He looked at them, first at one and then at the other, with a quick movement of the eyes, without turning his head. He seemed mad; without uttering a word he rushed at Limousin, took him in his arms as though to stifle him, and flung him into the corner of the drawing room with such a furious onslaught that the other, losing his footing and clawing the air with his hands, struck his head roughly against the wall.
But when Henriette realised that her husband was going to murder her lover, she threw herself on Parent and seized him by the throat. With the strength of a madman she sent her thin pink fingers into his flesh, and squeezed so tightly that the blood spurted from beneath her nails. She bit his shoulder as though she wanted to rend it to pieces with her teeth. Parent, choked and stifling, let go of Limousin in order to shake off the woman clinging to his throat; putting his arms round her waist he hurled her with one mad effort to the other end of the room.
Then, with the short-lived rage of the easygoing and the quickly spent strength of the weak, he remained standing between the two of them, panting, exhausted, not knowing what he ought to do. His brutal fury had escaped in this effort like the froth of an uncorked bottle, and his unwonted energy ended in mere gasping for breath.
“Get out!” he stammered, as soon as he could speak. “Get out, both of you, at once!”
Limousin remained motionless in his corner, huddled against the wall, too bewildered to understand anything as yet, too frightened to move a finger. Henriette, her hands resting on a table, her head thrust forward, her hair dishevelled, and her dress torn so that her bosom was bared, was waiting, like an animal about to spring.
“Get out at once!” repeated Parent more loudly. “Get out!”
Seeing that his first fury was calmed, his wife plucked up courage, stood up, took two paces towards him, and said, in a voice already almost insolent:
“Have you lost your wits? … What’s the matter with you? … Why this unjustifiable assault?”
He turned on her, raising his fist as though to strike her down.
“Oh! … Oh!” he faltered. “This is too much … too much! I … I … I heard all … all … do you understand? … all! You vile creature! … you vile creature! … You are both vile! … Get out! … both of you! … At once! … I could kill you! … Get out!”
She realized that it was all over, that he knew, that she could no longer play the innocent, but must give way. But all her impudence had come back to her, and her hatred for the man, doubled now, urged her to boldness, and woke in her an impulse to defiance and bravado.
“Come, Limousin,” she said in a clear voice, “since I am to be turned out, I will go home with you.”
But Limousin did not move. Parent, attacked by a fresh access of rage, cried:
“Clear out, then! … Get out, you vile creatures … or else … or else … !”
He snatched up a chair and whirled it above his head.
Henriette rapidly crossed the drawing room, took her lover by the arm, dragged him away from the wall, to which he appeared to be fixed, and led him to the door, repeating:
“Come along, dear, come along. … You can see that the man is mad … come along!”
In the doorway she turned to her husband, trying to think what she could do, what she could imagine, that would wound him to the heart, as she left the house. And an idea came to her, one of those venomous deadly ideas in which the sum of feminine treachery ferments.
“I want to take my child away,” she said firmly.
“Your … your child?” stammered Parent in bewilderment. “You dare to speak of your child … after … after … Oh! oh! oh! it is too much! … You dare? … Clear out, you scum! Clear out!”
She went up to him, almost smiling, almost revenged already, and defied him at close quarters, face to face.
“I want my child … and you have no right to keep him, because he’s not yours. … Do you hear? … He’s not yours. … He’s Limousin’s.”
“You’re lying, wretch, you’re lying!” cried Parent desperately.
“You idiot,” she replied, “everyone knows it except you. I tell you that that man there is his father. You’ve only to look in order to see. …”
Parent recoiled before her, tottering. Then suddenly he turned round, snatched up a candle, and dashed into the next room.
He came back almost immediately, carrying little Georges wrapped in his bedclothes. The child, awakened with a start, was crying with terror. Parent flung him into his wife’s hands and, without adding a word, thrust her roughly out on to the staircase where Limousin was prudently awaiting her.
Then he shut and double-locked the door and thrust home the bolts. He had scarcely regained the drawing room when he fell full length upon the floor.
