III Madame Molay-Norrois
Elizabeth had resolved after her return to Grenoble, not to be at home to visitors in her new house. But on the advice of her parents, to her great surprise sanctioned by her mother-in-law as well, she had decided to have a reception-day. In Paris, preferring her own acquaintances, she had taken little trouble to keep up connections useful or pleasant to her husband. Little by little Albert had left her free and had withdrawn from society. But now the sacredness of social life was impressed on her by the Molay-Norrois, and Mme. Derize begged her to avoid solitude.
“I am confident,” she said, “that the future will brighten for you. But you must arrange a normal existence for yourself. It is not always a good thing to live with one’s memories.”
“But how about you?”
“Oh! I am quite old and the past suffices for me. Marie Louise and Philippe will have friends whose parents you will know. You have given me great happiness in renouncing your separation.”
“Nobody knows of it as yet.”
“Since you bear Albert’s name it is right that the sympathy and esteem of the public should go to you. If God wills that some day you shall take up your life together...”
“I shall never live with Albert again. He has caused me too much unhappiness....”
After the protest, she decided, not from personal conviction, but because of weakness and the need of distraction, to take the advice of Mme. Derize. One of her school friends, Blanche Servin, of whom she had lost track, had married an ordinary clerk, M. Vernier; and knowing that Elizabeth was unhappy, this friend plucked up courage to come to see her, which she would never have cared to do before, because of the difference in their positions. She turned out to be one of those women, who at first glance, seem very insignificant, and find time to devote to good work because they never think about themselves. Elizabeth was surprised at her tact, her radiant sweetness, the gentle gayety she displayed, despite all the difficulties and troubles she had known in raising a large family. What determination she had developed in so commonplace a lot! She promised to return her call, and to bring Marie Louise and Philippe with her.
Then, now and again, the friends of the Molay-Norrois appeared. Mme. Passerat, always active and in a hurry, came first, accompanied by the old Counselor Prémereux, an admirer over whom she held the whip-hand, since M. Molay-Norrois, the victim of an attack of gout, found himself obliged to stay in his room. With her effusive graciousness she looked about the place and ran to the window to enjoy the view.
“Trees, trees of every kind. And Belledonne on the horizon. It is wonderful! But how pretty you look, my dear! You are right always to get your clothes in Paris.”
“It is a dress from last winter,” explained Elizabeth, whose toilette contrasted with the shabby furniture. “I had it altered here.”
Mme. Passerat burst out laughing.
“What an innocent child I One does not mention such things.”
The young woman, determined to meet all advances coldly, was nevertheless obliged to recognize her visitor’s charming ease of manner. But, having exhausted her ordinary subjects of conversation, in order to gain a confidence which was being withheld, she let Elizabeth understand, with a condescending air, that she knew all about the withdrawal of the petition. Certainly M. Tabourin’s office kept no secrets from anyone.
“Yes,” she added, “your settling here is only temporary. You are thinking of going back to Paris soon.”
“I think not, Madame,” answered Elizabeth, who drew herself to her full height at this intrusion into her private life.
“Yes, you will, you will. Your father will be delighted. He has such good judgment, your dear father, such great experience. Listen to me, my child, brilliant surroundings, the movement and glitter of a drawing-room are necessary for the duration of a passion. Men are so vain. Your husband has withdrawn from society. It is a foolish whim which will not last.”
“You know better whether it can last, Madame. But you must allow me to be the best judge of my own case,” said Elizabeth.
She was surprised at herself in giving utterance to this sentence of double meaning which concluded with a half threat. Mme. Passerat, disconcerted, hesitating at the allusion, was on her guard, and thought: “Still waters run deep.”
Mmes. de Vimelle and Bonnard-Basson, intimate because of their husbands’ business association, drove together to the out-of-the-way Rue Haxo. Not so fashionable as Mme. Passerat, and therefore given to petty provincial competition, they noticed with silent satisfaction, the condition of the house and the number of storeys. They had hardly entered, when, while conversing, they made an inventory of the furniture, and unpleasantly estimated the value of Elizabeth’s dress, which bore the hallmark of its Parisian origin, and was set off in so modest a frame, a contrast which they considered in very bad taste. After the usual exchange of compliments, Mme. de Vimelle smirked, while her friend tried to regain her breath, which she had lost in coming up the stairs.
