The works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 5

"Why does he want to know so much?" she replied. "We will bring him up to be a gentleman farmer, to devote himself to the cultivation of his property, as so many noblemen do, and he will pass his life happily in this house, where we have lived before him and where we shall die. What more can he want?"

The baron shook his head.

"What answer will you make if he comes to you a few years hence, and says: 'I am nothing, and I know nothing through your selfish love. I feel incapable of working or of becoming anyone now, and yet I know I was not intended to lead the dull, pleasureless life to which your short-sighted affection has condemned me.'"

Jeanne turned to her son with the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Oh, Poulet, you will never reproach me for having loved you too much, will you?"

"No, mamma," promised the boy in surprise.

"You swear you will not?"

"Yes, mamma."

"You want to stay here, don't you?"

"Yes, mamma."

"Jeanne, you have no right to dispose of his life in that way," said the baron, sternly. "Such conduct is cowardly – almost criminal. You are sacrificing your child to your own personal happiness."

Jeanne hid her face in her hands, while her sobs came in quick succession.

"I have been so unhappy – so unhappy," she murmured, through her tears. "And now my son has brought peace and rest into my life, you want to take him from me. What will become of me – if I am left – all alone now?"

Her father went and sat down by her side. "And am I no one, Jeanne?" he asked, taking her in his arms. She threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him fondly. Then in a voice still choked with tears and sobs:

"Yes, perhaps you are right papa, dear," she answered; "and I was foolish; but I have had so much sorrow. I am quite willing for him to go to college now."

Then Poulet, who hardly understood what was going to be done with him, began to cry too, and his three mothers kissed and coaxed him and told him to be brave. They all went up to bed with heavy hearts, and even the baron wept when he was alone in his own room, though he had controlled his emotion downstairs. It was resolved to send Paul to the college at Havre at the beginning of the next term, and during the summer he was more spoilt than ever. His mother moaned as she thought of the approaching separation and she got ready as many clothes for the boy as if he had been about to start on a ten years' journey.

One October morning, after a sleepless night, the baron, Jeanne, and Aunt Lison went away with Poulet in the landau. They had already paid a visit to fix upon the bed he was to have in the dormitory and the seat he was to occupy in class, and this time Jeanne and Aunt Lison passed the whole day in unpacking his things and arranging them in the little chest of drawers. As the latter would not contain the quarter of what she had brought, Jeanne went to the head master to ask if the boy could not have another. The steward was sent for, and he said that so much linen and so many clothes were simply in the way, instead of being of any use, and that the rules of the house forbade him to allow another chest of drawers, so Jeanne made up her mind to hire a room in a little hotel close by, and to ask the landlord himself to take Poulet all he wanted, directly the child found himself in need of anything.

They all went on the pier for the rest of the afternoon and watched the ships entering and leaving the harbor; then, at nightfall, they went to a restaurant for dinner. But they were too unhappy to eat, and the dishes were placed before them and removed almost untouched as they sat looking at each other with tearful eyes. After dinner they walked slowly back to the college. Boys of all ages were arriving on every side, some accompanied by their parents, others by servants. A great many were crying, and the big, dim courtyard was filled with the sound of tears.

When the time came to say good-bye, Jeanne and Poulet clung to each other as if they could not part, while Aunt Lison stood, quite forgotten, in the background, with her face buried in her handkerchief. The baron felt he too was giving way, so he hastened the farewells, and took his daughter from the college. The landau was waiting at the door, and they drove back to Les Peuples in a silence that was only broken by an occasional sob.

Jeanne wept the whole of the following day, and the next she ordered the phaeton and drove over to Havre. Poulet seemed to have got over the separation already; It was the first time he had ever had any companions of his own age, and, as he sat beside his mother, he fidgeted on his chair and longed to run out and play. Every other day Jeanne went to see him, and on Sundays took him out. She felt as though she had not energy enough to leave the college between the recreation hours, so she waited in the parloir while the classes were going on until Poulet could come to her again. At last the head master asked her to go up and see him, and begged her not to come so often. She did not take any notice of his request, and he warned her that if she still persisted in preventing her son from enjoying his play hours, and in interrupting his work, he would be obliged to dismiss him from the college. He also sent a note to the baron, to the same effect, and thenceforth Jeanne was always kept in sight at Les Peuples, like a prisoner. She lived in a constant state of nervous anxiety, and looked forward to the holidays with more impatience than her son. She began to take long walks about the country, with Massacre as her only companion, and would stay out of doors all day long, dreamily musing. Sometimes she sat on the cliff the whole afternoon watching the sea; sometimes she walked, across the wood, to Yport, thinking, as she went, of how she had walked there when she was young, and of the long, long years which had elapsed since she had bounded along these very paths, a hopeful, happy girl.

Every time she saw her son, it seemed to Jeanne as if ten years had passed since she had seen him last; for every month he became more of a man, and every month she became more aged. Her father looked like her brother, and Aunt Lison (who had been quite faded when she was twenty-five, and had never seemed to get older since) might have been taken for her elder sister.

Poulet did not study very hard; he spent two years in the fourth form, managed to get through the third in one twelvemonth, then spent two more in the second, and was nearly twenty when he reached the rhetoric class. He had grown into a tall, fair youth, with whiskered cheeks and a budding moustache. He came over to Les Peuples every Sunday now, instead of his mother going to see him; and as he had been taking riding lessons for some time past, he hired a horse and accomplished the journey from Havre in two hours.

