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By Joseph Conrad
We were driving along the road from
Treguier to Kervanda. We passed at a smart trot between the hedges topping an
earth wall on each side of
the road;
then at the foot of the steep ascent before Ploumar the horse
dropped into
a walk, and the driver jumped down heavily from the box.
He flicked
his whip and climbed the incline, stepping clumsily uphill
by the side
of the carriage, one hand on the footboard, his eyes on the
ground.
After a while he lifted his head, pointed up the road with the
end of the
whip, and said–
“The idiot!”
The sun was
shining violently upon the undulating surface of the land.
The rises
were topped by clumps of meager trees, with their branches
showing high
on the sky as if they had been perched upon stilts. The
small
fields, cut up by hedges and stone walls that zigzagged over
the slopes,
lay in rectangular patches of vivid greens and yellows,
resembling
the unskillful daubs of a naive picture. And the landscape was
divided in
two by the white streak of a road stretching in long loops
far away,
like a river of dust crawling out of the hills on its way to
the sea.
“Here he
is,” said the driver, again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Joseph Conrad
(1857-1924) Born a Ukrainian, Joseph Conrad is regarded as one of the greatest
novelists in the English language. He was granted British nationality in 1886
but always considered himself first and foremost an Eastern European.
In the long grass bordering the road a face glided past the carriage
at the level
of the wheels as we drove slowly by. The imbecile face was
red, and the
bullet head with close-cropped hair seemed to lie alone,
its chin in
the dust. The body was lost in the bushes growing thick
along the
bottom of the deep ditch.
It was a
boy’s face. He might have been sixteen, judging from the
size–perhaps
less, perhaps more. Such creatures are forgotten by
time, and
live untouched by years till death gathers them up into its
compassionate
bosom; the faithful death that never forgets in the press
of work the
most insignificant of its children.
“Ah! there’s
another,” said the man, with a certain satisfaction in his
tone, as if
he had caught sight of something expected.
There was
another. That one stood nearly in the middle of the road in
the blaze of
sunshine at the end of his own short shadow. And he stood
with hands
pushed into the opposite sleeves of his long coat, his head
sunk between
the shoulders, all hunched up in the flood of heat. From a
distance he
had the aspect of one suffering from intense cold.
“Those are
twins,” explained the driver.
The idiot
shuffled two paces out of the way and looked at us over his
shoulder
when we brushed past him. The glance was unseeing and staring,
a fascinated
glance; but he did not turn to look after us. Probably the
image passed
before the eyes without leaving any trace on the misshapen
brain of the
creature. When we had topped the ascent I looked over the
hood. He
stood in the road just where we had left him.
The driver
clambered into his seat, clicked his tongue, and we went
downhill.
The brake squeaked horribly from time to time. At the foot he
eased off
the noisy mechanism and said, turning half round on his box–
“We shall
see some more of them by-and-by.”
“More
idiots? How many of them are there, then?” I asked.
“There’s
four of them–children of a farmer near Ploumar here. . . . The
parents are
dead now,” he added, after a while. “The grandmother lives
on the farm.
In the daytime they knock about on this road, and they come
home at dusk
along with the cattle. . . . It’s a good farm.”
We saw the
other two: a boy and a girl, as the driver said. They were
dressed
exactly alike, in shapeless garments with petticoat-like skirts.
The
imperfect thing that lived within them moved those beings to howl
at us from
the top of the bank, where they sprawled amongst the tough
stalks of
furze. Their cropped black heads stuck out from the bright
yellow wall
of countless small blossoms. The faces were purple with
the strain
of yelling; the voices sounded blank and cracked like a
mechanical
imitation of old people’s voices; and suddenly ceased when we
turned into
a lane.
I saw them
many times in my wandering about the country. They lived on
that road,
drifting along its length here and there, according to the
inexplicable
impulses of their monstrous darkness. They were an
offence to
the sunshine, a reproach to empty heaven, a blight on the
concentrated
and purposeful vigour of the wild landscape. In time the
story of
their parents shaped itself before me out of the listless
answers to
my questions, out of the indifferent words heard in wayside
inns or on
the very road those idiots haunted. Some of it was told by
an emaciated
and sceptical old fellow with a tremendous whip, while we
trudged
together over the sands by the side of a two-wheeled cart loaded
with
dripping seaweed.
Then at
other times other people confirmed and
completed
the story: till it stood at last before me, a tale formidable
and simple,
as they always are, those disclosures of obscure trials
endured by
ignorant hearts.
When he
returned from his military service Jean-Pierre Bacadou found the
old people
very much aged. He remarked with pain that the work of the
farm was not
satisfactorily done. The father had not the energy of
old days.
The hands did not feel over them the eye of the master.
Jean-Pierre
noted with sorrow that the heap of manure in the courtyard
before the
only entrance to the house was not so large as it should
have been.
The fences
were out of repair, and the cattle suffered from
neglect. At
home the mother was practically bedridden, and the girls
chattered
loudly in the big kitchen, unrebuked, from morning to night.
He said to
himself: “We must change all this.” He talked the matter over
with his
father one evening when the rays of the setting sun entering
the yard
between the outhouses ruled the heavy shadows with luminous
streaks.
Over the
manure heap floated a mist, opal-tinted and odorous,
and the
marauding hens would stop in their scratching to examine with
a sudden
glance of their round eye the two men, both lean and tall,
talking in
hoarse tones. The old man, all twisted with rheumatism and
bowed with
years of work, the younger bony and straight, spoke without
gestures in
the indifferent manner of peasants, grave and slow.
But before
the sun had set the father had submitted to the sensible
arguments of
the son.
“It is not
for me that I am speaking,” insisted
Jean-Pierre.
“It is for the land. It’s a pity to see it badly used. I am
not
impatient for myself.”
