Une vie

Jeanne has finished packing her trunks, but the rain will not stop. The downpour batters the windows of the hotel in Rouen, the low sky empties itself onto the sodden earth, and yet she longs to leave at once, right now, without waiting another minute, because she has just left the convent, because she is seventeen, because life awaits her out there, at Les Peuples, the old Norman chateau perched on the cliff near Yport that has been given to her as a gift. Her father, Baron Le Perthuis des Vauds, a gentleman of the last century, eccentric and kind, a disciple of Rousseau whose great strength and great weakness is his goodness—a scattered, unresisting goodness, almost a vice—finally yields. The carriage is loaded, Baroness Adélaïde is squeezed in, panting, moaning, and immediately falling asleep among the three billows of her neck; Rosalie, the foster-sister, strong and strapping as a lad, is settled in, and they set off through the deluge. And Jeanne, beneath this tepid streaming rain, feels herself revive like a confined plant newly restored to the open air.

Night falls, the moon surges red and enormous behind the fir trees, and when at last they arrive at Les Peuples, Jeanne discovers her room, her monumental bed supported by four oak birds, the Flemish tapestries recounting the woes of Pyramus and Thisbe, the little beehive-shaped clock where an enamel-winged bee ticks away the seconds. She cannot sleep. She opens the window to the clear night, breathes in the jasmine and the sea salt, listens to the melancholy toads sending their short notes toward the moon. Her heart swells, brimming with murmurs, teeming with a thousand roaming desires. She begins to dream of love. What would he be like? She does not exactly know. He would be him, and that is all. She imagines walks beneath the stars, hand in hand, two children running between the plane tree and the linden. And when the dawn breaks, piercing the blazing clouds, riddling the trees, the plains, and the Ocean with fire, she stretches her arms toward the radiant expanse with a yearning to embrace the sun, and she weeps in rapture.

Thus begins a charming and untrammeled life. Jeanne wanders along the roads, bounds down the small valleys whose ridges wear a fleece of gorse flowers like a golden cope, swims out of sight in the cold, blue water, and scatters memories everywhere like seeds cast into the earth. The Baron attempts agricultural enterprises, fishes with the sailors of Yport. The Baroness takes her exercise in the avenue of poplars, dragging her left foot a little heavier, leaving a shawl, a hooded cloak, a knitted sweater on every bench. Abbé Picot, a plump country priest sweating profusely, comes to dinner and proposes introducing them to a new parishioner, Viscount de Lamare. Julien appears. Black, curly hair, a gaze of dark velvet, a passionate eloquence in his eyelashes. He is invited, he returns, he offers his arm to little mother, and his eyes incessantly meet Jeanne's, as if by chance.

One day they set sail for Étretat in Père Lastique's boat. The sea is smooth as a mirror, the sun melts the golden mist, and Jeanne and the Viscount, side by side, both slightly flustered, feel drifting between them that subtle and vague tenderness which is born so swiftly between two young people. That evening, the sea is phosphorescent; one of Julien's fingers brushes against Jeanne's skin, and she remains perfectly still, surprised, happy, and bewildered by so light a touch. Back in her room, she stops the golden fly of her clock to place a kiss upon its wings. She would have kissed anything.

The christening of a new boat bearing the name Jeanne in golden letters serves as a secret betrothal: while the priest sprinkles the vessel, Julien crushes the young girl's hand and murmurs words no one else hears. Then he asks for her hand in marriage. The Baron accepts, the Baroness weeps, Aunt Lison—that humble relative whom no one notices, who walks with small, silent steps, who has never counted for anything in her family—collapses in convulsive sobs when Julien speaks to Jeanne one of those little endearments that have never been spoken to her, never. They are married on the fifteenth of August. That evening, the Baron takes his daughter out beneath the stars to clumsily explain the mysteries of the wedding night, because the Baroness could not bring herself to do it. Jeanne waits in her bed, her heart clenched. Julien enters, kneels, murmurs words light as a breath, then possesses her violently; and she thinks to herself, despairing to the very depths of her soul, in the disillusionment of a dreamed-of rapture so entirely different: so this is what he calls being his wife. When she turns her eyes toward him, he is asleep, his mouth half-open, his face calm. He is asleep.