“We have heard about your new decision, Madame. It is quite right. You have defeated your adversary’s plans.”
“What plan? What decision?” asked Elizabeth, puzzled.
“Grenoble is a small town where one knows everything that is going on.”
“Everything,” said Mme. Bonnard-Basson promptly, to emphasize that she had nothing to hide.
“But what?”
“Well, your husband changed from separation to divorce in order to marry the corespondent. You cut the grass from under his feet by giving up your case.”
“I had never thought of that.”
And Elizabeth, indignant, asked herself by what right they penetrated so impertinently into the sorrows and doubts of her soul. And she let them know it, not without firmness. Mme. de Vimelle took it upon herself to reply:
“Heavens, Madame, a divorce is like a book or a crime—it belongs to the public.”
After the ladies had gone, Elizabeth, who had made enemies of them, compared them to Blanche Vernier who was far from brilliant, and who had not mentioned her equivocal position, but had so spontaneously offered her a sincere, loyal, active friendship. From actual experience, day by day, she saw externalities crumble, and the truth which demands a cruel apprenticeship to be understood, appear.
She expected no one else. She had invited Mme. de Crozet, whose children were friends of Marie Louise and Philippe, but she had expressed her regrets in a short note, which was an evident refusal to have anything to do with a woman who was separated from her husband. That first insult was very painful to her. Did it forbade others?
It was already late when her mother came to see her. She had not consulted her about relinquishing her rights and felt remorseful. It was a very general case in family histories:—the wife, after her marriage, continues to remain under her parents’ direction, and particularly under that of her mother, even when they do not seek to exert that influence. She asks their advice on every occasion. Then, one fine day, she asserts herself, paying no attention to the painful astonishment, which so radical a change cannot fail to provoke. Elizabeth, after her despair at Uriage, took a long time to release herself. Feeling she was not understood, and realizing that she had been ill-advised in the past, she had without consideration taken her freedom. Made self-centered by sorrow, as happens with weak natures, she did not notice the grief of other people. Mme. Molay-Norrois had suffered from her daughter’s reserve, particularly painful to her, but had not been able to do anything but burden her with impolitic advice; so the gulf between them had widened day by day. They exchanged only a few insignificant words like feeble calls which cannot be heard across a ravine.
Elizabeth inquired for her father’s health.
“He is bored in bed,” explained her mother. “He is very impatient. I read to him. He needs so much distraction—he is so unaccustomed to suffering!”
What were they going to say, now that they had touched upon their only common interest? Mme. Molay-Norrois hesitated then, timidly ventured, looking down on the floor to lessen her seeming boldness.
“So you... you are resigned... as well?”
Quite taken aback by this last word which might have been accidental, referring without definite application to similar cases, and merely said to fill in the silence, Elizabeth looked at her mother attentively. At one glance, she noticed on the face, still youthful, patient and smiling, traces of suffering, which she would have been unable to see several months before. She had no doubts—she could have no doubts—as to her discovery.
“Mother,” she sighed affectionately, throwing herself into her arms.
The two women remained for a long time in each other’s embrace. Unhappiness restored their intimacy of former days, when one of them was only a little girl.
Without a word they understood each other. Daughterly modesty prevented Elizabeth, who remembered her bitterness at Uriage, from questioning her mother, and she asked herself how long must she have lived with this terrible secret. What strangers we are to one another! How little we can know of the deepest anguish of beings who are dearest to us, and how difficult it is to see and to understand! To perform a duty is easier than to know it, and no one directs or perfects in himself this delicate and complex art of knowledge. Mme. Molay-Norrois was the first to feel the necessity of an explanation.
“My dear, I am finding you again. I thought I had lost you.” “Oh, Mother!”
“I did not understand why you were estranged from me. But I blamed myself.”
“Blamed yourself?”
“Yes, when you came back to us from Paris... after Albert’s... deception, I did not admit for a moment that your separation was not inevitable. I aroused you against him, instead of calming you. I still retained, at my age, so many illusions about happiness, about life! Now, I have no more, you understand. I had thought so little about those things. Forgive my mistake.”
Elizabeth covered the poor weeping eyes with kisses. In a low voice she asked:
“Is it a long time... since you found out?”
“The last day at Uriage. And you knew then?”
“Yes.”
“You did not tell me—you went away from me.
“Not from you, Mother—from father. How could I have spoken?”
“You are right.”
