The meal had been laid in the bar, on two tables that had been pushed together and covered with two large napkins. A neighbour who had come to help serve gave a low curtsy on seeing so handsome a lady, then, recognizing Georges, she exclaimed: ‘Lord, be it you, lad?’
He replied cheerfully: ‘Yes, it’s me, Mother Brulin!’
And he promptly kissed her, as he had kissed his father and mother.
Then he turned to his wife: ‘Come into our room, you can take off your hat.’
He took her through the door on the right into an entirely white room with a tiled floor, whitewashed walls and a bed with cotton curtains. A crucifix above a stoup for holy water, and two coloured pictures representing Paul and Virginie* under a blue palm tree, and Napoleon I on a yellow horse,* were the only ornaments in that clean and desolate room.
As soon as they were alone, he kissed Madeleine. ‘Hallo, Made. I’m pleased to see the old folks again. When you’re in Paris, you don’t think of them, and then when you’re back with them it’s actually very nice.’
But his father was shouting and banging on the wall with his fist: ‘Come on, come on, soup’s up.’ And they had to take their seats at the table.
It was a long, countrified meal consisting of a series of ill-assorted dishes, sausages served after a leg of lamb, an omelette after the sausages. Old Duroy, filled with good cheer by cider and several glasses of wine, let loose a stream of his best jokes, those that he saved for special occasions, coarse, bawdy stories involving, he claimed, friends of his. Georges, who had heard them all, laughed nevertheless, intoxicated by his native air, gripped afresh by his innate love of the area, of the familiar places of his childhood, by all the sensations, returning memories, and rediscovered things of the past, tiny little things, the knife-mark on a door frame, a wobbly chair that recalled a trivial event, earthy smells, the strong scent of resin and trees from the nearby forest, the redolence of the house, of the brook, of the dunghill.
Georges’s old mother, still stern-faced and sombre, said nothing, eyeing her daughter-in-law with a heart full of fierce hostility, the hostility of an old working woman, an old peasant with worn fingers and limbs deformed by harsh labour, towards this city woman, who aroused in her a feeling of revulsion for this cursed, damned, tainted being who was made for idleness and sin. She continually got up to fetch dishes and to pour into their glasses the yellow, sour contents of the carafe, or the sugary, reddish, frothy cider from bottles whose corks popped out like the corks of fizzy lemonade.
Madeleine, who was eating and saying almost nothing, went on sitting despondently with her lips set in her usual smile, but a smile that was cheerless and resigned. She felt disappointed, heart-broken. Why? She had wanted to come. She had known quite well that she was going to visit peasants, very simple peasants. So what had she dreamed they would be like, she who ordinarily did not indulge in daydreaming?
Did she herself know? As if women do not always hope for something other than what actually is! From a distance, had she imagined them as more poetic? No, but, perhaps, as more literary, more noble, more loving, more decorative. Yet she did not want them to be distinguished, like those shown in novels. So how did it come about that they shocked her in countless tiny, imperceptible ways, by countless indefinable vulgarities, by their very natures as peasants, by their words, their gestures, and their laughter?
She remembered her own mother, of whom she never spoke to anyone, a schoolmistress who’d been seduced, and had grown up in Saint-Denis,* dying in destitution and misery when Madeleine was twelve. A stranger had paid for the little girl’s education. Her father, most probably? Who was he? She did not know precisely, although she had vague suspicions.
The meal dragged on and on. Now there were customers coming in, shaking old Duroy by the hand, exclaiming on seeing the son, then, as they gave the young woman a sidelong glance, winking maliciously, as if to say: ‘Christ almighty! She’s not half bad, Georges Duroy’s wife ain’t.’
Others, not such close friends, sat down at the wooden tables, shouting: ‘A litre! A handle! Two brandies! A raspail!’* And they began playing dominoes, very noisily banging down the little squares of black and white bone.
Old Mme Duroy was constantly on the go, serving the customers with her mournful air, taking the money, wiping the tables with the corner of her blue apron. Smoke from clay pipes and cheap cigars was filling the room. Madeleine began to cough and asked: ‘Shall we go outside? I can’t stand this any more.’
