At the end of the war I was already going to high school and living with my grandmother Éléonore — a severe, gruff woman who reprimanded us constantly. Gabriel wanted to attend Saint-Cyr and was becoming quite a good student. My dream, after graduating from high school, was to go to university to study philosophy — but my mother and grandmother considered that not at all proper. Completing high school and obtaining my baccalaureate was already for me a major triumph, since both of them had done all they could to divert me toward embroidery and similar activities at a horrendous school that trained girls to become perfect little homemakers. Their insistence was directly proportional to their displeasure with my behavior, which for them lacked femininity. Despite what they believed, however, I had a lot of success among the boys of my age.
Aunt Bette was very useful in these negotiations, even though Grandma Éléonore felt complete contempt for her.
“That Bette,” she’d say, her mouth full of disgust, “does not inspire the least confidence. A total Jezebel — or Salomé! I’ve heard she did obscene dances covered in veils! To think that she managed to marry my Enguerrand and that imbecile Geoffroy to boot!”
My mother, on the other hand, maintained a certain admiration mixed with jealousy for her, and so when Bette praised the advantages of culture and education for a young woman who could no longer count on the material support of a father, she kept her mouth shut. Bette’s argument was strengthened by the undeniably impoverished state of things at the château. Mother did not know how to manage the farmhands who worked the land and many of the young men wanted to leave and work in cities. She was therefore forced to let Jeanne go along with the other servants, and eventually ended up living at her mother’s place too. The château fell into a sad decline.
For my mother and grandmother, sudden humiliation gradually replaced the pain of loss. My mother had been sincerely in love with my father — that’s something I’ve never doubted for a second. The people we socialized with, notre milieu, as my mother called them, formed an impregnable wall between us and the rest of the world. But that same milieu was unable to pardon a family scandal like ours. In truth, they spoke of nothing else, and they should have been grateful to us for finally shaking up the comforter that lay over the flat surface of their lives, but that would not have been compatible with the true benefit that our family drama offered them. The saga gave them endless opportunities to feel superior and point accusing, judging index fingers at us. There were a few generous souls among them who managed to sigh, “Ah, the poor children!” — but it only took the slightest gaffe or misstep, usually on Gabriel’s part, for the entire clique to declare scornfully, “He’s just like his father!” For them, in other words, shame was genetically transmitted and therefore we were in a way guilty from birth because we were the offspring of a scoundrel.
I had a few friends, but I sensed that I was being treated with aloof curiosity and that irritated me. The only people I really got along with still were my cousins, and so Gabriel and I would spend time at their houses whenever we had the chance.
Gabriel enrolled at Saint-Cyr and I lived at home with my mother and grandmother. I became a good student and built friendships with some of my teachers, especially Abbé Neveu, who taught me philosophy. He was extraordinarily intelligent and open to existential questions. He also took a liking to me. He had a good sense of humor and was immeasurably kind. I remember him lifting his cassock to kick a ball around with us in the playground, and also listening to my confessions while seated together on the steps of the church. Our time there never ended with a list of prayers to recite but instead with a long discussion about man’s existence and free will.
My grandmother was subject to all forms of paranoia after Papyrus left us. The Duchesse d’Avoiseul had not greeted her at the end of mass, Baroness Mully had not invited her to her Christmas concert for the first time in her life, Countess Poiteau gave her an odd smile when she met her at a tea hosted by her cousin the Countess de Vilancourt. With my mother this same anxiety transferred itself onto us.
“I beg you, Christiane, to pay close attention to your personal conduct. It’s going to be very difficult to find you a husband. So please do everything you can to avoid being repulsive.”
“What do you mean repulsive? I’ve received a lot of attention!”
“That’s all we need — for you to be known as an easy girl! Really, that’s all we need! Be mindful not to do anything that could be misinterpreted.”
“So am I to push boys away or not?”
“Oh, when you pretend you don’t get my meaning you are really a pain in the neck!”
