I could feel her young cheeks, covered in tears. I remember thinking, "Why is this young woman crying? Why won't she let me hold her?" I wanted to pull her close to me but she disappeared. I looked for her through the crowd, the kind of crowd you find at a rural church on Sundays, a crowd of farmers dressed in big black smocks. I still remember one detail: an angry wind was blowing, from God knows where, swelling the farmers' smocks as if they were the sails of a boat. When I woke up I said to myself, "How odd-I just dreamt about that little Helene who has married Montrifaut," even though, in my dream, I couldn't see the young woman's face.
Two years later I finally returned to France.
I would have continued lodging with my mother if she'd let me live the way I wanted to: spending my days in the woods and my evenings with her. But naturally she wanted to see me married. In these parts marriages are arranged during long, dreary dinners to which all the young women of marriageable age are invited. The men arrive, weighing up in their minds how much the dowry is worth and what the expectations are, in the same way you go to an auction knowing what each item is valued at, but not knowing how high the bidding will go.
Country dinners! Soup thick enough for a spoon to stand up in, enormous pike from the lake on someone's estate, tasty, but so full of bones you feel as if you're eating a thornbush. And no one says a word. All those thick necks leaning forward and slowly chewing, like cattle in a shed. And after the fish there's the first meat course, preferably roast goose, then the second meat dish, this one cooked in a sauce that gives off an aroma of wine and herbs. Then comes the cheese, which everyone eats from the end of their knives; and to finish off, a pie-apple or cherry, depending on the time of year. Afterwards there's nothing to do but go into the sitting room and choose from among the throng of young women in their pink dresses (before the war all eligible young ladies wore pink dresses, from the candy pink of sugar-coated almonds to the shocking pink of sliced ham), choose from among this crowd of young women, with their little gold necklaces, their hair tied into a chignon at the backs of their necks, with their raw-silk gloves and rough hands, the person with whom you will spend the rest of your life. At that time Cecile Coudray was one such woman. She who was thirty-two or thirty-three but still paraded abou t i n the virginal pink dress by her family in the hope of finding her a husband. Poor, dried-up Cecile, with her thin lips, sitting not far from her younger half-sister, who was married and happy.
The first evening I saw Helene she was wearing a red velvet dress, which was considered rather daring at the time and in that place. She was a young woman with black hair . . . See, I want to describe her, but I can't. No doubt I looked at her too closely right from the start, the way you look at everything you covet. Do you not know the shape and colour of the fruit you bring to your lips? It seems that from the first moment you see the woman you love, she is as close as a kiss. And I loved her. Dark eyes, fair skin, a dress of red velvet, a look of passion, joy and apprehension all at once, that expression of defiance, anxiety and vibrancy, unique to the young . . . I remember ...
Her husband must have been about the same age as old Declos just before he died, but he wasn't a farmer. My cousin had been a lawyer in Dijon; he was rich; he'd left his post a few months before his marriage and bought the house that Helene inherited and where she now lives with her second husband and her children. He was a tall, pale old man, frail, with translucent skin; my mother told me he'd been remarkably handsome in the past and well known for his success with women. He barely allowed his young wife to leave his side; if she walked away he would say "Helene," his voice almost a whisper, and then she .. .
Oh, that gesture of
Two years later I finally returned to France.
I would have continued lodging with my mother if she'd let me live the way I wanted to: spending my days in the woods and my evenings with her. But naturally she wanted to see me married. In these parts marriages are arranged during long, dreary dinners to which all the young women of marriageable age are invited. The men arrive, weighing up in their minds how much the dowry is worth and what the expectations are, in the same way you go to an auction knowing what each item is valued at, but not knowing how high the bidding will go.
Country dinners! Soup thick enough for a spoon to stand up in, enormous pike from the lake on someone's estate, tasty, but so full of bones you feel as if you're eating a thornbush. And no one says a word. All those thick necks leaning forward and slowly chewing, like cattle in a shed. And after the fish there's the first meat course, preferably roast goose, then the second meat dish, this one cooked in a sauce that gives off an aroma of wine and herbs. Then comes the cheese, which everyone eats from the end of their knives; and to finish off, a pie-apple or cherry, depending on the time of year. Afterwards there's nothing to do but go into the sitting room and choose from among the throng of young women in their pink dresses (before the war all eligible young ladies wore pink dresses, from the candy pink of sugar-coated almonds to the shocking pink of sliced ham), choose from among this crowd of young women, with their little gold necklaces, their hair tied into a chignon at the backs of their necks, with their raw-silk gloves and rough hands, the person with whom you will spend the rest of your life. At that time Cecile Coudray was one such woman. She who was thirty-two or thirty-three but still paraded abou t i n the virginal pink dress by her family in the hope of finding her a husband. Poor, dried-up Cecile, with her thin lips, sitting not far from her younger half-sister, who was married and happy.
The first evening I saw Helene she was wearing a red velvet dress, which was considered rather daring at the time and in that place. She was a young woman with black hair . . . See, I want to describe her, but I can't. No doubt I looked at her too closely right from the start, the way you look at everything you covet. Do you not know the shape and colour of the fruit you bring to your lips? It seems that from the first moment you see the woman you love, she is as close as a kiss. And I loved her. Dark eyes, fair skin, a dress of red velvet, a look of passion, joy and apprehension all at once, that expression of defiance, anxiety and vibrancy, unique to the young . . . I remember ...
Her husband must have been about the same age as old Declos just before he died, but he wasn't a farmer. My cousin had been a lawyer in Dijon; he was rich; he'd left his post a few months before his marriage and bought the house that Helene inherited and where she now lives with her second husband and her children. He was a tall, pale old man, frail, with translucent skin; my mother told me he'd been remarkably handsome in the past and well known for his success with women. He barely allowed his young wife to leave his side; if she walked away he would say "Helene," his voice almost a whisper, and then she .. .
Oh, that gesture of
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