II
Parent lived alone, entirely alone. During the first few weeks following his separation, the strangeness of his new life prevented him from thinking much. He had resumed his bachelor life, his loafing habits, and had his meals at a restaurant, as in the old days. Anxious to avoid scandal, he made his wife an allowance regulated by their lawyers. But, little by little, the remembrance of the child began to haunt his thoughts. Often, when he was alone at home in the evenings, he would imagine that he suddenly heard Georges cry “Daddy.” In a moment his heart would begin to beat and he would promptly rise and open the front door, to see if by any chance the little boy had returned. Yes, he might have come home again as dogs and pigeons do. Why should a child have less natural instinct than an animal?
Then, realising his error, he would return and sit down in his armchair, and think of the child. He thought of him for whole hours, whole days. It was no mere mental obsession, but a yet stranger physical obsession as well, a need of the senses and the nerves to embrace him, hold him, feel him, take him on his knee and dandle him. He grew frantic at the feverish remembrance of past caresses. He felt the little arms clasping his neck, the little mouth pressing a great kiss on his beard, the little hair tickling his cheek. The longing for these sweet vanished endearments, for the delicate, warm, dainty skin held to his lips, maddened him like the desire for a woman beloved and departed.
He would suddenly burst into tears in the street as he thought that he might have had fat little Georgy trotting along beside him on his little legs, as in the old days when he took him for walks. Then he would go home and sob till evening, his head between his hands.
Twenty times, a hundred times a day, he asked himself this question: “Was he, or was he not, Georges’s father?” But it was chiefly at night that he gave himself up to interminable speculation on this subject. As soon as he was in bed, he began, every evening, the same series of desperate arguments.
After his wife’s departure he had at first had no doubts: the child was assuredly Limousin’s. Then, little by little, he began to hesitate again. Henriette’s statement certainly had no value. She had defied him in an attempt to make him desperate. When he came coolly to weigh the pros and the cons, there was many a chance that she was lying.
Limousin alone, perhaps, could have told the truth. But how was he to know it, to question him, to get him to confess?
Sometimes Parent would get up in the middle of the night, resolved to go and find Limousin, to beseech him, to offer him anything he wanted, if he would only put an end to his abominable anguish. Then he would return hopelessly to bed, reflecting that doubtless the lover would lie too! It was positively certain that he would lie in order to hinder the real father from taking back his child.
Then what was he to do? Nothing!
He was heartbroken that he had precipitated events like this, that he had not reflected or been more patient, had not had the sense to wait and dissemble for a month or two, until his own eyes might have informed him. He ought to have pretended to have no suspicions, and have left them calmly to betray themselves. It would have been enough for him to have seen the other man kiss the child to guess, to understand. A friend’s kiss is not the same as a father’s. He could have spied on them from behind doors. Why had he not thought of it? If Limousin, left alone with Georges, had not promptly seized him, clasped him in his arms, and kissed him passionately, if he had left him to play without taking any interest in him, no hesitation would have been possible; it would have meant that he was not the father, did not believe himself or feel himself to be the father.
With the result that Parent could have turned out the mother and kept his son, and he would have been happy, perfectly happy.
He would go back to bed, perspiring and tormented, ransacking his memory for Limousin’s behaviour with the child. But he could remember nothing, absolutely nothing, no gesture, no glance, no word, no suspicious caress. Nor did the mother take any notice of her child. If he had been the fruit of her lover, doubtless she would have loved him more.
He had been separated from his son, then, out of revenge, out of cruelty, to punish him for having surprised them.
He would make up his mind to go at dawn and ask the magistrate to give him the right to claim Georgy.
But he had scarcely formed this resolve when he would feel himself overcome by a certainty of the contrary. From the moment that Limousin had been Henriette’s lover, her beloved lover from the first day, she must have given herself to him with the passionate ardent abandon that makes a woman a mother. And was not the cold reserve which she had always brought to her intimate relations with himself an obstacle against the likelihood of his having given her a child?
