The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes)

by Henri Alain-Fournier

  ‘Those fellows have already betrayed you,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied sharply. ‘It’s the fault of someone called Delouche. He guessed I was going to join forces with you. He demoralized my troops, who were so well disciplined. You saw the assault on the house yesterday evening: how it was carried out, how well it worked! Never, since I was a child, have I set up anything that went off so well…’

  He paused and thought for a moment, then, to dispel any illusions we might have about him, added: ‘If I came to see the pair of you this evening, it’s because – as I realized this morning – there’s more enjoyment to be had with you than with the whole gang. Delouche is the one I particularly don’t like. What an idea: pretending to be a man, at seventeen! There’s nothing I dislike more… Do you think we can get even with him?’

  ‘Definitely,’ said Meaulnes. ‘But will you be staying with us a long time?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d like to very much. I’m dreadfully lonely. All I have is Ganache…’

  All at once the fire and the fun had gone out of him. For a moment, no doubt, he was sunk in the same despair as when, one day, the idea of suicide had crept up on him.

  ‘Be my friends,’ he said, suddenly. ‘Look: I know your secret and I have defended it against everyone. I can put you on the track of what you have lost…’

  And he added, almost with solemnity: ‘Be my friends, for the day when I am again on the brink of hell, as I was once before… Promise me that you’ll answer when I call – when I call you like this…’ (and he made a strange noise: whoo, whoo!). ‘You, Meaulnes, swear first!’

  And we swore because, children that we were, anything more solemn and serious than real life appealed to us.

  ‘In return,’ he said, ‘this is all I can tell you: I’ll let you know the name of the house in Paris where the girl from the château used to spend the holidays, Easter and Whitsun, June and sometimes part of the winter.’

  Just then, an unknown voice called from the main gate, several times, through the dark. We guessed it must be Ganache, the gypsy who didn’t dare or didn’t know how to cross the courtyard. In an urgent, anxious voice he called, at times very loudly, at others very softly: ‘Whoo! Whoo!’

  ‘Tell us, quickly,’ Meaulnes said to the young gypsy who had shivered and was getting ready to leave.

  The boy quickly gave us an address in Paris, which we repeated in an undertone. Then he ran through the shadows to his friend at the iron gate, leaving us in an indescribable state of uneasiness.

  V

  THE MAN WITH THE ROPE-SOLED SANDALS

  That night, around three o’clock in the morning, Widow Delouche, the innkeeper who lived in the middle of the little town, got up to light her fire. Her brother-in-law Dumas, who lived with her, was due to leave at four o’clock, and the unfortunate old woman, whose right hand was crippled by an old burn, busied herself in the dark kitchen making coffee. It was cold. She put an old shawl over her nightdress, then, holding her lighted candle in one hand and shading the flame by holding up her apron with the other – the crippled one – she crossed the yard, which was cluttered with empty bottles and soapboxes, and opened the door of the woodshed (which also served as a henhouse) to get out some kindling. However, no sooner had she pushed open the door than someone burst out of the murky depths with such a forceful swing of his cap that it caused a draught which put out the candle; with the same blow, he knocked the old woman down, before escaping as fast as he could, while the terrified hens and cockerels set up the most infernal racket.

  The man – as Widow Delouche would discover on recovering her wits a moment later – had carried off a dozen of her finest chickens in a sack.

  Hearing his sister-in-law’s shouts, Dumas ran down. He ascertained that the rogue must have got in using a skeleton key in the door of the yard and that he had fled by the same way without closing the door behind him. Being a man who was accustomed to poachers and pilferers, he lit the lantern on his cart and, with that in one hand and his loaded gun in the other, he tried to follow the thief’s traces – though they were very vague, since the man must have been wearing rope-soled sandals – which led him along the station road then disappeared at a gate leading into a field. As he couldn’t continue his search, he looked up, stopped… and heard the sound of a fleeing carriage being driven away at full tilt on the same road.

