The Castaway
“Really, dear, I think you must be mad to go for a walk in the country in this weather. For the last two months you’ve had the oddest ideas. You drag me willy-nilly to the seaside, though you never thought of such a thing before in all the forty-five years of our married life. You make a point of choosing Fécamp, a melancholy hole, and now you’ve got such a passion for rushing about, you who could never be induced to stir out, that you want to walk about the fields on the hottest day in the year. Tell d’Apreval to go with you, since he falls in with all your whims. As for me, I’m going in to have a rest.”
Madame de Cadour turned to her old friend:
“Are you coming with me, d’Apreval?”
He bowed and smiled with old-world gallantry.
“Where you go, I go,” he said.
“Very well, go and get sunstroke,” said Monsieur de Cadour, and re-entered the Hôtel des Bains to lie down on his bed for an hour or two.
As soon as they were alone, the old woman and her aged companion started off. She clasped his hand and said very softly:
“At last! At last!”
“You are mad,” he murmured. “I assure you you’re mad. Think of the risk. If that man …”
She started violently.
“Oh, Henry, don’t call him that man.”
“Well,” he continued in a brusque voice, “if our son has any uneasy thoughts, if he suspects us, we’re caught, both of us. You’ve done without seeing him for forty years. What’s the matter with you now, then?”
They had followed the long road which leads from the sea to the town. They turned to the right to climb the hill of Étretat. The white road unwound itself before them under the blazing rain of sunlight. They walked slowly in the burning heat, taking short steps. She had taken her friend’s arm and was walking straight ahead with a fixed, haunted stare.
“So you’ve never seen him again either?” she said.
“No, never.”
“Is it possible?”
“My dear friend, don’t let us begin this eternal discussion all over again. I have a wife and children, just as you have a husband; so that each of us has everything to fear from public opinion.”
She did not answer. She was thinking of her lost youth, of old, unhappy, far-off things.
She had been married by her family, just as a young girl is married. She hardly knew her betrothed, a diplomat, and later she lived with him the life of any woman of fashion.
Then, however, a young man, Monsieur d’Apreval, married like herself, fell passionately in love with her; and during a long absence of Monsieur de Cadour on a political mission in India, she gave way to his desire.
Could she have resisted? Could she have denied herself? Would she have had the courage, the strength, not to yield?—for she loved him too. No, certainly no! It would have been too hard! She would have suffered too deeply! Life is very crafty and cruel! Can we avoid these temptations, or fly from the fate that marches upon us? How can a woman, alone, deserted, without love, without children, continue to run away from a passion surging in her? It is as though she fled from the light of the sun, to live to the end of her life in darkness.
And how plainly she remembered now the little things, his kisses, his smile, the way he stopped at the door to look at her, whenever he came to her house. What happy days, her only happy days, so soon over!
Then she discovered that she was with child; what agony!
Oh! the long terrible journey to the south, her misery, her incessant fear, her life hidden in the lonely little cottage on the shores of the Mediterranean, in the depths of the garden she dared not go beyond.
How well she remembered the long days she spent lying under an orange-tree, her eyes lifted to the round flaming fruit in the green foliage! How she longed to go out, to go down to the sea, whose sweet scent came to her over the wall, whose little waves she heard upon the beach; and dreamed perpetually of its wide blue surface glittering in the sun, flecked with white sails, and rimmed by a mountain. But she dared not go through the gate. Supposing she were recognised, in this state, her altered figure crying her shame!
And the days of waiting, the last few tormenting days! The fears! The threatening pians! Then the awful night! What misery she had endured!
What a night it had been! How she had moaned and screamed! She could see even now the pale face of her lover, kissing her hand every minute, the doctor’s smooth countenance, the nurse’s white cap.
And what a convulsion she had felt in her heart at the child’s shrill feeble cry, the first effort of a man’s voice!
And the day after! The day after! The only day of her life on which she had seen and kissed her son, for never afterwards had she as much as set eyes on him!
Then, after that time, the long empty life, the thought of this child floating always in the void of her mind! She had never seen him again, not once, the little being who was her flesh and blood, her son! He had been seized, carried off, and hidden! She knew only that he was being brought up by Norman peasants, that he had himself become a peasant, that he had married, with a good dowry from the father whose name he did not know.
How many times, in the last forty years, she had longed to go away to see him, to kiss him! She did not think of him as grown up. She dreamed always of that scrap of humanity she had held for one day in her arms, clasped to her tortured body.