So he was about to claim, take home, and perpetually cherish another man’s child? He could never look at him, kiss him, hear him say “daddy” without being struck and torn by the thought: “He is not my son at all.” He was about to condemn himself for all time to this torture, this miserable existence! No, better to dwell alone, live alone, grow old alone, and die alone!
Every day and every night were renewed these abominable uncertainties and sufferings that nothing could assuage or end. Above all he dreaded the darkness of the falling dusk, the melancholy of twilight. It was then that there fell upon his heart with the darkness a shower of grief, a flood of despair, drowning him, maddening him. He was afraid of his thoughts, as a man fears criminals, and he fled before them like a hunted animal. Above all he dreaded his empty dwelling, so dark and dreadful, and the streets, also deserted, where here and there a gas-lamp glimmers, and the lonely passerby heard in the distance is like a prowling marauder and your pace quickens or slackens as he follows you or comes towards you.
In spite of himself, Parent instinctively sought out the main streets, well lighted and populous. The lights and the crowds attracted him, occupied his mind and dulled his senses. When he was weary of wandering idly through the throng, when the passersby became fewer and the pavements emptier, the terrors of solitude and silence drove him to some large café full of customers and glare. He would rush to it like a moth to the flame, sit down at a little round table, and order a bock. He would drink it slowly, disturbed in mind by every customer who rose to leave. He would have liked to take him by the arm, to hold him back, to beg him to stay a little longer, so afraid was he of the moment when the waiter would stand in front of him and remark with a wrathful air: “Closing time, Monsieur.”
For, every evening, he was the last to go. He saw the tables carried inside, and, one by one, the gas-jets turned down, all except two, his own and the one at the counter. Miserably he would watch the cashier count the money and lock it up in the drawer; and he would depart, thrust out by the staff, who would mutter: “There’s a limpet for you; anyone might think he had nowhere to sleep.”
And as soon as he found himself in the street once more, he would begin to think of little Georges again, ransacking his tortured brain to discover whether he was or was not the father of his child.
In this way he caught the beerhouse habit; there the perpetual jostling of the drinkers keeps you familiar but silent company, and the heavy smoke of the pipes quiets uneasy thoughts, while the heavy beer dulls the mind and calms the heart.
He lived in these places. As soon as he got up, he went off thither to find his eyes and his thoughts. Then, out of laziness, he soon took to having his meals there. At about midday he would rap his saucer on the marble table, and the waiter would speedily bring a plate, a glass, a napkin, and that day’s lunch. As soon as he had finished eating, he would slowly drink his coffee, his eyes fixed on the decanter of brandy which would soon give him an hour of blessed sottishness. First of all he would moisten his lips with the brandy, as though to take the taste of it, merely culling the flavour of the liquor with the tip of his tongue. Then he would pour it into his mouth, drop by drop, letting his head fall back; he would let the strong liquor run slowly over his palate, over his gums, over the membrane of his cheeks, mingling it with the clear saliva which flowed freely at its contact. Then, refreshed by the mixture, he swallowed it unctuously, feeling it run all the way down his throat to the pit of his stomach.
After every meal he would spend more than an hour in sipping thus three or four glasses, which numbed his brain little by little. Then he would sink his head on to his chest, close his eyes, and doze. He would wake up in the middle of the afternoon and promptly reach for the bock which the waiter had set before him while he was asleep; then, having drunk it, he would sit up straight on the red velvet seat, pull up his trousers and pull down his waistcoat so as to cover up the white line which had appeared between them, shake his coat collar, pull down his cuffs, and then would take up the papers he had already read in the morning. He went through them again from the first line to the last, including the advertisements, the “situations wanted” column, the personal column, the stock exchange news and the theatre programs.
Between four and six he would go for a walk along the boulevards, to take the air, as he used to say; then he would come back to the seat which had been kept for him and order his absinth.
Then he would chat with the regular customers whose acquaintance he had made. They would comment on the topics of the day, the news items and the political events; this led up to dinner. The evening passed like the afternoon, until closing time. This was for him the terrible moment when he had to go home in the dark to his empty room, full of terrible memories, horrible thoughts and agonising griefs. He no longer saw any of his old friends, any of his relations, anyone who might remind him of his past life.