The old
fellow nodded over his stick. “I dare say; I dare say,” he muttered. “You may
be right. Do what you like. It’s the mother that will be pleased.”
The mother
was pleased with her daughter-in-law. Jean-Pierre brought
the
two-wheeled spring-cart with a rush into the yard. The gray horse
galloped
clumsily, and the bride and bridegroom, sitting side by side,
were jerked
backwards and forwards by the up and down motion of the
shafts, in a
manner regular and brusque.
On the road
the distanced wedding guests straggled in pairs and groups. The men advanced
with heavy steps, swinging their idle arms. They were clad in town clothes; jackets
cut with clumsy smartness, hard black hats, immense boots, polished highly.
Their women all in simple black, with white caps and shawls of faded tints
folded triangularly on the back, strolled lightly by their side. In front the
violin sang a strident tune, and the biniou snored and hummed, while the player
capered solemnly, lifting high his heavy clogs.
The somber
procession drifted in and out of the narrow
lanes,
through sunshine and through shade, between fields and hedgerows,
scaring the
little birds that darted away in troops right and left. In
the yard of
Bacadou’s farm the dark ribbon wound itself up into a mass
of men and
women pushing at the door with cries and greetings. The
wedding
dinner was remembered for months. It was a splendid feast in the
orchard.
Farmers of considerable means and excellent repute were to be
found
sleeping in ditches, all along the road to Treguier, even as late
as the
afternoon of the next day.
All the
countryside participated in the happiness of Jean-Pierre. He remained sober,
and, together with his quiet wife, kept out of the way, letting father and
mother reap their due of honor and thanks. But the next day he took hold
strongly, and the old folks felt a shadow–precursor of the grave–fall upon them
finally. The world is to the young.
When the
twins were born there was plenty of room in the house, for the
mother of
Jean-Pierre had gone away to dwell under a heavy stone in the
cemetery of
Ploumar. On that day, for the first time since his son’s
marriage,
the elder Bacadou, neglected by the cackling lot of strange
women who
thronged the kitchen, left in the morning his seat under the
mantel of
the fireplace, and went into the empty cow-house, shaking his
white locks
dismally.
Grandsons
were all very well, but he wanted his soup at midday. When shown the babies, he
stared at them with a fixed gaze, and muttered something like: “It’s too much.”
Whether he meant too
much
happiness, or simply commented upon the number of his descendants, it is
impossible to say. He looked offended–as far as his old wooden face could
express anything; and for days afterwards could be seen, almost any time of the
day, sitting at the gate, with his nose over his
knees, a
pipe between his gums, and gathered up into a kind of raging
concentrated
sulkiness. Once he spoke to his son, alluding to the
newcomers
with a groan: “They will quarrel over the land.” “Don’t bother
about that,
father,” answered Jean-Pierre, stolidly, and passed, bent
double,
towing a recalcitrant cow over his shoulder.
He was
happy, and so was Susan, his wife. It was not an ethereal joy
welcoming
new souls to struggle, perchance to victory. In fourteen years
both boys
would be a help; and, later on, Jean-Pierre pictured two big
sons
striding over the land from patch to patch, wringing tribute from
the earth
beloved and fruitful.
Susan was
happy too, for she did not want to be spoken of as the unfortunate woman, and
now she had children no one could call her that. Both herself and her husband
had seen something of the larger world–he during the time of his service; while
she had spent a year or so in Paris with a Breton family; but had been too
home-sick to remain longer away from the hilly and green country, set in a
barren circle of rocks and sands, where she had been born.
She thought
that one of the boys ought perhaps to be a priest, but said
nothing to
her husband, who was a republican, and hated the “crows,”
as he called
the ministers of religion. The christening was a splendid
affair. All
the commune came to it, for the Bacadous were rich
and
influential, and, now and then, did not mind the expense. The
grandfather
had a new coat.
Some months
afterwards, one evening when the kitchen had been swept,
and the door
locked, Jean-Pierre, looking at the cot, asked his wife:
“What’s the
matter with those children?” And, as if these words, spoken
calmly, had
been the portent of misfortune, she answered with a loud
wail that
must have been heard across the yard in the pig-sty; for
the pigs
(the Bacadous had the finest pigs in the country) stirred and
grunted
complainingly in the night.
The husband
went on grinding his bread and butter slowly, gazing at the wall, the
soup-plate smoking under his chin. He had returned late from the market, where
he had overheard (not for the first time) whispers behind his back. He revolved
the words in his mind as he drove back.
“Simple!
Both of them. . . .Never any use! . . . Well! May be, may be. One must see.
Would ask his wife.” This was her answer.
He felt like
a blow on his chest, but said only: “Go, draw me some cider. I am thirsty!”
She went out
moaning, an empty jug in her hand. Then he arose, took up
the light,
and moved slowly towards the cradle. They slept. He looked at
them
sideways, finished his mouthful there, went back heavily, and sat
down before
his plate. When his wife returned he never looked up,
but
swallowed a couple of spoonfuls noisily, and remarked, in a dull
manner–
“When they
sleep they are like other people’s children.”
She sat down
suddenly on a stool near by, and shook with a silent
tempest of
sobs, unable to speak. He finished his meal, and remained
idly thrown
back in his chair, his eyes lost amongst the black rafters
of the
ceiling. Before him the tallow candle flared red and straight,
sending up a
slender thread of smoke. The light lay on the rough,
sunburnt
skin of his throat; the sunk cheeks were like patches of
darkness,
and his aspect was mournfully stolid, as if he had ruminated
with
difficulty endless ideas. Then he said, deliberately–
“We must see
. . . consult people. Don’t cry. . . . They won’t all be
like that .
. . surely! We must sleep now.”
