Perhaps this slumber, bathed in champagne and chartreuse, had soothed and calmed him, for he awoke in a better-disposed mood. As he dressed, he assessed, weighed, and summed up how he had felt the previous evening, trying to identify clearly and thoroughly the real, secret, and personal causes as well as the external ones.
It could be that the barmaid had thought the worst, with her filthy prostitute’s mind, on hearing that only one of the Roland sons was to inherit from an unknown man; and don’t creatures like this always have such utterly groundless suspicions about all decent women? Weren’t they always to be heard abusing, slandering, and casting aspersions on the reputation of any woman they sense is beyond reproach? Every time anyone mentions in front of them the name of somebody blameless they become angry, as if they were the ones being insulted, exclaiming: ‘I know all about these married women, I do; a right lot they are! They’ve got more lovers than we have, but they hide them because they’re hypocrites. Oh yes, what a bunch!’
On any other occasion he would certainly never have understood, let alone supposed possible, any such insinuations against his poor mother who was so good, so simple, so respectable. But his soul was tormented by this seed of jealousy fermenting inside him. His overexcited mind, on the lookout, as it were, in spite of himself, for anything that might hurt his brother, might even have credited that barmaid with awful ideas that she had never even had. It could be that his imagination alone, beyond his control and will-power, set boldly free, full of guile, had gone off adventurously into the infinite universe of ideas, from which it sometimes returned with unmentionable, shameful ones which it hid away deep inside him, in the innermost reaches of his soul, like stolen goods; it could be that this imagination alone had created, invented this horrible doubt. Almost certainly his own heart withheld its secrets from him, and his wounded heart must have found a way of using this appalling uncertainty to deprive his brother of the inheritance he coveted. He suspected himself now, and questioned the mysteries of his mind just as the devoutly religious examine their consciences.
It was clear that Madame Rosémilly, even with her limited intelligence, had the tact, intuition, and subtle instinct of women. And yet this idea had not entered her head, for she had been completely sincere in drinking to Maréchal’s blessed memory. She would never have done that if she’d had the slightest suspicion. Now he was convinced; his involuntary resentment of the fortune that had fallen upon his brother, and undoubtedly his quasi-religious love for his mother, had made his scruples more acute, scruples which were pious and admirable, but exaggerated.
Having reached this conclusion, he felt happy, as if some good deed had been done, and he made up his mind to be charming to everybody, starting with his father whose odd habits, inane statements, commonplace opinions, and all-too-glaring mediocrity constantly got on his nerves.
He did not arrive late for lunch and entertained the whole family with his wit and good mood.
His mother was delighted and said: ‘My little Pierre, you don’t know how amusing and witty you can be when you want to be.’
He carried on talking, finding comic turns of phrase, making them laugh at ingenious portraits of their friends. Beausire was a good target, and Madame Rosémilly to a lesser degree, although more discreetly and not unkindly. And, as he looked at his brother, he thought: ‘But stand up for her at least, you fool. You may well be rich, but I can always outshine you when it suits me.’
Over coffee he said to his father: ‘Are you using the Perle today?’
‘No, son.’
‘Can I take her out with Jean-Bart?’
‘Yes of course, for as long as you like.’
He bought a good cigar from the first tobacconist’s he came to, and went down to the harbour with a spring in his step.
He looked at the clear, bright, pale blue sky refreshed and cleansed by the sea breeze.
Papagris the sailor, alias Jean-Bart, was dozing in the bottom of the boat which he had to keep ready to sail any day when they hadn’t gone out fishing in the morning.
‘Just the two of us, boss,’ shouted Pierre.
He climbed down the iron ladder from the quay and jumped into the craft.
‘What’s the wind doing?’
‘It’s still blowing upstream, M’sieur Pierre. There’s a good breeze out there.’
‘Well then, old boy, let’s be off.’
They hoisted the foresail, raised the anchor, and the boat, set free, began to glide slowly towards the jetty over the calm water of the harbour. The slight gust of wind from the streets caught the top of the sail so gently that it could hardly be felt, and the Perle seemed to be animated with a life of her own, the life of ships, carried along by a mysterious force hidden within her.
