Little Georges, on all fours on the path, was making sand castles. He shovelled the sand together with both hands, heaped it up into a pyramid, and planted a chestnut leaf on the top.
His father, seated on an iron chair, was watching him with concentrated and loving attention, and had no eyes for anyone else in the small crowded park.
All along the circular path which runs past the lake, encircles the lawn, and comes back again by way of the Church of the Trinity, other children were thus busied, like young animals at their sport, while the bored nursemaids gazed into the air with their dull stupid eyes, or the mothers talked together, casting incessant, watchful glances on the troop of youngsters.
Nurses walked gravely up and down, two by two, trailing behind them the long bright ribbons of their caps, and carrying in their arms white objects wrapped in lace, while little girls in short dresses revealing their bare legs held grave conversations between two hoop races, and the keeper of the garden, in a green tunic, wandered through this crowd of children, constantly stepping aside lest he should demolish the earthworks and destroy the ant-like labours of these tiny human larvae.
The sun was sinking behind the roofs of the Rue Saint-Lazare, and throwing its great slanting rays upon the myriad-hued crowd of children. The chestnut-trees were lit up with gleams of yellow, and the three cascades in front of the lofty portals of the church looked as though they ran liquid silver.
Monsieur Parent watched his son squatting in the dust; he followed lovingly his slightest gestures, and seemed to throw kisses from his lips to Georges’s every movement.
But raising his eyes to the clock on the steeple, he discovered that he was five minutes slow. Thereupon he rose, took the little boy by the arm, shook his earthy garments, wiped his hands, and led him away towards the Rue Blanche. He hastened his steps, anxious not to reach home later than his wife, and the youngster, who could not keep up with him, trotted along at his side.
His father accordingly took him in his arms and, quickening his pace still more, began to pant with exhaustion as he mounted the sloping pavement. He was a man of forty, already grey, somewhat stout, and he bore uneasily before him the round jolly paunch of a gay bachelor rendered timid by circumstances.
Some years earlier he had married a young woman whom he had loved tenderly, and who was now treating him with the insolence and authority of an all-powerful despot. She was incessantly scolding him for everything he did, and everything he omitted to do, bitterly upbraiding him for his slightest actions, his habits, his simple pleasures, his tastes, his ways, his movements, the rotundity of his figure, and the placid tones of his voice.
He still loved her, however, but he loved yet more the child she had given him, Georges, now three years old, the greatest joy and the most precious burden of his heart. Possessed of a modest income, he lived on his twenty thousand francs a year without having to work, and his wife, who had had no marriage portion, lived in a state of perpetual fury at her husband’s inaction.
At last he reached his house and, setting the child down on the first step of the staircase, wiped his forehead and began to ascend.
At the second story, he rang the bell.
An old servant who had brought him up, one of those servant-mistresses who become family tyrants, came and opened the door.
“Has Madame come in yet?” he asked in an agony of fear.
The servant shrugged her shoulders.
“When has Monsieur ever known Madame to be in by half past six?” she answered.
He replied with some embarrassment:
“That’s good, so much the better: it gives me time to change my clothes, for I’m very hot.”
The servant stared at him with angry and contemptuous pity.
“Oh, yes, I can see that,” she grumbled; “Monsieur is streaming with perspiration; Monsieur has been running; carrying the little one, very likely, and all in order to wait for Madame till half past seven. As for me, no one will ever persuade me to be ready to time, now. I get dinner for eight o’clock, and if people have to wait, so much the worse for them; a joint must not be burnt!”
Monsieur Parent pretended not to listen.
“Very good, very good,” he murmured; “Georges’s hands must be washed; he’s been making sand castles. I will go and change. Tell the maid to give the little one a thorough cleaning.”
And he went to his room. Once there, he thrust home the bolt, so as to be alone, quite alone. He was so accustomed by now to seeing himself bullied and ill-used that he only judged himself safe when under the protection of a lock. He no longer even dared to think, to reflect, or to reason with himself, unless he felt secure against the eyes and imaginations of others by the turn of a key. He collapsed into a chair in order to get a little rest before putting on a clean shirt, and realised that Julie was beginning to be a new peril in the house. She hated his wife, that was plainly to be seen. Above all, she hated his chum Paul Limousin, who had continued to be that rare thing, an intimate and familiar friend in the home, after having been the inseparable comrade of his bachelor life. It was Limousin who acted as oil and buffer between Henriette and himself, who even defended him with vigour and sternness against the undeserved reproaches, the painful scenes, all the miseries which made up his daily existence.
For nearly six months now, Julie had been constantly indulging in malicious remarks and criticisms of her mistress. She was perpetually condemning her, declaring twenty times a day: “If I were Monsieur, I wouldn’t let myself be led by the nose like that. Well, well … there it is … everyone according to his own nature.”