After the
third child, also a boy, was born, Jean-Pierre went about his
work with
tense hopefulness. His lips seemed more narrow, more tightly
compressed
than before; as if for fear of letting the earth he tilled
hear the
voice of hope that murmured within his breast. He watched the
child,
stepping up to the cot with a heavy clang of sabots on the stone
floor, and
glanced in, along his shoulder, with that indifference which
is like a
deformity of peasant humanity.
Like the
earth they master and serve, those men, slow of eye and speech, do not show the
inner fire; so that, at last, it becomes a question with them as with the
earth, what there is in the core: heat, violence, a force mysterious and terrible–or
nothing but a clod, a mass fertile and inert, cold and unfeeling, ready to bear
a crop of plants that sustain life or give
death.
The
mother watched with other eyes; listened with otherwise expectant
ears. Under
the high hanging shelves supporting great sides of bacon
overhead,
her body was busy by the great fireplace, attentive to the pot
swinging on
iron gallows, scrubbing the long table where the field hands
would sit
down directly to their evening meal. Her mind remained by the
cradle,
night and day on the watch, to hope and suffer.
That child,
like the other two, never smiled, never stretched its hands to her, never spoke;
never had a glance of recognition for her in its big black eyes, which could
only stare fixedly at any glitter, but failed hopelessly to
follow the
brilliance of a sun-ray slipping slowly along the floor.
When the men
were at work she spent long days between her three idiot
children and
the childish grandfather, who sat grim, angular, and
immovable,
with his feet near the warm ashes of the fire. The feeble
old fellow
seemed to suspect that there was something wrong with his
grandsons.
Only once, moved either by affection or by the sense of
proprieties,
he attempted to nurse the youngest.
He took the
boy up from the floor, clicked his tongue at him, and essayed a shaky gallop of
his bony knees. Then he looked closely with his misty eyes at the child’s face
and deposited him down gently on the floor again. And he sat, his lean shanks
crossed, nodding at the steam escaping from the cooking-pot with a gaze senile
and worried.
Then mute
affliction dwelt in Bacadou’s farmhouse, sharing the breath
and the
bread of its inhabitants; and the priest of the Ploumar parish
had great
cause for congratulation. He called upon the rich landowner,
the Marquis
de Chavanes, on purpose to deliver himself with joyful
unction of
solemn platitudes about the inscrutable ways of Providence.
In the vast
dimness of the curtained drawing-room, the little man,
resembling a
black bolster, leaned towards a couch, his hat on
his knees,
and gesticulated with a fat hand at the elongated,
gracefully-flowing
lines of the clear Parisian toilette from which the
half-amused,
half-bored marquise listened with gracious languor. He was
exulting and
humble, proud and awed. The impossible had come to pass.
Jean-Pierre
Bacadou, the enraged republican farmer, had been to mass
last
Sunday–had proposed to entertain the visiting priests at the next
festival of
Ploumar! It was a triumph for the Church and for the good
cause.
“I thought I
would come at once to tell Monsieur le Marquis. I
know how
anxious he is for the welfare of our country,” declared the
priest,
wiping his face. He was asked to stay to dinner.
The Chavanes
returning that evening, after seeing their guest to the
main gate of
the park, discussed the matter while they strolled in
the
moonlight, trailing their long shadows up the straight avenue of
chestnuts.
The marquise, a royalist of course, had been mayor of the
commune
which includes Ploumar, the scattered hamlets of the coast, and
the stony
islands that fringe the yellow flatness of the sands. He had
felt his
position insecure, for there was a strong republican element in
that part of
the country; but now the conversion of Jean-Pierre made
him safe. He
was very pleased.
“You have no
idea how influential those people are,” he explained to his wife. “Now, I am
sure, the next communal election will go all right. I shall be re-elected.”
“Your ambition
is perfectly insatiable, Charles,” exclaimed the marquise,
gaily.
“But, ma
chere amie,” argued the husband, seriously, “it’s most
important
that the right man should be mayor this year, because of the
elections to
the Chamber. If you think it amuses me . . .”
Jean-Pierre
had surrendered to his wife’s mother. Madame Levaille was
a woman of
business, known and respected within a radius of at least
15 miles.
Thick-set and stout, she was seen about the country, on
foot or in
an acquaintance’s cart, perpetually moving, in spite of her
fifty-eight
years, in steady pursuit of business. She had houses in all
the hamlets,
she worked quarries of granite, she freighted coasters
with
stone–even traded with the Channel Islands.
She was
broad-cheeked, wide-eyed, persuasive in speech: carrying her point with the
placid and invincible obstinacy of an old woman who knows her own mind. She
very seldom slept for two nights together in the same house; and the wayside inns
were the best places to inquire in as to her whereabouts.
She had either
passed, or was expected to pass there at six; or somebody, coming in, had seen
her in the morning, or expected to meet her that evening.
After the
inns that command the roads, the churches were the buildings
she
frequented most. Men of liberal opinions would induce small children
to run into
sacred edifices to see whether Madame Levaille was there,
and to tell
her that so-and-so was in the road waiting to speak to her
about
potatoes, or flour, or stones, or houses; and she would curtail
her
devotions, come out blinking and crossing herself into the sunshine;
ready to
discuss business matters in a calm, sensible way across a table
in the
kitchen of the inn opposite.
Latterly she
had stayed for a few days several times with her son-in-law, arguing against
sorrow and misfortune with composed face and gentle tones. Jean-Pierre felt the
convictions imbibed in the regiment torn out of his breast–not by arguments but
by facts. Striding over his fields he thought it over.
There were
three of them.
Three!
All alike!
Why?
Such things
did not happen to everybody–to nobody he ever heard of. One–might pass. But three!
