ANTOINETTE

I

The Jeannins were one of those old French families who have remained

stationary for centuries in the same little corner of a province, and have

kept themselves pure from any infusion of foreign blood. There are more

of them than one would think in France, in spite of all the changes in

the social order: it would need a great upheaval to uproot them from

the soil to which they are held by so many ties, the profound nature of

which is unknown to them. Reason counts for nothing in their devotion to

the soil, and interest for very little: and as for sentimental historic

memories, they only hold good for a few literary men. What does bind them

irresistibly is the obscure though very strong feeling, common to the dull

and the intelligent alike, of having been for centuries past a parcel of

the land, of living in its life, breathing the same air, hearing the heart

of it beating against their own, like the heart of the beloved, feeling its

slightest tremor, the changing hours and seasons and days, bright or dull,

and hearing the voices and the silence of all things in Nature. It is not

always the most beautiful country, nor that which has the greatest charm of

life, that most strongly grips the affections, but rather it is the region

where the earth seems simplest and most humble, nearest man, speaking to

him in a familiar friendly tongue.

Such was the country in the center of France where the Jeannins lived.

A flat, damp country, an old sleepy little town, wearily gazing at its

reflection in the dull waters of a still canal: round about it were

monotonous fields, plowed fields, meadows, little rivers, woods, and again

monotonous fields.... No scenery, no monuments, no memories. Nothing

attractive. It is all dull and oppressive. In its drowsy torpor is a hidden

force. The soul tasting it for the first time suffers and revolts against

it. But those who have lived with it for generations cannot break free:

it eats into their very bones: and the stillness of it, the harmonious

dullness, the monotony, have a charm for them and a sweet savor which they

cannot analyze, which they malign, love, and can never forget.

* * * * *

The Jeannins had always lived there. The family could be traced back to

the sixteenth century, living in the town or its neighborhood: for of

course they had a great-uncle who had devoted his life to drawing up the

genealogical tree of their obscure line of humble, industrious people:

peasants, farmers, artisans, then clerks, country notaries, working in

the subprefecture of the district, where Augustus Jeannin, the father of

the present head of the house, had successfully established himself as a

banker: he was a clever man, with a peasant's cunning and obstinacy, but

honest as men go, not over-scrupulous, a great worker, and a good liver:

he had made himself respected and feared everywhere by his genial malice,

his bluntness of speech, and his wealth. Short, thick-set, vigorous, with

little sharp eyes set in a big red face, pitted with smallpox, he had been

known as a petticoat-hunter: and he had not altogether lost his taste for

it. He loved a spicy yarn and good eating. It was a sight to see him at

meals, with his son Antoine sitting opposite him, with a few old friends

of their kidney: the district judge, the notary, the Archdeacon of the

Cathedral:--(old Jeannin loved stuffing the priest: but also he could stuff

with the priest, if the priest were good at it):--hearty old fellows built

on the same Rabelaisian lines. There was a running fire of terrific stories

to the accompaniment of thumps on the table and roars of laughter, and

the row they made could be heard by the servants in the kitchen and the

neighbors in the street.

Then old Augustus caught a chill, which turned to pneumonia, through going

down into his cellars one hot summer's day in his shirt-sleeves to bottle

his wine. In less than twenty-four hours he had departed this life for the

next world, in which he hardly believed, properly equipped with all the

Sacraments of the Church, having, like a good Voltairian provincial,

submitted to it at the last moment in order to pacify his women, and also

because it did not matter one way or the other.... And then, one never

knows....

His son Antoine succeeded him in business. He was a fat little man,

rubicund and expansive, clean-shaven, except for his mutton-chop whiskers,

and he spoke quickly and with a slight stutter, in a loud voice,

accompanying his remarks with little quick, curt gestures. He had not his

father's grasp of finance: but he was quite a good manager. He had only

to look after the established undertakings, which went on developing day

by day, by the mere fact of their existence. He had the advantage of a

business reputation in the district, although he had very little to do

with the success of the firm's ventures. He only contributed method and

industry. For the rest he was absolutely honorable, and was everywhere

deservedly esteemed. His pleasant unctuous manners, though perhaps a little

too familiar for some people, a little too expansive, and just a little

common, had won him a very genuine popularity in the little town and

the surrounding country. He was more lavish with his sympathy than with

his money: tears came readily to his eyes: and the sight of poverty so

sincerely moved him that the victim of it could not fail to be touched

by it.

Like most men living in small towns, his thoughts were much occupied with

politics. He was an ardent moderate Republican, an intolerant Liberal, a

patriot, and, like his father, extremely anti-clerical. He was a member of

the Municipal Council: and, like the rest of his colleagues, he delighted

in playing tricks on the _curé_ of the parish, or on the Lent preacher,

who roused so much enthusiasm in the ladies of the town. It must not be

forgotten that the anti-clericalism of the little towns in France is

always, more or less, an episode in domestic warfare, and is a subtle form

of that silent, bitter struggle between husbands and wives, which goes on

in almost every house.

Antoine Jeannin had also some literary pretensions. Like all provincials of

his generation, he had been brought up on the Latin Classics, many pages of

which he knew by heart, and also a mass of proverbs, and on La Fontaine and

Boileau,--the Boileau of _L'Art Poétique_, and, above all, of _Lutrin_,--on

the author of _La Pucelle_, and the _poetæ minores_ of the eighteenth

century, in whose manner he squeezed out a certain number of poems. He was

not the only man of his acquaintance possessed by that particular mania,

and his reputation gained by it. His rhyming jests, his quatrains,

couplets, acrostics, epigrams, and songs, which were sometimes rather

risky, though they had a certain coarsely witty quality, were often quoted.