Pierre had taken the tiller, and, drawing on his cigar, legs stretched out on the bench, eyes half closed against the dazzling rays of sunlight, he watched the large struts of the breakwater’s tarred timbers as they passed close by.
As they came out into the open sea and reached the shelter of the tip of the northern jetty, the breeze, much fresher now, brushed across the doctor’s face and hands like a cool caress, entered his lungs which opened in a long sigh to drink it in, and filled the brown sail, swelling it out, tilting the Perle and quickening her pace.
Jean-Bart suddenly hauled up the jib, its wind-filled triangle resembling a wing, then reached the stern in two strides to untie the jigger from its mast.
The hull of the boat now keeled sharply over and the boat raced along at full speed, the gentle but clear sound of bubbling water running against its side.
The bow opened up the sea like the blade of a runaway plough, and the uplifted wave, churned up and foaming white, curled back round and fell again like the heavy, brown earth of a tilled field.
With every wave—they were choppy and close together—the Perle shuddered from the jib to the rudder which shook beneath Pierre’s hand, and when the wind blew stronger for a few moments, the waves skimmed the sides as if they were about to invade the boat. A coal carrier from Liverpool lay at anchor awaiting the tide. They circled it stern-side and then had a look at the other ships lined up in harbour, and finally moved further out to watch the coastline unfold.
For three hours Pierre, feeling peaceful and contented, drifted around on the rippling water guiding this wooden and canvas object like a swift, docile winged beast, its every movement responding to his desire, obeying the pressure of his fingers.
He was dreaming, as you do on horseback or on the deck of a ship, thinking about his future, which would be bright, and about the pleasure of a life which made best use of his intelligence. The very next day he would ask his brother to lend him 1,500 francs for three months so he could move into that lovely apartment in the Boulevard François I.
Suddenly the sailor said to him: ‘Fog’s coming, M’sieur Pierre. Best get back.’
He looked up and saw to the north a low and wispy grey shadow filling the sky and shrouding the sea, rushing towards them like a cloud that had fallen from the heavens. He changed tack and made for the jetty with the wind behind them, closely followed by the fast-gaining fog. When it caught up with the Perle, enveloping her in its invisible blanket, a cold shiver ran through Pierre’s limbs, and a smell of smoke and mildew, that strange smell of sea fogs, made him close his mouth to avoid tasting this cloud of damp and icy air. By the time the boat was back in its usual moorings, the whole town was already blanketed by this insubstantial vapour, not actually falling but drenching everything like rain as it flowed over houses and streets like a river.
Pierre hurried home, his hands and feet frozen, and threw himself onto his bed to sleep until dinner time. As he entered the dining room, his mother was saying to Jean: ‘The gallery will be lovely. We’ll put flowers there. You’ll see. I’ll make sure I care for them and replace them. When you entertain it will look magical.’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked the doctor.
‘About a wonderful apartment I’ve just rented for your brother. It’s a real find; a mezzanine facing onto two streets. It has two reception rooms, a glassed-in gallery, and a small circular dining room, perfectly stylish for a bachelor.’
Pierre turned pale and anger gripped his heart.
‘And where exactly is it?’ he asked.
‘Boulevard François I.’
He was sure now and sat down so enraged that he felt like shouting: ‘This is really too much! Isn’t there anything that’s not for him?’
His mother, beaming with joy, still went on talking: ‘And just imagine, I managed to get it for 2,800 francs. They wanted 3,000, but I got 200 off by taking out a lease for three, six, or nine years. It will suit your brother down to the ground. All a lawyer needs is an elegant home to become successful. That attracts the client, seduces and keeps him loyal, inspires respect and makes him realize that the judgements of a man living in such style come at a price.’
She paused for a few moments, then went on: ‘We’ll have to find something similar for you, more modest, of course, as you’ve no money, but pleasant enough. Believe me, it would be very useful to you.’
Pierre replied scornfully: ‘Oh! hard work and science will be my way to the top.’
His mother was insistent: ‘Yes, but a nice home would be very useful all the same, I assure you.’
About halfway through the meal he suddenly asked: ‘How did you get to know this Maréchal?’
His father looked up and tried to remember.
