“Do you remember …”
They smiled at one another trustingly. “You can’t rely on a woman,” thought Augustin. “She listens greedily to her husband’s memories, collecting every crumb from the past of the man she loves, accepting or rejecting it forever according to how it relates to her: ‘Was that before you knew me? Was that after we were together?’”
Nothing else exists. A man’s life can begin only on the day, at the moment, when his wife takes possession of him.
[ III ]
THE NIGHT PASSED VERY SLOWLY. THEIR MOTHER appeared to be sleeping. She no longer had the strength to lift her head. She wanted a drink, but the thought of having to call the nurse, force her lips apart, and make the effort to swallow some water was too much for her. It was very late. She opened her eyes and gazed at the gleaming brass rails of the bed as they caught the light from the lamp. The pain had gone. She felt utterly detached from everything. She was not worried about her illness; she was no longer thinking about the children. She was resting. She had forgotten about her daughters-in-law’s appearance and Alain’s unhappy life. She looked at each object in her room in turn, as if trying to recapture a memory of something that escaped her. Her pulse slowed. The nurse got jugs of hot water ready and prepared capsules of camphor oil.
It was Mariette’s turn to look in. When she came out of her mother’s room she said in a shaky voice, “She’s very weak.”
They all rushed into the bedroom and gathered around the bedside. The nurse sent them away. “There are too many people in here.”
Tears ran down Mariette’s face. Augustin sighed. “Poor girl. It will be hardest for you.”
“I’m all alone!” she murmured.
“Yes,” said Alain quietly, “but we all are, you know …”
Augustin thought, with both irritation and pleasure, “How well the swine understands me! He’s always understood me better than I do myself.”
“Well, I’m not unhappy with Sabine,” Albert said timidly, “but the children … ah, the children!”
At last he voiced his bitterness, his anger, and his love: “Children … you do everything for them, give them everything, in the hope that in exchange, one day when you’re dying, they’ll be there like we’re here now … unhappy, yes, upset, of course, but …”
They fell silent. They looked pityingly at their mother’s face, just visible in the shadows. With a moan and a sigh, she had refused an injection. She was calmer now, and careful hands had moved the lamp away from her.
“Yes,” Augustin said, “it’s not much, but at least we’re here, aren’t we? That’s something, isn’t it?”
“I suppose we won’t see much of each other now,” said Albert abruptly. “It’s a shame. I just wanted to say that, in spite of everything, we are brothers; we are fond of each other … We should see each other from time to time, don’t you think?”
“Yes, yes, of course, old man,” Augustin said, almost tenderly. “You see, the trouble is that we have no reason to hate each other. Nothing binds a family closer together than the passionate hatred which used to make brothers fight each other over a field or a vineyard. We don’t even have that. All we have is a very special, brotherly feeling of irritation: Albert’s sighs and your bad moods, Alain.”
“The way your lips move when you’re being sarcastic and not really listening, which makes me want to punch you,” said Alain.
They both smiled.
“And yet,” added Mariette, “we were so close, such good friends … Then love happened and it was all over.”
“It wasn’t love so much as marriage,” said Augustin. “Love is just a peculiar, fleeting affair that isn’t very important, but in marriage there is always hostility between two different tribes of human beings. There are two opposing forces, who fight each other until one of them wins, and you and I, my poor old Alain, have been knocked out too easily …”
“You can laugh,” Alain said quietly. “You can’t know … But when you don’t love one another?”
“Your wife loves you,” Albert said.
“Well, I don’t love her,” said Alain in despair. “It’s not my fault. Love doesn’t beget love, or, at least, and that’s what’s so terrible, it only induces an illusion, an ersatz love.”
“Yes,” said Augustin gently, almost in spite of himself.
“You wake up to see a woman sleeping in your bed and the first thing you ask yourself is: ‘What’s she doing here?’ That’s how I’ve felt for years and years.”
“There’s that overwhelming depression,” said Augustin, “at the thought of going home in the evening.”
“Only breathing freely far away from her.”
“Yes.”
“Knowing that you’re being cruel, untruthful, wicked, and hypocritical but not being able to do anything at all about it. I couldn’t say this to anyone else in the world. I’d be ashamed. But you must understand me. Did you ever know why I married Alix? No? I was in love with a woman, never mind her name. She is dead. You, Augustin, had married Claire. Alix was living with you. I saw her constantly. I knew she loved me and it made me feel grateful to her. There’s something overpowering about a woman who wants to be loved: that face always lifted up to you, that anxious look, that obsessive desire. It gives you a feeling of limitless power. I thought it could replace love.”
“It does,” said Albert.
“Sometimes,” murmured Augustin.
“Yes, but in that case both of you have to be disappointed and resigned, like you and your wife,” said Alain sharply as he turned toward Augustin, who flinched and said nothing. “But when one of you still loves, still suffers, and the other can only watch the loving and the suffering—ah, that’s hell! I’ve been thinking about going for years, dreaming about leaving her! For years, do you understand? But I can’t leave them wandering the streets; they only have me … If only I could make her happy, but she’d be a hundred, a thousand times happier if I were far away. Oh, if only you could, would dare, help me! We were young together, and our lives are similar. Do you want to punish me?”