He was wont to sing the mysteries of digestion: the Muse of the Loire

districts is fain to blow her trumpet like the famous devil of Dante:

"... _Ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta._"

This sturdy, jovial, active little man had taken to wife a woman of a

very different character,--the daughter of a country magistrate, Lucie de

Villiers. The De Villiers--or rather Devilliers, for their name had split

in its passage through time, like a stone which cracks in two as it goes

hurtling down a hillside--were magistrates from father to son; they were of

that old parliamentary race of Frenchmen who had a lofty idea of the law,

and duty, the social conventions, their personal, and especially their

professional, dignity, which was fortified by perfect honesty, tempered

with a certain conscious uprightness. During the preceding century they had

been infected by nonconformist Jansenism, which had given them a grumbling

pessimistic quality, as well as a contempt for the Jesuit attitude of mind.

They did not see life as beautiful: and, rather than smooth away life's

difficulties, they preferred to exaggerate them so as to have good reason

to complain. Lucie de Villiers had certain of these characteristics, which

were so directly opposed to the not very refined optimism of her husband.

She was tall--taller than he by a head--slender, well made; she dressed

well and elegantly, though in a rather sober fashion, which made her

seem--perhaps designedly--older than she was: she was of a high moral

quality: but she was hard on other people; she would countenance no fault,

and hardly even a caprice: she was thought cold and disdainful. She was

very pious, and that gave rise to perpetual disputes with her husband.

For the rest, they were very fond of each other: and, in spite of their

frequent disagreements, they could not have lived without each other. They

were both rather unpractical: he from want of perception--(he was always

in danger of being taken in by good looks and fine words),--she from her

absolute inexperience of business--(she knew nothing about it: and having

always been kept outside it, she took no interest in it).

* * * * *

They had two children: a girl, Antoinette, the elder by five years; and a

boy, Olivier.

Antoinette was a pretty dark-haired child, with a charming, honest face of

the French type, round, with sharp eyes, a round forehead, a fine chin,

a little straight nose--"one of those very pretty, fine, noble noses" (as

an old French portrait-painter says so charmingly) "in which there was

a certain imperceptible play of expression, which animated the face,

and revealed the subtlety of the workings of her mind as she talked or

listened." She had her father's gaiety and carelessness.

Olivier was a delicate fair boy, short, like his father, but very different

in character. His health had been undermined by one illness after another

when he was a child: and although, as a result, he was petted by his

family, his physical weakness had made him a melancholy, dreamy little boy,

who was afraid of death and very poorly equipped for life. He was shy, and

preferred to be alone: he avoided the society of other children: he was

ill at ease with them: he hated their games and quarrels: their brutality

filled him with horror. He let them strike him, not from want of courage,

but from timidity, because he was afraid to defend himself, afraid of

hurting them: they would have bullied the life out of him, but for the

safeguard of his father's position. He was tender-hearted and morbidly

sensitive: a word, a sign of sympathy, a reproach, were enough to make him

burst into tears. His sister was much sturdier, and laughed at him, and

called him a "little fountain."

The two children were devoted to each other: but they were too different

to live together. They went their own ways and lived in their own dreams.