‘Let me see, I’m not quite sure. It’s so long ago. Oh yes, I know. Your mother got to know him in the shop, that’s right, isn’t it, Louise? He came in to order something, and then he came back often. We first knew him as a client before he became a friend.’
Pierre, who was eating some beans and stabbing them one by one with the prong of his fork as if he were running them through, continued: ‘So when did this friendship begin?’
Roland thought again but couldn’t remember anything more and so appealed to his wife’s memory: ‘Let’s see, what year was it, Louise? You can’t have forgotten, knowing how good your memory is. Let me think, it was in... er... in ’55 or ’56? Try and think back, you should know better than me.’
She did think for a while and then said calmly but firmly: ‘It was ’58, dear. Pierre was three then. I’m sure I’m right because that was the year when the child had scarlet fever, and Maréchal, whom we hardly knew at that time, was a great help to us.’
Roland exclaimed: ‘That’s right, that’s right, he was marvellous! As your mother was worn out and I was busy in the shop, he used to go to the chemist’s to collect your medicine. He really was a nice chap. And when you recovered, you can’t imagine how happy he was and how he made a fuss of you. From that moment on we became the best of friends.’
A sudden, raging thought went into Pierre’s soul like a bullet piercing through flesh: ‘If he knew me first and was so devoted to me, if he loved and cuddled me so much because I’m responsible for his great friendship with my parents, why has he left his entire fortune to my brother and nothing to me?’
He asked no more questions and sat there despondently, absorbed rather than thoughtful, harbouring a new and as yet vague anxiety, the hidden seed of a new disease.
He went out soon afterward and began roaming around the streets again. They were veiled in fog which made the night heavy, murky, and nauseating. It was as if some faintly noxious vapour was blanketing the earth. He saw it passing over the street lamps, sometimes seeming to put them out. The paving stones were becoming as slippery as on an icy evening, and all the bad smells seemed to be emanating from the bellies of the houses, stenches from cellars, gutters, drains, and grubby kitchens, and mingling with the terrible reek of this drifting fog.
Not wanting to stay outside in this cold, Pierre, shoulders hunched and hands thrust in pockets, made his way to Marowsko’s.
Beneath the gas lamp that kept watch for him, the old pharmacist slept as usual. On recognizing Pierre, whom he adored with the love of a fawning dog, he shook off his drowsiness, went to find two glasses, and brought back the ‘Currantina’.
‘So!’ asked the doctor, ‘how’s the liqueur coming along?’
The Pole explained how four of the main cafés had agreed to launch it, and how the Phare de la Côte and the Sémaphore havrais* would advertise it in exchange for a few pharmaceutical products being made available for their staff.
After a lengthy silence, Marowsko enquired if Jean was definitely in possession of his fortune, then asked one or two more vague questions on the same subject. His zealous devotion to Pierre was outraged by this favouritism. And Pierre believed he could read Marowsko’s thoughts, guessing from the way his eyes avoided his, understanding from the hesitant tone of his voice, reading the words which came to his lips, left unsaid because he was so prudent, timid, and wily.
He was now convinced that the old man was thinking: ‘You shouldn’t have allowed him to accept this inheritance which will lead to rumours about your mother.’ Perhaps he even believed that Jean was Maréchal’s son. Of course he did! How could he not when the whole thing must seem so plausible, so likely, so obvious to him? But hadn’t he, Pierre, his mother’s own son, battled for three days with all his might and emotional inventiveness, to deceive reason, fighting against this terrible suspicion?
And once again suddenly he was so possessed by the need to be alone, to think, to go over the whole thing, to face up to the facts, without scruples or weakness, as far as this possible but shocking thing was concerned, that he stood up without even finishing his glass of Currantina, shook hands with the astounded pharmacist and plunged back out into the foggy street.
He kept saying to himself: ‘Why has this Maréchal left his entire fortune to Jean?’
It was no longer jealousy which drove him to find an answer, nor was it the rather despicable but natural envy he knew was hidden within him and which he had been struggling with for three days, but rather terror of something appalling, fear of believing that his brother Jean was the son of this man!