One day she had even insulted Henriette to her face, who had been contented with saying to her husband that night: “You know, the first sharp word I get from that woman, out she goes.” She seemed, however, to be afraid of the old servant, though she feared nothing else; and Parent attributed this meekness to her esteem for the nurse who had brought him up and had closed his mother’s eyes.
But this was the end; things could not go on any longer, and he was terrified at the thought of what would happen. What was he to do? To dismiss Julie seemed to him a decision so formidable that he dared not let his thoughts dwell upon it. It was equally impossible to admit her right and his wife wrong; and before another month had gone by, the situation between the two of them would become insupportable.
He sat there, his arms hanging down, vaguely searching his mind for a method of complete conciliation, and finding none. “Luckily I have Georges,” he murmured. “Without him I should be utterly wretched.”
Then the idea came to him to ask Limousin for his advice; he decided to do so, but immediately the remembrance of the enmity between his servant and his friend made him fear that his friend would suggest her dismissal; and he fell once more into an agony of indecision.
The clock struck seven. He started. Seven o’clock, and he had not yet changed his shirt! Scared and panting, he undressed, washed, put on a white shirt, and hurriedly dressed again, as though he were being awaited in the next room on a matter of urgent importance.
Then he went into the drawing room, happy to feel that he needn’t be afraid of anything now.
He glanced at the newspaper, went and looked into the street, and came back and sat down on the sofa; but a door opened and his son came in, washed, his hair combed, and smiling. Parent took him in his arms and kissed him with passionate emotion. He kissed him first on the hair, then on the eyes, then on the cheeks, then on the mouth, and then on the hands. Then he made him jump up in the air, lifting him up to the ceiling, at the full stretch of his arms. Then he sat down again, tired by these exertions, and, taking Georges on his knee, he made him play “ride a-cockhorse.”
The child laughed with delight, waved his arms, and uttered shrieks of joy, and his father laughed as well, and shrieked with pleasure, shaking his great paunch, enjoying himself even more than the little boy.
This poor, weak, resigned, bullied man loved the child with all his kind heart. He loved him with wild transports of affection, with violent, unrestrained caresses, with all the shamefaced tenderness hidden in the secret places of his heart that had never been able to come into the light and grow, not even in the first few hours of his married life; for his wife had always been cold and reserved in her behaviour.
Julie appeared in the doorway, her face pale and her eyes gleaming, and announced, in a voice trembling with exasperation:
“It is half past seven, Monsieur.”
Parent threw an anxious and submissive glance at the clock, and murmured:
“Yes, it certainly is half past seven.”
“Well, dinner’s ready now.”
Seeing the storm imminent, he tried to dispel it:
“But didn’t you tell me, when I came in, that you would only have dinner ready at eight?”
“At eight! … Why, you can’t be thinking what it means! You don’t want to give the child his dinner at eight! One says eight, but, Lord, that’s only a manner of speaking. Why, it would ruin the child’s stomach to make him eat at eight. Oh, if it were only his mother that was concerned! She takes good care of her child! Oh, yes, talk of mothers, she’s a mother, she is! It’s down right pitiful to see a mother like that!”
Parent, positively quivering with anguish, felt that he must cut short this threatening scene.
“Julie,” he said, “I will not have you speak of your mistress like that. You hear, don’t you? Don’t forget for the future.”
The old servant, breathless with astonishment, turned on her heel and went out, pulling the door to with such violence that all the crystals on the chandelier jingled. For a few seconds a sound like the soft murmurous ringing of little invisible bells fluttered in the silent air of the drawing room.
Georges, surprised at first, began to clap his hands with pleasure, and, puffing out his cheeks, uttered a loud Boom with all the strength of his lungs, in imitation of the noise of the door.
Then his father began to tell him stories; but his mind was so preoccupied that again and again he lost the thread of his narrative, and the child, no longer understanding, opened his eyes wide in amazement.
Parent’s eyes never left the clock. He fancied he could see the hand moving. He would have liked to stop the clock, to make time stand still until his wife returned. He did not blame Henriette for being late, but he was afraid, afraid of her and Julie, afraid of everything that might happen. Ten minutes more would suffice to bring about an irreparable catastrophe, revelations, and scenes of violence that he dared not even imagine. The mere thought of the quarrel, the sudden outbursts of voices, the insults rushing through the air like bullets, the two women staring into one another’s eyes, hurling bitter remarks at one another, made his heart beat and his mouth feel as dry as if he were walking in the sun; it made him as limp as a rag, so limp that he lost the strength to lift up the child and make him jump upon his knee.
Eight o’clock struck; the door reopened and Julie reappeared. She no longer wore her air of exasperation, but an air of cold, malicious resolution still more formidable.
“Monsieur,” she said, “I served your mother till her last day; I brought you up from your birth to this very day. I may say that I’m devoted to the family. …”
She awaited a reply.