As Antoinette grew up, she became prettier: people told her so, and she

was well aware of it: it made her happy, and she wove romances about the

future. Olivier, in his sickly melancholy, was always rubbed up the wrong

way by contact with the outer world: and he withdrew into the circle of his

own absurd little brain: and he told himself stories. He had a burning,

almost feminine, longing to love and be loved: and, living alone, away from

boys of his own age, he had invented two or three imaginary friends: one

was called Jean, another Étienne, another François: he was always with

them. He never slept well, and he was always dreaming. In the morning, when

he was lifted out of bed, he would forget himself, and sit with his bare

legs dangling down, or sometimes with two stockings on one leg. He would go

off into a dream with his hands in the basin. He would forget himself at

his desk in the middle of writing or learning a lesson: he would dream for

hours on end: and then he would suddenly wake up, horrified to find that he

had learned nothing. At dinner he was abashed if any one spoke to him: he

would reply two minutes after he had been spoken to: he would forget what

he was going to say in the middle of a sentence. He would doze off to the

murmuring of his thoughts and the familiar sensations of the monotonous

provincial days that marched so slowly by: the great half-empty house, only

part of which they occupied: the vast and dreadful barns and cellars: the

mysterious closed rooms, the fastened shutters, the covered furniture,

veiled mirrors, and the chandeliers wrapped up: the old family portraits

with their haunting smiles: the Empire engravings, with their virtuous,

suave heroism: _Alcibiades and Socrates in the House of the Courtezan_,

_Antiochus and Stratonice_, _The Story of Epaminondas_, _Belisarius

Begging_.... Outside, the sound of the smith shoeing horses in the smithy

opposite, the uneven clink of the hammers on the anvil, the snorting of

the broken-winded horses, the smell of the scorched hoofs, the slapping of

the pats of the washerwomen kneeling by the water, the heavy thuds of the

butcher's chopper next door, the clatter of a horse's hoofs on the stones

of the street, the creaking of a pump, or the drawbridge over the canal,

the heavy barges laden with blocks of wood, slowly passing at the end

of the garden, drawn along by a rope: the little tiled courtyard, with

a square patch of earth, in which two lilac-trees grew, in the middle

of a clump of geraniums and petunias: the tubs of laurel and flowering

pomegranate on the terrace above the canal: sometimes the noise of a fair

in the square hard by, with peasants in bright blue smocks, and grunting

pigs.... And on Sunday, at church, the precentor, who sang out of tune, and

the old priest, who went to sleep as he was saying Mass: the family walk

along the station road, where all the time he had to take off his hat

politely to other wretched beings, who were under the same impression of

the necessity of going for a walk all together,--until at last they reached

the sunny fields, above which larks soared invisible,--or along by the

still mirror of the canal, on both sides of which were poplars rustling in

line.... And then there was the great provincial Sunday dinner, when they

went on and on eating and talking about food learnedly and with gusto: for

everybody was a connoisseur: and, in the provinces, eating is the chief

occupation, the first of all the arts. And they would talk business,

and tell spicy yarns, and every now and then discuss their neighbors'

illnesses, going into endless detail.... And the little boy, sitting in his

corner, would make no more noise than a little mouse, pick at his food, eat

hardly anything, and listen with all his ears. Nothing escaped him: and

when he did not understand, his imagination supplied the deficiency. He had

that singular gift, which is often to be remarked in the children of old

families and an old stock, on which the imprint of the ages is too strongly

marked, of divining thoughts, which have never passed through their minds

before, and are hardly comprehensible to them.--Then there was the kitchen,

where bloody and succulent mysteries were concocted: and the old servant

who used to tell him frightful and droll stories.... At last came evening,

the silent flitting of the bats, the terror of the monstrous creatures

that were known to swarm in the dark depths of the old house: huge rats,

enormous hairy spiders: and he would say his prayers, kneeling at the, foot

of his bed, and hardly know what he was saying: the little cracked bell of

the convent hard by would sound the bed-time of the nuns;--and so to bed,

the Island of Dreams....

The best times of the year were those that they spent in spring and autumn

at their country house some miles away from the town. There he could dream

at his ease: he saw nobody. Like most of the children of their class, the

little Jeannins were kept apart from the common children: the children

of servants and farmers, who inspired them with fear and disgust. They

inherited from their mother an aristocratic--or, rather, essentially

middle-class--disdain for all who worked with their hands. Olivier would

spend the day perched up in the branches of an ash reading marvelous

stories: delightful folklore, the _Tales_ of Musæus, or Madame d'Aulnoy,

or the _Arabian Nights_, or stories of travel. For he had that strange

longing for distant lands, "those oceanic dreams," which sometimes possess

the minds of boys in the little provincial towns of France. A thicket lay

between the house and himself, and he could fancy himself very far away.

But he knew that he was really near home, and was quite happy: for he did

not like straying too far alone: he felt lost with Nature. Round him the

wind whispered through the trees. Through the leaves that hid his nest

he could see the yellowing vines in the distance, and the meadows where

the straked cows were at pasture, filling the silence of the sleeping

country-side with their plaintive long-drawn lowing. The strident cocks

crowed to each other from farm to farm. There came up the irregular beat of

the flails in the barns. The fevered life of myriads of creatures swelled

and flowed through the peace of inanimate Nature. Uneasily Olivier would

watch the ever hurrying columns of the ants, and the bees big with their

booty, buzzing like organ-pipes, and the superb and stupid wasps who know

not what they want--the whole world of busy little creatures, all seemingly

devoured by the desire to reach their destination.... Where is it? They

do not know. No matter where! Somewhere.... Olivier was fearful amid that

blind and hostile world. He would start, like a young hare, at the sound of

a pine-cone falling, or the breaking of a rotten branch.... He would find

his courage again when he heard the rattling of the chains of the swing at

the other end of the garden, where Antoinette would be madly swinging to

and fro.

She, too, would dream: but in her own fashion. She would spend the day

prowling round the garden, eating, watching, laughing, picking at the

grapes on the vines like a thrush, secretly plucking a peach from the

trellis, climbing a plum-tree, or giving it a little surreptitious shake as

she passed to bring down a rain of the golden mirabelles which melt in the

mouth like scented honey. Or she would pick the flowers, although that was

forbidden: quickly she would pluck a rose that she had been coveting all

day, and run away with it to the arbor at the end of the garden. Then she

would bury her little nose in the delicious scented flower, and kiss it,

and bite it, and suck it: and then she would conceal her booty, and hide it

in her bosom between her little breasts, at the wonder of whose coming she

would gaze in eager fondness.... And there was an exquisite forbidden joy

in taking off her shoes and stockings, and walking bare-foot on the cool

sand of the paths, and on the dewy turf, and on the stones, cold in the

shadow, burning in the sun, and in the little stream that ran along the

outskirts of the wood, and kissing with her feet, and legs, and knees,

water, earth, and light. Lying in the shadow of the pines, she would hold

her hands up to the sun, and watch the light play through them, and she

would press her lips upon the soft satin skin of her pretty rounded arms.

She would make herself crowns and necklets and gowns of ivy-leaves and

oak-leaves: and she would deck them with the blue thistles, and barberry

and little pine-branches, with their green fruit: and then she looked like

a little savage Princess. And she would dance for her own delight round and

round the fountain; and, with arms outstretched, she would turn and turn

until her head whirled, and she would slip down on the lawn and bury her

face in the grass, and shout with laughter for minutes on end, unable to

stop herself, without knowing why.

