The Thibaults

by Roger Martin Du Gard

  Daniel had ceased to listen. They had just passed below the balcony of a house from which there came the tinkle of a piano: a child was playing scales. Jenny! And suddenly there rose before him Jenny’s delicately moulded features, the expression of her face when she had cried to him: “What are you going to do?” while the tears welled up in her grey eyes, large with wonder.

  “Aren’t you sorry you haven’t got a sister?” he asked after a while.

  “Yes, I am! An elder sister’s what I’d like. I have a—a sort of little sister.” Seeing Daniel’s puzzled look, he added: “Mademoiselle is bringing up at home a little niece of hers, an orphan. Gise is ten. Her name’s Gisèle, but we call her Gise for short. She’s just lik little sister to me.”

  Suddenly his eyes grew moist. Then his thoughts took a new turn. “You, of course, were brought up in a quite different way. For one thing, you’re an ordinary day-boy, you’re almost free, you have much the same life as Antoine… . But, then, you’re such a sensible chap— that makes all the difference.” There was a hint of regret in his tone.

  “Meaning—you’re not a sensible chap?” There was no irony in Daniel’s tone.

  “I ‘sensible’!” Jacques’s eyebrows puckered. “Don’t I know that I’m … unbearable! And there’s nothing to be done about it. Sometimes I have fits of rage, you know, when I lose my grip on things completely—I storm about and break things, I shout most horrible words; when I’d be quite capable of jumping out of a window or knocking somebody down. I’d rather you knew everything about me, that’s why I’m telling you all this.” It was evident that he took a morose pleasure in accusing himself. “I don’t know if it’s my fault, or not. I rather think that, if I lived with you, I shouldn’t be like that. But I’m not so sure.

  “At home, when I come back in the evening—if you only could imagine what they’re like!” he went on, after a while, staring into the distance. “Father has never taken me seriously. The Abbés tell him I’m a perfect terror at school; that’s to suck up to him, of course, to make out they’re having no end of trouble bringing up the son of M. Thibault, who has a lot of influence with the Cathedral people. But Papa is kind, you know”—his voice took on a sudden fervour— “awfully kind, really. Only—I don’t know how to explain it. He’s so wrapped up in his public duties, his committees, in his lectures and religion. And Mademoiselle, too; whenever something goes wrong with me, it’s always God who’s punishing me for my sins. Do you understand? After dinner Papa always shuts himself up in his study, and Mademoiselle hears my lessons—I never know them!—in Gise’s room, while she puts her to bed. She won’t even let me stay alone in my room. They’ve unscrewed my switch—would you believe it?— to prevent me using the electric light.”

  “What about your brother?” Daniel asked.

  “Oh, Antoine, he’s an awfully good sort; only he’s always out. I rather think, though he’s never said anything to me about it, that he, too, doesn’t much like being at home. He was quite grown up when Mother died; he’s exactly nine years older than I—so Mademoiselle never managed to get much of a hold over him. It’s different for me, of course; she’s looked after me all my life.”

  Daniel said nothing.

  “You can’t imagine what it’s like,” Jacques repeated. “Your people know how to treat you; you’ve been brought up quite differently. It’s the same with books. You are allowed to read everything; all the bookshelves are open in your home. But I’m never allowed to read anything except rotten old picture-books, bound in red and gold, Jules Verne, and all that sort of rubbish. They don’t even know I write poetry. It’s just as well. They’d raise such a row about it, they wouldn’t understand. And very likely they’d ask the masters to keep an eye on me and give me a putrid time at school.”

  There was a rather long silence. Swerving from the sea, the road began to climb towards a grove of cork-trees.

  Suddenly Daniel drew nearer Jacques and took his arm.

  “Listen,” he said, and his voice, which was just breaking, had a low, sonorous emphasis, “I’m thinking of the future. One never can tell. We might be separated from each other some day. There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time, something that would … would seal our friendship, for always. Promise that you’ll dedicate your first book of poems to me. Oh, you needn’t put the name. Just, To My Friend. Will you, Jacques?”

  “I swear it,” Jacques said, and it seemed to him that he had suddenly grown taller… .