They had not yet finished. Old Duroy was annoyed. So she got up and went to sit on a chair in front of the door, on the road, waiting for her father-in-law and her husband to finish their coffee and liqueurs.
Georges soon joined her. ‘How about heading down to the Seine?’ he said. She agreed joyfully: ‘Oh, yes! Let’s go.’
They walked down the hillside, hired a boat at Croisset, and spent the rest of the afternoon alongside an island, under the willows, both of them dozing in the gentle spring warmth, rocked by the river’s little waves. Then, at nightfall, they climbed back up again.
The evening meal, lit by a single candle, was even more trying for Madeleine than the morning one had been. Old Duroy, who was half drunk, no longer spoke. The mother still had her sour expression. The dim light projected the shadows of heads with enormous noses and exaggerated gestures onto the grey walls. From time to time, you could see a giant hand lift something that resembled a pitchfork up to a mouth that opened like the jaws of a monster, when someone, turning slightly sideways, presented a profile to the yellow, flickering flame.
As soon as supper was over, Madeleine drew her husband outside, so as not to have to stay in that gloomy room where the pungent smell of old pipes and spilt drinks hung permanently in the air.
When they were outside: ‘You’re already bored,’ he said.
She started to protest. He stopped her: ‘No. I could see it clearly. If you like, we can leave again tomorrow.’
She murmured: ‘Yes. I’d like that.’
They walked slowly on. It was a warm night, whose deep, caressing darkness seemed full of tiny sounds, of rustlings and murmurings. They had turned onto a narrow pathway that ran beneath some very tall trees, between two impenetrably dark thickets.
She enquired: ‘Where are we?’ ‘In the forest,’ he told her. ‘Is it big?’ ‘Very big, one of the biggest in France.’*
A smell of earth, of trees, of moss, that fresh, ancient scent of thickly wooded forests, made up of the sap of shoots and the dead, mouldy greenery of the underbrush, seemed to lie slumbering in that avenue. When she looked up, Madeleine could see stars between the tree-tops, and although no breeze stirred the branches, she sensed all around her the vague pulsation of that ocean of leaves.
A strange shiver ran through her soul and over her body; an obscure feeling of anguish wrung her heart. Why? She had no idea. But it seemed to her that she was lost, overwhelmed, surrounded by dangers, abandoned by everyone, alone, alone in the world, beneath this living canopy which rustled high up above.
She whispered: ‘I feel a bit scared. I’d like to go back.’
‘All right, let’s go back.’
‘And… we’ll leave again for Paris tomorrow?’
‘Yes, tomorrow’
‘Tomorrow morning.’
‘Tomorrow morning, if you like.’
They returned. The old people had gone to bed. She slept badly, constantly awakened by all the noises of the country that were new to her, the hooting of owls, the grunting of a pig shut up in a shed next to the wall, and the crowing of the rooster who began trumpeting at midnight. She was up and ready to leave at first light.
When Georges informed his parents that he was going back to Paris, they were both startled, then they realized where this decision had originated.
The father asked simply: ‘Ye’ll come an’ see us agin soon?’
‘Of course. Some time in the summer.’
‘Well, good.’
The o
ld woman growled: ‘I hope ye don’t live to be sorry fer what ye’ve been an’ done.’
He left them a present of two hundred francs to placate them, and when the cab, which a lad had gone to fetch, appeared about ten o’clock, the newly weds kissed the old peasants and set off again.
As they were going down the hill, Duroy began to laugh: ‘There, you see,’ he said, ‘I warned you. I ought never to have introduced you to M. and Mme du Roy de Cantel senior.’
She too began to laugh, and replied: ‘I’m delighted, now. They’re fine people, of whom I’m beginning to be very fond. I’ll send them some little presents from Paris.’
Then she murmured: ‘”Du Roy de Cantel…” You’ll see, no one will be surprised by our wedding announcements. We’ll say that we spent a week on your parents’ estate.’