No, he didn’t believe it, he couldn’t even ask himself this illegitimate question. Yet he had to rid himself once and for all of this suspicion, however slight and unlikely.
He needed to be clear-sighted and absolutely sure in his heart, for his mother was all that he loved in this world.
So all alone, wandering around in the dark, he was going to undertake a detailed analysis of his own memory and thought processes, out of which the undeniable truth would arise.
Once that was over, he wouldn’t think about it ever again. He would go and sleep.
He thought it through: ‘Let’s examine the facts first of all; then I’ll go over everything I know about him, how he behaved towards my brother and me, and then I’ll go into all the possible reasons which might be behind this favouritism... He was present at Jean’s birth?... Yes, but he knew me first. If he loved my mother silently and from afar, then he would have favoured me, as it’s thanks to me and my scarlet fever that he became such a friend of my parents. So, logically, he should have had more of a soft spot for me unless he felt drawn by a more instinctive preference for my brother as he watched him grow up.’
So he searched his memory, desperately concentrating his whole mind and intellectual power to reconstruct, to re-examine and get inside this man’s heart, this man who had been so near to him, but to whom he had meant so little, during all his years in Paris.
But he felt that, as he walked, the gentle movement of his steps broke his concentration and disturbed his ideas, thus weakening their impact and obscuring his memory.
In order to subject past and unknown events to a scrutiny which left nothing unturned, he needed to be motionless in some vast and empty place. So he decided to go and sit on the jetty as he had done the other night.
As he reached the harbour he heard a mournful and sinister cry out to sea, like the bellowing of a bull, only longer and more powerful. It was the wail of a siren, the cry of ships lost in the fog.
A shiver ran through his body and froze his heart, for this cry of distress had resounded in his soul and throughout every nerve, so much so that he felt he had uttered it himself. Another similar voice wailed in its turn a little further off, and then, close by, the harbour siren responded with a heartrending blare.
Pierre strode along to the end of the jetty, no longer thinking of anything, content to enter this sombre, howling darkness.
Once seated at the far end of the pier, he closed his eyes so as not to see the electric lamps, veiled in mist, which lit the way to the port at night, nor the red glow of the lighthouse on the south jetty, scarcely distinguishable in any case. Then, half turning, he leant his elbows on the granite and buried his face in his hands.
His thoughts, although not spoken aloud, went on repeating ‘Maréchal... Maréchal’ as if to summon him up, recalling and awakening his ghost. And in the darkness behind closed eyelids, he suddenly saw him as he used to know him. He was a man in his sixties, sporting a pointed beard, with bushy eyebrows, white as well. He was neither tall nor short and looked very friendly, his soft grey eyes and unassuming ways making him seem kindly, natural, and gentle. He used to call Pierre and Jean ‘my dear children’, never appearing to favour one more than the other, and often had them over for dinner.
With the persistence of a hound sniffing out a scent, Pierre started to go over every word, gesture, intonation, and expression of this man now departed from the world. He pieced him together bit by bit, seeing him in his flat in the Rue Tronchet* when he invited him and his brother over to eat.
Two maids waited on him, both elderly, and had, long ago, it seemed, taken to calling them ‘Monsieur Pierre’ and ‘Monsieur Jean’.
Maréchal would stretch out his hands to the young boys, offering either the right or the left to one or the other as they came in.
‘Hello, my dear children,’ he said, ‘any news of your parents? They never write to me,’
They used to chat in a relaxing, friendly manner about ordinary things. Nothing exceptional about this man’s mind, but he was sociable, charming, and refined. He had certainly been a good friend to them, one of those excellent friends you don’t think about much because they’re always there.
Memories were now flooding back into Pierre’s mind. Having seen him looking worried on several occasions, and guessing that as a student he must have financial worries, Maréchal had often offered and lent him money, quite unasked, a few hundred francs perhaps, that had been forgotten by both sides and never repaid.
This man had thus always loved him and been interested in him, as he was concerned about his needs. So... so why leave his entire fortune to Jean? No, he had never openly displayed more affection for the younger than the elder, or shown more interest or seemed less kindly to one rather than the other. So he must therefore have had a powerful, secret reason for giving everything, absolutely everything, to Jean and nothing to Pierre.
