François Mauriac

“ A little smile of apology, or perhaps the pouting suggestion of a kiss calmed his brief impatience. Noémi looked at her husband with the eyes of a God-fearing person at the point of death, and the smile that played about her mouth was forced as though to cheer a dying friend. It was Jean, Jean Péloueyre, who had banished the gleam from her eyes, and the colour from her cheeks, her lips, and her ears. His mere presence was cutting at the roots of her life, and he loved her the better for the suffering he caused her. No victim had ever been so adored by its tormentor. ”

“ But during these days his mental agony was at its height. Lingering on the borderland between life and death, without distrusting Noémi he could not help wondering how, when he had gone, she would defend herself against this young man's irresistible beauty. Two persons predestined to love each other are not kept apart by the wretched ghost of a dead man. But there was no trace of these tormenting thoughts upon Jean's face and he smiled as he shook hands with the doctor. Ah, that he might live to conquer in the battle for Noémi's love! What obscure madness had produced his desire for death? ”

“ She felt that she would be forever hemmed in by these endless pines with their sticky red gashes, and in these dreary stretches of sand and burnt heather. In her slow uncultivated mind there was a confused echo of the conflict that had tortured Jean Péloueyre in the days of his bachelorhood. The aridity of her country and the solitude of her life parched her soul with mortal thirst and forced the wretched girl to raise her eyes and stretch out her hands towards the Living Water which is perpetual refreshment.
Noémi dried the perspiration from her hands with a black-bordered handkerchief. ”

“ The priest spent almost all his spare moments there before his Judge. In no other place could he find peace; not the peace that is afforded by the stillness of country churches, thick with shadows, like caves under the sea, but the peace that the world cannot give. He understood that the wretched little Jean, who had scarcely been able to polish the crystals of the chandeliers before high festivals or to gather moss for the ladies to make into garlands, that poor hunter of magpies, was a vastly different person from the man who was now offering his life for the salvation of others. ”

“ One o'clock would strike; an hour less of shuddering disgust in the darkness of the room above, of waiting for the loathsome body beside her to move from the sleep simulated out of pity for her. Often the touch of a leg waked her, and she would creep into the crevice between the bed and the wall where the slightest touch made her tremble with apprehension. Then Jean, believing her to be asleep, would risk a furtive caress, and it was Noémi's turn to pretend, left he should be tempted to go further. ”

“ One evening Noémi found Doctor Pieuchon and the priest talking in the hall, and she asked bitterly of them the reasons for their silence: why hadn't they told her of Jean's daily visits at the bedside of the consumptive? The doctor bowed his head, pleading ignorance of Jean's condition. He was a man of unbounded kindness himself; why should he have been surprised at devotion like his own in another, and devotion to his own son? The priest defended himself more vigorously: Jean had insisted upon silence, and the rôle of spiritual director necessitated scrupulous discretion. ”

“ From his hiding-place behind a pine tree he watched for magpies. If only he could have held back each passing minute; if only evening would never come again! But the shade thickened, and in the pines, twisted by equinoctial gales, there was a faint echo of the rolling surf upon the sands of Mimizan and Biscarosse. Little cabins of heather rose up out of a thick growth of ferns, from which the sportsmen of Les Landes shot ring-doves. The smell of rye-bread came from the farm, and as the sun sank from view, Jean brought down his last lark. ”

“ Through those long September nights when the moonlight fell upon the bed, Jean had probably come to know this body more intimately than if he had been her chosen lover and they had clasped each other in mutual ecstasy. She was always like a corpse in his arms, and his visual possession was therefore complete. Perhaps we know the woman who does not love us better than any other.
At that very moment, Noémi lay in the great cold bedroom, happy, and untroubled by a repulsive presence,—asleep in the bed he had deserted. ”

“ Noémi had at last descended from her pedestal, and Jean darted furtive glances at her. It seemed to him that he had her under a magnifying glass, and he searched eagerly for faults, for "defects" in this humanly vibrating metal: at either side of her nose there were little black dots; at the base of her neck the skin must have been burnt by stale tincture of iodine. A fleeting smile at something the priest was saying gave Jean a glimpse of the white shining line of teeth, and he noticed one dull one that looked questionable. ”

