of her despairing outburst which had come upon her like a madness in the
middle of the night, and she was fearful of what her son would say to her.
She waited for him, sitting in a corner of the room. She had taken up some
knitting for occupation, but her hands refused to hold it. She let it fall.
Christophe entered. They greeted each other in a whisper, without looking
at each other. He was gloomy, and went and stood by the window, with his
back to his mother, and he stayed without speaking. There was a great
struggle in him. He knew the result of it already, and was trying to delay
the issue. Louisa dared not speak a word to him and provoke the answer
which she expected and feared. She forced herself to take up her knitting
again, but she could not see what she was doing, and she dropped her
stitches. Outside it was raining. After a long silence Christophe came to
her. She did not stir, but her heart was beating. Christophe stood still
and looked at her, then, suddenly, he went down on his knees and hid his
face in his mother's dress, and without saying a word, he wept. Then she
understood that he was going to stay, and her heart was filled with a
mortal agony of joy--but at once she was seized by remorse, for she felt
all that her son was sacrificing for her, and she began to suffer all that
Christophe had suffered when it was she whom he sacrificed. She bent over
him and covered his brow and his hair with kisses. In silence their tears
and their sorrow mingled. At last he raised his head, and Louisa took his
face in her hands and looked into his eyes. She would have liked to say to
him:
"Go!"
But she could not.
He would have liked to say to her:
"I am glad to stay."
But he could not.
The situation was hopeless; neither of them could alter it. She sighed in
her sorrow and love:
"Ah! if we could all be born and all die together!" Her simple way filled
him with tenderness; he dried his tears and tried to smile and said:
"We shall all die together."
She insisted:
"Truly you will not go?"
He got up:
"I have said so. Don't let us talk about it. There is nothing more to be
said."
Christophe kept his word; he never talked of going again, but he could not
help thinking of it. He stayed, but he made his mother pay dearly for his
sacrifice by his sadness and bad temper. And Louisa tactlessly--much more
tactlessly than she knew, never failing to do what she ought not to have
done--Louisa, who knew only too well the reason of his grief, insisted on
his telling her what it was. She worried him with her affection, uneasy,
vexing, argumentative, reminding him every moment that they were very
different from each other--and that he was trying to forget. How often
he had tried to open his heart to her! But just as he was about to speak
the Great Wall of China would rise between them, and he would keep his
secrets buried in himself. She would guess, but she never dared invite his
confidence, or else she could not. When she tried she would succeed only in
flinging back in him those secrets which weighed so sorely on him and which
he was so longing to tell.
A thousand little things, harmless tricks, cut her off from him and
irritated Christophe. The good old creature was doting. She had to talk
about the local gossip, and she had that nurse's tenderness which will
recall all the silly little things of the earliest years, and everything
that is associated with the cradle. We have such difficulty in issuing
from it and growing into men and women! And Juliet's nurse must forever
be laying before us our duty-swaddling clothes, commonplace thoughts,
the whole unhappy period in which the growing soul struggles against the
oppression of vile matter or stifling surroundings!
And with it all she had little outbursts of touching tenderness--as though
to a little child--which used to move him greatly and he would surrender to
them--like a little child.
The worst of all to bear was living from morning to night as they did,
together, always together, isolated from the rest of the world. When two
people suffer and cannot help each other's suffering, exasperation is
fatal; each in the end holds the other responsible for the suffering; and
each in the end believes it. It were better to be alone; alone in
suffering.
It was a daily torment for both of them. They would never have broken free
if chance had not come to break the cruel indecision, against which they
were struggling, in a way that seemed unfortunate--but it was really
fortunate.
It was a Sunday in October. Four o'clock in the afternoon. The weather was
brilliant. Christophe had stayed in his room all day, chewing the cud of
melancholy.
He could bear it no longer; he wanted desperately to go out, to walk, to
expend his energy, to tire himself out, so as to stop thinking.
Relations with his mother had been strained since the day before. He was
just going out without saying good-bye to her; but on the stairs he thought
how it would hurt her the whole evening when she was left alone. He went
back, making an excuse of having left something in his room. The door of
his mother's room was ajar. He put his head in through the aperture. He
watched his mother for a, few moments.... (What a place those two seconds
were to fill in his life ever after!)...
