It was a November day; the skies wept softly; the wind danced in the bride’s veil; the carriages crushed the last reddish leaves. What a shame that there was to be no reception, no ‘buffet luncheon’ thought the two mothers with deep, sorrowful regret. Each of them believed that her own child had been sacrificed in this marriage and that never had two people been united under such sad circumstances. Madame Florent was bitterly disappointed. Right up until the very last moment she had expected the classic theatrical ending, the kind that happens in books and on the stage: the grandfather softening, opening his arms and showering his grandson with great wealth. But the horrible old man was obstinate. ‘We’ll have to be patient and wait until they have their first child,’ thought Madame Florent, who was resolute and optimistic by nature. But for now, Agnès’s small dowry and the savings that the Hardelots had given to their son were all the young couple had in the world. Pierre was abandoning hope of any legacy. The thought that he had been snatched away from the factory, from Saint-Elme, made his mother miserable, and especially the idea that he could possibly be happy so far away from her.
Happy? Were the young couple happy now? They had eaten lunch in the little pied-à-terre rented by Madame Florent; they had changed their clothes; they had leaned forward so their relatives could kiss them. They had listened to their familiar voices, so sweet despite the hint of bitterness that comes with maturity (just as milk turns sour with age): ‘As long as you have no regrets, my darling … Never forget everything he has sacrificed for you …’ They were alone.
They were to spend their first night together in a hotel. They were embarrassed, ashamed of the shiny new wedding rings, of the fact that they were so obviously newlyweds. Pierre couldn’t help thinking about his grandfather’s country house, just outside Saint-Elme, where his parents had spent their honeymoon and where he would have taken his new wife if everything had gone to plan … if everything had been different … He didn’t like this hotel room. They had picked it at random; it was an old, luxurious hotel on the Avenue de l’Opéra. They were used to the silence of Saint-Elme, so the noise of cars, the voices in the corridors, the sounds from the street, made them shudder nervously. Their desire for each other was paralysed by the emotions of the day, the strangeness of the place, exhaustion.
Never had they felt less in love. They had no regrets, of course, but Pierre thought, ‘With Simone, everything would have been simpler’ and Agnès reflected, ‘I don’t know who he is any more. He’s looking at me so coldly. He’s like a stranger.’ She felt cold. The brass bed, the black marble bathroom, the enormous table, everything chilled them to the bone. The shutters were closed, but the bright, strange lights of Paris seeped through them. They could feel a deep, low tremor in the walls.
‘What’s that?’ asked Agnès, frightened.
‘It’s nothing,’ murmured Pierre. ‘It’s just the Métro.’
They fell silent. He was afraid to kiss her, to touch her. Up until now they had thought of their wedding day, their wedding night, as the culmination of their love, a happy ending for them. ‘But it’s only just beginning,’ they thought, astonished and depressed.
A little while later Pierre forced himself to talk, to laugh. For the first time he used the familiar ‘tu’ with his wife. His wife … But he scarcely recognised her. She was wearing a dress he’d never seen before and had a new hairstyle. Then, suddenly, everything changed. Sitting in front of the mirror, she took out her hairpins. He felt bolder at once, whispered her name several times, kissed her hair, her lips; he desired her. She waited, docile, trembling, anxious.
It was dark when he woke up. He climbed out of bed, switched on the lamp and leaned over his wife. She was sleeping. She had covered her eyes with her arm when he had gone over to her and had kept that childlike gesture as she slept. He studied her with such sweet, profound happiness that he said out loud, into the silence, ‘How wonderful this is, my God, how wonderful everything is.’ Shyly, he stroked her bare shoulder and slender arm. It was less a caress than a tender attempt to engrave a memory of her, just as she was that night. He might one day forget the sound of her voice, which would change with age, as would her body, her features; but he felt that the delicate outline of her body, her rather frail wrist, the fine, smooth curve of her arm, her breast rising and falling as she slept, would remain for ever imprinted in the palm of his hand. He smiled, surprised to feel so moved. He was passionate by nature; he’d had affairs. But it wasn’t the physical pleasure she had given him that made him feel so strongly attached to her. It was something else, a feeling that arose in a domain more subtle than the flesh, more ardent than the soul. ‘It’s deep within us,’ he whispered. ‘It’s in our blood.’ He felt his own rushing faster. Never had he been so happy. He moved slightly and she opened her eyes; he sheltered her eyes with his hand and gestured for her to go back to sleep, to listen to him, not to be afraid of the dark, of this strange room, he was with her. He pressed her tightly against him and both of them fell asleep.
6
‘Charles! Where are they? They’re not coming. What time is it?’
Madame Hardelot asked the question for the tenth time; she was trembling.
She was standing out in the street, in front of her house in Saint-Elme, with no hat on. It was the height of impropriety to be seen this way, without her hat and coat at seven o’clock in the evening, with everyone able to stare at her. But for the past forty-eight hours, the world had seemed as shaky and vulnerable to collapse as the scenery in a theatre; even Saint-Elme was in a state. It was the end of July 1914. No one wanted to believe there would be war, but everyone could feel the hot breath of its approach. Pierre Hardelot was bringing his wife and son back from Spain before going to join his regiment. He was an engineer and, since his marriage, he had been sent by his company to work in Budapest for a while, then in Madrid. His parents hadn’t seen him in thirty months; they had never met his child, who had been born in Spain.