“Why, yes, my good Julie,” stammered Parent.
“You know very well,” she continued, “that I’ve never done aught for the sake of money, but always in your interests, that I’ve never deceived you or lied to you; that you’ve never had any fault to find with me. …”
“Why, yes, my good Julie.”
“Well, Monsieur, this can’t go on any longer. It was out of friendship for you that I never spoke, that I left you in your ignorance; but it is too much; the neighbourhood is making too merry at your expense. You can do what you like about it, but everybody knows; and I must tell you too, though it goes sore against the grain. If Madame comes home at these absurd hours, it’s because she’s doing abominable things.”
He sat there bewildered, not understanding. He could only stammer:
“Be silent. … You know I forbade you …”
She cut him short with ruthless determination.
“No, Monsieur, I must tell you all now. For a long time now Madame has been deceiving you with Monsieur Limousin. More than twenty times I’ve caught them kissing behind doors. Oh, don’t you see? If Monsieur Limousin had been rich, it would not have been Monsieur Parent that Madame married. If Monsieur would only remember how the marriage came about, he would understand the business from beginning to end.”
Parent had risen, livid, stammering:
“Be silent. … Be silent … or …”
“No,” she continued, “I will tell you all. Madame married Monsieur for his money; and she has deceived him from the very first day. Why, Lord-a-mercy, it was an understood thing between them; a minute’s thought is enough to realise that. Then, as Madame was not pleased at having married Monsieur, whom she did not love, she made his life a burden to him, such a burden that it broke my heart to see it. …”
He advanced two steps, his fists clenched, repeating:
“Be silent. … Be silent …” for he could find no reply.
The old servant did not draw back; she looked ready to go to any lengths.
But Georges, at first bewildered, then frightened by these harsh voices, began to utter shrill cries. He stood there behind his father, and howled, with his mouth wide open and his face puckered up.
Parent was exasperated by his son’s uproar; it filled him with courage and rage. He rushed upon Julie with uplifted arms, prepared to smite with both hands, and crying:
“You wretch! You’ll turn the child’s brain.”
His hands were almost on her; she flung the words in his face.
“Monsieur can strike me if he likes, me that brought him up: it won’t stop his wife deceiving him, nor her child not being his.”
He stopped dead, and let his arms fall to his sides; and stood facing her, so astounded that he no longer understood what she was saying.
“You’ve only to look at the little one to recognise the father,” she added. “Why, Lord-a-mercy, he’s the living image of Monsieur Limousin. You’ve only to look at his eyes and his forehead. Why, a blind man wouldn’t be deceived. …”
But he had seized her by the shoulders and was shaking her with all his strength, muttering:
“Viper … viper! Out of here, viper! … Be off, or I’ll kill you! … Be off! … Be off! …”
With a desperate effort he flung her into the next room. She fell upon the table set for dinner, and the glasses tumbled and smashed; then she got up again and put the table between herself and her master, and while he pursued her in order to seize her again, spat hideous remarks at him.
“Monsieur has only to go out … this evening, after dinner … and come back again at once. … He will see! … he will see if I have lied! … Let Monsieur try … he will see.”
She had reached the door of the kitchen and fled through it. He ran after her, rushed up the back stairs to her bedroom, where she had locked herself in, and, beating on the door, cried out:
“You will leave the house this instant.”
“You may be sure I shall,” she replied through the panel. “Another hour, and I’ll be gone.”
At that he slowly descended the stairs again, clinging to the banisters to keep from falling, and went back to the drawing room where Georges was crying, sitting on the floor.
Parent collapsed into a chair and stared dully at the child. He could not understand anything now; he was no longer conscious of anything; he felt dazed, stupefied, crazy, as though he had just fallen on to his head; he could scarcely remember the horrible things his servant had told him. Then, little by little, his reason, like a turbid pool, grew calm and clear, and the revolting secret he had learned began to turn and twist in his breast.
Julie had spoken so clearly, with such vigour, certainty, and sincerity, that he did not question her good faith, but he persisted in questioning her perspicacity. She might well have been mistaken, blinded by her devotion to him, impelled by an unconscionable hatred of Henriette. But the more he tried to reassure and convince himself, a thousand little facts awakened in his memory, remarks made by his wife, glances of Limousin’s, a host of trifles, unnoticed, almost unperceived, departures late at night, simultaneous absences, even gestures, almost insignificant, but strange, movements he had not been able to see or understand, and which now assumed vast importance in his eyes, and became evidence of complicity between them. Everything which had occurred since his wedding rose up suddenly in a memory sharpened by pain. It all recurred to him, the strange intonations, the suspicious attitudes. The slow mind of this quiet, kindly man, harassed now with doubt, displayed to him as certainties things which could not as yet be more than suspicions.
With furious pertinacity he rummaged amid the five years of his married life, striving to recall everything, month by month, day by day; and each disturbing fact he discovered pierced his heart like a wasp’s sting.
