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Title: The wanderer
(Le grand Meaulnes)
Author: Alain-Fournier
Author of introduction, etc.: Havelock Ellis
Translator: Françoise Roussel Delisle
Release date: October 19, 2026 [eBook #79827]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1928
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79827
Credits: Lukas Bystricky, Hendrik Kaiber and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WANDERER ***
ALAIN-FOURNIER
[Illustration]
THE WANDERER
(LE GRAND MEAULNES)
Translated from the French by
FRANÇOISE DELISLE
[Illustration]
Boston and New York
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1928
COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION, BY HAVELOCK ELLIS vii
PART I
I. THE BOARDER 3
II. AFTER FOUR O’CLOCK 13
III. I HAUNTED A BASKET-MAKER’S SHOP 17
IV. THE ESCAPE 22
V. THE CART COMES BACK 27
VI. SOME ONE KNOCKS AT THE WINDOW 32
VII. THE SILK WAISTCOAT 39
VIII. THE ADVENTURE 47
IX. A HALT 51
X. THE SHEEPFOLD 56
XI. THE MYSTERIOUS MANOR 60
XII. WELLINGTON’S ROOM 66
XIII. THE STRANGE FESTIVAL 71
XIV. THE STRANGE FESTIVAL (_continuation_) 76
XV. THE MEETING 83
XVI. FRANTZ DE GALAIS 93
XVII. THE STRANGE FESTIVAL (_end_) 100
PART II
I. THE GREAT GAME 107
II. WE FALL INTO AN AMBUSH 114
III. THE BOHEMIAN AT SCHOOL 119
IV. WHICH DEALS WITH THE MYSTERIOUS MANOR 127
V. THE MAN IN SAND-SHOES 134
VI. A QUARREL BEHIND THE SCENES 139
VII. THE BOHEMIAN TAKES OFF HIS BANDAGE 144
VIII. THE POLICE 148
IX. IN SEARCH OF THE LOST TRAIL 151
X. WASHING-DAY 160
XI. I BETRAY HIM 165
XII. THE THREE LETTERS FROM MEAULNES 171
PART III
I. BATHING 179
II. AT FLORENTIN’S 186
III. THE GHOST 198
IV. GREAT NEWS 208
V. THE COUNTRY OUTING 216
VI. THE COUNTRY OUTING (_end_) 224
VII. THE WEDDING DAY 234
VIII. FRANTZ’S CALL 238
IX. HAPPY PEOPLE 244
X. FRANTZ’S HOUSE 251
XI. A TALK IN THE RAIN 260
XII. THE BURDEN 267
XIII. THE COMPOSITION TEST BOOK 276
XIV. THE SECRET 280
XV. THE SECRET (_continued_) 288
XVI. THE SECRET (_concluded_) 296
EPILOGUE 302
INTRODUCTION
I
It is a high privilege to introduce the English translation of _Le
Grand Meaulnes_, a rare pleasure, indeed, to present so exquisite a
masterpiece to readers who may never even have heard of it. I hardly
deserve my good fortune, for it is little more than a year since I
first read it myself. Moved by the praise of good French critics, I
obtained the book and was fascinated by its quality. My friend Madame
Françoise Delisle, in whose hands I placed it, was equally impressed
and conceived the desire to translate it; in the midst of a busy life
she has given her best care to the loving preparation of the version
here presented. She is, I think, elect for the task, not merely by
sharing Alain-Fournier’s love of England and English culture, but drawn
to an artist who disappeared in the Great War on the verge of maturity,
since she is the sister of a distinguished young painter, Jean Paul
Lafitte, who was lost at about the same age and the same time in a
precisely similar way.
If I am a novice in the appreciation of this book, it may be added that
even in France the growth of Alain-Fournier’s reputation has been slow.
A quiet story of rural life--as on the surface it seems to be--put
forth by an unknown author on the eve of the most catastrophic episode
of recent history, in which he himself perished, it was not likely to
make much stir in men’s minds. Acclaimed from the first by a few fine
judges, like Péguy, Madame Rachilde, and Julien Benda, it was only by
a slow process of penetration, when the war was well over, that _Le
Grand Meaulnes_ began to take the high place which at length it
has won. Now, fifteen years after its first publication, there is no
doubt about the reputation of this book in France and the neighbouring
countries sensitive to French influence. Thus Jaloux, perhaps the
best critic of the modern novel, has repeatedly described _Le Grand
Meaulnes_ as one of the masterpieces of our time, and a chief source
of inspiration to contemporary literature. In Belgium, where strains
of temperament congenial to the spirit of Fournier may be found, the
influence of this book on the new writers of to-day is pronounced; a
delicate and mysterious work, bathed in so intimate and profound an
illumination of silence, as one of their young writers puts it, that
one almost dreads for it the noise of fame. ‘_Le Grand Meaulnes_,’
the young Belgian novelist Thialet has written, ‘remains in my mind
and my heart as at once the most beautiful memory of a whole epoch
that no one has understood and the most impassioned hope for the novel
of to-morrow.’ In Holland, a little more afield but again on a soil
we can well believe congenial, Dirk Coster, a notable Dutch author
of to-day, lately remarked to M. Frédéric Lefèvre in the course of an
interview: ‘There is a beautiful novel--I do not know what you think
of it in France but everyone knows it here--which I had the luck to
read when it appeared, _Le Grand Meaulnes_. It is like a child’s
smile, like a ray of sunshine on the face of a child or a youth. This
book of adolescence awakes in me the same impression as the paintings
of Douanier Rousseau; it reveals the freshness of soul as of a child
who, by some marvellous chance, possessed the power of expression of
a man and of a great artist.’ Put in another way, we see in this book
the work of a man, a great artist, who had still retained the vision of
youth.
So it is that we may best approach _Le Grand Meaulnes_ by knowing
something of the man who stands behind it and wrought it out of the
substance of his own spirit. It is part of the good fortune of the
English translation of his book that to-day we can for the first
time come near to the elusive personality of Alain-Fournier. This is
due to the recent publication, in four substantial volumes, of his
intimate correspondence with his lifelong friend Jacques Rivière, who
later became editor of the _Nouvelle Revue Française_, the most
distinguished of French literary periodicals, and until his premature
death was one of the most interesting figures in contemporary French
letters. By the piety of Madame Isabelle Rivière, sister of one of
the friends and wife of the other, the letters of both have been
brought together and published, seemingly in full. It is a fascinating
record of the development in character and experience of two sensitive
youthful figures, one of them at least an exquisite artist, who stood
at the centre of the revolutionary change in the orientation of the
French literary spirit which took place during the first decade of the
present century.
II
Henri Fournier--to use the name by which he first comes before us--was
born on October 3, 1886, at Chapelle-d’Angillon, a small place, to
the north of Bourges in the Département of the Cher, on the border of
Sologne. The Sologne is a region between the Cher and the Loire, once
flourishing and with many Huguenots among the population. When they
were driven out the region became deserted, a land of marshes and ponds
thinly populated under unhealthy conditions, but also a land of tender
and delicate solitudes, with many a more or less decayed old mansion
or château still marvellous and exquisite amid the wild scenery. In
recent years there has been a movement for draining and reclaiming
this district; it has become healthy and more populous, though still
a favourite country for people who go to shoot wildfowl. We have to
note these traits of the Sologne for it was background predestined
for the adventure of _Le Grand Meaulnes_, ‘the country of my
dreams,’ wrote Fournier in later life of Nançay and the Sologne, ‘the
country from which I am exiled.’ But it was more especially the still
smaller village of Épineuil, at the extreme north of the Département,
where his parents were for a long time the village teachers, that
his childhood and boyhood were passed, leading the life of a little
peasant. This region, in the centre of France, the old province of
Berry, is in its southern portion the literary land of George Sand.
But Fournier was in the north of it, a region of different aspect,
quieter, a land of alders, rushes, and reeds, in a horizon which, it
has been said, recalls the miniatures in the old French Books of Hours
with their delicate little pinnacles against the sky. It was the region
which alone Fournier knew in early life and it made on him a profound
impression. He loved it, but in some mysterious way, while far from
the sea and from international routes, it was the background which
favoured the ardour of his adventurous spirit. We know how that flame
was fed. At the beginning of July, every year, the books arrived which
were later to be distributed as school prizes. These books Henri and
Isabelle carried up to the attic to devour greedily beforehand. It
was in this way probably that he first read _Robinson Crusoe_, a
book that always meant much for him, though at first merely as a story
of actual adventure, and this was the beginning of his attraction
to England, which for him was the land of adventure. Naturally it
was towards the ocean that his thoughts were directed (it was by no
accident, as Pilon remarks, that Frantz de Galais belonged to a family
of sailors) and at the age of thirteen he resolved to become a naval
officer. After a short period at school in Paris he went to Brest
to prepare for this career. But here, although he had done well in
mathematics, he seems to have found the work uncongenial and felt out
of sympathy with his surroundings. He left Brest with regret, but with
his adventurous temper unquenched, and throughout his work we catch
subtle suggestions of ships and the sea. Henceforth his adventures in
real life, even for those who most sensitively follow his career and
his intimate letters, were largely beyond exact analysis; we catch
glimpses, there is a far music in our ears, we inhale a delicate
fragrance--and that is all. ‘Perhaps I am not altogether a real
person,’ said Benjamin Constant, and we are told that when Fournier
came on that remark it was with a shock; he felt it applied to himself.
‘But,’ he said on reflection, ‘perhaps I am able to pass where you see
only an abyss.’
It was from lack of anything better rather than from any immediate
sense of vocation that Fournier turned from the sea to letters,
thinking, no doubt, that all his early dreams had gone for nothing.
It was not so. We do not understand Fournier unless we remember
Bougainville, the great French navigator who found and fascinatingly
described a Paradise in the Pacific, and unless we bear in mind the
scheme of _Robinson Crusoe_, the great English epic which is the
prototype--however remote it may seem--of the adventure of Meaulnes in
Sologne, in the heart of France.
At the age of seventeen, then, in 1903, Henri Fournier went to a
well-known Secondary School, the Lycée Lakanal, delightfully situated
to the north of Paris, with the idea of preparing for the École Normale
Supérieure. Here his independent temper quickly manifested itself
in revolt against various antiquated regulations and humiliating
obligations; he placed himself at the head of a group of rebels and
circulated revolutionary petitions aimed at the scholastic officials.
Jacques Rivière, who from Bordeaux had entered the Lycée at the
same age and the same time and with the same object, observed his
comrade’s proceedings with interest, even with secret sympathy, but
his own temperament was different and his character more timid. These
dissemblances at first held them apart. But before long a revelation,
which came to both at once, served to bring them together.
When we are young we do not immediately know where we shall hear
those voices of our own time to which our virginal hearts will deeply
and instinctively respond. They must come from figures of our own
time, older than we are or they would not have found expression, but
not old enough to have ‘arrived,’ so that we do not at once learn of
their existence. Our teachers, as well as popular fame, thrust upon us
the figures of the last generation, by whom they had themselves been
inspired in youth, and these are, in general, precisely the figures to
whom our instincts are most rebellious--though later we grow able to
estimate them better--while the great figures of the past can only be
genuinely understood when we have ourselves reached maturity. Young
Fournier seems to have discovered nothing of literature or art at
Épineuil, and at Lakanal the figures that came before him--Racine,
Rousseau, Chateaubriand, even Flaubert--had nothing to say to his
heart, for the great masters presented in a scholastic framework can
scarcely make any strong appeal to the young mind. But one day a
professor read to the class Henri de Régnier’s _Tel qu’en Songe_.
A new note struck both boys at once. They turned towards each other
and from that moment were friends. ‘We came upon words,’ as Rivière
later put it, ‘without even knowing before that such existed, chosen
expressly for ourselves, words which not only caressed our sensibility
but revealed us to ourselves. An unknown spot was touched in our souls;
a harp we had not suspected within us awoke and replied.’ It was the
process of religious ‘conversion’ which so often occurs in youth. With
Rivière, who was less of a poet and artist, the process was not final;
a spirit of disquiet, receptive and yet always quickly critical of what
he received, he was much troubled in later years over more specifically
religious problems. But with Fournier--though he, too, was at one
period touched by religion--the experience was decisive; he had, once
and for all, found the path to his own Heaven.
Henri de Régnier is perhaps the most exquisite poet of the so-called
Symbolist Movement which at that moment reached its full expression
in French literature. It was natural that these two youths should
respond harmoniously to the spirit of their own time. But it must
not be concluded that Alain-Fournier (or Rivière either) is to be
classed among the Symbolists. Symbolism was the porch through which
Fournier entered to take possession of his own mysterious domain,
but while echoes of the Symbolists’ delicate music linger about that
domain, it has a vigorous life of its own completely independent
of the fashions of a movement which had in it much that was merely
decorative and artificial and evanescent, though it opened a new
home of the soul for the young poetic natures of the end of the last
century. We are not surprised to find the youthful Fournier, who had
not yet discovered Mallarmé or Verlaine or Rimbaud or even Baudelaire,
reading with congenial enthusiasm Henri de Régnier and Maeterlinck and
Viélé-Griffin, but more especially Laforgue and Jammes. These two
really embodied aspects of his own temperament, and if at this time
they may seem to have excited a certain degree of formative influence
over him, while Rivière was at first carried away by Barrès, they were
merely aiding him to discover his own path. In Laforgue he found a
temperament closely allied to his own, tender, timid, proud, ironical
(‘ironical because wounded, and only on that account’). Physically,
Rivière remarked, Fournier was far from being timid, but he had a
deeper timidity of the spirit, in the sense that while he was strongly
attracted to women he could not endure the idea of being disconcerted
or ill-used, and required for the development of love the perfection
of purity and innocence. In this way, as will happen to the idealist,
he manifested the cruelty of those who demand more than life will
yield. At this period of youth he formed a relationship, of quite
innocent nature, with a student girl who became his companion on Sunday
excursions and whom he tried to form to the shape of his ideal. But he
suffered from the limits she imposed to his imagination; he desired
more sincerity, more openness, and her little feminine coquetries hurt
him.
Francis Jammes was a rather later but still youthful influence; he
appealed to Fournier on the naturalistic side, to that sensitive
realism which was never submerged in his idealism. Fournier was
enchanted by Jammes’ close and fervid grip of Nature and the felicity
with which he has sometimes been able to incarnate the very scent and
colour and shape of things in verse which, it has been said, ‘may
sometimes be grasped like a pole and sometimes be crushed between the
fingers like a sprig of mint,’ while Jammes’ great maxim, ‘We do not
separate art from life,’ was adopted by Fournier and carried to a point
of exquisite perfection which Jammes never attained. It was at this
time--while absorbing Gide and Claudel and Rimbaud and Ibsen--that
Fournier began to seek after his own personal style in the art of
writing. Now also, at the age of nineteen, he began occasionally to
write verse, always in free form, and, while personal and genuine,
hardly the utterance of a born poet. But it remains interesting to
us precisely because it is personal and genuine. Some poems have
been printed since his death and are important because they record
(especially ‘A Travers les Etés,’ one of the earliest) the precise germ
of the future _Grand Meaulnes_.
One day (it was Ascension week in 1905), Rivière narrates, while
walking in Paris along the Cours-la-Reine, Fournier met a marvellously
beautiful girl whom he was impelled to follow. He even succeeded by
some lucky ruse in obtaining her name and address. The next time he saw
her, although her air was extremely reserved, he approached and spoke.
Strange to say, for she appears to have been of superior social class,
he was favoured with some words of response which led him to think
he was not altogether disdained. He felt that this lovely apparition
was exerting an effort over herself to say: ‘We must separate; we have
been foolish.’ She left Paris; Fournier had the greatest difficulty in
finding her traces. At last, in 1907, he learnt--on the very day after
he had unexpectedly failed to pass his École Normale examination--that,
as he at once wrote briefly and in deep grief to tell his friend
Rivière: ‘Mademoiselle de Q. was married last winter. What is now
left to me, dear friend, but you?’ That corollary was wrong. The
great adventure of Alain-Fournier’s life was indeed over. But Admiral
Meaulnes had set forth to seek Yvonne de Galais, and a masterpiece of
art was slowly growing beneath the surface.
The woman who incarnated for Fournier the essence of a mysterious
domain which was hardly of this world (in his later letters he always
refers to her as Yvonne de Galais) continued to live in his memory,
though there were episodes in his life, we clearly discern, which
left behind an oppressive burden later to be echoed in _Le Grand
Meaulnes_. But the anniversary of the day on which he met the young
girl in the Cours-la-Reine was a sacred season for Fournier. Later, the
year before his death, he met her again, married and more inaccessible
than ever, and wrote to Rivière: ‘That was really the only being in the
world who could have given me peace and repose. It is now probable
that I shall never achieve peace in this world.’
III
We have gone a little ahead in the story of Fournier’s life. Another
significant event belonged to the year 1905. From childhood he had felt
an attraction to things English; now he resolved to spend the summer
holidays--from July to September--in London, and secured an easy post
as French correspondent for a London merchant, into whose house he
was admitted as a boarder on friendly terms. All the impressions of
this episode are duly recorded in letters to Rivière. They are mainly
favourable; indeed in many respects England and the English made an
intimate appeal to the French youth.
When we read the detailed reports of his impressions we note a touch
of critical amusement from time to time, but always mixed with
sympathetic appreciation. He lived in the western suburb of Chiswick
within easy reach of Kew Gardens and Richmond, and was delighted with
the green freshness of England and the pleasant little villas, with
white-curtained windows, each in its own garden, so unlike Paris. He
quickly began to observe English girls, with whom he came in touch
both at the office and in the house, and the impression they made on
him was not altogether favourable. He seems to have felt that--‘with
their masculine gestures and noses in the air’--they were often
incompletely aware of the fact that they were women and only concerned
to be good comrades. They were too far away from the Frenchwoman, whom
he describes as ‘unknown beneath her veil, silent and remote, shut up
in her distant salon, and so femininely enwrapped in her dark dress.’
There are exquisite young girls in England, he remarks, but they become
at once too comradely. He himself, on the other hand, seemed to them
cold and reserved.
England, he said later, enlarged his vision of life. He studied a new
national temperament. He learnt to love Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley,
Rossetti, and Morris. He grew seriously interested in painting. He was
specially drawn to the Pre-Raphaelites. To-day there is a revulsion
of feeling against that wrongly named movement, and it is no longer
easy to realise the new revelation of beauty and naturalism which
Burne-Jones and his fellow-workers brought to the youth of forty years
ago, disgusted with the dead academic conventions of the epoch. For
Fournier it was still new, and it embodied in painting something of the
same union of realistic detail with dreamlike vision which he himself
was already foreseeing in the novel. His favourite in contemporary
French art at this time, Maurice Denis, may be said to have similar
points of affinity. Fournier left England (in excellent reputation
with his hosts) ‘with much tenderness of heart,’ for ‘in many points
I resemble these English,’ and he carried away, not only the memory of
exquisite countrysides, but a new confidence and serenity in the road
he was himself to follow.
Next year Fournier settled in Paris with his grandmother and sister and
attended as a day-pupil the upper courses at Louis-le-Grand. His aim
was still the École Normale. But when the day of examination arrived he
was suffering with brain fatigue from the strain and he failed in the
oral. The career he had aimed at was definitely closed to him. ‘I do
not see you a professor,’ Rivière had written to him, and on looking
back after Fournier’s death he wrote that the design was mad, for to a
spirit of that temper ‘no paths could be easy save those that had never
been explored.’
In 1907, Fournier wrote and published in the _Grande Revue_ (with
a dedication to Maurice Denis) his first personal little essay in
prose, though still a rather poetic prose, ‘Le Corps de la Femme.’ With
that indifference to ‘pure beauty’ which Rivière said he hated in his
friend, Fournier here revolted against the classic image of woman, the
nude pagan idol which he associated with Taine and Louys and Gourmont,
and celebrated a more modern ideal which had passed through centuries
of Christianity, and emerged frail and tender, yet with something of
the simplicity of the peasant and the fragrance of nightfall in spring,
all the delicate essence of her body expressed in her garment. In
1907 also he began his two years of military service and endured the
miseries, fatigues, and forced oppressive comradeships which that
life brings to men of his temperament, emerging, however, at the end
as a sub-lieutenant, and carrying away with him not only an enlarged
knowledge of the France he loved (there are exquisite passages of
description in his letters) but a precious familiarity with the lives
of the men of the people, his comrades.
At one moment of discouragement Fournier proposed to go out to China
to enter the Customs Service under Sir Robert Hart, and at another
almost accepted a post in an English school at Margate. Through
everything he became increasingly occupied in the absorption or the
criticism of contemporary letters and art and music. At an early period
he recognised that his own field was the novel, and he realised,
with remarkable lucidity in self-judgment, the precise nature of the
art he was bringing to the novel. That art was so natural to him
that we cannot discern the moment at which _Le Grand Meaulnes_
began to grow in his mind, though we may follow its development and
modifications for five or six years before it was finally completed and
published.
But a definite step in the growth of the book took place in 1910. He
had not yet completely left Symbolism behind and was struggling with
a method which he felt to be difficult and artificial. At this time
he was much impressed by Marguerite Audoux’s _Marie-Claire_ and
R. L. Stevenson’s _Treasure Island_; they gave him a new impetus
towards a method he had already felt within him, and now he writes to
Rivière: ‘In the end I have scrapped it all, for, one fine evening, I
found my _road of Damascus_. I began to write simply, directly, as
in my letters, in little tight voluptuous paragraphs, a simple story
which might be my own. Now it goes by itself.’
Alain-Fournier lived in the Observatory quarter of Paris in a quiet
and isolated street recalling the streets of Bourges, and his room,
we are told, was simple and neat and orderly. He might often be seen
in the Luxembourg Gardens, a slender young man dressed in black, with
a dark serious face and slight moustache, ‘the face of an imperious
young prince,’ it has been called. Pilon says he recalled the figures
described by Pater in his _Imaginary Portraits_ when dealing with
Watteau. ‘You could not see him without loving him,’ said Paul Fort.
But Paul Fort had no intimate knowledge of the man he found so lovable;
to come near to Fournier may well have been a difficult experience; his
sensitive tenderness was not incompatible with hardness and violence.
There was a certain awkwardness in him--even in his hands, we are
told--and he lacked patience. ‘Only women who have loved me,’ he
himself said, ‘know to what point I can be cruel. Because I want the
whole. You see,’ he adds, ‘my hero Meaulnes!’ And Valentine in the
story, I may further add, was based on Fournier’s personal experience.
In a letter to his sister he narrates the episode with the real Jeanne
B. whom he treated so badly. Fournier mentally prescribed to women
as Rivière says, the angle at which they were to enter his life, and
at the smallest lapse on their part he would overwhelm them with
reproaches for their innocent failure to attain his ideal. The ideal
demand, he himself remarks in 1907, which he would make of his wife,
was ‘audacious initiative’ blended with ‘superhuman tact.’
He formed various literary relationships during the last years of his
life, the most notable being with Péguy, whom he first met in 1910.
Péguy, for all his obstinate temperament, was often influenced by
Fournier and always ready to follow his advice. Fournier on his side
found in Péguy the most congenial of contemporary writers. He felt a
strong sympathy with his instinctive, childlike peasant’s nature; he
admired his spiritual materialism (‘a Rabelais of ideas,’ he calls
him), and with that tendency to find the miraculous in everyday life
which Péguy carried to so high a point Fournier was entirely at one.
Péguy was not without influence on _Le Grand Meaulnes_ and,
during Fournier’s last years, seems to have been his nearest friend.
Rivière’s sympathy with Péguy was only partial, and at this period the
correspondence between Fournier and Rivière begins to languish. The
old personal ties always subsisted, but the profound temperamental
difference was becoming more clearly revealed. Rivière admits that
Fournier’s attitude sometimes ‘gets on his nerves,’ while Fournier
jealously guarded his own spiritual integrity and could not be moved
from his own path. But to Rivière we owe a sensitively appreciative and
adequate account of Fournier’s life which cannot be superseded.
Over the last years we seem to feel a hovering obscurity. Rivière
in after days reproached himself--though the reproach was
unnecessary--with a neglect that led his friend to fall, we gather,
into what Rivière regarded as evil courses and to come under disturbing
influences. Amid episodes with women which brought him no satisfaction
because, as he said, he had ‘once met an Antigone,’ we find Fournier
still actively pursuing his aims in literature and with the promise of
success. But often we only see him through an atmosphere of melancholy.
He realises that he has lost his childhood vision of the world and
at times he is inclined to recover what he has lost by turning to
religion. He obtains a copy of the Bible and is touched by incidents in
the Gospels; he is deeply impressed by Dostoevski, especially by _The
Idiot_. At one moment it even occurs to him that he would like to
enter a religious order and seek new adventure as a missionary.
When the Great War broke out in the summer of 1914 Fournier happened
to be in the south of France. Like others--like Rivière, also in the
south and who chanced to be in the same army division--he was hurried
among many hardships to the front, and found himself eventually in the
Meuse, near Vaux-les-Palameix, at a later period of the war occupied by
the Americans. Fournier’s captain was an unintelligent man whose own
idea, against the better judgment of his lieutenants, was: ‘Hunt out
the Boches!’ Fournier, ‘timid but fearless,’ for whom life was a ‘great
game,’ never drew back. The inevitable end swiftly ensued. Fournier
led a company; the captain was in command. On the 22d of September at
Saint-Rémy a vague figure was seen in the enemy’s lines. The captain
rushed forward, revolver in hand, followed by Fournier, but only by a
small number of men. They were being led into an ambush on the edge
of the wood. Most of them were shot down. Fournier fell struck in the
forehead, according to the only report that could be obtained, but his
body was not recovered. Until the end of the war his friends cherished
the hope that, like his friend Rivière, he had been imprisoned and
conveyed to Germany. When after the war, Rivière came to search the
ravaged and desolate ground for traces of his friend he found little
memorials set up by the Germans--some ‘to a French hero’--but they were
all of later date than Fournier’s disappearance.
Five years earlier he had written in a letter: ‘I am seeking for the
key to these escapes into desired lands--and perhaps it is Death, after
all.’
IV
There are people to whom _Le Grand Meaulnes_ seems a simple and
insignificant story, just as there are people who inhale in vain the
most exquisite fragrance of flowers, or, to keep within the sphere of
art, find only trivial the music of Mozart which transports others
beyond the earth. For, as Racine said, in defending his _Bérénice_
from critics who could see nothing in it but bald simplicity, all
creation is out of nothing. And while Jehovah on the seventh day beheld
everything he had made as very good, for an unseeing eye it may still
have been chaos.
That is why it has seemed worth while to trace the career of
Alain-Fournier with some care. It is worth while, that is, to give
the reader the clue to the process of creation here achieved.
Fournier disliked intellectual abstractions; he moved in the sphere
of the intangible. Yet he was an acute critic with the most precise
knowledge of the subtle course of his own mind. Although receptive to
outside influences, he only admitted those that were akin to his own
temperament. He knew from an early period his exact aim, and the exact
equipment he possessed for attaining it, although he was not at first
sure of the path by which it was to be reached. The letters written to
Rivière from school days on to maturity--besides being one side of a
most notable record of friendship--form a fascinating document of the
sensitively self-conscious evolution of an original artist and are a
real contribution to the psychology of art.
The posthumous volume of Fournier’s fragments is entitled, in
accordance with the headings of some of them, _Miracles_, and
that title chances to indicate the nature of his work. In a supreme
masterpiece of literature which describes and symbolises what is called
‘miracles,’ it is told how the divine artist may turn simple water into
wine, or make a little everyday bread suffice to feed a multitude.
Such always is the miracle of the finest art, stupendous only in its
simplicity. _Le Grand Meaulnes_ holds us, not as a brilliant
achievement of rural romance such as George Sand accomplished in the
same region of France with _La Mare au Diable_, nor as a fantastic
fairy-tale allegory such as Theodore Powys has presented superbly in
_Mr. Weston’s Good Wine_. Alain-Fournier put forth no magnificent
effort. He remained true to his early maxim of the unity of life
and art. It is possible to say that there is nothing in _Le Grand
Meaulnes_ from one end to the other but the trivial details of real
life as its author had known life. Only they had fallen slowly from
childhood on to a peculiarly sensitive and vibrant organism and when
at last they were transformed into art a miracle was achieved and the
water had become wine.
We realise the fidelity to his own life of the episodes and the
atmosphere in Fournier’s novel when we read the correspondence. Not
only is he himself in the narrative all through, so that, as he once
remarks, he hardly knew whether he was Meaulnes or young Seurel or
Frantz or the writer of the book, but we may note how in the smallest
details he seeks to come as close as he can to his own personal life.
The place-names of the book are, with little or no change, those around
his early home. So are the personal names; Fournier’s father was
Auguste, and Meaulnes, after some changes, was finally called Augustin;
Uncle Florentin, with his large family and large shop, corresponds
to the real Uncle Florent of Nançay (‘the land of my dreams’), as
described in Fournier’s letters. The sounds and sights and odours that
sank into the sensitive spirit of the real youth--all the traits of
this remote and lonely spot of old France--live again transposed in the
novel. Nor must we conclude that Alain-Fournier was merely a regional
novelist. His outlook was too wide for this; his alert intelligence
and emotional sensibility were equally alive in the totally different
atmosphere of cities. He projected a novel in which he would do for
Paris, his later home, what he was doing in _Le Grand Meaulnes_
for his early home; he had planned, and even begun, several novels,
and a fragment of one (_Colombe Blanchet_) has been published.
Rivière has somewhere remarked that it is not easy to describe the
method of Fournier in words that might not equally apply to the method
of Maeterlinck’s early plays. The methods are, however, totally
different. Maeterlinck’s structures were of romantic material,
heightened by the skilful use of silence, even (to use the phrase of
Villiers) a _crescendo_ of silences. Fournier’s structure was
severely realistic in every detail, and it was the interstices of the
structure itself that were subtly interpenetrated with dream-life.
Rivière, always a severe critic of his friend, told him in early
life that he had too much ‘sensiblerie,’ that he was inclined to be
sentimental, and to find everything ‘touching,’ too much in the vein
of Dickens’s _David Copperfield_ and Goncourt’s _Germinie
Lacerteux_. That certainly was the danger for Fournier; but he
was saved by his own acute self-criticism, in spite of his profound
contempt of the intellect, and, above all, by his instinct as artist,
for, as he himself replied to Rivière, ‘sensiblerie’ could not come
in where perfect art was attained. All his life he was haunted by
dreams, but it was his good fortune to be instinctively aware that, as
Paul Valéry has put it, ‘to tell one’s dreams one must be infinitely
awake.’ Fournier has been called the brother of Gérard de Nerval, and
it is probably true that Nerval is the one figure in French literature
with whom Fournier may be instructively compared. Gérard de Nerval
was a fascinating and original dreamer, but there was this profound
distinction that he was never fully awake and his final suicide was
the natural outcome not only of his life but of his art. Fournier
himself found Gérard de Nerval’s _Sylvie_ rather conventional and
artificial. But it must be remembered that Fournier in spite of his
eager interest in all that books may yield, had a deep distrust of
‘literature,’ and felt that it was his own business as an artist to
hold aloof from it. ‘Every effort to bend my thought to literature,
ancient or modern, is vicious.’ While as to abstractions and formulas,
‘the formula must unroll itself as slowly as life.’ But this attitude
involved neither an insensitiveness to what others were doing--that
must already be clear--nor any egotistic concentration on himself. ‘The
novel that I have carried in my head for three years’ he wrote as early
as 1905, ‘was at first only me, me, and me, but it has gradually been
depersonalised and enlarged and is no longer the novel which everyone
plans at eighteen.’ And, again in the same year, he explains that his
aim in seeking to express tangible life in the form of a novel, is to
produce, not himself, but ‘the rich treasury of accumulated lives’ he
already held within him in the form of a moving ‘dream’--and such dream
must embody everything in the vision of the people described which is
not mere social or animal mechanism. With all his vivid sensibility to
the subtlest facts of real life it was by his ‘dream’ that Fournier was
led, and that dream, as he explained, was at once the reality of the
past and the desire of the future, since we are made of old memories,
and impressions that are unconscious, so that Desire is Recollection.
‘Behind every moment of life,’ he wrote in 1907, ‘I seek the life
of my Paradise; behind every landscape I feel the landscape of my
Paradise. I am content.’ Or, as in another mood he puts it: ‘If I have
been childish and weak and foolish, at least I have, at moments, had
the strength in this infamous city to create _my life_, like a
marvellous fairy-tale.’
In every poet--in the heart of everyone who shares in the poet’s
spirit--there is a certain restless homesickness of the soul for which
each seeks to find his own expression; Poe, for instance, in _To
Helen_, Shelley over and over again, and once at least in the
record of a personal experience, _Epipsychidion_. Alain-Fournier
was similarly inspired by his own life, and if we seek in prose an
expression of this nostalgia of the soul we can perhaps nowhere find
it so well expressed as in a book which may now be counted among the
permanent human possessions, _Le Grand Meaulnes_.
HAVELOCK ELLIS
This Introduction is mainly based on Jacques Rivière et
Alain-Fournier, _Correspondance 1905-1914_ (1928), the
Introduction by Rivière to _Miracles_ (1924), and a booklet by
E. Pilon, _Alain-Fournier_ (1920).
THE WANDERER
PART I
CHAPTER I
THE BOARDER
He arrived at our home on a Sunday of November, 189.... I still say
‘our home,’ although the house no longer belongs to us. We left that
part of the country nearly fifteen years ago and shall certainly never
go back to it.
We were living in the building of the Higher Elementary Classes at
Sainte-Agathe’s School. My father, whom I was in the habit of calling
M. Seurel as did other pupils, was head of the Middle School and
also of the Higher Elementary classes where pupils worked for the
preliminary teacher’s examination. Mother taught the infants.
At the extreme end of the small town a long red house with five glass
doors and a Virginia creeper upon its walls; an immense courtyard with
shelters, a wash-house and a huge gateway, on the side looking towards
the village; on the north side, a small gate opening on the road
leading to the station three kilometres off; on the south, at the back
of the house, fields, gardens, meadows joining the outskirts ... such
is the simple plan of this dwelling where I spent the most troubled but
the most happy days of my life--the house from which we launched our
adventures and to which they returned to break themselves like waves on
a bare rock.
At the time of some new ‘appointments,’ a whim of fate, due to some
inspector or to the Prefect, had led us there. Towards the end of
the summer holidays, a long time ago, a peasant cart, preceding our
household goods, deposited my mother and myself before the little
rusty gate. Urchins who were stealing peaches in the garden silently
escaped through holes in the hedge.... My mother, whom we used to
call Millie and who was the most methodical housekeeper I ever knew,
had at once gone into the rooms full of dusty straw, and had declared
with much consternation--as was her custom at each ‘removal’--that
our furniture would never fit in a house so badly built.... She had
come out to impart her trouble to me. While speaking she had, with
her handkerchief, gently wiped my face blackened by the journey. Then
she had gone back to consider what doors and windows would have to be
blocked to make the place habitable.... As for me, wearing a big straw
hat with streamers, I was left alone on the gravel of that strange
playground, waiting for her, prying shyly around the well and under the
cart-shed.
Thus to-day I picture our arrival. For as soon as I wish to bring
back the distant memory of that first evening when I waited in our
playground at Sainte-Agathe, at once it is another kind of waiting
which I recall, at once I see myself again, both hands pressed to the
bars of the front gate, anxiously watching for some one who will soon
come down the High Street. If I try to imagine that first night which
I must have spent in my attic, amidst the lumber-rooms on the upper
storey, I recall other nights; I am no longer alone in that room; a
tall, restless, and friendly shadow moves along its walls and walks to
and fro. And that quiet countryside--the school, old Father Martin’s
field, with its three walnut trees, the garden daily invaded on the
stroke of four by women paying calls--all this is, in my memory,
forever stirred and transformed by the presence of him who upset all
our youth and whose sudden flight even did not leave us in peace.
* * * * *
Yet we had already been ten years in that district when Meaulnes
arrived.
I was fifteen. It was a cold Sunday of November, the first day of
autumn to make one think of winter. All day Millie had waited for the
station omnibus to bring her a hat for the bad weather. That morning
she missed Mass, and right up to the sermon, from my place in the choir
with the other children, I looked anxiously towards the door to see
her come to church wearing her new hat.
In the afternoon, I had to go to vespers alone. ‘Anyhow,’ she said to
comfort me, brushing my little suit with her hand, ‘even if it had
come, this precious hat, I should have had to spend my Sunday making it
up again.’
This is how our winter Sundays were often spent. In the early morning
Father went off to some misty pond to jack-fish from a boat, and Mother
retired till nightfall into her dark bedroom, to remake her simple
dresses. She shut herself up in that way for fear some lady visitor,
as poor as herself and as proud, might surprise her at the job. As for
me, vespers over, I waited, reading in the cold dining-room, until she
opened the door to show me how she was getting on.
That Sunday, a little excitement in front of the church kept me
out-of-doors after vespers. A christening, under the porch, had
attracted a crowd of urchins. In the square a few villagers had put on
their firemen’s jackets and piled their arms;[1] stiff and stamping
their feet with cold, they were listening to Boujardon, the corporal,
losing himself in theory....
The christening bells stopped suddenly, like festive chimes at a
mistaken time and place. Boujardon and his men, rifles slung over their
shoulders, dragged off the fire engine at a slow trot, and I saw
them disappear at the first turning, followed by four silent urchins,
crushing under their heavy boots the twigs on the frozen road, down
which I dared not follow them.
In the village the only place left alive was the Café Daniel, from
which I heard the murmurs of the drinkers’ talk rise and fall, and
hugging the low wall of the big playground which separated our house
from the village, I came, rather anxious at being late, to the small
gate.
It was ajar and I saw at once that something unusual was happening.
In fact, there stood, outside the dining-room door--the nearest of
the five glass doors opening on the playground--a grey-headed woman,
leaning forward and trying to look through the curtains. She was small
and wore a black old-fashioned velvet bonnet. Her face was thin and
refined, but worn with anxiety, and, at sight of her, I do not know
what misgiving made me stand still on the first step, in front of the
gate.
‘My goodness, where’s he gone!’ she was muttering to herself. ‘He was
with me a moment ago. He must have gone all round the house already.
Perhaps he’s run away....’
And after each sentence she gave three barely perceptible little taps
on the window-pane.
No one came to let in the unknown visitor. Without any doubt Millie had
received her hat from the station, and, hearing nothing, at the end of
the red bedroom, before a bed bestrewed with old ribbons and uncurled
feathers, she was stitching, undoing, and remaking her modest headgear.
In fact, as soon as I came into the dining-room, followed closely by
the visitor, Mother appeared with both her hands to her head, holding
wires, ribbons, and feathers which were not yet perfectly secured.
She smiled at me, from blue eyes tired with working till dusk, and
exclaimed: ‘Look! I was waiting to show you....’
But noticing that woman sitting in the big armchair at the other end
of the room, she stopped, disconcerted. She quickly removed her hat,
and during the whole scene that followed, held it against her breast,
inside out, like a nest resting in the bend of her right arm.
The woman with the old-fashioned bonnet had begun to explain herself.
She held between her knees an umbrella and a leather handbag, slightly
nodding her head the while, and clicking her tongue as do village women
when paying a call. She had regained full assurance, and when she spoke
of her son she even assumed a superior and mysterious manner which
puzzled us.
They had both driven from La Ferté d’Angillon, fourteen kilometres
from Sainte-Agathe. Herself a widow--and very rich, as she gave us to
understand--she had lost the younger of her two children, a boy called
Antoine, who had suddenly died one evening, on returning from school,
after bathing with his brother in a dirty pond. She had decided to let
Augustin, the elder boy, board with us, that he might take the Higher
Course.
And forthwith she began to praise this boarder whom she was bringing
us. I could no longer recognise the grey-beaded woman whom, only a
minute ago, I had seen stooping in front of the door, with the piteous
and haggard bearing of a hen who has lost the wildest chick in her
brood.
What she was relating with admiration about her son was surprising
enough; he loved doing things to please her, he had often gone along
the river-bank for miles barelegged, to bring her wild ducks’ and moor
hens’ eggs hidden amongst the reeds.... He could set nets.... The other
night, he had found a pheasant caught in a snare, in the wood....
I, who hardly dared to enter the house if I had torn my overall, looked
at Millie with astonishment.
But Mother was no longer listening. She even motioned to the woman to
be quiet; and putting down her ‘nest’ on the table with great care, she
got up silently as if to take some one by surprise....
Above us, indeed, in a box-room where the blackened remains of the
last fourteenth of July fireworks were piled up, an unknown step trod
confidently to and fro, shaking the ceiling, crossed the huge dark
lumber-rooms of the upper storey and passed at last towards the unused
assistant masters’ rooms, where lime tree leaves were put to dry and
apples to ripen.
‘A little while ago,’ said Millie in a low voice, ‘I heard that noise
in the rooms downstairs; I thought it was you, François, come back....’
No one answered. We stood, the three of us, with beating hearts; then
the attic door which led to the kitchen was heard to open; some one
came down, crossed the kitchen, and appeared in the dim entrance of the
dining-room.
‘Why! It is you, Augustin!’ said the visitor.
He was a tall boy of seventeen, or thereabout. At first, as night
was falling, I saw only his peasant felt hat, pushed to the back of
his head, and his black overall[2] tightly belted in the fashion of
schoolboys. I could see, too, that he was smiling....
He saw me, and before any one had had time to demand an explanation:
‘Aren’t you coming into the playground?’ he asked.
I hesitated for a moment. Then, as Millie did not keep me back, I took
up my cap and went towards him. We left by the kitchen door and went
into the yard under the shelter where darkness was already gathering.
In the dim evening light I watched, as I walked, his sharp-featured
face with its straight nose and downy lip.
‘Look,’ said he, ‘I found this in your box-rooms. You couldn’t have
looked at these things.’
He was holding in his hand a little wheel of blackened wood; a string
of partly burnt squibs was twisted round it; evidently a Katherine
wheel from the fireworks display on the fourteenth of July.
‘Two of them didn’t go off. We will set them alight,’ said he, in the
tone of voice of one who hopes to make better finds later on.
He threw his hat to the ground, and I saw that his hair was cropped
like a peasant’s. He showed me two squib lighters with their paper
tapers which the flame had singed, before going out. He stuck the axle
of the wheel into the sand and--to my astonishment, as such things
were strictly forbidden me--pulled out of his pocket a box of matches.
Bending down with care, he lighted the squib. Then, taking hold of my
hand, he quickly drew me back.
A moment later, as she came out of the door with Meaulnes’ mother after
having discussed and settled the boarding fees, my mother saw two
sheaves of red-and-white stars rising up under the shelter, hissing
like bellows. For a moment’s space she caught a glimpse of me as I
stood in this magic light, holding by the hand the tall strange boy and
showing no fear....