So the days slipped by for the two children, within hail of each other,

though neither ever gave a thought to the other,--except when it would

suddenly occur to Antoinette to play a prank on her brother, and throw

a handful of pine-needles in his face, or shake the tree in which he

was sitting, threatening to make him fall, or frighten him by springing

suddenly out upon him and yelling:

"Ooh! Ooh!..."

Sometimes she would be seized by a desire to tease him. She would make him

come down from his tree by pretending that her mother was calling him.

Then, when he had climbed down, she would take his place and refuse to

budge. Then Olivier would whine and threaten to tell. But there was no

danger of Antoinette staying in the tree for long: she could not keep still

for two minutes. When she had done with taunting Olivier from the top of

his tree, when she had thoroughly infuriated him and brought him almost to

tears, then she would slip down, fling her arms round him, shake him, and

laugh, and call him a "little muff," and roll him on the ground, and rub

his face with handfuls of grass. He would try to struggle: but he was

not strong enough. Then he would lie still, flat on his black, like a

cockchafer, with his thin arms pinned to the ground by Antoinette's strong

little hands: and he would look piteous and resigned. Antoinette could

not resist that: she would look at her vanquished prisoner, and burst out

laughing and kiss him suddenly, and let him go--not without the parting

attention of a little gag of fresh grass in his mouth: and that he detested

most of all, because it made him sick. And he would spit and wipe his

mouth, and storm at her, while she ran away as hard as she could, pealing

with laughter. She was always laughing. Even when she was asleep she

laughed. Olivier, lying awake in the next room, would suddenly start up in

the middle of the stories he was telling himself, at the sound of the wild

laughter and the muttered words which she would speak in the silence of the

night. Outside, the trees would creak with the wind, an owl would hoot, in

the distant villages and the farms in the heart of the woods dogs would

bark. In the dim phosphorescence of the night Olivier would see the dark,

heavy branches of the pines moving like ghosts outside his window: and

Antoinette's laughter would comfort him.

* * * * *

The two children were very religious, especially Olivier. Their father used

to scandalize them with his anti-clerical professions of faith, but he did

not interfere with them: and, at heart, like so many men of his class who

are unbelievers, he was not sorry that his family should believe for him:

for it is always good to have allies in the opposing camp, and one is never

sure which way Fortune will turn. He was a Deist, and he reserved the right

to summon a priest when the time came, as his father had done: even if it

did no good, it could do no harm: one insures against fire, even if one has

no reason to believe that the house will be burned down.

Olivier was morbidly inclined towards mysticism. There were times when he

doubted whether he existed. He was credulous and soft-hearted, and needed

a prop: he took a sorrowful delight in confession, in the comfort of

confiding in the invisible Friend, whose arms are always open to you, to

whom you can tell everything, who understands and forgives everything: he

tasted the sweetness of the waters of humility and love, from which the

soul issues pure, cleansed, and comforted. It was so natural to him to

believe, that he could not understand how any one could doubt: he thought

people did so from wickedness, and that God would punish them. He used to

pray secretly that his father might find grace: and he was delighted when,

one day, as they went into a little country church, he saw his father

mechanically make the sign of the cross. The stories of the Gospel were

mixed up in his mind with the marvelous tales of Rübezahl, and Gracieuse

and Percinet, and the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid. When he was a little boy he

no more doubted the truth of the one than the other. And just as he was not

sure that he did not know Shacabac of the cleft lips, and the loquacious

barber, and the little hunchback of Casgar, just as when he was out walking

he used to look about for the black woodpecker which bears in its beak the

magic root of the treasure-seeker, so Canaan and the Promised Land became

in his childish imagination certain regions in Burgundy or Berrichon. A

round hill in the country, with a little tree, like a shabby old feather,

at the summit, seemed to him to be like the mountain where Abraham had

built his pyre. A large dead bush by the edge of a field was the Burning

Bush, which the ages had put out. Even when he was older, and his critical

faculty had been awakened, he loved to feed on the popular legends which

enshrined his faith: and they gave him so much pleasure, though he no

longer accepted them implicitly, that he would amuse himself by pretending

to do so. So for a long time on Easter Saturday he would look out for the

return of the Easter bells, which went away to Rome on the Thursday before,

and would come floating through the air with little streamers. He did

finally admit that it was not true: but he did not give up looking skywards

when he heard them ringing: and once--though he knew perfectly well that it

could not be--he fancied he saw one of them disappearing over the house

with blue ribbons.

It was vitally necessary for him to steep himself in the world of legend

and faith. He avoided life. He avoided himself. Thin, pale, puny, he

suffered from being so, and could not bear its being talked about. He was

naturally pessimistic, no doubt inheriting it from his mother, and his

pessimism was fed by his morbidity. He did not know it: thought everybody

must be like himself: and the queer little boy of ten, instead of romping

in the gardens during his play-time, used to shut himself up in his room,

and, carefully picking his words, wrote his will.

