Usually when he came into the bedroom, he would slide toward her in the darkness, and it was she who would facilitate his pleasure. He would moan with terrible rage, and in those moments, she felt she was the strongest…
When he pushed her over onto the chair, she thought he was going to talk to her, but all he could do was repeat her name with a panting voice whose varied intonations expressed the cruel alternation of his despair and his love. She stayed immobile, her shoulder slightly raised, her hands open on her knees, while her lips slowly parted and a fine, shiny white blade appeared.
Suddenly he burst out laughing; what he didn’t dare admit, he hid under this loud laugh: “When you leave, Maud, do you know what I’m going to do?” She didn’t flinch. “Do you know what I’m going to do?”
Why did he evade all their moments of pleasure? She wouldn’t understand until much later. Springing up, she grabbed his shoulder and gave him her mouth. But he broke away and exclaimed, “What do you want me to do? There won’t be anything left for me to do, just like now, I’ll be incapable of taking you back.”
He kissed her, but almost without desire. Maud kept herself from giving him, even for an instant, the mad hope he desired. Lying can become such a common occurrence that a lie can escape from one’s lips without one enduring any suffering as a consequence. But Maud was weak when it came to lying—even if she willed herself to do it, her words would have betrayed her.
Their joined lips were cold, but they preferred this contact to that of their eyes, which fled from each other… “Anyway, I don’t care,” mumbled George, “just as I don’t care about suffering. When someone despises themselves as much as I do, it’s perhaps the only thing that gives you a little dignity in your own eyes…”
She sank into his arms, and between his legs, sliding her head against his shoulder. His veins pounded heavily against her ear. She was sad, sadder than him, and felt only contempt for herself. Her took her, mechanically, for the last time.
He didn’t even show up anymore for meals, which were served to Maud in her bedroom, and he inflicted on her from that point on the torment of absolute solitude. She felt dreadfully weary. Her tiredness grew from day to day; soon she could not eat the meals that the servant brought up to her and had to lie down for several hours at a time. George inquired as to what she wanted to eat; he thought she was bored and was showing her discouragement this way.
The old servant found her lying on her bed with a terrible paleness. “If you want, I’ll tell monsieur you’re not feeling well…,” she offered. Then, stopping herself, she became fearful—fearful that Maud would hang on to this master whom she adored. The servant lied, in a soft voice. “I think it’s this heat,” and then: “It’s no kind of life staying shut up all day long…”
However, it was by virtue of the old woman’s embarrassed look, of someone wanting to flee, that Maud understood she was pregnant.
CHAPTER 19
GEORGE SLEPT ON THE DINING ROOM COUCH AND LEFT FIRST thing every morning.
Maud hesitated. Should she tell him? Even if she no longer loved him the way she once had, he still had all her esteem. He would have married her if she had consented to it. The whole problem was with her, with her lack of will. Wasn’t it unworthy of her to agree now to what she had refused?
Moreover, she still intended to leave. The idea that her family might have left frightened her. Her child was not yet detached enough from her life for it to count more than she did.
She was served her meals quite early, so that George wouldn’t be home yet. The servant hid from her master that the dishes came back almost intact, so he stopped worrying. Maud’s boredom finally reached such depths that the thought of her child no longer occupied her mind. As her doubt disappeared, she thought of it even less.
She stopped reading. The things she thought about had no relationship to her present life. She became absorbed in memories that suddenly distinguished themselves from others, for no apparent reason, and took on the strange proportion of nightmares.
Very early one morning, she was awakened by repeated knocking on the door. George opened it; he said something she didn’t understand. She jumped out of bed and got dressed in haste, not being able to hurry as much as she would have liked because her hands were cold and she was trembling. For three weeks she had been waiting, hidden away in this narrow room. And now it had happened: someone, abruptly, remembered her.
George called her with a strangled voice, and she noisily pushed open the bolt on the door, to show that she was up. As soon as she was dressed, she opened the shutters. The day was just beginning to break, turning the horizon green. Since the beginning of her exile she had lived off the vision of this landscape, but because she had never seen it at the crack of dawn, she didn’t recognize it right away. She stopped a moment to look at it and then resolved to go downstairs.
In the dining room the awakening day entered by the open door, so indistinct one couldn’t predict what kind of day it would be, while dark shadows still reigned in the far corners of the room. George had dressed hastily in an old pair of pants and a shirt pulled across his chest with a shiver. His messy brown hair gave him a rough-and-tumble look. Standing near the couch, he remained silent.
In front of him, Mrs. Taneran was seated. As usual, she wore a long black dress. A hat with a brim that was too large hid her face and somewhat crushed her silhouette. Beside her, on the ground, was a traveling bag. Without lifting her head, she said calmly, “So, are you coming down?”
On hearing her mother’s forced voice, Maud imagined that her brothers were waiting behind the door, on the lookout for her appearance. The creaking of the stairs beneath her feet soon exasperated her. Her throat was as dry as if it had been made of stone.
Instinctively, she mustered her strength. The effort prevented her from seeing George, who was looking at her, and caused her to forget him.
Partially concealed by her big hat, Mrs. Taneran’s features did not stand out the way they usually did. Her eyelids were swollen with sleep, and to avoid lifting her eyes to look at Maud and George, she focused on the ground. But her emotions could be guessed by the redness of her neck and the quiver of her pursed lips. She tried to control herself, but she was too old to hide an emotion inscribed on her bruised flesh that made her look even more pitiful.
Maud considered her mother a moment, then drew so close that Mrs. Taneran could not hold back a nervous gesture. Standing up, Maud’s mother declared, “No, you’ve hurt me too much.” Then, turning toward George, more embarrassed than she would have liked to appear, she continued. “You’re going back to Bordeaux soon? I hope you will not prolong your holidays any longer…”
George gave a polite bow. “Don’t worry, I’m leaving…” He might possibly have liked to say something to Maud, but he felt hindered by the presence of this older woman.
He accompanied them both to the doorway, and when they were barely out, the door closed curtly. Maud perceived the noise of the latch. She thought she would come back someday, at a time that would have nothing in common with what was happening now, a time of peace and sadness.
The night had not totally vanished; the countryside was without shadows and gently lit by a light arising in the east, from a gash in the sky and clouds. Mrs. Taneran announced, “It’s four thirty. If we walk quickly, we’ll get to the train for Bordeaux by six o’clock.” To Maud’s surprise, no one was waiting for them.