All three. Forever useless, to be fed while he lived and . . .
What would
become of the land when he died? This must be seen to. He
would
sacrifice his convictions. One day he told his wife: “See what your God will do
for us. Pay for some masses.”
Susan
embraced her man. He stood unbending, then turned on his heels and went out.
But afterwards, when a black soutane darkened his doorway,
he did not
object; even offered some cider himself to the priest.
He listened
to the talk meekly; went to mass between the two women;
accomplished
what the priest called “his religious duties” at Easter.
That morning
he felt like a man who had sold his soul. In the afternoon
he fought
ferociously with an old friend and neighbor who had remarked
that the
priests had the best of it and were now going to eat the
priest-eater.
He came home
disheveled and bleeding, and happening to
catch sight
of his children (they were kept generally out of the way),
cursed and
swore incoherently, banging the table. Susan wept. Madame
Levaille sat
serenely unmoved. She assured her daughter that “It will
pass;” and
taking up her thick umbrella, departed in haste to see after
a schooner
she was going to load with granite from her quarry.
A year or so
afterwards the girl was born. A girl. Jean-Pierre heard of
it in the
fields, and was so upset by the news that he sat down on the
boundary
wall and remained there till the evening, instead of going home
as he was
urged to do. A girl! He felt half cheated. However, when he
got home he
was partly reconciled to his fate. One could marry her to
a good
fellow–not to a good for nothing, but to a fellow with some
understanding
and a good pair of arms.
Besides, the
next may be a boy, he thought. Of course they would be all right. His new
credulity knew of no doubt. The ill luck was broken. He spoke cheerily to his
wife.
She was also
hopeful. Three priests came to that christening, and Madame
Levaille was
godmother. The child turned out an idiot too.
Then on
market days Jean-Pierre was seen bargaining bitterly,
quarrelsome
and greedy; then getting drunk with taciturn earnestness;
then driving
home in the dusk at a rate fit for a wedding, but with a
face gloomy
enough for a funeral. Sometimes he would insist on his wife
coming with
him; and they would drive in the early morning, shaking side
by side on
the narrow seat above the helpless pig, that, with tied legs,
grunted a
melancholy sigh at every rut.
The morning
drives were silent; but in the evening, coming home, Jean-Pierre, tipsy, was
viciously muttering, and growled at the confounded woman who could not rear children
that were like anybody else’s.
Susan,
holding on against the erratic swayings of the cart, pretended not to hear.
Once, as they were driving through Ploumar, some obscure and drunken impulse
caused him to pull up sharply opposite the church.
The moon
swam amongst light white clouds. The tombstones gleamed pale under the fretted
shadows of the trees in the churchyard. Even the village dogs slept. Only the nightingales,
awake, spun out the thrill of their song above the silence of graves. Jean-Pierre
said thickly to his wife: “What do you think is there?”
He pointed
his whip at the tower–in which the big dial of the clock
appeared
high in the moonlight like a pallid face without eyes–and
getting out
carefully, fell down at once by the wheel. He picked
himself up
and climbed one by one the few steps to the iron gate of the
churchyard.
He put his face to the bars and called out indistinctly–
“Hey there!
Come out!”
“Jean!
Return! Return!” entreated his wife in low tones.
He took no
notice, and seemed to wait there. The song of nightingales
beat on all
sides against the high walls of the church, and flowed back
between
stone crosses and flat gray slabs, engraved with words of hope
and sorrow.
“Hey! Come
out!” shouted Jean-Pierre, loudly.
The
nightingales ceased to sing.
“Nobody?”
went on Jean-Pierre. “Nobody there. A swindle of the crows.
That’s what
this is. Nobody anywhere. I despise it. _Allez! Houp!_”
He shook the
gate with all his strength, and the iron bars rattled with
a frightful
clanging, like a chain dragged over stone steps. A dog
near by
barked hurriedly. Jean-Pierre staggered back, and after three
successive
dashes got into his cart. Susan sat very quiet and still. He
said to her
with drunken severity: “See? Nobody. I’ve been made a fool! _Malheur!_ Somebody
will pay for it.
The next one
I see near the house I will lay my whip on . . . on the
black spine
. . . I will. I don’t want him in there . . . he only helps
the carrion
crows to rob poor folk. I am a man. . . . We will see if
I can’t have
children like anybody else . . . now you mind. . . . They
won’t be all
. . . all . . . we see. . . .”
She burst
out through the fingers that hid her face–
“Don’t say
that, Jean; don’t say that, my man!”
He struck
her a swinging blow on the head with the back of his hand
and knocked
her into the bottom of the cart, where she crouched,
thrown about
lamentably by every jolt.
He drove
furiously, standing up, brandishing his whip, shaking the reins over the gray
horse that galloped ponderously, making the heavy harness leap upon his broad quarters.
The country rang clamorous in the night with the irritated barking of farm
dogs, that followed the rattle of wheels all along the road.
A couple of
belated wayfarers had only just time to step into the
ditch. At
his own gate he caught the post and was shot out of the cart
head first.
The horse went on slowly to the door. At Susan’s piercing
cries the
farm hands rushed out. She thought him dead, but he was only
sleeping
where he fell, and cursed his men, who hastened to him, for
disturbing
his slumbers.
Autumn came.
The clouded sky descended low upon the black contours
of the
hills; and the dead leaves danced in spiral whirls under naked
trees, till
the wind, sighing profoundly, laid them to rest in the
hollows of
bare valleys. And from morning till night one could see all
over the
land black denuded boughs, the boughs gnarled and twisted, as
if contorted
with pain, swaying sadly between the wet clouds and
the soaked
earth.
The clear
and gentle streams of summer days rushed discoloured and raging at the stones
that barred the way to the sea, with the fury of madness bent upon suicide.