Once again, she dared not say anything.
And that evening, at dinner, there sat at our table a silent guest who
ate with lowered head, paying no attention to the three pairs of eyes
fixed upon him.
CHAPTER II
AFTER FOUR O’CLOCK
Until then I had never loafed about in the streets with the other
village boys. An affection of the hip from which I had suffered up to
this year 189.. had made me nervous and wretched. I still see myself
chasing the nimble schoolboys in the alleys round our home, hopping
wretchedly on one leg....
So I was seldom allowed to go out, and I recall that Millie, who was
very proud of me, more than once brought me home and boxed my ears for
having been caught hopping thus with some village urchins.
The arrival of Augustin Meaulnes, at the very time of my cure, marked
the beginning of a new life.
Before his coming, a dreary evening of loneliness began for me when
lessons were over at four. Father was in the habit of carrying into
the dining-room grate the fire remaining in the classroom stove; and,
little by little, the last boys who had lingered behind left the
chilled building, thick with clouds of smoke. There were still a few
games, some galloping races in the playground, then night came; the two
pupils who had swept the classroom fetched their hoods and cloaks, and
with their baskets under their arms went away quickly, leaving the big
gate open....
Then, as long as there was a ray of light, I stopped in the record-room
at the town hall, with its dead flies and posters that flapped in the
draught, and I read, sitting on an old weighing-machine, close to a
window looking on the garden.
When it was quite dark, and the dogs of the neighbouring farm began to
howl and a light was seen at the window of our little kitchen, then I
went home. Mother had begun to get supper ready. I climbed three steps
of the attic stairs, sat down without a word and, leaning my head on
the cold rails of the bannisters, watched Millie light her fire in this
narrow kitchen where the flame of one candle flickered....
But some one has come who has taken from me these peaceful, childlike
delights. Some one has blown out the candle which lit up for me
the gentle motherly face bent over the evening meal. Some one has
extinguished the lamp around which, at night, we were a happy family,
when Father had fixed the wooden shutters over the glass doors. And
he was Augustin Meaulnes, whom the other fellows soon called ‘Admiral
Meaulnes.’
As soon as he became a boarder with us, that is, from the early days of
December, the school was no longer deserted in the evening after four.
Every day then, in the classroom, despite the cold from the swinging
door and the shouts and clatter of the cleaners with their pails of
water, a score of the big boys, both those from the countryside and
the village, gathered round Meaulnes. Long discussions, never-ending
arguments followed, into which I was drawn restlessly but with
pleasure. Meaulnes never said anything, but it was because of him that
repeatedly one chatterbox or another, making of himself the centre of
the group, and taking in turn each of his noisily approving friends as
witness, would relate some long story of poaching, which the others
followed with gaping mouths and inward laughter.
Sitting on a desk and swinging his legs, Meaulnes was thoughtful.
At exciting moments he used also to laugh, but softly, as though he
reserved his real laughter for some better story known only to himself.
Then, as night fell and no more light came from the classroom windows
on the throng of boys, Meaulnes used suddenly to get up, and pushing
his way through, call out:
‘Come on! Let’s go!’
Then all followed him and until pitch dark one could hear them
shouting, towards the heights of the village.
* * * * *
It came about now that I went with them. With Meaulnes, I went at
milking-time to barn doors just outside the village. We entered shops,
and the weaver, between two clicks of his loom, used to say out of his
darkness: ‘Ha! the schoolboys.’
Generally, at dinner-time, we were to be found quite near the Higher
Elementary School with Desnoues, the wheelwright, who was also a
blacksmith. His shop was an old inn with big double-leaf doors, always
kept open. From the street you could hear the squeak of the forge
bellows, and you could sometimes make out, by the glow of the forge
fire, in this dark and noisy place, country folk who had stopped their
cart to have a chat, or a schoolboy like us, his back to a door, a
silent onlooker.
And it is there that everything began, about eight days before
Christmas.
CHAPTER III
I HAUNTED A BASKET-MAKER’S SHOP
Rain had fallen all day; it did not stop till evening. The day had
been deadly tedious. No one went out at recreation, and all the time
M. Seurel could be heard calling to the form: ‘Don’t make such a row,
boys!’
After the last recreation of the day or, as we called it, the last
‘quarter,’ M. Seurel, who for a while had been walking to and fro lost
in thought, suddenly stopped, banged vigorously on the table with a
ruler to put an end to the confused buzz with which the last hour of a
boring day ends, and, in the attentive silence, asked:
‘Who will drive to the station to-morrow with François to fetch
Monsieur and Madame Charpentier?’
These were my grandparents; Grandfather Charpentier with his grey
woollen burnous; an old man, a retired gamekeeper wearing a rabbit fur
bonnet which he called his képi.... Little boys knew him well. In the
morning, to wash himself, he would draw a pail of water and slosh his
face in the manner of old troopers, vaguely rubbing his small pointed
beard. A group of children, hands behind backs, watched him with
respectful curiosity.... They also knew Grandma Charpentier, the small
peasant woman and her knitted cap--as Millie never failed to bring
her, at least once, into the infants’ class.
Each year, a few days before Christmas, we were in the habit of going
to the station to meet the 4.2 train which brought them. To come to
us they had crossed the length of the ‘département,’ dragging with
them baskets full of chestnuts and other Christmas fare rolled up in
napkins. The moment the two, muffled up, smiling, and rather shy, had
crossed the threshold, we shut all doors on them, and a glorious week
of happiness began for us all....
To drive them from the station I needed a steady fellow with me, one
who would not upset us into a ditch, and yet a gay lad, too, because
Grandfather Charpentier was pretty free with swear words and Grandma
rather talkative.
In answer to M. Seurel’s question a dozen voices called out together:
‘Admiral Meaulnes! Admiral Meaulnes!’ But M. Seurel pretended not to
hear.
Then they shouted: ‘Fromentin!’ Others: ‘Jasmin Delouche!’
The youngest, Roy, the boy who rode across the fields on a sow at full
gallop, called out in a piercing voice: ‘Can I go? Can I go?’
Dutremblay and Mouchebœuf rather shyly put up their hands.
I should have liked it to be Meaulnes. This little drive, in a donkey
cart, would have become a more important event. He also longed for it,
but remained scornfully silent. All the big boys seated themselves, as
he did, on the table, the wrong way round, feet on the bench, as we
used to do in times of rest or great rejoicing. Coffin, his overall
rolled up round his belt, was hugging the iron pillar which supported
the beam of the classroom and, in his excitement, was beginning to
climb it.
But M. Seurel damped every one by saying: ‘Good! I choose Mouchebœuf.’
And each went back to his seat silently.
* * * * *
At four o’clock, in the big icy playground, hollowed into channels by
the rain, I found myself alone with Meaulnes. Without speaking, we both
stood looking at the shining village drying under the squall. Soon
little Coffin, wrapped in his hooded cloak and holding a piece of bread
in his hand, came out of his house; walking close to the walls and
whistling, he went straight for the door of the wheelwright. Meaulnes
opened the big gate, hailed the boy, and a moment later the three of us
were settled at the back of the hot red shop, across which icy gusts of
wind swept. Coffin and I sat close to the forge fire, our muddy feet
amongst the white shavings; Meaulnes, hands in pockets and silent,
leaned against the leaf of the door. From time to time a village woman,
stooping to brave the wind, passed by in the street on her return from
the butcher, and we looked up to see who she was.
No one spoke. The blacksmith and his assistant--one blowing the
bellows, the other beating the hot iron--threw big sharp shadows upon
the wall.... I recall that evening as one of the great evenings of my
youth. I felt both pleasure and anxiety; I was afraid my companion
would deprive me of the small happiness of driving to the station,
yet, without daring to own it to myself, I expected some extraordinary
scheme from him which would upset everything.
From time to time the peaceful and regular work of the forge
momentarily paused. The smith let his hammer fall onto the anvil in a
series of clear, strong blows. He held the piece of iron on which he
had been working close to his leather apron and looked at it. Then,
raising his head, he said to us, by way of taking an easy breath:
‘Well, my lads! How goes it?’
His man kept his right hand high up on the chain of the bellows, put
his left hand on his hip, looked at us with a smile.
Then the din of hard work began again.
During one of these pauses, we once caught sight of Millie through the
swinging door, as she passed in the high wind, closely wrapped in her
shawl and laden with small parcels.
The blacksmith asked: ‘I suppose Monsieur Charpentier will be coming
soon?’
‘To-morrow, with Grandmother,’ said I. ‘I am going to meet the 4.2
train.’
‘In Fromentin’s cart, eh?’
I replied at once: ‘No, in Father Martin’s.’
‘Ah! then you won’t be back in a hurry!’
Both he and his man began to laugh.
His man, to say something, remarked slowly: ‘With Fromentin’s mare you
could have fetched them from Vierzon. There’s an hour’s wait there.
It is fifteen kilometres from here. You could have got there and back
afore Martin’s donkey’s harnessed.’
‘Ah!’ said the other, ‘that mare has got some go in her!’
The conversation ended there. The forge, once again, became the place
of sparks and din where each had his own thoughts.
But when the time had come to leave and I got up to attract Meaulnes’
attention, he did not notice me at first. Leaning against the door,
his head bent down in deep thought, he seemed absorbed in what had
just been said. Seeing him thus lost in thought, looking as though
across leagues of fog at these quiet folk at their work, I was reminded
suddenly of that picture in ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ where the young
Englishman is seen on the eve of his great adventure ‘haunting the shop
of a basket-maker.’ ...
And I have often thought of it since.
CHAPTER IV
THE ESCAPE
At two o’clock in the afternoon next day, in the centre of the freezing
country, the form-room stands out clear as a ship on the ocean. There
is no smell of brine or tar as on a boat, but of herrings fried on the
stove and of the scorched woollens of the boys who, on coming back, got
too close to the fire.
As the end of the year is drawing near, the exercise books for
composition have been given out. And while M. Seurel is setting
problems on the board silence prevails, only disturbed by whispered
conversations, or broken into by stifled exclamations and with
sentences of which the first words alone are uttered to frighten one’s
neighbour: ‘Sir! So and So is....’
M. Seurel, writing out the problems, is thinking of something else.
From time to time he turns round and looks at us in a stern but vacant
way. And this covert disturbance stops entirely for a moment, to begin
again immediately, softly at first like a purr.
I alone keep quiet in the midst of this turmoil. I am sitting at the
extreme end of one of the tables on the juniors’ side and close to the
high windows, and I need only raise myself a little to get a view of
the garden, the stream at the lower end of it, and then the fields.
From time to time I stand on tiptoe and look anxiously towards the
farm of the Fair Star. As soon as the class opened I had noticed that
Meaulnes had not come back after the dinner hour. The boy next him
certainly could not have failed to notice it too. Too busy with his
essay he had not yet said anything. But as soon as he looks up the news
will spread at once, and some one, as usual, will certainly call out,
in a loud voice, the first words of the sentence: ‘Sir! Meaulnes....’
I know that Meaulnes has gone. To be more exact I suspect him of having
run away. As soon as dinner was over he must have jumped over the low
wall, taken his course through the fields, and crossed the stream on
the old plank for the Fair Star. He must have asked for the mare to go
to the station for Monsieur and Madame Charpentier. They are harnessing
her this very moment.
The Fair Star, on the other side of the stream, where the hill slopes
down, is a large farm hidden from view in the summer by the oaks and
elms in our playground and also by quick-set hedges. It is situated
in a little lane which joins the Station Road on one side and on the
other an outlying district of the village. The big feudal building is
surrounded by high walls, the buttresses of which stand in pools of
manure. In the month of June it is buried in leafage, and from the
school the rumbling of carts and the shouts of the cowherds alone can
be heard at nightfall. But to-day, out of the window and between the
stripped trees, I can see the tall grey wall of the farmyard, the
entrance gate and then, through gaps in the hedge, a strip of road,
white with frost, parallel to the stream and leading to the Station
Road.
Nothing moves yet in that clear wintry landscape. Nothing has yet
changed.
In the classroom M. Seurel has almost finished writing out the second
problem. Generally he set down three. If he only set two to-day ... he
would go back to his desk and notice the absence of Meaulnes. He would
send two boys to look for him in the village and they would find him
before the mare was harnessed....
M. Seurel, once the second problem is on the board, drops his tired
arm. Then, to my great relief, he goes to the next line and begins to
write again, saying: ‘This one is only child’s play!’
... Two little black streaks showing over the top of the wall at
the Fair Star, certainly the upturned shafts of a cart, have now
disappeared. I feel sure that over there everything is being made ready
for Meaulnes’ departure. Soon the head and the fore parts of the mare
emerge between the posts of the gateway, then stop, while, no doubt,
behind the cart, they are fixing a second seat for the travellers whom
Meaulnes proposes to fetch. At last the complete equipage slowly comes
out of the yard, disappears for a moment behind the hedge, and, going
at the same slow pace, shows itself again on the strip of white road
visible between breaks in the fence. Then I recognise, in the black
figure holding the reins, one elbow lazily resting on the side of the
cart in peasant fashion, my friend, Augustin Meaulnes.
A moment later everything disappears behind the hedge. Two men who have
remained by the gate, looking at the departing cart, begin to converse
with increasing liveliness. One of them at last decides to make a
speaking-trumpet of his hands and to call after Meaulnes and then to
run a few paces along the road in his direction. But then, in the cart,
which slowly has reached the Station Road and can certainly no longer
be seen from the lane, Meaulnes suddenly changes his attitude. Standing
up like the driver of a Roman chariot, one foot resting on the front
bar and with both hands shaking the reins, he sets his beast going at
a gallop and in a moment disappears on the other side of the slope.
On the road the man who has been calling begins to run again, and the
other, starting at full speed across the fields, seems to be coming
towards us.
In a few minutes, just as M. Seurel having left the blackboard is
rubbing the chalk off his hands and at the very moment when three
voices call out together from the back of the classroom: ‘Sir! Admiral
Meaulnes has gone!’ the man with the blue smock is at the door,
which he suddenly throws wide open and lifting his hat asks from the
doorstep: ‘Excuse me, sir, is it you as sent that pupil to ask for the
cart to drive to Vierzon to meet your parents? We began to suspect....’
‘Certainly not!’ replies M. Seurel.
And at once all the class is in frightful disorder. The three boys
close to the door, whose usual job is to chase away with stones the
goats or the pigs which stray in the playground and browse the March
Pride, rush out. Following the loud clatter of their hobnailed clogs on
the flagstones of the room are heard their muffled and hurried steps
crushing the sand of the yard and skidding as they sharply turn by the
little gate opening on the road. The other boys have crowded to the
garden windows. Some have climbed on the table to see better....
But it is too late. Admiral Meaulnes has escaped.
‘You will go to the station with Mouchebœuf all the same,’ says M.
Seurel to me. ‘Meaulnes does not know the way to Vierzon. He will lose
himself at the Cross-Roads. He will not meet the train at three.’
Millie pokes her head in at the door of the infants’ classroom to ask:
‘What on earth is the matter?’
In the village street people have begun to form groups. The peasant
stands there, hat in hand, obstinate, motionless, like a man demanding
justice.
CHAPTER V
THE CART COMES BACK
When I had brought home my grandparents from the station and after
dinner, seated in front of the large hearth, they began to relate in
full detail all that had happened to them since the last holidays, I
soon realised that I was not listening.
The little gate of the playground was quite near the dining-room door.
It used to squeak as it opened. Generally at nightfall, during the long
country evenings, I sat secretly waiting for this squeaking of the
gate. It was usually followed by the noise of clogs clattering or being
wiped outside the door, and sometimes by whispers as of people making
some plan before coming in. There was a knock. It was a neighbour, the
women teachers ... anyhow, some one who was coming to cheer us during
these long hours.
But that evening I had nothing to hope for from outside, since all
those I loved were met together in our house; and yet I continued to be
alert to all the noises of the night and to wait for some one to open
our door.
Old Grandfather was there, hairy and bushy in appearance like some
big Gascon shepherd, his two feet firmly planted as he sat, his stick
between his legs, and with the usual slant of his right shoulder when
he stooped to tap the ashes from his pipe against his shoe. He was
approving with his kind moist eyes what Grandmother was saying about
their journey, their neighbours, and the peasants who had not yet paid
their rent. But I was no longer with them.
I was imagining the rumbling of a cart which would suddenly stop at
our door. Meaulnes would jump from it and walk in as if nothing had
happened.... Or perhaps he had first gone to take back the mare to the
Fair Star, and I should soon hear his step sounding on the road, and
the gate opening....
But nothing happened. Grandfather was gazing fixedly in front of him
and his winking eyelids kept closing over his eyes as at the approach
of sleep. Grandmother awkwardly repeated her last sentence, which no
one was listening to.
‘Is it about that boy that you are worried?’ she said at last.
As a matter of fact, I had questioned her at the station to no purpose.
She had seen no one at Vierzon who might have been Admiral Meaulnes.
My friend must have been delayed on the way. His attempt had failed.
During our return journey I had brooded over my disappointment, while
Grandmother was chatting with Mouchebœuf. On the road whitened with
frost, small birds had been fluttering around the hoofs of the trotting
donkey. From time to time above the stillness of the wintry afternoon
had arisen the far-away call of a farm girl or of a lad hailing a
comrade from one clump of firs to another, and each time that long call
over the desolate hills had made me shudder as if it were the voice of
Meaulnes inviting me to follow him from afar....
While I was going over all this in my mind, bedtime came. Already
Grandfather had gone into the red room, the bed-sitting-room so damp
and icy cold from having been closed since last winter. To make him at
home the lace antimacassars of the armchairs had been removed, the rugs
folded up and all the knick-knacks put away. He had placed his stick
on a chair, his thick shoes under an armchair, he had just put out his
candle and we were standing saying good-night, ready to retire to bed,
when the noise of a cart silenced us.
It almost sounded as if two vehicles slowly followed each other at a
very slow trot. The noise finally came to a stop under the dining-room
window which overlooked the road, but was never used.
Father had taken up the lamp and, without waiting, went to open the
door which had already been locked. Then pushing open the gate, he
walked to the edge of the steps and raised his light above his head to
see what was happening.
Two carts had in fact stopped, the horse of one fastened behind the
back of the other. A man had jumped down and was hesitating....
‘Is this the town hall?’ said he, coming near. ‘Could you direct me
to M. Fromentin, the farmer at the Fair Star? I have found his cart
and mare without a driver, going along the lane, close to the road of
Saint-Loup-des-Bois. I was able to read his name and address on the
plate, with my lantern. As it was on my way, I brought back his trap
round here to avoid accidents, but it has delayed me no end all the
same.’
We stood there stupefied. Father approached and lit up the cart with
his lamp.
‘There were no traces of a driver,’ went on the man. ‘Not even a rug.
The animal is tired and slightly lame.’
I had got quite at the front and, with the others, I was looking at
this lost vehicle which had come back to us like wreckage washed ashore
by the high tide--the first and perhaps the last wreckage of Meaulnes’
adventure.
‘If it’s too far to Fromentin’s,’ said the man, ‘I’ll leave the cart
with you. I’ve lost too much time already and they must be anxious at
home.’
Father agreed. In this way we could take back the trap to the Fair
Star that very evening without saying what had happened. Then we
could decide what we were to tell the village people and to write to
Meaulnes’ mother.... And the man whipped up his horse, refusing the
glass of wine we offered him.
As we were coming in without uttering a word and Father was leading
the cart towards the farm, Grandfather, who had lit his candle again,
called out from his room: ‘Has that traveller come back then?’
The women consulted each other’s faces by looks for a moment.
‘Yes, he’s been to his mother’s. Go to sleep. Don’t worry.’
‘That’s all right. Just what I thought,’ said he.
And, reassured, he put out his light and turned over in bed to sleep.
That was the explanation which we gave to the village people. As to the
mother of the runaway, it was decided to wait before writing to her.
And during three long days we kept our anxiety to ourselves. I still
see my father coming home from the farm towards eleven, his moustache
damp with the evening mist, talking with Millie in a very low voice,
anxious and angry....
CHAPTER VI
SOME ONE KNOCKS AT THE WINDOW
The fourth day was one of the coldest of that winter. From early
morning the first comers to the playground kept warm by sliding round
the well. They were waiting for the stove to be lit to rush into the
classroom.
Behind the front gate several of us waited for the arrival of the boys
from the countryside farther off. They came with eyes quite dazed from
having crossed hoar-sparkling fields and looked on frozen ponds and
coppices from which hares ran.... Their overalls had a smell of hay and
stables which made the air of the classrooms heavy, as they crowded
round the red-hot stove. And that morning one of them had brought in
a basket a frozen squirrel which he had found on the way. He tried, I
remember, to hang up the long stiff animal by its claws to a pillar of
the playground shelter....
Then the dull class-work of winter began.
A sharp knock on the window made us look up. Upright against the door
we saw Admiral Meaulnes shaking off the frost from his overall before
he came in, standing there head erect and as if dazzled with rapture!
The two boys of the bench nearest to the door hurried to open it: they
had a little confabulation, which we did not hear, just outside, and
at last the truant made up his mind to come into the school.
That breath of fresh air coming from the deserted playground, the bits
of straw which could be seen clinging to Admiral Meaulnes’ clothing,
and above all the look he had of a traveller, tired, hungry, but
thrilled by wonders, all gave us a strange feeling of pleasure and
curiosity.
M. Seurel had come down the two steps of his desk where he had been
giving us a dictation, and Meaulnes walked towards him looking
aggressive. I recall how handsome he seemed to me then, that big friend
of mine, in spite of his battered look and of his eyes reddened by
nights spent, most likely, in the open.
He went up to the master’s desk and said, in the assured voice of a man
who brings news: ‘I have come back, sir.’
‘So I see,’ replied M. Seurel, looking at him with curiosity.... ‘Go to
your seat.’
The boy turned towards us, his back slightly bent, smiling in a mocking
way, as do big unruly fellows when punished, and, catching hold of the
end of the table with one hand, he let himself drop on his bench.
‘You are going to take out a book and read as I tell you,’ said the
master--all heads were turned then towards Meaulnes--‘while the others
finish their dictation.’
And the lesson went on as before. From time to time Admiral Meaulnes
turned my way, then looked out of the windows from which the white
garden was visible, downy and motionless, and the bare fields on which
a crow sometimes descended. In the classroom the heat was heavy around
the reddened stove. My friend settled himself to read, holding his
head in his hands: twice I saw his eyelids close and I thought he was
falling asleep.
‘I’d like to go to bed, sir,’ said he at last, half lifting his arm.
‘I’ve not slept for three nights.’
‘Then go!’ said M. Seurel, anxious above all to avoid a scene.
We sat up, all of us, pens in the air, and sadly watched him go, his
overall rumpled at the back and his shoes earthy.
How slow that morning was in passing! Towards midday we heard the
traveller, upstairs in the attic, preparing to come down. At dinner
time I found him sitting by the fire near our puzzled grandparents, and
as the clock struck twelve the boys, big and little, scattered over the
snowclad playground, made off like shadows before the dining-room door.
Of that dinner I recall only a great silence and a great distress.
Everything was icy; the oilcloth without a tablecloth, the cold wine in
the glasses, the red flagstones under our feet. It had been decided to
put no questions to the truant so as not to rouse him to revolt. And
he availed himself of that truce to say not a word.
At last, dessert ended, and we two were able to make a dash for the
playground. A school playground in the afternoon, with the snow
trampled away by clogs ... a playground black all round with drips
from the roofs of the shelters ... a playground thick with games and
screams! Meaulnes and I pelted along by the school buildings. At once
two or three fellows from the village left their game and ran up to
us with shouts of joy; hands in pockets, scarves unloosed, and mud
squirting from under their clogs. But my friend burst into the big
classroom, where I followed; he shut the glass door just in time to
stop the rush of the fellows in pursuit. There was instant uproar loud
and clear; glass panes shaken, clogs stamping on stone; one shove
bent the iron bar holding the two leaves of the door; but Meaulnes
had already turned the little key in the lock, at the risk of cutting
himself on its broken ring.
We used to think it maddening to behave like that. In summer, fellows
who were locked out in this way, would tear round at full speed into
the garden and managed often to climb in at one of the windows, before
you could shut them all. But it was then December and everything was
shut up. For a little while the boys kept shoving against the door;
they yelled insults at us; then, one by one, they turned tail and went
off crest-fallen, doing up their scarves as they went.
Only two boys were in the classroom, which smelt of chestnuts and sour
wine, two sweepers who were shifting the tables. I went up to the stove
to warm myself lazily till lessons time, while Meaulnes searched the
master’s desk and the lockers. He soon found a small atlas which he
studied with eagerness as he stood on the platform, his elbows on the
desk and his head in his hands.
I was just about to go up to him; I should have placed my hand on
his shoulder and, no doubt, we should have followed together, on the
map, the route which he had taken, when suddenly the door leading
to the infants’ room opened with a crash under a violent push, and
Jasmin Delouche, followed by a village boy and three fellows from the
neighbouring countryside, emerged with a shout of triumph. One of the
windows in the infants’ classroom had probably been half shut; they had
pushed it open and jumped through.
Jasmin Delouche, although rather small, was one of the elder boys
of the top form. He was very jealous of Admiral Meaulnes, though he
pretended to be his friend. Before our boarder’s arrival, Jasmin
himself had been cock of the form. He had a pale, rather sallow face,
and pomaded hair. He was the only son of widow Delouche, the innkeeper,
and he played the man, trotting out with self-conceit what he had heard
in the billiard-room and at the bar.
At his entry Meaulnes looked up frowning and called out to the boys,
as they scrambled to the stove: ‘So one can’t have a minute’s peace
here!’
‘If you don’t like it, you should have stopped where you were,’ said
Jasmin Delouche, without looking up.
T think that Augustin was in that state when temper comes and gets you
so that you cannot control it.
‘Now then, you!’ he said, a little pale, rising and shutting his book,
‘get out of it!’
The other sneered.
‘Oh!’ he cried, ‘because you ran away for three days, you think you are
going to be boss now!’ he went on, dragging in the others. ‘A chap like
you can’t turn us out, I tell you that much!’
But Meaulnes was already on him. A scrap began; a wild scrimmage;
sleeves of overalls split and tore at the seams. Martin alone--one of
the boys of the neighbourhood who had come with Jasmin--interfered.
‘Leave him alone!’ he called out, with quivering nostrils, shaking his
head like a ram.
With a violent jerk Meaulnes threw him reeling, arms out, to the
middle of the room; then gripping Delouche by the neck with one hand
and opening the door with the other, he tried to throw him out. Jasmin
clung to the tables and dragged his feet, making his hobnailed shoes
grate on the flagstones, while Martin, having regained his balance,
came back with measured steps, head forward and furious. Meaulnes let
go Delouche to collar this idiot, and would soon have found himself
in a fix if the door of the living-room had not partly opened. M.
Seurel was seen standing there at the door, his back turned towards us,
to finish, before he came in, a conversation he was having with some
one....
At once the battle stopped. Some boys collected round the stove, none
too proud of themselves, having, right to the end, avoided taking
sides. Meaulnes sat down in his place, his sleeves undone and torn at
the gathers.
As for Jasmin, purple in the face, during the few minutes before the
ruler rapped for form-work to begin, he could be heard calling out: ‘He
can’t stand anything now. He puts on side. Does he suppose we do not
know where he’s been!’
‘You ass! I don’t know myself,’ replied Meaulnes, in the immediate
silence.
Then, shrugging his shoulders and burying his head in his hands, he
began to do his work.
CHAPTER VII
THE SILK WAISTCOAT
Our room was, as I have said, a big attic--half attic, half room. The
other rooms, meant for assistant masters, had windows; no one knows
why ours was lighted only by a skylight. It was impossible to shut the
door fast, as it scraped the floor. When we went up in the evening,
sheltering with one hand the candle which the draughts of the big house
threatened to blow out, every time we tried to shut this door and every
time we had to give it up. And the whole night long we felt all round
the silence of the three lumber-rooms penetrating our bedroom.
There we met again, Augustin and I, on the evening of that same winter
day.
I swiftly took off all my clothes and threw them in a heap on a chair
at the foot of my bed, but my companion, without saying a word, began
to undress slowly. I watched him undress from the iron bed in which
I already lay--looking through cretonne hangings adorned with a
wine-stalk pattern. One moment he sat down on his low curtainless bed;
the next he got up and paced to and fro as he undressed. The candle,
which he had placed on a wicker table, the work of gipsies, threw his
moving and gigantic shadow upon the wall.
Quite unlike me he was folding and arranging his school clothes in a
bitter and distracted way, but with much care. I still see him drop
his heavy belt on a chair, over the back of which he folded his black
overall extremely creased and soiled, then take off a kind of dark blue
tunic which he wore under his overall, and stooping with his back to
me, spread the garment at the foot of his bed.... But when he stood up
again and turned to face me, I saw that in place of the brass button
uniform waistcoat that should be under the tunic, he was wearing a
queer silk waistcoat, cut very open and fastened by a row of small and
closely set mother-of-pearl buttons.
It was a garment of fantastic charm, such as must have been worn by the
young men who used to dance with our grandmothers, in the days of the
dandies.
I distinctly recall, at that moment, the tall peasant boy,
bareheaded--for he had carefully placed his cap on his other
clothes--his face so young, so gallant, and already so firmly set. He
was once more pacing the room when he began to unbutton this mysterious
article of a costume which was not his. And it was strange to see him,
in shirt-sleeves, with short trousers and muddy shoes, handling this
waistcoat of a marquis.
He had no sooner touched it than, starting from his reverie, he turned
his face towards me with a look of anxiety. I rather wanted to laugh.
He smiled with me and his face brightened.
‘What’s that? Do tell me,’ I said in a low voice, emboldened. ‘Where
did you get it?’
But his smile vanished at once. Twice, with his heavy hand, he brushed
back his closely cropped hair, and suddenly, like a man unable to
resist desire, slipped his tunic back over a dainty jabot, buttoned it
up tightly, and slipped on his rumpled overall; then he hesitated a
moment, looking at me sideways.... Finally he sat on the edge of his
bed, took off his shoes, which fell noisily onto the floor, stretched
himself on the bed, fully dressed like a soldier ready for the fray,
and blew out the candle.
About midnight I woke up suddenly. Meaulnes was standing in the middle
of the room, his cap on his head, and was looking for something on one
of the pegs--a cloak which he threw on his back.... The room was very
dark. Not even that gleam of light which snow sometimes gives. A black
and icy wind was blowing in the garden and over the roof.
I raised myself a little and called to him softly: ‘Meaulnes! Are you
going away again?’ He did not reply. Then, quite beside myself, I said:
‘Very well, I shall go with you. You must take me.’ And I jumped out of
bed.
He came close to me, took hold of my arm, forcing me to sit on the edge
of the bed, and said to me: ‘I can’t take you, François. If I knew my
way well, you should come with me. But I must first of all find it on
the map, and I can’t.’
‘Then you can’t go either!’
‘That’s true. It’s utterly useless,’ he said, discouraged. ‘Well, go
back to bed. I promise not to go without you.’
And he again began to pace to and fro in the room. I dared say nothing
more. He kept walking, stopping and then setting off again more quickly
like a man in search of memories which he sorts out, challenges and
compares, ponders on, thinks he has discovered, and then the thread
breaking the search begins once more....
That was not the only night on which, awakened by the sound of his
steps, I found him thus, about one in the morning, treading the attic
and lumber-rooms, as do sailors who cannot lose the habit of pacing the
deck on night watch and who, in the quiet of their Breton holding, get
up and dress of a night, at the regulation hour, to keep a land watch.
Two or three times, during the month of January and the first fortnight
of February, I was roused out of my sleep in that way. Admiral Meaulnes
was there, on foot, all equipped, his cloak on his back, ready to
start, and every time, on the edge of that mysterious country into
which he once already had ventured, he stopped, he hesitated. At the
moment of lifting the latch of the door to the stairs and of slipping
off by the kitchen door, which he could easily have opened without
being heard, he would shrink back once more.... Then, during the long
midnight hours he paced feverishly the disused lumber-rooms, lost in
thought.
* * * * *
At last one night, towards the fifteenth of February, he woke me up by
gently placing his hand on my shoulder.
The day had been very disturbed. Meaulnes, who had now entirely dropped
out of all the games of his former comrades, had remained seated at his
bench during the last recreation of the evening, busily sketching out a
mysterious plan, following it with his finger and elaborately measuring
it out on the atlas of the Cher. There was an incessant going and
coming between the playground and the classroom. Clogs kept clattering.
Boys chased one another from table to table, taking benches and
platform at a jump.... Every one knew that it was not wise to come near
Meaulnes when he was working thus; yet, as recreation continued past
regulation time, two or three boys from the village advanced towards
him for a joke, without any noise, and looked over his shoulder. One
of them was bold enough to push the others on top of Meaulnes.... The
latter hastily closed his atlas, hid his sheet of paper, and caught
hold of the last of the three boys while the other two managed to
escape.
It was that surly Giraudat, who began to whine, tried to kick, and at
last was pushed out of doors by Admiral Meaulnes, to whom he shouted
in a rage: ‘You great coward! No wonder they are all against you and
want to make war on you!...’ and a lot of insults, to which we replied
without having quite understood what he meant. I was the one to shout
the loudest, because I had sided with Admiral Meaulnes.
There was now a kind of pact between us. The promise which he had given
to take me with him, instead of saying, like everybody else, that I
should not be able to stand the walking, had bound me to him forever.
And I never ceased thinking of his mysterious journey. I had become
convinced that he must have met a girl. She, no doubt, was infinitely
more beautiful than Jeanne, who could be seen in the nuns’ garden by
looking through the keyhole; or Madeleine, the baker’s daughter, so
pink and so fair; or Jenny, the daughter of the lady of the manor,
so handsome, but insane and living in seclusion. It was certainly of
a young girl he was thinking at night, like the hero of a novel. And
I bravely decided to speak to him about it the first time he wakened
me....
After four o’clock, on the evening of that new fight, we were both busy
putting away garden tools, pickaxes, and spades which had been used to
dig trenches, when we heard shouts on the road. It was a troop of young
boys and urchins, formed in fours, marching quickly like a well-drilled
squad, led by Delouche, Daniel, Giraudat, and another whom we did not
know. They had spotted us and hooted like anything. So all the village
was against us, and some fresh soldier stunt, from which we were
excluded, was being planned.
Meaulnes, without saying anything, put away in the shed the pickaxe and
the spade which he had on his shoulder. But at midnight I felt his hand
on my arm, and I woke up with a start.
‘Get up,’ he said, ‘we are going.’
‘Do you know the right way to the very end?’
‘I know a good part of it. And we shall have to find the rest,’ he
replied, with clenched teeth.
‘Listen, Meaulnes,’ I said, sitting up, ‘listen to me; there’s only one
thing to be done!--and that is to look for the bit of the way we don’t
know in full daylight with the help of your map.’
‘But that bit is far away from here.’
‘All right, we’ll drive there this summer, when the days are longer.’
There was a prolonged silence, which meant that he agreed.
‘As we shall try together to find again the girl you love, Meaulnes,’ I
said at last, ‘tell me who she is, talk to me about her.’
He sat down at the foot of my bed. I could see in the darkness his
lowered head, his folded arms and his knees. Then he took a deep
breath, as some one who has had a weight upon his heart for a long time
and who is, at last, going to tell his secret....
CHAPTER VIII
THE ADVENTURE
My friend did not tell me that night all that had happened to him on
the way. And even when he decided to confide everything to me, during
days of anguish of which I shall speak later, it remained for a long
time the great secret of our youth. But to-day when all is ended, and
there remains only dust of so much good and so much evil, I can relate
his strange adventure.
* * * * *
At half-past one in the afternoon on the Vierzon road, during that
freezing weather, Meaulnes set his beast at a brisk pace, because
he knew he was late. At first he thought, with amusement, only of
our surprise when, at four o’clock, he brought back Grandfather and
Grandmother Charpentier. For certainly, at that moment, he had no other
intention.
Little by little, the cold being piercing, he wrapped his legs in a
rug, which at first he had refused, but which the folk at the Fair Star
had thrown into the cart.
At two o’clock he passed through the village of La Motte. He had never
gone through a small hamlet at school-time and was amused to see this
one so empty, so asleep. Here and there a curtain was moved revealing
the inquisitive face of a housewife.
Leaving La Motte, immediately after the schoolhouse, he hesitated
between two roads, but seemed to remember that the left road led to
Vierzon. Nobody was there to tell him. He once more put the mare to a
trot, though the road became narrower and badly in need of repair. He
skirted a fir wood for some time, but at last, meeting a carter, he
used his hands as a trumpet to inquire if he really were on the right
road for Vierzon. The mare pulled on the reins, without stopping her
trot; the man must have failed to understand the enquiry; he called out
something with a vague gesture, so Meaulnes chanced it and went on.
Once more there was the vast frozen plain without incident or
distraction; only at times a magpie startled by the cart flew off to
perch on a stunted elm in the distance. The traveller had wrapped the
big rug round his shoulders like a cloak. He must have dozed for a long
while with his legs stretched out and one elbow resting on the side of
the cart....
... When Meaulnes recovered his wits, thanks to the cold penetrating
the rug, he noticed a change in the countryside. There was no longer
the far horizon, no longer that stretch of pale sky in which sight
was lost, but little meadows, still green, with high hedges. On both
sides water flowed under the ice in the ditches. Everything showed the
neighbourhood of a river. And the road between the tall hedges was
nothing more than a narrow rutted lane.
A moment before the mare had stopped trotting, Meaulnes tried to whip
her up to the same pace again, but she persisted in walking with
extreme slowness, and the big schoolboy, leaning forward, his hands
resting on the dashboard, noticed that she was lame in one hind leg. He
was much troubled and at once jumped out.
‘We shall never reach Vierzon in time for the train,’ he said half
aloud.
And he did not dare to own to himself the thought which upset him most,
that perhaps he had lost his way and was no longer on the road to
Vierzon.
For a long time he examined the beast’s foot and could find no trace of
a wound. The mare was frightened and lifted her foot directly Meaulnes
tried to touch it, pawing the ground with her heavy clumsy hoof. At
last he realised that she had simply got a stone in her shoe. As a
boy who was expert in the handling of beasts he sat on his heels and
tried to grasp her right foot with his left hand and put it between
his knees, but he was bothered by the cart. Twice the mare got away
and went on a few yards. The step struck his head and the wheel hurt
his knee. He would not give in and ended by mastering the timid beast,
but the stone was so embedded that Meaulnes was obliged to use his
peasant’s knife before he could get it out.
When he had finished the job and at last looked up, rather giddy and
dim-eyed, he noticed with horror that night was falling....
Any one else but Meaulnes would immediately have turned back. That was
the only way not to get more badly lost. But he reflected that he must
be very far from La Motte. Besides, the mare might have taken a byway
while he was asleep. Anyhow, this lane must lead to some village in
time....
In addition to all these reasons, the big boy, with his foot on the
step and the mare already pulling on the reins, ached with exasperation
to achieve something and to get somewhere, in defiance of every
obstacle!
He whipped up the mare, who started and set off at a quick trot.
The darkness grew. In the deep-cut lane there was now only just
room for the cart. Sometimes a dead branch from the hedge caught in
the wheel and broke with a snap.... When it was pitch dark Meaulnes
thought suddenly with a pang of our dining-room at Sainte-Agathe in
which, by this time, all of us ought to be together. Then rage took
him; then pride and the deep joy of having at last run away without
premeditation....
CHAPTER IX
A HALT
Suddenly the mare slowed down as if her foot had stumbled in the dark;
Meaulnes saw her head sink and rise twice; then she stopped dead, her
nostrils close to the ground, appearing to sniff at something. The
trickle of water could be heard by her feet. A stream barred the way.
In summer that spot was certainly a ford. But at this time of the year
the current was so strong that ice had not formed and it would have
been dangerous to push on.
Meaulnes gently pulled on the reins to go back a few yards and stood
up in the cart full of perplexity. It was then that he noticed a light
between the branches. Only two or three meadows seemed to separate it
from the lane....
The schoolboy jumped down from the cart and backed the mare, talking to
her to quiet her and to stop the frightened tossing of her head.
‘Come on, old girl, come on. We shan’t go any farther now. We shall
soon know where we’ve got to.’
And pushing open the half-shut gate of a small meadow by the lane, he
went through with the trap. His feet sank deep into the soft grass. The
cart jolted silently. His head was by the mare’s head and he could
feel her warmth and her hard breathing....
He took her to the far end of the meadow and threw the rug over her
back; then thrusting aside the branches of the hedge, he again noticed
the light which came from an isolated house.
None the less he had to cross three meadows and jump over a treacherous
brook into which he nearly fell with both feet.... At last, after a
final leap from the top of a bank, he found himself in the yard of a
rustic farm. A pig was grunting in its sty. At the noise of footsteps
on the frozen ground a dog began to bark furiously.
The shutter over the door was open, and the light which Meaulnes had
seen came from a wood fire burning on the hearth. There was no other
light but that of the fire. In the house, a country woman rose from a
chair and came to the door, with no sign of fear. At the same moment
the grandfather clock struck half-past seven.
‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ said the big boy, ‘I believe I have trodden on your
chrysanthemums.’
She waited, basin in hand, looking at him.
‘The fact is,’ she said, ‘it’s that dark in the yard you can’t see your
way.’
There was a moment’s silence, during which Meaulnes stood looking at
walls papered with pages out of illustrated papers, as they are in
inns, and at the table on which lay a man’s hat.
‘He’s not in, the boss,’ he said, sitting down.
‘He’ll be back in a moment,’ she replied, quite at her ease now, ‘he’s
gone to fetch wood.’
‘I don’t exactly want him,’ went on the young fellow, bringing his
chair nearer to the fire, ‘but out there a few of us--sportsmen, you
know--are keeping a lookout. I came to ask if you could spare us a
little bread.’
Admiral Meaulnes knew quite well that with country folk, above all in
an isolated farm, one must speak with caution, even with diplomacy, and
above all never show that one does not belong to the district.
‘Bread,’ said she, ‘we shan’t be able to give you much. The baker who
always calls on a Tuesday hasn’t come to-day....’
Augustin, who for a moment had hoped he was near a village, took fright.
‘The baker, from where?’ he asked.
‘Why, of course, the baker from Vieux-Nançay,’ replied the woman,
astonished.
‘How far is it exactly from here to Vieux-Nançay?’ went on Meaulnes,
very anxious.
‘By the road I couldn’t tell exactly; but by the short cut it is three
leagues off.’
And she began to relate that her daughter was there in service, that
she always walked all the way home on the first Sunday of the month,
and that her master and mistress....
