Nothing much happened in the Roland household for a week or two. Father went fishing, Jean settled into his apartment with his mother’s help, Pierre was very morose and now only appeared at mealtimes.
One evening his father asked him: ‘Why on earth do you look so down in the dumps? And what’s more, it’s been going on a long time!’
To which the doctor replied: ‘It’s because I can feel the weight of the world on my shoulders.’
The poor man couldn’t make anything of this and said glumly: ‘It’s really beyond me. Ever since we were lucky enough to receive this legacy, everyone’s been miserable. It’s as if there’s been a terrible accident or we’re in mourning!’
‘I am, in a way,’ said Pierre.
‘You are? Who for?’
‘Oh, nobody you ever knew, but somebody I loved far too much.’ Roland imagined it was some girlfriend, some floozy his son had been seeing.
‘A woman, no doubt?’
‘Yes, a woman.’
‘She’s dead?’
‘No, worse, lost.’
‘Oh!’
Despite being surprised at this unexpected disclosure, blurted out in front of his wife, and at his son’s strange tone, he did not insist further, believing that such matters were nobody else’s business.
Madame Roland appeared not to have heard; in fact she had turned pale and looked most unwell. Her husband, surprised to see her sit down as though collapsing into her chair and to hear her almost struggling to draw breath, had already said to her on more than one occasion: ‘Really, Louise, you look terrible. You must be wearing yourself out helping Jean to move in! For God’s sake rest a little. The lad’s in no rush now he’s well off.’
She shook her head without replying.
This particular day she was so pale that Roland noticed it again.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘this won’t do at all, my poor little thing, you must look after yourself.’
Then, turning to his son: ‘You must be able to see that your mother’s not well. Have you taken a look at her at all?’
‘No, I hadn’t noticed anything wrong with her,’ replied Pierre.
At which point Roland became angry: ‘But it’s staring you in the face, damn it! What’s the good of being a doctor if you can’t even tell when your own mother’s unwell? Just look at her, will you. You could kick the bucket and this doctor wouldn’t even notice!’
Madame Roland had started to gasp for breath and looked so white that her husband exclaimed: ‘She’s going to faint!’
‘No... no... it’s nothing... I’m all right... it’ll pass.’
Pierre went over to her and stared at her: ‘Let’s see what’s wrong with you then.’
Quickly and almost inaudibly she repeated: ‘It’s nothing... honestly... nothing at all.’
Roland had gone off to look for some vinegar; he came back in and handed the bottle to his son. ‘Here... Why don’t you do something for her? Have you even felt her pulse?’
As Pierre leant over to take her pulse, she pulled her hand away so sharply that she knocked it against a chair.
‘Come on, then,’ he said coldly. ‘Let’s get you seen to, as you’re not well.’
So she held out her arm for him. Her skin was burning, her pulse throbbing wildly. He murmured: ‘It’s actually quite serious. You need something to calm you down. I’ll give you a prescription.’
As he was writing it out, hunched over his piece of paper, the faint sound of rapid sighs and short, stifled inward breaths made him suddenly turn around.
She was crying, her head buried in her hands.
Bewildered, Roland asked: ‘Louise, Louise, what is it? What on earth’s the matter?’
She did not reply, but seemed torn by some horribly deep sorrow.
Her husband tried to take her hands away from her face, but she resisted, repeating: ‘No, no, no.’
He turned to his son.
‘What’s wrong with her? I’ve never seen her like this.’
‘It’s nothing,’ said Pierre, ‘just a little attack of nerves.’
He seemed to feel a sense of relief in his own heart when he saw how tortured she was, her sense of pain somehow alleviating his own resentment and reducing his mother’s debt of shame. He contemplated her like a judge satisfied with his work.
But suddenly she got up and made for the door so unexpectedly and with such speed that nobody could have stopped her, and rushed to her room where she locked herself in.
Roland and the doctor were left facing each other.
‘Can you make any sense of all that?’ asked one.