He used to write a great deal. Every evening he used laboriously and

secretly to write his diary--he did not know why, for he had nothing to

say, and he said nothing worth saying. Writing was an inherited mania with

him, the age-old itch of the French provincial--the old indestructible

stock--who every day, until the day of his death, with an idiotic patience

which is almost heroic, writes down in detail what he has seen, said, done,

heard, eaten, and drunk. For his own pleasure, entirely. It is not for

other eyes. No one will ever read it: he knows that: he never reads it

again himself.

* * * * *

Music, like religion, was for Olivier a shelter from the too vivid light of

day. Both brother and sister were born musicians,--especially Olivier, who

had inherited the gift from his mother. Their taste, as it needed to be,

was excellent. There was no one capable of forming it in the province,

where no music was ever heard but that of the local band, which played

nothing but marches, or--on its good days--selections from Adolphe Adam,

and the church organist who played romanzas, and the exercises of the young

ladies of the town who strummed a few valses and polkas, the overture

to the _Caliph of Bagdad_, _la Chasse du Jeune Henri_, and two or three

sonatas of Mozart, always the same, and always with the same mistakes, on

instruments that were sadly out of tune. These things were invariably

included in the evening's program at parties. After dinner, those who had

talent were asked to display it: at first they would blush and refuse, but

then they would yield to the entreaties of the assembled company: and they

would play their stock pieces without their music. Every one would then

admire the artist's memory and her beautiful touch.

The ceremony was repeated at almost every party, and the thought of it

would altogether spoil the children's dinner. When they had to play the

_Voyage en Chine_ of Bazin, or their pieces of Weber as a duet, they gave

each other confidence, and were not very much afraid. But it was torture

to them to have to play alone. Antoinette, as usual, was the braver of the

two. Although it bored her dreadfully,--as she knew that there was no way

out of it, she would go through with it, sit at the piano with a determined

air, and gallop through her _rondo_ at breakneck speed, stumbling over

certain passages, make a hash of others, break off, turn her head, and say,

with a smile:

"Oh! I can't remember...."

Then she would start off again a few bars farther on, and go on to the end.

And she would make no attempt to conceal her pleasure at having finished:

and when she returned to her chair, amid the general chorus of praise, she

would laugh and say:

"I made such a lot of mistakes."

But Olivier was not so easy to handle. He could not bear making a show of

himself in public, and being "the observed of all observers." It was bad

enough for him to have to speak in company. But to have to play, especially

for people who did not like music--(that was obvious to him)--for people

whom music actually bored, people who only asked him to play as a matter of

habit, seemed to him to be neither more nor less than tyranny, and he tried

vainly to revolt against it. He would refuse obstinately. Sometimes he

would escape and go and hide in a dark room, in a passage, or even in the

barn, in spite of his horror of spiders. His refusal would make the guests

only insist the more, and they would quiz him: and his parents would

sternly order him to play, and even slap him when he was too impudently

rebellious. And in the end he always had to play,--of course unwillingly

and sulkily. And then he would suffer agonies all night because he had

played so badly, partly from vanity, and partly from his very genuine love

for music.

The taste of the little town had not always been so banal. There had been a

time when there were quite good chamber concerts at several houses. Madame

Jeannin used often to speak of her grandfather, who adored the violoncello,

and used to sing airs of Gluck, and Dalayrac, and Berton. There was a large

volume of them in the house, and a pile of Italian songs. For the old

gentleman was like M. Andrieux, of whom Berlioz said: "He _loved_ Gluck."

And he added bitterly: "He also _loved_ Piccinni."--Perhaps of the two

he preferred Piccinni. At all events, the Italian songs were in a large

majority in her grandfather's collection. They had been Olivier's first

musical nourishment. Not a very substantial diet, rather like those

sweetmeats with which provincial children are stuffed: they corrupt the

palate, destroy the tissues of the stomach, and there is always a danger of

their killing the appetite for more solid nutriment. But Olivier could not

be accused of greediness. He was never offered any more solid food. Having

no bread, he was forced to eat cake. And so, by force of circumstance, it

came about that Cimarosa, Paesiello, and Rossini fed the mystic, melancholy

little boy, who was more than a little intoxicated by his draughts of the

_Asti spumante_ poured out for him, instead of milk, by these bacchanalian

Satyrs, and the two lively, ingenuously, lasciviously smiling Bacchante of

Naples and Catania--Pergolesi and Bellini.

He played a great deal to himself, for his own pleasure. He was saturated

with music. He did not try to understand what he was playing, but gave

himself up to it. Nobody ever thought of teaching him harmony, and it never

occurred to him to learn it. Science and the scientific mind were foreign

to the nature of his family, especially on his mother's side. All the

lawyers, wits, and humanists of the De Villiers were baffled by any sort

of problem. It was told of a member of the family--a distant cousin--as a

remarkable thing that he had found a post in the _Bureau des Longitudes_.

And it was further told how he had gone mad. The old provincial

middle-classes, robust and positive in temper, but dull and sleepy as a

result of their gigantic meals and the monotony of their lives, are very

proud of their common sense: they have so much faith in it that they boast

that there is no difficulty which cannot be resolved by it: and they are

never very far from considering men of science as artists of a sort, more

useful than the others, but less exalted, because at least artists serve

no useful purpose, and there is a sort of distinction about their lounging

existence.--(Besides, every business man flatters himself that he might

have been an artist if he had cared about it.)--While scientists are not

far from being manual laborers,--(which is degrading),--just master-workmen

with more education, though they are a little cracked: they are mighty fine

on paper: but outside their arithmetic factories they're nobody. They would

not be much use without the guidance of common-sense people who have some

experience of life and business.