But Meaulnes, completely put out, interrupted her to say:
‘Vieux-Nançay, would that be the nearest village from here?’
‘No, the nearest is Les Landes, five kilometres off here. But there are
no shops and no baker at Landes, only just a small fair each year on
Saint Martin’s Day.’
Meaulnes had never heard of Les Landes. He saw himself so much lost
that he was almost tickled. But the woman, busy at the sink washing her
basin, turned round, inquisitive in her turn, and said slowly, looking
at him quite straight: ‘Don’t you, then, belong to these parts?...’
* * * * *
At that moment an elderly peasant appeared at the door, carrying an
armful of wood, which he threw on the stone floor. The woman explained
to him, in a very loud voice, as if he were deaf, what was required by
the young man.
‘Well! that’s easy,’ said he simply. ‘But come nearer, you’re getting
no warmth from the fire.’
A moment later both were settled by the hearth: the old man breaking
his wood to put on the fire, Meaulnes enjoying a bowl of milk and some
bread which had been offered him. Our traveller, delighted at finding
himself in that humble dwelling after so many worries, and thinking
that an end had come to his strange adventure, was already making
plans for bringing friends with him in the future, to visit these kind
people. He did not know that this was only a halt, and that presently
he was to resume his journey.
He soon asked to be shown the road to La Motte. And, little by little,
coming back to the truth, he related that he had been cut off, with his
cart, from the other guns and now found himself completely lost.
Then the man and the woman insisted so much on his putting up at the
farm and not starting before broad daylight, that Meaulnes in the
end accepted, and walked out to fetch his mare and put her up in the
stables.
‘Mind holes in the path,’ said the man.
Meaulnes dared not confess that he had not used ‘the path.’ He nearly
brought himself to ask if the good fellow could come with him. For a
second he hesitated on the threshold and so great was his indecision
that he almost staggered. But he went out into the gloom of the yard.
CHAPTER X
THE SHEEPFOLD
To find where he was he climbed on the bank from which he had jumped.
Slowly and with difficulty, as when he came, he made his way between
swamps, through willow hedges, and went to fetch his cart at the
farther end of the field where he had left it. The cart was no longer
there. Standing still, with throbbing temples, he strained hard to
catch all the sounds of the night, sure that he heard, each moment, the
jingle of the horse’s collar close at hand. Nothing.... He went all
round the meadow; the gate was partly open, partly dilapidated as if
a cart wheel had passed over it. The mare must have escaped that way,
alone.
Turning back, he walked a little way and caught his feet in the rug
which no doubt had slipped from the mare onto the ground. This decided
him that the beast had gone off in that direction. He started to run.
Obsessed by the obstinate and insane resolve lo overtake the cart, his
face on fire, a prey to this panic wish, which resembled fear, he went
on running.... Sometimes he stumbled in a rut. In the utter darkness he
ran into hedges when the lane turned, and too tired to stop in time he
crashed into brambles, his arms stretched out, his hands torn in the
effort to protect his face. Sometimes he stopped and listened and went
on again. Once he thought he heard a cart, but it was only a jolting
wagon going along a road, in the far distance on the left....
Came a time when the knee which he had grazed against the step of the
cart hurt so much that he had to stop, his leg quite stiff. Then he
realised that unless the mare had run off at a quick gallop, he would
long ago have caught her up. He told himself, too, that a cart could
not get lost in that way, and that some one would surely find it. At
last he retraced his steps, worn out, scarcely able to drag himself
along.
After a while he believed that he was again in the neighbourhood of the
place he had left, and soon he noticed the light of the house he was
looking for. A path opened in the hedge.
‘That’s the path the old man spoke of,’ thought Augustin.
And he entered this passage, glad to have no more hedges and banks to
get over. Next moment, the path turning to the left, the light appeared
to slip to the right, and Meaulnes reaching a cross-road, in his hurry
to regain the poor lodging, without thinking took a path which seemed
to lead straight there. But he had hardly walked ten steps along it
when the light disappeared, either because the hedge was hiding it, or
else because the peasants were tired of waiting and had closed their
shutters. Bravely the schoolboy took to the fields and made for the
place where the light had just been shining. Then, leaping once more
over a hedge, he landed on a new path....
Thus, little by little, Admiral Meaulnes’ trail was tangled and the
thread broke which was connecting him with those he had left.
Discouraged, almost exhausted, in despair he resolved to follow this
path right to the end. A hundred yards farther he emerged into a
vast grey meadow, where here and there he could distinguish shadows
appearing to be juniper trees and a dark shed in a fold of the ground.
Meaulnes drew near. It was only a kind of large cattle-pen or forsaken
sheepfold. The door yielded with a groan. The light of the moon came
through chinks in the woodwork, when the high wind chased the clouds.
Without searching farther, Meaulnes stretched himself on the damp
straw, one elbow on the ground, his head on his hand. Having removed
his belt he curled up, knees bent in his overall. He then thought of
the mare’s rug which he had left in the lane and felt so wretched and
so cross with himself that he had a strong desire to cry....
So he forced himself to think of something else. Frozen to the bone,
he recalled a dream--or rather a vision which he had had when quite a
child and of which he had never spoken to any one; one morning, instead
of waking up in his room where his trousers and coats were hanging, he
had found himself in a long green room with walls like foliage. The
light streaming into this place was so sweet that you could simply
taste it. Close to the first window a young girl was sewing with her
back to him; she seemed to be waiting for him to wake. He had not
had strength to creep out of bed into this enchanted dwelling. He
had fallen asleep again.... But next time he swore he would get up.
To-morrow morning, perhaps!...
CHAPTER XI
THE MYSTERIOUS MANOR
At dawn he began to walk again. But his swollen knee hurt him; he had
to stop and sit down every moment, the pain was so sharp. The place
where he was in happened to be the most desolate in Sologne. During
all the morning he saw, in the distance, only a farm girl bringing in
her flock. In vain he called to her and tried to run; she disappeared
without hearing him.
Nevertheless he went on walking in her direction with a distressing
slowness.... Not a roof, not a soul. Not even the cry of a curlew in
the reeds of the marshes. And above this complete solitude shone a
December sun, clear and icy.
It might have been three o’clock in the afternoon when he noticed at
last, above a fir wood, the spire of a grey turret.
‘Some old forsaken manor,’ thought he; ‘some deserted dovecot!’
And without hurrying he went on his way. At the corner of the wood, in
between two white posts, appeared a drive which Meaulnes entered. He
walked up a few yards and stopped startled, disturbed by inexplicable
feelings. He walked with the same fatigue, the icy wind cut his lips
and took his breath away, and yet a strange contentment urged him on,
a perfect and almost intoxicating peace, the assurance that his goal
had been reached and that he had now nothing but happiness to expect.
In the same way he once used to feel faint with excitement on the eve
of great summer festivals, when fir trees, whose branches overshadowed
his bedroom window, were set up at nightfall along the village streets.
‘So much joy,’ he said to himself, ‘just because I am coming to this
old dovecot full of owls and draughts!...’
And angry with himself he stopped, wondering if it would be better to
turn back and go on to the next village. He had been thinking thus for
a while, with head lowered, when he suddenly noticed that the drive
had been swept clean in big regular circles as was usual at his home
at festival time. He was really in a lane which looked like the High
Street of La Ferté on the morning of Assumption Day!... Had he noticed
at the bend of the drive a crowd of holiday-makers raising up the dust
as in the month of June, he could not have been more surprised.
‘Would there be a fête in this lonely spot?’ he said to himself.
Advancing as far as the first bend, he heard the sound of approaching
voices. He stepped behind some bushy young firs, crouched and listened,
holding his breath. They were childish voices. A group of children
passed close to him. One of them, probably a little girl, was speaking
in a way so wise and so decided that Meaulnes, although he hardly
caught the sense of her words, could not help smiling.
‘One thing alone worries me,’ she was saying, ‘that is the question of
the horses. No one will ever prevent Daniel riding on the big bay pony.’
‘No one will ever prevent me!’ replied the mocking voice of a young
boy: ‘are we not allowed to do just as we please?... Even hurting
ourselves, if we like....’
And the voices grew distant as another group of children approached.
‘If the ice thaws,’ said a little girl, ‘to-morrow morning we shall go
boating.’
‘But shall we be allowed?’ said another.
‘You know very well that we are arranging things in our own way.’
‘But suppose Frantz was to come back this very evening with his
fiancée?’
‘Well! he would do as we wish!...’
* * * * *
‘No doubt a wedding,’ thought Augustin. ‘But the children lay down the
law here!... Strange land!’
He wanted to come out of his hiding-place and ask them where he could
find something to eat and drink. He stood up and saw the last group
going away. There were three little girls with pinafore dresses
reaching to their knees. They wore pretty hats with strings. Down the
neck of each hung a white feather. One of them, half turning round and
slightly leaning towards her friend, was listening to long explanations
the other was giving with one finger raised.
‘I should frighten them,’ thought Meaulnes, looking at his ragged
peasant overall and the queer belt of the schoolboys at Sainte-Agathe.
Fearing that the children would meet him on their way back along the
drive, he passed on through the firs in the direction of the ‘dovecot,’
without considering at all what he could ask for there. He was soon
stopped at the edge of the wood by a low mossy wall. On the other side,
in between the wall and the outhouses of the estate, was a long narrow
courtyard as full of carriages as the yard of an inn on the day of a
fair. These carriages were of all kinds and shapes: some elegant and
small four-seaters with their shafts up in the air; wagonettes; bourbon
coaches quite out of date with their moulded cornices, and even some
old berlins with windows raised.
Meaulnes, hidden behind the firs for fear of being seen, was examining
the disorder of the place when he noticed, on the other side of the
yard, just above the driver’s seat of a tall wagonette, a window in one
of the outhouses, half open. Two iron bars, such as are often seen on
stable shutters behind old manors, were meant to close this aperture,
but time had loosened them.
‘I will go in through there,’ thought the schoolboy. ‘I shall sleep in
the hay and leave at daybreak without having frightened these lovely
little girls.’
He climbed over the wall, painfully because of his wounded knee, and
jumping from one carriage to another, from the coachman’s box of a
wagonette to the roof of a berlin, he hauled himself up to the window,
which noiselessly opened under his push, like a door.
He found himself, not in a hayloft, but in a big room with low ceiling,
which must have been a bedroom. In the winter twilight one could make
out that the table, the mantelpiece, and even the armchairs were
covered with tall vases, objects of value, ancient weapons. At the
other end of the room hung curtains to conceal an alcove.
Meaulnes had closed the window, both because of the cold and for fear
of being seen from outside. He went to raise the curtains at the back
of the room and disclosed a big low bed covered with old gilded books,
lutes with broken strings, and chandeliers all thrown in a heap. He
pushed all these things to the back of the alcove, then stretched
himself on this couch to rest and to ponder over the strange adventure
which had befallen him.
A deep silence reigned over his domain. Only at intervals the moaning
of the high December wind could be heard.
And Meaulnes, stretched out, began to wonder if in spite of these
strange meetings, in spite of the voices of the children in the drive,
in spite of the carriages huddled together, the place was not simply,
as he had thought at first, an old disused building in the winter
wilderness.
Soon the wind seemed to bring him the sound of distant music. It was
like a memory full of charm and of regret. He recalled the days when
his mother, still young, used to come in the afternoon, and sit at the
drawing-room piano and he, silently, from behind the door leading to
the garden, listened to her until night....
‘Surely it seems as if some one is playing the piano somewhere?’ he
thought.
But leaving his question without an answer, worn out with fatigue, he
was soon asleep....
CHAPTER XII
WELLINGTON’S ROOM
It was night when he awoke. Chilled with cold he turned from side to
side in his bed, crumpling and rolling his black overall under him. A
faint yellow light bathed the curtains of the alcove.
Sitting up on the bed he pushed his head between the curtains. Some one
had opened the window and had hung two green Chinese lanterns in the
aperture.
But Meaulnes had scarcely time for one look around before he heard soft
footsteps on the landing and whispers. He started back into the alcove
and his hobnailed shoes rang against one of the bronze ornaments which
he had pushed close to the wall.
For an instant he held his breath in anxiety. The footsteps were
approaching and two shadows glided into the room.
‘Don’t make any noise,’ said one.
‘Well!’ replied the other, ‘it’s high time he woke up!’
‘Got his room ready?’
‘Of course, just like the others.’
The wind made the window swing.
‘Look,’ said the first, ‘you didn’t even shut the window. The wind has
blown out one of the lanterns already. We shall have to light it again.’
‘Bah!’ replied the other, suddenly lazy and discouraged, ‘what’s the
good of these illuminations on the countryside, the desert side so to
say? There is nobody to see them!’
‘Nobody? But more people will be coming most of the night. Down there,
on the road, in their carriages, they will be glad to see our lights!’
Meaulnes heard a match struck. The one who had spoken last, and
who appeared to be the leader, went on in a drawling voice, like a
gravedigger in Shakespeare:
‘You are putting up green lanterns in the Wellington room. You would
just as soon put red.... You know no more about it than I do!’
Silence.
‘... Wellington, he was an American chap? Well! Is green an American
colour? You’re the travelled comedian, you ought to know that.’
‘Oh! Come off it!’ replied the ‘comedian.’ ‘Me, travelled? Oh, yes! I
have travelled! But I’ve seen nothing! What can you see in a caravan?’
Meaulnes looked between the curtains with caution.
The manager was a fat bareheaded man, buried in a huge overcoat. He
held in his hand a long pole hung with lanterns of many colours, and
with his legs crossed he quietly watched his companion work.
As for the comedian, he had the most woeful body imaginable. Thin,
tall, and shivering, with squinting greenish eyes, a moustache drooping
over a toothless mouth, he called to mind the streaming face of a
drowned man stretched on a slab. He was in his shirt-sleeves and his
jaws chattered. He displayed in speech and gesture absolute contempt
for his own person.
After a moment given to thought--both pitiful and laughable--with arms
outstretched, he approached his partner and confided to him:
‘Shall I tell you what?... I can’t understand why they should have
fetched rotters like us to help in such a fête! Got that, my lad?...’
Disregarding this outburst of emotion, the fat man continued to watch
the work with his legs crossed, yawned, quietly sniffed, and then
turning his back went away with the pole on his shoulder, saying: ‘Come
on! It’s time to dress for dinner.’
The bohemian[3] followed him, but as he passed in front of the alcove:
‘Sir Sleeper!’ said he, with courtly bows and a clown’s diction, ‘it’s
up to you now to wake up and dress like a marquis even though you’re
only a pot-boy like me, and you will descend to the fancy-dress ball,
since that is the good pleasure of these little gentlemen and of these
little ladies.’
He added, in the tone of a quack at a fair, with a final bow: ‘Our
friend Maloyau, of the kitchen department, will present the character
of Harlequin and your humble servant that of tall Pierrot....’
CHAPTER XIII
THE STRANGE FESTIVAL
As soon as they had disappeared, the schoolboy came out of his
hiding-place. His feet were frozen, his joints stiff, but he was rested
and his knee seemed healed.
‘Come down to dinner?’ thought he, ‘I certainly shall. I shall simply
be a guest whose name every one has forgotten. Besides, I am not an
intruder here. It is quite clear that M. Maloyau and his companion were
expecting me....’
Coming out of the absolute darkness of the alcove, he managed to see
fairly well about the room, by the light of the green lantern.
The bohemian had ‘decorated’ it. Cloaks had been hung from curtain
books. On a heavy dressing-table, with its broken marble top, was
displayed all that was necessary to transform into a beau any lad
who might have spent the previous night in a forsaken sheepfold. A
matchbox lay on the mantelpiece by the side of a tall candlestick.
But they had neglected to polish the floor; and Meaulnes was aware of
sand and rubbish under his shoes. Again he had the impression of being
in a house which had been disused for a long time. Going towards the
fireplace he nearly stumbled over a pile of cardboard boxes large and
small: he reached out an arm, lit the candle, then lifted the lids of
the boxes and stooped down to look.
He found young men’s costumes of days long gone by, frock coats with
high velvet collars, dainty waistcoats cut very open, interminable
white cravats, and patent-leather shoes dating from the beginning of
the century. He dared not touch a thing even with his finger-tips;
but shivering as he cleaned himself, he put one of the long cloaks
over his schoolboy overall and raised its pleated collar; he changed
his hobnailed shoes for elegant pumps and prepared to go downstairs
bareheaded.
He reached the bottom of a wooden staircase in a dark corner of the
yard, without meeting any one. The icy night air blew on his face and
raised one side of his cloak.
He took a few steps and thanks to the faint clearness of the sky he
was at once able to get an idea of his surroundings. He was in a
little yard formed by outhouse buildings. Everything appeared old and
ruined. Gaps yawned at the bottom of the staircase, for the doors
had long since been removed; nor had the panes been replaced in the
windows, which made black holes in the walls. Yet all these buildings
had a mysterious holiday aspect. A coloured reflection hovered about
in the low rooms, where also lanterns must have been lit looking on
the countryside. The ground had been swept, invading weeds pulled
up. Meaulnes, listening, thought he heard something like a song,
like children and young girls’ voices down there towards the shadowy
buildings where the wind shook the branches in front of the pink,
green, and blue opening of the windows.
There he was, in his long cloak, like a hunter, stooping to listen,
when an extraordinary little fellow came out of a neighbouring building
any one would have thought deserted.
This little fellow wore a top hat very much curved in, which shone in
the night as if made of silver, a frock coat with its collar reaching
his hair, a low-cut waistcoat, and peg-top trousers.... This dandy, who
might have been fifteen, was walking on tiptoe as though lifted up by
the elastic straps of his trousers, but very swiftly.
He greeted Meaulnes as they met without stopping, automatically bowing
low, and disappeared in the darkness in the direction of the central
building, farm, castle, or abbey, the turret of which had guided the
schoolboy early in the afternoon.
After a moment’s hesitation, our hero followed in the wake of the
strange little personage. They crossed a wide open space, half garden,
half yard, passed in between clumps of bushes, went around a fenced
fish-pond, then a well, and found themselves at last at the entrance of
the central building.
A heavy wooden door, rounded at the top and studded with nails like a
church door, was half open. The dandy hurried in; Meaulnes followed
him and from his first steps in the corridor, he found himself, without
seeing any one, in the midst of laughter, songs, shouts, and chases.
A passage ran across the end of the corridor. Meaulnes was hesitating
whether to push on to the end or open one of the doors behind which he
could hear voices, when he saw two little girls, at the end, chasing
each other. He ran to see them and catch them up, moving noiselessly
in his pumps. A sound of opening doors, two faces of fifteen which the
freshness of the evening and the chase had made quite rosy under their
poke bonnets, and everything disappeared in a sudden glare of light.
For an instant they twirled round in fun, their wide light skirts rose
and bellied up; one could see the lace of their long quaint drawers;
then, after this pirouette, they bounced into the room together and
shut the door again.
Meaulnes remained for a moment dazed and staggering in this dark
corridor. He now feared to be discovered. His clumsy and hesitating
gait might lead him to be mistaken for a thief. He deliberately
retraced his steps towards the front door, when again he heard a sound
of steps and children’s voices at the end of the corridor. Two little
boys were talking as they approached.
‘Will dinner be ready soon?’ Meaulnes asked them with assurance.
‘Come with us,’ replied the bigger of the two, ‘we’ll take you in.’
And with that ease and need of friendliness which children have before
a great party, they each took hold of one of Meaulnes’ hands. Most
likely they were two little peasant boys. They had been dressed in
their best clothes: short knickers above the knees, which showed their
thick woollen stockings and their heavy boots, a small blue velvet
jacket, a cap of the same colour, and a white necktie.
‘Do _you_ know her?’ asked one of the children.
‘Me,’ said the smaller one, who had a round head and naïve eyes; ‘Mummy
says that she had a black dress and a round collar and that she looked
like a pretty Pierrot.’
‘Whom do you mean?’ asked Meaulnes.
‘Why! Frantz’s fiancée, whom he has gone to fetch....’
Before Meaulnes could say anything, the three of them reached the door
of a large room where a big fire was burning. For table, boards had
been placed on trestles; while tablecloths had been spread and people
of all kinds were dining with ceremony.
CHAPTER XIV
THE STRANGE FESTIVAL (_continuation_)
It was a meal spread in a great room with a low ceiling, like those
offered on the eve of a country wedding to relatives who had come from
a distance.
The two children had let go the schoolboy’s hands and had rushed into
an adjoining room from whence could be heard childish voices and the
clatter of spoons on plates. Meaulnes climbed over a bench boldly and
calmly and found himself seated beside two old peasant women. He at
once began to eat with fierce appetite; and only after a while did he
raise his head to look at other guests and listen.
Little, as a matter of fact, was being said. These folk seemed but
slightly acquainted. They must have come, some from far off in the
country, others from distant towns. Scattered about along the tables
were some old men with side whiskers and others clean-shaven, who might
have been old sailors. Dining near them other old men looked very much
like the first: the same tanned faces, the same sharp eyes under bushy
eyebrows, the same narrow ties like shoestrings. But it was easy to see
that these had never voyaged farther than the other end of the parish,
and if they had been tossed and beaten by winds and storms it had
occurred on that rough yet undangerous voyage in cutting the furrow to
the field end and guiding back the plough. Few women were to be seen;
only some old peasant women with round faces as wrinkled as apples
under their goffered caps.
With every one of these guests Meaulnes felt confident and at ease.
Later he came to explain that feeling by saying: If you have ever
done something unpardonable you sometimes think, in the midst of much
bitterness: ‘Yet there are people in the world who would forgive me.’
You imagine old people, indulgent grandparents, who are, beforehand,
certain that all you do is well done. Undoubtedly the guests in the
hall had been chosen from good folk of that kind; the rest were young
people and children.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, two old women were chatting close to Meaulnes.
‘Even if all is for the best,’ said the elder in a very shrill comical
voice which she vainly tried to soften, ‘the lovers will not be here
before three o’clock to-morrow.’
‘Be quiet! or you’ll make me angry,’ replied the other in the most
peaceful manner.
She was wearing over her forehead a knitted hood.
‘Let’s work it out!’ replied the first, undisturbed. ‘An hour and a
half by train from Bourges to Vierzon and seven leagues by coach from
Vierzon here....’
The talk went on. Meaulnes lost not a word. This friendly squabble
helped to clear matters up a little. Frantz de Galais, the son of the
house--who was a student or a sailor or perhaps a cadet in the Navy,
one could not be sure--had gone to Bourges to fetch a young girl and
marry her: strange to say, this boy, who must be very young and very
fantastic, arranged everything in his own way at the manor. He had
wanted the house where his fiancée was to live to look like a festive
palace. And to welcome the young girl he had himself invited these
children and these kind-hearted old people. Such were the points which
the discussion of the two women elucidated. They left everything else
in mystery and always came back to the question of the lovers’ return.
The one insisted on to-morrow morning, the other on to-morrow afternoon.
‘Poor old Moinelle, you always are so stupid,’ said the younger quickly.
‘Poor Adèle, you’re always so obstinate. I haven’t seen you for four
years and you haven’t changed an atom,’ replied the other with a shrug
of her shoulders, but in the most peaceful voice.
And thus they had it out together, without the least bad feeling.
Meaulnes joined in with the hope of learning more: ‘Is she as pretty as
people say, Frantz’s sweetheart?’
They looked at him bewildered. No one but Frantz had seen the girl.
Coming home from Toulon one evening, he had found her wandering in
great distress in one of the gardens of Bourges which are called Les
Marais. Her father, a weaver, had turned her out of the house. She
was very pretty and Frantz had decided at once to marry her. It was
a strange story, but had not his father M. de Galais and his sister
Yvonne always allowed him to do as he liked!
Meaulnes was cautiously going to put other questions when a charming
couple appeared at the doorway; a girl of sixteen wearing a velvet
bodice and a skirt with deep flounces, a young fellow in peg-top
trousers and a frock coat with a high collar. They crossed the room
dancing a _pas de deux_; others followed, then again others rushed
through screaming and chased by a tall ghastly Pierrot in dangling
sleeves, who wore a black cap and smiled from a toothless mouth. He was
running in big clumsy strides, as if each step preceded a jump, and he
flapped his long empty sleeves. The girls were a little frightened of
him, the young men shook him by the hand, and he appeared to be the
delight of the children, who chased him with shrieks and laughter. As
he passed he looked at Meaulnes with his glassy eyes, and the schoolboy
thought he recognised, now completely clean-shaven, the companion of
M. Maloyau, the bohemian who a little while before was hanging up the
lanterns.
The meal ended. Every one rose.
In the corridors round games and country dances began. A band played
a minuet somewhere. Meaulnes, with his head half hidden by the collar
of his cloak, as by a ruff, felt himself a different person. He, too,
caught the fun of it all and began to chase the tall Pierrot through
the corridors, how like the wings of a theatre where the play had
overflowed from the stage, in every direction. He thus found himself
part of a gay crowd in extravagant fancy dress. Sometimes he opened a
door and was in a room with a magic lantern. Children clapped loudly.
Sometimes, in a corner of the room devoted to dancing, he talked with
some dandy and tried hastily to find out the sort of dress to be worn
on the days following.
Rather troubled at last by all this gaiety offered him, and every
moment fearing lest his partly open cloak would reveal his schoolboy
overall, he sought refuge for a while in the quietest and darkest part
of the dwelling. No other sound could be heard there but the muffled
music of a piano.
He entered another door and found himself in a dining-room lit by a
hanging lamp. There also fun was on, but fun for the children. Some of
these, seated on hassocks, were busy turning over the pages of albums
open on their knees; others, squatting on the floor in front of a
chair, were gravely engaged in displaying pictures on the seat; others,
again, near the fire said nothing and did nothing but listen to the
hum of the fête audible throughout the great house.
One door of this dining-room was wide open. In the next room could be
heard the piano being played. Meaulnes, inquisitively, put his head in.
It was a sort of drawing-room parlour; a woman or a young girl, with
a brown cloak thrown over her shoulders and her back turned, was very
softly playing tunes of round games and nursery rhymes. Close to her,
on the sofa, six or seven little boys and girls sat in a row as in a
picture, good as children are when it grows late, and listened. Only
now and again one of them, using his wrist as prop, lifted himself up,
slid down to the ground, and passed into the dining-room: then one of
those who had finished looking at the pictures came to take his place.
After the ball where everything was charming but feverish and mad,
where he had himself so madly chased the tall Pierrot, Meaulnes found
that he had dropped into the most peaceful happiness on earth.
Noiselessly, while the girl played on, he went back to sit in the
dining-room, and opening one of the big red books scattered on the
table, he absent-mindedly began to read.
Almost at once one of the little boys crouched on the floor came up to
him, and catching hold of his arm, climbed on his knee to look over;
another settled on the other side. Then began a dream like his old
dream. His mind could dwell on the fancy that he was married and in
his own home during a beautiful evening and that this lovely unknown
person playing the piano, close to him, was his wife.
CHAPTER XV
THE MEETING
Next morning Meaulnes was one of the first to be ready. He put on, as
he had been told, a simple black old-fashioned suit; a tight-waisted
jacket with sleeves puffed out at the shoulders, a double-breasted
waistcoat, trousers so wide at the bottom that they hid his dainty
shoes, and a top hat.
The courtyard was deserted when he came down. He took a few steps and
felt projected into a day of spring. It proved, indeed, to be the most
lovely morning of that winter, sunny as in the first days of April.
The frost was giving way and the damp grass shone as with dewdrops. In
the trees many small birds were singing, and from time to time a warm
breeze touched his face as he walked.
He behaved as guests do who wake before their host. He went out into
the courtyard, thinking that, at any moment, a friendly and gay voice
would call from behind him: ‘Up already, Augustin?’
But he walked alone for a long time in the garden and in the courtyard.
Over there, in the main building, nothing stirred, either in the
windows or in the turret. Yet the two wings of the heavy-studded door
were already open. And at one of the top windows a ray of sunshine
shone as in summer in the early morning.
Meaulnes for the first time saw the grounds of the manor in broad
daylight. Remains of a wall separated the unkept garden from the
courtyard, where quite recently sand had been spread and smoothed over
with the rake. At the end of the annex where his room was stood stables
built in quaint disorder, which multiplied corners thick with ramping
bushes and Virginia creeper. The fir woods, which hid the manor from
all the flat country around, encroached onto the very grounds--except
towards the east where could be seen blue hills covered with rocks and
yet more firs.
For one moment, in the garden, Meaulnes leaned over the shaky fence
enclosing the fish-pond; near the edges there remained a little thin
ice in folds like froth.... He saw himself reflected in the water,
as if bending over the sky in his romantic student’s costume. And he
fancied it was another Meaulnes; no longer the schoolboy who had run
away in a peasant’s cart, but a charming youth of romance from the
pages of some handsome prize-book....
He hurried towards the main building, for he was hungry. A peasant
woman was laying the table in the large hall where he had dined the
previous evening. As soon as Meaulnes sat down in front of one of the
bowls set in a line on the cloth, she poured him some coffee and said:
‘You are the first down, sir?’
He did not wish to answer lest he should suddenly be recognized as
a stranger. He only asked at what time the boat would leave for the
morning excursion which had been announced.
‘Not for half an hour, sir. No one has come down yet,’ was the reply.
So he continued to wander in search of the landing-stage, all around
this long castle-like house, built with unequal wings in the style of a
church. When he turned round the south wing, he suddenly saw the reeds
which, as far as the eyes could reach, formed the landscape. The water
of the lakes, on that side, bathed the foot of the walls, and in front
of several doors little wooden balconies overhung the rippling wavelets.
The youth, idly, rambled at leisure along a shore sandy as a
towing-path. He peered through the dusty panes of large doors into
dilapidated or forsaken rooms and sheds encumbered with wheelbarrows,
rusted tools, and broken flower pots, when, suddenly, at the other end
of the building, he heard footsteps crunching the sand.
Two women were approaching, one very old and bent, the other a young
girl, fair and slender, whose charming dress, after all the fancy
costumes of the previous evening, at first appeared strange to Meaulnes.
They stopped a moment to look at the view, while Meaulnes said to
himself, with an astonishment which he later viewed as vulgar: ‘That
girl must be what is called eccentric--perhaps an actress who has been
asked for the fête.’
Meanwhile, the two women passed close to him, and Meaulnes, motionless,
watched the girl. Often, in after days, when falling asleep, after
having tried in vain to recall the beautiful elusive face, rows of
young women, not unlike this one, would pass before him in his dream.
One had a hat like hers, another her slightly drooping head; this one
her clear gaze, this other her small waist and yet another her blue
eyes; but none of these women was ever the tall young girl.
Meaulnes had time to notice under the mass of fair hair a face, rather
short but with features outlined with almost painful delicacy. And when
she had passed, he observed that she wore what was certainly the most
simple and sensible of dresses.
In some perplexity he was asking himself if he should accompany
them, when the girl, turning imperceptibly towards him, said to her
companion: ‘Surely the boat will soon be here, now?...’
And Meaulnes followed them. The old lady, shaky and worn with age,
never ceased chatting and laughing. The girl answered her gently. And
when they walked down to the landing-stage she once again had that
innocent grave look which seemed to say: ‘Who are you? What are you
doing here? I don’t know you. And yet it seems to me that I do know
you.’
Other guests were now scattered amongst the trees, waiting. Three
pleasure boats came to the shore, ready to take the holiday-makers on
board. One by one, as the women, who seemed to be the lady of the manor
and her daughter, passed by, the young men bowed low and the girls
curtsied. Strange morning! Strange pleasure party! It was cold, in
spite of the winter sun, and the women were twisting round their necks
those feather boas which were then fashionable.
The old lady remained on shore and, without knowing how, Meaulnes found
himself in the same boat as the young lady of the manor. He leaned at
the side of the deck, one hand holding on his hat in the high wind,
and he was able to watch at his ease the girl who sat in shelter. She
watched him, too. She answered her friends, smiled, and then gently let
her blue eyes rest on him, biting her lip a little.
There was deep silence on the near banks. The boat glided on with a
quiet sound of engine and water. It was easy to imagine one was in
the heart of summer. They were going to land, so it seemed, in the
beautiful garden of some country house. There, the girl would walk
about under a white sunshade. Until evening the moan of doves would be
heard.... But suddenly an icy blast came to remind the guests at this
strange fête that it was December.
* * * * *
They landed in front of a fir wood. On the landing-stage, the
passengers had to wait a moment huddled, one against the other, while
one of the boatmen unlocked the gate. With what joy, in after days,
Meaulnes recalled the one minute when, on the shore of the lake, he had
felt, close to his own, the girl’s face, since lost! He had gazed at
that profile, so pure, until his eyes had nearly filled with tears. And
he remembered having seen, like a delicate secret she had confided to
him, a little powder on her cheek....
On land everything happened as in a dream. While the children ran about
with shouts of joy, while groups formed and scattered through the
woods, Meaulnes entered a path where ten paces ahead of him the girl
was walking.
He was close to her without having had time to think. ‘You are lovely,’
he said simply.
But she hurried on and without replying turned off along another path.
Other people were playing and running about the avenues, each wandering
where the fancy took him. The young man sharply reproached himself with
what he called his thick-headedness, his grossness, his stupidity. He
rambled on aimlessly, convinced that he would never again set eye on
this gracious being, when suddenly he saw her approaching and forced
to pass close to him in the narrow path. With two bare hands, she
pushed the folds of her long cloak out of the way. She wore black shoes
cut very open. Her ankles were so slender that at times they appeared
to bend and you feared they might break.
This time, the young man took off his hat and said, very softly: ‘Will
you forgive me?’
‘I forgive you,’ she said gravely. ‘But I must go back to the children,
as they are the masters to-day. Good-bye.’
Augustin begged her to stay a moment longer. He spoke to her awkwardly,
but in a voice so agitated and so disturbed, that she walked more
slowly and listened to him.
‘I do not even know who you are,’ she said at last.
She spoke in an even tone, dwelling on each word in the same way, but
saying the last one more softly.... Then she regained her steady look,
still biting her lips a little, and her blue eyes looked into the
distance.
‘I do not know your name either,’ replied Meaulnes.
They were following a lane no longer under the cover of the woods, and
some way off the guests could be seen crowding around an isolated house
in the open country.
‘Here is “Frantz’s House,”’ said the girl. ‘I must leave you....’
She hesitated, looked at him a moment, and smiling said: ‘My name?...
I am Mademoiselle Yvonne de Galais....’
And she hurried away.
* * * * *
‘Frantz’s House’ was then uninhabited. But Meaulnes found it invaded,
up to the attics, by the crowd of guests. He had scarcely leisure,
however, to examine the spot where he now stood: they all hastened to
eat a cold lunch which had been brought in the boats and which was
hardly seasonable, but most likely the children had decided on it; then
they set off again.
Meaulnes came close to Mademoiselle de Galais as soon as he saw her
leave the house, and in answer to what she had said previously: ‘The
name I had given you was much nicer,’ he said.
‘How is that? What was the name?’ she replied, always with the same
seriousness.
But he was afraid of having said something silly, and he did not answer.
‘Well, my own name is Augustin Meaulnes,’ he went on, ‘and I am a
student.’
‘Oh! you are studying?’ she said.
And they spoke a moment longer. They spoke slowly with happiness--with
friendship. Then the girl’s attitude changed. Less haughty and less
serious, she now also seemed more uneasy. She seemed to be dreading
what Augustin might say and was troubled beforehand. She was close to
him, trembling like a swallow alighted for a moment on the ground and
already quivering with the longing to resume its flight.
‘What is the good? What is the good?’ she replied gently to the plans
which Meaulnes proposed.
But then at last he dared to ask her permission to come back one day to
this delightful manor.
‘I will wait for you,’ she replied simply.
They came in sight of the landing-stage.
She stopped suddenly and said thoughtfully: ‘We are two children, we
have behaved foolishly. We mustn’t get into the same boat this time.
Good-bye; do not follow me.’
For an instant Meaulnes remained dumbfounded, watching her go away.
Then he continued his walk. And the girl in the distance, stopped at
the moment of disappearing in the crowd of guests, and turning, for the
first time, took a long look at him. Was that a last farewell? Was it
to forbid him to follow her? Or had she perhaps something else to tell
him?...
* * * * *
As soon as they returned to the manor the pony-race started in a big
meadow that sloped down at the back of the farm. It was the last item
of the fête. According to the arrangements the fiancés were to arrive
for it and Frantz was to manage it all.
Yet they had to begin without him. The boys in their jockey suits and
the little girls as horsewomen led in some frisky ponies decked with
ribbons as well as very old docile horses, amid shouts, children’s
laughter, betting, and prolonged sounding of the bell. One could have
fancied one’s self on the green and newly mown turf of a miniature
race-course.
Meaulnes spotted Daniel and the little girls with feathers in their
hats whose voices he had heard the day before in the drive near the
wood.... The other part of the show was lost on him, so great was his
anxiety to find, among the crowd, the charming hat trimmed with roses
and the long brown cloak. But Mademoiselle de Galais never appeared.
He was still looking for her when a full peal of the bell and joyful
hurrahs announced that the race was over. A little girl mounted on an
old white mare had won the prize. She proudly passed by on her mount,
the feather of her hat fluttering in the wind.
Then suddenly all was still. The games were ended and Frantz had not
come back. There was a moment of hesitation; people consulted uneasily.
At last, in groups, the guests went back to the house to await in
silence and anxiety the home-coming of the engaged couple.
CHAPTER XVI
FRANTZ DE GALAIS
The race had ended too soon. It was half-past four and still daylight
when Meaulnes found himself again in his room, his head full of the
events of this extraordinary day. He sat down idly at the table,
waiting for the dinner and the fête which would follow.
The great wind which had blown on the first evening blew again. It
could be heard roaring like a torrent or passing by with the insistent
hiss of a waterfall. Every now and then the damper in the grate shook.
For the first time Meaulnes felt the little pang that gets you at the
close of too lovely a day. It occurred to him to light a fire, but
he tried vainly to raise the rusted damper. Then he began to tidy
the room; he hung up his handsome clothes on the pegs, arranged the
disordered chairs in a row along the walls, as if he were anxious to
make preparations for a long stay.
Remembering, however, that he ought to be ready to leave at a moment’s
notice, he carefully folded his overall and his other school things
like travelling clothes on the back of a chair and put his hobnailed
shoes, still thick with mud, under the chair.
Then he sat down again and, feeling calmer, inspected his dwelling-room
now set in order.
From time to time a drop of rain left a streak on the window which
looked on the stable-yard and the fir wood. At peace since he had
tidied his room, the big boy felt perfectly happy. There he was,
mysterious, a stranger in the midst of this unknown world, in the room
he had chosen. What he had found surpassed all his hopes. And it was
enough now for his joy to recall, in the high wind, the face of that
girl who turned towards him....
* * * * *
Night had fallen during this reverie, and he had not given a thought
even to lighting the tall candles. A gust of wind banged the door of
the dressing-room adjoining his, which also looked on the stable-yard.
Meaulnes was about to close it when he noticed, in that room, a faint
light as of a candle burning on the table. He put his head through the
half-open door. Some one had got in there, by the window, no doubt,
and was walking up and down with silent tread. So far as one could see
it was a very young man with a long travelling cloak on his shoulders.
Bareheaded, this young man paced up and down without a stop, like one
distracted by some unbearable grief. From the window, which he had left
wide open, the wind made his cloak flutter, and each time he passed
close to the light a glint of brass buttons on his handsome frock coat
caught the eye.
He was whistling between his teeth a kind of chanty such as sailors
and prostitutes sing, to keep up their spirits in the pot-houses of
seaports.
He stopped for an instant in the midst of his troubled walk, leaned
over the table, searched in a box, took out several sheets of paper....
By the light of the candle Meaulnes saw in profile very fine and very
aquiline features, clean-shaven, under a thick head of hair which
was parted on one side. He had stopped whistling. He was very pale;
his lips were half open, and he seemed short of breath as if he had
received a violent blow on the heart.
Meaulnes wondered whether it would be wise to retire or to go in and
put a hand on his shoulder like a friend and talk to him. But the other
raised his head and saw him. He looked at him for a moment; then,
without surprise, came up and said, steadying his voice:
‘I do not know you, sir, but I am pleased to see you. As you are here
it is to you I will explain.... Listen!...’
He appeared completely broken. After he had said ‘Listen,’ he caught
hold of Meaulnes by his coat lapel, as though to fix his attention.
Then he turned his head towards the window, as if to collect his
thoughts, blinked--and Meaulnes realized that he badly wanted to cry.
But suddenly he swallowed back this childlike grief and, still gazing
at the window, he went on in an altered voice:
‘Well! listen; it’s all ended; the fête is ended. You can go down and
tell them. I’ve come back alone. My fiancée will not come. Scruples,
fear, lack of faith ... besides, sir, I must explain to you....’
But he could not go on. His face screwed up. He explained nothing. He
suddenly turned away and went, in the dim light, to open and then close
drawers full of clothes and books.
‘I am going to get ready to go away again,’ he said. ‘Let no one
disturb me.’
He placed various things on the table, a dressing-case, a revolver....
And Meaulnes walked out, full of dismay, not daring to say a word or to
shake hands.
Downstairs everybody seemed to have guessed something already. Nearly
all the girls had changed dresses. In the main building dinner had
started, but people ate in haste, anyhow, as at the moment of starting
on a journey.
There was a constant going to and fro from this large kitchen hall to
the bedrooms and stables. Those who had done eating formed groups and
said ‘Good-bye’ to each other.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Meaulnes of a peasant boy who was making
haste to finish his meal, a felt hat on his head and a table napkin
tucked into his waistcoat:
‘We are leaving,’ he said. ‘It’s been decided quite suddenly. At five
o’clock we found ourselves quite alone, all the guests together. We had
waited as long as we possibly could. Too late for the lovers to turn
up. Somebody said, “Let’s go” ... And everybody made ready to leave.’
Meaulnes made no reply. He did not mind going now. Had he not reached
the end of his adventure?... Had he not this once obtained all that he
wished for? Scarcely had he had time even quietly to go over in his
mind the beautiful conversation of the morning. At the moment the only
thing was to go. And soon he would come back--without trickery this
time....
‘If you like to come with us,’ went on his companion, who was a boy of
his own age, ‘look sharp and get ready; we are going to harness up at
once.’
Meaulnes hurried out, leaving his meal unfinished and omitting to tell
the guests what he knew. The park, the garden, and the yard were now
plunged in total darkness. There were no lanterns that evening at the
windows. But as this dinner was, after all, not unlike the meal at the
conclusion of a wedding, the less considerate of the guests, who had
perhaps been drinking, began to sing. As he went off, Meaulnes heard
their cabaret songs fill the air of the park which for two days had
held so much grace and so much wonder. And it proved the beginning of
confusion and chaos. He passed close to the fish-pond into which he
had looked, that very morning, at his own reflection. How everything
seemed changed already ... with this song, sung in chorus, which
reached him in snatches:
Where has’t come from, little wanton?
