The First Fall of Snow
The promenade of La Croisette curves along the edge of the blue sea. To the right, where the Esterel juts out into the sea, the view is obstructed, and the horizon, with its charming southern outline of fantastic peaked summits, is lost to view.
To the left the islands of Saint Marguerite and Saint Honorat look like two big clumps of pine-trees rising out of the water.
And all along the broad gulf, up and down the tall mountains that lie about Cannes, the host of white villas sleeps in the sunlight. From far away these ghostly houses, scattered from top to bottom of the mountains, dotting the dusky verdure with snow-like specks, are clearly visible.
The houses nearest the water have gates opening on to the broad promenade bathed by the tranquil waves. The air is soft and pleasant and, above the garden wall, one catches a glimpse of orange and lemon-trees laden with golden fruit. Women move slowly over the sand of the avenue, followed by children bowling hoops, or chatting with their male escorts. On a mild winter day, with the faintest touch of freshness in the air, a young lady came out of her little, dainty house facing the Croisette and stopped for a minute to look at the pedestrians, smiled to herself, and then, quite exhausted, reached an empty bench facing the sea. Tired out with the short walk, she sat down, panting for breath. Her pale face looked like that of a dead woman. She coughed incessantly and raised transparent fingers to her lips as if to stop the exhausting paroxysms.
She gazed at the sky, full of sunshine, at the swallows, and at the irregular peaks of the Esterel in the distance, at the sea so blue and so calm lying near her.
She smiled again and murmured:
“Oh, how happy I am.”
Yet she knew she was going to die, that she would not see the spring, that in a year, along the same promenade, these same people passing in front of her would come to breathe the mild air of this charming spot; their children, a little older, their hearts still full of hope, tenderness and happiness, while the wretched remains of flesh she still possessed would be rotting away in an oak coffin, leaving only her bones to lie in the silk frock she had chosen for her shroud.
She would be gone. Life would go on for others, but for her it would be over, over forever. She would be gone. She smiled and breathed in the scented air of the gardens as well as her stricken lungs permitted.
And she lost herself in a daydream.
She was thinking of the past. She had been married four years ago to a gentleman of Normandy, strong, bearded, healthy, narrow-minded, broad-shouldered and cheerful. The match had been arranged for financial reasons unknown to her. She would have liked to say “No” but implied “Yes” by a movement of her head, so as not to thwart her father and mother. She was a Parisian, lighthearted, full of the joy of life. Her husband took her to his castle in Normandy, a huge stone building, surrounded by very tall, old trees. The front view was shut out by a high clump of pines, on the right an opening disclosed a view over the bare plain that stretched away to the distant farms. A crossroad passed by the gateway and led to the high road about three miles away.
She remembered everything: her arrival, the first day in her new home, and the lonely life that followed.
When she stepped out of the carriage she looked at the old building and said, laughingly:
“It’s not very cheerful.”
Her husband laughed back, replying:
“One gets accustomed to it. You’ll see. I never feel bored here.”
A great part of that day was spent in lovemaking, and it did not seem long to her. The next day it was the same thing, and so on through the week that was taken up with caressings. Then she started to rearrange her home, and that lasted a whole month. The days passed by in quite insignificant and yet absorbing pursuits. She learnt the value and importance of the little things of life. She found out that one could be interested in the fluctuation in the price of eggs.
It was summer, and she went out into the fields to watch the harvesting. The brightness of the sunshine kept her going.
Then came the autumn, and her husband went out shooting, starting in the morning with his two dogs, Médor and Mirza. She was left behind alone, but did not grieve over Henri’s absence: she was very fond of him though she did not miss him. When he returned, her affection was especially bestowed on the dogs. Every evening she looked after them with a mother’s care, petted them, calling them by all sorts of pet names she would never have thought of calling her husband.
