HAPPY PEOPLE

Later on I came to know in minute detail what had happened out there....

From early in the afternoon Meaulnes and his wife, whom I still call Mademoiselle de Galais, had been left entirely by themselves in the drawing-room at the Sand Pit. All the guests having gone, M. de Galais had opened the door, letting the high wind moan for a second all through the house, then he had set off towards Vieux-Nançay, not to be back until dinner, in time for locking up and giving orders at the farm. No noise from outside now reaches the young people, only the leafless branch of a rose tree tapping against the window-pane on the side of the moor. Like two passengers in a drifting boat, the two lovers, in the winter gale, are left alone with happiness.

‘The fire is almost going out,’ said Mademoiselle de Galais, and she tried to take a log out of the chest.

But Meaulnes hurried to put the wood on the fire himself. He then took the hand the girl had put out, and they stood there facing one another as if stifled by some great news which could not be uttered.

The wind swirled by with the noise of an overflowing river. From time to time, as on the window of a train, a drop of rain left a slanting streak across the pane.

Then the girl suddenly stole away. She opened the passage door and disappeared with a mysterious smile. Augustin was for a moment left alone in semi-darkness.... The tick-tick of a small clock recalled the dining-room at Sainte-Agathe.... He no doubt thought: ‘So this is the house so much sought after; the passage once so full of whispers and strange encounters....’

It is at this moment that he must have heard--Mademoiselle de Galais told me later that she also heard it--the first call of Frantz close to the house.

It was in vain then that the young woman showed him all the marvels with which she was burdened: the toys she had played with as a little girl; all the photographs of herself as a child; as a _vivandière_, herself and Frantz on their mother’s knee, and such a pretty mother ... then all that was left of her sedate little dresses of childhood: ‘even this one which I was still wearing just before you came to know me, at the time, so I believe, you must have arrived at the Higher Elementary School at Sainte-Agathe....’ Meaulnes no longer saw anything or heard anything.

Once, however, he appeared to grasp again the idea of his extraordinary, inconceivable happiness.

‘You are here,’ he said dully, as if merely to say it made him dizzy--‘you are moving close to the table and your hand for a moment rests on it....’

And again: ‘Mother, when she was young, would lean forward slightly like you, when speaking to me.... And when she sat at the piano....’

Then Mademoiselle de Galais proposed to play before night came. But it was growing dark in that corner of the drawing-room and they had to light a candle. The pink lamp-shade accentuated the rosy flush which on the girl’s face was a sign of great anxiety.

Out there, at the edge of the wood, I began to hear the trembling song brought by the wind, but soon broken into by the second call of the two mad fellows who had come nearer to us through the firs.

For a long time Meaulnes listened to the girl, while he looked silently out of the window. More than once he turned towards the sweet face, now so frail and anxious. Then he came near to Yvonne de Galais and lightly placed one hand on her shoulder. She felt, close to her neck, the gentle pressure of the caress to which she should have been able to respond.

‘Night is falling,’ he said at last. ‘I am going to close the shutters. But do not stop playing....’

What took place then in that mysterious and wild heart? I often wondered and only came to know when it was too late. Unknown remorse? Inexplicable misgivings? Fear of seeing this unheard-of happiness, to which he clung so closely, soon vanish from between his hands? And then the terrible temptation at once and for ever to dash to the ground this marvel he had conquered?...

He went out slowly and silently after having once more looked at his young wife. From the edge of the wood we saw him first close with some hesitation one of the shutters, then look vaguely our way, close another, and suddenly run off at full speed in our direction. He reached us before we could think of better concealment. He noticed us as he was going to jump over a small hedge recently planted and enclosing a meadow. He changed his course. I recall that he looked haggard, like a hunted beast.... He attempted to retrace his steps and climb over the hedge on the side of the brook.

I called him: ‘Meaulnes!... Augustin!...’

But he never even turned his head. Then, feeling sure that this alone could hold him back: ‘Frantz is here,’ I called out. ‘Stop!’

He at last stopped. Out of breath and without giving me time to be ready with what I ought to say: ‘He’s here!’ he said. ‘What’s he wanting?’

‘He’s wretched,’ I replied. ‘He came to ask your help in looking for what he has lost.’

‘Ah!’ said he, lowering his head. ‘I guessed that much. I tried in vain to drown that thought.... But where is he? Tell me quick.’

I told him that Frantz had just gone and that he certainly could not be caught now. It was a great shock to Meaulnes. He hesitated, walked ahead two or three steps, then stopped. He appeared in the depths of uncertainty and grief. I related to him what I had promised in his name to Frantz. I said that I had arranged a meeting with him a year hence at the same place.

Augustin, so calm usually, was now in an extraordinary state of impatience and agitation.

‘Ah! why did you do that!’ he said. ‘Of course I can save him. But it must be at once. I must see him, speak to him; he must forgive me, that I may make amends for all.... Otherwise I can no longer show my face out there....’

And he looked towards the Sand Pit house.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘just for a childish promise you made you are now going to wreck your happiness.’

‘Ah! if it were only that promise!’ he exclaimed. And thus I knew that something else was binding the two men together, though I could not guess what it was.

‘In any case,’ I said, ‘it’s now too late. They are on their way to Germany.’

He was about to reply when a face, dishevelled, tortured, haggard, appeared between us. It was Mademoiselle de Galais. She must have run, for her face was wet with drops of sweat. She must have fallen and hurt herself, for her forehead was scratched above the right eye and blood was caked in her hair.

It has sometimes happened to me, in the poor districts of Paris, to witness a couple which one thought happy, united, and honest, suddenly bring their quarrel into the street to be separated by the intervention of the police. The scandal had broken out all at once, no matter when, just as they sat down at dinner, before the Sunday walk, when keeping the little boy’s birthday ... and now everything is forgotten and smashed. The man and the woman in their quarrel are no more than two pitiful fiends, while the children in tears rush up to them, hugging them closely, begging them to keep quiet and not to fight.

Mademoiselle de Galais, coming thus close to Meaulnes, put me in mind of one of those children, those poor distracted children. I believe that, had all her friends, all the village, all the world been looking on, she would have rushed forward all the same, she would have dropped on us in the same way, dishevelled, tearful, her face dirty.

But when she once understood that Meaulnes was really there, that this time, at all events, he would not forsake her, she placed her arm under his and could not help laughing amidst her tears as would a child. They said not a word to each other. But, as she had pulled out her handkerchief, Meaulnes took it gently from her hands; with care and precaution he wiped away the blood from the girl’s hair.

‘We must now go in,’ he said.

And in the bracing high wind which lashed at their faces that wintry evening I left them to go back together, he helping her by the hand at awkward places, she smiling and hastening--towards the home they had for a moment forsaken.