Your cap is in two
Your hair all askew...
And this one, too:
My shoes are red ...
Good-bye, my lover ...
My shoes are red ...
Good-bye forever!
As he reached the foot of the stairs leading to his isolated lodging,
some one came down and bumped into him in the dark, saying: ‘Good-bye,
sir!’--and wrapping himself in his cloak as if it were very cold,
disappeared. It was Frantz de Galais.
* * * * *
The candle which Frantz had left in his room was still burning. Nothing
had been touched. Only, written on a conspicuous sheet of note-paper,
were these words:
‘My fiancée has disappeared, letting me know that she cannot be my
wife; that she was a dressmaker and not a princess. I do not know what
will become of me. I am going away. I no longer wish to live. May
Yvonne forgive me for not saying good-bye to her, but she could not do
anything for me....’
It was the end of the candle, the flame of which guttered, flickered
a moment and went out. Meaulnes returned to his own room and shut the
door. In spite of the darkness he made out all the things which he had
tidied, in full daylight and in full happiness, a few hours before.
Garment after garment, all intact, he found again his old wretched
suit, from his hobnailed shoes to his clumsy belt with the brass
buckle. He undressed and dressed again swiftly, but distraught, placing
his borrowed clothes on a chair, putting on the wrong waistcoat....
Under the windows, in the stable-yard, the bustle of departure had
begun. Pulling, shouting, and pushing, each one wanted to get his
vehicle out of the confused crowd in which it was hemmed. From time to
time a man would climb on the driver’s seat of a trap or on the hood of
a big covered cart and search about with his light. The reflection of
the lantern came in at the window; for a brief moment the room around
Meaulnes, once familiar and where everything had been so friendly,
breathed again, lived again.... And thus it was that, carefully closing
the door, he left this mysterious place which no doubt he was never
again to see.
CHAPTER XVII
THE STRANGE FESTIVAL (_end_)
Already, night as it was, a string of vehicles wound slowly towards
the gate at the entrance of the wood. A man, in a goatskin, holding a
lantern, led the first horse of the procession.
Meaulnes was anxious to find some one to give him a lift. He was
anxious to go away. Deep within him he dreaded finding himself suddenly
alone at the manor and his trick discovered.
When he arrived in front of the main building, he found the drivers
assigning their occupants to the last carriages. The travellers were
made to stand while the seats were brought forward or pushed backward,
and the girls, swathed in shawls, got up clumsily, the rugs slipping to
their feet, and one could distinguish the anxious faces of those whose
heads were lowered towards the carriage lights.
One of these drivers Meaulnes recognised as the young peasant who had
offered to see him home a while ago.
‘May I get in?’ he called out.
‘Where are you going, my lad?’ replied the other, not recognising him.
‘Sainte-Agathe way.’
‘Then you should ask Maritain for a seat.’
And the big schoolboy started in search of this unknown Maritain
amongst the guests who were late in leaving. The man was pointed out to
him amongst the convivial spirits in the kitchen.
‘He’s a slacker,’ they told him; ‘he’ll be here till three in the
morning.’
Meaulnes thought for a moment of the poor worried girl who, in the
midst of her grief and anxiety, would hear the songs of these tipplers
filling the place far into the night. In which room was she? Where was
her window amongst these mysterious buildings? But there was no point
in stopping. He must go. Once back at Sainte-Agathe everything would
become clearer; he would no longer be a runaway schoolboy; he would
once more be able to dream of the young mistress of the manor.
One by one the vehicles left; the wheels grated on the sand of the
drive. One could see them turn to disappear in the night with their
loads of muffled-up women and children wrapped in shawls and already
dropping asleep. One more big covered cart; then passed a wagonette
in which women were huddled shoulder to shoulder, and Meaulnes was
left standing bewildered on the steps of the house. Soon, only an old
berlin, driven by a peasant in a smock, would be left.
‘You can get in,’ he replied to Augustin’s inquiries. ‘We are going
your way.’
With some difficulty Meaulnes opened the door of the rickety old
vehicle, while the panes rattled and the hinges creaked. On the seat,
in a corner of the carriage two quite small children, a boy and a girl,
were asleep. The noise and the cold woke them. They stretched, looked
vaguely about them shivering, nestled back in their corner and dropped
off to sleep again.
Now the old carriage set off. Meaulnes closed the door more gently, and
carefully settled in the other corner; then, hungrily, he tried to make
out, through the window, the place he was about to leave and the road
by which he had come: he guessed, in spite of the darkness, that the
carriage was crossing the courtyard and the garden, passing in front of
the stairway leading to his room, going through the gate and leaving
the manor grounds to enter the woods. The trunks of the old fir trees
could be distinguished moving by the window.
‘Perhaps we shall meet Frantz de Galais,’ Meaulnes said to himself with
beating heart.
Suddenly, the carriage swerved in the narrow lane to avoid collision
with an obstacle. From its heavy appearance, as far as one could tell
in the night, it was a caravan, almost in the middle of the road, which
had stopped there during these last days in proximity to the fête.
Having passed that obstacle, the horses started again at a trot, and
Meaulnes was beginning to tire of looking out of the window in a vain
effort to pierce through the surrounding darkness, when suddenly, in
the depths of the woods, there was a flash of light followed by a
report. The horses set off at full gallop and Meaulnes could not make
out, at first, whether the peasant who drove was attempting to hold
them back or on the contrary urging them on. He wanted to open the
door. As the handle was on the outside, he tried without success to
lower the window; he shook it.... The children waking up in a fright
huddled against each other without saying a word. And while he shook
the window, his face close to the glass, a bend in the road enabled him
to see a white figure running. It was the tall Pierrot of the fête, the
bohemian in his fancy costume, but haggard and distracted and carrying
in his arms a human body clasped closely to him. Then all disappeared.
In the carriage, tearing on at full gallop in the night, the children
were once more asleep. No one to whom to speak of the mysterious
happenings of the past two days. After reviewing at length all he had
seen or heard, the young man, himself tired, his heart heavy, dropped
off to sleep like a sad child....
* * * * *
... It was scarcely dawn when the carriage stopped on the road and
Meaulnes was awakened by some one knocking at the window. With some
difficulty the driver opened the door and shouted, while the icy wind
froze the schoolboy to the bone:
‘You get out here! It’s almost daylight. We are going to take the short
cut. You’re quite near Sainte-Agathe.’
Half asleep, Meaulnes obeyed, felt about in the darkest corner of the
carriage for his cap which had rolled under the feet of the sleeping
children; then he got out, stooping.
‘Well, good-bye,’ said the man, climbing back to his seat; ‘you’ve only
got six kilometres to do. Look, there is the milestone by the roadside.’
Meaulnes, still heavy with sleep, dragged himself up to the milestone
and sat down with his arms folded and his head bent forward as though
to fall asleep again.
‘No, no!’ called out the coachman; ‘you mustn’t think of sleeping
there. It’s too cold. Come on, up you get, walk a bit....’
Staggering like a drunken man, the big boy with his hands in his
pockets and his shoulders hunched up, went slowly along the road of
Sainte-Agathe, while the old berlin, the last trace of the mysterious
festival, quitted the highroad and jolted silently off over the grass
track. Now only the hat of the driver could be seen, dancing above the
hedges....
PART II
CHAPTER I
THE GREAT GAME
Wind and cold, rain or snow, the impossibility of making any long
expedition prevented Meaulnes and me from mentioning again the Lost
Land before the end of the winter. There was nothing worth beginning
during these short February days--these Thursdays[4] broken up by
squalls which invariably ended, about five, in a dismal freezing
downpour.
Nothing recalled Meaulnes’ adventure except the strange fact that since
the afternoon of his return we no longer had friends. At recreation
time the same games were got up as before, but Jasmin never spoke to
Admiral Meaulnes. In the evenings, as soon as the classroom was swept,
the playground became deserted, as in the days when I was alone, and I
now watched my friend strolling to and fro from the garden to the shed
and from the playground to the dining-room.
On Thursday mornings each of us settled at the master’s desk in one
of the two classrooms to read Rousseau and Paul Louis Courrier whom
we had dug out of the cupboards from amongst English textbooks and
copybooks of carefully transcribed music. In the afternoon some caller
or other caused us to leave the house and we returned to the school....
Sometimes we used to hear some of the senior boys stop for a moment,
as if by chance, in front of the big gate, bang against it during some
unintelligible military games, and then go away.... This melancholy
life went on until the end of February. I was beginning to think that
Meaulnes had forgotten everything when an adventure, stranger than the
others, came to prove to me that I had been mistaken and that a violent
storm was brewing under the dreary surface of this winter life.
It happened to be a Thursday evening towards the end of the month,
that the first news of the mysterious manor, the first ripple of that
adventure of which we never spoke, reached us. We were all snug for the
evening. My grandparents having left, there remained only Millie and my
father, who had not the least idea of the secret quarrel by which the
form was split into two clans.
At eight o’clock Millie, who had opened the door to shake out the
crumbs after the meal, exclaimed: ‘Ah!’ in a voice so clear that we all
came near to look. On the doorstep there was a layer of snow.... As it
was very dark, I walked a few steps into the playground to see if the
layer was thick. I felt light flakes touch my face, to melt at once.
I was quickly made to come in, and Millie, feeling chilly, hastened to
shut the door.
At nine o’clock we prepared to go to bed; Mother was already holding
the lamp in her hand when we quite distinctly heard two violent bangs
hammered with great fury against the big gate at the other end of the
playground. Millie put down the lamp on the table and we all stood
there alert, listening.
No one dreamed of going to see what was the matter. Before getting
halfway across the playground the lamp would have been out and the
glass broken. There was a short silence and Father was beginning,
‘It must have been ...’ when right under the dining-room window
looking on the Station Road, as I have said before, sounded a shrill
prolonged whistle which must have been heard as far as the church. And
immediately behind the window, scarcely softened by the glass, and
coming from people who seemed to have hoisted themselves up to the
window-sill, burst loud shouts of: ‘Fetch him along! Fetch him along!’
At the other end of the building other loud shouts responded. These
people must have gone through Father Martin’s field and climbed on the
low wall separating the field from the playground.
Then cries of ‘Fetch him along,’ shouted on every side by eight or
ten unknown persons disguising their voices, burst out from the roof
of the larder which they could only reach by climbing over a heap of
faggots leaning against the outside wall; from a little wall which ran
from the shed to the big gate and on which being rounded you could
sit comfortably astride; from the railed wall along the Station Road,
quite easy to climb.... Finally a number of stragglers came up from the
garden behind, making the same din, but shouting: ‘Let ’em have it!’
And we heard the sound of their yells echoing in the empty classrooms
where they had opened the windows.
Meaulnes and I knew so well all the corners and corridors of the big
building that we could clearly see, as on a plan, the positions from
which the unknown people were launching their attack.
To tell the truth, it was only just at first that we were frightened.
The shrill whistle had made the four of us think of tramps and gipsies
breaking in. As a matter of fact, for the last fortnight, a tall
rogue and a youngster with his head bandaged up had been about in the
square behind the church. There were strange workmen, too, at the
wheelwright’s and the blacksmith’s.
But as soon as we heard the cries of the assailants we were convinced
that we had to do with people--probably youngsters--from the village.
Absolute little scalawags--you could spot them by their piercing
voices--were among the crowd who stormed our house as they would board
a ship.
‘Well, I never....’ exclaimed my father.
And Millie asked in a faint voice: ‘What on earth does it all mean?’
Suddenly the voices near the big gate and the adjoining wall stopped,
then those near the window. Two blasts of a whistle came from behind
the French window. The cries of those hanging on the larder roof and of
those attacking from the garden grew fainter and fainter, then ceased;
we heard along the dining-room wall the scuttering steps of the whole
gang in hasty retreat, getting lost in the snow.
Some one obviously was disturbing them. At an hour when all slept, they
thought they could easily storm a house isolated at the far end of the
village. But here was some one upsetting their plan of campaign.
We had scarcely time to recover--for the attack had been sudden as a
well-planned boarding of a ship--and prepare to sally out, when we
heard a voice we knew call out at the same gate:
‘Monsieur Seurel! Monsieur Seurel!’
It was M. Pasquier, the butcher. The fat little man scraped his clogs
on the doorstep, shook his short smock powdered with snow, and came in.
He put on the knowing and startled air of one who has surprised the
secret of a mystery.
‘I was in my yard which faces the Cross-Roads. I was going to lock up
the goats’ shed. Suddenly, standing there in the snow, what d’ye think
I saw? Two tall lads as looked posted like sentries or on the watch
for something. They were standing by the cross. I went towards them,
just two steps.--Lord! there be these lads starting off at full speed
towards here. I didn’t wait: not me. I picked up my lantern and I said:
I be off to tell M. Seurel of this....’
And once more he begins his story. ‘I was in my yard at the back of my
place....’ So we offer him a drink, which he accepts, and we ask him
details which he cannot give.
He had seen nothing on reaching our house. All the bands, warned by
the two sentries whom he had disturbed, had at once vanished. As for
knowing who the rascals could be....
‘Gipsies, quite likely,’ he suggested. ‘For a month they’ve been about
in the square wailing for fine weather to give us a play, and must have
been hatching some mischief.’
This did not help us much, and we all stood there very puzzled while
the man sipped his drink and once more started his story, when
Meaulnes, who so far had listened attentively, took the butcher’s
lantern from the floor and exclaimed: ‘We must go and see!’
He opened the door and we followed him, M. Seurel, M. Pasquier, and
myself.
Millie, quite herself again after the attackers’ departure, and, like
all orderly and careful people, very uninquisitive by nature, said:
‘Well, go if you like, but close the door and take the key. As for me,
I am going to bed; I’ll leave the lamp burning.’
CHAPTER II
WE FALL INTO AN AMBUSH
We went out over the snow in absolute silence. Meaulnes walked ahead,
raying out the light from his storm lamp, like a fan. We had scarcely
set foot outside the big gate when two figures in hoods sprang up like
startled partridges from behind the town weighing-machine. Either
to cheek us, or from pleasure at the game they were up to there, or
from nervousness and fear of being caught, they spoke a few words and
laughed as they ran away.
Meaulnes dropped his lantern in the snow, calling out:
‘Follow me, François!...’
And leaving behind the two elderly men who could not stand the pace,
we rushed in pursuit of the two shadows, who, after skirting the lower
part of the village by the Old Plank Road, deliberately went back
towards the church. They ran steadily, without hurrying, and we kept up
with them easily. They crossed Church Street, where all was asleep and
silent, and passed into a maze of by-streets and blind alleys at the
back of the churchyard.
This was the quarter of the journeymen, sempstresses, and weavers known
as ‘The Nookery.’ We did not know it well and we had never been there
at night. The place was deserted in the daytime: the journeymen being
away, the weavers working indoors; and during this night of absolute
silence it appeared even more forsaken, more asleep than other parts of
the village. So there was no possible chance of any one unexpectedly
coming to lend us a hand.
I knew only one way amongst these small houses, scattered about at
random like cardboard boxes, and that was the one leading to the
dressmaker known as the ‘Dumb Girl.’ You had to go down a rather steep
slope paved here and there; then, taking two or three turns amongst
weavers’ back yards and empty stables, you came to a wide blind alley
closed up by a farmyard long since deserted. I used to visit the Dumb
Girl with my mother, and while they talked on silently with flashing
fingers and grunts common to people with her affliction, I could look
out from the window at the high wall of the farm--the last house
on that side of the village--and the closed gate of a disused yard
destitute of straw, where nothing ever passed by....
That is exactly the way the two unknown persons took. At each turning
we feared to lose them, but, to my surprise, we always reached the
corner of the next alley before they had left it. I say to my surprise,
because this could not possibly have been done, so short were these
alleys, had they not slowed down whenever we were out of sight.
At last, without hesitating, they took the street leading to the Dumb
Girl’s, and I called out to Meaulnes: ‘We’ve got them. It is a blind
alley!’
The truth is, they had got us ... They had led us exactly where they
wanted. When they reached the wall, they resolutely turned on us, and
one of them let out that shrill whistle which we had already heard
twice during the evening.
At once a dozen fellows came out of the abandoned farmyard where they
had apparently been posted to await us. They had pulled their hoods
over their heads and hidden their faces in their scarves.
We knew beforehand who they were, but we had decided not to tell M.
Seurel, as our affairs were not his concern. There were Delouche,
Denis, Giraudat, and all the others. We recognised each one during
the skirmish by his way of fighting and by snatches of talk. But one
worrying thing remained and seemed almost to frighten Meaulnes: some
one was with them whom we did not know and who seemed to be their
leader....
He never touched Meaulnes: he watched the work of his men, who, being
dragged in the snow and their clothes torn, had all they could do to
tackle the great breathless chap. A couple of them had gone for me, and
had had a job to put me out, as I fought like a demon. I was on the
ground, knees bent, sitting on my heels; they twisted my arms behind my
back, and I watched it all with intense curiosity mingled with terror.
Meaulnes shook off four top-form boys by twisting violently round on
himself and throwing them headlong into the snow.... And the Unknown,
standing very straight, followed the fight with interest, but perfect
calm, saying now and again in a clear voice: ‘Go on.... Courage....
Once more.... Go on, my boys....’
Obviously he was in command.... Where had he sprung from? Where and how
had he trained them for the fight? This remained a mystery to us. His
face, like the others’, was hidden in a scarf, but when Meaulnes shook
off his adversaries and advanced towards him, the gesture the Unknown
made to see clearly and face the position, exposed some white linen
with which his head was swathed as in a bandage.
At this moment I cried out to Meaulnes: ‘Look out behind! There’s
another.’
He had scarcely turned round when a lanky fellow, springing from the
gate at Meaulnes’ back, cleverly twisted a scarf around my friend’s
neck and threw him backward. At once the four boys who had fallen in
the snow came back to the fray to pin Meaulnes down, tying his arms
with a cord, his legs with a scarf, while the young man with the
bandaged head searched his pockets....
The late comer, the thrower of the lasso, had lit a small candle which
he protected with his hand, and at each find of some new piece of
paper the leader went to this light to examine what it contained. He,
at last, unfolded the kind of map covered with inscriptions at which
Meaulnes had worked since his return, and exclaimed with glee: ‘This
time we’ve got it! There’s the plan! That’s the guide! We are going to
see if this gentleman has really been where I imagine.’
His accomplice blew out the candle. Each one picked up his cap or his
belt. And all disappeared as silently as they had come, leaving me free
to hasten to release my friend.
‘He won’t go far with that plan,’ said Meaulnes, rising on his feet.
And we went off slowly, as he walked rather lame. In Church Street we
came upon M. Seurel and M. Pasquier.
‘You didn’t see anything, I bet!’ they said.... ‘Neither did we.’
Thanks to the pitch darkness they noticed nothing queer. The butcher
left us and M. Seurel went in quickly and then to bed.
But once upstairs in our room, by the light of the lamp which Millie
had left us, we both remained a long time mending our overalls and
quietly discussing all that had happened, like two brothers in arms on
the evening of a lost battle....
CHAPTER III
THE BOHEMIAN AT SCHOOL
Waking up next morning was painful. At half-past eight, just as M.
Seurel was giving the signal to enter school, we arrived, quite out of
breath, to line up. As we were late, we crept in wherever we could,
though generally, during M. Seurel’s inspection, Admiral Meaulnes
headed the long row of boys who stood elbow to elbow, loaded with
lesson-books and pencil-boxes.
It surprised me to see the silent alacrity which every one displayed
to make room for us in the middle of the column; and while M. Seurel
delayed opening school by a few seconds to inspect Meaulnes, I
inquisitively looked around to right and left to see the faces of our
enemies of the previous day.
The first one I noticed was that same fellow who had been in my mind
ever since, but who was the very last person I expected to see here. He
was in Meaulnes’ usual place, at the head, one foot on the stone step,
one shoulder and the corner of the satchel he carried on his back,
resting against the doorpost. His fine face, very pale and slightly
freckled, was turned towards us with a sort of disdainful and amused
interest. The top of his head and one side of his face were bandaged in
white linen. I recognised the leader of the gang, the young bohemian
who had robbed us on the preceding night.
But we were now entering the classroom and each one took his seat. The
new pupil sat close to the pillar, on the left of the long bench where
Meaulnes occupied the first seat on the right. Giraudat, Delouche, and
the three other first-bench boys sat quite close to each other to make
room for him, as if this had been arranged beforehand....
The winter often brought us in this way casual pupils, lads in
apprenticeship, sons of bargees held up by the ice on the canal, or of
pedlars delayed by the snow. They remained at school from two days to
a month, rarely more.... Objects of great interest at first, they were
soon unheeded and quickly forgotten in the crowd of ordinary pupils.
But this one was not to be forgotten so soon. I still remember that
strange fellow and the queer treasures he used to bring, in the satchel
strapped on his back. First there were ‘sight-seeing’ penholders which
he took out to write his dictation with. Through a peephole in the
handle, by shutting one eye you could see the church of Lourdes or
some unknown building, dim and magnified. He chose one, and the others
passed from hand to hand. Then came a Chinese pencil-box, full of
compasses and exciting implements which travelled along the bench on
the left, being silently and furtively thrust on from hand to hand
under the desks, so that M. Seurel might not see.
Then came round some perfectly new books, the titles of which I had
often read with longing on the covers of the few books in our library:
‘The Blackbirds on the Heath,’ ‘The Seagull’s Rock,’ ‘My Friend
Benedict.’ ... Some of the boys, resting a story-book on their knees,
used one hand to turn over the pages of these volumes procured no
one knew how, probably by theft, and with the other hand wrote their
dictation. Others played with compasses inside their lockers. Others,
while M. Seurel’s back was turned and he dictated walking from desk to
window, quickly closed one eye and applied the other to the greenish
hollow view of Notre Dame of Paris. And the unknown pupil, pen in air
and his refined profile outlined against the grey pillar, winked his
eyes, happy at all the furtive play which had started around him.
Little by little, however, the class became anxious: the objects
which were passed round had one by one come to Meaulnes’ hands, but
absent-mindedly and without looking at them, he carelessly placed them
by his side. They soon mounted up to an angular and diversely coloured
heap such as may be seen at the feet of the woman symbolising Science
in allegorical pictures. M. Seurel would inevitably discover this
unusual display and notice the game. Then he would remember to inquire
into the events of the night. The presence of the bohemian would
facilitate his task.
Soon, indeed, he stopped, surprised, in front of Admiral Meaulnes.
‘To whom does all this belong?’ he asked, pointing to ‘all this’ with
the back of the book folded over his forefinger.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Meaulnes surlily and without raising his head.
But the unknown pupil intervened. ‘They are mine,’ he said.
And at once he added, with a young aristocrat’s ease and freedom of
manner which the old schoolmaster could not resist: ‘But I place them
at your disposal, sir, if you wish to look at them.’
Then, in a few seconds, without any noise, as if not to disturb the new
atmosphere just created, the whole class gathered inquisitively around
the master whose head, half bald, half curly, bowed over the treasures,
while the pale youth, serenely triumphant in the middle of the group,
gave all necessary explanations. Meanwhile, seated silently at his desk
and completely forsaken, Admiral Meaulnes had opened his rough notebook
and with brow knitted was absorbed in a difficult problem....
* * * * *
The ‘last quarter’ found us thus occupied. The dictation was not
finished and disorder reigned in the classroom. To tell the truth, it
had been recreation all the morning.
So, at half-past ten, when the dark and muddy playground became invaded
by the pupils, a new leader was soon observed to be running the games.
Of all the new plays which the bohemian introduced amongst us that
morning, I remember only the most violent: a sort of tournament where
the bigger boys were horses with the younger ones hoisted on their
shoulders.[5]
Divided into two camps at either end of the playground, they charged
each other, seeking to upset the enemy by the force of the shock, and
the cavaliers using scarves as lassos or their outstretched arms as
spears, tried to unhorse their opponents. Sometimes the charge was
dodged, and the cavalier, losing his balance, was sent sprawling in the
mud under his mount. Some fellows, half dismounted, were kept up by the
horse gripping their legs; they scrambled up again and charged into the
fray. The slim cavalier with the bandaged head, mounted on Delage, who
had lanky limbs, red hair, and flapping ears, urged on the two rival
troops and steered his mount adroitly, shouting with laughter. At first
Augustin, in a bad temper, watched from the classroom step as this play
started. And I was waiting by his side, uncertain.
‘He’s a clever rascal,’ he said between his teeth, his hands in his
pockets. ‘To come here the very next morning, that was the only way to
avoid suspicion. And M. Seurel got taken in!’
He remained there a long while, his cropped head bare, fuming at the
comedian who would bring to some harm these lads of whom, not so long
ago, he, Meaulnes, was the captain. And I, peaceful youngster as I was,
entirely agreed with him.
Everywhere on the playground, in the absence of M. Seurel, the fight
went on: the smaller boys had now climbed on each other’s backs; they
were running and tumbling about even before they received the enemy’s
charge.... Soon, in the middle of the playground, there remained only
one savage whirling group out of which emerged, now and again, the
white bandage of the new leader.
Then Admiral Meaulnes could no longer keep back. Lowering his head and
placing his hands on his thighs, he called out: ‘Now for it, François!’
Surprised at this sudden decision, I none the less jumped upon his
shoulders without a moment’s hesitation, and in a second we were in
the thick of the fray, while most of the combatants, scared, fled away
shouting: ‘There’s Meaulnes! There’s Admiral Meaulnes!’
He began to turn sharply round among those who remained, saying to me:
‘Reach out your arms: collar ’em as I did last night.’
And I, intoxicated by the fray and certain of victory, gripped the
youngsters as they went by; they struggled a little on the big boys’
shoulders, then toppled off into the mud. In less than no time only the
newcomer on Delage remained unthrown; but the latter, not too keen to
stand up to Augustin, pulled himself up with a violent jerk of the hips
and forced the white rider to dismount....
Thus dismounted, the young fellow, with one hand on his mount’s
shoulder as a captain holds his horse’s bridle, looked at Admiral
Meaulnes with some astonishment and immense admiration.
‘Good work!’ he said.
But at that very moment the bell rang, dispersing the pupils who had
crowded round us in expectation of a queer scene. And Meaulnes, vexed
at not having thrown his enemy, turned upon his heels saying with some
temper: ‘Next time you’re in for it!’
Up to noon the class went on as at the end of the term, full of comic
incidents and chat, the centre of which was the pupil-comedian.
He explained that, being held up by the cold on the square and not even
dreaming of arranging evening shows to which no one would come, they
had decided he should go to school to amuse himself during the daytime,
while his companion looked after the tropical birds and the performing
goat. Then he related their wanderings in the neighbourhood, when the
rain pelts on the wretched tin roof of the caravan and you have to get
out on steep hills and put your shoulder to the wheel. The pupils at
the back of the room left their bench to come nearer and listen. The
less romantic took that chance of warming themselves at the stove. But
soon curiosity got the better of them, and they also drew near the
chatting throng to listen, keeping one hand on the top of the stove not
to lose their place by it.
‘And what do you live on?’ asked M. Seurel, who had followed the
proceedings with the rather childish curiosity of a schoolmaster and
was asking a lot of questions.
The youth hesitated a moment as if he had never bothered about that
detail.
‘Well,’ he replied, ‘on what we earned last autumn, I suppose. It’s
Booby who keeps the accounts.’
No one asked him who Booby was. But I thought of the tall rascal who,
on the previous evening, had treacherously attacked Meaulnes from
behind and thrown him.
CHAPTER IV
WHICH DEALS WITH THE MYSTERIOUS MANOR
During the afternoon the same distractions occurred again; all through
every class disorder persisted and the same trickery. The bohemian
produced other exciting things: shells, games, songs, and even a little
monkey who stealthily scratched inside his satchel.... At every moment
M. Seurel was obliged to interrupt work to inspect something the clever
rogue had pulled out of his bag.... Four o’clock came and Meaulnes was
the only one to have finished his problems.
No one was in a hurry to leave. It seemed as if, between school hours
and recreation, there no longer existed that sharp distinction which
renders school life as simple and as regular as the succession of night
and day. We even forgot to tell M. Seurel, as we usually did about four
o’clock, the names of the two boys who had to stay to sweep the room.
Yet we had never before failed to do so, as it was a way of announcing
the end of school and hastening it.
As luck would have it, that day it was Meaulnes’ turn; and that very
morning, while talking with him, I had warned the bohemian that
newcomers as a matter of course were always appointed second sweeper
on the day of their arrival.
Meaulnes came back to the classroom as soon as he had fetched his bread
for the usual four o’clock snack. But we had to wait a long time for
the bohemian; he arrived at last, running, just as night was falling....
‘Stop in the form-room,’ my friend had said to me, ‘and while I hold
him, you must bag that plan he stole.’
So I sat down on a small table, close to the window, and read by the
last glimmer of daylight, while I saw them both silently shifting the
school benches--Admiral Meaulnes glum and cross, his black overall well
buttoned up at the back and tightly belted at the waist; the other
delicate and nervous, his head bandaged up like a wounded soldier. He
wore an old jacket which showed tears I had not noticed during the
day. Full of a sort of savage zeal, he lifted and pushed the desks in
feverish haste, smiling a little. You would have said he was playing
some queer game, the secret of which escaped us.
Thus they reached the darkest corner of the room, to move the last desk.
At that spot Meaulnes could have knocked down his adversary at one
blow and no one outside could have seen or heard anything through the
window. I could not understand why he missed such a chance. The other
fellow, back at the door, could at any moment escape, pretending the
work was finished, and we should never see him again. The map and all
the information which Meaulnes had taken such a time to discover, to
unravel and piece together, would be lost for us....
At any moment I was expecting a signal from my friend, a gesture
warning me of the start of the fight, but the big schoolboy did not
stir. Now and again, however, he fixed strange questioning eyes on the
bohemian’s bandage which, in the falling light, appeared profusely
stained with black spots.
The last desk was moved without anything happening.
But at the moment when both were going up the classroom about to end
their job by sweeping the threshold, Meaulnes lowered his head, and
without looking at our enemy said in a low voice: ‘Your bandage is red
with blood and your clothes are torn.’
The other looked at him a moment, not surprised at what he said, but
deeply moved at hearing him say it.
‘A little while ago, on the square,’ he replied, ‘they tried to take
your plan away from me. When they heard that I wanted to come back
here to sweep, they understood that I was going to make peace with you
and they all went for me. But still, I did save it,’ he added proudly,
holding forth to Meaulnes the precious folded paper.
Meaulnes slowly turned towards me.
‘You hear?’ he said. ‘He’s just been fighting and getting hurt on our
account, while we were laying a trap for him!’
He spoke rather formally, but then, throwing aside all ceremony,
unusual with the boys at Sainte-Agathe: ‘You are a good chap,’ he said,
and held out his hand.
The comedian took hold of it and for a second remained speechless, very
much moved, words failing him.... But soon, keenly interested, he went
on:
‘And so you laid a trap for me! What a lark! I’d guessed it and I was
thinking: Won’t they be surprised, when they get back their plan to see
that I’ve completed it....’
‘Completed it?’
‘Hold hard! Not entirely....’
Leaving off this flippant manner, he added gravely and slowly, coming
nearer to us:
‘Meaulnes, it’s time to tell you: I, too, have been where you went. I
was present at that extraordinary fête. It occurred to me, when the
other boys told me about your mysterious adventure, that it concerned
the old forsaken manor. To make sure of it I stole your map. But, like
you, I don’t know the name of the manor; I couldn’t go back to it; I
don’t know the whole of the way to it from here.’
With what eagerness, with what intense curiosity, with what
friendliness we drew close to him! Greedily Meaulnes put questions to
him.... It seemed to us both that we could, by ardent pressure, make
our new friend say even what he pretended not to know.
‘You’ll see, you’ll see!’ replied the young fellow, rather disturbed
and embarrassed. ‘I’ve put on the plan a few indications you hadn’t
got.... That’s all I could do.’
Then, seeing us full of admiration and enthusiasm: ‘Oh!’ said he sadly
but proudly, ‘I’d better warn you: I’m not like other chaps. Three
months ago I tried to blow my brains out, and that accounts for this
bandage on my forehead like a soldier of 1870....’
‘And this evening, as you fought, the wound reopened,’ said Meaulnes
with friendliness.
But, taking no notice, the other went on in a voice slightly emphatic:
‘I wanted to die. And as I didn’t manage it, I shall go on living, but
only for fun, like a child, like a gipsy. I’ve left everything behind.
I have neither father, sister, home, nor sweetheart.... Nothing left,
only playfellows!’
‘And these playfellows have already betrayed you,’ I said.
‘Yes!’ he replied, with animation. ‘That’s because of that fellow
Delouche. He guessed that I was going to side with you. He demoralised
my men, whom I had so well in hand. Look at the boarding of this house
last night; wasn’t it well managed? Didn’t it come off well? Never,
since I was a child, have I organised anything so successfully....’
He was for a moment lost in thought; then he added, so as to leave us
no illusions about himself: ‘The reason I came to you both this evening
is that--I was sure of it this morning--there is more fun to be got
with you than with the whole gang of the others. That Delouche above
all is hateful to me. Why play the man at seventeen? Nothing sickens me
more.... Do you think we can catch him out again?’
‘Of course,’ said Meaulnes. ‘But are you stopping with us long?’
‘I don’t know, I’d love to. I am terribly lonely. I’ve only Booby.’
His excitement, his gaiety suddenly vanished. For a moment he fell
into the same despair in which no doubt, one day, the idea of killing
himself had overcome him.
‘Be my friends,’ he said suddenly. ‘Look: I know your secret and I’ve
kept it from everybody. I can put you back on the track you have
lost....’
And he added, almost solemnly: ‘Be my friends in readiness for the
day when I shall be again within a hairbreadth of hell, as I have
already been.... Give me your word that you will come to me if ever you
hear me call--when I shall call like this--(he uttered a queer call:
Hou-ou!) ... You, Meaulnes swear to it first.’
And we swore to it because, though we were only children, all that was
serious and solemn beyond reason strangely attracted us.
‘In exchange,’ he said, ‘this is all I can tell you now: I’ll tell you
the house in Paris where the young lady of the manor usually goes to
spend the holidays: Easter and Whitsun, the month of June and sometimes
part of the winter.’
At that moment, from the big gate, an unknown voice called many times
in the darkness. We guessed it was Booby, the bohemian, who dared not
or did not know how to cross the playground. His insistent, anxious
voice was calling, sometimes very loud, sometimes almost in whispers:
‘Hou-ou! Hou-ou!’
‘Tell it! Tell it quick!’ called out Meaulnes to the young bohemian who
had started up and was readjusting his clothes to go.
The young fellow rapidly gave us an address in Paris, which we repeated
in whispers. Then, running out into the night to join his companion at
the gate, he left us in a state of inexpressible agitation.
CHAPTER V
THE MAN IN SAND-SHOES
That night, about three o’clock, the innkeeper widow Delouche, who
lived in the middle of the village, got up to light her fire. Her
brother-in-law Dumas, who lived with her, had to start at four, and
the sad-looking woman, whose right hand bore the shrivelled scar of
an old burn, was hurrying to make coffee in the dark kitchen. It was
cold. She threw an old shawl over her night camisole, then holding a
lighted candle in one hand and with her scarred hand raising her apron
to shelter the flame, she crossed the yard littered with empty bottles
and packing-cases, and opened the door of the shed, which was also used
as a chicken-run, to get her kindling.... But she had hardly pushed the
door ajar, when some one sprang from the darkness, extinguished the
candle with a blow of his cap, and with the same blow knocked over the
good woman, then took to his heels while the terrified cocks and hens
set up an infernal row.
The man was carrying away in a sack--as widow Delouche realised a
moment later when she regained her balance--a dozen of her finest
chickens.
At the cries of his sister-in-law, Dumas ran up. He discovered that the
scamp, to get in, must have opened the gate of the small yard with a
skeleton key, and that he had escaped by the same way, without shutting
it again. At once, being accustomed to poachers and thieves, Dumas
lighted his cart-lamp and carrying it in one hand with his loaded gun
in the other, proceeded to follow the track of the thief, a very faint
trail--the fellow most likely wore sand-shoes--which led to the Station
Road, then disappeared at the gate of a meadow. Obliged to leave his
search at this, he looked up, stopped ... and heard in the distance,
on the same road, the noise of a cart going at full gallop, evidently
running off....
For his part, Jasmin Delouche, the widow’s son, had also got up, and
hastening to throw his hooded cloak on his shoulders, had gone out in
his slippers to inspect the village. Everything was asleep, everywhere
reigned darkness and the deep silence which precede the first glimmer
of dawn. Reaching the Cross-Roads he heard in the distance--as his
uncle had--only the noise of a cart with the horse apparently at full
gallop. The wily and cowardly boy then said to himself, as he later
repeated it to us with that unbearable thick pronunciation peculiar to
Montluçon: ‘They’ve gone towards the station, but who knows if I mayn’t
catch others, red-handed, the other side of the village!’
And he walked back towards the church in the silence of the night.
On the square, a light shone in the gipsies’ caravan. Somebody must be
ill. He was going to draw near and ask what had happened when a silent
shadow, a shadow walking in sand-shoes, emerged from the Nookery and
heeding nothing else rushed at full speed towards the steps of the van.
Jasmin, who had recognised the gait of Booby, came forth suddenly into
the patch of light and asked in a low voice: ‘Well! What’s the matter?’
Haggard, dishevelled, toothless, the fellow stopped, looked at Delouche
with a wretched grin caused by fear and lack of breath and replied in a
jerky voice: ‘It is my friend who’s ill.... He had a fight last night
and his wound’s reopened.... I’ve just been to fetch the nurse.’
As a matter of fact, about the middle of the village, as Jasmin
Delouche, sorely puzzled, was going home to bed, he met a Sister of
Mercy who was hurrying.
* * * * *
In the morning several inhabitants of Sainte-Agathe appeared on their
doorsteps with heavy eyes tired by a sleepless night. There was a
general cry of indignation which spread through the village like a
trail of gunpowder.
At Giraudat’s, a cart had stopped about 2 A.M. and had been
loaded with parcels which fell in softly. There were only two women
in the house and they had not dared to move. At daybreak they had
realised, on opening the yard gate, that the parcels in question were
rabbits and poultry. Millie, during the first recreation, found several
burnt matches outside the wash-house door. We came to the conclusion
that the thieves did not know our house and had not been able to break
in.... At Perreux’s, at Boujardon’s, and at Clément’s it was at first
supposed that pigs even had been stolen, but these were found during
the morning busily uprooting greens in several gardens. The whole herd
had seized the chance of the opened gate to take a little nocturnal
outing.... Nearly everywhere poultry had been carried away, but that
was all. Madame Pignot, the baker-woman, who did not rear chickens,
complained loudly during all that day, that her washing-board and a
pound of rinsing blue had been stolen from her, but the deed was never
proved and never entered in the records of the case....
This agitation, these fears, this gossip lasted the whole morning. In
class, Jasmin related his night adventure.
‘Ah! they’re clever beggars,’ he said. ‘But if Uncle had met one of
them, he says he’d ’ave shot him like a rabbit!’
And he added, looking at us: ‘What luck it is he didn’t meet Booby;
he’d sure enough have fired.’ They all be one gang, he says, and
Dessaigne said the same.
Yet no one thought about disturbing our new friends. It was only the
next day in the evening that Jasmin remarked to his uncle that Booby
and their thief both wore sand-shoes. Then they agreed that this fact
was worth mentioning to the police. So they decided, in great secrecy,
to go, when they had a moment, to the chief town of the district and
inform the head constable.
During the following days the young bohemian, still ill with his wound,
did not appear. Every evening we went prowling on the church square
merely to watch his lamp behind the caravan’s red curtain. Feverish
with anxiety we stood there, not daring to draw near this humble abode
which seemed to us the magic portal of the Land to which we had lost
the way.
CHAPTER VI
A QUARREL BEHIND THE SCENES
The numerous disturbances and troubles of these last days prevented us
from noticing that March had come and that the wind had softened. But
one morning, three days after our adventure, as I went down into the
playground, I suddenly realised that it was spring. A breeze, delicious
as cool water, blew over the wall; the silent rain of the night had
moistened the leaves of the peonies; a rich pervasive smell rose from
the freshly turned soil in the garden, and in the tree close to the
window, I heard a bird which was trying to learn music....
Meaulnes, during the first recreation, spoke of attempting to find
at once the way which the bohemian boy had outlined. With difficulty
I persuaded him to wait until we had, once more, seen our friend,
until the weather was really fine ... and the plum trees in bloom at
Sainte-Agathe. We talked leaning against the low wall of the narrow
lane, hands in pockets, bareheaded, while the wind sometimes made us
shiver with cold, and at other times, with warm puffs, awoke some deep
urge within us. Ah! friend, brother, fellow-traveller, how convinced we
both were that happiness was close, and that we had only to set out to
reach it!...
At half-past twelve, during dinner, we heard the rolling of a drum at
the Cross-Roads. In the twinkling of an eye, we were all at the small
gate, napkins in hand.... It was Booby announcing for that evening at
eight o’clock, ‘in view of the fine weather,’ a great performance on
the church square. At all events, ‘to run no risks in case of rain,’ a
tent would be erected. Then followed a long programme of attractions
which the wind prevented us from catching except such words as ‘dumb
show ... songs ... riding displays ...’ the whole thing punctuated by
renewed rolling of the drum.
During the evening meal the big drum announced the show and thundered
under our windows, making the panes rattle. Soon after people of the
village passed by, with a buzz of talk, going in small groups towards
the church. And there we were both of us, forced to remain at the
table, though burning with impatience!
At last, about nine, we heard a scraping of shoes and stifled laughter
at the small gate: the women teachers had come to fetch us. In the
pitch darkness, our little party made its way towards the show. We
could see from afar, the church wall brightly lit up, as if by a big
fire. Two naphtha flares swung in the wind at the door of the tent....
Inside, benches were arranged in tiers as at a circus. M. Seurel, the
women teachers, Meaulnes and myself took our places on the lowest of
these. I recall the place, which must have been rather small, as a
real circus, with its wide dark stretches of rising seats, where could
be seen Madame Pignot, the baker-woman; Fernande, from the grocer shop;
the girls from the village; the apprentices from the forges; ladies,
urchins, country folks, and every sort of people.
The show was more than half through. In the arena, a small goat was
performing, standing obediently on four glasses, then on two, then
on one alone. Booby was gently directing her with little taps from a
switch, but all the while looking at us in a worried way, his mouth
gaping, his eyes dead.
Seated on a stool, near two other flares, and at the place where the
arena was connected with the caravan, was a fellow with bandaged head,
wearing elegant black tights, whom we recognised as the leading man and
our friend.