But as his lodgings became a hell to him, he took a room in a big hotel, a large room on the ground floor, so that he could see the passersby. He was no longer alone in this vast public dwelling-place; he felt people swarming round him; he heard voices behind the partitions; and when his old grief harassed him too cruelly, between his bed with the sheet drawn back and his lonely fireside, he would go out into the broad passages and walk up and down like a sentry, past all the closed doors, looking sadly at the pairs of boots in couples before each of them, the dainty boots of the women squatting beside the strong ones of the men; and he would reflect that all these people were happy, no doubt, and sleeping lovingly, side by side or in each other’s arms, in the warmth of their beds.
Five years went by in this fashion, five mournful years with no events but an occasional two hours of bought love.
One day, as he was going for his customary walk between the Madeleine and the Rue Drouot, he suddenly noticed a woman whose bearing struck him. A tall man and a child were with her. All three were walking in front of him. “Where have I seen those people?” he wondered, and all of a sudden he recognised a gesture of the hand: it was his wife, his wife with Limousin and with his child, his little Georges.
His heart beat so that he was almost stifled, but he did not stop; he wanted to see them, and he followed them. Anyone would have said that they were a family party, a decent family of decent middle-class people. Henriette was leaning on Paul’s arm, talking softly to him and occasionally looking at him from beside him. At these times Parent saw her profile, and recognised the graceful line of her face, the movements of her mouth, her smile, and the caress of her eyes. The child in particular drew his attention. How big he was and strong! Parent could not see his face, but only the long fair hair which fell upon his neck in curling locks. It was Georges, this tall barelegged boy walking like a little man beside his mother.
As they stopped in front of a shop, he suddenly saw all three. Limousin had gone grey, older, and thinner; his wife, on the contrary, was younger than ever, and had put on flesh; Georges had become unrecognisable, so different from the old days!
They set off again. Parent followed them once more, then hurried past them in order to turn back and see their faces at close quarters. When he passed the child, he felt a longing, a mad longing to seize him in his arms and carry him off. He touched him, as though by chance. The child turned his head and looked angrily at this clumsy fellow. At that Parent fled, struck, pursued, wounded by his glance. He fled like a thief, overcome by the horrible fear that he had been seen and recognised by his wife and her lover. He raced to his beerhouse and fell panting into his chair.
That evening he drank three absinths.
For four months he bore the scar of that meeting on his heart. Every night he saw them all again, happy and carefree father, mother, and child, walking along the boulevard before going home to dinner. This new vision effaced the old one. It was a new thing, a new hallucination, and a new grief, too. Little Georges, his little Georges, whom he had loved so well and kissed so much in the old days, was vanishing into a distant and ended past, and he saw a new Georges, like a brother of the old one, a little boy with bare calves, who did not know him! He suffered terribly from this thought. The child’s love was dead; there was no longer any bond between them; the child had not stretched out his arms at sight of him. He had given him an angry look.
Then little by little his soul grew calm again; his mental torments grew less keen; the image which appeared before his eyes and haunted his nights became vague, rarer. He began to live more like the rest of the world, like all the men of leisure who drink their bocks at marble-topped tables and wear out the seats of their trousers on the threadbare velvet seats.
He grew old amid the pipe-smoke, and bald in the gaslight, made quite an event of his weekly bath, his fortnightly haircut, the purchase of new clothes or a new hat. When he arrived at the beerhouse wearing a new hat, he would contemplate himself in the mirror for a long time before sitting down, would take it off and put it on several times in succession, would set it at different angles, and would finally ask his friend, the lady at the counter, who was looking at it with interest: “Do you think it suits me?”
Two or three times a year he would go to the theatre; and, in the summer, he would sometimes spend the evening at an open-air concert in the Champs-Élysées. He carried the tunes in his head; they sang in the depths of his memory for weeks; he would even hum them, beating time with his foot, as he sat at his bock.
The years followed one another, slow and monotonous, and short because they were empty.