‘Yes,’ replied the other, ‘she’s just a little overwrought, which is common at mother’s age. She’ll probably have a lot more of this sort of outburst.’
She did indeed have many more of them, almost every day, triggered it seemed by the slightest word from Pierre, as though he knew the secret of her strange new illness. He watched her face to detect moments of respite, and then, with a torturer’s ingenuity, revived the pain that had momentarily subsided with a single word.
And yet he suffered as much as she did! He suffered terribly because he no longer loved and respected her and because he tortured her. When he had reopened the bleeding wound he had made in the heart of this woman, his mother, when he realized that she was utterly miserable and desperate, he went off on his own into town, so tormented by remorse, so overcome with pity, so distraught at having crushed her with his contempt—he, her own son!—that he felt like throwing himself into the sea to put an end to it all.
Oh, how he would have loved to forgive her this minute! But he couldn’t, for he was incapable of forgetting. If only he could ease her suffering. But he couldn’t do that either as he was always suffering himself. He came home at mealtimes, with every intention of relenting; then, as soon as he saw her, saw how her once direct and honest eyes now looked fearfully and frantically away, he lashed out in spite of himself, unable to prevent the treacherous words which came to his lips.
The vile secret that they alone shared goaded him on against her. It was a poison now running through his veins, making him want to snap like a rabid dog.
Nothing held him back from tearing her apart now that Jean lived almost permanently at his new apartment and only returned to his family to eat and sleep each night.
Jean often noticed Pierre’s bitter and violent outbursts which he put down to jealousy. He resolved to put him in his place and teach him a lesson one day because family life was becoming unbearable as a result of these continual scenes. But, as he lived away from home now, he had fewer of these upsets to endure, and his love of a quiet life persuaded him to be patient. Moreover, carried away by his good fortune, nowadays he scarcely stopped to think about anything that didn’t directly concern him. He would arrive home with his mind full of new little worries, concerned about the cut of a jacket, the shape of a felt hat, or the acceptable size of a visiting card. He would then go on and on about every detail of his home, the shelves in his bedroom cupboard for folded linen, coat pegs in the hall, electric alarms to prevent anybody getting into the place when he wasn’t there.
It had been decided that to celebrate his moving in, they would all go on a picnic to Saint-Jouin and come back to his home for tea afterwards. Roland wanted to go by boat, but because of the distance and uncertainty of the time it would take this way in the event of a head wind, his idea was rejected and a carriage was hired for the excursion.
They left around ten to arrive in time for lunch. The dusty main road unfurled through the Norman countryside which, with its undulating plains and tree-enclosed farms, looks like an endless park. In the carriage, pulled along at a gentle trot by two great horses, the Rolands, Madame Rosémilly, and Captain Beausire sat in silence, deafened by the noise of the wheels, their eyes shut against the clouds of dust.
It was harvest time. Beside the dark green clover and bright green beetroot, the yellow corn lit up the landscape with a pale golden glow. It seemed to have absorbed all of the sunlight that had poured down on it. Harvesting was beginning here and there and, in the fields where scything had started, men could be seen swaying back and forth as they swung their enormous wing-shaped blades across the ground.
After two hours, the carriage turned left down a lane, past a windmill, a melancholy grey ruin, still turning, a half crumbling and condemned last survivor of the old mills, then entered a pretty courtyard and came to a halt outside a charming house, a well-known country inn.
The woman in charge, known as La Belle Alphonsine, came smiling to the door and held up her hands to the two ladies who were hesitating at the long jump down. Some other guests, Parisians from Étretat, were already having lunch beneath a canopy alongside a field shaded by apple trees, and the sound of voices, laughter, and the clatter of plates could be heard inside the house.
They had to eat in a side room as all the main dining areas were full. Suddenly Roland noticed some shrimping nets propped against the wall.
‘Ah-ha,’ he exclaimed, ‘can you go shrimp fishing here?’
‘Yes,’ replied Beausire, ‘in fact it’s the best place on the coast for it.’
‘Is it now! What about doing a spot ourselves after lunch?’