One afternoon in March while walking in the streets of Amiens with my mother, I was whistled at by a group of boys who were smoking a cigarette as they watched girls go by. It was a magnificently sunny day on the front edge of spring — the season that boys of that age know belongs to them. I pretended not to notice and looked straight ahead, but it was not enough. My mother stopped in her tracks and said to me, “You cross the street this instant and tell those young men, ‘Gentlemen, I am not the person you take me for.’”
“No way, I will not!”
“Christiane! Do you think it’s acceptable for it to be said that you’re an easy girl?”
“But I’ve not done anything! Let’s go home. We’re making a spectacle of ourselves.”
“Well, if you won’t, I will!”
And so she crossed the street and said what she had to say, while I, red with shame, ran home without waiting for her. When she arrived, her face was lit up with victorious satisfaction. I was determined more than ever to study philosophy in Paris and live at the home of Cousin Vincent’s mother, who most certainly would not have exposed me to that kind of humiliation.
When I related such episodes to Gabriel he invariably told me not to get upset and just to accept things without paying so much attention to them. “It’s their generation, what do you expect!” was a common refrain.
The Duc d’Avoiseul reigned supreme over our little world of aristocratic rurality. He possessed a large château, a solid, well-documented family tree going back at least five centuries, lots of land, and therefore lots of money. Having lost his wife, with whom he had no children, he had been living in his château with his mother since the age of thirty. Everyone praised this admirable faithfulness to the deceased Duchess.
During the events that I’m about to describe, the Duke was about forty, balding, and showing early signs of a potbelly; but he was still the dream of every well-born young woman in the area. He hosted a ball that my grandmother did everything in her power to get us invited to. Gabriel, who was on leave in Amiens, was to accompany us. I found the idea amusing because my cousins and brother would be there, but otherwise I was completely uninterested in such distractions. Besides, I was always poorly dressed since we had no money, and my mother and grandmother were constantly criticizing me as too much this or that, or not enough this or that. They forced me to try on an old dress of my mother’s that was totally outmoded but that they both declared to be “wonderfully chic!” I was therefore in a very bad mood in the car that brought us to the ball.
“Try to smile, Christiane! Do you realize what it means for you to be invited to the Avoiseuls’? It’s a detail that could very well change the attitude that people have toward us and remind them that I am a direct descendant of the Stuarts, and that your grandfather, my deceased husband, was the Count of Louvenciel! The effrontery of your father was a strike against one of the oldest families of France. I am pleased to see that the Duchess has not forgotten our ancestry.”
The women in my family were capable in this way of ascending rapidly from a cellar of shame to summits of arrogance.
“Of course, Grandma,” I replied distractedly.
Gabriel gave me an arch look to let me know he approved of my bland reaction and then proceeded to imitate the strange hiccup noise that our grandmother always made. His little comedy made me laugh uncontrollably.
“I don’t see what’s so funny about descending from a family that participated in the Crusades with Saint Louis!”
“I’m not laughing about that, Grandma.”
Gabriel continued to hiccup and move his chin like a turkey, which was our grandmother’s habit. She couldn’t see him from where she was sitting next to my mother in the backseat. My laughing became even louder.
“Well, if you find that funny, perhaps you’re not ready to be in the Duchesse d’Avoiseul’s salons!”
Gabriel kept on with his hiccuping and head bobbing, and I continued laughing uproariously. Mother scolded us but was powerless to stop us.
All the aristocrats of the region were present as well as a few additional personages such as the prefect and the notary. They all spoke loudly and with the forced gaiety that one is supposed to exhibit on such occasions. Gabriel abandoned me as soon as we arrived and went off with his cousin to check out the young ladies. Grandma Éléonore and my mother seated themselves amid a group of stiff older ladies with sour looks. I hated how I was dressed and wanted to become invisible, especially since I didn’t see Laure, my favorite cousin. I approached the buffet table and set about stuffing myself while trying to keep that from being too obvious. Dressed as I was, no one was going to ask me to dance. I had a lace collar that went up to my chin, my dress was too long, and my shoes were simple flats — a real disaster! Other young ladies were displaying their magnificent décolletés and on each of their faces was an easy smile crowning their triumphant juvenile beauty. I sat down at the bottom of a little staircase and watched the party without being seen. But then the Duc d’Avoiseul spotted me and approached.