  Entering the wood, they sat down under the trees. Over Marseille the sun was setting in a blaze of fire. Feeling his ankles swollen and painful, Jacques took off his shoes and socks and lay down on the grass. Daniel looked at him absent-mindedly; then suddenly he averted his eyes from the small bare feet with the reddened heels.

  “Look, there’s a lighthouse!” Jacques exclaimed, pointing towards the horizon. Daniel gave a start. Far away, on the coast, an intermittent gleam raked the dusk. Daniel made no comment.

  The air was cooler when they started off again. They had intended to sleep out under the trees, but it looked like being a bitterly cold night.

  They walked on for half an hour without exchanging a word. Presently they came to a newly whitewashed inn, with arbours overlooking the sea.

  The lights were on in the main room; it was apparently empty. They eyed each other doubtfully. A woman, who had seen them hesitating near the entrance, opened the door. She held up to their faces a glass lamp, the oil in which gleamed like a topaz. She was a short, elderly person, with two gold pendants dangling from her ears along her scraggy neck.

  “Excuse me, Madame,” Daniel said; “could you let us have a room with two beds for the night?” Without giving her time to put any questions, he went on. “My brother and I are on our way to meet our father at Toulon; only we left Marseille too late to reach Toulon tonight.”

  “That’s a good one!” the woman laughed. She had merry, surprisingly youthful eyes, and gesticulated freely as she talked. “You were going to Toulon on foot, were you? Tell that to the marines, my boy! Anyhow, it’s all the same to me. Yes, you can have a room for two francs—cash down, of course.” And, while Daniel was bringing out his wallet, she added: “I’ve some soup on the fire. Like a couple of platefuls?”

  Both said yes.

  The room was an attic and there was only one bed, the sheets of which showed signs of having already been used. Prompted by the same unspoken motive, they rapidly took off their shoes and slipped into bed, fully dressed, back to back.

  It was long before they fell asleep. The moon shone full through the window. Rats were scampering about in an adjoining loft. Jacques saw a hideous-looking spider crawling on the dingy grey wall and, as he watched it vanish into the darkness, vowed he would stay awake all night. Daniel’s mind was full of pictures of the sensual pleasure of the morning, and imagination was already adding its lascivious glamour to his memories. Sweating, thrilled with delight, disgust, and curiosity, he dared not move.

  Next morning, when Jacques was still asleep, Daniel was on the point of rising, to get some respite from the phantoms of his imagination, when he heard a disturbance in the inn-parlour below. So vivid had been his nightlong obsessions that his first idea was that the police were coming to arrest him for his licentious conduct. And, no sooner did the door open (the bolt had broken off) than it was a policeman who appeared, accompanied by the proprietress. As he came in he hit his forehead on the lintel and knocked off his képi.

  “The youngsters fetched up here last evening, covered with dust.” The woman was still laughing, her ear-drops swaying to and fro. “They told me all sorts of fancy yarns—that they wanted to walk all the way to Toulon, and the good Lord knows what else! And that young scamp”—she extended a long arm jingling with bangles towards Daniel—”gave me a hundred-franc note to pay the four francs fifty for their room and supper.”

  The gendarme was dusting his képi with an air of bored indifference.

  “
Come along, boys, up with you!” he grumbled. “Now then, what’s your names, first names, and the rest of it?”

  Daniel hesitated. But Jacques jumped off the bed in his knickerbockers and socks, aggressive as a young fighting-cock. For a moment it looked as if he would try to lay out the tall, stalwart gendarme.

  “I’m Maurice Legrand!” he shouted in the man’s face. “And this is Georges, my brother. Our father’s at Toulon. And you shan’t stop us going to meet him there. I defy you to!”

  A few hours later they were entering Marseille in a farm-cart, with two gendarmes and a miscreant in handcuffs beside them. The lofty prison-gate opened, then clanged to behind them.

  “Go in there,” a policeman told them, opening the door of a cell. “Now turn out your pockets. Yes, hand it all over. You’ll be left together till dinner-time, while we check up on your story.”

  But long before then a sergeant came and took them to the inspector’s office.