Unfortunately, it is not proven that their experience of life and business

goes so far as these people like to think. It is only a routine, ringing

the changes on a few easy cases. If any unforeseen position arises,

in which they have to decide quickly and vigorously, they are always

disgruntled.

Antoine Jeannin was that sort of man. Everything was so nicely adjusted,

and his business jogged along so comfortably in its place in the life of

the province, that he had never encountered any serious difficulty. He had

succeeded to his father's position without having any special aptitude for

the business: and, as everything had gone well, he attributed it to his

own brilliant talents. He loved to say that it was enough to be honest,

methodical, and to have common sense: and he intended handing down his

business to his son, without any more regard for the boy's tastes than

his father had had for his own. He did not do anything to prepare him for

it. He let his children grow up as they liked, so long as they were good,

and, above all, happy: for he adored them. And so the two children were

as little prepared for the struggle of life as possible: they were like

hothouse flowers. But, surely, they would always live like that? In the

soft provincial atmosphere, in the bosom of their wealthy, influential

family, with a kindly, gay, jovial father, surrounded by friends, one of

the leading men of the district, life was so easy, so bright and smiling.

* * * * *

Antoinette was sixteen. Olivier was about to be confirmed. His mind was

filled with all kinds of mystic dreams. In her heart Antoinette heard

the sweet song of new-born hope soaring, like the lark in April, in the

springtime of her life. It was a joy to her to feel the flowering of her

body and soul, to know that she was pretty, and to be told so. Her father's

immoderate praises were enough to turn her head.

He was in ecstasies over her: he delighted in her little coquetries, to see

her eying herself in her mirror, to watch her little innocent tricks. He

would take her on his knees, and tease her about her childish love-affairs,

and the conquests she had made, and the suitors that he pretended had come

to him a-wooing: he would tell her their names: respectable citizens, each

more old and ugly than the last. And she would cry out in horror, and break

into rippling laughter, and put her arms about her father's neck, and press

her cheek close to his. And he would ask which was the happy man of her

choice: was it the District Attorney, who, the Jeannins' old maid used to

say, was as ugly as the seven deadly sins? Or was it the fat notary? And

she would slap him playfully to make him cease, or hold her hand over his

mouth. He would kiss her little hands, and jump her up and down on his

knees, and sing the old song

"What would you, pretty maid?

An ugly husband, eh?"

And she would giggle and tie his whiskers under his chin, and reply with

the refrain:

"A handsome husband I,

No ugly man, madame."

She would declare her intention of choosing for herself. She knew that she

was, or would be, very rich,--(her father used to tell her so at every

turn)--she was a "fine catch." The sons of the distinguished families of

the country were already courting her, setting a wide white net of flattery

and cunning snares to catch the little silver fish. But it looked as though

the fish would elude them all: for Antoinette saw all their tricks, and

laughed at them: she was quite ready to be caught, but not against her

will. She had already made up her mind to marry.

The noble family of the district--(there is generally one noble family to

every district, claiming descent from the ancient lords of the province,

though generally its origin goes no farther back than some purchaser of

the national estates, some commissary of the eighteenth century, or some

Napoleonic army-contractor)--the Bonnivets, who lived some few miles

away from the town, in a castle with tall towers with gleaming slates,

surrounded by vast woods, in which were innumerable fish-ponds, themselves

proposed for the hand of Mademoiselle Jeannin. Young Bonnivet was very

assiduous in his courtship of Antoinette. He was a handsome boy, rather

stout and heavy for his age, who did nothing but hunt and eat, and drink

and sleep: he could ride, dance, had charming manners, and was not more

stupid than other young men. He would ride into the town, or drive in his

buggy and call on the banker, on some business pretext: and sometimes he

would bring some game or a bouquet of flowers for the ladies. He would

seize the opportunity to pay court to Antoinette. They would walk in the

garden together. He would pay her lumbering compliments, and pull his

mustache, and make jokes, and make his spurs clatter on the tiles of the

terrace. Antoinette thought him charming. Her pride and her affections were

both tickled. She would swim in those first sweet hours of young love.

Olivier detested the young squire, because he was strong, heavy, brutal,

had a loud laugh, and hands that gripped like a vise, and a disdainful

trick of always calling him: "Boy ..." and pinching his cheeks. He detested

him above all,--without knowing it,--because he dared to love his sister:

... his sister, his very own, his, and she could not belong to any one

else!...

* * * * *

Disaster came. Sooner or later there must come a crisis in the lives of the

old middle-class families which for centuries have vegetated in the same

little corner of the earth, and have sucked it dry. They sleep in peace,

and think themselves as eternal as the earth that bears them. But the soil

beneath them is dry and dead, their roots are sapped: just the blow of

an ax, and down they come. Then they talk of accidents and unforeseen

misfortunes. There would have been no accident if there had been more

strength in the tree: or, at least, would have been no more than a sudden

storm, wrenching away a few branches, but never shaking the tree.

