The Catalans: A Novel (7 page)

“I know her. Strong-minded woman.”

“Yes. She always ruled that family—both the others have always been afraid of her—and she is the one who is pushing the girl on. Her motive is clear enough, of course.”

“Has she some special motive?”

“You cannot have forgotten that old René l’Empereur is the one who has the tobacco license? Her father-in-law.”

“No no. I know him well: a very agreeable old man. He was in the East for a long time and he loves to talk about it. I must go and see him soon. A very kind old man: he gave me a cigarette when I was twelve.”

“No doubt. But he is mortal, nevertheless, and since the evacuation he has been very infirm. Some day, probably quite soon, Mimi is going to want the license for herself or her husband. It is a thriving concern, and nowadays, since the war, there are so many people with claims to a tobacconist’s license—resistants, deportees, victims of atrocities, and so on, as well as the wounded men and soldiers’ widows—so many of them that Mimi will find it very difficult unless she has some real power to stand up for her. Xavier, of course, could arrange an affair of that kind in two minutes. She has courted him for years with her singing in the choir; but obviously this is a far better method of securing his interest.”

“I thought the Pou-naous were Protestants.”

“They are. But not Mimi: she was always a much more sensible woman than her sisters and she always preferred the church to the temple, even when she was a child. Then she quarreled with the old pasteur—something to do with the Christmas singing, I believe—and never went to the temple again. She was married in church.”

“She never persuaded her sisters or Madeleine to leave the temple?”

“Oh no, there was no zealous, burning conversion, you know; she was just like the other people here—displeased with one, they drift to the other, but a
lukewarm
drift. No, her sisters, especially Thérèse (Dominique never goes anywhere) continued to go to the temple: sometimes Madeleine would be in the church—she helped Mimi decorate the chapels sometimes—but in general she went to the temple, and she was married there.”

“That’s bad.”

“From the point of view of Xavier, you mean? Yes. There would have been little danger if she had been married properly: I will say this for Xavier, he is not one of your modern, lax, easy-going Catholics. And even now I do not think he would put his principles aside, mad though he is.”

“No doubt you are right. But tell me, how did it all begin? That is what I have never understood from your letters.”

“It began very simply. When her husband left her she was very, very unhappy. Her family would not leave her alone for a second, and she often came to see me, not so much for comfort as for refuge. I was foolish enough to encourage her to spend more and more time typing for Xavier—occupation and distraction, I thought. I say I was foolish enough to do so, and if you wish to be very modern and clever you may say that is why I resent the present situation so bitterly. I would not own this to anyone else, Alain, but I was a fool, a fool.” She clasped her hands with exasperation. “I never thought for a moment—but of course I
should
have thought. Xavier was handling her divorce, and I suppose the scabrous details excited him. I can think of no other explanation: he has always been a cold, bloodless sort of a man, the model of rectitude. You could have left him alone with—with—oh, with any form of temptation that even Côme could imagine, with his obscene library that he thinks nobody knows about.”

“Her divorce? How does that agree with her eating her heart out for him?”

“It was her father. He was like a wild boar with anger: he was at Xavier’s house the moment he heard of it—that was a week or ten days after Francisco had gone. She had kept it to herself all that time, and it was only because Francisco had left a paper at the mairie and the mairie people talked that the family heard about it at all.”

“What in the world did he want to leave a paper at the mairie for?”

“Oh, to state that he was deserting Madeleine and that he was entirely at fault, so that there could be a divorce without any difficulty. It is the usual thing.”

“Oh? I did not know.”

“Well, as soon as he had this paper he was round at Xavier’s door, roaring like a lion. It is entirely his doing, the divorce. He is paying for it, of course, and he keeps pressing Xavier to hurry it on, whatever it costs. They are afraid that she would have him back if he were to return.”

“That would be a solution.”

“He would never dare come back. Her father would kill him. His own father, old Camairerrou, said he would hold him for Jean Pou-naou to stab where he liked.”

