“A letter from the master.”
As Thérèse did not take the envelope that she held out, Balionte
pressed it on her: Monsieur had surely said when he was coming back,
and she must know, so as to have everything in readiness.
“If Madame would like me to read it.”
“Oh, read it, read it,” said Thérèse. And, as she always did when
Balionte was in the room, turned her face to the wall. However, what
Balionte managed to decipher, aroused her from her lethargy.
“_I have been glad to hear from Balion’s reports that all
is well at Argelouse...._”
Bernard announced that he was coming back by road, but that as he
expected to stop at several places on the way he could not fix the
exact date of his return.
“_It will certainly not be later than December 20th. Do
not be surprised to see me return with Anne and young
Deguilhem. They became engaged at Beaulieu, but it is not
yet official; young Deguilhem is anxious to see you first.
A mere question of formality, so he assures me; for my
part, I have a feeling that he wants to form an opinion on
you know what. I am sure you are intelligent enough to pass
the test. Remember that you are ill, and that your mind is
affected. Anyhow, I rely on you. Try not to damage Anne’s
happiness, or compromise the happy issue of a project so
satisfactory for the Family in every respect; you will not
lose by it: if you fail me I should not hesitate to make
you pay dearly for any attempt to wreck the scheme; but I
am sure I have nothing to fear on that score._”
It was a beautiful day, clear and cold. Thérèse got up, obedient to
Balionte’s injunctions, and took a turn in the garden leaning on her
arm, but she found it very difficult to finish a scrap of chicken for
her dinner. There were ten days left before December 20th. If Madame
would consent to make an effort, it was quite long enough to get on
her legs again.
“One can’t say that she doesn’t try,” said Balionte to Balion. “She
does what she can. Monsieur Bernard knows how to break in a dog that
won’t obey him. You know that iron collar he puts on them? Well, it
didn’t take him long to make her crawl. But he’d better not be too sure
of her....”
Thérèse was, in fact, making a great effort to try to give up dreaming
and sleeping, and come back to life again. She forced herself to walk
and eat, but especially to get her brain clear once more, and to look
at men and things with the eyes of the flesh;--and just as though she
were coming back to a stretch of heath which she had set on fire,
treading upon the ashes and walking among the burnt and blackened
pines, so she would try to speak and smile among that Family,--her
family.
On the eighteenth, about three o’clock, on a cloudy but fine afternoon,
Thérèse was sitting in her room in front of the fire, her head leaning
against the back of the chair, and her eyes shut. She was awakened by
the throbbing engines of a motor-car; she recognised Bernard’s voice
in the entrance-hall and also Madame de la Trave’s. When Balionte,
completely out of breath, had pushed open the door without knocking,
Thérèse was already standing up before the mirror. She was putting
rouge on her cheeks and lips. “I must not frighten the poor young man,”
she said to herself.
But Bernard had made a mistake in not going up to see his wife at
once. Young Deguilhem, who had promised his family “to keep his eyes
extremely wide open,” reflected that this was, “to say the least of
it, a rather significant piece of neglect.” He drew a little aside
from Anne and turned up his fur collar, remarking that “it was not
worth trying to warm these country drawing-rooms.” “Have you no cellar
below?” he asked Bernard. “If not, your floor will always rot unless
you lay down a bed of cement....”
Anne de la Trave was wearing a grey squirrel cloak, and a felt hat
without any ribbon or bow. (“But,” as Madame de la Trave said, “it cost
more just as it was, than our hats did with all their feathers and
aigrettes. It is the best felt, certainly: it comes from Lailhaca, but
it is a Reboux model.”) Madame de la Trave stretched out her boots to
the fire, and her face, at once arrogant and weak, was turned towards
the door. She had promised Bernard she would be equal to the situation,
but she had warned him that she would not kiss Thérèse. “You cannot
ask your mother to do that, it will be dreadful enough for me to have
to touch her hand. My feeling is this: what she did was awful enough,
God knows; but it isn’t that that revolts me the most. One already
knew that there were people capable of committing murder ... but it’s
her hypocrisy! That really is awful! Don’t you remember what she said:
‘Mother, do take this chair, you will be more comfortable....’ And
don’t you remember when she was so frightened of giving you a shock?
‘The poor darling has such a horror of death, a consultation would be
the end of him....’ God knows I didn’t suspect anything; but ‘poor
darling,’ coming from her, did surprise me....”
At present, in that Argelouse drawing-room, Madame de la Trave was
only conscious of the embarrassment that every one was feeling; and she
noticed young Deguilhem’s goggle eyes fixed on Bernard.
“Bernard, you ought to go and see what Thérèse is doing ... perhaps she
is feeling worse.”
Anne, who seemed indifferent and aloof from anything that might happen,
was the first to recognise a familiar step, and said: “I hear her
coming down.” Bernard, with a hand against his heart, was seized with
a palpitation; he was a fool not to have come the day before; he ought
to have arranged the scene with Thérèse in advance. What would she say?