“ The man's pale face and his burning eyes were the portents of the storm that was imminent, and they were as clear to Noémi as any thunder-cloud. She got up and walked across the room in order to put Jean's bed between her body and those devouring eyes. The doctor stuttered: "You should take great care of yourself, if only for his sake." "Oh, I can withstand anything. I'm strong; I eat and sleep like an animal.... I envy people who can die of grief." ”

“ Even without Noémi, even without any wife, he would have the caresses that were worth more to him than any others, those of the wind at dawn. Pouring with perspiration and sickened by the smell of the sick room, he looked with envious eyes at Cadette's grandson who had brought him the first woodcock of the season. What joy those mornings had been: dull grey pine-tops high in the blue sky, like the meek who will be exalted to glory ”

“ The leaves of the scented lime-tree trembled against the Milky Way, and Noémi bade farewell to the dreams in which she had wandered along this lane of silver in the sky. The crickets chirping in the grass reminded her of her master. One hot airless night as she lay uncovered upon her sheets, she sobbed quietly and then wept aloud as she gazed with pitying eyes at her unsullied body, full of ardent life, but cool with the coolness of forest leaves. What would the cricket do with her? She knew that she could forbid him nothing ”

“ Jean would no doubt have preferred to hide his sufferings in the bedroom upstairs, but he had chosen to die in the garden so that Noémi might run the smallest possible risk of contagion. Injections of morphine made him drowsy. Rest! Rest after those hideous afternoons spent at the bedside of Robert Pieuchon, in agonies of despair at having to abandon his life: lurid evenings at Bordeaux; dancing to the music of barrel-organs in little suburban cafés; cycle rides in the country, with dusty legs and delicious fatigue afterwards; and best of all: amorous adventures with young women. ”

“ He made his way back to the village with increasingly slower steps; only a few moments more and Noémi would be unpleasantly conscious of his presence in the house. He tip-toed across the hall, but she was waiting for him and came forward carrying a lamp and smiling a welcome. She bent her forehead for a kiss, and felt the weight of the game-bag: the gestures of a wife, happy at the return of her beloved. But the mask was discarded after a few moments, for it had not served its purpose, and during dinner, M. Jêrome took pity on the silent couple. ”

“ Jean, waving his arms and gesticulating at his table on the boulevard as wildly as in one of the back streets of his own town, took to himself Pascal's phrase about the end of the most brilliant career in the world: "One always loses the game!" One always loses the game; even your brain, Nietzsche! ”

“ And at every meeting with Jean the priest continued to plague him. What chance had the poor boy against such a conspiracy? He was really pleased with the verdict of banishment; except for a pilgrimage to Lourdes and the honeymoon at Arcachon, he had never left his niche, and to submerge himself in the tumult of Paris would be like foundering in a human ocean more terrifying than the Atlantic. ”

“ She looked at her dusty shoes and at a tuft of young ferns whose fronds were opening out like fingers. Then she raised her eyes slowly and the smell of rye bread came drifting across to her like the very breath of the farm. Suddenly she stood up, trembling. A gig that she easily recognized was standing in front of the farmhouse. How often through half-opened shutters she had gazed at its polished axle-caps, more thrilling to her than the stars in the heavens! Noémi shook the sand from the folds of her dress; the wheels of a farm cart creaked ”

“ Jean's coughing sounded through the bedroom door, and Cadette's dragging footsteps could be heard in the kitchen. The priest spoke again: "I prayed for guidance, Noémi; we must praise the ways of God." He put on his coat and departed, his mind full of conflicting emotions; in hours of sleeplessness he wept over Jean Péloueyre. To no purpose did he repeat to himself that Jean had made his will in favour of Noémi, and that it was M. Jêrome's intention, after his son's death, to give the house and as much as possible of his property to his daughter-in-law—providing she did not re-marry. ”

“ It wasn't the time for his daily visit, and in any case how dared he risk an encounter with Fernand Cazenave who was always furious at the sight of a priest? From behind the lime tree Jean watched Fernand taking his customary five minutes' constitutional before meals. His mother followed, gasping for breath: a rotund bust supporting a majestic head; a stupendous machine of a body, awkward from long use, but obedient to the wishes of the adored son. ”