He gave no thought to Georges, who was quiet now, lying on his back on the carpet. But, seeing that no attention was being paid to him, the child began to cry again.
His father started up, seized him in his arms, and covered his head with kisses. His child, at any rate, remained to him! What did the rest matter? He held him, clasped him, his mouth buried in the fair hair, comforted, consoled, murmuring: “Georges … my little Georges, my dear little Georges! …” But suddenly he remembered what Julie had said! … Yes, she had said that he was Limousin’s child. … Oh, it was not possible, it couldn’t be possible! No, he could not believe it, could not even suspect it for one moment. This was one of the odious infamies that germinate in the mean minds of servants! “Georges,” he repeated, “my dear Georges!” The boy was silent again now, under his caresses.
Parent felt the warmth of his little breast penetrate through the clothes to his own. It filled him with love, with courage, with joy; the child’s sweet warmth caressed him, strengthened him, saved him.
Then he thrust the beloved head with its curly hair a little further from him, and gazed at it passionately. He stared at it hungrily, desperately; the sight of it intoxicated him.
“Oh, my little one … my little Georges!” he repeated over and over again.
Suddenly he thought: “Supposing he were like Limousin … all the same!”
The thought was a strange cruel thing entering into him, a poignant, violent sensation of cold through his body, in all his limbs, as though his bones were suddenly turned to ice. Oh, if he were like Limousin! … and he continued to gaze at Georges, who was now laughing. He gazed at him with wild, distressed, haggard eyes. And he searched his features, the brow, the nose, the mouth, the cheeks, to see whether he could not find in them something of Limousin’s brow, nose, mouth, or cheeks.
His thoughts wandered, like the thoughts of a man going mad; and the face of his child altered beneath his eyes, and took on strange appearances and preposterous resemblances.
Julie had said: “A blind man would not be deceived.” There must be something striking, something quite undeniable! But what? The brow? Yes, perhaps. But Limousin’s brow was narrower! The mouth, then? But Limousin wore a full beard! How could one establish a resemblance between the child’s fat chin and this man’s hairy one?
Parent thought: “I cannot see it, I cannot look at it any longer; I am too distressed; I could not recognise anything now. … I must wait; I must look properly tomorrow morning, when I get up.”
Then he thought: “But if he were like me, I should be saved, saved!”
He crossed the room in two strides, in order to examine his child’s face side by side with his own in the mirror.
He held Georges seated on his arm, in order that their faces might be close together, and spoke out loud, so great was his bewilderment.
“Yes … we have the same nose … the same nose … perhaps … I’m not sure … and the same eyes. … No, his eyes are blue. … Then … Oh, my God! … my God! … my God! … I’m going mad. … I will not look any more. … I’m going mad!”
He fled from the mirror to the other end of the room, fell into an armchair, set the child down in another, and burst into tears. He wept with great, hopeless sobs. Georges, frightened by the sound of his father’s moans, began to cry too.
The front door bell rang. Parent bounded up as though pierced by a bullet.
“There she is,” he said. “What am I to do?”
He ran and shut himself up in his room, so as to have time at least to wipe his eyes. But after some moments, another peal at the bell gave him a second shock; then he remembered that Julie had left and that the housemaid had not been told. So no one would go and open the door? What was to be done? He went himself.
Suddenly he felt brave, resolute, able to play his own part and face the inevitable scene. The appalling shock had matured him in a few moments. And, besides, he wanted to know, he wanted the truth with the fury of a timid man, with the obstinacy of an easygoing man come to the end of his patience.
Nevertheless, he was trembling. Was it with terror? Yes. … Perhaps he was still afraid of her? Who knows how much goaded cowardice has gone to the making of a bold move?
He stopped behind the door that he had reached with furtive steps, and listened. His heart was beating furiously, and he could hear nothing but the sound of it, great dull blows in his chest, and the shrill voice of Georges still crying in the drawing room.
Suddenly the noise of the bell ringing over his head shook him like an explosion; at that he seized the door-handle and, panting, fainting, turned the knob and opened the door.
His wife and Limousin were standing facing him, on the staircase.
“So you are opening the door, now,” she said with an air of astonishment in which a trace of irritation was apparent; “then where is Julie?”
His throat was contracted and his breathing hurried; he strove to answer, unable to utter a word. “Have you gone dumb?” she continued. “I asked you where Julie was.”
At that he stammered:
“She … she … she has gone.”
His wife was beginning to be angry.
“What, gone? Where? Why?”
He was gradually regaining his balance, and felt stirring in him a mordant hatred of this insolent woman standing before him.
“Yes, gone for good. … I dismissed her.”
“You have dismissed her? … Julie? … You must be mad. …”
“Yes, I dismissed her because she was insolent … and because she … because she ill-treated the child.”
“Julie?”