She was quite capable of upsetting everything without precisely doing
anything that she could be called to account for. How slowly she came
downstairs! They were all standing up, turned towards the door, which
Thérèse at last opened.
Bernard was to remember, for many years after, that at the approach
of that wasted form, that small, white, painted face, his first
thought was: _The Assize Court_. But not because of Thérèse’s crime.
In a flash, he saw before him that coloured picture from the _Petit
Parisien_, which among so many others adorned the wooden closets in
the garden at Argelouse; while amid the buzz of flies, and the shrill
voices of the grasshoppers on a blazing day of summer, his boyish eyes
stared so earnestly at that red and green drawing which depicted a poor
wretched girl who had been imprisoned and starved by her parents at
Poitiers.
So now, he watched Thérèse as she stood there, bloodless and emaciated,
and realised his folly in not having got rid of this terrible
woman,--as one flings into the water an infernal machine which may
burst at any moment. Whether consciously or not, Thérèse suggested
tragedy,--worse than that in fact: the tragedies of the Sunday
Newspapers. She could be nothing but criminal or victim....
The Family broke into a murmur of astonishment and pity, so obviously
genuine, that young Deguilhem began to doubt his conclusions and did
not know what to think.
“It is quite simple,” said Thérèse. “The bad weather stopped my going
out, so I lost my appetite. I was hardly eating at all. It’s much
better to get thin than fat.... But I want to talk about you, Anne, I
am so delighted....”
She took Anne’s hands (she was sitting down and Anne was standing)
and looked at her. In that face, which looked so ravaged, Anne could
clearly recognise the expression whose persistence used to irritate her
in days gone by. She remembered how she used to say. “When you have
finished looking at me like that!”
“I am delighted to hear of your happiness, my little Anne.”
As she uttered the word “happiness” she smiled faintly at young
Deguilhem,--his bald head, his curly moustache, his sloping shoulders,
his tight little coat, and his fat little legs under the black-and-grey
striped trousers. (Oh well! A man like any other,--just a husband!)
Then once more she rested her eyes on Anne and said:
“Take your hat off.... Ah, now I recognise you, darling.”
Anne now saw quite close to her those slightly twisted lips, those
eyes that were always dry, those eyes that could not weep; but she did
not know what Thérèse was thinking. Young Deguilhem was saying that
winter in the country was not so dreadful for a woman who is fond of
her home:
“There are always so many things to do in a house.”
“But you don’t ask for any news of Marie.”
“That’s true.... Tell me about Marie....”
Anne seemed once more distrustful and hostile; she had been saying for
months, in the same tone as her mother: “I would have forgiven her
anything, because, after all, she is ill; but I cannot forgive her
indifference about Marie. When a mother takes no interest in her child,
you can invent any excuses you like for her, I think it is disgraceful.”
Thérèse read the young girl’s thoughts: “She despises me because I did
not begin by talking about Marie. How can I explain? She would not
understand that I can think of nothing but myself, that I am my only
interest. Anne, of course, is simply waiting to have children so as
to efface herself in them as her mother does, and all the women of the
Family. But I want to find myself again; I am trying to make my own
acquaintance.... Anne will forget our youth together, the caresses of
Jean Azévédo, with the first howl of the brat which that little object
will beget upon her without even troubling to take off his coat. The
ambition of the women of the Family is to lose all their individual
existence. This complete self-sacrifice for the species is a fine
thing; I feel the beauty of that absorption, that self-annihilation ...
but I--No!...”
She tried not to listen to what people were saying, and to think of
Marie: the child must be able to talk now: “Perhaps it would amuse me
for a few minutes to listen to her, but I should soon get tired of it,
and want to be alone with myself again.”
“I suppose Marie talks by now?” she asked Anne.
“She repeats anything you like. It’s great fun; whenever she hears a
cock crow, or the noise of a motor-horn, she puts up her little finger
and says: Do you hear the music?’ She’s a perfect little love.”
Thérèse thought to herself; “I must try to listen to what they are
saying: my head feels quite empty; what is young Deguilhem talking
about?” She made a great effort and tried to attend.
“My men at Balisac don’t work like they do here: only four barrels of
stuff, while the Argelouse men get in seven or eight.”
“Well, with resin at its present price, they really must be lazy.”
“Do you know that these people can earn a hundred francs a day
sometimes? ... but I think we are tiring Madame Desqueyroux.”
Thérèse was resting her head against the back of her chair. Everybody
got up. Bernard decided that he would not go back to Saint Clair. Young
Deguilhem agreed to drive the car which the chauffeur would bring back
to Argelouse the following day with Bernard’s luggage. Thérèse made an
effort to get up but her mother-in-law prevented her.