He did not feel them slipping over his head. He advanced towards death without stirring, without exciting himself, sitting at a beerhouse table; only the great mirror against which he leaned a head that every day was a little balder, witnessed to the ravages of time, who runs swift-footed, devouring man, poor man.
By this time he seldom thought of the terrible drama in which his life had been wrecked, for twenty years had gone by since that ghastly evening.
But the life he had fashioned for himself ever since had worn him out, enervated him, exhausted him; often the proprietor of the beerhouse, the sixth proprietor since his first coming to the place, would say to him: “You need shaking up a bit, Monsieur Parent; you ought to get fresh air, go to the country; I assure you you’ve changed a great deal in the last few months.”
And as his client left, the man would pass on his reflections to the cashier: “Poor Monsieur Parent is in a bad way; staying in Paris all the time is doing him no good. Get him to go out into the country and have a fish dinner from time to time; he thinks a lot of your opinion. Summer’s coming soon; it’ll put some life into him.”
And the cashier, full of pity and kindly feeling for the obstinate customer, would every day repeat to Parent: “Now, Monsieur, make up your mind to get into the open air. It’s so lovely in the country when the weather’s fine! If I only could, I’d spend all my life there, I would.”
And she would tell him her dreams, the simple and poetical dreams of all the poor girls who are shut up from one year’s end to another behind the windows of a shop, and watch the glittering noisy stream of life go by in the street outside, and dream of the calm, sweet life of the fields, of life under the trees, under the radiant sun falling upon the meadows, the deep woods, the clear rivers, the cows lying in the grass, and all the various flowers, all the wild, free blossoms, blue, red, yellow, violet, lilac, pink, and white, so charming, so fresh, so sweet-scented, all the flowers of nature waiting there to be picked by the passerby and heaped into huge bunches.
She found pleasure in talking to him always of her perpetual longing, unrealised and unrealisable; and he, poor hopeless wretch, found pleasure in listening to her. He came and sat now beside the counter, so as to talk to Mademoiselle Zoé and discuss the country with her. Little by little a vague desire came over him to go and see, just once, whether it really was as nice as she said it was, outside the walls of the great city.
One morning he asked her:
“Do you know any place in the suburbs where one can get a good lunch?”
“Yes,” she replied; “go to La Terrasse at Saint-Germain. It’s so pretty.”
He had been there long ago, when he was engaged to Henriette. He decided to go again.
He chose a Sunday, for no particular reason, but merely because the usual thing is to go off for the day on a Sunday, even when the whole week is unoccupied.
So one Sunday morning he went off to Saint-Germain.
It was early in July, a hot, sunny day. Sitting in the corner of the railway carriage, he watched the passing of the trees and the strange little houses on the outskirts of Paris. He felt sad, annoyed with himself for having yielded to this new desire and broken his habits. The landscape, changing, yet always the same, wearied him. He was thirsty; he would gladly have got off at every station in order to sit down in the café that he saw outside, drink a bock or two, and take the next train back to Paris. And the journey seemed to him to be long, very long. He used to spend whole days sitting still with the same motionless objects before his eyes, but he found it enervating and wearisome to remain seated while moving about, to watch the country moving while he himself did not stir.
He took some interest in the Seine, nevertheless, whenever they crossed it. Under the bridge at Chatou he saw skiffs darting along at the powerful strokes of bare-armed oarsmen, and thought: “Those chaps must be having a good time.”
The long ribbon of river that unrolls from both sides of the bridge of Pecq aroused a vague desire in the depths of his heart to walk along the banks. But the train plunged into the tunnel which precedes Saint-Germain station and soon stopped at the arrival platform.
Parent got out and, weighed down by fatigue, went off in the direction of La Terrasse, his hands behind his back. Having reached the iron railing, he stopped to look at the view. The vast plain was spread out before him, boundless as the sea, a green expanse dotted with large villages as populous as towns. White roads ran across this wide country, patches of forest wooded it in various places, the pools of the Vésinet gleamed like silver medals, and the distant slopes of Sannois and Argenteuil hovered behind the light bluish mist like shadows of themselves. The warm, abundant light of the sun was bathing the whole broad landscape, faintly veiled by the morning mist, by the sweat of the heated earth exhaled in thin fog, and by the damp vapours of the Seine, gliding endlessly like a serpent across the plains, encircling the villages, and skirting the hills.