  “It’s no use denying it, my boys; you’re nabbed. We’ve been looking for you since Sunday. You’ve come from Paris; the big boy’s name is Fontanin, and you are Thibault. Fancy boys like you, from decent families, taking to the roads like little tramps!”

  Daniel had assumed an air of outraged dignity, but inwardly he felt vastly relieved. Thank goodness, it was over! His mother knew by now that he was alive and safe, and she was awaiting his return. He would beg her forgiveness, and that would blot out everything— yes, everything!—even what he was thinking of with such horror at that moment. That, anyhow, he would never dare to confess to any one in the world.

  Jacques gritted his teeth and, remembering his bottle of iodine and the dagger, clenched his fists ragefully in his empty pockets. A host of schemes for vengeance or escape flashed through his mind. But just then the officer spoke again.

  “Your poor parents are in a terrible state.”

  Jacques cast a furious glance around him; then suddenly his face seemed to crumple up and he burst into tears. He had pictured his father, Mademoiselle, little Gise… . His heart overflowed with affection and regret.

  “Now go and have a sleep,” the inspector went on. “We’ll fix things up for you tomorrow. I’m waiting for instructions.”

  VIII

  FOR two days Jenny had been in a comatose state; the fever had gone down, leaving her very weak. Standing at the window, Mme. de Fontanin was keenly on the alert for every sound that came from the avenue. Antoine had gone to Marseille to fetch the runaways and was due to bring them home that evening. Nine o’clock had just struck; they should be here by now.

  She gave a start. That surely was a cab pulling up in front of the house!

  In a flash she was out on the landing outside the entrance of her flat, clasping the banisters. The dog had run out after her and was barking to greet the homecomer. Mme. de Fontanin leaned over the rail. There, suddenly, queerly foreshortened by the height, there he was coming up the stairs! That was his hat, with the brim hiding his face; that was the way he had of moving his shoulders as he walked. He was in front; Antoine followed, holding his brother by the hand.

  Looking up, Daniel saw his mother. The landing lamp, just above her head, made her hair snow-white, and plunged her face in shadow, yet it seemed to him he had seen her every feature. With lowered eyes he continued on his way up the stairs, intuitively conscious that she was coming down to meet him. Suddenly he felt incapable of making another step, and, just as he was taking off his hat, still not daring to raise his head and hardly daring to breathe, he found himself clasped in her arms, his forehead on her breast. Yet he felt little of the joy he had expected. He had longed so intensely for this moment that when it came he had no more feeling left, and when at last he freed himself from her embrace, his face was shamefast, tearless. It was Jacques, with his back against the staircase wall, who burst out sobbing.

  Mme. de Fontanin took her son’s face between her hands, and drew it to her lips. Not a word of reproach; a long kiss. But the agony of mind she had endured during that terrible week made her voice tremble when she spoke to Antoine.

  “Have the poor children had any dinner?”

  Before Antoine could reply, Daniel had murmured: “Jenny? How is she?”

  “She’s out of danger now; she’s in bed and you shall see her; she is waiting for you.” Daniel freed himself at once and ran into the flat. She called after him: “Gently, dear! Don’t forget she’s been very ill. You mustn’t excite her.”

  Jacques’s tears were quickly dried, and now he could not refrain from casting a curious glance around him. So this was Daniel’s home, this was the staircase he climbed each day when he came back from school; that was the hall he entered and this the lady he called “Mother” with that strange tenderness in his voice.

  “What about you, Jacques?” she smiled. “Will you kiss me, too?” “Speak up, Jacques!” Antoine laughed, giving his brother a slight push.

  She extended her arms towards him. Jacques slipped between them, pillowing his head where Daniel’s had lain a little while before. Pensively Mme. de Fontanin stroked the boy’s red hair; then, turning towards the elder brother, she tried to smile. As Antoine remained standing by the door, evidently anxious to leave, she held out to him, over the head of the boy whose arms were round her now, both her hands in token of her gratitude, and said to Jacques:

  “Go, my dear; your father, too, must be longing to see you.”

  Jenny’s door stood open.