  For his part, Jasmin Delouche, the widow’s son, had got up and, quickly throwing a cape over his shoulders, went out in his slippers to inspect the town. Everyone was asleep, everything was plunged in darkness and that deep silence that precedes the first light of day. When he got to the Quatre-Routes, like his uncle, he heard far away in the distance on the Riaudes hill the sound of a vehicle drawn by a horse that must have been galloping at a furious rate. He was a cunning, boastful lad, who later told us in the ghastly, guttural accent of Montlucon that he had thought: ‘Those ones have gone off towards the station, but that doesn’t mean I may not “spring” some others on the other side of town.’

  And he turned back towards the church, in the same silence of night.

  On the town square, there was a light in the gypsy caravan. Probably someone ill. He was going to go up and ask what had happened when a silent shadow – a shadow wearing rope-soled sandals – emerged from the Petits-Coins and headed at full speed, without seeing him, towards the running board of the caravan…

  Jasmin had recognized Ganache by his way of running. He suddenly stepped forward into the light and asked, quietly, ‘Well? What’s up?’

  Wild-eyed, dishevelled and toothless, Ganache stopped and looked at him with a pitiful grin, brought on by fear and shortness of breath, and panted as he replied: ‘It’s my friend, he’s ill… He got in a fight yesterday and his wound reopened… I’ve just been to fetch the nurse.’

  And, sure enough, just as Jasmin Delouche, who was very intrigued, was on his way home to bed, he met a nun in the middle of town, hurrying along…

  *

  The next morning, several inhabitants of Sainte-Agathe came out on to their front doorsteps with the same eyes – bloodshot and puffy after a sleepless night. There was a cry of protest from all of them, which ran through the town like a trail of gunpowder.

  At the Giraudats’, around two o’clock in the morning, a two-wheeled cart had been heard drawing up, then being loaded with packages that made a dull sound as they landed. There were only two women in the house, and they had not dared to do anything. When daylight came, they opened up the farmyard and realized that the packages in question had been the rabbits and poultry… During the first school break, Millie found several half-burnt matches in front of the washhouse door. We came to the conclusion that they were unfamiliar with the layout of our house and had not been able to get in… At Perreux’s, Boujardon’s and Clément’s, it was thought at first that they had stolen the pigs as well, but the animals turned up in the course of the morning, digging up the vegetables in various people’s gardens, the whole herd having taken advantage of the open door to go on a little night walk… The poultry had been taken from almost everywhere, but the thieves had been content with that. Mme Pignot, the baker’s wife, who did not keep any animals, did complain throughout the next day that her washboard and a pound of blue had gone, but this was never proved, and it did not appear in the police report…

  A state of turmoil, anxiety and gossip lasted the whole morning. At school, Jasmin described the previous night’s adventure.

  ‘Oh, they’re clever!’ he said. ‘But if my uncle had caught one, he told us straight, “I’d shoot him like a rabbit!”’ And he added, with a look at us, ‘It’s a good thing he didn’t meet Ganache, because he could easily have shot him. They’re all the same, according to him, and Dessaigne says the same.’

  Yet no one thought of bothering our new friends. It was only on the evening of the following day that Jasmin pointed out to his uncle that Ganache, like their thief, wore rope-soled sandals. They agreed that it was worth
pointing this out to the gendarmes, so they decided, in the greatest secrecy, that as soon as they could they would go to the chief town in the canton and inform the police sergeant.

  In the next few days, we saw nothing of the young gypsy, who was ill because his wound had reopened a little.

  In the evening, we would prowl around the church square, just to see his lamp behind the red curtain in the caravan. Restless, nervous, we stayed there not daring to go up to the humble dwelling, which seemed to us like the mysterious entrance and antechamber to the Land to which we had lost the way.