“You look awfully bored,” he said in a kind voice.
“Not in the least! On the contrary, I find it all very amusing. I’m just a little tired,” and I blabbered on like that.
It was hard to believe but the Duke was only interested in me. He spent the entire evening with me, tried to get me to dance, and laughed at my attempts at humor. In short, he was discreetly flirting with me, but it did not pass unnoticed, especially by my mother and grandmother, who were absolutely ecstatic.
Thus began my descent into hell.
They were on my case day and night to know if I had received any news, if he had come by, how I had replied, and so on.
At first, like an idiot, by telling of all the Duke’s compliments and kind words addressed to me, I was proud to have in a way rehabilitated them in the eyes of the society they were so attached to. It made them so happy that I didn’t see any reason to deprive them of that pleasure. They would then speak for hours about what might be the deep motives behind the Duke’s taking an interest, since he had not given so much as the time of day to any woman since the death of his wife, and the only answer they could come up with was of course the importance of my lineage, the Crusades, and the kings and queens who circulated in my bloodline — a veritable Capernaum in my veins! I don’t mean to brag, but I think the Duke simply had the hots for me.
It was Gabriel who first blew the alarm bell.
“Watch out, sis, or else there’ll be no Paris or philosophy for you until the Duke asks for your hand in marriage.”
“Stop it, he’s twenty years older than me!”
“That’s not going to be a problem, neither for him nor for anyone else!”
“But this isn’t a livestock auction! I’ve got a say in this too!”
“Hmm, I don’t think so. But really, sis, the Duc d’Avoiseul! You could have hit the ball a little softer.”
I started hiding what I was able to hide, but the invitations to the Avoiseul home were always extended to my mother and grandmother as well, and the flowers arrived at the house while I was still at school.
I took my baccalaureate exams and got a particularly good grade on the philosophy test. I was able to celebrate with Abbé Neveu at least—Mother and Grandma Éléonore couldn’t have cared less and Gabriel was away doing military training. My grandma did have a costly dress made for me by way of congratulations, but I would have been more appreciative of her gesture if it had been less immediately transparent that she was primping me for the marriage market!
Spring gave way to the oppressive heat of summer. We all missed the fresh breeze of Warvillers, the cry of turtledoves, the bold palette of different shades of green, the whinnying of the horses that we’d comb down at the end of our rides, the smell of the soil, the softness of the lawn under our feet, the tall oaks under which one could read a good book while getting drunk on the scent of freshly cut grass, and then the sunset, which promised with a blinding explosion of red that the next day would be sunny too. Warvillers with its proud windy plains, Warvillers where my little château stood abandoned, uncared for and lifeless.
There being no father to address himself to, the Duke asked my grandmother for my hand in marriage. Grandma, though beside herself with happiness, did not want to reply too hastily. She told him that she’d have to speak with me and that we would give him our answer before the end of the month.
“Good job, Grandma, that gives us two weeks to find words that won’t upset him too much.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that he’s nice and I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”
“But of course you’re not going to hurt his feelings,” interjected my mother. “Why would you do that?”
“Well, no one likes being rejected.”
The two old women would have been less surprised if a spaceship had suddenly touched down in the living room.
“You weren’t really expecting me to marry that old goat, were you?”
“But Christiane, think a little! You’re not going to waste an opportunity like this! Yours is an unbelievable stroke of luck that we simply cannot pass up!”
“It is absolutely, totally, definitively out of the question!”
“Don’t speak that way to your mother!” said my grandmother, her cheeks on fire.
“I’m barely eighteen, he’s forty—the very idea disgusts me!”
“But what are thinking, you little imp? That you’ll have other chances? Do you think that one of the other families we know will allow one of their sons to marry you after what your father did dragging us through the mud?”