From horizon to horizon the
great road
to the sands lay between the hills in a dull glitter of empty
curves,
resembling an unnavigable river of mud.
Jean-Pierre
went from field to field, moving blurred and tall in the
drizzle, or
striding on the crests of rises, lonely and high upon the
gray curtain
of drifting clouds, as if he had been pacing along the very
edge of the
universe. He looked at the black earth, at the earth
mute and
promising, at the mysterious earth doing its work of life in
death-like
stillness under the veiled sorrow of the sky. And it seemed
to him that
to a man worse than childless there was no promise in
the
fertility of fields, that from him the earth escaped, defied him,
frowned at
him like the clouds, sombre and hurried above his head.
Having to
face alone his own fields, he felt the inferiority of man who
passes away
before the clod that remains. Must he give up the hope of
having by
his side a son who would look at the turned-up sods with a
master’s
eye? A man that would think as he thought, that would feel as
he felt; a
man who would be part of himself, and yet remain to trample
masterfully
on that earth when he was gone?
He thought
of some distant relations, and felt savage enough to curse them aloud. They!
Never! He turned homewards, going straight at the roof of his dwelling, visible
between the enlaced skeletons of trees. As he swung his legs over the stile a
cawing flock of birds settled slowly on the field; dropped down behind his
back, noiseless and fluttering, like flakes of soot.
That day
Madame Levaille had gone early in the afternoon to the house
she had near
Kervanion. She had to pay some of the men who worked in her granite quarry
there, and she went in good time because her little house contained a shop
where the workmen could spend their wages without the trouble of going to town.
The house
stood alone amongst rocks. A lane of mud and stones ended at the door. The
sea-winds coming ashore on Stonecutter’s point, fresh from the fierce turmoil
of the waves, howled violently at the unmoved heaps of black boulders holding
up steadily short-armed, high crosses against the tremendous rush of the
invisible.
In the sweep
of gales the sheltered dwelling stood in a calm resonant
and
disquieting, like the calm in the centre of a hurricane. On stormy
nights, when
the tide was out, the bay of Fougere, 50 feet below the
house,
resembled an immense black pit, from which ascended mutterings
and sighs as
if the sands down there had been alive and complaining.
At high tide
the returning water assaulted the ledges of rock in short
rushes,
ending in bursts of livid light and columns of spray, that flew
inland,
stinging to death the grass of pastures.
The darkness
came from the hills, flowed over the coast, put out the red
fires of
sunset, and went on to seaward pursuing the retiring tide. The
wind dropped
with the sun, leaving a maddened sea and a devastated sky.
The heavens
above the house seemed to be draped in black rags, held up
here and
there by pins of fire. Madame Levaille, for this evening the
servant of
her own workmen, tried to induce them to depart. “An old
woman like
me ought to be in bed at this late hour,” she good-humouredly
repeated.
The
quarrymen drank, asked for more. They shouted over the
table as if
they had been talking across a field. At one end four
of them
played cards, banging the wood with their hard knuckles, and
swearing at
every lead.
One sat with
a lost gaze, humming a bar of some song, which he repeated endlessly. Two
others, in a corner, were quarrelling confidentially and fiercely over some
woman, looking close into one another’s eyes as if they had wanted to tear them
out, but speaking in whispers that promised violence and murder discreetly, in
a venomous sibillation of subdued words.
The
atmosphere in there was thick enough to slice with a knife.
Three
candles burning about the long room glowed red and dull like sparks expiring in
ashes.
The slight
click of the iron latch was at that late hour as unexpected
and
startling as a thunder-clap. Madame Levaille put down a bottle
she held
above a liqueur glass; the players turned their heads; the
whispered
quarrel ceased; only the singer, after darting a glance at the
door, went
on humming with a stolid face.
Susan
appeared in the doorway, stepped in, flung the door to, and put her back
against it, saying, half aloud: “Mother!”
Madame
Levaille, taking up the bottle again, said calmly: “Here you are,
my girl.
What a state you are in!” The neck of the bottle rang on the
rim of the
glass, for the old woman was startled, and the idea that the
farm had
caught fire had entered her head. She could think of no other
cause for
her daughter’s appearance.
Susan,
soaked and muddy, stared the whole length of the room towards the
men at the
far end. Her mother asked: “What has happened? God guard us from misfortune!”
Susan moved
her lips. No sound came. Madame Levaille stepped up to her
daughter,
took her by the arm, looked into her face.
“In God’s
name,” she said, shakily, “what’s the matter? You have been
rolling in
mud. . . . Why did you come? . . . Where’s Jean?”
The men had
all got up and approached slowly, staring with dull
surprise.
Madame Levaille jerked her daughter away from the door, swung
her round
upon a seat close to the wall. Then she turned fiercely to the
men: “Enough
of this! Out you go–you others! I close.”
One of them
observed, looking down at Susan collapsed on the seat: “She
is–one may
say–half dead.”
Madame
Levaille flung the door open.
“Get out!
March!” she cried, shaking nervously.
They dropped
out into the night, laughing stupidly. Outside, the two
Lotharios
broke out into loud shouts. The others tried to soothe them,
all talking
at once. The noise went away up the lane with the men,
who
staggered together in a tight knot, remonstrating with one another
foolishly.
“Speak,
Susan. What is it? Speak!” entreated Madame Levaille, as soon as
the door was
shut.
Susan
pronounced some incomprehensible words, glaring at the table. The
old woman
clapped her hands above her head, let them drop, and stood
looking at
her daughter with disconsolate eyes. Her husband had been
“deranged in
his head” for a few years before he died, and now she began
to suspect
her daughter was going mad. She asked, pressingly: “Does Jean know where you are?
Where is Jean?”
“He knows .
