Маргерит Дюрас - The Impudent Ones

As for Mrs. Taneran, she prayed only at intervals, letting herself be easily distracted by the people she recognized and at whom she smiled. The day’s outlook didn’t bother her at all.

Maud once again gauged the difference between this woman, with her rested and distracted look, and the overburdened creature whom their mother would become upon their return, when her sons would load her down like a donkey with the weight of their ill mood. Mrs. Taneran possessed an amazing energy that she saved up during these brief moments of profound diversion. Grace resulted from the habit of an existence whose blows she evaded daily.

All the farmers of The Pardal attended high mass. The women, to the right of the chancel, were mainly dressed in black sateen, which stretched out over their rounded backs, curved by their hard labor; the men, to the left, were fewer in number. Although the weather was beautiful outside, the sun filtered in faintly through the stained-glass windows. The choir sang around an old harmonium set up on the podium. The mother of the priest, the seamstress who had worked in The Pardal for twenty years, and the latest member, the kindergarten assistant, composed The Pardal’s choir.

Maud thought about George Durieux. Since the event at Barque’s, he came to Uderan secretly every evening. They met in the dining room, behind closed doors. She had difficulty accepting the fear George felt for her brother. At the same time, she had just as much difficulty understanding George’s attitude toward her. She would have preferred to see him as she imagined him, violent and unscrupulous and taking over her brother’s role in dominating her life. It was her first love, and she didn’t doubt that it would be the only one, as she could not do without the presence of this man. However, when he spoke to her about marriage, she found the idea to be naïve. Something in George seemed unassailable to her, and that was a faith in her that he had created on his own and for which she found no basis; this lack of judgment shocked her and made her impatient at the same time.

The house belonging to Mr. Briol, the retired schoolteacher, was on a series of terraces, with the church occupying the lowest one and the presbytery the highest. The reinforced terrace, transformed into a vegetable garden, was the continuation of an abandoned cemetery, which made up the base. From there, the view stretched out quite far, for the landscape descended in a gentle incline not impeded by any obstacle, except, in the middle, a little river lined with elm trees. Crossing the slope was a very white road, hidden in part by the landmass of The Pardal.

In the sheltered garden, with no shade, it was very hot. While Henry and Jacques went back and forth on the little wall-walk along the terrace, Mrs. Taneran and Maud leaned on the small wall that overlooked the valley. When Jacques arrived at the level of his mother, he declared through clenched teeth, “It’s the last time, do you hear, the last time!”

Mrs. Taneran didn’t reply. She only tried to appease him with a forced smile. The poor woman had never noticed how this exasperated her son even more. Maud, whose eyes were somewhat blinded by the midday sun, appeared anxious. Why did her brother’s words permeate her in such a way? He paced the road nervously, like an animal in a cage that couldn’t find a way out.

Even more than the other night, she formed a brutal inner judgment of Jacques, which would have dismayed him if he had guessed it. He believed himself to be, in fact, the nicest of men, the worthiest of the responsibilities of his family. Never before had Maud calculated so precisely the degree of contempt that he merited. Since she had come to know George Durieux, she was able to grasp the underlying temperament of her brother, first because she and George often talked about it, and then because it presently seemed of little consequence for Jacques to be contemptible or not. Her love for George freed her mind from a last, fragile obligation, and she now held the key to this mystery.

She finally understood the nature of what she had vaguely endured as an indisputable reality. This victory of enlightenment intoxicated her. Overwhelming arguments formed in her mind, and she thought she would share them with George that very evening, and that his love for her would gain some new depth, some new perversity, by welcoming such revelations…

Anger made her temples throb, but she managed to retain her joyous enthusiasm. All of a sudden, the strength she felt made her take pity on her mother, who was still suffering as blindly as ever under a tyranny that should have been so easy to cast off. Maud put her hand on her mother’s hand. Mrs. Taneran did not understand the exact meaning of this gesture, but having turned around, she met her daughter’s eyes and withdrew her hand…

The schoolteacher’s sister arrived. Almost blind, she walked with a heavy step, and in the daylight her clothing looked disgustingly dirty. In each wrinkle of her elderly face was etched a fine black furrow that made it look deeper. “You’re looking at the garden?” she said. “Oh, it’s gotten very unruly since the lad died! Since the fall I haven’t touched it…” The lad was their younger brother, also a teacher in a nearby village, who had passed away the previous year.

The woman looked annoyed. Every Sunday the Tanerans’ visit caused her extra work. The only one to understand, much later, was Maud: the old woman would have preferred not to see them, because Mrs. Taneran’s impetuosity and solicitude had never pleased her. She preferred Henry, who as a child had come to take Latin lessons from her son.

Mr. Briol had aged. He came in singing and went courteously toward his mother to encourage her. The good woman muttered something and then they all sat down at the table. Dinner was gloomy. Usually they didn’t sit in the dining room, where the furniture seemed to be covered in a thin, gauzelike veil of dust. Flies, intoxicated by the sun, rushed violently toward the ceiling…

Her eyes glazed over, Maud stared at the garden without seeing it, as birds flew over in joyful throngs, while Mrs. Taneran spoke intermittently. At a certain point, old Mr. Briol tried to amuse Henry with memories they had in common, but the teacher quickly understood that whatever had amused his student in the past didn’t grab his attention anymore. Henry, like Jacques, had become indifferent to anything that didn’t serve his pleasure.

After vespers the Tanerans went home tired. The day was ending. As soon as The Pardal disappeared, Mrs. Taneran said, to avoid repeating the same old scene, “I think that if all goes well, we’ll leave by the end of the week…”

They remained silent. She had just expressed the resolution her sons vaguely hoped for. Nothing, at present, nothing could have kept them at Uderan. Maud felt invaded by a bitterness that was mitigated, it was true, by a feeling of detachment so immense that she felt she had never loved them.

The road stretched out under their feet. The silent form of Uderan appeared. They walked around it and headed toward the hostile home of Mrs. Pecresse.

AT DINNER THAT NIGHT, MRS. TANERAN ANNOUNCED HER departure with such insistence that it seemed almost inappropriate. Mrs. Pecresse wasn’t expecting it and immediately envisioned the catastrophe that was about to descend upon her family. Once Maud was gone, what would happen to her son? Not only did Maud avoid him, but since the suicide of his girlfriend, John was looked upon in The Pardal as a dishonest young man to whom people would hesitate to give their daughter in marriage.

In the mind of the Pecresse woman, it was because of his love for Maud that John had given up his mistress. She didn’t know that Jacques, in turn, had abandoned and mistreated the young woman. Mrs. Pecresse continued to cling to the first part of the story, believing in her son’s guilt. Happily for the Tanerans, she went about moping with disappointment and made no effort to find out the truth.