It just so happened that it was low tide at three o’clock, and so it was decided that they would all spend the afternoon out on the rocks looking for shrimps.
They ate lightly so as not to feel a sudden rush of dizziness when they stepped into the cold water. They also wished to save themselves for the lavish dinner which had been ordered for their return at six.
Roland could hardly contain himself. He wanted to buy special equipment for the trip, nets similar to those used for catching butterflies in the fields.
They are known as lanets and are small mesh pouches attached to a wooden ring at the end of long sticks. Alphonsine, her usual smiling self, lent them some. Then she helped the ladies to improvise suitable outfits so as not to get their dresses wet. She gave them skirts, thick woollen stockings and espadrilles. The men took off their socks and bought slip-on sandals and clogs from the local shoe shop.
Then they set off, nets over shoulders and baskets on backs. Madame Rosémilly looked quite delightful in this attire, with an unexpected rustic and defiant charm. The skirt lent by Alphonsine, coquettishly turned up and held in place with a few stitches to allow her to run and jump fearlessly on the rocks, revealed her ankle and lower calf, the firm calf of a strong, agile, and slender woman. Her clothes were left loose to allow her to move freely, and to cover her head she had found a huge yellow straw gardening hat with an enormous brim pinned up on one side by a sprig of tamarisk, which gave her the look of an intrepid musketeer.
Since coming into his money, Jean had asked himself every day whether or not he would marry her. Each time he saw her he felt sure he would make her his wife, then, as soon as he was alone, he thought that by waiting he would give himself time to think it over. She had less money now than he had, for she only had an income of around 12,000 francs, but this was in real estate, in farms and land in Le Havre near the docks, and that could prove to be worth a great deal later on. Their fortunes were therefore almost on a par, and he certainly found the young widow very attractive.
As he watched her walking ahead of him that day, he thought: ‘I really ought to make up my mind. I know I won’t do better.’
They followed the slope of a small valley down from the village to the cliffs, where the drop to the sea from the cliff top edge was some eighty metres. Framed by green hillsides rolling away left and right, a large triangle, silvery-blue in the sun, appeared in the distance with a barely visible sail that looked like an insect out there. The brightly lit sky blended so closely with the water that it was hard to see where one ended and the other began. Against this bright horizon, the tightly corseted figures of the women, walking ahead of the three men, stood out in contrast.
Jean’s eyes sparkled as he watched, from behind, the fleeing outline of Madame Rosémilly’s slender ankle, elegant leg, lithe waist, and large provocative hat. The sight of her running ahead kindled his desire and drove him to the kind of final decision taken suddenly by the hesitant and timid. The scent of the hills, gorse, clover, and grasses mingling in the warm air with the salty odour of the exposed rocks excited him further, causing a mildly intoxicating effect. Every step, every second, every glance in the direction of the young lady’s nimble silhouette led him to make up his mind a little bit more. He decided to hesitate no longer, to tell her that he loved her and that he wanted to marry her. The fishing trip would help him by making it easier for them to be alone. Added to that, it would be a beautiful setting, a wonderful place to talk of love, as they paddled in limpid pools and watched long-whiskered shrimps darting away beneath the seaweed.
When they came to the bottom of the valley, on the very edge of the precipice, they noticed a small path at the cliff edge leading down the face of it, and beneath them, about halfway down between the sea and the foot of the long drop, an amazing jumble of huge rocks that had fallen and toppled onto one another in a sort of grassy, uneven stretch formed by past landslides, that ran southwards for as far as the eye could see. On this long strip of scrubland and grass, shaken, it would seem, by volcanic eruptions, the fallen rocks resembled the ruins of a great vanished city that had once looked out across the ocean, overlooked itself by the endless white backdrop of the cliffs.
‘Isn’t that beautiful!’ said Madame Rosémilly, stopping to look.
Jean had caught up with her, and, overcome with emotion, held out his hand to help her down the narrow steps carved into the rocks.