. . he is dead.”
“What!”
cried the old woman. She came up near, and peering at her
daughter,
repeated three times: “What do you say? What do you say? What
do you say?”
Susan sat
dry-eyed and stony before Madame Levaille, who contemplated
her, feeling
a strange sense of inexplicable horror creep into the
silence of
the house. She had hardly realised the news, further than to
understand
that she had been brought in one short moment face to face
with
something unexpected and final. It did not even occur to her to ask
for any
explanation. She thought: accident–terrible accident–blood to
the
head–fell down a trap door in the loft. . . . She remained there,
distracted
and mute, blinking her old eyes.
Suddenly,
Susan said: “I have killed him.”
For a moment
the mother stood still, almost unbreathing, but with
composed
face. The next second she burst out into a shout–
“You
miserable madwoman . . . they will cut your neck. . . .”
She fancied
the gendarmes entering the house, saying to her: “We want
your
daughter; give her up:” the gendarmes with the severe, hard faces
of men on
duty. She knew the brigadier well–an old friend, familiar
and
respectful, saying heartily, “To your good health, Madame!” before
lifting to
his lips the small glass of cognac–out of the special bottle
she kept for
friends. And now! . . . She was losing her head. She rushed
here and
there, as if looking for something urgently needed–gave that
up, stood
stock still in the middle of the room, and screamed at her
daughter: “Why?
Say! Say! Why?”
The other
seemed to leap out of her strange apathy.
“Do you
think I am made of stone?” she shouted back, striding towards
her mother.
“No! It’s
impossible . . .” said Madame Levaille, in a convinced tone.
“You go and see, mother,” retorted
Susan, looking at her with blazing
eyes. “There’s no money in heaven–no
justice. No! . . . I did not know.
. . . Do you think I have no heart?
Do you think I have never heard
people jeering at me, pitying me,
wondering at me?
“Do you know how some of them were
calling me? The mother of idiots–that was my nickname!
“And my children never would know me,
never speak to me. They would know nothing; neither men–nor God.
“Haven’t I prayed! But the Mother of
God herself would not hear me. A mother! . . . Who is accursed–I, or the man
who is dead?
“Eh? Tell me. I took care of myself.
Do you think I would defy the anger of God and have my house full of those
things–that are worse than animals who know the hand that feeds them? Who
blasphemed in the night at the very church door?
“Was it I? . . . I only wept and prayed
for mercy . . . and I feel the curse at every moment of the day–I see it round
me from morning to night . . . I’ve got to keep them alive–to take care of my
misfortune and shame. And he would come.
“I begged him and Heaven for mercy. .
. . No! . . . Then we shall see. . . .
He came this evening. I thought to
myself: ‘Ah! again!’ . . . I had
my long scissors. I heard him
shouting . . . I saw him near. . . . I
must–must I? . . . Then take! . . .
“And I struck him in the throat above
the breastbone. . . . I never heard him even sigh. . . . I left him standing. .
. . It was a minute ago. How did I come here?”
Madame
Levaille shivered. A wave of cold ran down her back, down her
fat arms
under her tight sleeves, made her stamp gently where she stood.
Quivers ran
over the broad cheeks, across the thin lips, ran amongst the
wrinkles at
the corners of her steady old eyes. She stammered–
“You wicked
woman–you disgrace me. But there! You always resembled your father. What do you
think will become of you . . . in the other world?
In this . .
. Oh misery!”
She was very
hot now. She felt burning inside. She wrung her perspiring
hands–and
suddenly, starting in great haste, began to look for her big
shawl and
umbrella, feverishly, never once glancing at her daughter, who
stood in the
middle of the room following her with a gaze distracted and
cold.
“Nothing
worse than in this,” said Susan.
Her mother,
umbrella in hand and trailing the shawl over the floor,
groaned
profoundly.
“I must go
to the priest,” she burst out passionately. “I do not know
whether you
even speak the truth! You are a horrible woman. They will
find you
anywhere. You may stay here–or go. There is no room for you in
this world.”
Ready now to
depart, she yet wandered aimlessly about the room, putting
the bottles
on the shelf, trying to fit with trembling hands the covers
on cardboard
boxes. Whenever the real sense of what she had heard
emerged for
a second from the haze of her thoughts she would fancy that
something
had exploded in her brain without, unfortunately, bursting her
head to
pieces–which would have been a relief. She blew the candles
out one by
one without knowing it, and was horribly startled by the
darkness. She
fell on a bench and began to whimper. After a while she
ceased, and
sat listening to the breathing of her daughter, whom she
could hardly
see, still and upright, giving no other sign of life. She
was becoming
old rapidly at last, during those minutes. She spoke in
tones
unsteady, cut about by the rattle of teeth, like one shaken by a
deadly cold
fit of ague.
“I wish you
had died little. I will never dare to show my old head in
the sunshine
again. There are worse misfortunes than idiot children. I
wish you had
been born to me simple–like your own. . . .”
She saw the
figure of her daughter pass before the faint and livid
clearness of
a window. Then it appeared in the doorway for a second, and
the door
swung to with a clang. Madame Levaille, as if awakened by the
noise from a
long nightmare, rushed out.
“Susan!” she
shouted from the doorstep.
She heard a
stone roll a long time down the declivity of the rocky beach
above the
sands. She stepped forward cautiously, one hand on the wall
of the
house, and peered down into the smooth darkness of the empty bay.
Once again
she cried–
“Susan! You
will kill yourself there.”
The stone
had taken its last leap in the dark, and she heard nothing
now. A
sudden thought seemed to strangle her, and she called no more.
She turned
her back upon the black silence of the pit and went up the
lane towards
Ploumar, stumbling along with sombre determination, as if
she had
started on a desperate journey that would last, perhaps, to the
end of her
life. A sullen and periodic clamour of waves rolling over
reefs
followed her far inland between the high hedges sheltering the
gloomy
solitude of the fields.