“Alain,” said Augustin, raising his head, “you lied just now … This woman isn’t dead, is she? Are you going away to be with her?”
“Yes. She’s married. Her husband’s taking her away. I want to live with her. I must. I’ve only ever been happy with her. I married Alix in despair, out of spite; then I found her again; she’s been my mistress for more than eight years. If I have to stay here, I’ll never forgive Alix. Our life would become a living hell. You’re my brothers: you should love me above duty, above morality. Yes, I know what I’m asking seems cruel and senseless—abandoning a wife who is beyond reproach, abandoning my children. But what can I do, if they’re like strangers to me? I’ve tried desperately to love them, without being able to. The other one … the other one. I love her! She has a child by me. My life is with her. Think about it … I’m asking you … for some money, Albert, and for you, Augustin, to put up with Claire’s reproaches and Alix’s tears. If I stay, what will happen? Nothing but misery for my wife, my mistress, and myself. If my sacrifice would make Alix happy, perhaps I’d give in and resign myself, but what will happen if I stay? More scenes, more sordid quarrels, more agony for her and me, and for the children.”
“The children,” said Albert.
“The children? Who are you to talk about children? What have your children ever given you in the way of happiness, gratitude, or affection? Are they happy to be with you? Do you think they need you? You talk about making the children happy: what do you actually do for Jean-Noël and Josée that’s worthwhile, that actually has an effect on them? You would like to, yes, with all your heart. But what can you do for them? Give them advice? They don’t listen. Tell them about your own experience? They despise it. Offer them friendship? They reject it. My children don’t need me; they’ve got their mother. They love her; they’re like her. For the last eight years there hasn’t been a single night when I’ve gone to bed without pra
ying that it would be my last. I waited for the children to grow up. I hoped for a miracle. I’ve even been waiting for Alix’s death to set me free. The only reason I’ve been able to get through the last eight years is that the other … this woman … was in France. Not in Paris, but in France. Sometimes she would come to see me, and I would escape for a couple of days to go to see her and the boy. He belongs to another man, but I love him. I would spend the night in a train, kiss the boy, then come back the next day.”
“Won’t she leave her husband?” Mariette asked quietly.
“No. Because of money. Anyway he loves her, he loves the child. There’s no way out.”
“Who is she?” asked Mariette.
He did not respond. His brothers tried briefly to guess who the woman was but did not say anything, choosing not to intrude any further.
Augustin stood up and walked slowly to the closed door. Through the glass pane he watched the women in the next room. Alain’s words had made him see his own life in a new light. He thought about his brother with that mixture of clear-eyed contempt, irritation, and the odd, almost primitive attachment that binds brothers together. Apart from one’s family, one’s own flesh and blood, there is no one else for whom one can feel that attachment, and even then, it is felt only rarely. “At least let him be happy. I’d prefer it if it were me, but if it can’t be me, then let him …”
He came back to Alain and murmured, “It’s completely idiotic, your plan … But what the hell? At least you should have the life you want!”
Albert raised his large, anxious face. “You won’t regret it, will you? You won’t blame us for anything?”
“No,” Alain said dully.
“Well, what do you need?”
Alain looked up; he let out a faint sigh. “Do you mean it?”
“I’ll do what you tell me to do,” said Albert.
“I’ll speak to Alix myself,” said Augustin.
They sat down again, huddled together in the dark. Each of them was feeling emotional. “After all, that’s the one thing we have among us, a bit of human warmth,” they thought.
It was late. The night was passing. Mariette shivered as she thought about the rain outside and the bed that awaited her, in which she would sleep alone between cold sheets.
Silently, half-asleep, they waited for morning.
Alain threw himself onto the sofa. His long body looked suddenly weak and childlike. He whispered, “Call me if I’m needed.”
He fell asleep almost at once. At first he sighed restlessly and moaned, but sleep had a soothing effect, taking away the sad, ironic expression that twisted his lips. From time to time first one and then another would wake, get up, and tiptoe to their mother’s bedside, watching her still face as in a dream you might look into a dark pool where a man is struggling, but you can’t reach out to help him.
At last, at dawn, she seemed to come back to life.
Augustin said softly, “I’m not sure, but she seems a little better.”
At first she did not recognize him. She pushed him away, wanting to say, “The children … where are the children? Who’s looking after the children?” Then she saw the night nurse coming.
“Are you feeling better? Do you feel any stronger?”
The old woman’s lips moved, but no sound came out of them. Yet she had heard, and after a moment she understood and remembered. Better? As life returned to her, she felt thirsty, feverish and hot, and became aware of the weight of the blankets and the light hurting her eyes. Painfully, she turned her face away.
The nurse touched her hand and smiled. “She’s feeling better.”
Albert came to join them. They waited for the doctor. Gradually their mother’s face lost its look of repose: it twitched, and she muttered some indistinct words in a plaintive, querulous tone; her cheeks were still ash gray, but she was breathing more easily, and the dreadful whistling noise that had echoed through the room all night had stopped at last.
