The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de MaupassantЧитать онлайн книгу.
The Brisevilles ceased to call on her and Jeanne was surprised, knowing the punctiliousness of these neighbors in returning calls, but the Marquise de Coutelier haughtily told her the reason. Considering herself, in virtue of her husband’s rank and fortune, a sort of queen of the Norman nobility, the marquise ruled as a queen, said what she thought, was gracious or the reverse as occasion demanded, admonishing, restoring to favor, congratulating whenever she saw fit. So when Jeanne came to see her, this lady, after a few chilling remarks, said drily: “Society is divided into two classes: those who believe in God and those who do not believe in Him. The former, even the humblest, are our friends, our equals; the latter are nothing to us.”
Jeanne, perceiving the insinuation, replied: “But may one not believe in God without going to church?”
“No, madame,” answered the marquise. “The faithful go to worship God in His church, just as one goes to see people in their homes.”
Jeanne, hurt, replied: “God is everywhere, madame. As for me, who believes from the bottom of my heart in His goodness, I no longer feel His presence when certain priests come between Him and me.”
The marquise rose. “The priest is the standard bearer of the Church, madame. Whoever does not follow the standard is opposed to Him and opposed to us.”
Jeanne had risen in her turn and said, trembling: “You believe, madame, in a partisan God. I believe in the God of upright people.” She bowed and took her leave.
The peasants also blamed her among themselves for not having let Poulet make his first communion. They themselves never attended service or took the sacrament unless it might be at Easter, according to the rule ordained by the Church; but for boys it was quite another thing, and they would have all shrunk in horror at the audacity of bringing up a child outside this recognized law, for religion is religion.
She saw how they felt and was indignant at heart at all these discriminations, all these compromises with conscience, this general fear of everything, the real cowardice of all hearts and the mask of respectability assumed in public.
The baron took charge of Paul’s studies and made him study Latin, his mother merely saying: “Above all things, do not get over tired.”
As soon as the boy was at liberty he went down to work in the garden with his mother and his aunt.
He now loved to dig in the ground, and all three planted young trees in the spring, sowed seed and watched it growing with the deepest interest, pruned branches and cut flowers for bouquets.
Poulet was almost fifteen, but was a mere child in intelligence, ignorant, silly, suppressed between petticoat government and this kind old man who belonged to another century.
One evening the baron spoke of college, and Jeanne at once began to sob. Aunt Lison timidly remained in a dark corner.
“Why does he need to know so much?” asked his mother. “We will make a gentleman farmer of him. He can cultivate his land, as many of the nobility do. He will live and grow old happily in this house, where we have lived before him and where we shall die. What more can one do?”
But the baron shook his head. “What would you say to him if he should say to you when he is twenty-five: ‘I amount to nothing, I know nothing, all through your fault, the fault of your maternal selfishness. I feel that I am incapable of working, of making something of myself, and yet I was not intended for a secluded, simple life, lonely enough to kill one, to which I have been condemned by your shortsighted affection.’”
She was weeping and said entreatingly: “Tell me, Poulet, you will not reproach me for having loved you too well?” And the big boy, in surprise, promised that he never would. “Swear it,” she said. “Yes, mamma.” “You want to stay here, don’t you?” “Yes, mamma.”
Then the baron spoke up loud and decidedly: “Jeanne, you have no right to make disposition of this life. What you are doing is cowardly and almost criminal; you are sacrificing your child to your own private happiness.”
She hid her face in her hands, sobbing convulsively, and stammered out amid her tears: “I have been so unhappy — so unhappy! Now, just as I am living peacefully with him, they want to take him away from me. What will become of me now — all by myself?” Her father rose and, sitting down beside her, put his arms round her. “And how about me, Jeanne?”
She put her arms suddenly round his neck, gave him a hearty kiss and with her voice full of tears, she said: “Yes, you are right perhaps, little father. I was foolish, but I have suffered so much. I am quite willing he should go to college.”
And without knowing exactly what they were going to do with him, Poulet in his turn began to weep.
Then the three mothers began to kiss him and pet him and encourage him. When they retired to their rooms it was with a weight at their hearts, and they all wept, even the baron, who had restrained himself up to that.
It was decided that when the term began to put the young boy to school at Havre, and during the summer he was petted more than ever; his mother sighed often as she thought of the separation. She prepared his wardrobe as if he were going to undertake a ten years’ voyage. One October morning, after a sleepless night, the two women and the baron got into the carriage with him and set out on their journey.
They had previously selected his place in the dormitory and his desk in the school room. Jeanne, aided by Aunt Lison, spent the whole day in arranging his clothes in his little wardrobe. As it did not hold a quarter of what they had brought, she went to look for the superintendent to ask for another. The treasurer was called, but he pointed out that all that amount of clothing would only be in the way and would never be needed, and he refused, on behalf of the directors, to let her have another chest of drawers. Jeanne, much annoyed, decided to hire a room in a small neighboring hotel, begging the proprietor to go himself and take Poulet whatever he required as soon as the boy asked for it.
They then took a walk on the pier to look at the ships coming and going. They went into a restaurant to dine, but they were none of them able to eat, and looked at one another with moistened eyes as the dishes were brought on and taken away almost untouched.
They now returned slowly toward the school. Boys of all ages were arriving from all quarters, accompanied by their families or by servants. Many of them were crying.
Jeanne held Poulet in a long embrace, while Aunt Lison remained in the background, her face hidden in her handkerchief. The baron, however, who was becoming affected, cut short the adieus by dragging his daughter away. They got into the carriage and went back through the darkness to “The Poplars,” the silence being broken by an occasional sob.
Jeanne wept all the following day and on the day after drove to Havre in the phaeton. Poulet seemed to have become reconciled to the separation. For the first time in his life he now had playmates, and in his anxiety to join them he could scarcely sit still on his chair when his mother called. She continued her visits to him every other day and called to take him home on Sundays. Not knowing what to do with herself while school was in session until recreation time, she would remain sitting in the reception room, not having the strength or the courage to go very far from the school. The superintendent sent to ask her to come to his office and begged her not to come so frequently. She paid no attention to his request. He therefore informed her that if she continued to prevent her son from taking his recreation at the usual hours, obliging him to work without a change of occupation, they would be forced to send him back home again, and the baron was also notified to the same effect. She was consequently watched like a prisoner at “The Poplars.”
She became restless and worried and would ramble about for whole days in the country, accompanied only by Massacre, dreaming as she walked along. Sometimes she would remain seated for a whole afternoon, looking out at the sea from the top of the cliff; at other times she would go down to Yport through the wood, going over the ground of her former walks, the memory of which haunted her. How long ago — how long ago it was — the time when she had gone over these same paths as a young girl, carried away by her dreams.