Susan had
run out, swerving sharp to the left at the door, and on the
edge of the
slope crouched down behind a boulder. A dislodged stone went
on
downwards, rattling as it leaped.
When Madame
Levaille called out, Susan could have, by stretching her hand, touched her
mother’s skirt, had she had the courage to move a limb. She saw the old woman
go away, and she remained still, closing her eyes and pressing her side to the hard
and rugged surface of the rock.
After a
while a familiar face with fixed eyes and an open mouth became visible in the
intense obscurity amongst the boulders. She uttered a low cry and stood up. The
face vanished, leaving her to gasp and shiver alone in the wilderness of stone
heaps. But as soon as she had crouched down again to rest, with her head
against the rock, the face returned, came very near, appeared eager to finish
the speech that had been cut short by death, only amoment ago.
She
scrambled quickly to her feet and said: “Go away, or I
will do it
again.” The thing wavered, swung to the right, to the left.
She moved
this way and that, stepped back, fancied herself screaming
at it, and
was appalled by the unbroken stillness of the night. She
tottered on
the brink, felt the steep declivity under her feet, and
rushed down
blindly to save herself from a headlong fall.
The shingle seemed
to wake up; the pebbles began to roll before her, pursued her from above, raced
down with her on both sides, rolling past with an increasing clatter. In the
peace of the night the noise grew, deepening to a rumour, continuous and
violent, as if the whole semicircle of the stony beach had started to tumble
down into the bay.
Susan’s feet
hardly touched the slope that seemed to run down with her. At the bottom she stumbled,
shot forward, throwing her arms out, and fell heavily. She jumped up at once
and turned swiftly to look back, her clenched hands full of sand she had clutched
in her fall. The face was there, keeping its distance, visible in its own sheen
that made a pale stain in the
night.
She shouted,
“Go away!”–she shouted at it with pain, with fear,
with all the
rage of that useless stab that could not keep him quiet,
keep him out
of her sight. What did he want now? He was dead. Dead
men have no
children. Would he never leave her alone? She shrieked
at it–waved
her outstretched hands. She seemed to feel the breath of
parted lips,
and, with a long cry of discouragement, fled across the
level bottom
of the bay.
She ran
lightly, unaware of any effort of her body. High sharp rocks
that, when
the bay is full, show above the glittering plain of blue
water like
pointed towers of submerged churches, glided past her,
rushing to
the land at a tremendous pace. To the left, in the distance,
she could
see something shining: a broad disc of light in which narrow
shadows
pivoted round the centre like the spokes of a wheel. She heard
a voice
calling, “Hey! There!” and answered with a wild scream.
So, he could
call yet! He was calling after her to stop. Never! . . . She tore
through the
night, past the startled group of seaweed-gatherers who
stood round
their lantern paralysed with fear at the unearthly screech
coming from
that fleeing shadow. The men leaned on their pitchforks
staring
fearfully. A woman fell on her knees, and, crossing herself,
began to
pray aloud. A little girl with her ragged skirt full of slimy
seaweed
began to sob despairingly, lugging her soaked burden close to
the man who
carried the light.
Somebody
said: “The thing ran out towards
the sea.”
Another
voice exclaimed: “And the sea is coming back! Look at
the
spreading puddles. Do you hear–you woman–there! Get up!”
Several voices
cried together. “Yes, let us be off! Let the accursed thing go to the sea!”
They moved on, keeping close round the light. Suddenly a man
swore
loudly. He would go and see what was the matter. It had been a
woman’s
voice. He would go. There were shrill protests from women–but
his high
form detached itself from the group and went off running. They
sent an
unanimous call of scared voices after him. A word, insulting and
mocking,
came back, thrown at them through the darkness. A woman moaned.
An old man
said gravely: “Such things ought to be left alone.” They went
on slower,
shuffling in the yielding sand and whispering to one another
that Millot
feared nothing, having no religion, but that it would end
badly some
day.
Susan met
the incoming tide by the Raven islet and stopped, panting,
with her
feet in the water. She heard the murmur and felt the cold
caress of
the sea, and, calmer now, could see the somber and confused
mass of the
Raven on one side and on the other the long white streak of
Molene sands
that are left high above the dry bottom of Fougere Bay
at every
ebb. She turned round and saw far away, along the starred
background
of the sky, the ragged outline of the coast.
Above it,
nearly facing her, appeared the tower of Ploumar Church; a slender and tall pyramid
shooting up dark and pointed into the clustered glitter of the stars. She felt
strangely calm. She knew where she was, and began to remember how she came
there–and why. She peered into the smooth obscurity near her. She was alone.
There was nothing there; nothing near her, either living or dead.
The tide was
creeping in quietly, putting out long impatient arms of
strange
rivulets that ran towards the land between ridges of sand. Under
the night
the pools grew bigger with mysterious rapidity, while
the great
sea, yet far off, thundered in a regular rhythm along the
indistinct
line of the horizon.
Susan
splashed her way back for a few yards without being able to get clear of the
water that murmured tenderly all around and, suddenly, with a spiteful gurgle,
nearly took her off her feet. Her heart thumped with fear. This place was too
big and too empty to die in. Tomorrow they would do with her what they liked.
But before she died she must tell them–tell the gentlemen in black clothes that
there are things no woman can bear. She must explain how it happened. . . .
She splashed
through a pool, getting wet to the waist, too preoccupied to care. . . .
She must
explain. “He came in the same way as ever and said, just so: ‘Do you think I am
going to leave the land to those people from Morbihan that I do not know? Do
you? We shall see!”