Scarcely were we seated than a pony, fully harnessed, pranced onto
the track. He was several times led around the arena by the wounded
comedian, and invariably stopped in front of one of us when asked to
find the most charming person or the bravest in the audience, but
always pointed to Madame Pignot when he had to spot who told the
greatest lies, or was the most avaricious or ‘the most in love’....
And all round the lady, there were shrieks of laughter, screams and
cackling, as when a flock of geese is chased by a spaniel!...
At the interval, the leading man came to have a chat with M. Seurel,
who could not have felt more proud had a Talma or a Léotard spoken to
him; as for us, we listened with eager interest to what the comedian
was saying: first about his wound--now closed up; then regarding this
show--rehearsed during the long days of winter; then concerning their
departure--which was not to be before the end of the month, for they
meant to give other variety shows up to then.
The performance was to finish up with an elaborate dumb show.
Towards the end of the interval, our friend left us, and to reach
the caravan’s steps was obliged to go through a group of people who
had invaded the arena, and in the midst of which we suddenly noticed
Jasmin Delouche. The women and the girls got out of the way. The black
costume, the strange but gallant figure of the wounded man, had won
their hearts. As for Jasmin, who appeared to be coming back from a long
journey and was talking in a low but animated voice to Madame Pignot,
he would evidently have found the local costume with the low collar,
the bow of silken cord, and the elephant-like trousers, more to his
taste.... Both thumbs raised to the lapel of his jacket, he stood in
a very affected and uneasy attitude. Out of spite, as the bohemian
went by, he said aloud to Madame Pignot a few words I did not catch,
but which were certainly an offensive remark, an insult meant for our
friend. It must have been a serious and unexpected threat, for the
young fellow could not help turning round and looking at the other,
who, to carry it through, grinned and poked his neighbours in the
ribs as if to bring them onto his side.... All this happened in a few
seconds. I was perhaps the only one on our bench to notice it.
The leading man joined his companion behind the curtain which hid the
door of the caravan. All went back to their seats, thinking that the
second part of the show would soon begin, and great silence ensued.
Then, from behind the curtain, while the last whispered conversations
were fading away, rose the noise of a quarrel. We could not hear what
was being said, but we recognised the two voices as those of the tall
man and the young fellow--the first explaining and justifying; the
other scolding with both indignation and sadness.
‘But you wretch!’ the latter was saying; ‘why didn’t you tell me?...’
And we heard nothing further, though every one was listening. Then,
suddenly, all was quiet. The dispute went on in whispers; and urchins
at the top rows began to call out: ‘Curtain! Curtain!’ and stamped
their feet.
CHAPTER VII
THE BOHEMIAN TAKES OFF HIS BANDAGE
At last, peering in slowly between the curtains, a face emerged,
furrowed by wrinkles, expanding in a grin both of mirth and distress,
and bespeckled with black patches; there followed the figure of a lanky
Pierrot made of three badly jointed parts, screwed up by some awful
colic, and who, with excess of caution and fear, advanced on tiptoes,
his hands entangled in long dandling sleeves which swept the track.
I could not to-day reconstruct the plot of his dumb show. I remember
only that, as soon as he entered the arena, in spite of vain and
hopeless efforts to keep his feet, he fell. It was useless getting
up again; he could not help it; he fell. He never ceased falling. He
entangled himself in between four chairs all at once. He dragged after
him, in his fall, a huge table which had been brought into the arena.
At last he managed to measure his length beyond the barrier, at the
very feet of the spectators. Two handy men, enticed with much trouble
out of the audience, then dragged him by the feet and after tremendous
efforts stood him up. And at each fall he uttered a little scream,
each time different, a little unbearable scream, in which distress
and satisfaction had an equal share. At the climax, perched on a
scaffolding of chairs, he dropped in a very long slow fall, and his
piercing, melancholy hoot of triumph lasted as long as the fall and was
mingled with shrieks of fear from the women.
During the second part of his show, though I do not know why, I recall
‘poor wobbly Pierrot’ producing a little sawdust doll from his sleeves
and acting with her a long tragi-comical scene. He ended it all by
emptying the sawdust of her body out of her mouth. Then, with little
pitiful cries, he filled her with porridge, and at the moment when
all were attentive and the gaping spectators had their eyes fixed on
Pierrot’s daughter, bursting and sticky--suddenly catching hold of
her by one arm, he hurled her flying across the audience at the face
of Jasmin Delouche whose ear she messed before she landed on Madame
Pignot’s bosom, just under that lady’s chin. The baker-woman shrieked
so loud, drew herself back so sharply, and all her neighbours imitated
her so well that the bench broke and the baker-woman, Fernande, sad
widow Delouche, and twenty others tumbled down, legs in the air, amidst
laughter, shrieks, and clapping, while the tall clown, who had fallen
on his face, got up to bow and say:
‘Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, we beg to thank you for your kind
attention!’
But at that very moment and in the midst of the uproar, Admiral
Meaulnes, who had kept silent since the beginning of the dumb show, and
seemed every moment more absorbed, hastily got up and clinging to my
arm, as if unable to contain himself, said aloud to me: ‘Look at the
bohemian! Look! Now, I recognise him.’
Even before looking, as if all the while, subconsciously, this thought
had been dormant in me, only awaiting the moment to dawn, I too had
guessed! Standing by one of the naphtha flares, at the door of the
caravan, the young unknown actor had taken off his bandage and thrown a
cloak over his shoulders. One could see by the smoking flare, as once
by candlelight in the room at the manor, the clean-shaven features,
very fine and aquiline. Pale, his lips half open, he was hastily
turning over the leaves of a small red album, most likely a pocket
atlas. Except for a scar cutting across his temple and disappearing
under the mass of hair, it was, just as Admiral Meaulnes had minutely
described him to me, the fiancé from the unknown manor.
It was evident that he had taken off his bandage to be recognised by
us. But scarcely had Meaulnes made his gesture and uttered his cry than
the young man went into the caravan after giving us a knowing look and
smiling with vague sadness, as he usually smiled. ‘And the other!’
said Meaulnes with excitement; ‘how was it I didn’t recognise him
straightaway! He is the Pierrot of the fête, out there....’
And he walked down the tiers to go towards him. But already Booby
had cut off all access to the track and, one by one, was putting out
the four flares; we were obliged to follow the crowd, which in the
dim light, and through the narrow channels of the parallel benches,
streamed slowly out while we stamped about with impatience.
When at last Admiral Meaulnes was outside, he hastened to the caravan,
rushed up the steps, and knocked at the door, but all was already
secured for the night. Already, no doubt, in the van with the curtains
as well as in the one reserved for the pony, the goat, and the
performing birds, every one was tucked up and falling asleep.
CHAPTER VIII
THE POLICE
We were obliged to join again the throng of people who were going
through the dark streets towards the Higher Elementary School. But now
we understood everything. The tall white shadow which Meaulnes had
seen hurrying amongst the trees, on the last evening of the fête, was
Booby, who, having rescued the disconsolate fiancé, was running away
with him. The latter had accepted this wild life, full of risks, games,
and adventures. It had seemed to him like starting his childhood over
again....
Frantz de Galais had, so far, hidden his name from us and pretended
not to know the way to the manor, for fear of being forced to go back
home; but why had he, this evening, suddenly wished to reveal himself,
letting us guess the whole truth?...
No end of plans went through Admiral Meaulnes’ head while the crowd
slowly dispersed across the village. He decided that early next day,
which was a Thursday, he would go to see Frantz, and together they
would start for that place! What a lovely journey on the dewy road!
Frantz would explain everything; all would be put right, and the
glorious adventure would begin again from where it left off....
As for me, that night, I walked with an indescribable elation of
heart. Everything contributed to my joy, from the paltry pleasure
of awaiting the Thursday holiday to the great discovery we had just
made and the fine piece of luck befalling us. And I remember that,
with sudden generosity of heart, I went up to the ugliest of the
notary’s daughters, to whom I was often forced to offer my arm, and
spontaneously held my hand out to her.
Bitter memories! Great hopes crushed!
The next day at eight o’clock, as we both emerged on the church square,
our shoes well polished, the buckles of our belts shining bright, and
our caps brand-new, Meaulnes, who so far had repressed a smile whenever
he looked at me, gave a shout and rushed towards the empty square....
At the place where the tent and the vans had stood were only a broken
jug and some rags. The gipsies had gone!...
A light wind was blowing which felt icy to us. It seemed as if at
every step we were about to stumble and fall on the hard stony
ground of the square. Meaulnes, enraged, twice made as if he would
rush off, first along the road to Vieux-Nançay, then along the road
to Saint-Loup-des-Bois. One hand over his eyes, he scanned the
neighbourhood hoping our people had only just left. But what could be
done? The tracks of some ten carriages were all mixed up on the square
and then effaced on the hard road. We were stuck there, powerless.
And as we were coming back across the village where the life of a
Thursday morning was beginning, four mounted policemen, warned the
evening before by Delouche, arrived at a gallop on the square and
scattered in the by-streets to block all issues, exactly as a patrol of
dragoons sent to reconnoitre a village.... But it was too late. Booby,
the chicken-snatcher, had escaped with his companion. The policemen
found nobody, neither Booby himself nor the fellows who had loaded the
carts with the birds he had strangled. Warned in time by the incautious
remark of Jasmin, Frantz must have suddenly understood what trade kept
his companion and himself alive when the cash-box was empty; full of
shame and anger, he had at once mapped out the route and decided to
make off before the police came. But, no longer fearing to be taken
back to his father, he had shown himself to us without a bandage before
he disappeared.
One thing alone remained a puzzle: how could Booby, both at once rob
the poultry-yards and fetch the nun for his feverish friend? But did
not that sum up the whole story of the poor devil? Thief and tramp on
the one hand, a kind-hearted chap on the other....
CHAPTER IX
IN SEARCH OF THE LOST TRAIL
The sun was breaking through the morning mist on our return: housewives
were shaking carpets or chatting in front of their doors: the loveliest
spring morning my memory can recall was beginning in the fields and
woods round the village.
All the big boys of the top form had been told to come about eight
that Thursday morning to prepare, some for Matriculation, others
for the Entrance Examination to Training College. When we arrived
together--Meaulnes so full of regret and uneasiness that he could not
keep still, myself very depressed--the school was empty.... A ray of
bright sunlight was glinting on the dust of a worm-eaten bench and the
peeling varnish of the globe.
How could we stop there in front of a book, to brood over our
disappointment, when everything was calling us out-of-doors: birds
chasing one another in the branches close to the windows, the other
boys gone off to the woods and the fields, and above all our burning
wish to try at once the incomplete route on the map approved by the
bohemian--our last card, the one key left which might open the lock?...
It was more than we could stand! Meaulnes kept walking up and down,
going to the windows to look at the garden, then back again for a look
towards the village, as if he was expecting some one who certainly
would not come.
‘I’ve a notion,’ he said to me at last--‘I’ve a notion that it mayn’t
be as far as we think.... Frantz struck off my plan a good bit of the
road I had marked. That may mean the mare went a long way round while I
was asleep....’
I sat idle and discouraged on the edge of a big table, one foot on the
ground, the other swinging, and I remarked in a dejected way: ‘Yes, but
coming back, in the berlin, your journey lasted all night.’
‘We left at midnight,’ he replied quickly. ‘They put me down at four in
the morning, six kilometres west of Sainte-Agathe, whereas I’d gone by
the east Station Road. So we must knock off these six kilometres from
the distance between Sainte-Agathe and the Lost Land. I feel almost
sure that from the wood on the Commons to what we’re after, it can’t be
more than eight kilometres.’
‘They’re precisely the eight kilometres missing on your map.’
‘That’s true. And getting out of the wood means at least six kilometres
from here; but a good walker can do it in a morning.’
Mouchebœuf came in at that moment. He had an irritating way of
appearing to be a good pupil, not by working better than others, but
by showing off on occasions like this.
‘I knew,’ he said proudly, ‘I should find only you two. The others have
gone to the Commons wood, under Jasmin Delouche: he knows the nests.’
And to show off his goodness, he began to relate what they had said
to rag the Matric form, M. Seurel, and ourselves while planning this
expedition.
‘If they’ve gone to the wood, I shall most likely come across them,’
said Meaulnes, ‘as I’m going that way too. I’ll be back about half-past
twelve.’
Mouchebœuf was aghast.
‘Aren’t you coming?’ said Augustin to me, stopping a moment on the step
of the partly open door--and thus brought into the room a whiff of air
softened by the sun, a medley of twittering, calling, and chirping, the
sound of a pail on the curb of a well and the cracking of a whip in the
far distance.
‘No,’ I replied, although the temptation was strong, ‘I can’t because
of M. Seurel. But hurry up, I’ll be on the itch to know.’
He made a vague gesture and went off quickly, full of hope.
When M. Seurel came in about ten, he had discarded his black alpaca
jacket, having put on a fisherman’s coat with big buttoned pockets,
a straw hat, and short leather leggings to hold in his trousers. I
believe he was hardly surprised at finding no one. He payed no heed to
Mouchebœuf, who told him three times that the boys had said: ‘Well, if
he wants us, let him come and find us!’
He just said: ‘Put away your things, take your caps, it’s our turn to
get even with them, then.... Can you walk as far as that, François?’
I assured him I could and we started.
It was agreed that Mouchebœuf would guide M. Seurel and be his
decoy-bird.... That is to say that, knowing the thickets where the
nest-hunters had gone, he would call aloud, from time to time: ‘Holla!
Hoa! Giraudat! Delouche! Where are you? Got any?... Made any finds?...’
As for me, to my great delight, I was told to follow the outskirts of
the wood on the east side, in case the runaways should try to escape
that way.
It so happened that, on the plan altered by the bohemian and which I
had many times studied with Meaulnes, a line seemed to indicate a path,
a beaten track, starting from that side in the direction of the manor.
What if I should discover it this morning! I began to feel certain that
before midday I should find myself on the road to the Lost Land....
* * * * *
What a marvellous walk!... As soon as we had passed the glacis and gone
round the mill, I left my two companions: M. Seurel looking as if he
was off to the wars (I believe he had an old pistol in his pocket) and
that traitor Mouchebœuf.
I took a cross-road and soon came to the edge of the wood--being alone
in the open country for the first time in my life, and feeling like a
patrol which has lost its corporal.
Here I am, I imagine, close to that mysterious happiness of which
Meaulnes, one day, had a glimpse. The whole morning is mine to explore
the edge of the wood--the most deliciously cool and secreted part of
the district--while my big brother, too, is off on the search. It is
like the old bed of a brook. I make my way under the low branches of
trees unknown to me by names, but which must be alders. I have just
jumped a hurdle at the end of the path, and I am under a roof of leaves
in this wide grass track, treading down nettles and crushing tall
valerians.
Sometimes, for a few steps, my foot rests on a stretch of fine sand.
And in the silence I hear a bird--I imagine it to be a nightingale, but
most likely this is wrong, as nightingales only sing at night--a bird
who persists in repeating the same phrase: the voice of the morning, a
loving word under the shade of the trees, a charming invitation to a
walk amongst the alders. Invisible, obstinate, he seems to follow me
under the leaves.
For the first time I, too, am on the road of adventure. I am no longer
hunting for shells of bygone streams, under M. Seurel’s guidance, nor
orchids unknown to the schoolmaster, nor even, as often before, for the
deep and dried-up spring in Father Martin’s field, with a grating so
well hidden by weeds and grass that to rediscover it gave us each time
greater trouble.... I am searching for something far more mysterious.
It is the path told of in books, the ancient obstructed path, the path
to which the weary prince could find no entrance. It is found at last
at the most forlorn hour of the morning, when you have long since
forgotten that eleven or twelve is about to strike.... And suddenly,
as one thrusts aside bushes and brier, with a movement of hesitating
hands unevenly raised level to the face, it appears in sight as a long
shadowy avenue, the outlet of which is a small round patch of light.
But while I hope thus and am enraptured, I unexpectedly come out into a
clearing, which is simply a meadow. Without giving it a thought, I have
reached the other side of the Commons, which I had always imagined a
very long way off. And there, on my right, in between stacks of logs,
and astir with life in the shade, stands the forester’s house. Two
pairs of stockings are drying on the window-sill. In previous years,
whenever we had reached the entrance of the wood, we used to point
to a patch of light at the end of a long, dark avenue and say: ‘That
house out there, that’s the forester’s cottage, Baladier’s.’ But we
had never pushed on as far as that. We had often heard people say, as
if referring to some extraordinary venture, ‘He’s been as far as the
forester’s cottage!...’
This time, I have been as far as Baladier’s cottage, and I found
nothing.
* * * * *
I was just beginning to feel my tired legs and the heat, which I had
not so far noticed; I was fearing the return journey all by myself,
when close at hand I heard the voice of M. Seurel’s decoy-bird,
Mouchebœuf, then other voices calling me....
I saw a group of six big lads, amongst whom Mouchebœuf the traitor
was the only one triumphant. There were Giraudat, Auberger, Delage,
and others.... Thanks to the decoy, they had been caught, some up a
mulberry tree that stood solitary in the clearing, others in the act
of robbing a woodpecker’s nest. That fool of a Giraudat, with his
swollen eyes and greasy overall, had hidden the little ones against his
stomach, in between his shirt and his skin. Two of their companions
had run off at M. Seurel’s approach: probably Delouche and the little
Coffin. At first they had answered Mouchebœuf by jokes on his name,
which the echoes of the wood repeated, and he, believing he had caught
them, had replied stupidly in a temper: ‘You’d better come down from
there, you know! M. Seurel’s here....’
Then the noise had stopped at once. There had been a silent flight
across the wood. As they knew it thoroughly, it was useless to think
of catching them. On the other hand, no one knew what had become of
Admiral Meaulnes. His voice had not been heard, and we had to give up
looking for him.
It was past midday when we slowly started back towards Sainte-Agathe,
with drooping heads, tired and muddy. On coming out of the wood, where
we scraped and stamped the mud from our shoes on the dry road, the sun
began to strike fiercely down. Already it was no longer the fresh and
bright morning of spring. The noises of the afternoon had started. Now
and again, a cock set up a melancholy crowing in the deserted farms by
the roadside. At the descent of the glacis we stopped a moment to chat
with some farmhands back at their work after lunch. They were resting
with their elbows on the stile, and M. Seurel was saying to them: ‘Ah!
the rascals! Here, look at Giraudat. He’s put the brood inside his
shirt. They’ve done in there what they liked. It’s _all_ right!...’
It seemed to me the men were laughing at my disaster, too. They laughed
and shook their heads, but did not altogether blame the youngsters,
whom they knew well. They even confided to us, while M. Seurel was
starting off again at the head of our party: ‘There was another chap as
went by. That tall fellow, you know.... On the way back he must’ve met
the cart from the Barns and been given a lift. He was put down here, at
the entrance of the lane to the Barns, covered with mud and ragged. We
told him as we’d seen you go by, this morning, but that you were not
back yet. He slowly set out for Sainte-Agathe.’
In fact Admiral Meaulnes was waiting for us, seated on a pier of the
glacis bridge and looking worn out with fatigue. He said, in answer to
M. Seurel’s questions, that he also had gone to look for the truants.
But to the question I put to him in whispers, he shook his head and
only said with disappointment: ‘No! Nothing! Nothing at all like it!’
After lunch, he sat at one of the big tables in the classroom--stuffy,
dark, and empty amidst the glorious countryside--and burying his head
in his arms, fell into a long sleep, sullen and heavy. Towards evening
he wrote a letter to his mother, after having been a long time lost in
thought, and as if coming to an important decision. And that is all I
can remember of that melancholy ending to a great day of defeat.
CHAPTER X
WASHING-DAY
We had reckoned too soon on the coming of spring. On Monday evening
we decided to do our home work immediately after four as in the
summer, and to get a better light, we dragged two big tables into the
playground. But the sky became suddenly cloudy; a drop of rain fell on
an exercise-book; we hastened to go in. And we silently watched, out of
the large windows of the big classroom now so dark, the flight of the
clouds in the grey sky.
Then Meaulnes, who was at the window with us, one hand on the handle,
could not refrain from saying, as if he were angry to feel so much
regret rise up in him: ‘Ah! the clouds rolled along better than this
when I was on the road, in the Fair Star cart.’
‘On what road?’ asked Jasmin.
But Meaulnes made no reply.
‘As for me,’ I said, to create a diversion, ‘I should have loved
travelling that way in a carriage, with the rain pouring down,
sheltered under a big umbrella.’
‘And reading all the while during the journey, as if you were indoors,’
added another.
‘It was not raining and I had no longing to read,’ replied Meaulnes.
‘I thought only of looking at the countryside.’
But when in his turn Giraudat asked him of what country he spoke,
Meaulnes again kept silent. And Jasmin said: ‘I know.... Always that
famous adventure!...’
He had said these words in conciliatory and important tones, as if he
was himself a little in the secret. It was trouble lost; his advances
met with no response; and as night was falling, every one raced off
through the cold downpour, his overall wrapped over his head.
The rain continued until the following Thursday. And that Thursday was
even gloomier than the last. The whole countryside was bathed in a sort
of icy mist as in the worst days of winter.
Millie, led astray by the beautiful sun of the week before, had had the
washing done, but there could be no question of hanging it out to dry
on the garden hedges, nor even on lines in the lumber-rooms, as the air
was so damp and cold.
Discussing the matter with M. Seurel, she conceived the idea, as it was
Thursday, of spreading the washing in the classrooms and of heating the
stove red-hot. Meals were to be cooked on the stove to dispense with
fires in the kitchen and in the dining-room, and we were to spend the
day in the top-form classroom.
At first--I was so young!--I regarded this novelty as a treat. A
dreary treat!... All the heat of the stove was taken by the washing;
it was extremely cold. In the playground a fine wintry rain fell
softly and endlessly. Yet it was there that at nine o’clock in the
morning, bored to death, I discovered Admiral Meaulnes. Through the
bars of the tall gate against which we silently rested our heads, we
looked towards the top of the village and watched a funeral procession
which had come from remote parts of the country and had stopped at the
Cross-Roads. The coffin, brought on an ox wagon, was lowered and placed
on a flagstone at the foot of the tall cross where the butcher, one
night, had noticed the bohemian’s sentries! Where was he now, the young
captain who could so well fake the boarding of a ship?... The vicar and
the choir boys, as was the custom, walked up to the coffin and their
mournful chants reached us. This, as we knew, would be the only sight
the whole day, which would pass like muddy water along the gutter.
‘And now,’ said Meaulnes suddenly, ‘I am going to pack. I must tell
you, Seurel: I wrote to my mother last Thursday asking her to let me
complete my studies in Paris. I am leaving to-day.’
He continued looking towards the village, his hands against the bars,
level with his face. No use asking if his mother, who was rich and
indulged all his whims, had allowed this one. No use either to ask why
he suddenly wanted to go to Paris!...
But certainly there was regret in him, and fear at leaving this dear
land of Sainte-Agathe from which he had set out on his adventure. As
for me, a heavy distress rose in my heart which I had not felt at first.
‘Easter is coming!’ he said with a sigh, by way of explanation.
‘As soon as you find her, out there, you will write, won’t you?’ I
asked.
‘Of course, that’s agreed. Aren’t you my friend and my brother?...’
And he placed his hand on my shoulder.
Little by little I understood that all was at an end, now that he
wanted to complete his studies in Paris; never again should I have my
big brother with me!
Our one hope of coming together again was that house in Paris where
the trail of our forlorn adventure might be rediscovered.... But with
Meaulnes himself so sad, what a poor hope was that for me!
My parents were told the news: M. Seurel showed great surprise, but
soon yielded to Augustin’s reasons; Millie, the good housewife, was
most upset at the idea that Meaulnes’ mother would see our house in a
state of unusual untidiness.... The trunk, alas! was soon packed. We
sought out his Sunday shoes from under the stairs; a few underclothes
from the cupboard; then his papers and schoolbooks--all that a boy of
eighteen possesses in the world.
Mme. Meaulnes arrived at midday with her carriage. She lunched with
Augustin at the Café Daniel and took him away with hardly a word of
explanation, as soon as the horse had been fed and harnessed. We said
good-bye to them on the threshold; and the carriage disappeared at the
turning of the Cross-Roads.
Millie rubbed her shoes in front of the door and went back into the
cold dining-room, to tidy what had been disarranged. As for me, I
found myself obliged, the first time for months, to face alone a long
Thursday evening--with the clear feeling that the old carriage had
borne away my youth forever.
CHAPTER XI
I BETRAY HIM
What was I to do!
The weather was clearing a little. It seemed as if the sun would come
through. Occasionally a door banged in the big house. Then silence
returned once more. From time to time my father crossed the playground
to fetch a scuttle of coal to feed the stove. I saw the white washing
hanging on the lines, and I had no wish to go back to the sad room,
changed to a drying-room, in order to face my last task of the year,
the preparation for the Training College Entrance Exam, which, however,
ought to be my only thought.
A queer thing: a feeling akin to freedom was blended with the boredom
which tortured me. Meaulnes gone, the whole adventure ended in failure,
I seemed at any rate free from that strange longing, that mysterious
preoccupation which kept me from behaving like every one else. Meaulnes
gone, I was no longer the fellow-adventurer, no longer the brother on
the trail; I became a boy again like other village boys. And this was
easy, for I had only to follow my natural inclination.
The youngest of the brothers Roy passed along the muddy street; he
was swinging at the end of a string, then flinging into the air three
horse-chestnuts which fell into the playground. I was at such a loose
end that three or four times I quite liked throwing back the chestnuts
to him over the wall.
Suddenly I saw him give up this childish game and run towards a cart
which was coming along the Old Plank Road. To climb in at the back of
the cart without it stopping was quickly done. I recognised Delouche’s
horse and cart. Jasmin was driving and the big Boujardon was standing
up in it. They were coming back from the meadow.
‘Come with us, François!’ called out Jasmin, who must already have
known that Meaulnes had gone.
And indeed, without a word to a soul, I clambered up into the jolting
cart and stood like the others with my back against the tall uprights.
It took us to the house of the widow Delouche.
* * * * *
We are now in the back parlour of the good woman who keeps what is both
an inn and a grocer’s shop. A white ray of sunlight glints in at the
low window, onto the tin boxes and a barrel of vinegar. Big Boujardon
sits down on the window-sill, and the huge fellow munches Savoy
biscuits, facing us with a fat smile. The biscuit tin, opened on a
barrel within reach, is half empty. The young Roy screams with delight.
There is a kind of intimacy of the wrong sort between us. Jasmin and
Boujardon are to be my friends, now, I see. The course of my life has
suddenly changed. It seems to me that Meaulnes has been gone a very
long time and that his adventure is an old sad story, but finished.
Young Roy has discovered on a shelf a half-empty bottle of liqueur.
Delouche offers us each a drink, but, as there is only one glass, we
all drink out of it. They help me first, with slight condescension, as
I am not one of themselves, not a sportsman, not a peasant. This rather
annoys me. And when Meaulnes is spoken of I become anxious to show that
I know his story and to tell some of it, just to scatter my annoyance
and regain my composure. In what way could this hurt him since all his
adventures here are now finished?...
* * * * *
Am I telling this story badly? It does not produce the effect which I
was expecting.
My companions, like good country folk whom nothing surprises, remain
unimpressed by such trifles.
‘Only a wedding! What!’ says Boujardon. ‘Delouche has seen one at
Préveranges which was still more peculiar.’
The mansion? Oh, there would be in the neighbourhood people who’d heard
of it, right enough.
The girl? Meaulnes would marry her when once he had served his year as
a soldier. ‘He should have spoken to us about it,’ adds one of them,
‘and shown us his plan, instead of confiding in a gipsy!’
I am caught in failure: here is my chance to quicken their curiosity: I
decide to explain who this gipsy was, where he came from; his strange
fate.... Boujardon and Delouche do not care to listen.
‘That fellow’s done it all. It’s him who made Meaulnes unsociable,
Meaulnes who used to be such a jolly chap! It’s him who started that
silly nonsense about boarding ships and night attacks, making us into a
kind of school brigade....’
‘You know,’ said Jasmin, looking at Boujardon and shaking his head in
repeated nods, ‘it was a jolly good job I reported him to the police.
That chap did a lot of mischief in these parts and would have done
more!...’
And I almost agree with them. The whole affair would have taken a
different turn if we had not come to look upon it as so mysterious and
tragic. The influence of that Frantz spoiled everything....
But suddenly, while I am absorbed in these thoughts, a noise is heard
in the shop. Jasmin Delouche quickly hides the bottle of liqueur behind
a barrel; the fat Boujardon climbs down from his window, places his
foot on an empty and dusty bottle which rolls away, and twice he nearly
topples over. Young Roy, half choking with laughter, pushes us all from
behind to hurry us out.
Without quite understanding what is happening, I run away with them;
we cross the yard and by means of a ladder we climb into a hayloft. I
hear the voice of a woman calling us good-for-nothings.
‘I should never have thought she would be back so soon,’ says Jasmin in
a whisper.
Only then do I understand that we were there for no good, but to
steal biscuits and liqueur. I am as much disappointed as that wrecked
mariner who, fancying he was talking with a man, suddenly found himself
conversing with a monkey. I think only of leaving the loft, these
adventures displease me so much. Besides, night is falling.... My
companions make me go by back ways, then across two gardens, and round
a pond, until I find myself back in a muddy wet street in which the
lights of the Café Daniel are reflected.
I am not proud of the way I have spent my evening. I soon find myself
at the Cross-Roads. Suddenly, against my will, at the bend of the road,
I seem to see, once more, the clean-cut face of a brother smiling at
me; a last waving of the hand and the carriage disappearing....
A cold wind, getting into my overall, makes it flap, a wind similar
to those of that memorable winter so tragic and so fine. Already
everything appears to me less easy. In the big classroom, where my
parents await me for dinner, sudden draughts mingle with the feeble
heat of the stove. I shiver, while I am being reproached for my
afternoon of idle roaming. While the very thing that might help me
would be to resume my old regular life, I am even deprived, that
evening, of the consolation of sitting at my usual place at dinner. The
table has not been laid; we all eat off our knees, each settling where
best he can in the dark classroom. I eat in silence the thin cake which
has been cooked on the top of the stove and which, intended as a reward
for a Thursday of diligent work, has been left to burn on the red-hot
rings.
In the evening, alone in my room, I hasten to bed to stifle the remorse
which I feel surging up from the depths of my grief. But twice I awoke
during the night, fancying at first that I heard the creaking of the
bed in which Meaulnes used to turn over, all of a heap, and the second
time listening to the light steps of the hunter upon the watch, in the
dim distance of the lumber-rooms....
CHAPTER XII
THE THREE LETTERS FROM MEAULNES
In all my life I have received only three letters from Meaulnes. They
are still at home in a chest of drawers. Each time I read them again, I
feel the same sadness as of old.
The first arrived two days after he had left.
MY DEAR FRANÇOIS,
To-day, as soon as I got to Paris, I went in front of the house
mentioned. I saw nothing. There was no one there. No one will ever be
there.
The building mentioned by Frantz is a private house one storey high.
Mademoiselle de Galais’ room must be on the first floor. The top
windows are the most hidden by the trees, but one sees them quite
well from the pavement, as one walks by. All the curtains have been
drawn and it would be mad to hope that, one day, Yvonne de Galais’
face would appear from behind the drawn curtains.
The house stands on a boulevard.... It was raining a little on trees
already green. You could hear the sharp clanging of the tramcars
always going by.
I walked up and down, underneath the windows, for nearly two hours.
I went in for a drink at a bar close by, so as not to be taken for a
burglar up to some mischief. Then I returned to my hopeless watch.
Night came. Windows lit up nearly everywhere, but not in that house.
There is certainly no one there. And yet Easter is approaching.
Just as I was about to leave, a girl or a young woman--I don’t know
which--came and sat on one of the rain-soaked benches. She was
dressed in black with a small white collar. When I left, she was
still there, not having stirred in spite of the cold of the evening,
and waiting, goodness knows for what or for whom. You see, Paris is
full of fools like me.
AUGUSTIN
Time passed. I waited in vain for a word from Meaulnes all Easter
Monday and the following days--days so calm after the Easter fever that
just to wait for summer seemed the only thing to be done. June brought
examinations and a terrible heat, a suffocating haze hovering over the
countryside, without a breath of wind to dispel it. Night afforded no
coolness and consequently no respite from this torture. It was during
this unbearable month of June that I received the second letter from
Admiral Meaulnes.
_June, 189.._
MY DEAR CHAP,
This time all hope is gone. I have known it since yesterday evening.
My grief, which I hardly felt at first, has been increasing ever
since.
Every evening I went and sat on that bench, watching, pondering,
hoping in spite of all.
Yesterday, after dinner, the night was dark and stifling. People
were talking on the pavement, under the trees. Above the dark
leaves--toned to green by the lights--flats were lit up on the second
and third storeys. Here and there, summer had forced a window to be
thrown wide open.... The lamp could be seen standing alight on the
table, scarcely changing the sultry obscurity of June; you could
see almost to the other end of the room.... Ah! if the dark window
of Yvonne de Galais had suddenly lit up as the others, I believe I
should have found courage to go up the stairs, to knock and enter....
The girl of whom I spoke to you was still waiting there, like me. I
came to think that she might know the house, and I asked her.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘that at one time, in this house, a girl and her
brother used to come for the holidays. But I learned that the brother
had run away from his parents’ country-house and was never found
again, and that the girl had married. That explains why the house is
shut up.’
I walked off. Ten steps farther, I stumbled against the curb of the
pavement and nearly fell. During the night--it was last night--when
the women and the children left off their noise in the back yards,
and I might have gone to sleep, I began to hear the cabs rolling by
in the street. They passed only now and then. But no sooner had one
gone by than, in spite of myself, I waited for the next: the horse’s
bell, his hoofs clinking on the asphalt.... And it went on repeating:
empty town, your poor love gone, eternal night, summer, fever....
Seurel, dear man, I am in great distress.
AUGUSTIN
Few confidences in these letters, whatever you may think! Meaulnes did
not tell me either why he had remained silent so long, or what he now
intended to do. I had the impression that he was breaking with me, his
adventure over, as he was breaking with his past. It was no good my
writing to him; I received no reply. Only a word of congratulation when
I passed my preliminary Matriculation. In September I heard through a
school friend that he had been for his holidays to his mother’s at La
Ferté d’Angillon. But, that year, invited by my Uncle Florentin, we had
spent the holidays at Vieux-Nançay. And Meaulnes went back to Paris
without my having a chance to see him.
I received the last of the three letters I ever received from Meaulnes,
on my return to school, at the end of November, while I was working
with melancholy zeal for my final Matriculation,[6] hoping in the
following year to secure a teacher’s post without going through Bourges
Training College.
‘I still go under that window,’ he wrote. ‘I still wait, not that
there is any hope: just sheer madness. At the end of these cold
autumn Sundays, about the time when night comes, I cannot decide to
go home and close the shutters of my room without returning to stand
there in the chilly street.
‘I am like the mad woman of Sainte-Agathe who would go to her front
door every minute and look towards the station, one hand raised above
her eyes, to see if her dead son were coming home.
‘Seated on a bench, shivering and wretched, I take pleasure in
imagining that some one is going to take me gently by the arm.... I
should turn round. It would be she. “I am a little late,” she would
simply say. And all suffering and all madness vanish away. We enter
our home. Her furs are cold, her veil damp; she brings in with her a
flavour of the outside mist; and as she draws near the fire, I see the
flaxen fairness of her hair and the soft outlines of her beautiful face
bent towards the flame....
‘Alas! the pane remains white, with the curtain drawn across it. And
should the girl from the Lost Land draw it aside, I have no longer
anything to tell her.
‘Our adventure is at an end. Winter, this year, is as dead as the
grave. Perhaps when we die, perhaps death alone will give us the key,
the sequence and the end of this adventure that failed.
‘Seurel, the other day, I asked you to think of me. Now, on the
contrary, it is better to forget me. It would be better to forget
everything.
* * * * *
‘A. M.’
And this new winter proved as dead as the preceding one had been alive
with mysterious life: the church square without gipsies; the playground
which the boys deserted on the stroke of four ... the classroom where I
studied alone and without pleasure.... In February, for the first time
that winter, snow fell, definitely burying the tale of our adventures,
blurring every trail, blotting out the last traces. And I tried, as
Meaulnes had asked me in his letter, to forget everything.
PART III
CHAPTER I
BATHING
The bad lads of the countryside thought it a lark to smoke cigarettes,
to put sugar and water on their hair to make it curl, to kiss girls
from the Continuation School in the street, and to call out from behind
a hedge, ‘Poke-bonnet,’ to rag a passing nun. At twenty, however, bad
lads of that kind can very well improve and become often most sensible
fellows. The problem is graver when the bad lad’s appearance is
wizened and old, when his mind is occupied with low tales of the women
roundabout, when he is always making stupid remarks about Gilberte
Poquelin for the other boys to laugh. But even so there is still room
for hope....
That was the case with Jasmin Delouche. He continued, I do not know
why, but certainly from no wish to pass exams, to study with the top
form when every one would rather he gave it up. Between whiles, too,
he learned the plasterer’s trade with his Uncle Dumas. And soon this
Jasmin Delouche and Boujardon and a softish fellow called Denis, son
of the deputy mayor, were the only big boys with whom I cared to
associate, because they belonged to ‘Meaulnes’ time.’
Besides, Delouche was genuinely keen to be my friend. To tell the
truth, though he had been Admiral Meaulnes’ enemy, he wanted to be the
Admiral Meaulnes of the school: at any rate, he regretted perhaps not
having been his lieutenant. Less thick than Boujardon, he had felt I
believe, what an extraordinary event Meaulnes had been in our life.
And I often heard him repeat: ‘Ah! that’s what he used to say, Admiral
Meaulnes....’ or again, ‘Just as Admiral Meaulnes would’ve said....’
This old-looking fellow, besides being more of a man than we were,
got hold of ripping things which gave him a pull over us: a mongrel
with long white hair who answered to the irritating name of Bécali and
fetched stones thrown ever so far, without being much good for anything
else; a second-hand bicycle which Jasmin let us ride sometimes in the
evening after school, but on which he preferred to exercise the village
girls; last but not least, a white donkey, quite blind, which could be
harnessed to any vehicle.
It was Dumas’ donkey, but, in the summer, it was lent to Jasmin
whenever we went bathing in the Cher. His mother, at such times, always
gave him a bottle of lemonade which we placed under the driver’s seat,
amongst the stiff, dry bathing-drawers. And we set out, eight to ten
big boys from the top form, going with M. Seurel, some on foot, others
hoisted in the donkey cart which we left behind at Deep Waters Farm,
where the path along the Cher became like a ravine.
I have good reason to remember in all its minute details one outing of
this kind, when Jasmin’s donkey took to the Cher the slips, luggage,
lemonade, and M. Seurel, while we followed on foot. It was during the
month of August. We had just finished examinations. We were care-free,
and the whole summer, all happiness, seemed to belong to us; so, early
that fine Thursday afternoon, we marched along the road singing, not
knowing what we sang or why we sang it.
On the way, only one shadow fell on this innocent picture. We noticed
Gilberte Poquelin ahead of us. She walked alluringly, in a rather short
skirt and high-heeled shoes; she had the sweet yet bold air of a girl
who was nearly a woman. She left the road for a by-lane, no doubt on
her way to fetch milk. Little Coffin at once proposed to Jasmin to
follow her.
‘It wouldn’t be the first time I’d kissed her either ...’ said the
other. And he began to relate several risky stories concerning her and
her girl friends, while, by way of bragging, our little troop took to
the lane and left M. Seurel on the road forging ahead in the donkey
cart. Once in the lane, however, our band began to scatter. Even
Delouche, in our presence, did not appear over-anxious to approach the
girl who hurried on, and he did not come nearer than fifty yards.
There was a display of cock-crowing and hen-clucking, a few enticing
little bursts of whistling; then we walked back the way we had come,
feeling uncomfortable and thwarted. Back on the road, we had to run,
under the blazing sun, too. We no longer sang.
We undressed and dressed again in the parched willow-ground bordering
the Cher. The willows sheltered us from onlookers, but not from the
sun. Our feet were on sand and dry mud; our one thought was for the
bottle of widow Delouche’s lemonade being kept cool in the pool at Deep
Waters, a pool hollowed out in the very bank of the Cher.
There were always pale-greenish weeds to be found at the bottom, and
two or three creatures which looked like woodlice; but the water was
so clear, so transparent, that fishermen never hesitated to kneel and
drink at it, one hand placed on either bank.
Alas! it happened that day as it always did.... Once we were dressed
and, squatting on our heels in a circle, were ready to share the cool
lemonade out of two tumblers, after inviting M. Seurel to take his
share, there came to each of us scarcely more than a little froth which
grated on the throat and only aggravated one’s thirst. So finally, as
his turn came, each of us went to the pool we had at first despised
and slowly lowered his face to the level of the clear water. But we
were not all used to these peasant’s ways. Several of us, myself
included, never managed to quench our thirst: some because they did
not like water; others because their throats contracted at the fear
of swallowing a woodlouse; others again, deceived by the transparency
of the still water and unable to estimate the exact distance to its
surface, pushed half of their faces in with their lips and drew in
through the nose stinging water which seemed quite hot; others for all
these reasons put together.... What did it matter! It always seemed to
us, there on the parched banks of the Cher, that the whole fresh beauty
of nature was enclosed in that spot. And even now, whenever I hear the
word pool anywhere, it is of that one pool I lovingly think.
We came back at dusk with the same care-free spirit as when we went.
The Deep Waters’ track, leading up to the road, was a brook in the
winter, but in the summer a ravine unfit for traffic, obstructed by
holes and big roots and leading uphill between tall rows of shady
trees. Some of the bathers went that way, just for fun. But with M.
Seurel, Jasmin, and several other boys, we followed an easy sandy path
running parallel to the first and bordering a neighbouring farm. We
could hear the others talk and laugh close to us, down below, hidden
from sight in the shady path, while Delouche told his mannish tales....
At the top of the tall row of trees, evening insects were droning and
could be seen against the clear sky, as they moved around the lacework
of the leaves. Sometimes, one suddenly tumbled down, its hum fizzling
out all at once.... A beautiful quiet summer evening!... A peaceful
home-coming, void of hope, but also of longing, after an ordinary
little country outing.... Once again, without realising it, Jasmin came
to disturb this peacefulness....
Just as we reached the top of the hill, at the place where two huge
ancient stones stand--they are rumoured to be the remains of a
fortress--he began to speak of the estates he had visited, above all of
one half forsaken in the neighbourhood of Vieux-Nançay: the Sand Pit
Manor. With his Allier accent, which shows affectation in rounding off
some words and in shortening others, he related having seen, some years
previously, in the tumble-down chapel of the old manor, a tombstone on
which were carved the words:
Here lies Sir Galois, Knight,
faithful to his God, his King and his Love.
