IV The Defendant
For several minutes after opening it, Albert Derize’s mother looked at the telegram, which announced the arrival of her son with the evening express. She was surprised and happy. Then her first thought was to go into the kitchen, for she gladly kept all extra work from her servant who was almost as old as she, and having had only the one situation, had served her for forty years.
“Fanchette, we shall not dine until half-past eight.”
She who responded to this very youthful, high-sounding name, turned toward her mistress, a face lined with deep creases and drawn with amazement.
“At half-past eight, Madame!”
In the monotony of life, regulated as in a cloister, a delay like this was an event, almost a scandal; but when she heard that M. Albert was the cause of it, her mouth seemed to spread from ear to ear in a kind of smile, and beneath her two prominent eyebrows her little gray eyes twinkled as if under too bright a light. Although he had grown in every way, M. Albert still belonged to her, because she had held him when he was born. And she even continued to think of him as quite little, to overwhelm him with all kinds of little needless attentions, whenever he came, and to remind him of certain former unpleasant circumstances—such as burning the end of his back when he sat on a foot-warmer. Although she seldom went out of her kitchen, yet she had certainly noticed that Madame had been troubled for some time, and had she not heard from some gossipy neighbors, things which terrified her and pertained to one of those shameless women, at the mere sight of whom one must cross oneself? She thought at once of feeding the prodigal son with meats and pastries, and proposed having all the dishes which, from his earliest days, he had honored with his preference and which she could no more forget than a soldier his victories. This ardor had to be limited to a simple soup, a stew, some asparagus and pancakes with apricot jam.
“We will give him my room,” added Mme. Derize. “I shall bring out the blankets and the sheets.”
“And Madame?”
“I shall take the little room on the south side.”
“The sun shines very brightly in there.”
“Yes, but he will need rest after a day in the train.”
And the two old women, equally devoted, made active preparations for receiving, as well as they could, the one who filled their motherly hearts. But while Fanchette, with her tongue out, was absorbed in watching her stew pan, Mme. Derize, opening her cupboard and rearranging her rooms, was somewhat uneasy. At first she had interpreted Albert’s telegram favorably: this departure from Paris (which, although she had never been there, she feared as a bad town where ideas of truth and error underwent a change),—this return, must be the prelude to a reconciliation: everything contributed to her confusion. The thought of having her son to herself, all to herself, also helped to make her happy. He generally stopped with his wife and children at the Molay-Norrois apartment, which was more comfortable and roomy. This exception to an established rule, to which she submitted without any recriminations, was like a slight return for her self-sacrifice. How she would caress and pet him! Not too much, however: one must not make men effeminate; and, besides, he deserved to be scolded. For the first time since he was a child, he had caused her a real heartache. She did not recognize, did not understand his conduct. Marriage, in her eyes, was an indissoluble, sacred union, which only death could break asunder, which even death itself had not broken for her, although it had pitilessly shattered a happiness of too short duration. What would become of children if each of the parents had the right to begin life anew? They had not asked to be born, and was it not necessary, after bringing them to light, to transmit to them that other light which is the tradition of the family? Has anyone ever realized anything without a purposeful aim and a definite acceptance? She had written all that when she heard of Elizabeth’s departure and the infidelity which was the cause of it. She had even wanted to go away, but Albert told her of his proposed departure for Paris. Five times, with her slow, yet still firm step, very much to her credit, braving the recriminations and the cool welcome of the Molay-Norrois, she had gone to her daughter-in-law to induce her to be patient and to forgive, trying especially to win the interest of the innocent little victims, Marie Louise and Philippe. But she had succeeded neither in moving nor convincing Elizabeth, and had met with a formal, obstinate decision. On the other hand, she knew the character of her son Albert, imperious, even proud, as is frequently the case with superior natures. She too, sanguine in her affection, her nobility of soul and her straightforwardness, had often suffered from it. The forbearance of a mother is not to be expected from others! Elizabeth, in going away after his breach of faith, had only acted within her rights. It remained with him to give up his passion, to link the broken ties. But she knew that he would not yield readily. And upon further reflection, the feeble hope which the telegram had raised, flew away as do birds which by chance have flown into a room and are eager to find their way into the open.