He always told her all about the day’s sport, indicating the places where he had shot partridges; surprised at not finding any hares in Joseph Ledentée’s clover, or seemingly indignant at Monsieur Lechapelier’s conduct in always shooting along the border of his property and thereby getting the benefit of the game that he, Henri de Parville, had preserved. She replied: “That’s certainly not right,” thinking of something else. Then came the winter, the cold, rainy winter of Normandy. Everlasting showers fell on the slates of the great, steep-pitched roof, rising like a blade to the sky. The roads seemed like rivers of mud, the country itself a sea of mud; nothing could be heard but the sound of falling water. Nothing could be seen but the whirling flight of crows moving like a cloud, dropping on to the fields, and then flying off again.
About four o’clock the crowd of dark, flying creatures came with their deafening cries and perched in the tall beeches to the left of the castle. For over an hour they flew from treetop to treetop, seeming to be fighting, croaked and formed a moving black mass in the greyish branches.
Every evening she watched them with a heavy heart, overcome by the grim melancholy of night falling over the deserted country. Then she rang for the lamp and drew near the fire. She burnt heaps of wood without succeeding in warming the immense rooms that reeked with damp. She was always cold, everywhere; in the drawing room, at meals, in her own room. She felt as if she was chilled to the bone. Her husband did not come in till dinnertime, for he was always out shooting or else engaged with his crops and other country pursuits. He used to come in full of good spirits and covered with mud, rubbing his two hands and saying:
“What beastly weather!” or “How nice to have a fire!”
Occasionally he would ask:
“Has she anything to say today? Is she happy?”
He was happy, enjoying good health, and wanted nothing beyond his simple, healthy, quiet life.
In December, when the snow fell, she suffered terribly from the icy cold of the castle, which seemed to have grown chill with the centuries, as human beings become chill with age, and she said to her husband one evening:
“I say, Henri, you ought to install a furnace here, it would dry the walls. I assure you I am never warm.”
At first he was speechless at the extravagant idea of installing a furnace in his manor; it would have seemed more natural to him to feed his dogs out of silver-plated dishes. Then he burst out into a ringing fit of laughter, exclaiming:
“A furnace here! A furnace here! Ah! ah! ah! What a joke!”
“I assure you, dear, I am frozen with cold,” she persisted; “you don’t notice it because you are always moving about, but all the same I feel frozen.”
He only replied, still laughing:
“Nonsense, you’ll get used to it. Besides, it is excellent for the health. You will be all the better for it. Good Lord, we are not Parisians to live in front of the fire. After all, spring will soon be here.”
About the beginning of January she had the great misfortune to lose her father and mother, who were killed in a carriage accident. She went to Paris for the funeral, and, for six months, thought of nothing but her loss. The mildness of the beautiful summer finally roused her, and she drifted through life in a state of melancholy languor until autumn. When the cold weather returned she faced the fact of her gloomy future for the first time. What could she do? Nothing. What did life hold for her? Nothing. Was there anything she could hope for that would restore her drooping spirits? Nothing. The doctor had said that she would never have any children.
She suffered continually from the cold, which was sharper and more penetrating than the winter before. She stretched her poor, trembling hands out to the big flames; the blazing fire scorched her face, but icy winds crept down her back, slipping in between her skin and underclothing, and making her shiver all over. The rooms seemed full of draughts, specially lively draughts, crafty draughts as cruel as an enemy. She met them at every turn; without ceasing they blew on her face, her hands, her neck their frozen and perfidious breath.
Again she mentioned the furnace, but her husband listened to her as if she were asking for the moon. The introduction of that sort of thing at Parville seemed as impossible to him as the discovery of the Philosopher’s Stone.
He went to Rouen one day on business and brought back a tiny copper foot-warmer for his wife, which he laughingly called a portable furnace, and he was convinced that it would prevent her from ever feeling cold again.
Towards the end of December she realised that she could not live that life forever, and said timidly one night at dinner:
“I say, dear, can’t we go and spend a week or two in Paris before the spring?”
Full of astonishment, he said:
“In Paris? In Paris? Whatever for? Certainly not! We are better off here, at home. What odd ideas you have!”
She faltered: “It would make a change,” but he could not understand.
“What do you want by way of a change? Theatres, receptions, dinners in town? You knew well when you came here that you could not expect anything of the kind!”
Both words and voice made her feel he was reproaching her. She held her tongue, for she was gentle and retiring, without determination or power of resistance.