Antoine Jeannin was weak, trustful, and a little vain. He loved to throw

dust in people's eyes, and easily confounded "seeming" and "being." He

spent recklessly, though his extravagance, moderated by fits of remorse as

the result of the age-old habit of economy--(he would fling away pounds,

and haggle over a farthing)--never seriously impaired his capital. He was

not very cautious in business either. He never refused to lend money to his

friends: and it was not difficult to be a friend of his. He did not always

trouble to ask for a receipt: he kept a rough account of what was owing to

him, and never asked for payment before it was offered him. He believed

in the good faith of other men, and supposed that they would believe in

his own. He was much more timid than his jocular, easy-going manners led

people to suppose. He would never have dared to refuse certain importunate

borrowers, or to let his doubts of their solvency appear. That arose from a

mixture of kindness and pusillanimity. He did not wish to offend anybody,

and he was afraid of being insulted. So he was always giving way. And, by

way of carrying it off, he would lend with alacrity, as though his debtors

were doing him a service by borrowing his money. And he was not far from

believing it; his vanity and optimism had no difficulty in persuading him

that every business he touched was good business.

Such ways of dealing were not calculated to alienate the sympathies of his

debtors: he was adored by the peasants, who knew that they could always

count on his good nature, and never hesitated to resort to him. But the

gratitude of men--even of honest men--is a fruit that must be gathered in

good season. If it is left too long upon the tree, it quickly rots. After

a few months M. Jeannin's debtors would begin to think that his assistance

was their right: and they were even inclined to think that, as M. Jeannin

had been so glad to help them, it must have been to his interest to do so.

The best of them considered themselves discharged--if not of the debt, at

least of the obligation of gratitude--by the present of a hare they had

killed, or a basket of eggs from their fowlyard, which they would come and

offer to the banker on the day of the great fair of the year.

As hitherto only small sums had been lent, and M. Jeannin had only had to

do with fairly honest people, there were no very awkward consequences: the

loss of money--of which the banker never breathed a word to a soul--was

very small. But it was a very different matter when M. Jeannin knocked up

against a certain company promoter who was launching a great industrial

concern, and had got wind of the banker's easy-going ways and financial

resources. This gentleman, who wore the ribbon of the Legion of Honor,

and pretended to be intimate with two or three Ministers, an Archbishop,

an assortment of senators, and various celebrities of the literary and

financial world, and to be in touch with an omnipotent newspaper, had a

very imposing manner, and most adroitly assumed the authoritative and

familiar tone most calculated to impress his man. By way of introduction

and recommendation, with a clumsiness which would have aroused the

suspicions of a quicker man than M. Jeannin, he produced certain ordinary

complimentary letters which he had received from the illustrious persons of

his acquaintance, asking him to dinner, or thanking him for some invitation

they had received: for it is well known that the French are never niggardly

with such epistolary small change, nor particularly chary of shaking hands

with, and accepting invitations from, an individual whom they have only

known for an hour--provided only that he amuses them and does not ask them

for money: and even as regards that, there are many who would not refuse to

lend their new friend money so long as others did the same. And it would

be a poor lookout for a clever man bent on relieving his neighbor of his

superfluous money if he could not find a sheep who could be induced to jump

the fence so that all the rest would follow.--If other sheep had not taken

the fence before him, M. Jeannin would have been the first. He was of the

woolly tribe which is made to be fleeced. He was seduced by his visitor's

exalted connections, his fluency and his trick of flattery, and also by the

first fine results of his advice. He only risked a little at first, and

won: then he risked much: finally he risked all: not only his own money,

but that of his clients as well. He did not tell them about it: he was sure

he would win: he wanted to overwhelm them with the great thing he had done

for them.

The venture collapsed. He heard of it indirectly through one of his

Parisian correspondents who happened to mention the new crash, without ever

dreaming that Jeannin was one of the victims: for the banker had not said

a word to anybody: with incredible irresponsibility, he had not taken the

trouble--even avoided--asking the advice of men who were in a position

to give him information: he had done the whole thing secretly, in the

infatuated belief in his infallible common sense, and he had been satisfied

with the vaguest knowledge of what he was doing. There are such moments

of aberration in life: moments, it would seem, when a man is marked out

for ruin, when he is fearful lest any one should come to his aid, when he

avoids all advice that might save him, hides away, and rushes headlong,

madly, shaking himself free for the fatal plunge.

M. Jeannin rushed to the station, utterly sick at heart, and took train for

Paris. He went to look for his man. He flattered himself with the hope that

the news might be false, or, at least, exaggerated. Naturally he did not

find the fellow, and received further news of the collapse, which was as

complete as possible. He returned distracted, and said nothing. No one

had any idea of it yet. He tried to gain a few weeks, a few days. In his

incurable optimism, he tried hard to believe that he would find a way to

make good, if not his own losses, at least those of his clients. He tried

various expedients, with a clumsy haste which would have removed any

chance of succeeding that he might have had. He tried to borrow, but was

everywhere refused. In his despair, he staked the little he had left on

wildly speculative ventures, and lost it all. From that moment there was

a complete change in his character. He relapsed into an alarming state of

terror: still he said nothing: but he was bitter, violent, harsh, horribly

sad. But still, when he was with strangers, he affected his old gaiety;

but no one could fail to see the change in him: it was attributed to his

health. With his family he was less guarded: and they saw at once that

he was concealing some serious trouble. They hardly knew him. Sometimes

he would burst into a room and ransack a desk, flinging all the papers

higgledy-piggledy on to the floor, and flying into a frenzy because he

could not find what he was looking for, or because some one offered to help

him. Then he would stand stock still in the middle of it all, and when they

asked him what he was looking for, he did not know himself. He seemed to

have lost all interest in his family: or he would kiss them with tears in

his eyes. He could not sleep. He could not eat.