“And what about Gabriel? Why aren’t you pestering him?”
“Because he’s a man. It won’t be easy for him either, but maybe he’ll be able to make a match with some plain-faced woman.”
I can’t recall which one of them pronounced which piece of stupidity because for me they had fused into a single, two-headed monster.
That evening I wrote a long letter to Gabriel and the next day I went to call on Abbé Neveu.
“Why don’t you ask your aunt Bette for help? Wasn’t she helpful with your high school studies? She strikes me as being intelligent and more open than the other women in your family.”
“My mother and grandmother can’t stand her. And besides, what weight does a rich bourgeoise, and Swiss, have against the Duc d’Avoiseul?”
“My poor child, what are you going to do?”
“If I was of age, I’d run away.”
“Oh Lord, no! You must find a solution within your family. What about your uncle Geoffroy?”
“He’s my father’s brother, you know, and not liked very much either anymore, especially since they suspect that they still see each other.”
“Would you like me to speak to their confessor?”
“Whoever they chose as a confessor could not be anyone very accommodating.”
“I’m willing to try anything, and you too, you should try to get help from the others in your family.”
It was no use. The confessor felt that Abbé Neveu lacked common sense and that an older man was a very good thing for someone like me who needed a firm hand at my young age. He added that it was certainly not their business to meddle in the affairs of these two saintly women.
Aunt Bette and Uncle Geoffroy came to our house, one after the other, to try and persuade my mother and grandmother. They reminded my mother that she had married for love, and that they still remembered her radiant face at the wedding.
“Right, and look how that turned out,” said my grandmother, pursing her lips as she always did when she was exasperated.
“But the happiness that comes with love, you mustn’t deprive Christiane of that chance!” insisted Aunt Bette.
“We’re sparing her great misfortune, you mean to say!”
“Éléonore, I know your rectitude and your sense of duty, but the times really have changed,” wailed Aunt Bette.
“Not in our families, my dear. Not in ours. Are you saying you don’t remember?”
“Éléonore, I did so love your son, I cannot stand to think that Christiane should never know that kind of happiness.”
“Oh, let’s stop this sentimental nonsense! The only thing that matters in the end is to stay in one’s social milieu and live comfortably with someone who has shared the same upbringing. Everything else is passing fancy and will-o’-the-wisp.”
Aunt Bette left with a heavy heart. As for Uncle Geoffroy, he was greeted with mockery: “That the Corbois family parades through my salon dispensing marriage advice, I find that rich indeed!”
My mother was silent. I would like to think she had some reservations about my sacrifice, but she said nothing to confirm that she did.
Gabriel was furious and let it be known, but his declaration only made things worse.
“Unfortunately your children have taken after their father, my poor Marguerite. They are irascible, insolent, and rebellious. We should organize this marriage as quickly as possible if we want to avoid a catastrophe. A father’s faults are pardoned in children but not in adults — and especially not when they have the bad taste of resembling him!”
Meanwhile the Duke continued courting me — without ever going beyond any lines of decorum or putting me in an embarrassing situation. He came every day to take tea and invited us regularly to his home. In all I found it more pleasant than to stay trapped with only my mother and grandmother. He brought us in his car and drove us home too. He did everything very slowly — driving, talking, moving, reacting, understanding. I had just turned eighteen and this overall slow speed was to me like being caged in the middle of the desert. At eighteen one moves at a running pace, one is constantly in motion, you only feel good with the wind in your hair.
He was, though, very nice — Mother and Grandma, on the other hand, were odious.
That was why I accepted the marriage in September. I did not do it for them, but because of them. Anything had to be better than life at my grandmother’s, and I said to myself that I stood a better chance of persuading the Duke to let me go study in Paris than of persuading my mother and grandmother.
“God protect you, my poor child,” said Abbé Neveu.
“You are completely nuts,” said Gabriel.
“Christiane, remember that you can change your mind at any time, even at the last minute,” said Aunt Bette.