Louisa had just come in from vespers. She was sitting in her favorite
place, the recess of the window. The wall of the house opposite, dirty
white and cracked, obstructed the view, but from the corner where she sat
she could see to the right through the yards of the next houses a little
patch of lawn the size of a pocket-handkerchief. On the window-sill a
pot of convolvulus climbed along its threads and over this frail ladder
stretched its tendrils which were caressed by a ray of sunlight. Louisa was
sitting in a low chair bending over her great Bible which was open on her
lap, but she was not reading. Her hands were laid flat on the book--her
hands with their swollen veins, worker's nails, square and a little
bent--and she was devouring with loving eyes the little plant and the patch
of sky she could see through it. A sunbeam, basking on the green gold
leaves, lit up her tired face, with its rather blotchy complexion, her
white, soft, and rather thick hair, and her lips, parted in a smile. She
was enjoying her hour of rest. It was the best moment of the week to her.
She made use of it to sink into that state so sweet to those who suffer,
when thoughts dwell on nothing, and in torpor nothing speaks save the heart
and that is half asleep.
"Mother," he said, "I want to go out. I am going by Buir. I shall be rather
late."
Louisa, who was dozing off, trembled a little. Then she turned her head
towards him and looked at him with her calm, kind eyes.
"Yes, my dear, go," she said. "You are right; make use of the fine
weather."
She smiled at him. He smiled at her. They looked at each other for a
moment, then they said good-night affectionately, nodding and smiling with
the eyes.
He closed the door softly. She slipped back into her reverie, which her
son's smile had lit up with a bright ray of light like the sunbeam on the
pale leaves of the convolvulus.
So he left her--forever.
* * * * *
An October evening. A pale watery sun. The drowsy country is sinking to
sleep. Little village bells are slowly ringing in the silence of the
fields. Columns of smoke rise slowly in the midst of the plowed fields. A
fine mist hovers in the distance. The white fogs are awaiting the coming of
the night to rise.... A dog with his nose to the ground was running in
circles in a field of beet. Great flocks of crows whirled against the gray
sky.
Christophe went on dreaming, having no fixed object, but yet instinctively
he was walking in a definite direction. For several weeks his walks round
the town had gravitated whether he liked it or not towards another village
where he was sure to meet a pretty girl who attracted him. It was only an
attraction, but it was very vivid and rather disturbing. Christophe could
hardly do without loving some one; and his heart was rarely left empty;
it always had some lovely image for its idol. Generally it did not matter
whether the idol knew of his love; his need was to love, the fire must
never be allowed to go out; there must never be darkness in his heart.
The object of this new flame was the daughter of a peasant whom he had met,
as Eliézer met Rebecca, by a well; but she did not give him to drink; she
threw water in his face. She was kneeling by the edge of a stream in a
hollow in the bank between two willows, the roots of which made a sort of
nest about her; she was washing linen vigorously; and her tongue was not
less active than her arms; she was talking and laughing loudly with other
girls of the village who were washing opposite her or the other side of the
stream. Christophe was lying in the grass a few yards away, and, with his
chin resting in his hands, he watched them. They were not put out by it;
they went on chattering in a style which sometimes did not lack bluntness.
He hardly listened; he heard only the sound of their merry voices, mingling
with the noise of their washing pots, and with the distant lowing of the
cows in the meadows, and he was dreaming, never taking his eyes off the
beautiful washerwoman. A bright young face would make him glad for a whole
day. It was not long before the girls made out which of them he was looking
at; and they made caustic remarks to each other; the girl he preferred was
not the least cutting in the observations she threw at him. As he did not
budge, she got up, took a bundle of linen washed and wrung, and began to
lay it out on the bushes near him so as to have an excuse for looking at
him. As she passed him she continued to splash him with her wet clothes
and she looked at him boldly and laughed. She was thin and strong: she had
a fine chin, a little underhung, a short nose, arching eyebrows, deep-set
blue eyes, bold, bright and hard, a pretty mouth with thick lips, pouting a
little like those of a Greek maid, a mass of fair hair turned up in a knot
on her head, and a full color. She carried her head very erect, tittered at
every word she said and even when she said nothing, and walked like a man,
swinging her sunburned arms. She went on laying out hey linen while she
looked at Christophe with a provoking smile--waiting for him to speak.