“Yes. … Julie.”
“What was she insolent about?”
“About you.”
“About me?”
“Yes … because dinner was burnt and you had not come in.”
“She said … ?”
“She said … offensive things about you … which I should not … which I could not listen to. …”
“What things?”
“It is of no use to repeat them.”
“I want to know.”
“She said that it was very sad for a man like me to marry a woman like you, unpunctual, with no sense of order, careless, a bad housekeeper, a bad mother, and a bad wife. …”
The young woman had entered the hall, followed by Limousin, who remained silent before this unexpected situation. She shut the door abruptly, threw down her coat on a chair, and walked up to her husband, stammering in exasperation:
“You say … you say … that I’m … ?”
He was very pale, very calm.
“I say nothing, my dear,” he replied; “I am only telling you what Julie said, because you wanted to know; and I want you to realise that it was precisely on account of these remarks that I dismissed her.”
She trembled with her violent desire to tear out his beard and rend his cheeks with her nails. She felt his revulsion from her in his voice, in his expression, in his manner, and she could not outface it; she strove to regain the offensive by some direct and wounding phrase.
“Have you had dinner?” she asked.
“No, I waited.”
She shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
“It is stupid to wait after half past seven. You ought to have known that I was detained, that I was busy, engaged.”
Then, suddenly, she felt the need to explain how she had passed the time, and related, in short, haughty words, that, having been obliged to get some articles of furniture a long way off, a very long way, in the Rue de Rennes, she had met Limousin, after seven o’clock, in the Boulevard Saint-Germain, on her way home, and had asked him to come in with her and have something to eat in a restaurant which she did not like to enter by herself, although she was faint with hunger. That was how she came to have dinner with Limousin, if it could be called a dinner, for they had only had soup and half a chicken, they were in such haste to get home.
“But you were quite right,” replied Parent simply; “I was not blaming you.”
Then Limousin, who had remained silent hitherto, almost hidden behind Henriette, came up and offered his hand, murmuring:
“You are well?”
“Yes, quite well,” replied Parent, taking the outstretched hand and shaking it limply.
But the young woman had seized upon a word in her husband’s last sentence.
“Blame … why do you say ‘blame’? One might think you meant …”
“No, not at all,” he said, excusing himself. “I simply meant to say that I was not at all uneasy at your lateness and was not trying to make a crime of it.”
She took it haughtily, seeking a pretext for a quarrel:
“My lateness? … Anyone would think it was one o’clock in the morning and I had been out all night.”
“No, my dear, I said ‘lateness’ because I had no other word. You should have been home by half past six, and you come in at half past eight. That is lateness! I quite understand; I … I’m not … not even surprised. … But … but … it is difficult for me to use any other word.”
“But you pronounce it as though I had slept away from home.”
“No … not at all.”
She saw that he meant to go on yielding the point and was about to enter her room when at last she noticed that Georges was crying.
“What is the matter with the child?” she asked, with a troubled look on her face.
“I told you that Julie had been rather rough with him.”
“What has the creature been doing to him?”
“Oh, hardly anything! She pushed him and he fell.”
She was eager to see her child, and rushed into the dining room; then stopped dead at sight of the table covered with spilt wine, broken bottles and glasses, and overturned saltcellars.
“What is the meaning of this scene of destruction?”
“Julie …”
But she cut short his utterance in a rage:
“This is too much, the last straw! Julie treats me as though I were a dissolute woman, beats my child, breaks my crockery, and turns my house upside down, and you seem to think it perfectly natural.”
“No, I don’t. … I dismissed her.”
“Really! … You actually dismissed her! Why, you ought to have put her in charge. The police are the people to go to on these occasions!”
“But, my dear,” he stammered, “I … couldn’t very well … there was no reason. … It was really very awkward.”
She shrugged her shoulders in infinite contempt.
“Ah, well, you’ll never be anything but a limp rag, a poor, miserable creature with no will of your own, no energy, no firmness. Your precious Julie must have been pretty outrageous for you to have made up your mind to get rid of her. How I wish I could have been there for a minute, just a single minute!”
She had opened the drawing room door, and ran to Georges, lifted him up, and clasped him in her arms, kissing him and murmuring: “Georgy, what’s the matter, my lamb, my little love, my duck?”
He stopped crying, at his mother’s caresses.
“What’s the matter?” she repeated.
The frightened eyes of the child perceived that there was trouble.
“It was Zulie, who beat daddy,” he replied.
Henriette turned to her husband, bewildered at first. Then a wild desire to laugh woke in her eyes, quivered on her thin cheeks, curved her lip, curled the outer edges of her nostrils, and finally issued from her mouth in a clear bubbling rush of merriment, a cascade of gaiety, as melodious and lively as the trill of a bird.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” she repeated, with little malicious cries that escaped between her white teeth and inflicted a biting agony on Parent. “She b … b … beat you. … Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! … How funny! … how funny! … Do you hear, Limousin? Julie beat him … beat him … Julie beat my husband. … Ha! … Ha! … Ha! … How funny!”