They leave for Corsica. En route, Julien counts every penny, haggles over tips, makes Jeanne blush in front of the servants. But the island is wild and beautiful, the maquis is fragrant, and in a waterfall where ice-cold water cascades over their intertwined bodies, Jeanne experiences pleasure for the first and almost the last time. They ride along mountain trails, sleep in remote inns, and for a few weeks, life resembles what she had dreamed. Then they return to Les Peuples, and everything changes. Julien takes control of the household with a ferocious avarice, slashes the servants' wages, abolishes the indulgences of the table, and Jeanne watches him do it without saying a word, as one watches a stranger.

One winter evening, Rosalie collapses right in the kitchen and gives birth to a child no one was expecting. Julien wants to throw her out on the spot. Jeanne opposes him, demanding to know the father's name. And one night, feverish, wandering the house like a ghost, she pushes open the door of her maid's room and finds Julien in Rosalie's bed. The shock drives her out into the cold, barefoot in the snow, right to the edge of the cliff where she nearly kills herself. She is brought back, drugged, and Julien claims she had been dreaming. But in front of Abbé Picot, Rosalie confesses everything, and the Baron, overwhelmed, marries her off to a farmer, giving her a plot of land. The priest appeases the father's anger by reminding him that all men do the same—and the Baron knows this is true, because he too, in his time. Julien is forgiven. Jeanne learns that she is pregnant.

Paul is born. Jeanne locks herself within this maternal love with an exclusive fury that frightens Julien and irritates the doctor. The child becomes her universe, her reason for living, the only being who will not betray her—or so she believes. The Baroness, growing heavier and heavier, collapses one day in the avenue of poplars and dies. Jeanne keeps watch over the body all night, then opens the drawer of keepsakes and discovers in her mother's letters the proof of an old affair. Her mother too. Even her mother. From this she conceives a disgust for the flesh that will never leave her.

Julien, meanwhile, often rides toward the Château de la Vrillette. The Countess de Fourville, pale and gentle, has become his intimate friend; they ride together, disappearing for entire afternoons. Jeanne understands, but says nothing. The new priest, Tolbiac, a young fanatic with burning eyes who has replaced the genial Picot, urges her to denounce the adultery, summoning her to break with her husband. She refuses. One stormy night, the Count de Fourville, having been forewarned, finds the shepherd's hut where Julien and Gilberte have taken refuge on the edge of the cliff. He pushes the shack into the void. The two crushed bodies are found among the rocks. Everyone believes it to be an accident. Jeanne knows, and remains silent. That very day, she gives birth to a stillborn daughter.

The Baron ages, stoops, shuffles his feet through the chateau which is falling into ruin. Aunt Lison fades away noiselessly, just as she had lived. Then the Baron himself departs, gently, one evening, and Jeanne is left alone in the vast, empty house with the son she has spoiled to the point of imbecility. At fifteen, Paul is sent to school in Le Havre. He runs away, disappears, reappears to ask for money, leaves again, sinks into debt, lives with a girl somewhere between Paris and London, and every letter he sends is a demand for money, nothing but a demand for money, always money. Jeanne sells the farms one by one, as her parents did before her, but this time it is no longer goodness that drains their resources, it is the cowardice of a son who never returns.

Rosalie reappears. Twenty-four years have passed, and there she stands on the threshold, aged, stout, possessing the same peasant common sense as in the past. She takes matters into her own hands, forces Jeanne to sell Les Peuples—this chateau that contains her entire life, her whole youth, her dreams of love, the chamber of Pyramus and Thisbe, the enamel-winged bee—and settles her in a small house in Batteville. Jeanne lets it happen. She has no will left, no strength, nothing but the wait for Paul and the memory of what she has lost. She spends her days at the window, watching the seasons turn, just as her mother used to watch the avenue of poplars.

One day, at last, a letter from Paul. His mistress has died in childbirth. He has a daughter. He begs his mother to come and fetch the child. Rosalie harnesses the carriage and sets off for Paris. When she returns, she carries in her arms an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and Jeanne, who has not wept in a long time, takes this warm little thing against her breast and sobs. Rosalie looks at her, wipes away a tear with the back of her hand, and murmurs that life is never quite as good or as bad as one thinks.