‘Well! I never!’ said M. Seurel, slightly shrugging his shoulders,
ill at ease at the turn the conversation had taken, yet anxious
nevertheless to let us talk like men.
Then Jasmin went on describing the manor house as if he had spent his
life there.
On their way home from Vieux-Nançay, he and Dumas had more than once
been puzzled by the old grey tower which could be seen above the firs.
There, in the middle of the woods, you came to a maze of decrepit
buildings which you could visit when the owners were away. One of the
keepers of the place, to whom they had given a lift, had once taken
them to the mysterious manor. But since then everything had been razed
to the ground; there only remained, people said, the farm and a small
country-house. The occupiers were still the same: an old naval officer,
in reduced circumstances, and his daughter.
He went on talking ... talking.... I listened attentively, feeling,
without being aware of it, that all this concerned facts well known to
me, when suddenly, in the simple way extraordinary things do happen,
Jasmin turned to me and touched me on the arm as if struck by an idea
which had never occurred to him.
‘My goodness, now I come to think of it,’ he said, ‘it must have been
there Meaulnes--you know, Admiral Meaulnes?--went.’
‘Of course,’ he went on, for I did not answer him, ‘and I remember that
the keeper used to speak of the son of the place, a queer fellow who
had very weird ideas....’
I no longer listened to him, convinced as I was from the first that he
had guessed right and that in front of me, far from Meaulnes, far from
all hope, there had just opened out, as clear and easy as a familiar
road, a path to the manor without a name.
CHAPTER II
AT FLORENTIN’S
Just as far as I had been an unhappy child, dreamy and retiring, so I
now became resolute and as we say at home ‘determined,’ when I felt
that upon me depended the outcome of this high adventure.
From that evening, I believe, my knee definitely ceased to hurt me.
Vieux-Nançay was the parish to which the Sand Pit estate belonged and
where all M. Seurel’s relatives lived, and in particular my Uncle
Florentin, a tradesman with whom we often spent the end of September.
Free as I was from examinations, I did not want to wait, and was
granted permission to go at once to my uncle. But I decided to say
nothing to Meaulnes as long as I could not be certain of having good
news to impart. For, indeed, what was the good of drawing him out
of his despair, to plunge him back into it, perhaps more deeply,
afterwards?
Vieux-Nançay was for many years my favourite place in the world, the
place that meant holidays, where we only went on rare occasions, when
a carriage could be hired to take us. There had formerly been some
disagreement with the branch of the family living there, and no doubt
this explains why one had each time to beg Millie so hard to get her
to come. But I cared little about these squabbles!... No sooner was I
there than I became lost in the crowd of uncles and cousins, boys and
girls, and enjoyed a life crammed with jolly doings.
We used to live with Uncle Florentin and Aunt Julie. They had a boy of
my age, Cousin Firmin, and eight daughters, the two eldest of whom,
Marie-Louise and Charlotte, might have been seventeen and fifteen. They
kept a large shop in front of the church, at the entrance to this small
town in Sologne--a sort of general stores, the shopping centre for all
the neighbouring gentry and sportsmen living in lonely places in the
remote country, often thirty kilometres from any station.
This shop, with its grocery and drapery counters, had numerous windows
looking on the road and a glass door opening on the church square. But
a strange thing, though quite ordinary in this poor district, the floor
of the shop was of trodden earth.
At the back of the premises were six rooms, each stocked with a
different kind of goods: the room with hats, the room with garden
tools, the room with lamps ... goodness knows what! When, as a child, I
used to go through this maze of a store, it seemed as if my eyes would
never exhaust all its marvels. And even at that time I still thought
that there could be no real holidays in any other place.
The family lived in the big kitchen, the door of which opened on the
shop, and in this kitchen, at the end of September, huge fires were
blazing by the side of which the gamekeepers and poachers who sold game
to Florentin often came for a drink quite early in the morning, while
the little girls, who were already up, went all over the place, making
much noise, or smoothed one another’s hair with ‘some nice-smelling
stuff.’ On the walls some old photographs, yellowish groups of
schoolboys, depicted my father--after one had taken some time to
recognise him in his uniform--amidst his Training College friends....
The mornings were always spent there; or in the yard where Florentin
grew dahlias and reared guinea-fowls; here, seated on soap chests, you
set about roasting coffee, or unpacking crates filled with all kinds of
carefully wrapped things, the name of which we did not always know....
All day long the shop was invaded by peasants or by the coachmen of
the neighbouring gentry. Carts, coming from far out in the country and
dripping with the September fog, would pull up and stop in front of the
glass door. And from the kitchen we listened to the peasant-women’s
talk, curious to hear all their stories....
But in the evening, after eight o’clock, when we went out with lanterns
to take hay to the horses whose reeking skins filled the stables with
steam, the whole of the shop belonged to us!
Marie-Louise, the eldest of my cousins, though one of the smallest,
was still in the shop, folding and putting away rolls of cloth and
coaxing us to come and cheer her up. So Firmin and I with all the
girls burst into the huge shop, under the overhead porcelain lamps,
and coffee-grinders were set turning and acrobatic stunts performed on
the counters; sometimes Firmin brought out from the attics some old
trombone covered with verdigris, for the trodden earth floor was good
to dance on....
I still blush at the idea that, at any moment in those previous years,
Mlle. de Galais might have come in and caught us at these childish
games.... But it was just before nightfall, one evening of that month
of August, while I was quietly talking with Marie-Louise and Firmin,
that I saw her for the first time....
* * * * *
The very first evening of my arrival at Vieux-Nançay I had questioned
my Uncle Florentin concerning the Sand Pit estate.
‘It is no longer an estate,’ he told me. ‘Everything has been sold, and
the buyers, sportsmen, have pulled down the old buildings to enlarge
their shoot; the great courtyard is by now just a waste land of heather
and broom. The former owners have only kept a one-storey shack and the
farm. You’ll often have a chance of seeing Mademoiselle de Galais
here; it’s she does all the shopping, coming sometimes on horseback,
sometimes driving, but always the same old horse, old Bélisaire....
It’s a funny turn-out!’
I was so upset that I no longer knew what question to ask so as to
learn more.
‘But surely they were rich?’
‘Yes. M. de Galais used to give parties to amuse his son, a strange
boy, full of queer ideas. To give him a good time, the father always
thought of some grand new thing. They had girls come from Paris ...
fellows from Paris and elsewhere....
‘The Sand Pit was all falling to ruins, Mme. de Galais was near her
end, they were still trying to amuse him, putting up with all his
whims. ’Twas last winter--no, the winter before, they gave their
biggest fancy-dress fête. Half of their guests were from Paris, others
were country folk. They had bought or hired any amount of marvellous
fancy costumes, games, horses, boats. Always to amuse Frantz de Galais.
It was said that he was about to marry, and that it was his betrothal
party. But he was much too young. And it was all broken off suddenly;
he ran away and he’s never been seen since.... After the lady’s death,
Mademoiselle de Galais was suddenly left alone with her father, the old
sea captain.’
‘Isn’t she married?’ I asked at last.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve heard nothing of it. Might you be a suitor?’
Very much put out, I confessed to him, as briefly and as discreetly as
possible, that my best friend, Augustin Meaulnes, would perhaps be one.
‘Ah!’ said Florentin, smiling, ‘if he’s not particular as to money, it
is a good match.... Should I say a word about it to M. de Galais? He
still comes here sometimes to get small shot for game. I always give
him a taste of my old brandy.’
But I begged him to do nothing of the sort, to wait. And on my part, I
delayed to inform Meaulnes. Such an accumulation of lucky circumstances
made me feel rather anxious. And this anxiety forced me not to inform
Meaulnes of anything before I had at least seen the girl.
* * * * *
I had not long to wait. The next day, a little before dinner, night
began to fall, and with it came a fresh mist, more like September than
August. Firmin and I, guessing the shop would be empty of customers
at the moment, had come to talk to Marie-Louise and Charlotte. I had
confided to them the secret which had brought me to Vieux-Nançay
earlier than usual. Elbows on the counter or seated with both hands
stretched out flat on the polished wood, we were telling one another
all we knew about the mysterious girl--and that was precious
little--when a noise of wheels made us turn round.
‘There she is, that’s her,’ they whispered.
A few seconds later the queer equipage stopped in front of the glass
door. An old farm carriage with rounded panels and small moulded
cornices, the like of which I had never seen before in that district;
an old white horse which always seemed to want to graze along the
road, so low did he bend his head as he walked; and on the box--I say
it in all simplicity of heart, but knowing well what I say--the most
beautiful girl the world may ever have held.
I never saw so much grace combined with so much gravity. Her costume
gave her so slender a waist that she seemed fragile. A long brown
cloak, which she took off as she came in, was thrown on her shoulders.
She was the gravest of girls, the frailest of women. A mass of fair
hair weighed on her forehead and over her face which was delicate in
outline and delicate in moulding. On her pure complexion summer had
placed two freckles.... I detected only one defect in so much beauty:
in moments of sadness, discouragement, or simply deep thought, this
pure face was slightly dappled with red, as happens to people suffering
from some serious and unsuspected complaint. Then one’s admiration on
looking at her was replaced by a kind of pity, the more heart-rending
because the more surprising.
At least this is what I seemed to discover as she slowly got out of the
carriage, and Marie-Louise, with complete ease, at last introduced me
and encouraged me to speak.
They offered her a polished chair, and she sat down, her back resting
against the counter, while we remained standing. She appeared to
know the shop well and to be fond of it. Aunt Julie, being at once
informed, came in, and talked quietly, with her hands crossed over her
stomach and her peasant shopkeeper’s white cap nodding gently. And thus
the moment when conversation would begin on my part--which I rather
dreaded--was postponed....
It came very simply.
‘And so,’ said Mademoiselle de Galais, ‘you will soon be a teacher?’
Aunt Julie was then lighting over our heads the porcelain lamp which
gave dim light to the shop; I saw the girl’s sweet childlike face,
her candid blue eyes, and was all the more surprised at her clear and
serious voice. Whenever she stopped talking, her gaze settled away from
the listener, not moving while she awaited the answer, and she slightly
bit her lip.
‘I should also be teaching,’ she said, ‘if only M. de Galais would let
me! I would teach little boys, like your mother....’
And she smiled, showing me thus that my cousins had spoken to her of me.
‘You see,’ she went on, ‘the village people are always very polite and
kind and obliging to me. And I am very fond of them. But then, what
credit can there be in my loving them?... While, with a school teacher,
they are apt to be rather cross and critical, don’t you think? There
are endless tales of lost pencils, exercise-books too dear, and of
children who do not learn.... Well, I would fight it out with them and
they would like me nevertheless. It would be far more difficult....’
And, without a smile, she dropped back into her thoughtful and
childlike attitude, with her motionless blue gaze.
We were, the three of us, embarrassed by that ease in speaking of
delicate things, of what is secret and subtle, and only comes off well
in books. There was a moment’s silence; and slowly a long discussion
began....
But with a sort of regret and of animosity against I know not what
essence of mystery in her life, the girl went on:
‘And then I would teach the boys to be wise with a wisdom I know. I
would not put into their hearts any longing to go about the world, as
you will most likely do, M. Seurel, when you are an assistant master.
I would teach them to find the happiness which is quite close to them,
though it does not appear so....’
Marie-Louise and Firmin were as much confused as I was. We stood there,
not saying a word. She felt our embarrassment, stopped, and bit her
lip, and lowered her head, then she smiled as if she was making fun of
us.
‘For instance,’ she said, ‘there is perhaps some big silly boy who
is looking for me at the other end of the world, while I am here, in
Madame Florentin’s shop, under this lamp, and my old horse is waiting
at the door. If the young man did see me, he most likely would not
believe his eyes?...’
To see her smile, daring seized me, and I felt that it was time to say,
while I also laughed: ‘And it may be that I know him, that big silly
boy?’
She quickly looked up at me.
At that moment there was a ring at the shop door; two country women
entered carrying baskets.
‘Come in the “dining room,” you will be in peace,’ said my aunt, as she
pushed open the kitchen door.
And, as Mademoiselle de Galais was refusing and wanted to go at once,
my aunt added: ‘M. de Galais is there, chatting with Florentin by the
fire.’
There was always, even in the month of August, the habitual fir-faggot
crackling and blazing in the big kitchen. There also a porcelain lamp
was lit and an old man with a kind, wrinkled face entirely shaven--the
type of man nearly always silent like one burdened with age and
memories--was seated close to Florentin in front of two glasses of
brandy.
Florentin greeted me.
‘François!’ he called out in his strong huckster’s voice, as if there
was a river between us or many acres of land, ‘I have just arranged
an afternoon’s outing on the banks of the Cher for next Thursday.
Those who like can shoot game, others can fish, or dance, or bathe!...
Mademoiselle, you will come on horseback; that’s agreed with M. de
Galais. I’ve arranged everything....
‘And François!’ he added, as if he had only just thought of it, ‘you
might bring your friend, Monsieur Meaulnes.... It’s Meaulnes he is
called, isn’t it?’
Mlle. de Galais had stood up, suddenly growing very pale. And at that
precise moment, it came back to my mind that one day, at the mysterious
manor, by the side of the lake, Meaulnes had told her his name....
When she held out her hand to me at the moment of leaving, there was
between us, more clearly than if we had spoken many words, a secret
understanding which death alone was to break, and a friendship more
moving than a great passion.
... At four o’clock next morning, Firmin knocked at the door of the
little room which I occupied in the guinea-fowls’ yard. It was still
night and I had great trouble in finding my belongings on the table,
amongst the brass candlesticks and the brand-new statuettes of saints
which had been chosen out of the shop to decorate my dwelling on
the day before my arrival. In the yard, I heard Firmin pumping up
my bicycle tyres, and in the kitchen Aunt Julie using the bellows
to make up the fire. The sun was hardly risen when I left. But my
day was to be long: I was first going to lunch at Sainte-Agathe to
explain my prolonged absence, then, continuing my way, I meant, before
the evening, to reach La Ferté d’Angillon and the home of my friend
Augustin Meaulnes.
CHAPTER III
THE GHOST
I had never been for a really long ride on a bicycle. This was my
first. But for a long time Jasmin had been secretly teaching me how
to ride in spite of my bad knee. A bicycle is fairly good fun for any
ordinary fellow: what should it not mean to a poor chap like me, who,
only a short time back, dragged his leg wretchedly along, sweating
after a mile or two? To sweep down hills and plunge into the valley
hollows; to cover as on wings the far stretches of the road ahead and
to find them in bloom at your approach; to pass through a village in a
moment, and to take it all with you in one glance ... in dreams only,
till then, had I known such a delightful, such an easy way of getting
about. I tackled even the hills with zest. For I must own, it was the
road leading to Meaulnes’ village I was thus eating up....
‘A little before you reach the place,’ Meaulnes had once said to me,
describing his village, ‘you see a great wheel with arms which the wind
turns....’ He did not know what it was used for, or perhaps pretended
not to know to arouse my curiosity the more.
It was only when this August day was drawing to its close that I
noticed, turning to the wind in a huge meadow, the big wheel which
must have served to bring up water to a small farm near by. The first
dwellings could be seen behind poplars in the meadow. Gradually, as
I made my way along the curve where the road turns to follow the
brook, the view expanded and opened out.... On reaching the bridge, I
discovered at last the village High Street.
In the meadow, cows were grazing, hidden by the reeds, and I heard
their bells while, having dismounted from my bicycle, and my hands on
the handlebar, I surveyed the country into which I was bringing tidings
of such gravity. Houses with approaches over a small wooden bridge were
lined up by the side of a ditch which ran down the street and looked
like fishing boats at anchor on a peaceful evening with their sails
clewed up. It was the time of day when a fire is being lighted in every
kitchen.
Then it was that fear, and a kind of vague reluctance at coming to
disturb so much peace, began to sap my courage. To increase my sudden
weakness, I recalled that my Aunt Moinel lived there, on the small
square of La Ferté d’Angillon.
She was one of my great-aunts. All her children were dead, but I had
known Ernest well, the youngest of all, a tall boy who was to be a
teacher. My Great-Uncle Moinel, the old registry clerk, had soon
followed him, and my aunt had remained alone in her queer little
house, with the rugs all of patchwork, the tables full of paper cocks,
hens, and cats, and the walls decked with old diplomas, portraits of
the dear defunct, and lockets containing dead hair.
With all her griefs and mourning, Aunt Moinel was the soul of oddness
and good temper. When once I had found the little square where her
house stood, I called her loudly through the half-open door, and from
the other end of her three rooms leading out of each other, I heard her
utter a shrill little cry: ‘Well! Good Heavens!’
She spilled her coffee into the fire--how could she be making coffee
at this time of day?--and she appeared ... shoulders well thrown back,
and on her head, something which might have been either hat, bonnet, or
hood, perched high up over a huge bumpy forehead, suggesting a cross
between a Mongol and a Hottentot: and she laughed with little jerks,
showing what remained of her small teeth.
But while I kissed her, she clumsily and hastily took hold of the hand
which was behind my back. With an air of great mystery--perfectly out
of place, as we were quite alone--she squeezed into my palm a small
coin which I dared not look at, but guessed to be a franc. Then, as I
made a pretence at asking explanations and thanking her, she gave me a
poke in the ribs, exclaiming loudly: ‘Oh! go on! As if I didn’t know
all about it!’
She had always been poor, always borrowing, always spending.
‘I have always been stupid, always unfortunate,’ she would say without
bitterness, in her high-pitched voice.
Feeling sure that I worried over pennies as she did, the dear woman
had not waited for me to take breath before pressing into my hand her
scanty savings of the day. And, in later days, too, this was always how
she welcomed me.
Dinner was as strange as the greeting--both melancholy and queer at the
same time. She always had a candle within reach of her hand: sometimes
she carried it off and left me in the dark: sometimes she put it on the
little table which was littered with chipped and cracked dishes and
vases.
‘The Prussians,’ she said, ‘broke the handles off this one in 1870, as
they couldn’t take it away.’
It was only then I remembered, on seeing once again this tall vase with
its tragic history, that we had once dined and slept there in former
days. Father was taking me to the Yonne to see a specialist who was
to cure my knee. We had had to take a fast train which started before
daybreak.... That melancholy dinner now came back to my mind, and all
the stories related by the old clerk as he rested his elbows on the
table before his rose-coloured drink.
And I was reminded also of my fears.... After dinner, sitting by the
fire, my aunt had taken Father aside to tell him ghost stories: ‘I turn
round.... Ah! my dear Louis, what do I see? A little grey woman....’
Her head was known to be packed with terrifying nonsense of this kind.
And this very evening when dinner was over and, tired out with my
bicycle ride, I had gone to bed in one of Uncle Moinel’s check
nightshirts, she came and sat at the foot of my bed and began to talk
in the shrillest, most mysterious voice.
‘Poor François, I must tell you something I’ve not told a soul.’
I thought: ‘Now I’m in for it. Here’s for another night of terror, like
ten years ago!...’
And I listened. She nodded her head, looking straight in front of her
as if she were relating the story to herself:
‘I was coming back from a party with Moinel. It was the first wedding
we’d been to together since poor Ernest’s death; and I met my sister
Adèle there, whom I’d not seen for four years. An old friend of Moinel,
a very rich man, had invited us to his son’s wedding at his place, the
Sand Pit. We’d hired a carriage. That had cost us a good bit of money.
We were making our way along the road about seven in the morning, in
the middle of winter. The sun was just rising. There was no one about.
But what do you think I saw all at once, right in front of us, there
on the road? A little fellow posted there, a small young man, as
handsome as the day, not moving, but looking at us coming. As we got
nearer, we could make out his pretty face--so white and so pretty that
it gave one a turn!...
‘I clung to Moinel’s arm; I was shaking like a leaf; I thought if was
God himself!... I said to Moinel: “Look! A ghost!”
‘He replied in whispers, quite furious: “Well! I saw it. You’d better
shut up, you old chatterbox....”
‘He didn’t know what to do, when suddenly the horse stopped.... At
close quarters, it showed a pale face, a forehead covered with beads
of sweat, a dirty tammy and long trousers. We heard its sweet voice
saying: “I am not a man, I am a girl. I ran away, and I am tired out.
Could you take me in your carriage, please, kind people?”
‘At once we got her in. No sooner was she seated than she fainted.
And guess who that was we’d come across? It was Frantz de Galais’
sweetheart, the young man at the Sand Pit, where we’d been invited to
the wedding!’
‘But there could’ve been no wedding,’ I said, ‘as the fiancée had run
off!’
‘Well, of course not,’ she went on, looking at me quite dejectedly.
‘There’d been no wedding, on account of that poor silly girl having got
into her head a thousand mad notions that she explained to us. She
was one of the daughters of a poor weaver. She firmly believed that
so much happiness was impossible; that the young fellow was too young
for her; that all the marvels he’d told her about were imagination; so
when at last Frantz came to fetch her, Valentine took fright. He used
to walk with her in the garden of the Archbishop’s Palace at Bourges,
not minding the cold or the wind. The young fellow--out of delicacy, of
course, and because he loved the younger sister--was full of attention
to the elder. So, my silly girl must needs get notions. She said she
wanted to go home and fetch a shawl; but once there, to make sure no
one would come after her, she put on man’s clothes and set off on foot
along the road to Paris. Her young man got a letter from her in which
she said she was off to Paris to join a fellow she was in love with.
But that wasn’t true....
‘“I’m happier in my sacrifice,” she said to me, “than if I were his
wife.” Yes, poor idiot, but as a matter of fact he had never thought
for a second of marrying the sister; he blew out his brains; his blood
was seen in the wood, but his body was never found.’
‘And what did you do with that wretched girl?’
‘First of all we brought her round with a drop of brandy. Then we gave
her something to eat, and we no sooner got home than she fell asleep by
the fire. She stayed with us a good bit of the winter. All day long,
while it was light, she stitched, making dresses, trimming hats, or
else she cleaned the house in a sort of rage. She it was who stuck back
that wall-paper you see there. But in the evening, at nightfall, when
her work was done, she would always find some excuse for going into the
yard, or into the garden, or just outside the front door, even when it
was cold enough to freeze one to death. And there she would be found
weeping fit to break her heart.
‘“Well, what’s the matter now? Tell us!”
‘“Nothing, Madame Moinel!”
‘And she would go in.
‘The neighbours used to say: “What a pretty little servant you’ve
found, Madame Moinel!”
‘In spite of all we could say, when March came she made up her mind
to go on to Paris; I gave her some old dresses which she altered,
Moinel paid for her ticket at the station and gave her a little money.
She’s not forgotten us; she’s now doing dressmaking in Paris, close
to Notre-Dame; she still writes at times to ask if we know anything
about the Sand Pit. Once and for all, to free her of these thoughts,
I replied that the estate had been sold, the buildings pulled down,
the young man gone forever, and the girl married. All this is true, I
should think. Since then, dear Valentine has written far less often....’
It was not a ghost story Aunt Moinel was relating in her thin piercing
voice, so well fitted for such stories. Yet I was feeling utterly
wretched. For we had sworn to Frantz, the bohemian, always to help him
as brothers, and now the chance had come....
But was it the moment to spoil the joy I was to bring to Meaulnes the
next morning, by telling him what I had just learned? What would be the
good of putting him on such an impossible job? True, we had the address
of the girl; but where could we find the bohemian who was always on the
move?... Better let mad people alone, I thought. Delouche and Boujardon
were quite right. How much harm this romantic Frantz had done us! And I
resolved to say nothing until I had witnessed the marriage of Augustin
Meaulnes with Mademoiselle de Galais.
After making this decision, a painful feeling of ill omen persisted in
my mind--a stupid feeling which I quickly brushed aside.
The candle was almost out; a mosquito hummed; but Aunt Moinel, with her
elbows on her knees and her head on one side under the velvet bonnet
which she never took off except when she went to bed, began her story
over again.... From time to time she sharply raised her head to observe
what my feelings were or perhaps to see if I was still awake. At last,
cunningly, with my head on the pillow, I closed my eyes pretending to
be dozing....
‘There! You are asleep ...’ she said in a deeper voice and slightly
disappointed.
I took pity on her and I protested: ‘Oh, no, Auntie, I assure you....’
‘Oh! but you are,’ she said; ‘besides, I quite understand that all this
can hardly interest you. I am talking of people you’ve never known....’
And this time, like a coward, I made no reply.
CHAPTER IV
GREAT NEWS
Next morning, when I reached the High Street, it was such fine holiday
weather, it was so still, and so many peaceful and familiar sounds rose
from all over the village, that the happy confidence of a bearer of
good news came back to me.
Augustin and his mother lived in the old schoolhouse. On the death of
his father--retired long before this and enriched by a legacy--Meaulnes
had pressed his mother to buy the school in which the old schoolmaster
had taught for twenty years and where he himself had learned to read.
Not that it was a pleasant house to look at: it was a big square
building like a little town hall, which indeed it had once been; the
ground-floor windows opened on the street and were so high that no
one ever looked in through them; and the yard at the back, where no
tree grew and a high shelter blocked any view of the countryside, was
certainly the most denuded and the most forlorn of all the forsaken
playgrounds I have ever seen.
In the odd-shaped hall on which four doors opened, I found Meaulnes’
mother bringing back from the garden a huge bundle of clothes which she
must have put to dry at a very early hour of this long holiday morning.
Her grey hair was carelessly twisted up; wisps of it fell across her
face; her regular features, under her old-fashioned cap, looked tired
and her eyes heavy, as if after a sleepless night, and she kept her
head lowered sadly in a dreamy way.
But suddenly she saw me, and recognising me she smiled.
‘You come just in time,’ she said. ‘Look! I was bringing in the clothes
I’d put out to dry for Augustin’s journey. I’ve spent the night looking
over his accounts and getting his things together. The train leaves at
five, but we shall manage to get everything ready.’
You would have said--for she showed such assurance--that she had
herself taken this decision. Yet it is likely she did not even know
where Meaulnes intended to go.
‘Upstairs,’ she said, ‘you will find him busy writing in the town hall.’
I climbed up the stairs, opened the door on the right, over which the
words ‘Town Hall’ still remained on a board, and found myself in a big
room with four windows--two opening on the village, two on the country;
the walls were decorated with faded portraits of the Presidents Grévy
and Carnot. The chairs of the town councillors still stood in front of
a table with a green baize cover, on a long platform which filled the
back of the room. And there, seated in the centre of the room in the
mayor’s old armchair, was Meaulnes, busy writing, dipping his pen in an
old-fashioned ink-stand shaped like a heart. This place, which seemed
meant for some well-to-do villager, was the room where Meaulnes liked
to retire during the holidays, whenever he was not roaming about the
country....
As soon as he had recognised me, he got up, but not with the eagerness
I had pictured in my mind.
‘Seurel!’ he merely said in astonishment.
He was still the same tall youth, with marked bony features and closely
cropped hair. An untrimmed moustache was beginning to droop over his
lips. Always the same loyal look.... But something like a veil of mist
covered the ardour of the past, though every now and then his old
passion dispelled it.
He appeared very upset to see me. At one bound I was on the platform.
But, strange to say, he did not even think of holding out his hand. He
turned towards me, both hands behind his back, and seeming very ill at
ease. And already, looking at me without seeing me, he was absorbed in
what he was going to say to me. Slow to break into speech, then and
always, like men who live alone--hunters and adventurers--he had come
to a decision without bothering about the words required to explain it.
And only now that I was in front of him did he begin painfully to seek
the necessary words.
However, I gaily related to him how I had come, where I had spent the
night, and that I was very surprised to see Madame Meaulnes preparing
for her son’s departure.
‘Ah! so she’s told you? ...’ he asked.
‘Yes. You’re not going far, I hope?’
‘Yes, very far.’
Out of countenance for a moment, I no longer dared to say anything and
did not know where to begin with my message, for I felt that presently,
by a mere word, I was going to wipe out this decision which I did not
understand.
But he himself spoke at last like some one who wishes to justify
himself.
‘Seurel,’ he said, ‘you know what the strange adventure of
Sainte-Agathe meant to me. It was all I lived and hoped for. With that
hope lost, what was to become of me?... How could I live like other
people?
‘Well, I tried to live out there in Paris, when I saw that all was
finished and that it was scarcely worth while even looking for the Lost
Land.... But how could a man, who had once leapt at one bound into
Paradise, get used to living like everybody else? What means happiness
for others appeared to me absurd. And the day when I sincerely and
deliberately decided to behave as others do, I piled up remorse for a
long time to come....’
I sat on one of the platform chairs with my eyes on the ground and
listened without looking at him; I could not tell what to think of
these obscure explanations.
‘Come on, Meaulnes,’ I said, ‘explain yourself more clearly! Why this
long journey? Have you made a mistake you must make amends for? a
promise you must keep?’
‘That’s just it,’ he replied. ‘You remember that promise I made to
Frantz?...’
‘Ah!’ I said relieved, ‘is that all?’
‘That’s all. But perhaps also a fault to make good. Both things at
once....’
There followed a moment of silence during which I decided to begin
speaking and prepared my words....
‘There’s only one explanation, so I’ve come to believe,’ he said
again. ‘Of course, I would have liked, once more, to see Mademoiselle
de Galais, simply to see her once more.... But I am convinced, now,
that when I discovered the nameless manor, I was at the height of what
stands for perfection and pure motive in any one’s heart, a height I
shall never reach again. In death alone, as I once wrote to you, I may
hope to find again the beauty of that day....’
He changed his tone only to begin again with strange animation, while
he came nearer to me.
‘But listen, Seurel! This new intrigue and this long journey, this
mistake I made and must make amends for, it is all, in a way, my old
adventure still going on....’
A pause, during which he painfully tried to grasp once more the events
of the past. I had missed the previous opportunity. For nothing on
earth would I let this chance slip; and this time I spoke--too hastily,
for later I bitterly regretted not having waited for his confession.
So I uttered the sentence which I had prepared for the previous
occasion, and which no longer seemed to work. I said, without a
gesture, and scarcely raising my head: ‘But what if I came to tell you
that all hope is not lost?’
He looked at me; then, suddenly taking his eyes away, blushed as I have
never seen any one blush: a rush of blood which must have beat hard
against his temples....
‘What do you mean?’ he asked at last, indistinctly.
Then, in one gush, I related what I knew, what I had done, and how, the
appearance of things having altered, it seemed almost as if it were
Yvonne de Galais who had sent me to him.
He was now dreadfully pale.
During all this narrative--which he listened to in silence, with head
sunk between his shoulders in the attitude of one who is taken by
surprise and cannot tell how to defend himself, whether to hide or run
away--I remember that he interrupted me only once. I was telling him,
amongst other things, that all the Sand Pit had been pulled down and
that the old manor no longer existed.
‘Ah!’ he said, ‘there you are’ (as if he had watched for a chance of
justifying his behaviour and the despair into which he had sunk).
‘There you are: there is nothing left....’
To end my tale, as I felt convinced that the assurance of such an
easy course would sweep away what remained of his grief, I told
him that a country outing had been arranged by my Uncle Florentin,
that Mademoiselle de Galais was coming to it on horseback, and that
he himself was invited.... But he appeared completely put out and
continued silent.
‘You must at once cancel your journey,’ I said with impatience. ‘Let’s
go and tell your mother.’
And, as we were going downstairs together: ‘That country outing? ...’
he asked with some hesitation. ‘Must I really come?...’
‘My dear good chap,’ I replied, ‘what a question to ask!’
He looked like a man who is pushed forward against his will.
Downstairs, Augustin gave Madame Meaulnes to understand that I would
stay for lunch, dinner, and the night, and that he himself would hire a
bicycle next day and go with me to Vieux-Nançay.
‘Oh! very well,’ she said with a nod, as if this news confirmed all she
thought.
I sat down in the little dining-room under the illustrated calendars,
the chiselled daggers, and the leather bottles from the Sudan which a
brother of M. Meaulnes, who had been in the marines, had brought home
from his distant travels....
Augustin left me there alone for a moment before the meal, and in the
next room, where his mother had prepared his luggage, I heard him tell
her, in a slightly lowered voice, not to unpack his trunk--as his
journey was perhaps only delayed....
CHAPTER V
THE COUNTRY OUTING
I had trouble to keep up with Meaulnes along the road to Vieux-Nançay.
He rode like a racer. He did not push up any of the hills. His
unaccountable hesitation of the previous day was followed by a feverish
nervousness and an eagerness to hasten our arrival which rather
frightened me. At my uncle’s he showed the same impatience and seemed
unable to be interested in anything until about ten next morning, when,
settled in the carriage, we were ready to start for the river.
It was the end of August; the summer was drawing to a close; the empty
sheaths of the yellowing chestnut trees were beginning to litter the
white roads. The drive was not long. The Guelders, the farm close to
the spot we were making for on the banks of the Cher, was scarcely more
than two kilometres beyond the Sand Pit. Now and again we came across
other guests also driving, and even young fellows on horseback, whom
Florentin had boldly invited in M. de Galais’ name.... An attempt had
been made, as of old, to bring rich and poor together, squires and
peasants. Thus it was we noticed Jasmin Delouche coming on his bicycle,
for he had, some time back, made the acquaintance of my uncle through
Baladier the forester.
‘There’s the fellow,’ said Meaulnes, spotting him, ‘who had the key
of the whole thing while we were searching as far as Paris. It is
maddening!’
And each time he looked at him his bitterness increased. Delouche,
who on the contrary considered he deserved our full gratitude, rode
very near to our carriage as escort, right to the end. He had clearly
taken pains with his toilet, without much result, and the end of his
threadbare jacket rubbed the mud-guard of his machine.
But in spite of the constraint he put upon himself to be agreeable, his
old-looking face never succeeded in pleasing. It made me feel a kind of
vague pity for him. But on whom would I not have had pity that day?...
* * * * *
I never recall that country outing without an obscure regret--a
stifling uneasiness. I had looked forward to the day with so much
joy.... Everything appeared so perfectly contrived to make us happy.
But so little happiness came of it!...
Yet how beautiful were the banks of the Cher! Where we stopped, the
hill sloped gently down to the riverside, and the land was divided into
small green meadows and willow groves separated by fences like so many
tiny gardens. On the other side, the river had steep banks cut out of
rugged grey hills; and on the most distant of these you could make out
romantic country seats, each with a turret rising from the firs. Now
and again, in the far distance, was heard the barking of the pack of
hounds at the Château de Préveranges.
We had reached this spot through intricate little lanes thick with
sharp flints or else full of sand--lanes which, near the river, springs
changed into streams. As we went by, wild brambles caught at our
sleeves. And at one moment we plunged into the cool darkness at the
bottom of ravines, while the next, owing to a break in the hedges, we
were bathed in the clear light of the whole valley. Then, farther out
on the other bank, as we approached, a man hanging onto the rock was
with slow movements setting ground lines for fishing. Heavens! what a
beautiful day it was!
We settled on a grass plot, a clearing in a copse of silver birches. It
was like a wide lawn of fine turf and seemed to offer room for endless
games.
The horses were unharnessed and taken to the farm. Then we began to
unpack the food--right in the wood--and to set up on the grass the
small folding tables my uncle had brought.
Just then volunteers were required to go to the entrance of the
adjoining road to keep watch for the late comers and show them where
we were. I at once offered myself; Meaulnes followed me, and we posted
ourselves by the suspension bridge at the junction of many lanes and
the road leading from the Sand Pit.
There we had to wait, walking up and down, talking of the past, trying
as best we could to divert our thoughts. One more carriage arrived from
Vieux-Nançay with some unknown peasants and a tall girl decked with
ribbons. Then nothing more, or rather three children in a donkey cart,
the children of the former gardener at the Sand Pit.
‘I seem to recognise them,’ said Meaulnes. ‘I feel sure these are the
kids who got hold of my hands, that first evening of the fête, and took
me in to dinner....’
But at that moment the donkey refused to go and the children jumped
down to pull at the beast, poking and whacking him as hard as they
could; then Meaulnes, much put out, pretended he had made a mistake....
I asked them if they had come across Monsieur and Mademoiselle de
Galais on the road. One replied that he did not know, the other, ‘I
believe so, sir.’ So we were no better off.
At last they walked down towards the lawn, some pulling the donkey by
the bridle, others pushing behind. And we turned back to wait. Meaulnes
kept his eyes fixed on the bend of the Sand Pit road, watching with a
sort of terror for the approaching vision of the girl he had once so
much sought. A strange and almost ludicrous nervousness clutched at him
and vented itself on Jasmin. From the small hillock on which we had
climbed to survey the road, we could see, on the lawn down below, a
group of guests amongst whom Delouche was trying to cut a fine figure.
‘Look at that idiot holding forth!’ Meaulnes said to me.
And I replied, ‘Leave him alone. He does the best he can, poor chap.’
Meaulnes would not stop. Some distance away a hare or a squirrel must
have come out of the thicket. Jasmin, to show off, pretended to chase
it.
‘Look at that! He’s running now! ...’ said Meaulnes, as if that beat
everything in cheek.
And this time I could not keep from laughing: Meaulnes, too, but only
for a moment.
After another quarter of an hour:
‘Suppose she does not come? ...’ he asked.
I replied, ‘But she’s promised. Try and be patient!’
He resumed his watch. But at last, unable to put up any longer with
this unbearable delay, he said:
‘Listen. I’m going down to the others. I don’t know what fate is now
against me: but if I stay here, I feel sure she will never come--that
it is utterly impossible she will presently appear at the end of this
road.’
And he went away towards the lawn, leaving me alone. I walked some
hundred yards along the road to kill time. And at the first bend I saw
Yvonne de Galais riding side-saddle on an old white horse, so frisky
this morning that she was obliged to pull the reins to prevent him
trotting. M. de Galais, in silence, painfully walked on foot by the
horse’s head. On the way they had most likely taken turns in using the
old mount.
Seeing me alone, the girl smiled, jumped nimbly to the ground, and,
giving the reins to her father, came towards me while I hurried up to
her.
‘I am pleased at finding you alone,’ she said. ‘For I wouldn’t show
old Bélisaire to any one but you, and I don’t want to put him with the
other horses. He’s too ugly and too old, for one thing, then I always
fear he might get hurt by the others. Yet he’s the only one I dare to
ride, and when he’s dead, I shall never go on horseback....’
In Mademoiselle de Galais as in Meaulnes I felt, beneath this charming
animation and this grace which seemed so peaceful, something impatient
and almost anxious. She talked faster than usual. In spite of a rosy
flush on her cheeks, there was an intense pallor here and there round
her eyes, on her forehead, in which all her trouble was manifest.
We agreed to tie Bélisaire to a tree, in the little wood near the road.
Old M. de Galais, still not saying a word, produced the halter from
the holster and tied up the animal--rather low, so it seemed to me. I
promised to send presently from the farm hay and oats and straw....
And Mademoiselle de Galais arrived on the lawn just as I picture her
in former days, walking towards the shore of the lake, when Meaulnes
saw her for the first time.
Taking her father’s arm and with her left hand holding aside the flap
of the long cloak that wrapped her round, she drew near the guests with
her usual expression, at once so serious and so childlike. I walked by
her. All the guests, who had scattered about or were playing farther
out, stood up and gathered to welcome her. There was a brief moment of
silence while every one gazed as she approached.
Meaulnes had mingled with the group of young men and nothing marked
him out from amongst his companions except his height; yet there were
others almost as tall. He did nothing to draw attention to himself,
making no gesture, taking no step forward. I could see him, dressed
in grey, standing motionless, and, like every one else, keeping his
eyes fixed on the beautiful girl advancing. At last, however, with an
unconscious and uneasy gesture, his hand went over his bare head as if
amongst the well-brushed heads of his companions, to hide his own, so
rough, and with hair cropped like a peasant’s.
Then the group gathered round Mademoiselle de Galais. She was
introduced to the girls and boys she did not know.... My friend’s turn
was soon to come and I felt as anxious as he could be. I was preparing
to make the introduction myself.
But, before I could say anything, the girl advanced towards him, with
surprising assurance and gravity:
‘I recognise Augustin Meaulnes,’ she said.
And she held out her hand to him.
CHAPTER VI
THE COUNTRY OUTING (_end_)
Newcomers drew near almost at once to greet Yvonne de Galais and the
two young people found themselves parted. By some wretched accident
they were not put together for lunch at the same little table. Yet
Meaulnes seemed to have recovered confidence and courage. I was
isolated between Delouche and M. de Galais and more than once from this
distance I saw my friend wave his hand to me.
It was only towards the end of the evening, after boating on the
neighbouring pond, games, bathing, and chatting had started everywhere,
that Meaulnes found himself again in the girl’s presence. We were
sitting on some garden chairs which we had brought, talking with
Delouche, when Mademoiselle de Galais, deliberately leaving a group of
young people amongst whom she seemed bored, made her way towards us. I
remember that she asked us why we were not boating on The Guelders lake
as the others were.
‘We had a few goes this afternoon,’ I replied; ‘but it’s rather dull
and we soon tired of it.’
‘Well! why shouldn’t you go on the river?’ she said.
‘The current’s too strong, we might get carried away.’
‘We want a motor-boat,’ said Meaulnes, ‘or that steamboat there used to
be.’
‘We no longer have it,’ she said in a rather low voice. ‘We’ve sold it.’
And there was a moment’s awkward silence.
Jasmin seized this opportunity to declare that he was going to join M.
de Galais.
‘I shall manage to find him,’ he said.
Strangeness of fate! These two, so completely different, were delighted
with each other, and had hardly parted company since the morning. M. de
Galais took me aside for a moment, towards evening, to tell me that I
had in Delouche a friend full of tact, deference, and fine qualities.
He had even perhaps entrusted to him the secret of old Bélisaire’s
existence and of the horse’s hiding-place.
I was planning also to withdraw, but I felt the two young people so ill
at ease, so worried in each other’s presence, that I thought it prudent
to remain.
But all this discretion on Jasmin’s part, all this precaution on
mine, served little purpose. These two talked, but invariably, with
an obstinacy of which he must have been unaware, Meaulnes always came
back to the marvels of the old days. And each time the poor tortured
girl had to repeat to him that everything was gone: the old queer and
oddly shaped house rased to the ground; the lake drained and filled
with earth; and the children in their charming costumes dispersed for
ever....
‘Ah!’ Meaulnes would simply say with despair and as if each of these
disappearances showed him to be right and the girl or myself wrong....
We were walking side by side.... I vainly tried to create a diversion
from the sadness which was coming over all three of us. For again
Meaulnes, with one abrupt question, would give way to his haunting
idea. He asked information about everything he had seen of old: the
little girls, the driver of the old berlin, the ponies of the race.