Augustin laid his cool hands on her forehead. She found his touch gentle and soothing. As he lifted the strands of hair that had fallen over her eyes, he said in a low voice, “Well, Mama darling … are you feeling better?”
Her lips smiled at him, but her eyes looked troubled and anxious, full of shadows. She managed to murmur, “Yes.”
Augustin turned toward Albert, who was standing absolutely still.
“Well, old man …”
He did not finish his sentence. The brothers looked at each other and did exactly the same thing: they slowly inhaled, as if swallowing a mouthful of cold water, then quickly turned away. It was over. The night was over. Their mother was getting better. For a moment they were filled with a heavenly peace.
But then straightaway they felt cold and exhausted. Augustin stretched and yawned nervously. In the gray light they looked with distaste at the dreary mess in the sickroom. The nurse went back to sleep. Each of them in turn touched their lips to the patient’s forehead and left.
Augustin realized that he had not had any sleep and that he was hungry.
Sighing deeply, Albert said, “That’s over, thank God, that’s over! What a night!”
“You going home?”
“Yes. I’m dead. A bath, then bed.”
“You lucky bastard!” Augustin said, making a faint effort to smile.
Alain seemed well rested. He had managed to sleep on the hard sofa without any sheets; although his face was pale, it was smooth and relaxed.
“He’s younger than I am,” thought Augustin. “And in love, the fool!”
“Mama should get some sleep now. We’ll come back this afternoon.”
They went downstairs together. Augustin was shaking with exhaustion. He waved at Alain and Albert as they went off, and got into a taxi. It was raining; a sharp wind blew in through the open window. He stopped at the Régence for a black coffee and was then driven to his office. He telephoned home: Claire had come back but was still asleep. Gradually he was overtaken by a deep sense of sadness. He thought about his mother, muttering vehemently, “Thank God, thank God.” But his heart was heavy. “Who dares admit that even the most devoted love contains a small amount of boredom and irritation?” he thought. At this time of physical exhaustion and mental upset, what did his mother’s recovery mean to him unless it was to reveal how vulnerable he was and how fragile and upset this made him feel? “All in all, what is there to be happy about? Life’s a fine thing … But what has she got to look forward to? All this business of Alain’s that she’ll have to cope with … Oh! I suppose she’s happy enough in the way old people can be, happy to know that we’re in good health and believing we’re happy. Because she does think we’re happy.”
He was struck by a thought. “She can’t carry on like this … At her age she won’t recover fully from such a serious illness. She’ll be weak. She can’t go on living alone with Josephine. So the best thing would be for Mariette to go and live with her. I should think this would be the cheapest, the most sensible, and the pleasantest thing for both of them. Yes, that would be best,” he said to himself, with a feeling of relief. He made a mental note: “I’ll talk to them about it this evening.” Yes, arrange it all for the best, so that everything worked out well and they were all happy, then forget about anything to do with family for as long as possible.
At lunchtime he went home. Claire was sitting in their bedroom doing her hair. She held out a cheek to him, which he touched with his lips.
She asked gently, “Is she really better? It’s hard to believe … I’m so happy, my darling!”
“When did you all leave this morning?” he asked.
“It must have been about four o’clock. I could see, through the door, that Alain was asleep on the sofa, and you looked as if you were sleeping as well. I didn’t want to disturb you. When are you going back to Mother’s?”
“Immediately after lunch.”
They ate quickly and in almost complete silence. Augustin thought, “Let’s not spoil this fragile truce.” Ala
in’s departure was going to cause such havoc and lead to so many quarrels! All that would have to be said, all that would have to be left unsaid … How peculiar and cowardly it was, the desperate need to hold on to this fragile marital peace above all else! How much one has to sacrifice in order to be spared a woman’s reproaches, in order not to see her tears! “I’ve never asked for much from life,” he thought, with uncharacteristic self-pity. “Or, rather, I asked the same as everyone does, but as I didn’t get anything, or only very little, I’ve become resigned to it. That fat idiot Albert has his money, Alain has his romance, and me, what have I got?”
Abruptly he said aloud, “If Alain left, what would Alix do?”
They exchanged that look of complete and silent understanding, which often, in a married couple, is the only remaining evidence of their love.
“He won’t do that,” she murmured. “You won’t allow it, will you?”
He shrugged.
“How can I stop him? Supposing he talks to Albert?”
“Albert! You know your brother … He’ll promise anything in a weak moment, then the next day his English or Australian shares will drop by three points and everything will fall on you again! Remember Mariette’s divorce, the court case, all the trouble you had? Your brothers have always been ready to make a sacrifice out of you.”
“She’s right,” thought Augustin.
He said nothing more and left. He went back to his mother’s, where he stayed for about an hour. The doctor had visited; she seemed to be out of danger, but it would be a long convalescence.
Alain arrived in his turn after the bank closed. Like his brothers he began by talking in an animated, warm tone before relapsing into silence. The old woman was complaining, “I don’t like this doctor. He spent two seconds listening to my heart, then went away. I had a thousand questions to ask. My leg is swollen. Who found him?”