“No! No!” stammered Parent. “It’s not true … it’s not true. … It was I, on the contrary, who flung her into the dining room, so hard that she knocked the table over. The child couldn’t see. It was I who beat her.”
“Tell me again, ducky,” said Henriette to her son. “It was Julie who beat Papa?”
“Yes, it was Zulie,” he replied.
Then, passing suddenly to another thought, she went on:
“But hasn’t the child had his dinner? Haven’t you had anything to eat, darling?”
“No, mummy.”
At that she turned furiously upon her husband.
“You’re mad, absolutely crazy! It’s half past eight and Georges has not had his dinner!”
He made excuses, hopelessly lost in the scene and his explanation, crushed at the utter ruin of his life.
“But we were waiting for you, my dear. I did not want to have dinner without you. You always come in late, so I thought you would come in any moment.”
She threw her hat, which she had kept on until this point, into an armchair and broke out in a tone of exasperation:
“Really, it’s intolerable to have to deal with people who can’t understand anything or guess anything or do anything for themselves. If I had come home at midnight, I suppose the child would not have had anything to eat at all. As if you could not have understood, when it was half past seven, that I’d been hindered, delayed, held up! …”
Parent was trembling, feeling his anger getting the upper hand; but Limousin intervened, and, turning to the young woman, remarked:
“You are quite unjust, dear. Parent could not guess that you would be so late, for you never have been; and, besides, how could he manage everything by himself, after dismissing Julie?”
But Henriette had thoroughly lost her temper, and replied:
“Well, he’ll have to manage somehow, for I won’t help him. Let him get out of the mess as best he can!”
And she ran into her room, having already forgotten that her son had had nothing to eat.
Limousin became suddenly strenuous in aiding his friend. He gathered up and removed the broken glass with which the table was covered, put the knives and forks back, and settled the child in his little high chair, while Parent went in search of the housemaid and told her to serve dinner.
She arrived in some surprise; she had been working in Georges’s room and had heard nothing.
She brought in the soup, an overcooked leg of mutton, and mashed potatoes.
Parent had sat down beside his child, his brain in a whirl, his reason undermined by the catastrophe. He gave the little boy his food, and tried to eat himself; he cut up the meat, chewed it, and swallowed it with an effort, as though his throat were paralysed.
Then, little by little, there awoke in his soul a wild longing to look at Limousin, who was sitting opposite him, rolling little pills of bread. He wanted to see if he were like Georges. But he dared not raise his eyes. He made up his mind, however, and looked abruptly up at the face he knew so well, although it seemed to him that he had never studied it, so much it differed from his imagination of it. Time and again he cast a swift glance over the man’s face, trying to recognise the faintest lines and features and their significance; then, instantly, he would look at his son, pretending that he was merely giving him his food.
Two words roared in his ears: “His father! His father! His father!” They hummed in his temples with every beat of his heart. Yes, that man, that man sitting calmly on the other side of the table, was perhaps the father of his son, Georges, his little Georges. Parent stopped eating; he could not eat any longer. A frightful pain, the sort of pain that makes a man cry out, roll on the ground, and bite the furniture, tore at the very depths of his body. He longed to take his knife and plunge it into his belly. It would be a relief, it would save him; all would be over.
For how could he go on living now? How could he live, get up in the morning, eat his meals, walk along the streets, go to bed in the evening, and sleep at night, with this thought drilled into him, as with a gimlet: “Limousin, Georges’s father”? No, he would no longer have strength to walk one step, put on his clothes, think of anything, speak to anyone! Every day, every hour, every second, he would be asking himself that question, seeking to know, to guess, to surprise the horrible secret. And the child, his dear child—he could no longer see him without enduring the fearful agony of this uncertainty, without feeling himself torn to the bowels, tortured to the marrow of his bones. He would have to go on living here, stay in this house, side by side with the child he would love and hate. Yes, assuredly he would end by hating him. What torment! Oh, if only he were certain that Limousin was the father, perhaps he might succeed in growing calm, in falling asleep amid his misery, his grief! But not to know was intolerable!
Not to know, always to be trying to find out, always suffering, and every moment embracing the child, another man’s child, taking him for walks in the town, carrying him in his arms, feeling the caress of his soft hair against his lips, adoring him, and endlessly thinking: “Perhaps he is not mine?” Would it not be better to see no more of him, to abandon him, lose him in the streets, or flee far away, so far that he would never again hear anyone speak of anything?
He started, as the door opened. His wife came in.
“I’m hungry,” she said; “are you, Limousin?”
“Yes, by Jove, I am,” replied Limousin with some hesitation.
She had the mutton brought back.