A little breeze was coming in through the open windows, after the day’s intense heat. In the month of June, the light lingers late, and it was not yet evening, only that intermediate hour of twilight when the weary sun is slowly preparing to sink below the horizon. Madame Derize noticed a little regretfully this menace of a finality which was not immediate, but quite in keeping with her meditations. It was the hour she chose to visit the neighboring cemetery of Saint Roch. The dead can always wait. She contented herself with putting a little water in a vase on the bureau in his room, before a photograph, which, with time, had faded and could never have been very clear. And she even spread the flowers so that the picture was in evidence.
“There,” she thought, “his father will speak to him. Ah, if only he might have brought him up.”
She lived in the eastern section of the town which is almost part of the country. Parallel with the old ramparts runs the Boulevard des Adieux, with its tall trees and its little hills covered with grass. The gate which crosses it is called by the same melancholy name, and leads to the beautiful “L’Ile Verte” that must be traversed in order to reach the cemetery. All the funeral processions pass this way. The consciousness of death is ever present. For this reason, it is a section not very attractive to prospective tenants, despite the view of the foliage, the green slopes on the left between the branches of birches and lime trees, Mont-Rachais and Saint-Eynard, whose cliffs take on, under the setting sun, a brilliant color, alternately pink and violet.
This little flat of six rooms on the second floor at the corner of the Boulevard and the Rue Lesdiguières, had been occupied by Mme. Derize only since her son’s marriage. She had then believed that her task was finished, and so retreated to the neighborhood of the tombs. Until then, on Albert’s account, she had lived in the newer neighborhood near Saint-André Square: young men need scenes of activity and movement, and not quiet streets and reminders of death. When she saw him in a new home and realized that he was attracted to and even taken possession of by the Molay-Norrois set, who were proud of his growing fame, she returned quite naturally to the cemetery which contained her happiness and her youth. There rested her parents, to whom she owed this strength of resistance which results from a happy childhood, her husband whom she had lost after only four years of married life and whose memory still persisted after thirty-six years. It seemed to her as if she had not formerly had time to mourn him sufficiently, and that she was now paying a debt; as old age comes on, we have need of warmth and sunshine, and we recall both from the best days we have spent. He had been cut off at the height of his power by a crushing accidental illness, just as he was completing the building of one of those factories operated by the “white coal” which is making the fortune of Dauphiné to-day. Without a diploma he proved himself to be a pioneer. Albert’s was the third attempt at prominence in the Derize family: the grandfather had already been stricken down before he found success. Thus families often present incomplete sketches of the descendant who will do them honor, or are impeded in their normal development by adverse fate, and do not succeed in flowering.
One knows what a critical period a new industry always goes through, when it is first exploited. If the leader fails, it is soon discredited. Rather than run a dangerous risk, Albert’s mother, deprived of her entire fortune, had preferred to liquidate. This liquidation left to her child only an estate situated at Saint Martin d’Uriage, almost in the mountains, consisting of a house, farm, woods and meadows, which was not entirely unencumbered and the income of which was only a little more than two thousand francs. Alone, she would have gone there: the nearness of the church and the peace of the country were calling her. Albert was only three years old. From that time he was her aim in life. She hoped that he would realize the success lost by his father and his grandfather. To make some money and to give him a better education, she opened a kindergarten, and when he was older, asked for and obtained a modest situation in the post office at Grenoble, much better suited to her capacity for order, intelligence and good organization. In allowing him to find himself, to realize himself by first divining his worth, she gave him life a second time. He rewarded her by quick progress in his career, by his talent and later by his affection, a rather sheltering affection, somewhat changeable and very reserved in difficult periods, but which could be at times so confiding, so delicate, so deep, that the old woman, as she thought of it, felt her eyes fill with tears and her heart grow heavy. As soon as he began to earn money, he made her give up all work: Must he not be allowed to repay her? When he married, although their property of Saint-Martin, inherited from his father, and, besides, entirely freed by himself of all debt, was inscribed in his marriage-contract and even enabled him to treat on even terms with the Molay-Norrois, yet he still continued to pay her the income, to which he added a moderate allowance, for he did not intend that anyone, not even his wife, should realize that keen struggle with poverty which he and his mother had known, in order that no such imputation should be associated with the memory of his dead father.