They went off ahead, while Beausire, tensing his short legs, offered a crooked arm to Madame Roland who had no head for heights.
Roland and Pierre brought up the rear, and the doctor had to drag his father down, as he was so overcome by dizziness that he could only shuffle down step by step on his behind.
The young couple, who were leading the way, were moving fast and unexpectedly came across a wooden bench providing a resting place about halfway down, beside which a trickle of clear water sprang from a small hole in the cliff-side. It spilled over into a pool the size of a washbasin that it had hollowed out itself, and then, falling in a cascade barely two feet high, ran across the path, at which point a carpet of watercress had grown, and disappeared into the brambles and grass, across the raised expanse of fallen rocks.
‘Oh, I’m so thirsty!’ exclaimed Madame Rosémilly.
But how could she drink? She tried to catch the water by cupping her hand but it escaped through her fingers. Jean had an idea; placing a stone on the path, she knelt on it so as to drink from the spring directly with her mouth now at the same level.
As she raised her head, covered with thousands of sparkling droplets all over her skin, hair, eyelashes and dress, Jean leaned towards her and murmured: ‘You’re so pretty!’
To which she replied, as if scolding a child: ‘Oh, hush now!’
These were the first remotely romantic words exchanged between them.
‘Come on,’ said Jean, in a fluster, ‘let’s get going before they catch us up.’
He could in fact now see the back of Captain Beausire quite nearby as he came down backwards holding Madame Roland’s hands to steady her, and further away, higher up, Roland was still sliding down firmly planted on his behind, dragging himself along with his feet and elbows at tortoise pace with Pierre in front watching his every move.
The path became less steep and turned into a sort of sloping track winding downwards around the huge lumps of rock that had once fallen from the mountain. Madame Rosémilly and Jean began to run and soon reached the shingle. They crossed this to get to the rocks which stretched out, to form a long, flat surface covered with marine plant-life and shimmering with countless pools of water. The low tide was a long way out behind this plain of slimy seaweed, shiny green and black.
Jean rolled his trousers up to calf-length and his shirt sleeves to his elbows so as not to worry about getting his clothes wet, then cried, ‘In we go!’ and boldly jumped into the first pool they came across.
Although equally determined to go into the water in due course, the young lady was more cautious, stepping hesitantly around the little pool, slipping on the slimy seaweed.
‘Can you see anything?’ she said.
‘Yes, the reflection of your face in the water.’
‘You won’t make much of a catch if that’s all you can see.’
To which he murmured tenderly: ‘Oh, that would my most preferred catch of all.’
She laughed: ‘Why don’t you try then, and you’ll see how it slips through your net.’
‘And yet... if you wanted?’
‘I want to see you catch these shrimps, and that’s all... for now.’
‘You’re cruel! Let’s go further on, there’s nothing here.’
And he held out his hand to help her across the slippery rocks. She leaned on him timidly, and he suddenly felt overcome by a surge of love, a growing desire, and a ravenous hunger for her as if the virile seeds germinating within him had waited for that day to come to the surface.
Soon they came across a much deeper crevice where long weeds, peculiarly coloured and swaying like wisps of pink and green hair, floated beneath the rippled surface of the water that flowed towards the distant sea along an invisible fissure.
Madame Rosémilly cried out: ‘Over here! I can see a huge one, look, a huge one over there!’
He saw it too, and resolutely stepped into the hole, although he got soaked to the waist.
But the creature, waving its long whiskers, slowly retreated as the net came nearer. Jean forced it back against the seaweed, certain he would have it. As soon as it felt itself trapped, it darted swiftly forwards, up over the net, across the pool, and disappeared.
The young lady, watching the chase with great excitement, could not help crying out: ‘Oh, clumsy!’
He was annoyed and dragged his net without thinking in a pool full of weeds. As he brought it back up to the surface, he saw three large transparent shrimps in it that he had caught without seeing their concealed hiding place.
Triumphantly he held them up to Madame Rosémilly, who didn’t dare touch them because of the sharp, jagged points on their delicate heads.