“Have they had dinner,” Parent wondered, “or were they late because they’ve been lovemaking?”
Both were now eating with an excellent appetite. Henriette, quite calm, was laughing and joking. Her husband kept her under observation too, looking quickly at her and as quickly away again. She wore a pink tea-gown trimmed with white lace, and her fair hair, her white neck, and her plump hands emerged from the pretty, dainty, scented gown as from a sea shell edged with foam. What had she been doing all day long with that man? Parent saw them kissing, murmuring passionate words. How was it possible for him not to know, not to guess, seeing them thus side by side, facing him?
How they must be mocking at him, if he had been their dupe since the very first day! Was it possible that a man, a good man, should be thus tricked, merely because his father left him a little money? Why were such things not visible in the sinners’ souls, how was it possible that nothing revealed the deceit of the wicked to the upright heart, that the same voice should lie and adore, and the sly eyes of deceit look the same as the eyes of truth?
He watched them, waiting for a gesture, a word, an intonation. Suddenly he thought: “I will surprise them this evening.”
“My dear,” he said, “as I have just dismissed Julie, I must start today to try and find another servant. I’m going out directly, so as to get someone for tomorrow morning. I may be back rather late.”
“Very well, go,” she replied, “I shan’t move from here. Limousin will keep me company. We will wait for you.” And, turning to the housemaid, she added:
“Put Georges to bed, then you can clear the table and go to bed yourself.”
Parent had risen. He was swaying upon his legs, dazed, tottering. “See you again presently,” he murmured, and reached the door by dint of leaning against the wall, for the floor was heaving like a ship.
Georges had gone off in the arms of the maid. Henriette and Limousin passed into the drawing room.
“Are you mad,” he said, as soon as the door was shut, “that you bully your husband so?”
She turned to him.
“You know, I’m beginning to find your long established habit of setting up Parent as a martyr rather trying.”
Limousin sat down in an armchair and, crossing his legs, replied:
“I’m not setting him up as a martyr in the least, but I do think that, as things are, it’s preposterous to defy the man from morning to night.”
She took a cigarette from the mantelpiece, lit it, and answered:
“But I don’t defy him—on the contrary; only he irritates me by his stupidity … and I treat him as he deserves.”
“What you are doing is extraordinarily silly,” replied Limousin impatiently, “but all women are alike. Here you have an excellent fellow, too good, idiotic in his faith and goodness, who in no way annoys us, does not for one instant suspect us, and leaves us as free and easy as we could wish; and you do all that you can to make him lose his temper and ruin our lives.”
“You disgust me,” she said, turning towards him. “You’re a coward, like all men! You’re afraid of the fool!”
He sprang up, and burst out furiously:
“If it comes to that, I should very much like to know how he has treated you, and what possible grudge you can have against him! Does he make you unhappy? Does he beat you? Does he deceive you? No, it really is too much to make that poor chap suffer just because he’s too kind, and have a grudge against him simply because you are deceiving him.”
She went up to Limousin and, staring into his eyes, answered:
“And it is you who blame me for deceiving him—you, you? Must you be utterly beastly too?”
He defended himself, rather shamefacedly.
“But I don’t blame you at all, my dear, I only ask you to treat your husband with a little consideration, because we both of us need his trust. I thought you would realise that.”
They were standing close to one another; he, tall and dark, with drooping whiskers, and the rather vulgar carriage of a good-looking fellow very pleased with himself; she, dainty, pink and fair, a little Parisian, half cocotte and half suburban young woman, born in the back room of a shop, brought up to stand on its doorstep and entice customers with her glances, and married off, by the happy chance of this accomplishment, to the innocent passerby who fell in love with her because he saw her standing there at the door every day as he went in the morning and came home in the evening.
“But, you great booby,” she said, “you don’t understand that I hate him just because he married me, because he bought me, in fact; because everything that he says, everything that he does, everything that he thinks, gets on my nerves. Every instant he exasperates me by the stupidity you call his kindness, by the dullness you call his trust, and, above all, because he is my husband, instead of you. Although he hardly troubles us, I feel him between us. And then? … And then? … No, he really is too big a fool to suspect anything. I wish he were at least a little jealous; there are moments when I long to shout at him: ‘Can’t you see anything, you ass? Don’t you realise that Paul is my lover?’ ”
Limousin burst out laughing.
“In the meantime you would do better to keep your mouth shut, and leave our existence untroubled.”
“Oh, I won’t trouble it. There is nothing to fear from that imbecile. But it really is incredible that you should not realise how hateful he is to me, how he grates on my nerves. You always seem to love him, to shake hands frankly with him. Men are extraordinary creatures at times.”
“One must know how to dissemble, my dear.”
“It’s not a question of dissimulation, dear, but of feeling. When you men deceive another man, anyone would think you immediately began to like him better; we women hate him from the very moment that we have deceived him.”