And, moving closer to him, she brushed the tip of his moustache with a kiss: ‘Good morning, Georges!’
He answered: ‘Good morning, Made,’ as he slipped a hand round her waist.
Far away, in the depths of the valley, they could see the great river stretched out like a ribbon of silver under the morning sun, and all the factory chimneys puffing their clouds of coal into the sky, and all the pointed belfries rising up above the old city.
CHAPTER 2
The Du Roys had been back in Paris for two days and the journalist was carrying on with his former duties, pending the day when he would leave the gossip section and permanently take over Forestier’s responsibilities, devoting himself entirely to politics.
On that particular evening, as he was walking home in high spirits to have dinner in his predecessor’s apartment, he felt an intense desire to kiss his wife there and then, for he was totally under the sway of her physical charms and subtle domination. Passing a florist’s at the bottom of the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, he had the idea of buying flowers for Madeleine, and he chose a large bunch of barely opened roses, a cluster of perfumed buds.
On each landing of his new staircase, he observed himself complacently in the mirror which constantly reminded him of the first time he had entered that house.
He rang, as he had forgotten his key, and the same servant, whom, on his wife’s advice, he had also kept, opened the door.
Georges enquired: ‘Is Madame back?’
‘Yes, Monsieur.’
But when he crossed the dining-room he was very surprised to see three places laid; and, as the curtain dividing off the drawing-room was drawn back, he saw Madeleine arranging, in a vase on the mantelpiece, a bunch of roses exactly like his own. He felt upset and irritated, as if his idea, his thoughtfulness, and all the pleasure he expected from it, had been stolen from him.
As he came in he asked: ‘So you’ve invited someone?’
She replied without turning round, while continuing to arrange the flowers: ‘Yes and no. It’s my old friend the Comte de Vaudrec who has always dined here on Mondays, and who’s coming as usual.’
Georges muttered: ‘Oh! Fine.’
He was still standing behind her, with his bouquet in his hand, feeling an urge to hide it or throw it away. However he said: ‘Here, I’ve brought you some roses.’
And she turned round quickly, all smiles, exclaiming: ‘Oh, how sweet of you to think of that!’ And she held out her arms and offered him her lips with so spontaneous and genuine a pleasure that he felt consoled.
She took the flowers, smelt them, and, with the vivacity of a delighted child, put them in the empty vase that stood opposite the first one. Then, gazing at the effect, she murmured:
‘Oh, how wonderful! Now my mantelpiece is all nicely arranged.’
Almost immediately, she added, with an air of conviction: ‘You know, Vaudrec is charming, you’ll feel he’s an old friend right away.’
A ring of the bell announced the Comte’s arrival. He walked calmly in, very much at his ease, as if entirely at home. After gallantly kissing the young woman’s fingers, he turned to her husband and cordially offered him his hand, enquiring: ‘Everything going well, my dear Du Roy?’
His manner was no longer stiff and starchy, as it had been before, but affable, demonstrating clearly that the situation had now changed. Taken aback, the journalist made an effort to appear friendly, and respond to Vaudrec’s overtures. Five minutes later one might have supposed that the two of them had been dear friends for at least a decade.
Then Madeleine, her face radiant, said to them: ‘I’ll leave you together. I must give an eye to my dinner.’ And she went out, followed by the gaze of both men.
When she came back, she found them talking about the theatre, discussing a new play, and so completely of one mind that a kind of instant friendship was awakening in their eyes, as they discovered how perfectly their ideas concurred.
The dinner was delightful, very intimate and warm; and Vaudrec stayed late into the evening, so comfortable did he feel in this household, in the company of this charming newly wedded couple.
As soon as he had left, Madeleine said to her husband: ‘He’s perfect, isn’t he? He improves immeasurably on better acquaintance. Now there’s a good friend, dependable, devoted, loyal. Ah! Had it not been for him…’
She left her thought unfinished, and Georges answered:
‘Yes, I find him very agreeable. I believe we shall get on together very well.’