‘To see him again!’ thought Madame Hardelot in despair. ‘To see him and lose him again at the same time. But there can’t be a war; it isn’t possible. It simply isn’t possible for such a thing to happen.’ That evening, millions of people were saying the same thing. Even though they knew that every century and every country had had its share of war and misery, it seemed that, by special decree of divine Providence, this century, this country would be spared.
‘Of course, Alsace and Lorraine … Of course, the Emperor of Germany, and the Tsar, and Serbia,’ murmured Madame Hardelot. ‘Of course, there’s all that. But my God, we’re talking about Pierre, my own son. It isn’t possible. This is a nightmare.’
‘Why didn’t we go and meet them at the station?’ she cried out reproachfully, turning towards Charles.
‘But you know very well, my dear, that my father would have found out.’
‘So what?’ she exclaimed bitterly. ‘He has the nerve to forbid me to see my son, my own son who’s being sent to die?’
‘Don’t get so worked up, Marthe. Being called up is not the same as going to war. And besides, it is my profound conviction that a world war would be fought almost without any blood being spilled. Just imagine if that weren’t the case, if every country sent all its forces into battle, with the terrifying progress that the arms manufacturers are making … Where was I? Well, yes, there would be such terrible carnage that all of civilisation would be destroyed. You can understand why no state would wish to answer to posterity for such a crime. No, all everyone will do is try to intimidate each other, I’m sure of it. In a few days the embassies will start negotiations and the cannon fire will cease.’
‘Why didn’t you let me go to the station?’ repeated Marthe, who hadn’t been listening to a word he said.
‘Listen to me now; we simply cannot openly take sides with our son against our father in front of the whole town. Of course people will find it natural if your daughter-in-law and grandson pay a visit to you, but it would be unacceptable for them to stay with us
. My father said so very explicitly and in front of many people (it was at cousin Adèle’s birthday party), all of Saint-Elme was there … When someone asked him if he had any news of Pierre, he said, “He disobeyed me. He doesn’t exist for me any more.” What can we do, Marthe? He’s in charge. They’ll stay with Gabrielle Florent. You can see him as much as you like and we’ll still keep up appearances. Society relies entirely on nuances.’
‘And stupidity. Besides, he’s leaving tomorrow.’
‘My dear, you do upset me. Sometimes you say things that make you sound like … like an anarchist, if you’ll pardon the expression.’
‘Look, just leave me alone,’ she shouted, then leaned against the door and started to cry. Crying in the street! How could she let herself behave like that? She didn’t give a thought to what the neighbours would think, and the other busybodies. In every house that night a woman was crying and none of them cared what was happening outside her own home. Madame Hardelot stood on her doorstep, sobbing uncontrollably into her handkerchief. But a car was coming; inside were Pierre, Agnès, a child, the luggage. She could already hear Pierre’s voice, tender and slightly mocking: ‘What’s this, Mama? Are you crying? Tears of joy, I hope? Are you happy to see us?’
She threw her arms round him and hugged him tightly. ‘When are you leaving? Do you have to go right away?’
‘No, not at all,’ he said, as if he were talking to a child.
But she knew very well he was lying; she could tell just by looking at Agnès’s sad, pale face. She could keep her son for only a few hours, perhaps overnight. Devastated, she frostily kissed her daughter-in-law and the baby.
‘Look, Marthe,’ said Charles, ‘what a handsome boy.’
But she didn’t want to look at him; she didn’t want to be consoled. At that very moment only Pierre filled her heart. Every smile she gave to anyone else was stolen from Pierre.
‘Come inside,’ she murmured automatically. ‘Dinner’s getting cold. You’re very late. I had some strained soup made for the baby.’
‘Madame,’ said Agnès, ‘he’s already eaten. We wanted to show him to you, but you can spend more time with him tomorrow. Mama has his bed ready at her house. The maid will come and fetch him and put him straight to sleep. He’s tired.’
‘Oh, very well,’ said Madame Hardelot with a gesture that seemed to indicate she had swallowed as much bitterness as she could take.
‘We’ll come back tomorrow. We’ll come back as often as you like,’ Agnès said softly.
‘And you’ll come too, Pierre? You don’t hold anything against us because of your grandfather, my darling? You know very well that …’
‘Of course, Mama, of course I know.’
‘You’ll come for lunch tomorrow, won’t you? I don’t want to drag Agnès away from her mother the very first day, but you’ll come,’ said Madame Hardelot, clinging on to a glimmer of hope, ‘you’ll come, my darling, won’t you? Tomorrow?’
She saw how Agnès and Pierre looked at each other.
‘I can’t, my poor Mama. I’m leaving.’
‘But when? Tomorrow? Tomorrow morning? Well, too bad, then, you’ll stay here with me tonight.’
‘I’m leaving in an hour,’ said Pierre, ‘on the last train.’