  Kneeling at the bedside on one knee, his head resting on the sheets, Daniel was pressing his lips to his sister’s hands, clasped within his own. Jenny had been crying; to reach out towards him she had twisted herself sideways on the pillow, and the strain showed on her face. It was so emaciated as to seem expressionless, but for the eyes. In their look there still was something morbid, and a trace of hardness, almost obstinacy; they were almost the eyes of a grown woman, and they had a dark inscrutability, wise beyond her years, as if the light-heartedness of youth had long forsaken her.

  Mme. de Fontanin went up to the bed. On the point of bending down and gathering the two children in her arms she remembered that she must take care not to tire Jenny. She made Daniel get up and come with her to her own room.

  The room was brightly lit and cheerful. In front of the fireplace Mme. de Fontanin had set out the tea-table, with toast and butter and honey. Kept hot under a napkin was a mound of boiled chestnuts, one of Daniel’s favourite dishes. The kettle was purring; the room was very warm and the air so stuffy that Daniel felt almost nauseated. He waved away the plate his mother held out to him. A look of disappointment settled on her face.

  “What is it, dear? I hope you’re not going to deprive me of the pleasure of a cup of tea with you this evening?”

  Daniel gazed at her. Something about her had changed; what was it? She was drinking her tea as she always did, in little scalding sips, and he could see her face with the light behind it smiling through the vapour rising from her cup. Yes, for all its traces of exhaustion, it was the face that he had always known. But there was something in the smile, the lingering gaze—no, he could not bear its too-much-sweetness! Lowering his eyes, he helped himself to buttered toast and, to keep himself in countenance, pretended to be eating it. She smiled all the more, lost in her wordless happiness, and found an outlet for her rush of emotion in gently stroking the head of the little dog, which was nestling in the folds of her dress.

  Daniel put down his toast. Without raising his eyes, he asked: “What did they tell you at the lycée?” His cheeks had gone pale.

  “I told them—it wasn’t true.”

  At last Daniel’s brows relaxed. Raising his eyes, he met his mother’s gaze; there was trust in it but, none the less, a silent question, as if she sought for confirmation of her trust. And happily Daniel’s candid eyes confirmed it beyond all manner of doubt. Her face was shining with joy as she went up to him.

  “Why,” she whispered, “oh, why didn’t you come and tell me about it, my big
boy, instead of …?”

  She left the question unended, and stood up. There was the jingle of a bunch of keys in the hall. She stood unmoving, looking towards the opening door. The dog began wagging its tail and ran, without barking, to meet the old friend who had entered.

  It was Jerome.

  He was smiling.

  Wearing neither overcoat nor hat, he came in so naturally that one could have sworn he had just walked across from his own room. He glanced at Daniel, but went up at once to his wife and kissed her extended hand. A faint perfume of verbena and lavender hovered round him.

  “Well, darling, here I am! What’s been happening? Really, I’ve been dreadfully worried.”

  Daniel went up to him delightedly. Little by little he had come to love his father, though in early childhood he had for many years displayed an exclusive, jealous affection for his mother. Even now he accepted with unconscious satisfaction the fact that his father was so often away and left them to themselves.

  “So you’re back, Daniel, after all? What’s all this they’ve been telling me about you?” Jerome was holding his son’s chin and observing him frowningly.

  Mme. de Fontanin had remained standing. “When he returns,” she had said to herself, “I shall refuse to let him stay.” Her resentment had not weakened, nor her resolve; but he had caught her unawares, had taken everything for granted with such airy unconcern that she was at a loss. She could not take her eyes off him; she would not admit to herself how profoundly she was affected by his presence, how touched she still was by the winning charm of his look, his smile, his gestures; would not admit that he was the one love of her life. The money problem had just crossed her mind, and she fell back on it to justify her weakness. That morning she had had to broach the remnants of her savings, and now was practically at her last penny. Jerome, of course, knew it; probably he was bringing the money needed to tide over the month.

  At a loss how to answer, Daniel had turned to his mother, and just then he saw a look flitting across the calm, maternal face, a look of something—he could not have put it into words—something so significant, so intimate, that he turned away with a feeling of bashfulness. At Marseille he had lost even the innocence of the eye.