She shut her eyes, and heard Bernard say to Madame de la Trave:
“Really, that Balion pair are beyond everything! I’ll let them have
something they won’t forget.” “Take care, don’t do anything in a hurry;
we don’t want them to go away, they know a little too much: and then
don’t forget the estates: Balion’s the only person who really knows the
boundaries.”
And Madame de la Trave added in reply to some remark of Bernard’s that
Thérèse did not hear:
“All the same, be careful, don’t trust her too far; watch her
movements, and never let her go into the kitchen or dining-room
alone.... No, she hasn’t fainted: she’s asleep, or pretending to be....”
Thérèse opened her eyes again: Bernard stood in front of her; he held
a glass and said: “There, drink that: it’s a glass of port, it will do
you good.” And as he always did what he had made up his mind to do he
went into the kitchen, and proceeded to lose his temper. Thérèse heard
Balionte’s raucous _patois_ and thought: “Bernard has clearly been
frightened: I wonder why?” At that moment he came back.
“I think you would eat with more appetite in the dining-room than in
your own room. I have given orders for your place to be laid there
again.”
This was the Bernard she had known at the time of the enquiry: the
ally who wanted to save her at any price. And now he was unreservedly
anxious she should get well. Yes, it was clear he had been frightened.
Thérèse watched him, sitting opposite her, and stirring the fire, but
she could not guess what those great round eyes of his were seeing in
the flames:--the red and green drawing from the _Petit Parisien_.
Incessant as the rain had been, not a single puddle was left in the
sand of Argelouse. In the very depths of winter, after an hour’s
sunshine, one could walk dry-shod in country sandals, along the
road, on that dry and yielding carpet of pine-needles. Bernard was
out shooting all day, but came back to meals: he was anxious about
Thérèse, and more attentive than he had ever been. There was but
little constraint in their relations. He made her weigh herself every
three days, and not smoke more than two cigarettes after each meal.
On Bernard’s advice Thérèse took long walks: “Exercise is the best
digestive,” he would say.
She was no longer afraid of Argelouse: it seemed as though the pines
were moving further off, opening their ranks, and signalling to her to
make her escape.
One evening Bernard had said to her: “I am only asking you to wait
until Anne’s marriage: we must be seen in company once more by the
whole neighbourhood: after that you will be free.” She had not been
able to sleep during the following night: her joy made her restless and
her eyes would not close. At dawn she heard the innumerable cocks, who
did not seem to be answering each other: they were all crowing together
and filling earth and heaven with their united clamour. Bernard would
let her loose into the world, just as in days gone by he had let loose
on the moors that wild sow he had not been able to tame. When Anne
was at last married, people might say what they liked: Bernard would
fling Thérèse into the depths of Paris and then hurriedly retire; this
was understood between them. There would be no divorce or official
separation; some reason of health would be invented for the sake of
appearances,--“She is never well except when she is travelling.” And
Bernard would render, every All-Saints’ Day, an exact account of the
income from the sale of her resin.
Bernard did not question Thérèse about her plans, let her go and hang
herself somewhere else. “I shan’t have any peace,” he said to his
mother: “until she is off the premises.” And she had replied: “I’ve
no doubt she will take her maiden name again ... however, if she gets
into trouble, you will be dragged into it fast enough.” “But Thérèse,”
he said, “only kicked in harness; no one could be more sensible when
she had her freedom.” In any case, they must take the risk. That was
Monsieur Larroque’s opinion also. All things considered, it was better
that Thérèse should disappear; she would be more quickly forgotten, and
people would get out of the habit of talking about her. Silence was the
essential thing. This notion was so firmly fixed in their minds that
nothing could have uprooted it. They must get Thérèse out of harness;
and how impatient they were to do it!
Thérèse loved to watch the close of winter despoiling the already
barren land, though the oaks had never shed their stubborn mantle of
dead leaves. She discovered that the silence of Argelouse had no real
existence. In the calmest weather the forest moaned like a sorrowing
human soul, and lulled itself to sleep: and the nights were full of a
murmur that never ceased. In her future life; that unimaginable life
before her, there would be dawns so barren that she would perhaps
regret the hour of awakening at Argelouse: that marvellous clamour
of myriad cocks. She would remember, in the summers to come, the
grasshoppers by day and the crickets by night. Paris: no longer the
torn and battered pines, but human beings to be feared: a world of men,
no longer a world of trees.
Husband and wife were astonished that their relations were so little
constrained. Thérèse reflected that people become endurable as soon
as we are sure we can get away from them. Bernard was interested in
Thérèse’s weight,--but also in her conversation. She spoke more freely
in his company than she had ever done: “In Paris ... when I am in
Paris ...” she would begin: she would live in a hotel and perhaps look
for a flat. She would take up a course of study, and go to lectures
and concerts; “begin her education all over again.” Bernard never
thought of watching her, and ate his soup and drank his wine, quite
unconcerned. Doctor Pédemay, who sometimes met them on the Argelouse
road, said to his wife: “What is so amazing is that they don’t look as
if they were acting.”