They went into the dining room in silence.
How strange everything seemed to them this evening. They ate, they talked, yet each one of them was thinking, ‘I’m dreaming … I’m having a terrible dream.’
‘Agnès will stay here with her mother,’ said Pierre. ‘That way, little Guy will be near you. My position? I’ll have it back after the war. I did a good job, it was going well, yes … Not that we were rich. I wasn’t destined to be rich. I don’t have Grandfather’s temperament, but we’ve been very comfortable and we’ve been happy. I was supposed to come back to France at the beginning of October. I intended to … But now all that’s over, unless between now and then …’
‘It is my profound conviction’, said Charles, ‘that a world war would be over quickly and fought almost without any blood being spilled. Just imagine if every country sent all its forces into battle …’
‘You’ll write to us often,’ Marthe said to her son. She was desperately trying to think of something else she could say to him, some final piece of advice that would not only be an expression of her love, but something useful, practical. In the past, when he left her to go back to school, she would show him the bars of chocolate and box of biscuits tucked away under his nightshirts, and that would make her feel better; she had helped him as much as possible, making the life he faced as a man seem less harsh. But right now when he faced a life that was a thousand times harsher, demanding more courage than she could ever imagine, she was at a loss. Even his bags had been packed by someone else … ‘It’s not fair,’ she thought. Yes, so many mothers were saying goodbye to their sons that night, but they’d had them close by until the very last moment, while she hadn’t seen him for thirty months. Fortunately, she knew he would come back. Yes, despite her grief, despite the tears she had shed, a secret voice within her heart whispered that others might be killed, mutilated, wounded, taken prisoner, but her son would come home after the war. And that evening every mother in Saint-Elme was thinking, ‘My son will be spared …’ Each one of them believed that a guardian angel would protect her very own Jacques, her Pierre, and no one else.
‘Eat something, my darling, you haven’t touched a thing,’ she kept saying, watching him. To make her happy, he pretended to be very hungry; he filled his plate, but the food stuck in his throat, the meat dish particularly; he found it repugnant.
‘We ate lunch late,’ he said finally.
‘But force yourself. Who knows when you will get your next meal?’
‘Come on now, Mama, we’re not going straight into battle tomorrow, don’t worry.’
He put down his knife and fork, looked at the familiar dining room, the open windows, the peaceful garden, the street lit up by the moon. The sadness he was feeling was a male kind of sadness, a mixture of pride and anguish. He didn’t think he would be saved, he alone among thousands of men. He could see very clearly where he was headed. In spite of everything he was calm. He just thought to himself, ‘What a shame I’m not five years younger. I would have been so happy to go. But …’
He looked at Agnès. The clock chimed eight.
‘We have to leave now,’ he said, looking away from his mother, pity in his eyes. A woman’s tears were so painful. At the thought of the sobbing he was about to hear, the tears she would shed, his heart sank. He was eager to be among men, to hear foul language, dirty jokes, to get drunk on the cheap wine of manly camaraderie.
‘But you haven’t had your coffee!’ Marthe cried. ‘Agnès, pour him some coffee.’
She looked back and forth between her children, wringing her hands, haggard and trembling. No one replied. She went over to her son and kissed him. She was tricked by that kiss, tricked by his presence. He was there, but he was not, because he was about to leave. She felt as if she were clinging on to a phantom, a pale shadow that she couldn’t hold close, that would vanish in her arms. Yet she shed not a single tear. Her pain was too strange and too intense to allow her to cry.
All four of them spoke the calmest words possible.
‘Don’t be surprised if my letters get delayed …’
‘Agnès, now you look after yourself.’
‘Say goodbye to Grandfather for me. Explain to him that I was only here for a moment.’
‘You’ll be hot tonight on the train, my poor darling.’
He barely kissed Agnès; it was quick and rather cold, thought Marthe. It wasn’t tonight, in front of their parents, that they could say goodbye to each other. The night before, alone, in the silence of their bedroom, in the warmth of their bed, they had exchanged their parting kiss, a kiss that was deep and silent; there had been no lamenting, no pointless recriminations. But now, their lips were weary and lifeless.
They went into t
he entrance hall and formed a circle round Pierre. Charles Hardelot, who had gone out for a moment, came back holding an open bottle of champagne. Behind him was Ludivine, the maid, with a tray of glasses.
‘We’re going to drink to your good health, Pierre.’
‘But Papa …’
But he insisted on this ritual. He couldn’t let his son go without making a final speech. ‘I’ve heard so many of them,’ thought Pierre with a smile. For every occasion, his father had a speech at hand: for marriages and engagements, for births, for when he went away to boarding school each year. In a flash, Pierre relived those rainy October nights in the very same entrance hall; the horse champed at the bit as they loaded on the few bags that Pierre took to school, and his father said solemnly, ‘Son, you are about to enter the world of men, where study, camaraderie and competition are there for your benefit. Remember that the child is father of the man and that whatever you sow today in obedience, in esteem for your excellent teachers, in long, serious hard work, you will later reap in the form of happiness, security and respect.’