“Could she not go to him?”

“If she knew where he was she could; at least, in theory. But I have no doubt that she would much rather be burnt alive than do so.”

“Oh.” (A pause.) “You were telling me how it began.”

“Yes. That was the situation, you understand: the girl wretchedly unhappy, running away from anyone who wanted to talk about the affair (and it was the best piece of gossip they had had in the town for a very long time) shut up for hours with Xavier, who is, at least, a quiet and tactful man. And there is Xavier, suddenly brought into contact with a girl in a wild, devil-may-care state of mind, abandoned and (perhaps I wrong him) easily to be taken advantage of. He has her for hours at his side, while he is dealing with these papers that must, I presume, raise carnal ideas in his mind. And at the same time I am sitting here like a fool, having encouraged the disaster to take place.

“And then, when the mischief was done, I began to hear things. Tongues must have been wagging before, for by the time that I heard the beginning of the scandal it was quite well-formed, not mere dribs and drabs of guesswork. You do not have to tell me that it was ill-natured, malicious gossip by ignorant, idle, foolish women: I know that perfectly well. And I know, too, that when gossip has a certain ring it is always true: if you were an old woman, Alain, and if you had gossiped as much as I have, you would know that ring, and you would not think that you could dismiss an unpleasant piece of news just by saying, ‘Oh, it’s only gossip.’ ” Alain made a disclaiming gesture, and his aunt went on, “Xavier moved his rooms around: he changed his study to the room in the corner of the courtyard on the left of the door, you know? and moved his clerk into a room on the other side of the hall, and he had the typewriter put into the little room behind his new study. It made me very uneasy, this new arrangement, and I hinted to Xavier that it might be unfortunate for Madeleine if there were any gossip about her. He made no reply and I noticed that he was much more carefully dressed than usual. I think I must have chosen my moment very badly. About a week later I asked him, apropos of a novel about a legal family, whether it was not very dangerous for a lawyer to have an affair with a woman who was also his client. He said Yes, it was; very. He knew perfectly well what I meant, and he was so angry in his silent way that I was on edge with alarm. However, I gathered all my forces and asked him whether he knew what was being said. He did not answer. But on the Thursday that followed, in the evening, he said that it would be a foolhardy imbecile who would meddle with
his
affairs, and that he would have the greatest pleasure in the world in laying a man by the leg, or a woman or a child, laying them by the leg for the rest of the term of their natural lives, if they dared tattle about him.

“I learned in the morning that Marinette—really, she has very little sense, although she is your aunt—had been so criminally stupid as to go to the shop and have a long talk with Dominique and Thérèse Pou-naou. She had not consulted me, of course: and of course all she accomplished was to put ideas into their heads and to set them on. They may not be very intelligent (though they are certainly cleverer than your Aunt Marinette) but they know enough to come in out of the rain, or to try to pick up a piece of gold if they see it lying in the gutter. And of course, her stupid, interfering visit came back to Xavier’s ears almost as soon as she had left.

“It was some time after that, quite a long time, that Xavier asked me whether I remembered asking him about the relations of a lawyer and his female client. I said that I did, and I knew that he was going to say something horribly unpleasant; but then he said ‘There is nothing in the code of the profession, nothing whatsoever, that prevents a lawyer from marrying his client.’ At that horrible word marriage, Alain, I really thought I was going to faint. I have never done so except once, at the Roubaix station when I was a girl, but I remembered the feeling again immediately. But, however, I sat down, and it passed off.”

Alain was about to make some remark, or at least a sympathetic noise, when she went on. “In another man it might just have been a rash fling, almost meaningless—but you know Xavier. He had been vexed, no doubt, by the family meeting that day. We were all gathered here, and he must have seen the others arriving: even if he did not see them, he must have heard them. The house sounded as if it had been filled with parrots. Thomas began screeching in Catalan, as he always does when he is excited, and I went out into the garden, and, my dear, the noise was terrible, even there. It frightened the cats.”