Nothing binds strong natures like trials borne in common. Even the sharing of physical fatigue creates a feeling of comradeship and a community of interest. During these years of struggle, an exceptional intimacy had united Mme. Derize and her son. She had gone on with her studies in order to keep abreast with him. With what understanding and respect he had helped her when seeking her advice! And how she quieted his ambitious desires, taught him this virtue so difficult to acquire, especially by strong natures, and yet so indispensable, that no ardor, no rapidity of work can make supply: patience! As if she thought him her superior, she tried to turn him from scattering his forces, from splitting up his energies, from destroying himself by newspaper work, lecturing, and all those small accomplishments which a first success seems to require, and the habitual acceptance of which becomes the more dangerous because it satisfies a need for activity while permitting pleasant limitations. Instinctively and without knowing how to explain it—did she not smile in telling him what a superstitious respect she had for big books—she understood that concentration on a single object, strengthened by the habit of continuity, is the only way to give expression to lasting work. Thus she encouraged him to great efforts, and was doubtless of assistance in the planning of his “History of the Workman in Modern Society,” so useful to-day, and of that “History of the Peasant in the Nineteenth Century,” which was to be a résumé of rustic life, and to show its everlasting nobility.
However, she could never be induced to follow him to Paris, either because she feared to find herself out of her element, far from her accustomed sphere, or that, and rightly so, she did not wish to take a place which would soon be filled by another woman. From afar, she kept in touch with him by a regular correspondence, and the holidays found them together in their country house at Saint-Martin. Albert’s marriage brought about great changes in these lives, with so much in common. She expected it, but she suffered as a result of it: nobody had her confidence. She was even spared the trouble of withholding her influence, as she had for a long time promised herself to do. Very much in love with the hesitating Elizabeth, whose parents kept him waiting for their consent, as if they wished thereby to accentuate the value of their favor, Albert, with the impetuosity and forgetfulness of youth, turned entirely to his love. She thought she had lost him forever. The new family of which he became a member, more brilliant, more desirable than his own, set in a more striking frame, flattered him and turned his head. He was not born satiated like those blasé young men, who cannot be diverted or amused; he keenly appreciated the pleasures of luxury and society. It is often true of authors and artists whose talent demands observation and contact with life, that they are attracted by worldly things. The Molay-Norrois had a very large circle and entertained extensively. As Albert observed his young wife, he saw an unknown light shed upon his own life. It was during that time that his mother moved to the Boulevard des Adieux, and as a traveler who descends in the evening from the still lighted mountain to the plain, so she began to come again into close touch with the past, which had been concealed by the shadow of death. Later on she noticed regretfully, sadly, that her daughter-in-law had not replaced her in the effective rôle of adviser, which requires attention and daily effort. She feared that as a result of Elizabeth’s one-sided character, Albert would be ruined by the failure which she believed she had detected. But the situation adjusted itself and grew peaceful, as do those lakes, threatened by a storm and then spared. He added to his lesser writings, doubled his income, readily assumed new financial obligations and sought solitude, only to write his great work, which advanced, but with less rapidity, acuteness, enthusiasm and intellectual force. Elizabeth took charge of the health of her two children, paid visits, dressed well, retained her beautiful, placid face. And beneath this show of happiness was hidden an intimate drama, which had suddenly revealed itself, and his mother reproached herself for being unable to foresee it, when it would have been possible to avert the danger....
So Mme. Derize awaited and feared the arrival of her son. She would certainly greet him affectionately,—in her loneliness was this not a great occasion?—but she would not hide from him her disapproval. Moreover, the remembrance of her grandchildren made her determined to speak her mind. With the aid of all her motherly authority and even with all her former sacrifices, to which, as a rule, she seldom gave thought, she would protest against this separation, which could not be final. As she was working herself up to her duty, the poor woman saw the day fade and the shadows rise, felt herself to be more and more possessed by sorrow and fear, and found herself aging as the hour of his return drew near.