She hesitated a moment, then wished to defend herself, although she had not been accused.
“It is too late. After thirty-two years of marriage. On account of you and your brothers, for the sake of their careers, my hands are tied. What should I have done? I said nothing. He did not even notice it. He is somewhat selfish. Still I have suffered terribly. My ideals are shattered.”
“Dear Mother, let us say no more. Lean on me. Let me soothe you, as if I were your mother.”
“No. Listen. You must know about it. He is not entirely to blame. When he was in the army and his post was changed, I insisted that he resign. He had nothing to do, and was very attractive. I wanted to live—I did wrong. We are often responsible for the sorrows which crush us.”
“Oh, you did not deserve that grief.”
“Now he is ill and old age is coming on. It is sad to think, but old age and illness are working in my behalf. She comes less willingly. He prefers my care. That is something.”
She tried unsuccessfully to smile. Elizabeth continued to hold her hands, not growing weary in observing on the poor, aging face, traces of distress, which seemed living reproaches to her. In spite of her affection, she had for some months misjudged her mother, who was giving her a lesson in endurance, silence, self-denial and resignation. But she did not wish to be resigned. When asked what she thought of doing, she answered:
“I do not know.”
“You are still his wife. If he came back to you, would you receive him?”
“I do not think so.”
“Well, what are you expecting?”
Elizabeth let her arms fall.
“I am not making any further plans. One day I hope, another, I rebel—or I lose hold of myself. I have not yet chosen my path.”
“Dear little girl, there is only one for us. I see it quite clearly now. And I have turned you away from it.”
“Oh, it’s not you, Mother. But there is another course, that of a new life without any links with the past. I do not wish it. It is of no use to women like us.”
“Well?”
“There must be a third.”
“Which?”
“I am looking for it.”
Elizabeth passed the winter in alternate states of energy and weakness. Her weakness was still the strength of other beings who were dependent upon her. Did she not have to amuse her father, to comfort her mother, to keep in check Marie Louise’s rich and exuberant nature, and to develop that of Philippe, less active? All these cares occupied her, filled her days and prevented her from feeling her loneliness too much, but they did not satisfy, and sometimes crushed her. At night she went to bed in despair, giving herself up to sorrow more completely than ever to love, and on awakening, she again found that despair. A visit to Mme. Derize, who welcomed her affectionately, gave her valuable, practical advice and made her turn to God, restored her patience for a while. The old lady had found a way of speaking to her favorably of Albert: it was of Albert as a child that she told her all sorts of forgotten episodes, so as to give her a memory of him less bitter than that she had. Tormented one afternoon, as she was walking with Marie Louise, who constantly demanded stories, Elizabeth tried to repeat one of those childish tales, and was soon drawn, almost in spite of herself, to speak to the children of their father.
One day, as she was crossing the Place de la Constitution with her little girl, she suggested taking her into the museum:
“What is a museum?”
“You will see pictures which represent figures or landscapes.”
“Oh, yes, let’s go in.”
In the first room, Marie Louise stood right in front of the dazzling portrait of Mlle. de Barral, whom Largillière has depicted laughing, in a magnificent red dress, as conspicuous as a sign post.
“Look at this beautiful lady, Mamma.”
Elizabeth instantly recalled her own remarks to Albert, as he selected for her, in this same museum, the pictures which could mold her taste. She found the old man, by Fragonard, which was to be found beside the Largillière, and studied it attentively. She had no difficulty in interesting herself in this lined face, which sums up the whole life story of a hard-working peasant, a dreamer, and somewhat of a drunkard. How easy to understand these works of art, which one thinks are only admired by a select few! It was only necessary to compare them with reality, to consider them a more exact transposition in a better frame, of the too vast and complicated panorama of life. Albert’s remarks, which she recalled, deepened her vision. She drew Marie Louise towards the old portrait.
“Leave that expressionless face. Look at this one. How much more it tells you! We had a neighbor at St. Martin who was like him. He was found drowned in a stream, one night, but nobody in church sang better than he did. He was not a bad man. He drank too much. He was well punished.”
“Mamma,” said the little girl, “I like it when you tell stories....”