Aunt Margot had lived for fifty years among the Catalans, but like a true Frenchwoman she spoke no word of their language, remained impenetrably sealed against its daily influence; and she had raised the standard of spoken French in the family to a high pitch of correctness. Only her brother-in-law Thomas—the backward Thomas Menjé-Pé—still lapsed into barbarisms in her presence, and even, under great stress, into his native idiom.

“Upon my word,” said Alain, shifting uneasily in his chair, “I must say that I sympathize with Xavier for being angry. As far as I can gather from the others, they all seem to have had a go at him at one time or another, and every single one of them has had the same brilliant idea of attacking the girl, assuring him that she is practically a whore and that he is a fool. No: I would not be at all surprised if he did not marry her out of hand, merely to vex his relations. And after all, would it be such an unmixed disaster, this marriage?”

“Oh, Alain! You have quite a good brain, and yet you can ask me a question like that. Would you be pleased? Were you pleased when first you heard of it?”

“Well, no; I was not. In fact, I thought it was a grave misfortune. I still think it would be most undesirable, but I do not quite see it in the same awful light as you do. Tell me, Aunt Margot, just what is so disastrous about it? This is supposed to be a democratic country—and it is the most truly democratic that I have ever seen, even counting England and America—but even if it were not, we Roiges are not so very different from the Fajals. After all, my great-grandfather worked his vineyards just like any other peasant, and probably he fished in the same boat as Madeleine Pou-naou’s great-grandfather. I dare say they were cousins.”

“Oh dear, Alain: I am really too old to be attacked now with fine romantic theories. What you say is very noble and quite true; but it has no bearing on the matter in hand, has it, my dear? So you will forgive me if I do not tell you how I know that two and two make four. There is just one aspect of the disaster that I will touch upon: you know something about Xavier’s political interests in the region, do you not?”

“Yes.”

“I do not suppose you know much, my poor Alain, cooped up in that nasty laboratory with germs—very like a monk. I wish you had had a vocation; it would have suited you admirably well, and it might have been very valuable to have another cleric in the family. However, I dare say you had some knowledge of the state of affairs under the Third Republic.”

“Yes. Politics stank.”

“They were unclean. You should not have said ‘stank’ to me, Alain.”

“I beg your pardon: unclean.”

“But we are not concerned with judging them. Clean or unclean, they were
intricate
: and now they are just the same, only more intricate. Influence depends on a thousand combinations, ten thousand little points—the innumerable right contacts and relations, the always having been influential, the being respected by a great many people. Until this began, Xavier had all that. He was respected by a great many people, and the reason why he was respected was not only because of his money, or the family’s money, nor because of his clean hands—though that was important—but chiefly for his astuteness. He was known far beyond the region as an astute lawyer, excellent at a settlement out of court; an astute man of business, placing the family’s money to great advantage; and as an astute politician, able to manage and combine conflicting interests and to conduct the election campaigns to the admiration of all. It is their respect for his astuteness that enables him to get what he wants from Paris without paying too much for it—which increases their respect, of course. But what happens to his astuteness if he is taken in by a chit of a village girl and a family of impecunious grocers? Drawn into a marriage that would make even the simplest mountain peasant laugh? An immoral liaison with the girl would shock and displease many of his clients and some of his right-wing political associates; it would certainly damage him, but it would not greatly affect the majority of the electors: marriage with her would be totally different. Such a marriage! No: ridicule still kills in this country, and his reputation for astuteness and all his prestige would vanish directly in a great howl of derision. Politically he would sink like a stone. Already I don’t know how much harm has been done: six months ago he could appoint our deputy; now I am by no means sure that he could be certain of having a man elected to the departmental council. In six months’ time, if this goes on, they will be laughing in his face at a municipal meeting and making the sign of horns behind his back. Then where will we be? Where will Gaudérique’s appointment in Africa be? Will your people feel so sure of their laboratory’s subsidy?