Christophe stared at her too; but he had no desire to talk to her. At last
she burst out laughing to his face and turned back towards her companions.
He stayed lying where he was until evening fell and he saw her go with her
bundle on her back and her bare arms crossed, her back bent under her load,
still talking and laughing.
He saw her again a few days later at the town market among heaps of carrots
and tomatoes and cucumbers and cabbages. He lounged about watching the
crowd of women, selling, who were standing in a line by their baskets
like slaves for sale. The police official went up to each of them with
his satchel and roll of tickets, receiving a piece of money and giving a
paper. The coffee seller went from row to row with a basket full of little
coffee pots. And an old nun, plump and jovial, went round the market with
two large baskets on her arms and without any sort of humility begged
vegetables, or talked of the good God. The women shouted: the old scales
with their green painted pans jingled and clanked with the noise of their
chains; the big dogs harnessed to the little carts barked loudly, proud of
their importance. In the midst of the rabble Christophe saw Rebecca.--Her
real name was Lorchen (Eleanor).--On her fair hair she had placed a large
cabbage leaf, green and white, which made a dainty lace cap for her. She
was sitting on a basket by a heap of golden onions, little pink turnips,
haricot beans, and ruddy apples, and she was munching her own apples one
after another without trying to sell them. She never stopped eating. From
time to time she would dry her chin and wipe it with her apron, brush back
her hair with her arm, rub her cheek against her shoulder, or her nose with
the back of her hand. Or, with her hands on her knees, she would go on and
on throwing a handful of shelled peas from one to the other. And she would
look to right and left idly and indifferently. But she missed nothing of
what was going on about her. And without seeming to do so she marked every
glance cast in her direction. She saw Christophe. As she talked to her
customers she had a way of raising her eyebrows and looking at her admirer
over their heads. She was as dignified and serious as a Pope; but inwardly
she was laughing at Christophe. And he deserved it; he stood there a few
yards away devouring her with his eyes, then he went away without speaking
to her. He had not the least desire to do so.
He came back more than once to prowl round the market and the village where
she lived. She would be about the yard of the farm; he would stop on the
road to look at her. He did not admit that he came to see her, and indeed
he did so almost unconsciously. When, as often happened, he was absorbed by
the composition of some work he would be rather like a somnambulist: while
his conscious soul was following its musical ideas the rest of him would be
delivered up to the other unconscious soul which is forever watching for
the smallest distraction of the mind to take the freedom of the fields. He
was often bewildered by the buzzing of his musical ideas when he was face
to face with her; and he would go on dreaming as he watched her. He could
not have said that he loved her; he did not even think of that; it gave him
pleasure to see her, nothing more. He did not take stock of the desire
which was always bringing him back to her.
His insistence was remarked. The people at the farm joked about it, for
they had discovered who Christophe was. But they left him in peace; for he
was quite harmless. He looked silly enough in truth; but he never bothered
about it.
* * * * *
There was a holiday in the village. Little boys were crushing crackers
between stones and shouting "God save the Emperor!" ("_Kaiser lebe!
Hoch!_"). A cow shut up in the barn and the men drinking at the inn were
to be heard. Kites with long tails like comets dipped and swung in the air
above the fields. The fowls were scratching frantically in the straw and
the golden dung-heap; the wind blew out their feathers like the skirts of
an old lady. A pink pig was sleeping voluptuously on his side in the sun.
Christophe made his way towards the red roof of the inn of the _Three
Kings_ above which floated a little flag. Strings of onions hung by the
door, and the windows were decorated with red and yellow flowers. He went
into the saloon, filled with tobacco smoke, where yellowing chromos hung on
the walls and in the place of honor a colored portrait of the Emperor-King
surrounded with a wreath of oak leaves. People were dancing. Christophe was
sure his charmer would be there. He sat in a corner of the room from which
he could watch the movement of the dancers undisturbed. But in spite of all
this care to pass unnoticed Lorchen spied him out in his corner. While she
waltzed indefatigably she threw quick glances at him over her partner's
shoulder to make sure that he was still looking at her; and it amused her
to excite him; she coquetted with the young men of the village, laughing
the while with her wide mouth. She talked a great deal and said silly
things and was not very different from the girls of the polite world who
think they must laugh and move about and play to the gallery when anybody
looks at them, instead of keeping their foolishness to themselves. But they
are not so very foolish either; for they know quite well that the gallery
only looks at them and does not listen to what they say.--With his elbows
on the table and his chin in his hands Christophe watched the girl's tricks
with burning, furious eyes; his mind was free enough not to be taken in by
her wiles, but he was not enough himself not to be led on by them; and he
growled with rage and he laughed in silence and shrugged his shoulders in
falling into the snare.