Another time, resuming her piano study, which had been fairly far developed, but in rather a mechanical way, she took up Beethoven’s sonata, so rightly named The Appassionata, and lived it so intensely that she forgot her sorrow, or rather, gave to it its pathetic interpretation. After the allegro, harassed, but lightened by the recurrence of a sadly ardent love motive, and the andante which lifts itself above human storms to perfect serenity, she began the third part, which is interrupted as if by despairing cries, when she heard Marie Louise, whose presence she had forgotten, weeping.
“What is the matter, dearest?”
“I don’t know. Your playing is so sad.”
“I should not have played that for you.”
“Oh, yes; I love it when it is sad.”
She had been able, then, to transmit her feeling, and to cultivate in her daughter that deep sensibility which the child inherited from her father, and which, developed, might become a source of noble joys and dignity to her. Albert, if he met her later, would be obliged to admit that, separated from him, his children had not deteriorated. That would be the revenge of the deserted woman.
In the spring, Elizabeth, who from time to time watched the book-store windows, saw a new book of her husband’s advertised, the third volume of the “History of the Peasant.” It was the first he had published since their separation. She had never desired so passionately to read a book. Fascinated, and yet not daring to buy a copy, she passed again and again. In Grenoble she was too well-known for this purchase not to be noticed and become the talk of the town. What was she to do? Her curiosity was so keen that it left her no peace. She discovered near her home in the Rue de Strasbourg, a little book-shop with a wretched window, where she certainly would not be known. At nightfall she slipped into the shop.
“Will you give me the last volume of the ‘History of the Peasant’ by Albert Derize, if you please?”
“Albert Derize? Don’t know him.”
She, who had said these syllables with an effort, was irritated to hear them despised. She went out without thanking him, and hastened to the principal book-shop of the town on the Place Victor-Hugo, where, without dissembling, she bought the volume she coveted. As she was hurrying along with her treasure, she met Counselor Prémereux, who, always gallant to the ladies, came up to her. After the usual polite platitudes, he pointed to the parcel.
“I wager it is a novel,” he said.
“Yes, it is a novel.”
“But, no, it is not the shape....”
She blushed, and finding no ready lie, changed the conversation. As soon as she could get away, she ran home to hide herself. She had never read anything so eagerly. Disturbed by the children’s questions, she waited for the evening to devote herself entirely to it.
It was, like the previous volumes, a very scholarly book, but so well constructed that it sustained itself, as it were, and rose page by page like a great building; and moreover, it seemed vibrant with light and filled with experience like one of those old stories of the past, which time cannot kill. Elizabeth imagined that the warmth and light, by which Albert’s personality usually manifested itself, were particularly evident in this last volume, and she sought them in her eagerness with a new sensitiveness. She bore a grudge against the despised source of inspiration, and in consequence, her distress was increased. Panting, oppressed, tortured by the reading, and yet unable to put the book down, she reached, in the middle of the night, the last part, which dealt with the customs of the Basque country, and quoted them as examples of the strongest consolidation of a race, through the maintenance of a rural home and the family spirit. The author gave his own observations on the power of inheritance, on the active force of tradition. Following Le Play and Cheysson, he took up the history of the Melouga family, and passing into Spain, he quoted other examples of respect for the land joined with respect for the head of the family. The book finished with a sort of hymn in honor of the race and the soil.
No doubt such a conclusion did not lack irony. By what right was he, who thus exalted the family and the home, and in so solemn, exact and eloquent a style, qualified to speak of them? He showed the importance of unity in the family, of fixed inheritance, indissolubility of marriage; and he himself, voluntarily out of society, had left his wife and children, and visited the Basque countries to gather this sheaf of reflections there, in the company of his mistress. For a reader who knew the circumstances, this must be amusing. So many who lead regular lives, it is true, write anarchistic books, that one must expect by contrast, to receive lessons in conventionality from those who live irregularly, whose weakness in private life touches only the heart or the senses without corrupting the mind. It is so easy, so tempting, so flattering, to convert one’s passions into theories, to transform one’s own misfortunes into public calamities, to generalize one’s mistakes, that it required a clear-sighted point of view to distinguish the lack of solidity in his power of resistance to his own experience, and to understand that this implied a rare force of thought in him.
Elizabeth, when she closed the volume, had not grasped the irony of the contrast. But the realization that Albert had not changed in his social analyses and remained resolutely faithful to his first theories on the subject, which she now remembered having heard him outline, seemed to indicate to her that in place of a lost heart, a mental link still connected him with those whom he had deserted, and that she had not been betrayed as thoroughly as she thought.