How many times she had said to her lover: “I can hold out no longer; I must see him; I am going!”
Always he had restrained her, held her back. She would not know how to contain herself, how to master her emotion. The man would guess, and would exploit the secret. She would be ruined.
“How is he?” she said.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him again either.”
“Is it possible? To have a son and not know him! To be afraid of him, to have cast him away as a disgrace!”
It was horrible.
They were still walking up the long road, oppressed by the blazing sun, still mounting the interminable hillside.
“It’s like a judgment, isn’t it?” she continued. “I’ve never had another child. I could not fight any longer my desire to see him; it’s haunted me for forty years. A man couldn’t understand these things. Remember that I am very near death. And I shall not have seen him again … never again; is it possible? How can I have waited so long? I’ve thought of him all my life, and what a terrible existence the thought has made it! Not once have I awakened, not once, do you hear, without my first thought being for him, for my child! How is he? Oh, how guilty I feel before him! Ought one to fear the world in such a case? I should have left all and followed him, brought him up, loved him. I should have been happier then, surely. But I did not dare. I was a coward. How I have suffered! Oh, those poor abandoned creatures, how they must hate their mothers!”
She stopped abruptly, choked with sobs. The whole valley was deserted and silent in the overpowering blaze of sunlight. Only the crickets uttered their harsh, ceaseless croak in the thin brown grass at the roadside.
“Sit down for a little,” he said.
She let him lead her to the edge of the ditch, and sank down upon the grass, burying her face in her hands. Her white hair, falling in curls on each side of her face, became dishevelled, and she wept, torn by her bitter grief.
He remained standing in front of her, uneasy, not knowing what to say to her.
“Come … be brave,” he murmured.
“I will be,” she said, rising to her feet. She dried her eyes and walked on with the shaky steps of an old woman.
A little further on the road ran under a group of trees which hid several houses. They could now hear the regular vibrant shock of a blacksmith’s hammer on the anvil. Soon they saw, on the right, a cart halted before a kind of low house, and, in a shed, two men shoeing a horse.
Monsieur d’Apreval went up to them.
“Pierre Bénédict’s farm?” he asked.
“Take the road on the left,” answered one, “right by the little inn, and go straight on; it’s the third after Poret’s. You can’t miss it.”
They turned to the left. She was going very slowly now, her legs flagging, her heart thudding so violently that it snatched her breath away. At every step she muttered, as though it were a prayer:
“My God! Oh, my God!”
A violent access of emotion contracted her throat, making her totter on her feet as though she had been hamstrung.
Monsieur d’Apreval, nervous and rather pale, said sharply:
“If you can’t control yourself better, you’ll betray us at once. Try to master your feelings.”
“How can I?” she faltered. “My child! When I think that I’m about to see my child!”
They followed one of those little lanes that run between one farmyard and another, shut in between a double row of beeches along the roadside.
Suddenly they found themselves in front of a wooden gate shaded by a young pine-tree.
“Here it is,” he said.
She stopped short and looked round.
The yard, which was planted with apple trees, was large, stretching right up to the little thatched farmhouse. Facing it were the stables, the barn, the cow-house, and the chicken-run. Under a slate-roofed shed stood the farm vehicles, a two-wheeled cart, a wagon, and a gig. Four calves cropped the grass, beautifully green in the shade of the trees. The black hens wandered into every corner of the enclosure.
There was no sound to be heard; the door of the house was open, but no one was in view.
They entered the yard. At once a black dog leapt out of an old barrel at the foot of a large pear-tree and began to bark furiously.
Against the wall of the house, on the way to the door, four beehives stood upon a plank, the straw domes in a neat line.
Halting in front of the house, Monsieur d’Apreval shouted:
“Is anyone in?”
A child appeared, a little girl of about ten, dressed in a bodice and woollen petticoat, with bare and dirty legs. She looked timid and sullen, and stood still in the doorway, as though to defend the entry.
“What d’you want?” she said.
“Is your father in?”
“No.”
“Where is he?”
“I dunno.”
“And your mother?”
“She’s with the cows.”
“Will she be back soon?”
“I dunno.”
The old woman cried out abruptly in a hurried voice, as though fearing to be forcibly dragged away:
“I won’t go without seeing him.”
“We’ll wait, my dear.”