“I’ll drive you to city hall, if you like, but are you sure of your decision?” asked Uncle Geoffroy.
“It’s the happiest day of my life,” said the Duke.
“Finally a rational decision,” said Grandma Éléonore.
“My dear, you’ll see that all of this is for your own good,” said Mother.
“My child, welcome to our family,” said the Duchesse d’Avoiseul.
As the day of the wedding approached, the Duc d’Avoiseul became more active. Honestly, I liked him just fine. He was kind, courteous, and considerate. The only problem was that any greater closeness between us I found repugnant. One day he kissed me and I nearly vomited. I found his breath disagreeable, and having his fat fleshy tongue inside my mouth was like being forced to swallow a dirty dishrag. I had already kissed another boy, one of my school friends, and it had been an entirely different experience. I was resigned to getting married, but the idea that it would entail physical intimacy was deeply troubling and literally making me sick. I told myself that I would come up with some solution along the way, that I would lead him into accepting a chaste arrangement, and yet I knew this would not be easy because he clearly found me very attractive.
It was now mid-September and for the occasion we had moved back into the château at Warvillers. My grandmother was willing to undertake any expense — intent as she was that this marriage be a hot topic of conversation throughout the region. So it was, then, that Gabriel and I rediscovered our bedrooms, the great living rooms, and our secret hiding place in the oak tree. The days got shorter. We spent the Friday evening before my wedding drinking a bottle of Pommard and speaking in whispers while seated atop the font where I’d been baptized eighteen years earlier. As it became dark, we did not feel the chill of the evening.
“You are crazy to get married,” Gabriel said a bit tipsily.
“You’d do the same if you lived with Mother and Grandma.”
“Those two, you’ll leave them one day and even have happy memories of each. But marriage — you can’t get out of that so easily!”
“Listen, it’s decided, so too bad. He’s nice.”
“I am really blown over by your decision, you know.”
“Don’t let it upset you, Gabriel. But hey, promise me you won’t ever abandon me. You’ll come see me often, right? Will you promise me that?”
“Are you ever dumb! Of course I will! You’re the person I care most about in the world.”
“Yeah, well, you sure hit me enough when we were kids!”
“It was on account of that rat Papyrus.”
“You hit me on account of him? Aren’t you exaggerating there a little?”
“No, no, no! The hitting came from the bottom of my heart! No, what came from that bastard was your fear that I’d abandon you. But me, I’m different.”
“You’re like him in everything.”
“Wrong. I don’t take drugs and I don’t abandon people.”
“You haven’t yet served in two wars and you don’t have a piece of shrapnel lodged in your spine.”
“You still stick up for him! Incredible! In fact, good for you that you’re marrying that old fart, otherwise who knows who you’d bring home!”
It was now late and our hearts were overflowing with half-nostalgic memories — of love received and love given, of the wounds of time and of the fear of everything that we should have released to the blowing wind.
The next day I had a terrible headache and nausea. My mother had me swallow a glass of disgusting salty hot water. I understood from her nervous gestures and sighs that I was not to spoil the party. I should say in her defense that she exhibited no gaiety. She actually looked deeply sad. I believe she thought this was one more part of the cross one had to bear and that now it was my turn to lift and carry that weight. My mother was certain that one did not come into the world to have a lighthearted good time. Grandma Éléonore was not euphoric either. She reminded me of General Kutuzov and his scorched-earth policy, except that instead of sacrificing Moscow to keep it from falling into the hands of Napoleon, it was me she was sacrificing to protect the family’s grandeur from the pillory.
They all left for the church and I stayed at the château with Gabriel and Uncle Geoffroy. My bridesmaids were waiting for me at the presbytery with Aunt Elodie, who was in charge of everything. My two companions looked like they were going to a funeral. I tried to ignore them but I had a terrible knot in my stomach. Thus it was that in total silence the car rolled through the gate of our Warvillers home.
The gate closed behind us with a loud metallic clank, swallowing up forever our childhood and with it the only idea we ever had of happiness.