But she went on immediately: ‘You didn’t know, but we’ve got work to do this evening, before we go to bed. I didn’t have time to tell you about this before dinner, because Vaudrec arrived straight away. I’ve just heard some important news, news about Morocco. I have it from Laroche-Mathieu, the deputy, the future minister. We must write a major article about this, a sensational scoop. I have facts and figures. We must get to work at once. Here, you take the lamp.’
He took it and they went into the study.
The same books stood in the bookcase, which now bore on its top shelf the three vases Forestier had bought in Golfe Juan, the day before his death. Under the table, the dead man’s foot-warmer awaited the feet of Du Roy who, after taking a seat, picked up the ivory pen-holder, the end of which had been slightly chewed by the teeth of the other.
Madeleine, leaning on the mantelpiece, lit a cigarette and related the news, then expounded her ideas, and the outline of the article she had in mind.
He listened to her attentively, while he scribbled some notes; and when she had finished he raised some objections, re-examined the question, enlarged its scope, and in his turn expounded not the plan of an article, but the plan of a campaign against the current ministry. This attack would be the beginning. His wife had stopped smoking, so greatly had her interest been aroused, so wide and far could she see as she followed Georges’s thinking.
She muttered from time to time: ‘Yes… yes… Very good… Excellent… That’s very powerful…’
And, when he in his turn had finished speaking: ‘Now, let’s begin to write,’ she said.
But he still found it hard to begin, and had difficulty finding the right words. So she quietly came up and leant over his shoulder, softly whispering his sentences into his ear. From time to time she would hesitate, and ask: ‘That is what you want to say, isn’t it?’ and he would reply: ‘Yes, exactly.’
She came up with some stinging barbs, venomous, feminine barbs aimed at wounding the head of the Cabinet; and she mixed ridicule of his face with ridicule of his politics, in a comic way that made the reader laugh even as it hit home with the accuracy of its observation.
Du Roy, occasionally, would add a few lines to deepen and strengthen the implications of an attack. Furthermore he was adept at the art of perfidious insinuation, which he had learnt while perfecting his technique in the gossip column; and when something that Madeleine reported as a fact struck him as doubtful or compromising, he excelled at leaving it for the reader to deduce, in such a way that it carried far greater conviction than if he had stated it positively.
When their article was completed, Georges reread it, declaiming it like a speech.
They were in complete agreement as to its excellence, and each smiled at the other in delight and surprise, as if they had just discovered one another. Gazing with admiration and tenderness deep into each other’s eyes, they embraced fervently, with a passionate ardour that communicated itself from their minds to their bodies.
Du Roy picked up the lamp again: ‘And now, bye-byes,’ he said, with a meaningful look. She replied: ‘You go first, master, since you are lighting the way.’
He did so, and she followed him into their room, tickling his neck between his collar and his hair with her fingertip, to make him go faster, for he dreaded that particular caress.
The article appeared under the signature of Georges du Roy de Cantel, and made a great impression. It caused quite a stir in the Chamber. Old Walter congratulated its author and made him political editor of La Vie française. The gossip column reverted to Boisrenard.
The newspaper then began a skilful, fierce campaign directed against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The attack, always adroit and well documented, ironic and serious in turn, occasionally amusing and occasionally vicious, struck home so unerringly and unremittingly that everyone was amazed. The other papers were always quoting La Vie française, borrowing whole passages from it, and those in power enquired about the possibility of muzzling this unknown and relentless enemy by bribing him with an administrative post.
Du Roy was becoming well known in political circles. He sensed his growing influence by the firmness of handshakes and the speed with which hats were raised. Furthermore he was filled with astonishment and admiration for his wife, for the ingenuity of her mind, the clever way she gathered information, and the number of people she knew.
When he came home he was forever encountering, in his drawing-room, a senator, a deputy, a magistrate, or a general, who treated Madeleine like an old friend, with respectful familiarity. Where had she met all these people? In society, she said. But how had she succeeded in gaining their trust and their affection? He couldn’t understand it. She’d be a damned good diplomat, he reflected.