‘... Are the ponies also sold? So, there are no longer horses on the
estate?...’
She replied that there were none. She did not speak of Bélisaire.
Then he conjured up the things in his bedroom; the chandeliers, the
tall looking-glass, the old broken lute.... He inquired about all this
with unwonted eagerness, as if he wanted to convince himself that
nothing survived of his fine adventure, and that the girl would not
bring back to him one piece of wreckage which could prove that they had
not both lived in a dream--as the diver brings up from the bottom of
the sea mere pebbles and seaweeds....
Mademoiselle de Galais and I could not refrain from smiling sadly; then
she decided to explain to him:
‘You will never see again the beautiful mansion that M. de Galais and I
had arranged for our poor Frantz. We spent our lives doing as he wished
us. He was such a strange, charming boy. But everything vanished with
him on that evening of the betrothal that never came off. M. de Galais
had then already lost his fortune without our knowing. Frantz was in
debt and his former friends--getting news of his disappearance--at
once brought us their claims. We became poor. Madame de Galais died,
and in a few days we lost all our friends. Could Frantz come back--if
he is not dead--and find again his friends and his fiancée, and the
interrupted wedding take place--then perhaps everything would be as of
old! But can the past come to life again?’
‘Who knows?’ said Meaulnes thoughtfully. And he put no more questions.
We were walking, all three of us, without noise on grass that was short
and ever so slightly touched with yellow. Augustin had close to him on
his right the girl whom he had thought for ever lost. Whenever he asked
one of his cruel questions, her charming and troubled face would slowly
turn towards him as she answered; and once, while speaking, she gently
placed her hand on his arm in a gesture full of trust and surrender.
Why was Admiral Meaulnes there like a stranger, like some one who has
not found what he was looking for and for whom nothing else has any
interest? Three years earlier he might not have been able to bear this
happiness without terror, without madness, perhaps. But whence came
this emptiness, this remoteness, this powerlessness to be happy which
now possessed him?
We were approaching the little wood where M. de Galais had that morning
tied up Bélisaire; the sun, now declining, lengthened our shadows upon
the grass. On the far end of the lawn we heard the voices of the little
girls and others playing games--voices mellowed by distance to a happy
buzz; and we remained silent in the marvellous quiet; then we heard
some one singing on the other side of the wood, from the direction of
The Guelders, the farm by the river. The voice was young and distant,
and belonged to some one taking cattle to water: the tune was rhythmic
as a dance, but the man sang it with a drawl and dragged it as though
it were some old sad ballad:
My shoes are red....
Good-bye, my lover!
My shoes are red....
Good-bye for ever!...
Meaulnes had raised his head to listen. It was actually one of the
tunes which the belated peasants had sung that last evening of the fête
at the nameless manor, when everything had fallen to pieces. Nothing
but a memory--the most wretched memory--of those beautiful days which
would return no more.
‘Do you hear that?’ said Meaulnes in a subdued voice. ‘Oh! I am going
to see who it is.’ And thereupon he dashed into the little wood. Almost
at once the voice was silent; one heard for a moment longer the man
whistling to his beast still farther away--then nothing more....
I looked at the girl. Pensive and dismayed, she kept her eyes fixed
on the copse where Meaulnes had just disappeared. How many times, in
later days, was she not to look thus pensively at the gap through which
Admiral Meaulnes was vanishing for ever!
She turned towards me.
‘He’s not happy,’ she said sorrowfully.
She added: ‘And perhaps I can’t do anything for him?...’
I hesitated to reply, fearing that Meaulnes, who must have reached the
farm in an instant and was now coming back through the wood, might
hear what we were saying. I was, however, on the point of encouraging
her; of advising her not to mind being rather blunt with the tall
boy; that most likely some secret tormented him which he could never
confide to her or any one of his own accord--when suddenly a cry came
from the other side of the wood; then we heard a thudding, as of a
horse furiously pawing the ground, and the noise of wrangling in broken
sentences.... I understood at once that an accident had happened to
old Bélisaire and I ran towards the place whence the uproar came.
Mademoiselle de Galais followed me from afar. At the other end of the
lawn our movement must have been noticed, for directly I entered the
copse, I heard the shouts of people hurrying to meet us.
Old Bélisaire, tied up too low, had caught one of his forefeet in
the halter; he had not moved until M. de Galais and Delouche, in the
course of their walk, had come near him; then frightened, upset by the
unusual hay given him, he had begun to struggle furiously; the two men
had tried to free him, but so clumsily that they had only succeeded
in further entangling him, at the risk, too, of dangerous kicks. It
was then that Meaulnes, on his way back from The Guelders, had chanced
upon the group. Furious at so much bungling, he had pushed the two
men aside, almost knocking them into a bush. He had freed Bélisaire
cautiously but very deftly. Too late, though; the damage was done;
the horse appeared to have strained a tendon or else to have broken
something, for he drooped his head dismally and kept one of his legs
held up under his belly; he was trembling all over; his saddle, too,
was half off his back. Meaulnes was stooping to feel the leg and
examine it and said nothing.
When he looked up, nearly every one had gathered around, but he saw no
one. He was red with anger.
‘I would like to know,’ he called out, ‘who tied him up like this! And
left his saddle on all day! And who dared to saddle so old a horse,
scarcely fit for the lightest gig.’
Delouche was about to say something--to take the blame upon himself.
‘Shut up! It’s your fault. I saw you tugging at his halter like a fool
to get him loose.’
And bending down again he began rubbing the horse’s leg with the palm
of his hand.
M. de Galais, who so far had said nothing, made the mistake of
attempting to come out of his reserve. He stammered:
‘Naval officers are accustomed to ... my horse.’
‘Oh! He’s yours, is he?’ said Meaulnes, a little calmer, but very red,
turning his head towards the old man.
I thought he was going to change his tone, to apologise. He paused a
moment. And then I saw that he took a bitter, despairing pleasure in
aggravating the situation, in smashing everything for ever, as he said
with insolence:
‘Well, I shouldn’t boast of it, if I were you!’
Some one suggested: ‘Perhaps cold water.... If we bathed it at the
ford.’
‘This horse must be taken away at once,’ said Meaulnes, without
replying, ‘while he can still walk--and there’s no time to be lost! He
should be put in the stable and never taken out again.’
Several young fellows immediately offered themselves. But Mademoiselle
de Galais at once thanked them. Her face on fire and ready to burst
into tears, she said good-bye to every one and even to Meaulnes, who,
utterly abashed, dared not look at her. She took the animal by the
reins as one catches hold of somebody’s hand, more to feel close to him
than to lead him.... The late summer wind was so mild on the Sand Pit
road that it seemed like May, and the leaves in the hedges quivered in
the south wind.... We saw her set off thus, her arm partly out of her
cloak, and holding in her slim hand the thick leather rein. Her father
walked painfully by her side....
Sad end to the evening! Little by little everybody picked up his
belongings and the picnic things; chairs were folded, tables taken
down; the carriages, loaded with luggage and guests, went away one by
one while hats were raised and handkerchiefs waved. We were the last to
go with my Uncle Florentin who, like us, was silently brooding over his
sad and great disappointment.
Then we drove swiftly off in our well-hung carriage behind our
beautiful chestnut. The wheels grated on the sand as we took the
corner, and soon Meaulnes and I, who sat at the back, saw the
cross-road which old Bélisaire and his owners had taken slowly
disappear.
Then my friend, the last person in the world to cry, turned suddenly
towards me and his face was twisted by the coming of irresistible tears.
‘Stop, will you?’ he said, placing a hand on Florentin’s shoulder.
‘Don’t bother about me. I’ll come back by myself on foot.’
He put a hand on the mud-guard of the carriage and vaulted to the
ground at one leap. He turned back, to our consternation, and started
running: he ran right back to the lane we had just passed, the lane
leading to the Sand Pit. He must have reached the manor by the avenue
of firs he had followed in the old days when, like a tramp hiding in
the thicket, he had heard the mysterious conversation of the unknown
beautiful children.
And this was the evening on which, sobbing, he asked Mademoiselle de
Galais to marry him.
CHAPTER VII
THE WEDDING DAY
A Thursday, early in February, a fine icy Thursday evening with a
high wind blowing: somewhere about half-past three or four.... Near
the villages, clothes have been hung on hedges since midday and are
drying in the strong breeze. Children, tired of playing, sit by their
mothers asking for the story of their wedding days. In every house the
dining-room fire brightly lights up what seems an altar of shining toys.
Any one who does not wish to be happy has only to climb up to the
attics to hear till evening the whistle and moan of shipwrecks; or he
can go out on the road for the wind to flap back his scarf on his mouth
as in a sudden warm kiss which will make him weep. But for him who
loves happiness there stands, by the side of a muddy lane, the Sand Pit
house which my friend Meaulnes has just entered with Yvonne de Galais
who has been his wife since midday.
The engagement had lasted five months. It had been a peaceful time, as
peaceful as the first meeting had been full of excitement. Meaulnes had
often come to the Sand Pit during those days, either on his bicycle or
driving. At least twice a week, as she sat sewing or reading by the
window overlooking the moor and the firs, Mademoiselle de Galais would
suddenly see his tall hurrying shadow move behind the curtain, for he
always comes that roundabout way, up the drive he once came by. But
this is the only allusion--a tacit one--which he makes to the past.
Happiness seems to have lulled his strange anguish.
Some trivial happenings have marked these five quiet months.
I have been appointed teacher at the little hamlet of
Saint-Benoist-des-Champs. Saint-Benoist is not a village, but only
a few farms scattered about the countryside, with the schoolhouse
standing completely isolated on the side of the road some way up a
hill. I lead a very solitary life; but going across the fields it takes
me only three quarters of an hour to reach the Sand Pit.
Delouche lives now with his uncle who is a builder at Vieux-Nançay. He
will soon be the head man. He often comes to see me. Meaulnes, at the
request of Mademoiselle de Galais, is now very nice to him.
All this explains why we are there rambling about together, towards
four in the afternoon, when all the wedding people have already left.
The ceremony was held at midday as quietly as possible, in the old
chapel of the Sand Pit, which was not pulled down and stands partly
hidden by firs, on the slope of the adjoining hill. Meaulnes’ mother,
M. Seurel and Millie, Florentin and the others went off in their
carriages after a hurried lunch. Jasmin and I alone remained.
We are taking a stroll along the woods behind the Sand Pit house,
by the side of a wide expanse of land, the site of the manor now
destroyed. Without owning to it and without knowing why, we are filled
with anxiety. We try in vain to divert our thoughts and beguile our
uneasiness during this wandering walk, by attracting one another’s
attention to the forms of hares and the small sandy furrows where
rabbits have been scratching ... to a trap set in the wood ... or to
the trail of a poacher ... But we always come back hauntingly to the
edge of the copse from where the silent and closed house can be seen....
The wide window which looks on the firs opens onto a wooden balcony
invaded by unruly grass bending under the wind. A light, as of a
burning fire, is reflected on the panes of the window where from time
to time a shadow is seen to pass. Silence and solitude are all around:
in the neighbouring fields, in the kitchen garden, in the farm which
alone remains of the old outhouses. The farm hands have gone to the
village to celebrate the happiness of their master and mistress. From
time to time the wind, heavy with a mist which feels almost like rain,
comes to damp our faces, and brings us the remote phrases of a piano.
Out there, in the closed house, some one is playing. I stopped a moment
to listen in silence. It is at first like a trembling voice which,
from afar, scarcely dares to sing its joy.... It is like the laughter
of a little girl who, in her room, fetches all her toys out and
displays them to her sweetheart.... It also brings to my mind the shy
pleasure of a woman who, having gone to put on a beautiful dress, comes
back to show it and is not yet sure it will please.... This air which
I do not know is also a prayer, an entreaty to happiness not to be
too cruel, a bowing of the head and as it were a falling on the knees
before happiness....
The thought comes to me: ‘At last they are happy. Meaulnes is there
close to her....’
And to know this, to feel sure of it, is sufficient to bring perfect
satisfaction to the simple child that I am.
But just then, while thus dreaming, and my face wet from the wind
crossing the moor as if by sea-spray, I feel some one touch me on the
shoulder.
‘Listen!’ says Jasmin in a low voice.
I look at him. He beckons to me not to move; and he too, with bent head
and knitted brow, stands listening.
CHAPTER VIII
FRANTZ’S CALL
Hou-ou!
This time I have heard. It is a signal--a call on two notes, high and
low--which I once heard of old.... Ah! I remember: it is the cry of the
tall comedian as he hailed his young companion from the school gate. It
is the call to which Frantz made us swear to answer no matter where or
when it came. But what can he be wanting here to-day, that fellow?
‘It comes from the big fir wood on the left,’ I say in half whispers.
‘Most likely a poacher.’
Jasmin shakes his head: ‘You know quite well it’s not,’ he says.
Then lower: ‘They have both been in these parts ever since this
morning. About eleven I came unawares upon Booby keeping a lookout in
a field close to the chapel. He took to his heels when he spotted me.
Perhaps they’ve come a long way on their bikes, for he was covered with
mud halfway up his back....’
‘What are they after, I wonder?’
‘I don’t know. But we must certainly send them off. They must not be
left to prowl about here. Else all the mad tricks will begin again.’
I am of the same opinion without owning to it.
‘The best would be to join them,’ I say, ‘to see what they want, to
make them listen to reason....’
So, stooping under the branches, we slowly and silently make our way
across the copse as far as the big fir wood from where, at regular
intervals, rises this prolonged cry, which is not in itself uncanny,
yet seems to us an evil omen.
In this part of the wood where the eye roams between regular rows of
trees, it is difficult to take any one by surprise or walk any distance
without being seen. We make no attempt at it. I post myself at one
corner of the wood, Jasmin goes to the opposite corner, thus allowing
each of us to command, from the outside, a view on two sides of a
rectangle and to let neither of the bohemians escape without hailing
him. These arrangements being made, I begin to play my part of peace
messenger and call out:
‘Frantz!... Frantz! Have no fear. It’s only me, Seurel; I want to talk
to you....’
There is a moment’s silence; I am about to call again when from the
very heart of the wood and rather too far for my eyes to reach, a voice
orders: ‘Stay where you are; he’ll come to you.’
Gradually from between the tall firs, which in the distance look
closely set together, I discern the outline of the young man
approaching. He seems to be covered with mud and is badly dressed;
trouser clips are tight round his ankles, an old midshipman’s cap fits
closely on his hair which is too long. I can now see his face, so much
thinner.... He looks as if he has been crying.
Coming towards me resolutely: ‘What is it you want?’ he asks insolently.
‘And yourself, Frantz, what are you doing about here? Why come and
disturb those who are happy? What are you asking for? Tell me.’
Questioned thus point-blank, he blushes slightly, stammers, and only
replies: ‘But _I_ am not happy; I am so wretched.’
Then he breaks into bitter sobs, his head in the bend of one arm; he is
leaning against a tree. We had taken a few steps in the wood, the spot
is perfectly quiet. Even the sound of the wind is hushed by the tall
firs bordering the wood. Amongst the rows of trunks the noise of the
stifled sobbing of the young man echoes and dies out.
I wait until he grows calmer, and, placing a hand on his shoulders, say:
‘Frantz, you’d better come with me. I’ll take you to them. They’ll
welcome you as a lost child now found, and all this will be at an end.’
But he would hear nothing; in a voice subdued by tears, miserable,
angry, obstinate, he started once again: ‘And so Meaulnes won’t be
bothered with me? Why does he not answer when I call? Why can’t he
keep his word?’
‘Oh! come on, Frantz,’ I replied, ‘these fantastic childlike days are
over. Don’t disturb with mad whims the happiness of those you love; of
your sister and Augustin Meaulnes.’
‘But he alone can save me, you know that well. He alone can find again
the trail I am looking for. These last three years, now, Booby and I
have been knocking about France without any success. My one hope left
was in your friend. And he does not answer my call. Hasn’t he got his
love back? Why can’t he think of me? He must begin to think of me.
Yvonne will let him go.... She’s never refused me anything.’
He turned towards me a face where tears had traced dirty streaks in
dust and grime, the face of an old-looking child, worn-out and beaten.
His eyes were circled with freckles, his chin badly shaved; his hair,
too long, trailed over his dirty collar; with hands in his pockets he
stood shivering. He no longer was, as of old, a princely child dressed
in tatters. Yet at heart, most likely, he was more of a child than
ever: fantastically imperious and then all at once in despair. But
these childish ways were now intolerable in a young man already looking
more than grown up.... Formerly there was so much youthful pride about
him that all the madness in the world was right for him. But now one
was at first tempted to pity him for having failed in life, then to
reproach him for absurdly acting the romantic young hero, as I saw that
he persisted in doing.... And finally I could not help thinking that
our handsome Frantz with the beautiful love story had most likely taken
to stealing for a living, just like his companion Booby.... So much
pride had ended in this!
‘What if I promise,’ I said at last, having thought it out, ‘that in a
few days Meaulnes shall start on a search all for your sake?...’
‘He will be successful, won’t he? You are sure of it?’ he asked with
chattering teeth.
‘I believe so. Everything comes easy to him now!’
‘And how shall I know? Who will tell me?’
‘You will come back here in exactly a year from to-day, at this same
time: you will then find the girl you love.’
And saying this I am thinking not of disturbing the newly married
couple, but of making inquiries through Aunt Moinel and myself
hastening to find the girl.
The bohemian looked straight at me with really wonderful trustfulness.
Just as if he were fifteen!--the age one could easily have taken us to
be at Sainte-Agathe, on the evening of the sweeping of the classrooms,
when we three took that terrible childlike oath.
Despair gripped him once more when he felt obliged to say: ‘Very well,
we must go.’
He looked with an evident pang at the surrounding woods which he was
about to leave again.
‘In three days from now,’ he said, ‘we shall be on the roads of
Germany. We’ve left our caravans a long way off. And for the last
thirty hours we’ve ridden without a stop. We thought to get here in
time to take Meaulnes away before the wedding and search with him for
my fiancée, as he once looked for the Sand Pit Manor.’
Then again, falling back to his terrible childishness: ‘Call your
Delouche back,’ he said, going away; ‘meeting him would really be too
dreadful.’
Gradually, in between the firs, I watched until I saw his grey outline
disappear. I called Jasmin and we resumed our watch. But almost at
once, farther out, we spotted Augustin closing the shutters of the
house, and we were struck by his strange behaviour.
CHAPTER IX
HAPPY PEOPLE
Later on I came to know in minute detail what had happened out there....
From early in the afternoon Meaulnes and his wife, whom I still call
Mademoiselle de Galais, had been left entirely by themselves in the
drawing-room at the Sand Pit. All the guests having gone, M. de
Galais had opened the door, letting the high wind moan for a second
all through the house, then he had set off towards Vieux-Nançay, not
to be back until dinner, in time for locking up and giving orders at
the farm. No noise from outside now reaches the young people, only
the leafless branch of a rose tree tapping against the window-pane on
the side of the moor. Like two passengers in a drifting boat, the two
lovers, in the winter gale, are left alone with happiness.
‘The fire is almost going out,’ said Mademoiselle de Galais, and she
tried to take a log out of the chest.
But Meaulnes hurried to put the wood on the fire himself. He then took
the hand the girl had put out, and they stood there facing one another
as if stifled by some great news which could not be uttered.
The wind swirled by with the noise of an overflowing river. From time
to time, as on the window of a train, a drop of rain left a slanting
streak across the pane.
Then the girl suddenly stole away. She opened the passage door and
disappeared with a mysterious smile. Augustin was for a moment left
alone in semi-darkness.... The tick-tick of a small clock recalled the
dining-room at Sainte-Agathe.... He no doubt thought: ‘So this is the
house so much sought after; the passage once so full of whispers and
strange encounters....’
It is at this moment that he must have heard--Mademoiselle de Galais
told me later that she also heard it--the first call of Frantz close to
the house.
It was in vain then that the young woman showed him all the
marvels with which she was burdened: the toys she had played with
as a little girl; all the photographs of herself as a child; as a
_vivandière_, herself and Frantz on their mother’s knee, and such
a pretty mother ... then all that was left of her sedate little dresses
of childhood: ‘even this one which I was still wearing just before you
came to know me, at the time, so I believe, you must have arrived at
the Higher Elementary School at Sainte-Agathe....’ Meaulnes no longer
saw anything or heard anything.
Once, however, he appeared to grasp again the idea of his
extraordinary, inconceivable happiness.
‘You are here,’ he said dully, as if merely to say it made him
dizzy--‘you are moving close to the table and your hand for a moment
rests on it....’
And again: ‘Mother, when she was young, would lean forward slightly
like you, when speaking to me.... And when she sat at the piano....’
Then Mademoiselle de Galais proposed to play before night came. But it
was growing dark in that corner of the drawing-room and they had to
light a candle. The pink lamp-shade accentuated the rosy flush which on
the girl’s face was a sign of great anxiety.
Out there, at the edge of the wood, I began to hear the trembling song
brought by the wind, but soon broken into by the second call of the two
mad fellows who had come nearer to us through the firs.
For a long time Meaulnes listened to the girl, while he looked silently
out of the window. More than once he turned towards the sweet face,
now so frail and anxious. Then he came near to Yvonne de Galais and
lightly placed one hand on her shoulder. She felt, close to her neck,
the gentle pressure of the caress to which she should have been able to
respond.
‘Night is falling,’ he said at last. ‘I am going to close the shutters.
But do not stop playing....’
What took place then in that mysterious and wild heart? I often
wondered and only came to know when it was too late. Unknown remorse?
Inexplicable misgivings? Fear of seeing this unheard-of happiness, to
which he clung so closely, soon vanish from between his hands? And
then the terrible temptation at once and for ever to dash to the ground
this marvel he had conquered?...
He went out slowly and silently after having once more looked at his
young wife. From the edge of the wood we saw him first close with
some hesitation one of the shutters, then look vaguely our way, close
another, and suddenly run off at full speed in our direction. He
reached us before we could think of better concealment. He noticed
us as he was going to jump over a small hedge recently planted and
enclosing a meadow. He changed his course. I recall that he looked
haggard, like a hunted beast.... He attempted to retrace his steps and
climb over the hedge on the side of the brook.
I called him: ‘Meaulnes!... Augustin!...’
But he never even turned his head. Then, feeling sure that this alone
could hold him back: ‘Frantz is here,’ I called out. ‘Stop!’
He at last stopped. Out of breath and without giving me time to be
ready with what I ought to say: ‘He’s here!’ he said. ‘What’s he
wanting?’
‘He’s wretched,’ I replied. ‘He came to ask your help in looking for
what he has lost.’
‘Ah!’ said he, lowering his head. ‘I guessed that much. I tried in vain
to drown that thought.... But where is he? Tell me quick.’
I told him that Frantz had just gone and that he certainly could not
be caught now. It was a great shock to Meaulnes. He hesitated, walked
ahead two or three steps, then stopped. He appeared in the depths of
uncertainty and grief. I related to him what I had promised in his name
to Frantz. I said that I had arranged a meeting with him a year hence
at the same place.
Augustin, so calm usually, was now in an extraordinary state of
impatience and agitation.
‘Ah! why did you do that!’ he said. ‘Of course I can save him. But it
must be at once. I must see him, speak to him; he must forgive me, that
I may make amends for all.... Otherwise I can no longer show my face
out there....’
And he looked towards the Sand Pit house.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘just for a childish promise you made you are now going
to wreck your happiness.’
‘Ah! if it were only that promise!’ he exclaimed. And thus I knew that
something else was binding the two men together, though I could not
guess what it was.
‘In any case,’ I said, ‘it’s now too late. They are on their way to
Germany.’
He was about to reply when a face, dishevelled, tortured, haggard,
appeared between us. It was Mademoiselle de Galais. She must have run,
for her face was wet with drops of sweat. She must have fallen and hurt
herself, for her forehead was scratched above the right eye and blood
was caked in her hair.
It has sometimes happened to me, in the poor districts of Paris, to
witness a couple which one thought happy, united, and honest, suddenly
bring their quarrel into the street to be separated by the intervention
of the police. The scandal had broken out all at once, no matter when,
just as they sat down at dinner, before the Sunday walk, when keeping
the little boy’s birthday ... and now everything is forgotten and
smashed. The man and the woman in their quarrel are no more than two
pitiful fiends, while the children in tears rush up to them, hugging
them closely, begging them to keep quiet and not to fight.
Mademoiselle de Galais, coming thus close to Meaulnes, put me in mind
of one of those children, those poor distracted children. I believe
that, had all her friends, all the village, all the world been looking
on, she would have rushed forward all the same, she would have dropped
on us in the same way, dishevelled, tearful, her face dirty.
But when she once understood that Meaulnes was really there, that this
time, at all events, he would not forsake her, she placed her arm under
his and could not help laughing amidst her tears as would a child.
They said not a word to each other. But, as she had pulled out her
handkerchief, Meaulnes took it gently from her hands; with care and
precaution he wiped away the blood from the girl’s hair.
‘We must now go in,’ he said.
And in the bracing high wind which lashed at their faces that wintry
evening I left them to go back together, he helping her by the hand at
awkward places, she smiling and hastening--towards the home they had
for a moment forsaken.
CHAPTER X
FRANTZ’S HOUSE
I had to remain shut up in the school during the whole of the following
day, a prey to dull anxiety, feeling but little reassured by the happy
ending to yesterday’s scene. Immediately after the hour of ‘private
study’ which follows afternoon school, I made my way to the Sand Pit.
Night was falling when I reached the avenue of firs leading to the
house. The shutters were already closed. I feared to intrude by coming
at so late an hour the day after a wedding. So I prowled about close to
the edge of the garden and in the neighbouring fields for a long while,
hoping all the time to see some one come out of the closed house....
But my hopes were in vain. Nothing stirred, not even in the adjoining
farm. And I had to go home, haunted by the gloomiest forebodings.
This uncertainty lasted on next day, a Saturday. In the evening I made
haste to get my cape, my stick, a piece of bread to eat on the way, and
reached the Sand Pit to find everything closed up there just as the
day before.... A little light on the first floor; but no noise, not a
movement.... At the farmhouse, however, I now noticed, from the yard,
the front door left open, the fire burning in the great kitchen, and I
heard a noise of voices and footsteps as is usual at supper time. This
reassured me without telling me much. I could not say anything to these
people nor ask them anything. And I went back to resume my watch, to
wait in vain, thinking at any moment to see the door open and the tall
form of Meaulnes emerge.
It was only on Sunday, during the afternoon, that I resolved to pull
the bell at the Sand Pit. While I was making my way up the bare hills,
I heard in the distance the church bells ringing for vespers on that
winter Sunday. I felt lonely and distressed. I do not know what sad
foreboding overwhelmed me. And I was only partly surprised when, in
answer to my ring, M. de Galais appeared alone and spoke to me almost
in whispers: Yvonne de Galais was in bed with a high fever; Meaulnes
had been obliged to leave on Friday morning to go on a long journey; no
one knew when he would come back....
And as the old man, very embarrassed, very sad, did not ask me to come
in, I at once said good-bye to him. The door shut and I remained on
the doorstep for a moment, my heart torn, my mind in chaos, watching
without knowing why a branch of dead wistaria which the wind swayed in
a beam of sunshine.
Thus the secret remorse, which Meaulnes had carried within him since
his stay in Paris, had ended by proving too strong. My big friend had
been forced in the end to let go of the happiness to which he had
clung so obstinately.
Every Thursday and Sunday I came to ask news of Yvonne de Galais until
the evening when at last, being convalescent, she sent word for me to
come in. I found her sitting by the fire in the drawing-room with its
low wide window looking on the grounds and the woods. She was not pale
as I had imagined she would be, but on the contrary feverish, with
bright red patches under the eyes and in a state of extreme agitation.
Though she still seemed very weak, she was fully dressed. She hardly
spoke, but said each sentence with extraordinary animation as though
she were longing to convince herself that happiness had not yet
vanished.... I have no memory of what we said. I remember only that,
with some hesitation, I came to ask when Meaulnes would be back.
‘I don’t know when he will come back,’ she replied quickly.
There was entreaty in her eyes and I refrained from asking more.
I often went to see her. I often talked to her by the fire in that low
drawing-room where night came quicker than anywhere else. She never
spoke about herself or her hidden grief. But she never tired of making
me relate in all its details our schoolboy life at Sainte-Agathe.
She listened to the tale of our youthful troubles with a grave, tender
interest, almost maternal. She showed no surprise at anything, not even
at our most daring, most dangerous childish pranks. This thoughtful
tenderness which she had inherited from M. de Galais, had not been
exhausted by her brother’s deplorable adventures. The only lament to
which the past prompted her was, I think, at not having been enough her
brother’s true friend, for on the day of his great disaster he had not
dared to tell her more than any one else, and he had thought himself
for ever lost. And, after all, it was indeed a heavy task the young
woman had assumed--a perilous task that of seconding a mind as madly
fantastic as was her brother’s; an overwhelming task when it was a
matter of joining one’s lot with so adventurous a spirit as my friend
Admiral Meaulnes.
* * * * *
One day she gave me the most touching, I could almost say the most
mysterious proof of this faith she kept in her brother’s childish
dreams, and the care she took to preserve at least some fragments of
the dream in which he had lived up to his twentieth year.
It was during a desolate evening of April, very much like autumn.
For nearly a month we had enjoyed a softly premature spring and,
accompanied by M. de Galais, the dear woman had again resumed the long
walks she was fond of. But that day, the old man being tired and
myself free, she asked me to go with her in spite of the threatening
weather. The storm--rain and hail--caught us more than two kilometres
away from the Sand Pit as we walked by the lake. Under the shed where
we sought shelter from the never-ending shower, the wind was icy cold,
and we stood close to one another, lost in thought in front of the
darkened landscape. I still picture her, wearing a soft neat dress and
looking pale and worried.
‘We must go back,’ she kept saying. ‘We’ve been gone so long. What
might not have happened?’
But to my surprise, when at last it became possible to leave our
shelter, the young woman, instead of turning back towards the Sand
Pit, went on her way and asked me to follow her. After a long walk we
reached a house I did not know, standing by itself at the side of a
rutted lane which must have led towards Préveranges. It was a small
private house with a slate roof, only marked out from the type usual in
the district by its isolation and remoteness.
Any one watching Yvonne de Galais would have believed the house
belonged to us and that we had left it during a long journey. She
stooped to open the small iron gate, and she made haste to inspect
anxiously the lonely spot. A big yard, overgrown by weeds where
children seemed to have come to play during the long dragging evenings
at the end of winter, was hollowed out by the rain. A hoop was soaking
in a puddle. The heavy shower had left only trails of white gravel in
the small gardens which the children had bestrewed with flowers and
peas. And we at last discovered, huddled together against the step of
one of the damp doors, a whole brood of chickens quite drenched. Most
of them were dead under the stiffened wings and the crumpled feathers
of the mother.
The dear woman, fronted by so pitiful a sight, gave a stifled cry. She
bent down, disregarding water and mud, pulled out the live chickens
from the dead, and wrapped them in a fold of her cloak. Then we went
into the house, of which she had the key. Four doors opened out of a
narrow passage into which swept a gust of wind. Yvonne de Galais opened
the first door on our right and made me go into a dark room, where,
after a moment of uncertainty, I made out a tall looking-glass and a
small bed covered with a red silk eiderdown, in peasant fashion. As for
her, having for a moment searched in other parts of the dwelling, she
came back with a flat basket filled with down, which she delicately
slipped under the eiderdown. And while a languid ray of sunshine, the
first and last of the day, made both our faces paler and the dusk more
gloomy, we stood there, frozen and worried, in this strange house!
From time to time she would look inside the feverish nest, taking away
another dead chicken to prevent it causing the death of the others.
And each time it seemed to us that something, perhaps a gust of wind
through the broken panes of the attic, perhaps the mysterious sorrow of
unknown children, was silently lamenting.
‘This was Frantz’s house when he was little,’ my companion at last
said to me. ‘He’d wanted a house all his own, far from every one, in
which he could go to play, enjoy himself and live just as he pleased.
Father had found this fancy so extraordinary, so funny, that he hadn’t
refused. And whenever it pleased him, on a Thursday or Sunday, no
matter when, Frantz would go and live at his house like a man. Children
of the neighbouring farms used to come to play with him, help him with
housekeeping, work in the garden. It was a wonderful game! And at night
time he was not afraid of sleeping alone. As for us, we admired him so
much, we never once thought of being anxious.
‘Now, the house is empty,’ she went on with a sigh; ‘it has been so
for a long time. M. de Galais, altered by age and grief, has never
done anything to trace my brother or call him back. And what could he
have done? But I often pass this way. Little peasant children, from
hereabout, come to play in the yard as in the old days. It pleases me
to pretend they are Frantz’s old friends; that he himself is still but
a child and that he will soon come back with the fiancée of his choice.
These children know me so well. I play with them. That brood of chicks
was ours....’
It had needed this shower and this childlike dismay to induce her to
confide to me the great grief of which she had never spoken, her deep
regret at having lost a brother so mad, so charming, so much admired.
And I listened to her, not knowing what to reply, my heart heavy with
suppressed sobs....
Then, having closed the doors and the gate and replaced the chickens in
their wooden hutch at the back of the house, she sadly took my arm and
I led her home.
* * * * *
Weeks and months went by. Days now of the past! Lost happiness! This
girl who had been the fairy, the princess, the mysterious love dream of
our youth, it was now my lot to take by the arm, finding the necessary
words to soften her grief, while my friend had run away. What can I now
say of these days, of these evening talks after school-hours on the
hill of Saint-Benoist-des-Champs, of these walks during which the one
thing we ought to have discussed was the only one concerning which we
were resolved to keep silent? The only memory I have preserved, though
already dimmed, is that of a beautiful face grown thinner, of two
eyes whose lids slowly lower when they look at me, as if already they
contemplate only an inner world.
And I remained her faithful companion--in this long wait we never
spoke of--during a whole spring and a whole summer such as will
never be again. Many a time we went back to Frantz’s house during an
afternoon. She would open the doors to air the rooms, so that nothing
should be mouldy on the young couple’s return. She tended the partly
wild fowls which had their home in the poultry-yard. And on Thursdays
and Sundays we helped to keep going the games of the neighbouring
village children, whose laughter and shouts in this lonely spot made
the small forsaken house appear more empty, more deserted than ever.
CHAPTER XI
A TALK IN THE RAIN
August, the holiday month, took me away from the Sand Pit and the
dear woman. I was booked to go to Sainte-Agathe for my two months’
leave. I once again saw the bare playground, the shelter, the empty
classroom.... Everything spoke of Admiral Meaulnes and was filled
with the memory of our youth now past. During those long mellowing
days, I shut myself in the record room or the deserted classroom as I
used to before Meaulnes’ arrival. There I read, wrote, and recalled
the past.... Father was often away jack-fishing. Millie, in the
drawing-room, played the piano or sewed as of old.... In the absolute
silence of the classroom torn green paper wreaths, jackets off prize
books, clean blackboards, reminded me that the year was over, that the
prizes were given, and that everything awaited autumn, the new school
year and fresh endeavour--and here I kept brooding over the fact that
our youth was likewise ended and that happiness had failed: and I
awaited the return of the school year at the Sand Pit and Augustin’s
home-coming which perhaps would never be....
There was, however, one piece of good news I could tell Millie when she
insisted on questioning me about the bride. I dreaded her questions,
and her way, at once very innocent and very shrewd, of causing
you sudden embarrassment by putting her finger on your most secret
thoughts. So I checked all inquiry by announcing that the young wife of
my friend Meaulnes was expecting to become a mother in October.
As for me, I recalled the day when Yvonne de Galais had made me
understand this great news. There had been a moment of silence; I had
felt a youth’s uneasiness, and to be rid of it, I had said at once
without thinking--realising only too late all the tragedy I was thus
stirring up, ‘You must be very happy?’
But she, without reservation or regret, neither remorse nor ill-will,
had replied with a beautiful smile, ‘Yes, very happy.’
* * * * *
This last week of the holidays, which was usually the best and most
romantic, a week of heavy rain when fires begin to be lit and which I
generally spent shooting at Vieux-Nançay, in the black damp fir woods,
I made ready to return directly to Saint-Benoist-des-Champs. Firmin,
Aunt Julie, and my girl cousins at Vieux-Nançay would have asked too
many questions to which I did not want to reply. So I gave up, for
once, the joy of spending eight good days shooting in the country, and
went back to my schoolhouse four days before term began.
I arrived before night in the playground, which was littered with
brown leaves. My driver went away and I entered the stuffy, echoing
dining-room, where I sadly undid the parcel of provisions Mother had
prepared for me.... Then, restless and anxious, I hurried through a
light meal, took my cape and started on a feverish walk which led me
straight to the boundaries of the Sand Pit.
I had no wish to intrude on the very first evening of my arrival. Yet,
more daring than in February, after a walk around the estate, where
Yvonne de Galais’ window alone showed a light, I climbed over the
garden fence at the back of the house and in the gathering dusk sat on
a bench near the hedge, happy merely to be so close to what thrilled
and troubled me more than anything else in the world.
Night approached. Fine rain began to fall. With bowed head I watched
my shoes getting wet in the rain and shining--paying them no heed.
Darkness slowly enclosed me, and the cool of night, without troubling
my reverie. I dreamed sadly and tenderly of the muddy lanes at
Sainte-Agathe on such a September evening; I pictured the square full
of mist, the butcher boy whistling on his way to the pump, the lights
of the café, the waggonette and its merry occupants under a shield
of open umbrellas, arriving at Uncle Florentin’s at the end of the
holidays.... And I was sadly saying to myself, ‘What good is all this
happiness if my friend Meaulnes cannot be there, nor his young wife....’
It was then I raised my head and saw her two steps away. Her shoes
made on the sand a slight noise which I had mistaken for raindrops from
the hedge. Her head and shoulders were wrapped in a big shawl of black
wool and the fine rain was like powder on the hair over her forehead.
She must have seen me from her bedroom window, which looked onto the
garden, and had come down to me. In the old days Mother used thus to
worry about me, hunting me up to say, ‘You must come in,’ but beginning
herself to enjoy the night walk in the rain, she would only say, very
gently, ‘You will catch cold!’ and remain by me for a long talk....
Yvonne de Galais held out a burning hand; then she gave up the idea
of taking me indoors, and sat down on the mossy, rusted bench at the
end which was not too wet, while I remained standing, one knee on the
bench, and stooped to catch what she was saying.
She at first scolded me in a friendly way for having thus shortened my
holidays.
‘But I had to come back as soon as I could,’ I replied, ‘to keep you
company.’
‘The fact is,’ she said, almost in whispers and with a sigh, ‘I am
still alone. Augustin has not come back....’
Taking this sigh to express regret, an implied reproach, I began slowly
to say: ‘So many mad schemes in so beautiful a mind! Perhaps the love
of adventure stronger than anything....’
But she interrupted me. And it was there, that very evening, that for
the first and last time she spoke to me of Meaulnes.
‘Do not talk like this, François Seurel,’ she said gently, ‘you are
my friend. It is only we--it is only me, who am guilty. Think what we
did.... We’ve said to him: “Here’s happiness; here’s what you’ve looked
for during all your youth; here’s the girl who was the aim of all your
dreams!” How could anyone thus pushed into happiness not be seized
with misgiving, then fear, then terror! How could he have resisted the
temptation of running away!’
‘Yvonne,’ I said softly, ‘you knew quite well you were that very
happiness, that very girl....’
‘Ah!’ she sighed. ‘How could such an arrogant thought ever have entered
my head? It is that thought caused all the trouble. I had said to you,
“Perhaps I can’t do anything for him.” And in my heart I was thinking,
“He has searched for me so long and I love him so, I am bound to make
him happy.” But when I saw him by my side, with all this fever and
anxiety, his mysterious remorse, I understood that I was but a helpless
woman like others. “I am not worthy of you,” he kept repeating when
daylight came at the end of our wedding night. And I tried to comfort
him, to reassure him. But nothing could quiet his anguish. Then I said:
“If you must go, if I have come to you at a moment when nothing can
make you happy, if you must leave me for a time so as to come back
later, after having found peace, I myself ask you to go....”’
In the dusk I saw that she had raised her eyes towards me. It was a
sort of confession she had made to me and she was anxiously waiting for
my approval or condemnation. But what could I say? Certainly, within
me, I pictured the Admiral Meaulnes of old, so clumsy, so awkwardly
shy, that he would rather be punished than make excuses for himself or
ask permission which would naturally have been granted. No doubt Yvonne
de Galais should have shaken him out of this, and, taking his head in
her hands, have said to him: ‘What do I care what you did! I love you;
are not all men sinners?’ No doubt, with all her generosity and her
willingness to sacrifice herself, she had been greatly in the wrong in
thus throwing him back on the road to adventure.... But how could I
condemn so much kindness, so much love!...
There was a long moment of silence during which, both deeply stirred,
we could hear the rain drip in the hedges and beneath the branches of
the trees.
‘So he went away in the morning,’ she went on. ‘There was no longer
anything separating us. And he kissed me, like a husband leaving his
young wife for a long journey....’
She got up. I took her feverish hand in mine, then her arm, and we
walked up the avenue, now plunged in darkness.
‘Yet, did he ever write to you?’ I asked.
‘Never,’ she replied.
And then the thought came to us both of the adventurous life he was
at this moment leading on the roads of France or Germany; so we began
to speak of him as we had never done before. Forgotten details, old
recollections came back to our minds while we slowly walked to the
house, at each step coming to a long stop, the better to exchange our
memories.... And for a long time--as far as the garden-gate--I heard in
the night the gentle, low voice of the young wife; and I too was caught
up in my old enthusiasm and never wearied of talking to her, with deep
friendship, of him who had forsaken us....
CHAPTER XII
THE BURDEN
School was to begin again on the Monday. On Saturday evening about
five, a woman from the estate appeared in the playground where I was
busy sawing wood for the winter. She came to tell me that a little
girl was born at the Sand Pit. The confinement had been difficult. At
nine in the evening, the midwife from Préveranges had been called. At
midnight the horse had been once more harnessed to fetch the Vierzon
doctor. He had had to use forceps. The little girl’s head was injured
and she screamed much, but appeared likely to live. Yvonne de Galais
was at present prostrate, but she had suffered and struggled through
with extraordinary courage.
Immediately I left my job, ran in to change my coat, and, content on
the whole with the news, followed the good woman as far as the Sand
Pit. With great care I climbed up the narrow wooden stairs leading to
the first floor, anxious not to wake either of the patients. And there
M. de Galais, tired but happy, made me go into the room where the
cradle, draped in curtains, had been provisionally installed.