Finally she decided she would, and squeezing the tips of their whiskers between two fingers, she placed them one by one into her basket, along with some seaweed to keep them alive. Then, having found a shallower pool, she gingerly went in, drawing a sharp breath as her feet hit the icy water, and began hunting herself. She was skilful and artful at it, with a quickness of hand and that vital hunter’s instinct. Almost every time she brought out creatures caught unawares by her subtly slow technique.
Jean wasn’t finding anything now, but was following her every move, brushing against her and leaning over her, feigning great despair at his own incompetence and a desire to learn from her.
‘Oh, show me how,’ he said, ‘please show me how!’
Seeing their faces side by side reflected in the mirror created in the clear water by the dark plants at the bottom, Jean smiled at the face next to his looking up at him from the depths and blew a kiss from his fingertips which appeared to land on it.
‘Oh, you are tiresome’, said the young woman, ‘you should never try to do two things at once, my dear friend.’
To which he replied: ‘I’m only doing one. I love you.’
She stood up and said very seriously: ‘Look, what’s come over you for the last ten minutes? Have you gone mad?’
‘No, I haven’t gone mad. I love you and finally I’ve found the courage to tell you.’
They were now both standing in the salty pool, up to their calves in water, hands dripping as they clasped their nets, and looking into each other’s eyes.
She carried on in an amused tone of mock irritation: ‘How silly of you to tell me that now. Couldn’t you have waited until another day rather than spoil my fishing!’
He murmured: ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I’ve been in love with you for a long time. I’m so infatuated by you that I’ve lost my head being with you today.’
All of a sudden she seemed to come to terms with the idea, resigning herself to talking business and giving up her fun.
‘Let’s sit down on this rock,’ she said, ‘so we can talk about this calmly.’
They climbed up the rock a little way and once they were sitting side by side, feet dangling and with the sun beating down on them, she went on: ‘My dear friend, you’re not a child any more and I’m not a young girl. We both know perfectly well what’s going on and we’re certainly capable of weighing up the consequences of our actions. As you’ve decided to declare your love for me today, I naturally assume you wish to marry me.’
He hadn’t expected such a matter-of-fact statement of the situation, and replied feebly: ‘Of course.’
‘Have you spoken to your mother or father about it?’
‘No, I wanted to see if you would accept first.’
She held out her wet hand and said, as he eagerly took her hand in his: ‘I would be happy to. I believe you to be good and true. But don’t forget that I wouldn’t want to upset your parents.’
‘Oh, do you really think my mother hasn’t seen this coming, or that she would love you as much as she does if she didn’t want us ever to marry?’
‘You’re right, I’m just a bit anxious.’
They fell silent. But Jean, on the contrary, was amazed at how composed and how rational she was being. He had expected her to flirt with him a little, a few ‘no’s’ that meant yes, a whole romantic comedy coquettishly played out throughout the fishing trip with lots of splashing around in the water! And here it was, all settled, he felt tied, married in just twenty words. There was nothing left for them to say to each other as it was all decided, and now they both felt slightly embarrassed at what had happened so quickly between them, even a bit overcome, not daring to say anything, nor daring to carry on fishing, unsure what to do next.
The sound of Roland’s voice saved them: ‘This way, you young ones. Come and watch Beausire. The fellow’s emptying the whole sea!’
The captain was indeed making a remarkable catch. Soaked to the waist, he was going from pool to pool, judging the best places in the blink of an eye, and with a slow, sure movement, scooping his net into every single cavity hidden under the seaweed.
The large, transparent creatures, all pale-grey, wriggled in his hand as he plucked them out in one swift motion to throw them into his basket.
Surprised and delighted, Madame Rosémilly never left his side, copying him as best she could, almost forgetting her promise and Jean who followed her in a daze, and throwing herself wholeheartedly into the childish pleasure of gathering these prawns from beneath the floating reeds.
Suddenly Roland cried out: ‘Oh look, Madame Roland’s caught up with us.’
