Green Mare - 1933

Seventeen

The three Malorets were in the kitchen, having just returned from vespers. Tintin had stayed behind to watch a game of skittles. Zephe sat with his back to the door, his elbows on the table and his chin resting on his hands, staring vaguely towards the far end of the kitchen where Anai's, between the w’ardrobe and the bed, was taking off her black skirt bordered with a green stripe, her blue bodice and the embroidered petticoat her daughter had given her. Noel was covertly observing his father’s attitude of dejection, at once worried and contemptuous. He shrugged his shoulders, and picking up the cotton trousers he had thrown over a chair before going to church, began to take off the clothes he was wearing. Anai's laid her petticoat on the bed and began to fold it.

“You ought to change,” she said to Zephe.

Zephe remained silent and motionless. As she opened one of the doors of the big wardrobe to put her things away she repeated:

“You ought to get changed — all the work there is to do.” Zephe lifted his head and contrary to all his normal habits uttered an obscene word. Noel, who was taking off his Sunday trousers, said angrily:

“It’s not our fault if Adelaide made you look a fool this morning, or if the cure called you names!”

“You shut your blasted jaw!”

“The filth you get up to, at least there’s no reason to go advertising it so that it comes bouncing back at you.” Zephe gave an angry jerk of his head but did not reply.

“And anyway the first thing is to behave decently,” added Noel, astonished at his own temerity in speaking so freely to his father.

“You wait till you’ve got daughters of your own— we’ll see how you behave!”

“Everyone isn’t like you!”

Zephe laughed shortly, and without raising his head talked in a low and melancholy voice.

“Thank you!. . People said the same thing about my grandfather and my grandfather’s father, that they slept with their daughters. They went on saying it about my father, and they’ve gone on saying it about me. It was said all over the village and the district, and it was an accepted thing, once and for all. So what good would it have done me if I hadn’t?”

Anais, with her head in the wardrobe, was pretending not to hear.

“And anyway,” Zephe went on, “it’s something… a part of us, as you might say… in the family… in this house… To get rid of it you’d have had to — I don’t know'—be successful elsewhere. . ”

He fell silent, again overtaken by a sort of lassitude. Noel laid his Sunday trousers over the back of a chair by the window. There was a long, sad silence. A shadow' passed outside the window, the dog barked and Honore Haudouin thrust open the door and entered the room. Closing the door behind him he stood contemplating the Malorets. Zephe turned his head to stare at him but remained with his elbows on the table, seeming unsurprised. Startled at being caught in her draw'ers and stays, Anais hid as best she could behind the door of the wardrobe while she searched hurriedly for an apron to wrap round herself.

“You look very nice like that,” said Honore in a voice which shook slightly.

Noel stood hesitating, clad in nothing but his shirt, with his week-day trousers in his hand. Honore, w'ith his back to the door, measured his advantage over the almost naked young man, astonished that the mere wearing of trousers and boots should give him so great a superiority.

Noel’s nakedness seemed to him pitifully vulnerable, making his enterprise almost too easy.

“So you don’t knock when you come into people’s houses?” said Noel, and took a step towards him.

Honore also moved forward and placed his metal-studded boot on one bare foot, but without putting any weight on it, simply to warn Noel of his defencelessness. The boy drew back, his bare skin flinching. Honore drove his knee into his stomach and hit him with both fists, but with no great brutality. Noel did not return the blows: half doubled-up, he seemed to be trying to hide within his shirt, as though the thin cotton could protect him. Honore hit him again, directing the blow with care, and he fell and lay dazed on the floor. All this took place so rapidly that Ana'is, still half-hidden behind one of the doors of the wardrobe, did not see what happened. Zephe had watched with open eyes, but with no wish to intervene. It would have been easy for him at that moment to get to the door and call for help, but the onslaught had called forth, deep in the animal recesses of his nature, a certain feeling of chivalry: he was content that the matter should take its course according to the rules. Moreover, an immense lethargy had kept him pinned down to his chair, and with it a promise of well-being that lurked obscurely in the prospect of defeat. He got up, nevertheless, as Honore turned towards him, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders in the attitude of a wrestler on guard. He was shorter than Honore, but muscular and nimble and well able to take care of himself. But there was no fight in him, and his defensive attitude was no more than a matter of form. Honore felt this so acutely that he did not even hit him. His intention was to shut him in the wardrobe. Moving swiftly, he got hold of him from behind, keeping his arms pinned to his sides. Only then did Zephe attempt to resist, managing to free his right arm as Honore dragged him to the other end of the kitchen. Ana'is ventured neither to move nor to utter a word of protest, seeming principally concerned to avoid showing herself in her drawers. Honore said gently:

“Open the other door, Anais.”

She hesitated, expecting Zephe to tell her not to; but he continued to struggle in silence.

“Come on!” said Honore. “Open it at once!”