I had never been in a house on the very day a baby had been born. How
quaint, mysterious, and good it seemed to me! It was such a beautiful
evening--a true summer evening--that M. de Galais had not hesitated
to open the window which looked on the yard. He leaned by my side on
the window-sill and told me the story of the night in full detail but
happily, and as I listened I became vaguely conscious of someone from a
strange country now present in the room with us....
Then under the curtains the stranger began to cry, a shrill, prolonged
cry.... And M. de Galais said in a soft voice, ‘It’s that wound on the
head makes her cry.’
Mechanically he began to rock the bundle of curtains, and you felt he
had been doing this ever since morning, acquiring the habit at once.
‘She has already laughed,’ he said, ‘and she takes hold of one’s
finger. But you’ve not seen her yet?’
He opened the curtains and I saw a little face, red and puffed, the top
of the head was pear-shaped and deformed by the forceps.
‘That’s nothing,’ said M. de Galais; ‘the doctor says it will set
itself right.... Give her your finger, she’ll hold on to it.’
I was there, discovering an unknown world. My heart was full of a
strange joy I had never felt before.
M. de Galais cautiously peeped in at the young mother’s door. She was
not asleep.
‘You can come in,’ he said.
She lay prostrate, her feverish face in the midst of her unloosened
fair hair. She held out her hand to me, smiling in a tired way. I
congratulated her on her daughter. And in a voice that was a little
hoarse and unusually harsh--the harshness of one just back from a
fight, ‘Yes, but they have injured her so!’
I had to go soon after, not to tire her.
* * * * *
The next day was a Sunday, and in the afternoon I hurried almost
cheerfully to the Sand Pit. On the front door was pinned a notice which
stopped my hand on its way to the bell.
_Please do not ring_
I did not guess what it referred to. I knocked quite loud. I heard,
inside, muffled steps hastening. Someone I did not know--it was the
doctor from Vierzon--opened the door.
‘Well! What’s the matter?’ I said quickly.
‘Hush! Hush!’ he replied in a low voice, and troubled. ‘The little girl
nearly died in the night. And the mother’s very ill.’
Completely disconcerted, I followed him on tiptoe up to the first
floor. The little girl, asleep in her cradle, was dreadfully pale and
white, like a little dead child. The doctor thought he would save her.
As for the mother, he could not tell.... He gave me long explanations
as to the one friend of the family. He spoke of congestion of the
lungs, embolism. He was doubtful, he could not be sure.... M. de
Galais came in, frightfully aged in two days, haggard and trembling.
He took me into the bedroom, scarcely knowing what he was doing:
‘She must not be alarmed,’ he said in a low voice; ‘the doctor says we
must assure her that all is well.’
Extremely flushed, Yvonne de Galais lay with her head thrown back as
on the previous day. Her cheeks and forehead were dark red; at times
her eyes became distended as happens to one who is suffocating; she was
fighting death with untold courage and sweetness.
She could not speak, but she held out a burning hand with such
friendliness that I nearly burst into tears.
‘Well, now! Well, now!’ said M. de Galais loudly, with terrible
cheerfulness that resembled madness. ‘You see, she doesn’t look too bad
for an invalid!’
And I did not know what to reply, but kept in mine the hand, so
terribly hot, of the dying young woman....
She tried to make an effort to say something, to ask me I know not
what; she turned her eyes to me, then towards the window as if to make
me understand I must go and fetch someone.... But then a dreadful fit
of suffocation came upon her. Her beautiful blue eyes, which but a
moment before had called me so tragically, distended, her cheeks and
forehead darkened, and she struggled gently, endeavouring to the end
to restrain her terror and despair. Doctors and women hurried to her
help with a flask of oxygen, towels, and bottles, while the old man
bending over her was shouting in his rough and shaky voice--shouting as
if she was already far away from him: ‘Don’t be frightened Yvonne. It’s
nothing. No need to be afraid!’
Then the crisis passed. She managed to breathe a little, yet she
continued to be half suffocated, her eyes white, her head thrown back,
still struggling, but unable, even for a moment, to look at me or to
speak, to emerge from the abyss into which she had already sunk.
... And as I was entirely useless, I made up my mind to go. I could
no doubt have stayed a moment longer, and at this thought I feel
overwhelmed by terrible remorse. But how could one tell? I still hoped.
Still tried to convince myself death could not be so near.
When I reached the edge of the firs, behind the house, that last look
of Yvonne de Galais towards the window came back to my mind, and I
scanned with the attention of a sentry or a man-hunter the depths of
that wood from which Augustin had come in former days and into which he
had fled this last winter. Alas, nothing stirred. Not one suspicious
shadow; not a branch that moved. But at length, out there, towards the
lane coming from Préveranges, I heard the faint sound of a bell; soon a
child in a red _calotte_ and black overall appeared at the bend,
a priest was following him.... And I walked away fighting back my tears.
* * * * *
School was to start next day. At seven o’clock there were already two
or three boys in the playground. I hesitated a long while before coming
down, before showing myself. And when I appeared at last, unlocking the
door of the mouldy classroom which had been closed for two months, what
I most dreaded happened: I saw the biggest of the boys leave a group of
youngsters playing under the shelter and advance towards me. He came to
tell me that ‘the young lady at the Sand Pit had died at nightfall on
the previous evening.’
Everything turns to confusion, everything mingles with this grief. It
seems to me now that never again shall I have the courage to start
school. Only to cross the playground is an effort which will break me
up. Everything is painful, everything is bitter, now that she is dead.
The world is empty, holidays ended. Ended the long country drives,
ended the mysterious fête.... Life is again the burden it was of old.
I tell the children there will be no school this morning. They go away
in small groups to carry the news to others about the countryside.
As for me, I take my black hat, a mourning coat I have, and start
wretchedly towards the Sand Pit.
I am in front of the house we had sought three years ago! It is
in this house that Yvonne de Galais, Augustin Meaulnes’ wife, died
yesterday evening. A stranger would take it for a chapel, so great is
the silence which has settled since yesterday on this desolate spot.
So this is what this beautiful morning of the new school year, this
treacherous autumn sun which glides under the branches, had in store
for us. How could I fight against hideous revolt and a blinding flood
of tears! We had again found the beautiful girl. We had won her. She
was my friend’s wife and I myself loved her with that deep, secret
friendship which is never told. I used to look at her and be happy
like a little child. I might one day have married another girl, and
she would have been the first to whom I should have confided the great
secret news....
Yesterday’s notice has been left close to the bell on one side of the
door. The coffin has already been brought into the hall downstairs.
In the room on the first floor, it is the child’s nurse who greets
me, relates to me the end, and gently pushes the door ajar.... She is
there. No more fever nor struggle. No more flush nor waiting. Nothing
but silence, and, framed in cotton wool, a hard face, unsensitive and
white, a dead forehead from which the hair rises thick and stiff.
M. de Galais, crouched in one corner with his back to us, is there
in his socks, searching with tragic obstinacy amongst a confusion of
drawers he has pulled out of a cupboard. Now and again he takes out of
them some old and already faded photographs of his daughter, and sobs
shake his shoulders like a burst of laughter.
The funeral is for midday. The doctor fears the rapid decomposition
which sometimes follows on an embolism. This is why the face, as well
as the whole body, is surrounded by cotton wool soaked in carbolic.
The last toilet has been made--she had been dressed in her beautiful
frock of dark blue velvet bespangled with little silver stars, its fine
but old-fashioned leg-of-mutton sleeves flattened and folded under; but
at the moment of bringing up the coffin it is found that there is not
room to turn it in the very narrow corridor. It will have to be hauled
up through the window from the outside, by means of a rope, and be
lowered again in the same way.... It is then that M. de Galais, still
bent over these ancient things amidst which he searches for some lost
tokens, suddenly steps in with terrifying impetuosity.
‘Rather than allow such a dreadful thing to be done,’ he says, in a
voice broken by tears and anger, ‘I will take her myself in my arms and
carry her down....’
And he would do as he says at the risk of fainting halfway and crashing
down with her!
Then I offer myself, deciding on the only possible course of action;
with the help of a doctor and a nurse, placing one arm under the back
of the stretched-out dead woman, the other under her legs, I gather
her against my breast. Seated on my left arm, her shoulders resting on
the right one, her drooping head uplifted under my chin, she weighs
terribly against my heart. I walk down slowly step after step along the
stiff flight of stairs, while in the room below all is being prepared.
My arms soon ache with fatigue. At each step, with this load on my
breast, I am more out of breath. Clinging to the inert and heavy body,
I lower my head towards the head of her I carry. I breathe heavily and
her fair hair enters my mouth, dead hair with a taste of the earth.
This taste of earth and of death, this weight on my heart, that is all
that is left to me of the great adventure and of you, Yvonne de Galais,
the woman so long sought--so loved....
CHAPTER XIII
THE COMPOSITION TEST BOOK
Not long afterwards, old M. de Galais took to his bed in the house full
of sad memories, where women spent the day rocking and soothing a small
ailing baby. He passed away peacefully in the first severe weather,
and I found it hard to keep back my tears at the bedside of this
charming old man whose kindly indulgence and fantastic whims, joined to
those of his son, had caused our whole adventure. He fortunately died
in complete oblivion of all that had happened, and indeed in almost
absolute silence. As for a long time he had had neither relatives
nor friends in this part of France, he chose me for his sole legatee
until the return of Meaulnes to whom I was to account for everything,
if he ever came back.... And so I lived henceforth at the Sand Pit. I
no longer went to Saint-Benoist except for school, starting early in
the morning, eating at midday a lunch prepared at the estate, which I
warmed up on my stove, and coming back in the evening after ‘private
study.’ I was thus able to keep by my side the child whom the maids
from the farm tended. Above all I added to my chance of not missing
Meaulnes if ever one day he returned to the Sand Pit.
Besides, I had not lost hope of finding at last, in a piece of
furniture or a drawer at the house, some paper, some indication, which
would convey intelligence of his movements during his long silence
of the previous years--and perhaps thus I might be able to grasp the
reason of his flight or at all events to find some trace of him.... I
had already searched in vain through innumerable closets and cupboards;
I had opened in the storerooms quantities of boxes of all shapes, which
I found full of bundles of old letters and yellowish photographs of the
Galais family, or else overflowing with various millinery trimmings:
flowers, aigrettes, feathers, and old-fashioned birds. Out of these
boxes came a strange faint perfume, the scent of faded things, which
would suddenly awaken in me, for the whole day, memories and regrets,
and stop my search....
At last, one day home from school, I unearthed in the attic a small
old-fashioned trunk, very low and long in shape, covered with pig-hide
half eaten through, which I recognised as Augustin’s school trunk. I
upbraided myself for not having begun my search there. I easily forced
the rusted lock. The trunk was crammed full of books and exercise-books
from Sainte-Agathe. Arithmetics, studies in literature, sum-books,
goodness knows what!... Greatly moved rather than curious, I began to
rummage amongst all this, reading over again the dictations I still
knew by heart, as we had recopied them so many times: ‘The Aqueduct,’
by Rousseau; ‘An Adventure in Calabria,’ by P. L. Courier; ‘A Letter
of George Sand to her Son.’
There was also a ‘Composition Test Book.’ This surprised me a little,
as such books usually remained at school, the pupils never taking them
home. It was a green exercise-book, faded at the edges. The name of
the pupil, Augustin Meaulnes, was written on the cover in a beautiful
round hand. I opened it. By the date of the tests, April, 189.. I
realized that Meaulnes had started it only a few days before leaving
Sainte-Agathe. The first pages were kept with religious care, as was
the rule when one set work down in the composition book. But there were
only three pages written, the others were blank, and this explained why
Meaulnes had taken it away.
I was there on my knees, brooding over these practices and petty rules
which had loomed so large during our youth, while my thumb skimmed the
pages of the unfinished book causing them to open. And it was thus I
discovered writing on other sheets. After four blank pages it started
again.
It was still Meaulnes’ writing, but a hurried hand, ill-shaped,
scarcely legible, forming small, unequal paragraphs separated by blank
lines. In places there was only an unfinished sentence. Sometimes a
date. From the first line I came to the conclusion that there might
be information concerning Meaulnes’ past life in Paris, indications
of the trail I was looking for, and I went down into the dining-room
to use the daylight in perusing this strange document. It was a clear
rough winter day. Sometimes the bright sun would cast the shadows of
the crossbars of the window on the white curtains, then a sudden squall
would throw an icy shower against the panes. And it was at this window,
in front of the fire, that I read these lines which explained so many
things to me and of which I give here the exact copy....
CHAPTER XIV
THE SECRET
‘I passed once more under her window. The panes are always dusty and
whitened by the double curtain behind. Should Yvonne de Galais open it
now, I have no longer anything to tell her, since she is married....
What’s to be done now? How live?...
* * * * *
‘_Saturday, February 13._ I met by the river that girl who gave
me news in the month of June and who used, like me, to wait before the
closed house.... I spoke to her. While she walked, I noticed, from the
side, the slight blemishes in her face: a little line by the lips,
a little hollowness in the cheeks, and powder a little thick on her
nostrils. Turning suddenly, she looked me full in the face, perhaps
because her full-face was prettier than her profile, and said abruptly:
“You do amuse me. You remind me of a young man who made love to me once
at Bourges. I was engaged to him....”
* * * * *
‘Moreover, at night, on the deserted wet pavement reflecting the light
of a street lamp, she suddenly came close and asked me to take her with
her sister to the theatre that evening. For the first time I observed
that she was dressed in mourning, in a woman’s hat far too old for her
young face, and that she carried a long thin umbrella like a cane. And
as I was quite close to her my nails got caught in the front of her
dress.... I do not jump at her suggestion. She is cross and immediately
wants to go away. And now it is I who hold her back and beg her. Then
a workman, passing in the dim light, says in a low voice, bantering:
“Don’t you go, little girl. He’ll do you a mischief!”
‘And we stopped there, both of us, embarrassed.
* * * * *
‘_At the theatre._ The two girls--my friend, whose name is
Valentine Blondeau, and her sister--have come in cheap scarves.
‘Valentine is in front of me. Every moment she turns round, restlessly
as though inquiring what I want of her. I, near her--well, I feel
almost happy; each time I reply with a smile.
‘All round us there were women wearing dresses that were too low. And
we joked about them. She smiled at first, then said, “I must not laugh
at them: my dress is too low, too.” And she wrapped her scarf round
her. As a matter of fact, under the square of black lace, you could see
that in her hurry to change her dress she had rolled back the top of
her simple chemise that was working up.
* * * * *
‘There is something poverty-stricken and childish about her. She has
a curious suffering and adventurous look which attracts me. Near her,
the only person in the world who could give me news of the people of
the manor, I never stop brooding on my strange past adventure.... I
wanted to ask fresh questions about the little house in the boulevard.
But she, in her turn, put such troublesome questions to me that I did
not know how to reply. I feel that henceforth we shall, both of us, be
dumb on that subject. And yet I know, too, that I shall see her again.
What’s the good? Why?... Am I now doomed to dog the steps of every
person who carries with him the faintest, most distant whiff of my
foiled adventure?...
* * * * *
‘At midnight, alone in the deserted street, I ask myself what meaning
this new strange story has for me. I walk by houses like cardboard
boxes in a row, in which a whole people sleep. And all of a sudden
I remember a decision I had taken a month or so ago: I had resolved
to go there by night, about one in the morning to go right round the
house, to open the garden-gate, to enter like a thief and to search for
some indication which would help me to find the lost manor, to see her
again, merely to see her again.... But I am tired, I am hungry. I, too,
hurried to dress for the theatre and I have had no dinner.... However,
I remain a long time seated, much disturbed in mind, on the edge of my
bed before lying down, a prey to vague remorse. Why?
‘They did not want me either to see them home or to know where they
lived. But I followed them long enough to know. I know they live in a
little street which leads into the neighborhood of Notre-Dame. But at
what number?... I guessed they were dressmakers or milliners.
‘Valentine, without telling her sister, made a plan to meet me on
Thursday at four in front of the theatre we had been to.
‘“If I’m not there to-morrow,” she said, “come on Friday at the same
time, and Saturday, and so on, every day.”
* * * * *
‘_Thursday, February 18._ I went to wait for her, in a high wind
foretelling rain. You said to yourself all the time, “It’ll end by
raining.” ...
‘I walk along in the twilight of the streets with a weight on my heart.
A drop falls. I fear a downpour: a storm would keep her from coming.
But the wind rises again and the rain still keeps off. Above in the
grey afternoon sky--now grey and now ablaze with light--a great cloud
must have yielded to the wind. And I am here on the earth, miserably
waiting....
* * * * *
‘_In front of the theatre._ I am certain, after a quarter of an
hour, that she won’t come. From where I stand on the embankment I keep
watch on the stream of people passing over the bridge, the way she
ought to be coming. I follow with my eyes all young women in mourning
whom I see approach and almost feel a kind of gratitude for those who,
when nearest to me, have resembled her the longest and made me hope....
* * * * *
‘_An hour’s wait._ I am tired. At nightfall a policeman takes
a rough to the station near by and the rough hurls all the filthy
insults he knows at him. The policeman is furious, pale, dumb.... In
the passage he begins to strike, then he closes the door to beat the
wretched man in peace.... This terrible thought comes to me: “I have
renounced paradise and am now stamping my feet at the gates of hell.”
‘To ease my restless mind, I leave the place and make for the little
narrow street, between the Seine and Notre-Dame, where I almost know
where they live. I walk to and fro alone. Now and again a servant or
housewife comes out in the fine rain to shop before night.... Nothing
here for me and I go away.... I walk through the clear rain which keeps
the night back, up to the square where we ought to meet. There are more
people than before--a black crowd....
* * * * *
‘Suppositions--despair--fatigue--I cling to the thought of to-morrow.
To-morrow at the same time I shall come back and wait for her. And I am
in a great hurry for to-morrow to come. I look forward with weariness
to the evening to-day and then to the next morning which I must go
through somehow with nothing to do.... But surely this day anyhow is
practically over?... By the fire, in my room, I hear them shout the
evening papers. Without any doubt, from her house hidden somewhere in
the town near Notre-Dame, she is hearing them cried, too.
‘She ... I mean: Valentine.
‘That evening, which I wanted to skip, weighs strangely upon me. While
the hours advance, while the day is soon to end--and I should like it
ended--there exist men who have trusted all their hope to it, all their
love and their last strength. There are dying men, others threatened
by ruin, who would all like to-morrow never to come. There are others
for whom remorse will dawn with to-morrow. Others who are so tired that
this night will never be long enough to give them the rest they need.
And I, I who have wasted to-day, how dare I summon to-morrow?
* * * * *
‘_Friday evening._ I had thought to write, “I have not seen her
again.” And everything would have been finished.
‘But when I reached the corner of the theatre at four o’clock--there
she was! Slight and solemn, wearing black, but with powder on her face
and a little collar which made her look like a naughty Pierrot. A look
at once doleful and malicious.
‘She comes to tell me that she wants to leave me at once, that she will
never come any more....
‘And yet at nightfall here we still are, the two of us, slowly walking,
one close to the other, on the gravel path of the Tuileries. She tells
me her story, but tells it in so involved a manner that I understand it
badly. She says “my lover” in speaking of the man to whom she had been
engaged, but whom she did not marry. She does so purposely, I think, to
shock me and to keep me from attaching myself to her.
* * * * *
‘Here are some of her phrases which I write down against my will:
‘“Don’t you trust me an atom,” she says; “I always get into scrapes.”
‘“I’ve seen a good bit of life, quite on my own.”
‘“I upset the man I was engaged to. I left him because he admired me
too much; he saw me only in imagination, never as I was. I’m full of
faults. We should have been very unhappy.”
‘Every moment I catch her trying to make herself out worse than she is.
I think that she wants to prove to herself that she was right in doing
the stupid thing she speaks of, that she has nothing to regret and is
not worthy of the happiness which was offered her.
‘Another time:
‘“What I like about you,” she said, giving me a long look--“what I like
about you--and I can’t know why--are my memories....”
* * * * *
‘Another time:
‘“I still love him,” she said, “more than you think.”
‘And then suddenly, abruptly, sadly: “Well, what do _you_ want? Do
_you_ love me? Are _you_ going to propose to me?”
‘I muttered something. I don’t know what I replied. As likely as not I
said, “Yes.”’
* * * * *
Here this sort of journal stopped. There began rough drafts of letters,
illegible, scribbled, scratched out. Precarious betrothal!... The girl,
at Meaulnes’ request, had left her job. He had busied himself with
preparations for the wedding. But for ever clutched at by the desire
to continue the search, to set out again on the tracks of his lost
love, he must doubtless have disappeared on several occasions; and in
his letters, with tragic embarrassment, he tried to justify himself to
Valentine.
CHAPTER XV
THE SECRET (_continued_)
Then the journal began again.
He had noted memories of a stay they had both made somewhere in the
country: I do not know where. But, strange to say, from this moment,
perhaps from a feeling of secret modesty, the journal had been kept in
such a broken, irregular manner, scribbled down so hurriedly, that I
have been obliged to go over it again myself and rewrite all this part
of his story.
* * * * *
_June 14._ When he awoke early in the morning in the bedroom of
the inn, the sun lit up the black curtain’s red design. Farm labourers
were drinking their morning coffee in the inn parlour and talking in
loud voices. They were put out, in a rude and kindly way, about one
of their employers. Doubtless Meaulnes had been hearing this restful
noise for a long time in his sleep, for he took no notice at first. The
curtain covered with grapes reddened by the sun, the morning voices
rising to the silent bedroom, all this mingled with the one impression
of waking up in the country at the beginning of delightful summer
holidays.
He got up, knocked lightly on the door into the next room without
obtaining a reply and opened it a little, noiselessly. Then he saw
Valentine and understood where his feeling of peace and happiness came
from. She was asleep, quite still and silent: you could not hear her
breathe: she slept as a bird might sleep. For a long time he watched
this child’s face with the shut eyes, this child’s face that was so
peaceful you could not wish it to waken or ever be troubled.
She made no other movement to show she was no longer asleep than to
open her eyes and look at him.
* * * * *
As soon as he was dressed, Meaulnes came back to the girl.
‘We are late,’ she said.
And she immediately became like a housewife in her home.
She tidied the rooms, brushed the clothes which Meaulnes had worn the
day before and, when she came to the trousers, was quite upset. The
bottoms of the legs were covered with thick mud. She hesitated, and
then, with careful precaution before brushing them, began to scrape off
the first coat of mud with a knife.
‘That’s what little boys do at Sainte-Agathe,’ Meaulnes said, ‘when
they have taken a toss in the mud.’
‘Oh! Mother taught me that,’ Valentine said.
* * * * *
... And such was exactly the helpmate that the sportsman and peasant
which Admiral Meaulnes was might have wished for previous to his
mysterious adventure.
* * * * *
_June 15._ At the dinner at the farm where they were invited, much
to their annoyance (thanks to friends who introduced them as husband
and wife), she behaved as shyly as a young bride.
Candles had been lighted in two stands, and one was put at each end of
the white linen-covered table, as at a quiet country wedding. Faces in
that dim light, when people looked down, were hidden in shadow.
On the right of Patrice (the farmer’s son) sat Valentine, then
Meaulnes, who remained gloomy and silent to the end of dinner, though
he was the one they generally addressed. Ever since he had resolved,
in order to check gossip, to pass Valentine off for his wife in this
deserted village, regret and remorse tore at him. And while Patrice
was playing the host like a proper squire, Meaulnes kept thinking: ‘By
rights, I should be presiding at my own wedding feast this evening, in
a low dining-room like this, a lovely room I know well.’
Valentine, close to him, timidly refused everything that was offered
her. You would have said she was a peasant girl. At each fresh offer
she looked at her friend and seemed to want to hide against him.
Patrice had been vainly insisting for a long time that she should
empty her glass, until at last Meaulnes leaned towards her and said
gently: ‘You must drink, dear little Valentine.’
Then she meekly drank. And Patrice smilingly congratulated the young
man on having such an obedient wife.
But both of them, Valentine and Meaulnes, remained silent and
thoughtful. For one thing, they were tired; their feet were soaked
in the mud of their walk and felt frozen on the newly washed kitchen
flagstones. And then the young man was forced from time to time to say:
‘My wife, Valentine, my wife....’
And every time he heavily pronounced the word, before these unknown
peasants in this dark room, he felt that he was doing a wrong.
* * * * *
_June 17._ The afternoon of this last day began badly.
Patrice and his wife went for a walk with them. Little by little the
two couples became separated, among the rough slopes covered with
heather. Meaulnes and Valentine sat down in a little copse amongst some
junipers.
The wind brought drops of rain: the weather was lowering. The evening,
it seemed, had a bitter taste, the taste of such gloom as love itself
could not dispel.
They stopped there, for a long time, in their hiding-place, crouched
under branches, talking little. Then the weather lifted. It became
fine. They believed, now, that all would be well.
And they began to speak of love. Valentine talked and talked....
‘This,’ she said, ‘is what the man I was engaged to promised me, like
the child he was: we should immediately have a home like a thatched
cottage hidden away in the country. It was all ready, he said. We were
to arrive as though returning from a long journey on the evening of our
wedding day, about the time that night comes. And along the roads and
in the courtyard, and hidden in bushes, unknown children would have a
fête to welcome us, shouting, “Long life to the bride!” What nonsense,
isn’t it?’
Meaulnes listened, speechless and anxious. There came back to him the
echo of sounds once heard before. And in the voice of the girl as she
told this story, there seemed the tone of vague regret.
But she feared that she had hurt him. She turned towards him with
warmth and kindness: ‘All I have I want to give to you,’ she said,
‘something which has been more precious to me than anything ... and you
shall burn it!’
Then, looking straight at him, anxiously, she produced a small packet
of letters from her pocket and handed them to him, letters from the man
to whom she had been engaged.
Ah! instantly he recognised the fine handwriting. Why had it not
occurred to him sooner! It was the handwriting of Frantz, the bohemian,
which he had once seen on the despairing note left in the bedroom at
the manor....
Now they were walking along a narrow lane, between daisies and grasses
lit by the slanting rays of the sun at five in the afternoon. Meaulnes
was so stupefied that he could not yet grasp the extent of the disaster
which all this meant for him. He read because she asked him to read.
Childish, sentimental, pathetic words and phrases.... Such as, in the
last letter:
‘_... Ah! you have lost that little heart, unforgivable little
Valentine. What’s going to happen to us? At any rate I am not
superstitious...._’
Meaulnes read, half blinded by regret and anger, his face motionless
but pale, and he shuddered. Valentine, uneasy to see him like this,
looked to find what page he was at and what so bothered him.
‘Oh! that’s a jewel,’ she explained quickly--‘a jewel he gave me and
made me swear to keep always. That was one of his mad ideas.’
But she managed only to exasperate Meaulnes.
‘Mad!’ he said, putting the letters in his pocket. ‘Why repeat that
word? Why not have wanted to believe in him? I knew him; he was the
most wonderful fellow in the world!’
‘You knew him!’ she cried at the pitch of excitement. ‘You knew Frantz
de Galais?’
‘He was my best friend; he was my brother-in-arms, and now I’ve taken
the girl he was engaged to from him!--Ah!’ he went on, in fury, ‘what
mischief you’ve done us, you who would believe in nothing! You’re the
cause of it all. It’s you who’ve mucked it all, mucked it all....’
She wanted to speak to him, wanted to take his hand, but he repulsed
her brutally.
‘Go away! Let me be!’
‘All right,’ she said, her face hot, stammering and half crying, ‘if
that’s it, I shall indeed go.--Make my way back to Bourges with my
sister. And if you don’t come and find me--you know, don’t you, that
father’s too poor to keep me--well, I shall go right back to Paris. I
shall tramp the streets as I’ve done once already; and I shall become a
bad girl for certain, I know I shall, as I’ve no job any more....’
And she went off to find her belongings to catch the train, while
Meaulnes, not even looking at her go off, kept walking on anywhere.
* * * * *
The journal broke off again.
Rough drafts of letters followed once more, the letters of a man
undecided and at his wit’s end. Back at the Ferté-d’Angillon Meaulnes
wrote to Valentine, apparently to reaffirm his resolve never to see
her again and to give her the precise reasons for it, but in reality,
perhaps, so that she could reply. In one of these letters he asked her
what, in his first distress, he had not even dreamed of asking her:
Did she know where the manor was, the manor that had been so searched
for?... In another, he begged her to make it up with Frantz de Galais.
He would set himself to find him again.... All the letters of which I
saw the rough drafts could not have been sent. But he must have written
two or three times without receiving any reply. It must have been a
time of fierce and miserable struggle for him, in complete isolation.
As the hope of ever seeing Yvonne de Galais again had vanished, he must
have felt his great resolution weaken little by little. And from the
pages which I shall presently give--the last in the journal--I imagine
that he must have hired a bicycle one fine morning at the beginning of
the holidays and gone to Bourges to visit the cathedral.
He started out early by the lovely road through the woods, inventing,
as he went along, any number of reasons for appearing before the girl
he had thrown over, without loss of dignity and without asking her to
make it up.
The last four pages which I have been able to put together give the
narrative of this journey and of this last mistake....
CHAPTER XVI
THE SECRET (_concluded_)
_August 25._ After a long search he found the house of Valentine
Blondeau on the other side of Bourges, at the far end of the new
suburbs. A woman on the doorstep--Valentine’s mother--seemed to be
waiting for him. She was a good housewife in appearance, heavy, shabby,
but still good-looking. She watched him come with curiosity and when
he asked, ‘Are the Misses Blondeau at home?’ she explained gently and
kindly that they had gone to Paris on August 15. ‘They forbade me to
say where they were going,’ she added, ‘but their letters will be
forwarded from their old address.’
As he pushed his bicycle back along the little garden, he thought:
‘She’s gone.... All is over as I wanted.... I’ve driven her to this.
“I shall become a bad girl for certain,” she said. And I’ve pushed her
into it! I’ve ruined the girl Frantz was engaged to!’
And he kept saying to himself in a low voice like a madman, ‘So much
the better! So much the better!’ knowing quite well that it was really
‘So much the worse!’ and that under the eyes of that woman, before
reaching the gate, he was going to stumble and fall on his knees.
He never thought of luncheon, but stopped at a café in which he wrote
a long letter to Valentine, only to cry aloud, only to get rid of the
despairing cry which choked him. His letter kept repeating endlessly:
‘You could!... You could!... You could stoop to this!... You could ruin
yourself like this!’
Officers were drinking near him. One of them was noisily telling a
story about a woman which could be heard in snatches: ‘I said to her
... you ought to know me ... I play with your husband every evening!’
The others laughed and turning round spat behind the benches. Meaulnes,
pale and dusty, watched them as a beggar might. He imagined them
holding Valentine on their knees.
* * * * *
For a long time he rode round the cathedral on his bicycle muttering,
‘As a matter of fact, I really came to see the cathedral.’ You could
see it rise on the deserted square, enormous and indifferent, at the
end of every street. These streets were narrow and filthy as the
alleys that surround village churches. Here and there hung a red
lantern, sign of a house of ill fame.... Meaulnes felt his utter
misery in this unclean, vicious quarter, nestling, as in old times,
under the buttressed walls of the cathedral. There came over him a
peasant’s fear, a loathing for this church of the town, where vices are
sculptured on the cornices, which is built among evil places and has
no remedy for the purest sorrows of love.
Two girls passed, street walkers, their arms round one another’s
waists, and looked at him boldly. From disgust or for fun, to avenge
his love or to destroy it, Meaulnes followed them slowly on his
bicycle, and one of them, a wretched girl whose thin yellow hair was
held up at the back in a false chignon, gave him a rendezvous for six
o’clock in the Garden of the Archbishop’s Palace--the very garden in
which Frantz in one of his letters had arranged to meet poor Valentine.
He did not say no, realising that he would have left the town far
behind by that time. And she stopped a long while at her low window
over the sloping street, making vague signs to him.
* * * * *
He hurried to regain the road.
Before leaving, he could not resist the mournful wish to pass for the
last time before Valentine’s house. He gazed at it and was able to
gather food for sorrow. It was one of the last houses in the suburb
and the street became a road from that place.... In front a sort of
empty plot made something like a little square. No one was at any of
the windows, no one in the yard or anywhere. Only a dirty powdered girl
passed along the wall, dragging two little boys in rags.
There had Valentine passed her childhood, there she had begun to look
at the world with her confident, wise eyes. She had worked, stitching,
behind those windows. And Frantz had gone by to see her, to smile at
her, along this very street. But now nothing remained, nothing....
The sad afternoon dragged on and Meaulnes knew only that somewhere,
this very day, the melancholy place she would never come to again was
passing before the mind’s eye of Valentine, now ruined.
* * * * *
The long ride ahead of him must have remained the last succour against
his woe, his last enforced distraction before being plunged into its
depths.
He went away. By the side of the road, and amongst the trees at the
edge of the water along the valley, delicious farmhouses showed their
pointed gables with green trellises. Down there, no doubt, on the
lawns, girls were pensively talking of love. You could imagine souls
down there, beautiful souls....
But for Meaulnes at that moment there existed but one love, that
unsatisfying love which had just been buffeted so cruelly, and the
girl among all girls whom he ought to have protected and kept safe was
precisely the girl whom he had just sent to her ruin.
* * * * *
A few hurried lines of the journal informed me that he had planned to
find Valentine again, at all costs, before it was too late. A date,
in the corner of one page, led me to believe that this was the long
journey for which Madame Meaulnes was making preparations when I came
to the Ferté-d’Angillon to upset everything. Meaulnes was noting down
his memories and projects in the deserted ‘Town Hall’ one fine morning
at the end of August--when I had pushed open the door and brought him
the great news which he had ceased to expect. He had been caught,
checked by his old adventure, without daring to do anything or confess
anything. Then remorse began and regret and grief, sometimes stifled,
sometimes emerging in triumph, until his wedding day on which the cry
of the bohemian in the fir wood reminded him dramatically of his young
manhood’s first oath.
* * * * *
He had hastily scribbled in this same composition test book a few
words, at dawn, before going away (with her permission--but for ever)
from Yvonne de Galais, his wife since the previous day:
‘I am going. I must follow the tracks of the two bohemians who came
yesterday to the fir wood and have gone on bicycles toward the east. I
shall not come near Yvonne de Galais again until I can bring back with
me and install in “Frantz’s house,” Frantz and Valentine married.’
* * * * *
‘This manuscript, which I began as a secret journal and which has
become my confession, is to be the property, if I do not come back, of
my friend François Seurel.’
* * * * *
He must have hastily slipped the exercise-book under the others,
relocked his old small schoolboy trunk and disappeared.
EPILOGUE
Time passed on. I lost hope of ever seeing my friend again, and the
days went by mournfully in the village school and sadly in the deserted
house. Frantz never came to meet me at the place I had arranged, and
anyhow Aunt Moinel had long since forgotten where Valentine lived.
The only happiness of the people at the Sand Pit soon became the little
girl whom they had been able to save. At the end of September, she
showed herself to be a sturdy and pretty child. She was nearly a year
old. She pushed chairs along quite by herself, gripping the rungs, and
trying to walk, not minding tumbles, and she made a clatter which woke
long remote echoes in the empty house. When I held her in my arms, she
would never let me give her a kiss. She had a shy, and at the same time
charming way of wriggling to get free and pushing my face away with her
little open hand, while shouting with laughter. With all her gaiety,
with all her childish violence, you would have said that she was on
the way to scatter the gloom which had weighed on the house since her
birth. I would sometimes say to myself, ‘Without any doubt, in spite of
this shyness, she will be a little my child.’ But once again Providence
decided otherwise.
One Sunday morning at the end of September, I got up very early, even
before the woman who was the little girl’s nurse. I was to go fishing
by the Cher, with two men from Saint-Benoist and Jasmin Delouche.
Villagers from the neighbourhood often met me in this way for poaching
expeditions, tickling trout at night, fishing with nets in prohibited
waters.... On holidays all through the summer time we left at dawn, and
did not come back till noon. It was the way most of these men gained
a living. As for me, it was my one pastime, the only adventure which
recalled the doings of our set in former days. And I ended by really
liking these jaunts, these long hours of fishing by the riverside or
amongst the reeds of the pond.
That morning, then, I was down at five-thirty, in front of the house in
a little shed that leaned against the wall which separated the English
garden of the Sand Pit from the kitchen garden of the farm. I was busy
disentangling my nets which I had thrown down in a heap the previous
Thursday.
It was not quite day: it was the twilight of a beautiful morning in
September; and the shed from which I was hurriedly getting my tackle
was half in darkness.
There I was silent and busy when suddenly I heard the iron gate opening
and a footfall on the gravel path.
‘Ha! ha!’ said I to myself. ‘Here come these fellows sooner than I
thought. And here am I, not ready yet!...’
But the man who came into the courtyard was unknown to me. He was,
so far as I could distinguish, a great bearded fellow dressed like a
sportsman or a poacher. Instead of coming to find me where the others
knew that I always was at the time we had arranged to meet, he went
straight to the front door.
‘Good!’ I thought; ‘it’s a friend of theirs whom they’ve invited
without telling me and they’ve sent him on ahead to explain.’
The man gently played with the latch of the door, making no noise. But
on coming out I had fastened the door behind me. He behaved in the same
way at the kitchen door. Then he hesitated a moment and turned towards
me a troubled face, made clear in the half light. And it was only then
that I recognised Admiral Meaulnes.
For a long moment I remained where I was, terrified, in despair,
suddenly gripped again by all the grief which his return awakened. He
had disappeared behind the house, had walked round it, and returned,
hesitating.
Then I approached him and without saying a word I threw my arms round
him, sobbing. Immediately he understood:
‘Ah!’ he said in an abrupt voice. ‘She’s dead, is that not so?’
And he stood where he was, upright, deaf, motionless, and terrible. I
took him by the arm and gently led him towards the house. It was day
now. At once, so that the hardest task should be accomplished, I made
him mount the stairs which led to the death chamber. As soon as he was
in, he fell on his knees by the bed and for a long time kept his head
buried in his arms.
At last he rose with bewildered eyes, swaying, not knowing where he
was. And still guiding him by the arm, I opened the door by which this
room communicated with that of the little girl. She had awakened of her
own accord--while her nurse was downstairs--and had boldly sat up in
her cot. One could just see her surprised face turned towards us.
‘Here is your daughter,’ I said.
He started and looked at me.
Then he seized her and lifted her up in his arms. He could not see her
well at first because he was crying. Then, a little to divert this
great emotion and this flood of weeping, holding her tightly against
him all the while on his right arm, he turned his lowered head to me
and said:
‘I’ve brought them back, the other two.... You must go and see them in
their house.’
* * * * *
And indeed, when I went early in the morning, thoughtful and almost
happy towards the house of Frantz which Yvonne de Galais had once
shown me empty, I saw from the distance, sweeping the doorstep, a sort
of young housewife with a turned-down collar, an object of curiosity
and excitement to several little cowherds in their Sunday clothes on
their way to Mass.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the little girl became annoyed at being squeezed up, and
as Augustin, his head on one side to conceal and check his tears,
continued not to look at her, she gave him a great slap with her little
hand on his bearded, wet mouth.
This time the father lifted his daughter on high, jumped her up on his
outstretched arms, and looked at her with a kind of smile. She was
pleased and clapped her hands....
I had stepped back a little to see them better. Rather let down and yet
wonder-struck, I realised that the little girl had at last found in him
the playfellow she had been dimly expecting.... Admiral Meaulnes had
left with me one joy; I felt that he had come back to take it away from
me. And already I could imagine him at night, wrapping his daughter in
his cloak and setting out with her for new adventures.
THE END
NOTES
[1] French firemen carry rifles during drill, although the custom is
now dying out in towns.
[2] This is the traditional black overall worn by the French
school-children in Alain-Fournier’s youth and still to be seen in
villages, though it is not so much worn in towns. This detail, and
others so typically French, must not deceive the reader as to the age
of the schoolboys in the book. It should be borne in mind that most of
the main characters in the book, amongst the boys, are youths whose
ages vary from between sixteen to past eighteen. It was the custom for
boys of that age to wear the black overall.
[3] In French these ‘_bohémiens_’ do not mean gipsies, and are not of
gipsy race. Alain-Fournier sometimes calls them ‘_comédiens_.’ They are
strolling players such as used to come to my own little native town and
pitch their tent on the church square. They travel in caravans at any
time during the year and not only for the town fairs, and often give
very good shows and plays, going from town to town where there are no
theatres. As a child it was thus I saw Musset’s _On ne Badine pas avec
l’Amour_, Labiche’s _Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon_, and many of
Molière’s plays, all acted under canvas, often in the most primitive
kind of tent. Molière and his ‘Illustré Théâtre’ were a troupe of that
kind.
At the yearly fair these strolling players may often be just a man and
his wife, or a small party travelling with a few performing animals.
The word _bohémien_ is often applied to such actors and showmen with
contempt, as in English is the word _gipsy_. Yet again it is used
indifferently with _saltimbanque_ for real gipsies who travel in
caravans and make a trade of wicker chairs, brooms, etc.
But the grand style of _bohémiens_, the strolling actors travelling in
caravans, are looked upon as wonderful people surrounded with glamour.
They used to fascinate me as a child, and all the town was astir when
they came, most people feeling the same fascination. After the play we
children would go prowling round their caravans, a land of mystery.
Yet, however welcome these people were in our little town--where they
brought joy and mirth--one knew that at the back of people’s minds
was a certain amount of mistrust. One felt that people were purposely
over-polite, displaying an exaggerated courtesy, the result of their
unconscious distinction between the honest, nice, and gentlemanly
_bohémiens_ and those who might not be. And indeed one often went
to school (as I did) with the other type of _bohémien_: children of
sellers of wicker chairs or small peddlers, etc.
From all this it is clear that to translate the word _bohémien_
by _gipsy_ is wrong when applied to people not of gipsy race, yet
_gipsies_ must be used whenever one wants to show contempt or mistrust.
Of course the word can never mean here the Bohemian of Bohemian life,
of Murger and Montmartre’s style; it means these strolling comedians,
still a part of French life for people of Alain-Fournier’s generation,
though now that most little towns boast a theatre these troupes
have a tendency to disappear, to be replaced by more modern touring
companies.--_Note by Translator._
[4] Thursday is, everywhere in France, a school holiday.
[5] Nowhere but in France would this game be played by boys over twelve
or thirteen. This is another detail so typically French that may
mislead the reader as to the ages of these boys. As will be seen in a
subsequent chapter, Delouche is now seventeen and Meaulnes eighteen.
Such games, until recently, took in French school life the place of
football and were apt to be played with the same violence.
[6] No accurate translation can be found for these examinations, as
every country has its own system. The French system is complicated and
it is unnecessary to give here elaborate explanations.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- Clear typos and wrong punctuation were corrected.
- Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of the book.
- Text between _underscores_ represents italics.
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