  VI

  AN ARGUMENT BEHIND THE SCENES

  All these anxieties and different upheavals in recent days had prevented us from taking account of the fact that March had arrived and that the wind had softened. But on the morning of the third day after this adventure, I went down into the yard and suddenly realized that it was spring. A delicious breeze, like warm water, was flowing over the wall, and during the night a fall of rain had noiselessly dampened the leaves of the peonies. There was a pungent smell to the freshly dug earth in the garden and, in a tree beside the window, a bird was learning to sing…

  In our first break, Meaulnes suggested trying out at once the itinerary given us by the gypsy schoolboy. I had great difficulty in persuading him to wait until we had seen our friend again and the weather was definitely warmer… that is, until all the plum trees in Sainte-Agathe were in flower. We were leaning against the low wall on the little street and talking, bareheaded and with our hands in our pockets, while the wind alternately made us shiver with cold and at other times, with gusts of warm air, aroused some long-buried excitement in us. O, my brother, my friend! O, wanderer! How certain we were, the two of us, that happiness was close by and that we only had to start out down the road to find it!

  At half-past twelve, during lunch, we heard a drumroll on the Place des Quatre-Routes. In an instant, we were by the iron gate with our napkins in our hands. It was Ganache announcing that in the evening at eight o’clock, ‘in view of the fine weather’, there would be a great performance in front of the church. Just in case, ‘to protect against the eventuality of rain’, a tent would be put up. There followed a long list of attractions, which were carried away by the wind, though we did manage to make out ‘pantomime… songs… equestrian acrobatics…’, each item marked by a roll of the drum.

  At dinner that evening, the big drum heralded the performance with a thunderous noise under our windows which shook the panes. Shortly afterwards we heard a buzz of talking as the people from the outskirts of town came past in little groups, heading for the church. And there we were, the two of us, forced to remain seated at table while we fidgeted with impatience.

  At last, at around nine o’clock, we heard the sounds of shuffling feet and stifled laughter at the little gate: the women teachers had come to fetch us. In total darkness our group set out towards the place where the performance would happen. From a distance, we could see the wall of the church lit up as though by a great fire. Two oil lamps hanging in front of the entrance to the tent were flickering in the wind.

  Inside, there were tiers of seats, as in a circus. Monsieur Seurel, the women teachers, Meaulnes and I sat down in the lowest tier. I now imagine the place – which must have been very small – as the size of a real circus, with large murky patches through which the seats rose, and on them Madame Pignot, the baker’s wife, and Fernande, the grocer’s wife, as well as the girls of the town, the blacksmiths, ladies, children, peasants and others.

  The show was more than halfway through. In the arena, a little performing nanny goat was obedientely putting its hoofs first on four glasses, then two, then just one. Ganache was gently giving it orders with taps of his stick, looking anxiously towards us with open mouth and expressionless eyes.

  Sitting on a stool near two further oil lamps, at the place where the passage from the arena went to the caravan, we recognized the ringmaster, in fine black tights and with his head bandaged. It was our friend.

  We had scarcely sat down before a pony in full harness bounded into the ring, and the young man with the bandage got him to circle round it while performing tricks and always stopping in front of us when it was asked to point out the most likeable person or the bravest in the audience, and always in front of Madame Pignot when it had to show up the greatest liar, or the meanest, or the ‘most amorous’. And around her there would be a burst of laughter, shouts and cackle-cackle like the noise of a flock of geese being chased by a spaniel!

  During the interval, the ringmaster came over for a moment to talk to Monsieur Seurel, who could not have been prouder if he had been speaking to Talma or Léotard,10 while we listened intently to everything that he said – about his wound, which had healed; about this performance, which had been many long winter days in preparation; about their departure, which would not be before the end of the month, because up to then they were planning new and different performances.

  The show was to end with a big pantomime.

