The Works of Guy de Maupassant Volume V Part 14

The doctor took her hand and said in a low voice:

"Calm yourself, madame. Any violent emotion might have very serious results just now, for you are _enceinte_."

Jeanne's tears ceased directly; even as the doctor spoke she fancied she could feel a movement within her, and she lay still, paying no attention to what was being said or done around her. She could not sleep that night; it seemed so strange to think that within her was another life, and she felt sorry because it was Julien's child, and full of fears in case it should resemble its father.

The next morning she sent for the baron.

"Papa, dear," she said, "I have made up my mind to know the whole truth; especially now. You hear, I _will_ know it, and you know, you must let me do as I like, because of my condition. Now listen; go and fetch M. le cure; he must be here to make Rosalie tell the truth. Then, as soon as he is here, you must send her up to me, and you and mamma must come too; but, whatever you do, don't let Julien know what is going on."

The priest came about an hour afterwards. He was fatter than ever, and panted quite as much as the baroness. He sat down in an armchair and began joking, while he wiped his forehead with his checked handkerchief from sheer habit.

"Well, Madame la baronne, I don't think we are either of us getting thinner; in my opinion we make a very handsome pair." Then turning to the invalid, he said: "Ah, ah! my young lady, I hear we're soon to have a christening, and that it won't be the christening of a boat either, this time, ha, ha, ha!" Then he went on in a grave voice, "It will be one more defender for the country, or," after a short silence, "another good wife and mother like you, madame," with a bow to the baroness.

The door flew open and there stood Rosalie, crying, struggling, and refusing to move, while the baron tried to push her in. At last he gave her a sudden shake, and threw her into the room with a jerk, and she stood in the middle of the floor, with her face in her hands, sobbing violently. Jeanne started up as white as a sheet, and her heart could be seen beating under her thin nightdress. It was some time before she could speak, but at last she gasped out:

"There--there--is no--need for me to--question you. Your confusion in my presence--is--is quite sufficient--proof--of your guilt."

She stopped for a few moments for want of breath, and then went on again:

"But I wish to know all. You see that M. le cure is here, so you understand you will have to answer as if you were at confession."

Rosalie had not moved from where the baron had pushed her; she made no answer, but her sobs became almost shrieks. The baron, losing all patience with her, seized her hands, drew them roughly from her face and threw her on her knees beside the bed, saying:

"Why don't you say something? Answer your mistress."

She crouched down on the ground in the position in which Mary Magdalene is generally depicted; her cap was on one side, her ap.r.o.n on the floor, and as soon as her hands were free she again buried her face in them.

"Come, come, my girl," said the cure, "we don't want to do you any harm, but we must know exactly what has happened. Now listen to what is asked you and answer truthfully."

Jeanne was leaning over the side of the bed, looking at the girl.

"Is it not true that I found you in Julien's bed?" she asked.

"Yes, madame," moaned out Rosalie through her fingers.

At that the baroness burst into tears also, and the sound of her sobs mingled with the maid's.

"How long had that gone on?" asked Jeanne, her eyes fixed on the maid.

"Ever since he came here," stammered Rosalie.

"Since he came here," repeated Jeanne, hardly understanding what the words meant. "Do you mean since--since the spring?"

"Yes, madame."

"Since he first came to the house?"

"Yes, madame."

"But how did it happen? How did he come to say anything to you about it?" burst out Jeanne, as if she could keep back the questions no longer. "Did he force you, or did you give yourself to him? How could you do such a thing?"

"I don't know," answered Rosalie, taking her hands from her face and speaking as if the words were forced from her by an irresistible desire to talk and to tell all. "The day he dined 'ere for the first time, 'e came up to my room. He 'ad 'idden in the garret and I dursn't cry out for fear of what everyone would say. He got into my bed, and I dunno'

how it was or what I did, but he did just as 'e liked with me. I never said nothin' about it because I thought he was nice."

"But your--your child? Is it his?" cried Jeanne.

"Yes, madame," answered Rosalie, between her sobs. Then neither said anything more, and the silence was only broken by the baroness's and Rosalie's sobs.