It was terribly cold again in January, and everything was covered with snow. One evening, as she was gazing at the cloud of crows circling round the trees, she began to cry in spite of herself. Her husband came in and asked, very surprised:
“What’s the matter with you?”
He was happy, quite happy, having never thought of any other life, any other pleasures. He had been born and had grown up in the melancholy part of the country; he felt quite at home, contented in mind and body.
He did not understand that anyone could want something to happen, that anyone could long for a change, he did not understand that, to some beings, it did not seem natural to be in the same spot throughout the four seasons of the year; apparently he did not know that spring, summer, autumn and winter hold fresh amusements in different countries for many people.
She could say nothing in reply and quickly wiped her tears. At last, she said desperately:
“I am—I—I’m rather sad—I’m rather bored …” But terrified at what she had said, she quickly added:
“Besides, I’m—I’m rather cold.”
The last remark irritated him:
“Ah, yes. Still your idea of a furnace. But, damn it, you haven’t had a single cold since you came here.”
When night came she went up to her room (for she had insisted on having a separate bedroom) and went to bed, but even there she was cold, and she thought:
“It will always be like this, always, until I die.”
Then she thought about her husband; how could he have said: “You have never had a single cold since you came here”! So, she had to be ill, she must cough before he could understand what she suffered! She was filled with the exasperated indignation of the weak and timid.
She must cough, and then, no doubt, he would be sorry for her. Well! She would cough, he would hear her cough, and the doctor would have to be sent for; he should see, her husband, he should see!
She had got out of bed, her legs and feet bare, and a childish idea made her smile: “I want a furnace and I am going to have it. I will cough until he makes up his mind to put one in the house.”
Almost naked, she sat down on a chair and waited an hour, two hours. She shivered but was not catching cold, so at last she decided on a bold expedient.
Noiselessly she left the room, went downstairs, and opened the door into the garden. The snow-covered earth seemed quite dead. Abruptly she thrust forward a bare foot, plunging it into the icy, fleecy foam. A sensation of cold, painful as a wound, gripped her heart; still she stretched out the other leg and began to descend the steps, slowly.
Then she went on over the grass, saying: “I’ll go as far as the pines.” She walked on, taking short steps, panting for breath and gasping every time she plunged her naked foot in the snow.
She touched the first pine-tree with her hand as if to convince herself that she had really accomplished her object; then she returned. Two or three times she thought she was going to fall, she felt so numb, so weak. Before going in, however, she sat down in the icy foam and even picked some up to rub on her chest.
Then she went in to bed. In an hour’s time she felt as if she had a swarm of ants in her throat, and other ants running about her body, but she slept in spite of all this.
The next morning she was coughing and could not get up. She had congestion of the lungs, she was delirious and in her delirium was always asking for a furnace. The doctor insisted on having one put in the house, and Henri yielded, though with a very bad grace.
She was incurable. Her lungs were so seriously affected as to cause acute anxiety for her life. The doctor said: “If she stays here she will not last until the winter,” so she was sent to the South. She came to Cannes, found the sun, loved the sea, and breathed the air thick with the scent of orange-flowers. Then she returned North in the spring.
But she lived with the dread of recovery; she was afraid of the long winters in Normandy; and, as soon as she was better, she opened her window at night, thinking of the delightful shores of the Mediterranean.
Now she is going to die; that she knows, and is quite happy about it. She unfolded a paper left unopened and saw the heading: “The first snow in Paris.”
First she shivered and then she smiled. Over there she can see the Esterel turning pink in the setting sun; she can see the great blue heavens, so blue; the vast stretch of blue sea, so blue.
She got up to go back with slow steps, often stopping to cough, for she had stayed out too long and she felt cold, rather cold.
She found a letter from her husband; still smiling, she read:
“My Dear Friend,
“I hope you are well and that you do not pine for our lovely country. We have had a spell of frost for some days which promises snow. Personally, I adore this weather, and you will understand that I refrain from lighting your accursed furnace …”
She ceased reading, full of happiness that, at least, she had had the furnace. Her right hand, which held the letter, fell slowly on her lap, while she raised the left to her mouth as if to calm the obstinate cough that was racking her chest.