The room was ready, the dinner done to a turn, Fanchette was even beginning to grumble about the delay of the train, when someone knocked at the door.
“It is he,” said the servant, hobbling to the entrance.
At the end of the corridor, her black dress scarcely distinguishable in the growing darkness, the mother was holding her breath, more affected than if she were seeing her child recover from a serious illness. All at once a “Good day, Fanchette,” sincere and clear as usual, reassured her. The dear boy could not have changed very much.
“Albert, it is you?”
“Mamma.”
He called her “Mamma,” instead of “Mother” when he was particularly anxious to give expression to his affection, to return to her a power of protection, as though he were still a little boy. With the first word he warmed her heart. After coming up the lighted staircase, he could not see well in the darkness. She came toward him and he embraced her. Then he led her into the little drawing-room where there was a light, and he even removed the lamp-shade to see her more clearly. At each visit, he eagerly made this inspection, and with his penetrating glance which dwelt upon objects, he could judge whether health and age had dealt kindly with her, so far away from him. She took advantage of this to study his expression.
Physically they bore little resemblance to each other: he tall and well-built, with fine features, somewhat pronounced, a broad forehead, heightened by growing baldness, brown eyes, little and sunken, in which inspiration was concentrated, and that ease of movement which contributes so much supple attraction to a man still young; she thin, pale, washed out, faded, also having tremendous personality in her eyes—eyes of light blue, whose deep expression was both clear and candid, as the indication of a forceful spontaneous nobility of soul, with a calm, sure judgment.
As they were trying to get in touch with each other by means of a few insignificant words, Fanchette appeared with a beseeching, tragic face, which they could not fail to understand: they had to go into the dining-room without further delay. That might have helped toward better understanding and agreement, and yet after a few sentences, they became silent, and felt very far apart. They were both thinking of that which they did not say. After the soup, as the old servant went out to bring on the next course, Mme. Derize, astonished at the tranquillity which replaced her agitation, came at once to the issue:
“You are about to be reconciled to your wife?”
He raised his head which he had bent over the tablecloth, and in his most authoritative and cutting manner, answered:
“No.”
She was always uneasy before undertaking a step, but once undertaken, all her fear vanished. The brutal refusal of her son did not stop her.
“Listen, Albert,” she went on, “a man may become a victim of temptation, he may make mistakes. I know that. Without God’s help we are all weak, and you have quite forgotten that. But when one has a home, children, one belongs to them. Nothing in the world has the power to free you.”
She was instantly able to read on the hardened features of her son the effect of her exhortation. He wore his most distant and forbidding expression, as though high walls were surrounding him. Protected and powerful he explained with perfect freedom of mind:
“I did not wish to discuss this subject with you, Mother. What is the good? But you are wrong to condemn me. A hearth, the name explains itself—it lives, it revives, it illumines. At mine, I breathed a poison which little by little enervated me. I gave Elizabeth the life which suited her. She lacked nothing. And I, I was choked. I did not want our separation. It is she who unjustly desired it. In reality, we had been separated for years and through her own fault.”
“Have you not been impatient with her? And if she had some slight faults, how can you compare them to your wrong-doing?”
“I recognize no wrong-doing.”
“Ah!”
“You, you have been happy.”
She answered sweetly:
“I have outlived my happiness by thirty-six years.”
“That is true, but death strikes only one blow. It may leave a strengthening memory. It is less depressing than that slow, continued descent to mediocrity, to miserable monotony. There were, as it were, water-tight compartments between us.”
“No, a man of your type is always somewhat alone. What are these differences of feeling compared to real sorrows: illness, poverty, so many actual griefs which are allotted by destiny. One must know how to accept one’s life.”
“I am not one of the resigned,” said he.
“To accept does not mean to be resigned.”
He made a slow movement as if to cut the conversation short:
“Do not let us discuss it any further—you cannot understand me.”
“It is you who will understand, but too late.”
