Pierre and Jean by Guy de Maupassant (reading diary TXT) 📕

were generally much moved and charmed by the commonplace pathos of these obvious and sentimental works. They were at once intelligible without question or explanation, and the poor women were to be pitied, though the nature of the grief of the more elegant of the two was not precisely known. But this very doubt contributed to the sentiment. She had, no doubt, lost her lover. On entering the room the eye was immediately attracted to these four pictures, and riveted as if fascinated. If it wandered it was only to return and contemplate the four expressions on the faces of the two women, who were as like each other as two sisters. And the very style of these works, in their shining frames, crisp, sharp, and highly finished, with the elegance of a fashion plate, suggested a sense of cleanliness and propriety which was confirmed by the rest of the fittings. The seats were always in precisely the same order, some against the wall and some round the circular centre-table. The immaculately white curtains hung in such straight and regular pleats that one longed to crumple them a little; and never did a grain of dust rest on the shade under which the gilt clock, in the taste of the first empire⁠—a terrestrial globe supported by Atlas on his knees⁠—looked like a melon left there to ripen.

The two women as they sat down somewhat altered the normal position of their chairs.

“You have not been out this morning?” asked Mme. Roland.

“No. I must own to being rather tired.”

And she spoke as if in gratitude to Jean and his mother, of all the pleasure she had derived from the expedition and the prawn-fishing.

“I ate my prawns this morning,” she added, “and they were excellent. If you felt inclined we might go again one of these days.”

The young man interrupted her:

“Before we start on a second fishing excursion, suppose we complete the first?”

“Complete it? It seems to me quite finished.”

“Nay, madame, I, for my part, caught something on the rocks of Saint Jouain which I am anxious to carry home with me.”

She put on an innocent and knowing look.

“You? What can it be? What can you have found?”

“A wife. And my mother and I have come to ask you whether she had changed her mind this morning.”

She smiled: “No, monsieur. I never change my mind.”

And then he held out his hand, wide open, and she put hers into it with a quick, determined movement. Then he said: “As soon as possible, I hope.”

“As soon as you like.”

“In six weeks?”

“I have no opinion. What does my future mother-in-law say?”

Mme. Roland replied with a rather melancholy smile:

“I? Oh, I can say nothing. I can only thank you for having accepted Jean, for you will make him very happy.”

“We will do our best, mamma.”

Somewhat overcome, for the first time, Mme. Rosémilly rose, and throwing her arms round Mme. Roland, kissed her a long time as a child of her own might have done; and under this new embrace the poor woman’s sick heart swelled with deep emotion. She could not have expressed the feeling; it was at once sad and sweet. She had lost her son, her big boy, but in return she had found a daughter, a grown-up daughter.

When they faced each other again, and were seated, they took hands and remained so, looking at each and smiling, while they seemed to have forgotten Jean.

Then they discussed a number of things which had to be thought of in view of an early marriage, and when everything was settled and decided Mme. Rosémilly seemed suddenly to remember a further detail and asked: “You have consulted M. Roland, I suppose?”

A flush of colour mounted at the same instant on the face of both mother and son. It was the mother who replied:

“Oh, no, it is quite unnecessary!” Then she hesitated, feeling that some explanation was needed, and added: “We do everything without saying anything to him. It is enough to tell him what we have decided on.”

Mme. Rosémilly, not in the least surprised, only smiled, taking it as a matter of course, for the good man counted for so little.

When Mme. Roland was in the street again with her son she said:

“Suppose we go to your rooms for a little while. I should be glad to rest.”

She felt herself homeless, shelterless, her own house being a terror to her.

They went into Jean’s apartments.

As soon as the door was closed upon her she heaved a deep sigh, as if that bolt had placed her in safety, but then, instead of resting as she had said, she began to open the cupboards, to count the piles of linen, the pocket-handkerchiefs, and socks. She changed the arrangement to place them in more harmonious order, more pleasing to her housekeeper’s eye; and when she had put everything to her mind, laying out the towels, the shirts, and the drawers on their several shelves and dividing all the linen into three principal classes, body-linen, household-linen, and table-linen, she drew back and contemplated the results, and called out:

“Come here, Jean, and see how nice it looks.”

He went and admired it to please her.

On a sudden, when he had sat down again, she came softly up behind his armchair, and putting her right arm round his neck she kissed him, while she laid on the chimney-shelf a small packet wrapped in white paper which she held in the other hand.

“What is that?” he asked. Then, as she made no reply, he understood, recognising the shape of the frame.

“Give it me!” he said.

She pretended not to hear him, and went back to the linen cupboards. He got up hastily, took the melancholy relic, and going across the room, put it in the drawer of his writing-table, which he locked and double locked. She wiped away a tear with the tip of her finger, and said in a rather quavering voice: “Now I am going to see whether your new servant keeps the kitchen in good order. As she is out I can look