The more he thought about and relived these past years, the more he found this distinction made between the two of them to be unlikely and incredible.
And a sharp pain, an indescribable anguish filled him, sending his heart into a frantic flutter. Its valves seemed broken and the blood flowed freely through, tossing and turning it wildly.
In a half whisper, the way people talk aloud in nightmares, he murmured: ‘I have to know. My God, I have to know.’
He dug deeper now, going back to the times when his parents lived in Paris. But faces escaped him, clouding his memories. Above all, he was trying desperately to remember whether Maréchal had had fair, brown, or dark hair? He couldn’t do so, as in his last memory of him, he saw only the face of an elderly man blotting out every other. He did recall that he was slimmer, had a soft voice, and often brought flowers, very often, for his father was always saying: ‘More flowers! My dear chap, you’re mad. All these roses will be your ruin.’
To which Maréchal would reply: ‘Never mind about that, it gives me pleasure.’
And suddenly his mother’s tone, his mother who smiled and answered, ‘Thank you, my friend,’ came into his mind as clearly as if he had just heard it again. She must have pronounced these four words very often then for them to be so engraved on her son’s memory!
So Maréchal, the rich gentleman and customer, used to bring flowers to the little lady behind the counter, the wife of the humble jeweller. Was he in love with her? How else would he have become friendly with these shopkeepers if he hadn’t loved the wife? He was an educated man with a fairly cultivated mind. How many times had he talked to Pierre about poets and poetry? He didn’t judge writers in terms of artistic criteria, but rather as an ordinary man with feelings. The doctor had often smiled at these outbursts of emotion which struck him as slightly puerile. Now he realized that this sentimental man could never have become friends with his father who was so pragmatic, so down to earth, and so unimaginative that the very word ‘poetry’ seemed absurd to him.
So this Maréchal, young, rich, single, and in search of romance, had come into this shop one day by chance, perhaps having noticed the pretty woman behind the counter. He had bought something, had come back again, got chatting, becoming increasingly familiar with each visit, paying with frequent purchases for the right to pull up a chair in this household, to smile at the young wife and shake the husband’s hand.
And then later on... later on... Oh my God... later?...
He had loved and cuddled the first child, the jeweller’s son, until the birth of the second, and had then remained impenetrable until his death, whereupon, his coffin sealed, his flesh decomposed, his name wiped from the list of the living, his whole being gone forever and with nothing left to care for, nothing to fear or hide, he had left his entire fortune to the second child!... But why? This man was intelligent. He must have realized and foreseen that he could, in fact almost inevitably would, lead people to believe that this child was his own. So he was jeopardizing a woman’s reputation? Would he really have done so unless Jean was his son?
Suddenly a clear and awful memory filled his head. Maréchal was fair, fair like Jean. He now remembered a small miniature portrait he had seen on the mantelpiece of their sitting room in Paris long ago, and which had now disappeared. Where could it be? Lost, or hidden? Oh, if he could only get hold it for a second! Maybe his mother had kept it in some secret drawer where keepsakes from a past love are locked away.
The thought of this heightened his distress to the point where he groaned aloud, one of those short involuntary moans forced from the throat by acute pain. And suddenly, as if it had heard him, had understood, and was replying, the siren on the jetty boomed just next to him. The din made by this supernatural monster, more resounding than thunder, a wild and fearsome howl designed to dominate the roaring of the wind and waves, spread into the darkness and across the invisible sea, buried in fog.
Then, through the mist, similar cries called out again in the night, some near, some far. And they were terrifying, these calls from the huge, blinded ships.
And then silence once more.
Pierre had opened his eyes and was looking around, surprised to find himself there, awakened from his nightmare.
‘I must be mad’, he thought, ‘to suspect my own mother.’ And a wave of love and tenderness, repentance, prayer, and grief swept over him. His own mother! Knowing her as he did, how could he have suspected her? Weren’t the very soul, the very lifestyle of this simple, chaste, and loyal woman clearer than water itself? When you had seen and known her, how could you not place her beyond suspicion? And yet he, her son, had doubted her! Oh, if only he could have taken her in his arms there and then, how he would have hugged and kissed her, and gone down on his knees to beg forgiveness!