A soft breeze, laden with the odour of leaves and sap, caressed the skin, penetrated deep into the lungs, and seemed to rejuvenate the heart, ease the mind, and invigorate the blood.
Parent, surprised, drank deeply of it, his eyes dazzled by the vast sweep of the landscape.
“Yes, it’s very nice here,” he murmured.
He walked forward a few steps, and stopped again to stare. He fancied he was discovering new and unknown things, not the things which his eyes saw, but those of which his soul foretold him, events of which he was unaware, glimpses of happiness, unexplored pleasures, a whole view of life whose existence he had not suspected, suddenly revealed to him as he gazed at this stretch of boundless plains.
All the appalling melancholy of his existence appeared to him, brilliantly illumined by the radiance flooding the earth. He saw the twenty years of café life, drab, monotonous, heartbreaking. He might have travelled like other men, gone hither and thither among strange peoples in little-known lands across the seas, taken an interest in everything that fascinates other men, in art and in science; he might have lived life in a thousand forms, life the mysterious, delightful, agonising, always changing, always inexplicable and strange.
But now it was too late; he would go on swilling beer till the day of his death, without family, without friends, without hope, without interest in anything. Infinite wretchedness overwhelmed him, and a longing to run away, hide, go back to Paris, to his beerhouse and his sottishness. All the thoughts, all the dreams, all the desires slumbering in the sloth of a stagnant heart had been awakened, stirred to life by this ray of country sunlight.
He felt that he would go out of his mind if he stayed any longer in this place, and hastened to the Pavillon Henri IV for lunch, to dull his mind with wine and spirits and at least to talk to someone.
He chose a small table in one of the arbours, whence he could overlook all the surrounding country, chose his meal, and asked to be served at once.
Other excursionists arrived and sat down at nearby tables. He felt better; he was no longer alone. In another arbour three persons were lunching. He had glanced at them several times without really seeing them, as one looks at strangers.
Suddenly the voice of a woman gave him one of those thrills which penetrate to the very marrow.
“Georges,” said the voice, “will you carve the chicken?”
“Yes, Mother,” answered another voice.
Parent raised his eyes; he realised, guessed at once who these people were! He would never have known them again. His wife was very stout and quite white-haired, a grave, virtuous old lady. She thrust her head forward as she ate, for fear of staining her dress, although she had covered her bosom with a napkin. Georges had become a man. He had a beard, the uneven, almost colourless beard that lies like soft curling down upon the cheeks of youths. He wore a high hat, a white waistcoat, and a monocle, no doubt for fashion’s sake. Parent stared at him in amazement! Was this his son Georges? No, he did not know this young man; there could be nothing in common between them.
Limousin’s back was turned towards him; he was busy eating, his shoulders rather bowed.
Well, they all three seemed happy and contented; they had come to lunch in the country at a well-known restaurant. Their existence had been calm and pleasant, they had lived like a happy family in a nice, warm, well-filled house, filled with all the trifles that make life pleasant, all the delights of affection, all the tender words constantly exchanged by those who love each other. And it was thanks to him that they had lived thus, thanks to his money, after deceiving, robbing, and ruining him. They had condemned him, the innocent, simple, kindhearted victim, to all the horrors of loneliness, to the revolting life he led between pavement and bar, to every form of moral torment and physical misery. They had made of him a useless, ruined creature, lost in the world, a poor old man without any possible happiness or expectation of it, with no hope left in anything or person. For him the earth was empty, for there was nothing on earth that he loved. He might pass through crowds or along streets, go into every house in Paris, open every room, but never would he find, on the other side of the door, a face beloved or desired, the face of a woman or child that would smile at the sight of him. It was this idea especially that worked upon his mind, the image of a door that one opens in order to find and embrace someone behind it.