Madame Jeannin saw that they were on the eve of a catastrophe: but she had

never taken any part in her husband's affairs, and did not understand them.

She questioned him: he repulsed her brutally: and, hurt in her pride, she

did not persist. But she trembled, without knowing why.

The children could have no suspicion of the impending disaster. Antoinette,

no doubt, was too intelligent not, like her mother, to have a presentiment

of some misfortune: but she was absorbed in the delight of her budding

love: she refused to think of unpleasant things: she persuaded herself that

the clouds would pass--or that it would be time enough to see them when it

was impossible to disregard them.

Of the three, the boy Olivier was perhaps the nearest to understanding

what was going on in his unhappy father's soul. He felt that his father

was suffering, and he suffered with him in secret. But he dared not say

anything: naturally he could do nothing, and he was helpless. And then he,

too, thrust back the thought of sad things, the nature of which he could

not grasp: like his mother and sister, he was superstitiously inclined to

believe that perhaps misfortune, the approach of which he did not wish to

see, would not come. Those poor wretches who feel the imminence of danger

do readily play the ostrich: they hide their heads behind a stone, and

pretend that Misfortune will not see them.

* * * * *

Disturbing rumors began to fly. It was said that the bank's credit was

impaired. In vain did the banker assure his clients that it was perfectly

all right, on one pretext or another the more suspicious of them demanded

their money. M. Jeannin felt that he was lost: he defended himself

desperately, assuming a tone of indignation, and complaining loftily and

bitterly of their suspicions of himself: he even went so far as to be

violent and angry with some of his old clients, but that only let him down

finally. Demands for payment came in a rush. On his beam-ends, at bay, he

completely lost his head. He went away for a few days to gamble with his

last few banknotes at a neighboring watering-place, was cleaned out in a

quarter of an hour, and returned home. His sudden departure set the little

town by the ears, and it was said that he had cleared out: and Madame

Jeannin had had great difficulty in coping with the wild, anxious inquiries

of the people: she begged them to be patient, and swore that her husband

would return. They did not believe her, although they would have been only

too glad to do so. And so, when it was known that he had returned, there

was a general sigh of relief: there were many who almost believed that

their fears had been baseless, and that the Jeannins were much too shrewd

not to get out of a hole by admitting that they had fallen into it. The

banker's attitude confirmed that impression. Now that he no longer had any

doubt as to what he must do, he seemed to be weary, but quite calm. He

chatted quietly to a few friends whom he met in the station road on his way

home, talking about the drought and the country not having had any water

for weeks, and the superb condition of the vines, and the fall of the

Ministry, announced in the evening papers.

When he reached home he pretended not to notice his wife's excitement, who

had run to meet him when she heard him come in, and told him volubly and

confusedly what had happened during his absence. She scanned his features

to try and see whether he had succeeded in averting the unknown danger:

but, from pride, she did not ask him anything: she was waiting for him to

speak first. But he did not say a word about the thing that was tormenting

them both. He silently disregarded her desire to confide in him, and to get

him to confide in her. He spoke of the heat, and of how tired he was, and

complained of a racking headache: and they sat down to dinner as usual.

He talked little, and was dull, lost in thought, and his brows were knit:

he drummed with his fingers on the table: he forced himself to eat, knowing

that they were watching him, and looked with vague, unseeing eyes at his

children, who were intimidated by the silence, and at his wife, who sat

stiffly nursing her injured vanity, and, without looking at him, marking

his every movement. Towards the end of dinner he seemed to wake up: he

tried to talk to Antoinette and Olivier, and asked them what they had been

doing during his absence: but he did not listen to their replies, and

heard only the sound of their voices: and although he was staring at them,

his gaze was elsewhere. Olivier felt it: he stopped in the middle of his

prattle, and had no desire to go on. But, after a moment's embarrassment,

Antoinette recovered her gaiety: she chattered merrily, like a magpie, laid

her head on her father's shoulder, or tugged his sleeve to make him listen

to what she was saying. M. Jeannin said nothing: his eyes wandered from

Antoinette to Olivier, and the crease in his forehead grew deeper and

deeper. In the middle of one of his daughter's stories he could bear it no

longer, and got up and went and looked out of the window to conceal his

emotion. The children folded their napkins, and got up too. Madame Jeannin

told them to go and play in the garden: in a moment or two they could be

heard chasing each other down the paths and screaming. Madame Jeannin

looked at her husband, whose back was turned towards her, and she walked

round the table as though to arrange something. Suddenly she went up to

him, and, in a voice hushed by her fear of being overheard by the servants

and by the agony that was in her, she said:

"Tell me, Antoine, what is the matter? There is something the matter ...

You are hiding something ... Has something dreadful happened? Are you ill?"

But once more M. Jeannin put her off, and shrugged his shoulders, and said

harshly:

"No! No, I tell you! Let me be!"

She was angry, and went away: in her fury, she declared that, no matter

what happened to her husband, she would not bother about it any more.

M. Jeannin went down into the garden. Antoinette was still larking about,

and tugging at her brother to make him run. But the boy declared suddenly

that he was not going to play any more: and he leaned against the wall of

the terrace a few yards away from his father. Antoinette tried to go on

teasing him: but he drove her away and sulked: then she called him names:

and when she found she could get no more fun out of him, she went in and

began to play the piano.