As they turned round, they caught sight of a peasant woman coming towards the house, carrying two heavy-looking tin pails on which the sun from time to time flashed with a brilliant white flame.
She was lame in the right leg, and her chest was muffled in a rusty brown knitted garment, stained and bleached by rain and sun. She looked like some poor servant, dirty and wretched.
“There’s mother,” said the child.
When she was near her dwelling she regarded the strangers with an evil, suspicious look; then went into the house as though she had not seen them.
She looked old; her face was hollowed, yellow, hard, the wooden face of rustics.
Monsieur d’Apreval called her back.
“I say, we came in to ask you to sell us two glasses of milk.”
Having set down her pails, she reappeared in the doorway and muttered:
“I don’t sell milk.”
“We’re very thirsty. The lady is old and very tired. Can’t we get something to drink?”
The peasant woman stared at him with surly, uneasy eyes. At last she made up her mind.
“Seeing you’re here, I’ll give you some all the same,” she said, disappearing into the house.
Then the child came out carrying two chairs, which she set under an apple tree; and the mother came, in her turn, with two foaming cups of milk that she placed in the visitors’ hands.
She remained standing in front of them as though to keep watch on them and guess their intentions.
“You’re from Fécamp?” she said.
“Yes,” replied Monsieur d’Apreval, “we’re there for the summer.”
Then, after a pause, he added: “Could you sell us chickens every week?”
She hesitated, then replied:
“I might. Would you be wanting young birds?”
“Yes, young ones.”
“What do you pay for them at market?”
D’Apreval, who did not know, turned to his companion: “What do you pay for chickens, dear—young ones?”
“Four francs and four francs fifty,” she faltered, her eyes full of tears.
The farmer’s wife looked sideways at her, much surprised, and asked:
“Is the poor lady ill, that she’s cryin’?”
He did not know what to answer, and stammered:
“No. … No. … She … she lost her watch on the way, a beautiful watch, and it grieves her. If anyone picks it up, let us know.”
Madame Bénédict thought this queer, and did not answer.
Suddenly she said:
“Here’s himself.”
She alone had seen him come in, for she was facing the gate. D’Apreval started violently; Madame de Cadour nearly fell as she turned frantically round in her chair.
A man was standing ten paces off, leading a cow at the end of a cord, bent double, breathing hard.
“Damn the brute!” he muttered, taking no notice of the strangers.
He passed them, going towards the cowshed, in which he disappeared.
The old woman’s tears were suddenly dried up; she was too bewildered for speech or thought: her son, this was her son!
D’Apreval, stabbed by the same thought, said in a troubled voice:
“That is Monsieur Bénédict, is it not?”
“Who told you his name?” asked the farmer’s wife, distrustful of them.
“The blacksmith at the corner of the high road,” he replied.
Then all were silent, their eyes fixed on the door of the cowshed, which made a sort of black hole in the wall of the building. They could see nothing inside, but vague sounds were to be heard, movements, steps muffled in the straw strewn on the ground.
He reappeared on the threshold, wiping his brow, and came back towards the house with a long slow step that jerked him up at every pace he took.
Again he passed in front of the strangers without appearing to notice them, and said to his wife:
“Go draw me a mug of cider; I be thirsty.”
Then he entered his dwelling. His wife went off to the cellar leaving the two Parisians by themselves.
Madame de Cadour was quite distracted.
“Let us go, Henry, let us go,” she faltered.
D’Apreval took her arm, helped her to rise, and supporting her with all his strength—for he felt certain that she would fall—he led her away, after throwing five francs on to one of the chairs.
As soon as they had passed through the gate, she began to sob, torn with grief, and stammering:
“Oh! Oh! Is this what you’ve made of him?”
He was very pale.
“I did what I could,” he answered harshly. “His farm is worth eighty thousand francs. It isn’t every middle-class child who has such a marriage-portion.”
They walked slowly back, without speaking another word. She was still sobbing; the tears ran unceasing from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
At last they stopped, and the pair reached Fécamp.
Monsieur de Cadour was awaiting them for dinner. He began to laugh and cried out at sight of them:
“There you are, my wife’s got a sunstroke. I’m delighted at it. Upon my word, I think she’s been off her head for some time past.”
Neither answered; and as the husband, rubbing his hands, inquired: “At all events, have you had a nice walk?” D’Apreval replied:
“Delightful, my dear fellow, perfectly delightful.”