She passed behind him so that he might not see her, and after undoing the hook which held the other door closed, slipped back into her corner in the same way. With both doors open, the wardrobe was almost big enough to hold an ox; but Zephe, his feet securing leverage against the edge, fiercely resisted Honore’s efforts to thrust him inside. Drawing back abruptly, Honore caused him to lose his balance and then flung him down on the bundles of material with which the bottom of the wardrobe was filled. After locking both doors he turned back to Noel, who was beginning to regain his wits. Honore knew precisely what he intended to do with him; he had been thinking of it all that morning, and perhaps for over fifteen years. He picked him up in his arms and said to Anais: “You see, he isn’t badly hurt, he’s moving already. I’m going to put him under the bed.”

Ana'is uttered a small, soft moan.

“He’ll stay asleep,” said Honore confidently. “Don’t worry.”

He thrust Noel as far under the bed as he could, and barricaded him with a bench and some pillows. Having completed this operation he sat on the end of the table and smiled at Anais, who had stayed motionless in her corner by the wardrobe.

“You’ve nice arms,” he said.

She raised her eyes to meet his, and a faint, reproachful smile lit her heavy, fair-skinned face.

“It isn’t right, Honore,” she said.

“I’ve always wanted to tell you you’re pretty, Anais. But you know how it is — one’s afraid. . ”

She wanted to answer him, but the thought of her husband and her son kept her silent. She smiled again, with a greater warmth.

“Well, and so in the end I made up my mind, because I was troubled in my heart. . ”

She replied so low that he read the words on her lips: “You’re a fine one to talk!. .”

Honore gazed fondly at the ample, heavy body which in a few moments he would take in his man’s arms, the deep bosom tightly enclosed within the corset, the bellv swelling beneath the drawers clinging tight to the hips, the solid, sturdy legs filling the black cotton stockings. He was glad of this ripe fullness, and he found Anals more alluring than Marguerite.

He murmured to her in a low voice, and she answered him with tender silence. Yet there was an obstacle between them. Honore found himself less eager than he had expected, and he became disquieted and angrv with himself. He had not come there simply for dalliance! He moved a pace nearer to her, feeling awkward and without confidence. She drew away from him, huddling closer in her corner, her arms covering her body, hands clasped between her thighs. And suddenly he smiled and said:

“Wait. I’ll close the shutters.”

In the darkness Anals sought no more to escape, and when he drew her to him let her head sink on his shoulder. He carried her to the high feather-bed, happy that she should be so heavy in his arms, and their murmurs evoked other murmurs, from the wardrobe, from beneath the bed, murmurs filling all the room so that it seemed that the whole house of Maloret shared in their act of love.

Meanwhile Adelaide and her children were waiting close by the drawn shutters conscious of the deep and silent murmur as though it were a warmth in their flesh. At a more discreet distance stood Ferdinand, uncertain and in torment, expecting every moment to bring forth disaster. When at length his brother came out of the house he had a momentary glimpse of the gentle face of Anai's — also of lace-frilled drawers and black cotton stockings fastened with blue garters above the knee. And at this sight — did he really see it? — his eyes started a foot out of his head, but fortunately sprang back into their sockets. Appalled at what had taken place he turned deathly pale in one cheek, while with the other he blushed crimson at the thought that he had come face to face with perdition, alluringlv attired in lace-trimmed drawers.

Silent and grave of countenance, Honore walked sur-

rounded bv bis family. Juliette clung to his arm, and Alexis, Gustave and Clotilde ran in front, turning and skipping backwards the better to admire him. Adelaide glanced at him sidelong, exasperated already bv a silence that seemed to her heavv with recollection. As his chest rose in a sigh, she said acidly:

“You were in a great hurry to go there, I must sav, and what’s more you seemed to be looking forward to it!”

“It had to be done,” said Honore.

“It had to be done! Well, upon my word! The father of five children!”

Ferdinand was dodging round the outskirts of the family, trying to find a convenient station from which to question his brother.

“But have you thought. . what will happen if — if Valtier. . my God, if he gets to know about it!. .”

W’hen they were half-way down the lane lined with apple-trees Deodat passed them going along the road. Being in a hurry he called out without stopping:

“He’s dead!”

An inquiring, troubled murmur rose up from the family. The women crossed themselves.

“He means that Philibert Alesselon has died,” said Honore. “He was a good man, poor Philibert, a good republican and a man of his word. When he made a promise you could count on it.”

“Well, then,” babbled Ferdinand, “for the next mayor. . w⁷e might consider. .”

“Berthier,” said Honore, “or Corenpot or Rousselier, as the case may be. Those are the ones we shall consider.”

Ferdinand acquiesced with a submissive movement of his head, abandoning for ever the name of Zephe Maloret. They reached the end of the lane. But before they emerged on to the road Honore stopped and they clustered round him. He fished out the letter, which was somewhat crumpled after having been three days in his pocket, unfolded it beneath the humbled and respectful eyes of Ferdinand, and read aloud:

“My dear Honore, — The black horse was taken with colic at the beginning of the week. .

MARCEL AYM£ was born in France in 1902 in the town of Joigny. He completed his first novel, Briilebois, before he was twenty. Table attx Creves, published in 1929, won the Thco-phraste Rcnaudot award as the best novel of the vear. Among his other works translated into English and published in the United States are Across Paris, The Magic Pictures, The Transient Hour, The Wonderful Farm, The Proverb and Other Stories, and The Conscience of Love.

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