During this discussion Fanchette, who had been coming and going, was constantly on the verge of spilling the food or breaking a plate, for she was so fearful that her master and mistress were not in accord. Nobody paid any attention to her cooking. It was not to be wondered at in Madame; one could give her boiled beef and potatoes every day and she would never notice it, but Monsieur, who, as a little boy, was so fond of his food and had such a good appetite, Monsieur who was able to appreciate a stew! It was true then that over there in Paris they had turned his head and exhausted his brain.
At dessert, Albert was the first to break the long silence which had succeeded his mother’s last words, by inquiring:
“Has Elizabeth come to see you?”
“Only once.”
“And you?”
“I went there five times.”
As if to excuse herself for not having more frequently renewed her attempts at reconciliation, she added:
“I feel so uncomfortable in their house.”
He could have embraced her for this word which had come so spontaneously from the poor woman’s lips:
“So do I, Mother.... I have always felt uncomfortable... in my own house.”
She regretted her remark and again they were silent under the indignant gaze of Fanchette, who went back to the pantry, raising her only available arm: he had swallowed his pancakes as if they were medicine, without showing the slightest pleasure!
As they were drinking their coffee, the last hope of the unhappy cook who served it boiling, as he liked it, Albert finally decided to say what his mother had been hoping to hear since his arrival, and the delay of which had wounded her to the heart:
“And the children?”
“They are well,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.
“Do you see them?”
“Seldom. Sometimes I go to the park to meet them, but they are not always there.”
“You, you may see them?”
This was said with a deep melancholy, but as the declaration of an inevitable fact. She rose from her chair, came over to him and placed her two hands on his shoulders.
“Albert, my Albert, you are not going to desert them?”
“We cannot push them from us,” he murmured in a low voice, growing tense. “That would be worse.”
But he added in spite of himself:
“Do you think that it is not painful for me?”
She knew his grief and bent farther toward him. Then he took her in his arms.
“Mother... one may make mistakes in love, may love many times, but one has only one mother. I dare not take theirs from them.”
“Marie Louise, Philippe...” said Mme. Derize simply, relying on the power of those two names.
In his turn, he got up to free himself from the motherly embrace.
“Ah, do not take away my strength. I need it, I assure you.”
“You would need less to come back to us.”
She insisted, she put so much warmth into her voice, she held out her arms, as if to grasp hold of the victory. Fanchette who had come to take away her tray, stood at the threshold, not knowing whether to enter the room or to go back, and she waited in suspense at these effusions. He knew very well that any argument was quite useless, and he had but timidly to express one short sentence, in order to indicate his mother’s failure:
“You do not know her. I love her.”
Her name had not yet been mentioned. No doubt she would never be discussed, for the mere reminder of her existence separated them. Mme. Derize said no more: what could she answer? In naming the children she had hoped to overcome every obstacle, and the unknown obstacle persisted with all its force.
“Your luggage?” she asked a little later, to break the awkward silence which was oppressing them.
Material details often serve to adjust a situation. She explained:
“Your room is there. You are to have mine.”
“I am leaving immediately.”
“So soon?”
But this protest did not express the joy she had felt in the mere prospect of keeping him, in little by little finding him changed. It was an unselfish complaint, which was based on concern for him:
“You will tire yourself.”
Fanchette, who had finished clearing away the table and brushing off the crumbs, seconded this reflection like a distressing echo. Albert did not stir. He discontentedly withdrew into himself.
“When will you come back?” continued his mother, ready to content herself with the shortest space of time. “This summer?”
“It will be impossible.”
Was he then planning to leave everyone, his wife, his children, his mother, his country? She was tempted to murmur, “Why did you come at all?” His visit became more menacing than his absence. At that moment someone rang the door bell. It was unusual, at that hour.
“Shall I open the door?” asked the old servant.
“It is Philippe Lagier,” said Albert. “I asked him to come here this evening. I am leaving on the ten-forty express.”
Mme. Derize preceded her son into her drawing-room, to receive the lawyer. Philippe, who had the greatest respect for her, bowed and kissed her hand, which always surprised the poor woman. She understood that Albert had made the journey to Grenoble for this interview and that he would go away without seeing his children. The game was certainly lost, and since her presence was futile, she left the two men alone. The lawyer was sorry for her and retained her for a second with these words of regret:
“I tried to reconcile them, Madame. I assure you.”