Could she have been unfaithful to his father?... His father! He was a good man, of course, honourable and trustworthy in business matters, but a man whose mind had never stretched beyond the horizons of his shop. How could this woman, who had been extremely pretty, he knew, and indeed still was, and blessed with a delicate, loving, and gentle soul, have come to accept a man so different from herself as her fiancé and husband?
Why bother to find out? She had, as any girl does, married the young man with some money introduced to her by their families. They had then set themselves up in the Rue Montmartre,* and the young wife, presiding at the counter, excited about her new home, aroused by that subtle, sacred sense of mutual self-interest which replaces love and even affection in most Parisian couples running shops, had thrown herself into working, devoting her active and sharp mind to generating the fortune they hoped for from the business. And her life had gone on in that same way; uneventful, peaceful, honest, and without love!...
Without love?... Was it possible for a woman never to love? Could a pretty, young woman living in Paris, reading books, applauding actresses swooning passionately on stage, could such a woman really go from adolescence to old age without her heart ever being so much as stirred? He would never believe it of any other woman—why should he believe it of his mother?
Of course she could have fallen in love like any other woman! Why should she be any different just because she was his mother?
She had been young, with all the poetic hankerings which stir in youthful hearts! Shut in the prison of the shop beside a boorish husband who only talked business, she had dreamed of moonlight, travel, kisses in the evening shadows. And then one day a man had come in, just as lovers do in books, and had spoken like them.
She had loved this man. Why not? Because she was his mother! What of it! Wouldn’t you have to be blind and stupid to refuse to accept the evidence just because it concerned his own mother?
Had she given herself to him?... Of course she had, because this man had never had another woman in his life; yes, of course, since he had remained faithful to her even when she was old and far away; of course she had, because he had left all that he owned to her son, to their son!...
Pierre got up, quivering with such rage that he would have liked to kill someone! With his large hand open and outstretched, he wanted to strike out, to wound, to crush, to strangle! Who? Everybody, his father, his brother, the dead man, his mother!
He rushed off to go home. What was he going to do?
As he was passing the tower near the signal post, the strident cry of the siren went off in his face. The shock was so violent that he almost fell and went staggering backwards onto the granite parapet. He sat down there, his strength gone, shattered by this blast.
The first steamship to reply seemed close and appeared at the harbour entrance as the tide was high.
Pierre turned around and saw its red eye, dulled by the fog. Then, in the diffuse light of the harbour’s electric beams, a great dark shadow emerged between the two jetties. Behind him, the voice of the watchman, the hoarse voice of an old retired captain, shouted: ‘Ship’s name?’ And out of the fog came the equally husky reply from the pilot on the bridge: ‘Santa-Lucia.’
‘Country?’
‘Italy.’
‘Port?’
‘Naples.’
And before Pierre’s troubled eyes, he thought he saw the plume of fire above Vesuvius, while at the foot of the volcano fireflies flitted in and out of the orange groves of Sorrento or Castellamare!* How many times had he dreamed of these familiar names as though he knew their very landscapes. Oh, if only he could have left there and then, never mind where, never to return, never writing, never letting anyone know what had become of him! But no, he must go back, back to his father’s house, to sleep in his own bed.
No, damn it! He wouldn’t go back, he would wait until daybreak.
He liked the sound of the sirens. He stood up again and started to march up and down like an officer keeping watch on the deck.
Another ship came in behind the first, looking huge and mysterious. It was an English ship back from the Indies.
He watched several others coming in, emerging from the impenetrable shadows. Then, as the dampness of the fog was becoming unbearable, Pierre set off towards the town again. He was so cold that he stopped off at a sailors’ inn for some grog, and when he felt the burning sensation of the hot, spicy brandy hit his throat and palate, he felt a surge of new hope within.
Could he possibly have been mistaken? He knew his uncontrollable mind so well by now! Had he almost certainly been mistaken? He had gathered evidence just as you would construct a case to condemn an innocent victim you are determined to prove guilty. He would feel differently after a good night’s sleep. So he went home to bed and, through sheer will-power, managed to doze off.