And it was all the fault of these three wretches; of that vile woman, that treacherous friend, and that tall fair lad with his assumption of haughtiness.
He bore as great a grudge now against the child as against the two others! Was he not Limousin’s son? If not, would Limousin have kept him, loved him? Would not Limousin have speedily dismissed the mother and the child, had he not known full well that the child was his? Does anyone bring up another man’s child?
And there they were, the three malefactors who had made him suffer so much.
Parent gazed at them, tormenting and exciting himself by the recollection of all his woes, all his agony, all the moments of despair he had known. He was exasperated, above all, by their air of placid self-satisfaction. He longed to kill them, to throw his siphon of soda-water at them, to smash in Limousin’s head, which every moment bobbed down towards his plate and instantly rose again.
And they would continue to live in this fashion, free from care, free from any sign of uneasiness. No, no! It was too much! He would have his revenge, have it now, since he had them here at hand. But how? He ransacked his mind, dreaming of appalling deeds such as happen in sensational novels, but could think of nothing practical. He drank glass after glass, to excite and encourage himself, so that he should not let slip an opportunity that certainly would never return.
Suddenly he had an idea, a terrible idea; he stopped drinking, in order to mature it. A smile creased his lips. “I’ve got them. I’ve got them,” he murmured. “We shall see. We shall see.”
“What would Monsieur like to follow?” asked a waiter.
“Nothing. Coffee and brandy, the best.”
He watched them as he sipped his liqueur. There were too many people in the restaurant for his purpose; he would wait; he would follow them; they were sure to go for a walk on the terrace or in the woods. When they had gone some distance away he would join them, and then he would have his revenge; yes, he would have his revenge! It was none too soon, after twenty-three years of suffering. Ah, they didn’t suspect what was going to befall them!
They were quietly finishing their lunch, chatting with no sense of anxiety. Parent could not hear their words, but he could see their calm gestures. The face of his wife was particularly exasperating to him. She had acquired a haughty air, the appearance of a fat and unapproachable nun, armour-plated with moral principles, casemated in virtue.
They paid their bill and rose. Then he saw Limousin. He looked for all the world like a retired diplomat, he wore such an air of importance, with his handsome whiskers, soft and white, whose points fell to the lapels of his frock-coat.
They departed. Georges was smoking a cigar, and wore his hat over one ear. Parent promptly followed them.
At first they walked along the terrace, regarding the landscape with the placid admiration of the well-fed; then they went into the forest.
Parent rubbed his hands and continued to follow them, at a distance, concealing himself so as not to rouse their notice too soon.
They walked with short steps, basking in the warm air and the greenery. Henriette was leaning on Limousin’s arm and was walking, very upright, at his side, like a wife sure and proud of herself. Georges was knocking leaves down with his cane, and occasionally leapt lightly over the ditches at the side of the road, like an eager young horse on the point of dashing into the foliage.
Little by little Parent caught them up, panting with emotion and weariness, for he never walked now. Soon he came up with them, but a confused, inexplicable fear had seized hold of him, and he went past them, so as to turn round and meet them face to face.
He walked on with a beating heart, feeling them now behind him, and kept saying to himself: “Come! Now is the time; courage, courage! Now is the time!”
He turned round. All three had sat down at the foot of a large tree, and were still chatting.
At that he made up his mind, and went back with rapid steps. Stopping in front of them, he stood in the middle of the road and stammered in a voice broken with emotion.
“It is I! Here I am! You were not expecting me, were you?”
All three stared at the man, whom they thought mad.
“Anyone might think you did not know me,” he continued. “Look at me! I am Parent, Henri Parent. You were not expecting me, eh? You thought it was all over; that you would never see me again, never. But no, here I am again. Now we will have it out.”
Henriette, terrified, hid her face in her hands, murmuring: “Oh, my God!”
Seeing this stranger apparently threatening his mother, Georges had risen, ready to take him by the throat.
Limousin, dumbfounded, was looking with terrified eyes at this man come from the dead, who waited for a few seconds to regain his breath and went on:
“So now we’ll have it out. The moment has come! You deceived me, condemned me to the life of a convict, and you thought I should never catch you!”