“I don’t in the least see why a man should hate a good sort of fellow whose wife he’s taking.”
“You don’t see? … you don’t see? All you men are lacking in decent feeling. Well, it’s one of those things one feels and cannot express. And, anyhow, I oughtn’t to try. … No, it’s no use, you wouldn’t understand. You’ve no intuition, you men.”
She smiled, the gay, malicious smile of a wanton, and set her hands upon his shoulders, holding up her lips to his; he bowed his head to hers as he caught her in his arms, and their lips met. And as they were standing in front of the mirror on the mantelpiece, another couple exactly like them embraced behind the clock.
They had heard nothing, neither the sound of the key nor the creaking of the door; but suddenly Henriette uttered a shrill scream and thrust Limousin away with both arms; and they saw Parent watching them, livid, with clenched fists, his shoes off, and his hat over his brow.
He looked at them, first at one and then at the other, with a quick movement of the eyes, without turning his head. He seemed mad; without uttering a word he rushed at Limousin, took him in his arms as though to stifle him, and flung him into the corner of the drawing room with such a furious onslaught that the other, losing his footing and clawing the air with his hands, struck his head roughly against the wall.
But when Henriette realised that her husband was going to murder her lover, she threw herself on Parent and seized him by the throat. With the strength of a madman she sent her thin pink fingers into his flesh, and squeezed so tightly that the blood spurted from beneath her nails. She bit his shoulder as though she wanted to rend it to pieces with her teeth. Parent, choked and stifling, let go of Limousin in order to shake off the woman clinging to his throat; putting his arms round her waist he hurled her with one mad effort to the other end of the room.
Then, with the short-lived rage of the easygoing and the quickly spent strength of the weak, he remained standing between the two of them, panting, exhausted, not knowing what he ought to do. His brutal fury had escaped in this effort like the froth of an uncorked bottle, and his unwonted energy ended in mere gasping for breath.
“Get out!” he stammered, as soon as he could speak. “Get out, both of you, at once!”
Limousin remained motionless in his corner, huddled against the wall, too bewildered to understand anything as yet, too frightened to move a finger. Henriette, her hands resting on a table, her head thrust forward, her hair dishevelled, and her dress torn so that her bosom was bared, was waiting, like an animal about to spring.
“Get out at once!” repeated Parent more loudly. “Get out!”
Seeing that his first fury was calmed, his wife plucked up courage, stood up, took two paces towards him, and said, in a voice already almost insolent:
“Have you lost your wits? … What’s the matter with you? … Why this unjustifiable assault?”
He turned on her, raising his fist as though to strike her down.
“Oh! … Oh!” he faltered. “This is too much … too much! I … I … I heard all … all … do you understand? … all! You vile creature! … you vile creature! … You are both vile! … Get out! … both of you! … At once! … I could kill you! … Get out!”
She realized that it was all over, that he knew, that she could no longer play the innocent, but must give way. But all her impudence had come back to her, and her hatred for the man, doubled now, urged her to boldness, and woke in her an impulse to defiance and bravado.
“Come, Limousin,” she said in a clear voice, “since I am to be turned out, I will go home with you.”
But Limousin did not move. Parent, attacked by a fresh access of rage, cried:
“Clear out, then! … Get out, you vile creatures … or else … or else … !”
He snatched up a chair and whirled it above his head.
Henriette rapidly crossed the drawing room, took her lover by the arm, dragged him away from the wall, to which he appeared to be fixed, and led him to the door, repeating:
“Come along, dear, come along. … You can see that the man is mad … come along!”
In the doorway she turned to her husband, trying to think what she could do, what she could imagine, that would wound him to the heart, as she left the house. And an idea came to her, one of those venomous deadly ideas in which the sum of feminine treachery ferments.
“I want to take my child away,” she said firmly.
“Your … your child?” stammered Parent in bewilderment. “You dare to speak of your child … after … after … Oh! oh! oh! it is too much! … You dare? … Clear out, you scum! Clear out!”
She went up to him, almost smiling, almost revenged already, and defied him at close quarters, face to face.
“I want my child … and you have no right to keep him, because he’s not yours. … Do you hear? … He’s not yours. … He’s Limousin’s.”
“You’re lying, wretch, you’re lying!” cried Parent desperately.
“You idiot,” she replied, “everyone knows it except you. I tell you that that man there is his father. You’ve only to look in order to see. …”
Parent recoiled before her, tottering. Then suddenly he turned round, snatched up a candle, and dashed into the next room.
He came back almost immediately, carrying little Georges wrapped in his bedclothes. The child, awakened with a start, was crying with terror. Parent flung him into his wife’s hands and, without adding a word, thrust her roughly out on to the staircase where Limousin was prudently awaiting her.
Then he shut and double-locked the door and thrust home the bolts. He had scarcely regained the drawing room when he fell full length upon the floor.