“ Had not the priest himself chosen the path of matrimony for her?
Noémi was silent; how could she reply, pre-eminently fitted as she was to be a wife and a mother, and full of piety and tenderness? She never read novels; she waited upon her parents, obeyed them. ”

“ You will find Noémi changed for the better; she has put on weight and is in superb health. She is spoiling me to such an extent that I can hardly remember to thank her for her attentions. The Cazenaves never come here, but I know they think you two have quarrelled. Let them say what they please. I am very fit, unlike young Pieuchon who can only go out in a carriage and who is thought by everyone to be dying in spite of a doctor from B—— who pretends he is curing him with iodine and water. The old outlast the young. ”

“ The Cazenaves were spreading the gossip that M. Jêrome's stinginess was depriving Jean of the benefit of a milder climate and a higher altitude. But Jean was the sort of person who preferred to die at home, and Doctor Pieuchon professed that there was no climate for consumptives like the forests of Les Landes. He hung the walls of the sick room with young pines as though for Corpus Christi day, and placed jars overflowing with resin by the bed. When he could think of nothing more to do, he called in his young colleague, certain that Jean was now incapable of taking iodine in heavy doses. ”

“ M. Jêrome was against calling in Doctor Pieuchon; he was exasperated at the idea of anyone in the house being ill but himself. His son was barely in bed when he too retired to his, declaring himself to be suffering agonies of pain in every part of his body and loudly refusing the proffered attentions of Cadette. Noémi went to him as soon as she could, not to see how he was, but to get his permission to call in the doctor. He refused point-blank. Pieuchon would not leave the bedside of his germ-ridden son. If she wanted to see a doctor, why not send for the young man with the iodine? ”

“ M. Jêrome was proud of belonging to a family whose widows never went out of mourning, and the d'Artiailhs were most anxious for Noémi to continue wearing it. And this was why, in the early winter mornings, the young doctor was no more able to see the widow in her shadowy retreat than she to see her husband through the flagstone that sealed his grave, upon which she knelt every day. At times, however, he caught glimpses of her face, youthfully radiant in spite of her secluded life and of her fasts before Communion. ”

“ M. Jêrome had wept on those occasions, pretending that a stroke was imminent; always a coward when it came to the distressful moment of separation. It was in all probability after the last of these frustrated departures that the poor man had laid down rules for his hours of silence, destined always to be troubled by the suffering presence of his little son. And so it was that Jean studied with the priest till he was fifteen, and only went to school in order to matriculate. ”

“ A book of selections from Nietzsche claimed Jean's attention, and he looked at a page here and there. The smell of a student's summer clothes came to his nostrils from an open trunk as his eyes fell upon this passage: "What is good? Everything that increases the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. The weak must perish, and we shall help them to perish. What is more harmful than any vice? ”

“ V THE bedroom in the Family Hotel at Arcachon was furnished in imitation bamboo; no curtain concealed the utensils under the wash-hand stand, and the wallpaper was soiled by crushed mosquitoes. Through the open window came a salt breeze from the harbour, smelling of fish and seaweed, and the purring of a motor-boat grew fainter and fainter as it neared the channel. Two guardian angels hid their ashamed faces in the folds of the cretonne curtains. When the numbed senses of the man at last awoke, he found beside him a woman still as lifeless as a corpse. ”

“ Certainly those of the Masters who believed were the rulers of their class. But did Chateaubriand ever hesitate to risk his chances of salvation for a caress? And how many times did Barbey d'Aurevilly betray the Son of Man for a kiss? Were not their triumphs measured by the extent to which they betrayed God?
After daybreak the outrageous squealing of some little pigs kept Jean awake; he closed the shutters in order that no one might look in upon him. On the pavement just outside, Madame Bourideys, who kept a haberdashery shop, stopped Noémi d'Artiailh to ask her whether she had breakfasted. ”

“ Neither Daniel Trasis nor the priest who taught him rhetoric had ever understood the hopeless beseeching expression in his eyes.
Jean opened the Nietzsche book at another page and devoured Aphorism 260 from "Beyond Good and Evil" which refers to master-morality and slave-morality. He looked at his face in the mirror again; it would always be yellow in spite of his efforts to acquire a coat of sunburn. He repeated Nietzsche's words over and over again, saturated himself with their meaning until it rushed through his thoughts like an October gale. ”