The tears rose to Jeanne's eyes, and flowed noiselessly down her cheeks.

So her maid's child had the same father as her own! All her anger had evaporated and in its place was a dull, gloomy, deep despair. After a short silence she said in a softer, tearful voice.

"After we returned from--from our wedding tour--when did he begin again?"

"The--the night you came back," answered the maid, who was now almost lying on the floor.

Each word rung Jeanne's heart. He had actually left her for this girl the very night of their return to Les Peuples! That, then, was why he had let her sleep alone. She had heard enough now; she did not want to know anything more, and she cried to the girl:

"Go away! go away!"

As Rosalie, overcome by her emotion, did not move, she called to her father:

"Take her away! Carry her out of the room!"

But the cure, who had said nothing up to now, thought the time had come for a little discourse.

"You have behaved very wickedly," he said to Rosalie, "very wickedly indeed, and the good G.o.d will not easily forgive you. Think of the punishment which awaits you if you do not live a better life henceforth.

Now you are young is the time to train yourself in good ways. No doubt Madame la baronne will do something for you, and we shall be able to find you a husband--"

He would have gone on like this for a long time had not the baron seized Rosalie by the shoulders, dragged her to the door and thrown her into the pa.s.sage like a bundle of clothes.

When he came back, looking whiter even than his daughter, the cure began again:

"Well, you know, all the girls round here are the same. It is a very bad state of things, but it can't be helped, and we must make a little allowance for the weakness of human nature. They never marry until they are _enceintes_; never, madame. One might almost call it a local custom," he added, with a smile. Then he went on indignantly: "Even the children are the same. Only last year I found a little boy and girl from my cla.s.s in the cemetery together. I told their parents, and what do you think they replied: 'Well, M'sieu l'cure, we didn't teach it them; we can't help it.' So you see, monsieur, your maid has only done like the others--"

"The maid!" interrupted the baron, trembling with excitement. "The maid!

What do I care about her? It's Julien's conduct which I think so abominable, and I shall certainly take my daughter away with me." He walked up and down the room, getting more and more angry with every step he took. "It is infamous the way he has deceived my daughter, infamous!

He's a wretch, a villain, and I will tell him so to his face. I'll horsewhip him within an inch of his life."

The cure was slowly enjoying a pinch of snuff as he sat beside the baroness, and thinking how he could make peace. "Come now, M. le baron, between ourselves he has only done like everyone else. I am quite sure you don't know many husbands who are faithful to their wives, do you now?" And he added in a sly, good-natured way: "I bet you, yourself, have played your little games; you can't say conscientiously that you haven't, I know. Why, of course you have! And who knows but what you have made the acquaintance of some little maid just like Rosalie. I tell you every man is the same. And your escapades didn't make your wife unhappy, or lessen your affection for her; did they?"

The baron stood still in confusion. It was true that he had done the same himself, and not only once or twice, but as often as he had got the chance; his wife's presence in the house had never made any difference, when the servants were pretty. And was he a villain because of that?

Then why should he judge Julien's conduct so severely when he had never thought that any fault could be found with his own?

Though her tears were hardly dried, the idea of her husband's pranks brought a slight smile to the baroness's lip, for she was one of those good-natured, tender-hearted, sentimental women to whom love adventures are an essential part of existence.

Jeanne lay back exhausted, thinking, with open unseeing eyes, of all this painful episode. The expression that had wounded her most in Rosalie's confession was: "I never said anything about it because I thought he was nice." She, his wife, had also thought him "nice," and that was the sole reason why she had united herself to him for life, had given up every other hope, every other project to join her destiny to his. She had plunged into marriage, into this pit from which there was no escape, into all this misery, this grief, this despair, simply because, like Rosalie, she had thought him "nice."

The door was flung violently open and Julien came in, looking perfectly wild with rage. He had seen Rosalie moaning on the landing, and guessing that she had been forced to speak, he had come to see what was going on; but at the sight of the priest he was taken thoroughly aback.