“Come along,
you creature of mischance!” And he put his arms
out.
Then,
Messieurs, I said: ‘Before God–never!’
And he said,
striding at me with open palms: ‘There is no God to hold me! Do you understand,
you useless carcass. I will do what I like.
And he took
me by the shoulders. Then I, Messieurs, called to God for help, and next
minute, while he was shaking me, I felt my long scissors in my hand. His shirt was
unbuttoned, and, by the candle-light, I saw the hollow of his throat. I cried:
‘Let go!’ He was crushing my shoulders. He was strong, my man was! Then I
thought: No! . . . Must I? . . . Then take!–and I
struck in
the hollow place. I never saw him fall. . . .
The old
father never turned his head. He is deaf and childish, gentlemen. . . Nobody saw
him fall. I ran out . . . Nobody saw. . . .”
She had been
scrambling amongst the boulders of the Raven and now found herself, all out of
breath, standing amongst the heavy shadows of the
rocky islet.
The Raven is connected with the main land by a natural pier
of immense
and slippery stones. She intended to return home that way.
Was he still
standing there? At home. Home! Four idiots and a corpse.
She must go
back and explain. Anybody would understand. . . .
Below her
the night or the sea seemed to pronounce distinctly–
“Aha! I see
you at last!”
She started,
slipped, fell; and without attempting to rise, listened,
terrified.
She heard heavy breathing, a clatter of wooden clogs. It
stopped.
“Where the
devil did you pass?” said an invisible man, hoarsely.
She held her
breath. She recognized the voice. She had not seen him
fall. Was he
pursuing her there dead, or perhaps . . . alive?
She lost her
head. She cried from the crevice where she lay huddled,
“Never,
never!”
“Ah! You are
still there. You led me a fine dance. Wait, my beauty, I
must see how
you look after all this. You wait. . . .”
Millot was
stumbling, laughing, swearing meaninglessly out of
pure
satisfaction, pleased with himself for having run down that
fly-by-night.
“As if there were such things as ghosts! Bah! It took an
old African
soldier to show those clodhoppers. . . . But it was curious.
Who the
devil was she?”
Susan
listened, crouching. He was coming for her, this dead man. There
was no
escape. What a noise he made amongst the stones. . . . She saw
his head
rise up, then the shoulders. He was tall–her own man! His long
arms waved
about, and it was his own voice sounding a little strange
. . .
because of the scissors. She scrambled out quickly, rushed to the
edge of the
causeway, and turned round. The man stood still on a high
stone,
detaching himself in dead black on the glitter of the sky.
“Where are
you going to?” he called, roughly.
She
answered, “Home!” and watched him intensely. He made a striding,
clumsy leap
on to another boulder, and stopped again, balancing himself,
then said–
“Ha! ha!
Well, I am going with you. It’s the least I can do. Ha! ha!
ha!”
She stared
at him till her eyes seemed to become glowing coals that
burned deep
into her brain, and yet she was in mortal fear of making
out the
well-known features. Below her the sea lapped softly against the
rock with a
splash continuous and gentle.
The man
said, advancing another step–
“I am coming
for you. What do you think?”
She
trembled. Coming for her! There was no escape, no peace, no hope.
She looked
round despairingly. Suddenly the whole shadowy coast, the
blurred
islets, the heaven itself, swayed about twice, then came to a
rest. She
closed her eyes and shouted–
“Can’t you
wait till I am dead!”
She was
shaken by a furious hate for that shade that pursued her in this
world,
unappeased even by death in its longing for an heir that would be
like other
people’s children.
“Hey! What?”
said Millot, keeping his distance prudently. He was saying
to himself:
“Look out! Some lunatic. An accident happens soon.”
She went on,
wildly–
“I want to
live. To live alone–for a week–for a day. I must explain
to them. . .
. I would tear you to pieces, I would kill you 20 times
over rather
than let you touch me while I live. How many times must I
kill you–you
blasphemer! Satan sends you here. I am damned too!”
“Come,” said
Millot, alarmed and conciliating. “I am perfectly alive!
. . . Oh, my
God!”
She had
screamed, “Alive!” and at once vanished before his eyes, as if
the islet
itself had swerved aside from under her feet. Millot rushed
forward, and
fell flat with his chin over the edge. Far below he saw the
water
whitened by her struggles, and heard one shrill cry for help that
seemed to
dart upwards along the perpendicular face of the rock, and
soar past,
straight into the high and impassive heaven.
Madame
Levaille sat, dry-eyed, on the short grass of the hill side, with
her thick
legs stretched out, and her old feet turned up in their black
cloth shoes.
Her clogs stood near by, and further off the umbrella
lay on the
withered sward like a weapon dropped from the grasp of a
vanquished
warrior.
The Marquis
of Chavanes, on horseback, one gloved hand on thigh, looked down at her as she
got up laboriously, with groans. On the narrow track of the seaweed-carts four
men were carrying inland Susan’s body on a hand-barrow, while several others
straggled listlessly behind. Madame Levaille looked after the procession.
“Yes,Monsieur le Marquis,” she said dispassionately, in her usual calm tone of
a reasonable old woman. “There are unfortunate people on this earth. I had only
one child. Only one! And they won’t bury her in consecratedground!”
Her eyes
filled suddenly, and a short shower of tears rolled down the
broad
cheeks. She pulled the shawl close about her. The Marquis leaned
slightly
over in his saddle, and said: “It is very sad. You have all my sympathy. I
shall speak to the Cure. She was unquestionably insane, and the fall was
accidental. Good-day, Madame.”
And he
trotted off, thinking to himself: “I must get this old woman
appointed
guardian of those idiots, and administrator of the farm.
It would be
much better than having here one of those other Bacadous,
probably a
red republican, corrupting my commune.”
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