The despair which he understood, and the confidence of his friend dispelled the unhappiness, which old memories and Elizabeth’s beauty had recalled to his mind.
“Well?” asked Albert impatiently, as soon as they were alone.
“Well, she refuses.”
He briefly summed up his day, repeating almost verbatim the words of the petition to the President of the Court, and when he came to the account of his visit to the Molay-Norrois, he tried to explain the motive which was actuating Elizabeth, who was suffering from the injustice of fate, and intended to base her case on the truth.
Albert, who until then, had listened in silence, jumped up at these last words:
“The truth? Does she want the truth? Very well, I will tell it too. We shall bring to light our home life.”
Philippe was amazed at this sudden anger:
“With what have you to reproach her?”
“I? Nothing and everything. Does one encounter in life only serious events, capable of exact limitation and definition? The greatest misfortunes are not the hardest to bear. Listen, in my loneliness—I am speaking of my home,—I have noted down from day to day my impressions of those last years. It happens that I have brought those books with me. Here they are; I shall leave them with you. You will find some causes there. I shall complete them. You will tell everything to the Court, since she wishes the truth. And I am going to contend for our children.”
“I have just seen them,” said the lawyer, as he took the books. “They are quite well.”
With a decided movement, Albert stopped his friend as if to tell him that this subject belonged only to him:
“I know.”
Philippe Lagier, who was going to plead their cause, realized the inefficacy of any interference. The restless forehead, the hard look in the eyes, the distressed and absorbed expression of the face, showed traces of that passion about which Albert was silent. And this refusal to speak of it implied a rare force of concentration on the same object. Every confidence is a diminution: it abstracts a spark of that divine fire with which the soul wishes to be filled. Anne de Sézery invisible, was there, in that room, present and dominant.
“It is definite? You will not be reconciled with Elizabeth?”
“Never!”
Elizabeth had given expression to the same final decree. There was nothing further to be done but to let the law take its course.
“And I am going to ask for a divorce,” said Albert. “And since they wish to compromise her, I shall marry her.”
He stopped short without mentioning her name. In his books he had often called attention to the importance of family ties, and, like his master Auguste Comte, to the value of indissoluble marriage: what authority would he have henceforth to defend such historical conclusions? He continued:
“There remains the question of financial arrangements. My wife will naturally undertake the administration of her own fortune. I have already asked our lawyer to make it over to her, and I shall give my children one thousand francs a month until the courts restore them to me—for at least a part of each year.”
“If you remarry, the courts will not give them back to you.”
Without answering, Albert went to call his mother, who was seated in the adjoining room, quite motionless and discouraged, looking at all the useless preparations of welcome: the only pair of fine sheets, carefully kept since the days of prosperity, the flowers in the vase and the photograph. She rose and followed him obediently like a woman condemned.
“It is time,” he said. “Philippe is going to the station with me.”
“Very well.”
At the moment of leave-taking, struck by her seeming unconsciousness, he whispered to her as he pressed her to his heart:
“I have given you much sorrow, Mother.”
“Yes, a great deal.”
“You must not desert me.”
“Oh, I...”
“I am going to confide Marie-Louise and Philippe to you. You will watch over them, from afar, you will see them sometimes. If you have any worries to bear on their account, you will bear them for me.”
“You know that quite well.”
“Au revoir, Mother, I shall come back.”
“May God watch over you!”
The door closed. He had forgotten Fanchette who was awaiting her turn, wiping her eyes on her apron. Mme. Derize came back, with a slower step, into the deserted little drawing-room. She reached the window, to see her son once more, as he was leaving the house. She was thinking:
“He did not come for me, nor for Elizabeth, nor for the children. Some day, however, I feel it, I am sure, he will come back to them, to us. Perhaps it will not be for a very long time. Let us hope that the evil he will have done will not be irretrievable.”
Albert, looking up, saw a light in the window which framed a black figure. But he did not hear his mother, who, bending down, was calling to him in a beseeching voice.
And on his way to the station, in the carriage with his friend, he did not say a word.