I remained silent, alone with my heaving sighs, which I did my best to keep down.
When Gabriel opened the car door for me, he looked so sad I thought I was going to burst into tears — but then something quite extraordinary happened.
Uncle Geoffroy stood straight as an arrow, his arm slightly bent to accept my own. Gabriel was arranging my train and my veil. Aunt Elodie was on the steps of the church organizing the cortege of children. The families and guests were waiting for me inside.
At that precise moment — I remember it all as though it just happened — I heard a very familiar noise, the vroom of Papyrus’s motorcycle and sidecar. We all turned to look in the direction of the noise and saw him wearing his leather helmet and big goggles, as in the old days, and approaching at high speed. He pulled up in front of me. We all looked a bit dumbstruck, our jaws hanging open like in cartoons.
“Get in! I forbid you to go through with this.”
“But Papyrus, I can’t.”
“Get in! Now!”
I looked for support from my companions, but they had digested their general surprise and were apparently doing nothing to hold me back.
“Go,” said Gabriel. “Go with him!”
“He’s right,” said Uncle Geoffroy. “Climb on that thing. And as for you, Louis, take care of her this time!”
“Gabriel, Geoffroy — we’ll call you tomorrow. Rest easy. Come Christiane, get in, you’re not going to let yourself be crucified, are you?”
I pulled off the veil that had belonged to my mother and before her to my grandmother and before her to her mother, and so forth back in time, and I climbed into Papyrus’s sidecar.
This caused a big stink. Grandma Éléonore died without pardoning me. Mother took it as the ten thousandth trial she had to undergo to win a good seat in paradise. The people in the region, especially those of our milieu, got sore throats retelling the stories of our family.
I spent the first week with Papyrus in a small hotel in the rue des Saints-Pères, close to where I live now. He explained to me that for all those years he had kept in touch with Aunt Bette, and that she had come to plead with him to do something to prevent the wedding. At first he wanted no part of it. Then on the morning of the wedding day, he said to himself that the shame he’d feel to appear before us all was not enough to justify abandoning me to the dungeon of such a lugubrious fate. When I asked him what exactly his relation with Aunt Bette was, he told me their entire story.
“So why didn’t you get married then? To avoid causing Uncle Geoffroy any pain?”
“No doubt.”
“But Papyrus, would Bette have gone along with it?”
“Bette thought that the fire at the Goetheanum was an unequivocal sign that what we were doing was horrible and deserved to perish in the fire. And I think she ended up getting me to think the same thing. After that incredible night, she became as elusive as smoke. It was impossible to get her to give any explanation of what she was feeling. She did everything to avoid me, but when circumstances threw us together, her look was always full of tenderness. At least it seemed so to me. When we were back in France, I waited to know she was alone before trying to see her. She was forced to tell me what her intentions were and she broke my heart. I found her tormented and nervous, but she wouldn’t stop repeating that the fire was proof of our damnation and that continuing on in that direction was unpardonable. She said we had to understand the message that had been sent to us and return to being simply the good friends we had been. She caused me so much pain that I told myself I would never again seek any intimacy between us. Losing Bette made me suffer so much that I ended up no longer feeling guilty toward my brother. In the end, he won and his victory canceled my mistake. Over time I got used to the situation, and the devastating feelings I felt for her gradually changed into deep tenderness. That said, I never fell in love again.”
“Then why marry Mother?”
“Hey, you were an inch from doing the same thing, I remind you. I was crazy about Bette, so nothing else really mattered. I allowed myself to be carried forward by a sort of inertia. Comfort is all that’s left when everything is disenchanted.”
After a week, I moved to the home of Cousin Vincent’s elderly mother. After Grandma died, I made peace with my mother. She was buried in the little cemetery in Warvillers. Pallbearers were scarce and I know it was my fault. Aunt Bette’s hair had gone gray but she still had her magnificent features. I went up to her and gave her a warm hug. “Thank you, Aunt Bette, you saved my life.”