Every Sunday Jeanne started out early in the morning to go and meet him on the road, and with her went Aunt Lison and the baron, who was beginning to stoop, and who walked like a little old man, with his hands clasped behind his back as if to prevent himself from pitching forward on his face. The three walked slowly along, sometimes sitting down by the wayside to rest, and all the while straining their eyes to catch the first glimpse of the rider. As soon as he appeared, looking like a black speck on the white road, they waved their handkerchiefs, and he at once put his horse at a gallop, and came up like a whirlwind, frightening his mother and Aunt Lison, and making his grandfather exclaim, "Bravo!" in the admiration of impotent old age.

Although Paul was a head taller than his mother, she always treated him as if he were a child and still asked him, as in former years, "Your feet are not cold, are they, Poulet?" If he went out of doors, after lunch, to smoke a cigarette, she opened the window to cry: "Oh, don't go out without a hat, you will catch cold in your head"; and when, at night, he mounted his horse to return, she could hardly contain herself for nervousness, and entreated her son not to be reckless.

"Do not ride too quickly, Poulet, dear," she would say. "Think of your poor mother, who would go mad if anything happened to you, and be careful."

One Saturday morning she received a letter from Paul to say he should not come to Les Peuples as usual, the following day, as he had been invited to a party some of his college friends had got up. The whole of Sunday Jeanne was tortured by a presentiment of evil, and when Thursday came, she was unable to bear her suspense any longer, and went over to Havre.

Paul seemed changed, though she could hardly tell in what way. He seemed more spirited, and his words and tones were more manly.

"By the way, mamma, we are going on another excursion and I sha'n't come to Les Peuples next Sunday, as you have come to see me to-day," he said, all at once, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Jeanne felt as much surprised and stunned as if he had told her he was going to America; then, when she was again able to speak:

"Oh, Poulet," she exclaimed, "what is the matter with you? Tell me what is going on."

He laughed and gave her a kiss.

"Why, nothing at all, mamma. I am only going to enjoy myself with some friends, as everyone does at my age."

She made no reply, but when she was alone in the carriage, her head was filled with new and strange ideas. She had not recognized her Poulet, her little Poulet, as of old; she perceived for the first time that he was grown up, that he was no longer hers, that henceforth he was going to live his own life, independently of the old people. To her he seemed to have changed entirely in a day. What! Was this strong, bearded, firm-willed lad her son, her little child who used to make her help him plant his lettuces?

Paul only came to Les Peuples at very long intervals for the next three months, and even when he was there, it was only too plain that he longed to get away again as soon as possible, and that, each evening, he tried to leave an hour earlier. Jeanne imagined all sorts of things, while the baron tried to console her by saying: "There, let him alone, the boy is twenty years old, you know."

One morning, a shabbily dressed old man who spoke with a German accent asked for "Matame la vicomtesse." He was shown in, and, after a great many ceremonious bows, pulled out a dirty pocketbook, saying:

"I have a leetle paper for you," and then unfolded, and held out a greasy scrap of paper.

Jeanne read it over twice, looked at the Jew, read it over again, then asked:

"What does it mean?"

"I vill tell you," replied the man obsequiously. "Your son wanted a leetle money, and, as I know what a goot mother you are, I lent him joost a leetle to go on vith."

Jeanne was trembling. "But why did he not come to me for it?"

The Jew entered into a long explanation about a gambling debt which had had to be paid on a certain morning before midday, that no one would lend Paul anything as he was not yet of age, and that his "honor would have been compromised," if he, the Jew, had not "rendered this little service" to the young man. Jeanne wanted to send for the baron, but her emotion seemed to have taken all the strength from her limbs, and she could not rise from her seat.

"Would you be kind enough to ring?" she said to the money-lender, at last.

He feared some trick, and hesitated for a moment.

"If I inconvenience you, I vill call again," he stammered.

She answered him by a shake of the head, and when he had rung they waited in silence for the baron. The latter at once understood it all. The bill was for fifteen hundred francs. He paid the Jew a thousand, saying to him:

"Don't let me see you here again," and the man thanked him, bowed, and went away.

Jeanne and the baron at once went over to Havre, but when they arrived at the college they learnt that Paul had not been there for a month. The principal had received four letters, apparently from Jeanne, the first telling him that his pupil was ill, the others to say how he was getting on, and each letter was accompanied by a doctor's certificate; of course they were all forged. Jeanne and her father looked at each other in dismay when they heard this news, and the principal feeling very sorry for them took them to a magistrate that the police might be set to find the young man.

Jeanne and the baron slept at an hotel that night, and the next day Paul was discovered at the house of a fast woman. His mother and grandfather took him back with them to Les Peuples and the whole of the way not a word was exchanged. Jeanne hid her face in her handkerchief and cried, and Paul looked out of the window with an air of indifference.

Before the end of the week they found out that, during the last three months, Paul had contracted debts to the amount of fifteen thousand francs, but the creditors had not gone to his relations about the money, because they knew the boy would soon be of age. Poulet was asked for no explanation and received no reproof, as his relations hoped to reform him by kindness. He was pampered and caressed in every way; the choicest dishes were prepared for him, and, as it was springtime, a boat was hired for him at Yport, in spite of Jeanne's nervousness, that he might go sailing whenever he liked; the only thing that was denied him was a horse, for fear he should ride to Havre. He became very irritable and passionate and lived a perfectly aimless life. The baron grieved over his neglected studies, and even Jeanne, much as she dreaded to be parted from him again, began to wonder what was to be done with him.

One evening he did not come home. It was found, on inquiry, that he had gone out in a boat with two sailors, and his distracted mother hurried down to Yport, without stopping even to put anything over her head. On the beach she found a few men awaiting the return of the boat, and out on the sea was a little swaying light, which was drawing nearer and nearer to the shore. The boat came in, but Paul was not on board; he had ordered the men to take him to Havre, and had landed there.