  Near the end of the interval, our friend left us and, on his way to the door of the caravan, had to go through a group that had spilled out into the ring and in the middle of which we suddenly noticed Jasmin Delouche. The women and girls stepped aside: all had been captivated by the young man with his black costume and his injured air, strange and brave. As for Jasmin, he looked as though he had at that moment returned from far away. He was speaking in a low voice, but eagerly, to Madame Pignot, and it was clear that a sailor’s piping, low collar and bell-bottomed trousers would have been more to his liking… He had hooked his thumbs under the lapels of his jacket in an attitude that was at once very smug and very self-conscious. As the gypsy went past, Jasmin, with a gesture of irritation, said something that I could not hear to Madame Pignot, but which must surely have been some kind of insult or provocative remark addressed to our friend. It must have been a serious, unexpected threat, because the young man could not restrain himself from turning round and looking at Jasmin, who, to avoid losing face, nudged those next to him with his elbow, as though to get them on his side… Actually, all this happened in a few seconds… I was certainly the only person on my bench to notice it.

  The ringmaster joined his companion behind the curtain hiding the caravan door. Everyone went back to his or her seat, thinking that the second part of the show was going to start right away, and silence fell. Then, while the last whispered conversations were dying away, the sound of an argument came from behind the curtain. We could not hear every word that was being said, but we recognized the two voices: those of the big lad and the young man, the first explaining and justifying himself, the other rebuking him, with a mixture of sadness and indignation. ‘But, you idiot,’ he was saying, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’

  The rest could not be made out, even though every ear was strained. Then suddenly all went quiet. The row continued in low voices and the kids on the upper rows started to shout, ‘Lights! Curtain!’ and stamp their feet.

  VII

  THE GYPSY TAKES OFF HIS BANDAGE

  At last, slowly, between the curtains slid the face – wrinkled, beaming now with merriment, now with anguish, and dotted with sealing wafers – of a tall pierrot in three badly jointed pieces, bent over as though suffering from colic and walking on tiptoe, as from exaggerated caution or fear, with his hands entangled in excessively long sleeves which dragged along the ground.

  I’m at a loss today to reconstruct the story of his pantomime; all I remember is that, as soon as he arrived in the ring, after hopelessly, desperately trying to keep his balance, he fell over. He got up again, but it was no good: he fell over. He was constantly falling. He managed to get caught up in four chairs at once. As he fell, he took with him a huge table that they had brought into the arena. In the end, he fell right over the barrier round the ring and at the feet of the spectators. Two assistants, recruited with much difficulty from the audience, set him upright again after an unbelievable struggle. And every time, as he fell, he gave
a little cry, different every time, an unbearable little cry, in which distress and satisfaction were equally mixed. At the climax of the act, climbing on a heap of chairs, he made a tremendous, very slow fall, and his shrill, agonized wail of triumph lasted as long as the fall did, accompanied by gasps of terror from the women in the audience.

  In the second part of his pantomime, I remember (though I don’t quite know why) seeing the ‘poor falling clown’ taking a little doll, stuffed with bran, out of one of his sleeves and miming a whole tragi-comic drama with her. In the end, he made all the bran that was inside her emerge from her mouth. Then, with doleful little cries, he filled her up again with porridge and, at the moment of greatest concentration, when all the spectators were watching open-mouthed and all eyes were on the poor pierrot’s slimy, tattered little doll, he suddenly grasped her in one hand and threw her with all his strength into the audience towards the face of Jasmin Delouche – she brushed damply past his ear and crashed into Madame Pignot, just below the chin. The baker’s wife gave such a shout and flung herself back so hard that all the people around her did the same, breaking the bench, with the result that the baker’s wife, Fernande, sad Widow Delouche and twenty or so others collapsed, with their legs in the air, amid a burst of laughter, shouts and clapping, while the tall clown, who had fallen face downwards on the ground, got up, bowed and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have the honour to thank you!’

  But at that very moment, in the midst of this huge uproar, The Great Meaulnes, who had not said a word since the start of the pantomime and seemed constantly more preoccupied as it went on, suddenly stood up, grasped my arm and, as though unable to contain himself, cried, ‘Look at the gypsy! Look! At last, I know who he is!’