But the young man took him by the shoulders and, thrusting him away, said:
“Are you mad? What do you want? Get along with you at once or I’ll lay you out!”
“What do I want?” replied Parent. “I want to tell you who those people are.”
But Georges, furious now, shook him and raised his hand to strike him.
“Let go,” he said. “I am your father. … Look and see if those wretches recognise me now!”
Horribly startled, the young man loosened his grasp and turned to his mother.
Parent, freed, walked up to her.
“Well? Tell him who I am! Tell him that my name is Henri Parent, and that I am his father, since his name is Georges Parent, since you are my wife, since all three of you are living on my money, on the allowance of ten thousand francs which I have been giving you ever since I threw you out of my house. And tell him also why I threw you out of my house. Because I surprised you with that wretch, that scoundrel, your lover!—Tell him what I was, I, a good man whom you married for his money, and deceived from the first day. Tell him who you are and who I am. …”
He stammered and panted, overcome with rage.
“Paul, Paul!” cried the woman in a piercing voice. “Stop him; make him be silent! Stop him saying these things in the presence of my son!”
Limousin had risen in his turn.
“Be silent, be silent,” he murmured in a very low voice. “Realise what you are doing.”
“I know what I am doing!” replied Parent furiously. “That is not all. There is one thing I want to know, a thing which has been tormenting me for twenty years.”
He turned towards Georges, who was leaning against a tree, bewildered.
“Listen,” he continued. “When she left my house, she thought it was not enough to have betrayed me; she wanted to leave me hopeless too. You were my only consolation; well, she took you away, swearing that I was not your father, but that he was! Was she lying? I do not know. For twenty years I have been wondering.”
He went right up to her, a tragic, terrible figure, and, tearing away the hand with which she covered her face, cried:
“Well! I summon you today to tell me which of us is this young man’s father—he or I: your husband or your lover. Come, come, tell me!”
Limousin flung himself upon him. Parent thrust him back.
“Ah!” he sniggered furiously; “you are brave today; braver than the day when you fled on to the staircase because I was going to strike you. Well, if she won’t answer, answer yourself. Tell me, are you the boy’s father? Come, speak!”
He turned back to his wife.
“If you will not tell me,” he said, “at least tell your son. He is a man now. He has a perfect right to know who his father is. I do not know, I never have known, never! I cannot tell you, my boy.”
He grew more and more furious, and his voice grew shrill. He waved his arms like a man in an epileptic fit.
“Now! … Answer. … She does not know … I’ll wager she does not know. … No … she does not know. … By God! she slept with both of us! Ha! Ha! Ha! … Nobody knows … nobody … do people know these things? … You will not know either, my boy, you will not know any more than I do … ever … ask her! … Ask her! You will see that she does not know. Nor do I … nor does he … nor do you … nobody knows. … You can take your choice … yes … you can take your choice … him or me. … Choose. … Goodbye … that is all. … If she decides to tell you, let me know, won’t you, at the Hôtel des Continents. … I should like to know. … Goodbye. … I wish you every happiness …”
And he departed gesticulating, talking to himself, under the tall trees, in the cool, quiet air filled with the fragrance of rising sap. He did not turn round to look at them. He walked on, spurred on by fury, in an ecstasy of passion, his mind completely overturned by his obsession.
Suddenly he found himself at the station. A train was starting. He boarded it. During the journey his anger cooled, he regained his senses, and arrived back in Paris amazed at his boldness.
He felt crushed, as though his bones were broken. Nevertheless he went and had a look at his beerhouse.
Seeing him come in, Mademoiselle Zoé, surprised, inquired:
“Back already? Are you tired?”
“Yes,” he replied, “… yes very tired … very tired. … You see … when a man’s not used to going out! It’s the end; I’ll never go to the country again. I should have done better to stay here. From this time forward I’ll never stir out.”
And she was unable to get him to tell her about his excursion, though she was very eager to hear.
That evening, for the first time in his life, he got completely drunk, and had to be carried home.