Woman Part 26

XIV

Her head is nodding and dropping lower and lower, her fingers are gently loosening their hold on the square of embroidery: my mother has gone to sleep.

She comes to see me frequently now, and always arrives panting, loaded down with luscious fruit or bottles of golden wine "from your father."

When she prolongs her stay after dinner too late to return home that night, I give my room up to her. You can tell--poor mother--that her visits are undertaken for duty's sake--pilgrimages on which she never fares forth without a preliminary struggle: "That child--you can't leave her all alone--you've got to be sorry for her."

When I opened the door for her this evening, I could see there was something on her mind. Her face was drawn, and contrary to her wont she kissed me two or three times. Was there going to be a battle?

Dinner was over, but I still waited.

"Oh, by the way, my dear, this idea of yours--your plan to go away--it isn't serious, is it? How about your position? Are you really going to carry things to such extremes? Your obstinacy is very annoying. What whimsies you used to have when you were a young girl, that faddy notion about earning your own living ... and marrying against our will--yes, against our will.... Your poor husband is dead; so you've paid, and your father and I are willing to let bygones be bygones. If you come and live with us, you know you'll lead a nice quiet life and have everything you need. Your room will be kept in order for you, I will help you bring up the boy, you will be able to go out as much as you want to. We will give you perfect freedom.... And you mustn't forget you still have a future, you're young.... Why don't you say something? Am I an enemy? Am I not considering your good?"

My mother floundered for more arguments. So to avoid idle discussion I threw my arms around her neck.

She smiled a good full smile, thinking the battle was won and everything was settled without much difficulty.... Now that she was satisfied, her best arguments came crowding: she had known from the start that I would agree with her.

"You haven't only just yourself to consider, you see. When a woman has a child, she doesn't do any and everything she feels like doing."

Now I had to explain!

"Mamma, dear...."

I was biting my lips and probably wore the same obstinate look I did as a little girl, because she pushed me away and her eyes flashed.

"And what about us? In what sort of a position do you think it places us?... Think a little. People will see you suddenly running away as if we had refused to take you in. What do you think we'll be taken for? And you, my goodness! How will it look for a young woman to go away all by herself, on an adventure?"

Her face was purple, her voice came out in a rush, her arms extended beyond her shadow. She was quite beside herself.

I don't know what made me do it, whether my worn nerves or my terror at always, no matter what I did, seeing a gulf yawn between us--I burst into tears.

With her stubborn patience my mother often went to extremes, but she could not resist the argument of tears. She was taken aback. I had conquered. She put her arms round me in a large, warm, cradling embrace, planted short little kisses all over my hair, comforted me in my distress. "Come, dear, don't cry, don't cry."

I made a tremendous effort to shake off a frightful impression. If I had had to pay with my life to get rid of it, I would have paid with my life. But drop by drop the poison filtered into my heart and changed it into a bitter heart which seemed unlike my own.

With all the appearance of humility in her drooping shoulders and bowed head, armed with the tricky sweetness of a person accustomed to yielding, my mother drew our chairs closer together and tried to console me at any price by talking of something else. She held out her needlework.

"A tray-cover. I noticed you haven't got one.... Rows of hemst.i.tching with a square of filet in the centre. Do you like it?"

I dabbed my eyes, forced a smile, and leaned over to watch her draw the threads. "Wonderful," I said, "marvellously fine, and such tedious work." I forced myself to fill up the gaps in the conversation.

The evening flagged slowly and gently. The oil in the lamp was giving out. A drowse gradually laid itself upon the delicate maternal face; under the scant light beginning to smell of smoke, it looked almost like a mummy's.

She is asleep now.

My imagination is free; the frightful impression carries me far back to a time shrouded in dimness which resembles my childhood days.

A mere baby still. At night caressing hands tucked me in bed. I held up my forehead for the kisses of a fairy....

A little girl who ran and fell and hurt her forehead and palms and flew with her troubles to the living Providence. "Did you hurt yourself?...

Ah, you're bleeding!" I felt the thrill of the miraculous wound because she caught me in her arms and pressed my undeserved suffering to her heart. Then she tended me, oh, so gently. When she finished, I secretly regretted that the hurt was a.s.suaged and I had no more blood to offer, red flowing blood, in exchange for the doting tenderness that it brought raining down upon me.

A long illness. A veritable angel hovering all the time. Clouds in my room, clouds on my bed, and a constant buzzing in my ears. When the angel moved, a current of freshness reached me, a magnificent hand raised the head which weighed like a ball of fire, and the heavenly voice said in the tone of ordinary mothers: "Drink, darling!"

When my memory brings me up to the moments of effort, the real moments which count, I find myself an orphan.

No, you were not there, mother, when my inner life developed, nor the first morning when I saw clearly, nor when my love came. You were never with me at any time when my good will acted, never, never. It was you who stayed behind and left me. I went on my way. Should I have stopped to stay behind with you?

You idolized my littleness, my tears, my naughtinesses. You covered them all up, I know. But one can't keep on being ill, or naughty, or a little tot.

You are the mother, you pardon everything. When father scolded us, you came with a kiss to absolve us in secret, and sometimes, gritting your teeth and darting the defiance of a she-wolf from your eyes, you'd say: "I would forgive you all your faults. I would say you are right when you are wrong."

But see here, mother, this is what I have done: will you forgive me this:

I have invoked the truth, I have taken pains, I have climbed up, I have striven, I have had radiant moments, days of flowering, and happiness was the same age as myself. Mother, have you forgiven me this?

I am not better-hearted than you, but it is the life about me which demands that one do more, love more. This is what differentiates and actually divides us.

Everything that sings and invites one out into the good old world, the "out-of-doors," seems pernicious to you. What you would have wanted was to stand barring the door with your arms crossed and refuse me the fresh air. You yourself avaricious but dest.i.tute would have liked me to salute your avarice and praise your dest.i.tution. "Will you set yourself up in judgment over your father and mother?"

Mother, when children grow up, their eyes open.... And if my son sees me fallen lower than his love, lower than my own love, let him accuse and condemn me.

No, it will not always be the same thing, as you say, for that depends neither upon him nor you, but only upon me. You do not know, you do not know!

With its expiring breath the lamp sends out a blackish, leaping light, which splashes shadows on the pendulous surroundings.

I had never noticed the puffiness of her lids, nor the sharpness of her cheekbones, nor the drooping corners of her tender mouth, nor the flatness and thinness of her hair, which used to be full and flaming as my own. Never before had I remarked the tragic similarity between the dead and the sleeping. And I did not know that immutable Truth sometimes has the ring of a curse and makes you cry, and yet is Truth.

The scissors gliding to the floor awakened her with a start. "What, still crying?"

She gave the lamp a shake to force a bit of light and said in her resigned tone, instinctively but unconsciously touching my horrible thought: "Wipe your eyes, dear ... the dead have to be forgotten...."

XV

The storm raked the streets and stunned the houses.... All night long it raged; and once the thunder crashed so close by that I jumped out of bed terror-stricken to make sure the shutters were closed.

The morning dawned sullen, dragging lazy, gray wings on the earth and taking flight only at the furious onslaught of the wind.

To comb my hair I seated myself close to the window with my face to the mirror on the wall.

Outside, the downpour and incessant sharp rattle, the blue-lacquered roofs, the wan drift of the clouds. In front of me, an image which had my name.