At first she had stayed alone on the beach with Pierre, neither of them keen to scrabble about on the rocks or splash around in pools; yet they were reluctant to be left alone together. She was afraid of him, and her son was afraid both of her and himself, afraid of his uncontrollable cruelty.
So they sat down next to each other on the shingle.
Looking out at the vast, soft blue horizon flecked with silver, in the heat of the sun softened by the sea breeze, they were both thinking: ‘How wonderful it would have been here once!’
Madame Roland didn’t dare speak to Pierre, knowing he would reply harshly if she did; likewise, he didn’t dare speak to his mother as he knew that, despite himself, he would only do so callously.
He poked and prodded the pebbles about with the end of his stick. Staring vacantly, she had picked up three or four little stones and was slowly and mechanically dropping them from one hand into the other. Her wandering gaze suddenly fell upon her son Jean who was fishing in the seaweed with Madame Rosémilly. She followed their movements closely, realizing vaguely, with a mother’s instinct, that they were not talking as they usually would. She watched them lean close to each other as they looked at their reflections in the water, and then stand facing each other as they considered their feelings for one another, climbing up to sit on the rocks to commit themselves to each other.
Their silhouettes stood out clearly and seemingly alone on the horizon, taking on a kind of symbolic grandeur against this large expanse of sky, sea, and cliffs.
Pierre was also watching them, and he suddenly let out a dry little laugh.
Without turning to look at him, Madame Roland said: ‘What is it?’
Still smirking, he said: ‘I’m taking lessons. I’m learning how a man prepares himself to become a cuckold.’
She was visibly angered, disgusted, and shocked by his choice of words and infuriated by what she thought she understood by it.
‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Jean, for heaven’s sake! It’s laughable to see them like that!’
Softly, and with a trembling voice, she murmured: ‘Oh, Pierre, you’re so cruel! That woman is as honourable as they come. Your brother couldn’t hope for a better wife.’
He laughed outright at this, a false and staccato laugh: ‘Ha, ha, ha! Honourable of course! All women are honourable... and all men are cuckolds. Ha, ha, ha!’
Without replying, she got up and hurried down the shingle slope and, at the risk of slipping or falling into a grass-covered pot-hole and breaking an arm or a leg, she almost broke into a run, rushing blindly ahead through pools towards her other son. Seeing her coming, Jean called out: ‘So you decided to brave it, Mother?’
Without replying, she grabbed hold of his arm as if to say: ‘Save me, protect me.’
He could see she was upset and, surprised, exclaimed: ‘You’re so pale! Whatever’s the matter?’
She managed to mumble: ‘I nearly fell over, I was scared coming down the rocks.’
So Jean led her, helped her along, explaining the fishing to get her interested in it. But as she hardly appeared to listen and as he was desperately in need of someone to confide in, he took her further along and whispered: ‘Guess what I’ve done?’
‘I... I... I’ve no idea!’
‘Guess.’
‘Well, I’ve told Madame Rosémilly that I want to marry her.’
Her head buzzing, and feeling so distraught she could barely take anything in, Madame Roland said nothing. She repeated: ‘Marry
her?’
‘Yes. Do you think I’ve done the right thing? She is charming, isn’t she?’
‘Yes... charming... you’ve done the right thing.’
‘So you approve then?’
‘Yes... I approve.’
‘What a funny way you say that. It almost sounds as if... as if you’re not pleased.’
‘But of course I am... I am pleased.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
To prove it she took him in her arms and gave him great motherly kisses right on the lips. When she had wiped her tear-filled eyes, she noticed across the beach a body lying flat on its stomach on the beach like a corpse, its face in the shingle; it was Pierre, the other one, deep in thought and in despair.
She then led her younger son further off, to the water’s edge, where they talked for a long time about this marriage on which he had set his heart.
The incoming tide drove them back to rejoin the fishing party, and then they all made their way back up. They woke Pierre who was pretending to be asleep, and dinner was a long affair that evening, washed down with lots of wine.