Not only the girl was watching him; Lorchen's father also had his eyes
on him. Thick-set and short, bald-headed--a big head with a short
nose--sunburned skull with a fringe of hair that had been fair and hung in
thick curls like Dürer's St. John, clean-shaven, expressionless face, with
a long pipe in the corner of his mouth, he was talking very deliberately
to some other peasants while all the time he was watching Christophe's
pantomime out of the corner of his eye; and he laughed softly. After a
moment he coughed and a malicious light shone in his little gray eyes and
he came and sat at Christophe's table. Christophe was annoyed and turned
and scowled at him; he met the cunning look of the old man, who addressed
Christophe familiarly without taking his pipe from his lips. Christophe
knew him; he knew him for a common old man; but his weakness for his
daughter made him indulgent towards the father and even gave him a queer
pleasure in being with him; the old rascal saw that. After talking about
rain and fine weather and some chaffing reference to the pretty girls in
the room, and a remark on Christophe's not dancing he concluded that
Christophe was right not to put himself out and that it was much better to
sit at table with a mug in his hand; without ceremony he invited himself to
have a drink. While he drank the old man went on talking deliberately as
always. He spoke about his affairs, the difficulty of gaining a livelihood,
the bad weather and high prices. Christophe hardly listened and only
replied with an occasional grunt; he was not interested; he was looking at
Lorchen. Christophe wondered what had procured him the honor of the old
man's company and confidences. At last he understood. When the old man had
exhausted his complaints he passed on to another chapter; he praised the
quality of his produce, his vegetables, his fowls, his eggs, his milk, and
suddenly he asked if Christophe could not procure him the custom of the
Palace. Christophe started:
"How the devil did he know?... He knew him then?"
"Oh, yes," said the old man. "Everything is known ..." He did not add:
"... when you take the trouble to make enquiries."
But Christophe added it for him. He took a wicked pleasure in telling him
that although everything was known, he was no doubt unaware that he had
just quarreled with the Court and that if he had ever been able to flatter
himself on having some credit with the servants' quarters and butchers of
the Palace--(which he doubted strongly)--that credit at present was dead
and buried. The old man's lips twitched imperceptibly. However, he was
not put out and after a moment he asked if Christophe could not at least
recommend him to such and such a family. And he mentioned all those with
whom Christophe had had dealings; for he had informed himself of them at
the market, and there was no danger of his forgetting any detail that might
be useful to him. Christophe would have been furious at such spying upon
him had he not rather wanted to laugh at the thought that the old man would
be robbed in spite of all his cunning (for he had no doubt of the value of
the recommendation he was asking--a recommendation more likely to make him
lose his customers than to procure him fresh ones). So he let him empty
all his bag of clumsy tricks and answered neither "Yes" nor "No." But the
peasant persisted and finally he came down to Christophe and Louisa whom he
had kept for the end, and expressed his keen desire to provide them with
milk, butter and cream. He added that as Christophe was a musician nothing
was so good for the voice as a fresh egg swallowed raw morning and evening;
and he tried hard to make him let him provide him with these, warm from the
hen. The idea of the old peasant taking him for a singer made Christophe
roar with laughter. The peasant took advantage of that to order another
bottle. And then having got all he could out of Christophe for the time
being he went away without further ceremony.
Night had fallen. The dancing had become more and more excited. Lorchen had
ceased to pay any attention to Christophe; she was too busy turning the
head of a young lout of the village, the son of a rich farmer, for whom all
the girls were competing. Christophe was interested by the struggle; the
young women smiled at each other and would have been only too pleased to
scratch each other. Christophe forgot himself and prayed for the triumph
of Lorchen. But when her triumph was won he felt a little downcast. He was
enraged by it. He did not love Lorchen; he did not want to be loved by her;
it was natural that she should love anybody she liked.--No doubt. But it
was not pleasant to receive so little sympathy himself when he had so much
need of giving and receiving. Here, as in the town, he was alone. All these
people were only interested in him while they could make use of him and
then laugh at him. He sighed, smiled as he looked at Lorchen, whom her joy
in the discomfiture of her rivals had made ten times prettier than ever,
and got ready to go. It was nearly nine. He had fully two miles to go to
the town.
He got up from the table when the door opened and a handful of soldiers
burst in. Their entry dashed the gaiety of the place. The people began to
whisper. A few couples stopped dancing to look uneasily at the new
arrivals. The peasants standing near the door deliberately turned their
backs on them and began to talk among themselves; but without seeming to do
so they presently contrived to leave room for them to pass. For some time
past the whole neighborhood had been at loggerheads with the garrisons of
the fortresses round it. The soldiers were bored to death and wreaked their
vengeance on the peasants. They made coarse fun of them, maltreated them,
and used the women as though they were in a conquered country. The week
before some of them, full of wine, had disturbed a feast at a neighboring
village and had half killed a farmer. Christophe, who knew these things,
shared the state of mind of the peasant, and he sat down again and waited
to see what would happen.
The soldiers were not worried by the ill-will with which their entry was
received, and went noisily and sat down at the full tables, jostling the
people away from them to make room; it was the affair of a moment. Most of
the people, went away grumbling. An old man sitting at the end of a bench
did not move quickly enough; they lifted the bench and the old man toppled
over amid roars of laughter. Christophe felt the blood rushing to his head;
he got up indignantly; but, as he was on the point of interfering, he saw
the old man painfully pick himself up and instead of complaining humbly
crave pardon. Two of the soldiers came to Christophe's table; he watched
them come and clenched his fists. But he did not have to defend himself.
They were two tall, strong, good-humored louts, who had followed sheepishly
one or two daredevils and were trying to imitate them. They were
intimidated by Christophe's defiant manner, and when he said curtly: "This
place is taken," they hastily begged his pardon and withdrew to their end
of the bench so as not to disturb him. There had been a masterful
inflection in his voice; their natural servility came to the fore. They saw
that Christophe was not a peasant.
Christophe was a little mollified by their submission, and was able to
watch things more coolly. It was not difficult to see that the gang were
led by a non-commissioned officer--a little bull-dog of a man with hard
eyes--with a rascally, hypocritical and wicked face; he was one of the
heroes of the affray of the Sunday before. He was sitting at the table next
to Christophe. He was drunk already and stared at the people and threw
insulting sarcasms at them which they pretended not to hear. He attacked
especially the couples dancing, describing their physical advantages or
defects with a coarseness of expression which made his companions laugh.
The girls blushed and tears came to their eyes; the young men ground their
teeth and raged in silence. Their tormentor's eyes wandered slowly round
the room, sparing nobody; Christophe saw them moving towards himself. He
seized his mug, and clenched his fist on the table and waited, determined
to throw the liquor at his head on the first insult. He said to himself:
"I am mad. It would be better to go away. They will slit me up; and then if
I escape they will put me in prison; the game is not worth the candle. I'd
better go before he provokes me."
But his pride would not let him, he would not seem to be running away from
such brutes as these. The officer's cunning brutal stare was fixed on him.
Christophe stiffened and glared at him angrily. The officer looked at him
for a moment; Christophe's face irritated him; he nudged his neighbor and
pointed out the young man with a snigger; and he opened his lips to insult
him. Christophe gathered himself together and was just about to fling his
mug at him.... Once more chance saved him. Just as the drunken man was
about to speak an awkward couple of dancers bumped into him and made him
drop his glass. He turned furiously and let loose a flood of insults. His
attention was distracted; he forgot Christophe. Christophe waited for a few
minutes longer; then seeing that his enemy had no thought of going on with
his remarks he got up, slowly took his hat and walked leisurely towards the
door. He did not take his eyes off the bench where the other was sitting,
just to let him feel that he was not giving in to him. But the officer had
forgotten him altogether; no one took any notice of him.