Маргерит Дюрас - The Impudent Ones

What a failure for the Grant-Taneran brothers! They appeared stupefied that their mother would worry about their lot, even though they had let her leave without reassuring her. They became aware of their blunder, and neither of them had the strength to address this mourning expressed without indignation. “My dear Maud, my child!”

Suddenly, Henry Taneran let his jaw drop open like a deaf person who wants to hear better and said timidly, “We’d better answer her. We should have let her know… I myself…” But he didn’t dare do what he was suggesting and stayed glued to his chair.

Maud didn’t budge. She understood that her mother had been calling her for hours, walking along the roads, through the fields, along the Dior.

Soon it was Maud herself who was taking to the roads, walking through tall, wet grass, following the railroad tracks… The heat and fatigue had finally gotten the best of Mrs. Taneran, and then, to finish it off, there was the walk along the river that evening, which buried her in the fog rising from the Dior… It was then that she began to call at random. Perhaps they had crossed paths without seeing each other? Without recognizing each other? With strange lucidity, Maud followed the painful path her mother had taken and could not turn aside from the sight she saw.

The voice now picked up again, first gasping for air and then filled with a tenderness that opened up like a floodgate. “My dear Maud, my child!” Maud remained petrified, having no other fear except that of feeling alive. She thought she was present at her own demise.

Soon she was back there, of course, between those white walls, with those four immovable faces, but also elsewhere, in the dark of night beside her mother. Why, though, did her mother keep on calling? Why, since she had met up with her? Maud was kissing her. She came back holding her, snuggled up against her mother’s body…

All of a sudden, the voice was there in the yard.

Maud plugged her ears so she wouldn’t hear it anymore, then let out a scream. In the instant that followed, all noise was suspended. The griffons began to bark. Maud fell. As she lost consciousness, she still heard the two dogs, but from afar, as if she had slowly sunken into death.

WHEN SHE WOKE UP IN HER MOTHER’S BED, UPSTAIRS IN THE Pecresses’ big, beautiful bedroom, it was almost dark. On the night table, a little lamp hidden by a newspaper offered a faint light. Maud noticed that they had put her to bed completely dressed, removing only her shoes.

She felt calm but forced herself not to think about anything, sensing that her nervousness would come back at the same time as a clear consciousness of the situation in which she found herself.

The sky, through the windows, stood out against the somber background of the bedroom and appeared as an intense blue. Gray clouds moved across it and sped toward the east, bordered by a horizon as bare as that of the high sea. A fairly strong wind was blowing and working on the trees of the yard, shaking their tops. No doubt a summer storm was brewing, which would soon erupt into a warm rain, but tomorrow the day would be as clear as ever.

When it was time to get up, Maud had to lean back against the bed, her legs limp, her head empty. Her whole body was trembling, and she felt a profound weakness. When she opened the door, the voices of the Pecresses hit her in the face and she quickly stepped backward. Hesitating, she went from one window to the next, as if plunged in deep reflection, but in reality she wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, not able to understand the sudden and fearful disarray that had overtaken her.

Soon the night had set in completely. No other noise except that of the wind came to her. The moon rose little by little in the sky, a stranger to the agitation of the earth and to the violence of the storm in the valley.

Maud suddenly felt incapable of overcoming her distress. She let herself go as if she were a drowned person floating along a river. The sound of an ongoing conversation came to her through the partially open door; she could pick up only some isolated words. No illusion was now possible: Mrs. Taneran had been advised of her daughter’s flight from home.

In any case, as soon as she had been reassured concerning Maud’s state, her mother must have given herself over to one of her rages that separated her from everyone else. Maud went back and looked at the lamp, whose overly bright light was subdued by the newspaper. “They didn’t dare tell her right away,” she thought. A feeling of great solitude heightened her emotional pain.

All at once she heard someone in clogs walking along the outer wall. The steps resonated on the hardened soil and the noise reassured her a bit, because it alone indicated that life continued with its calming, everyday activities. The heavy barn door squeaked on its hinges and shut with a huge ruckus that shook the whole house. “It must be nine o’clock,” she muttered. “Mr. Pecresse is closing up his barn.”

She understood all at once that she could no longer put off going downstairs, or they would lock the entrance door and she would be a prisoner until the next day. This idea brought new anxiety. “They’re not going to let me out of here, not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever…”

Her suffering was relegated to second place in relation to this instinctive fear of being imprisoned here with them. She began to moan, with her mouth closed tightly; a groan she could not keep inside escaped from her lips, so softly that one might have thought she was humming. However, she did not stop making rapid calculations: the entranceway was unthinkable. And as for the door off the hallway, she knew it was practically sealed off. The window? It, too, was extremely high. She leaned out and quickly stepped back.

The horror she felt at finding herself once again with her family left her mind entirely clear. “There’s no other way but to go downstairs,” she calmly decided. Certainly, she could no longer face them with her head held high the way she used to do. But she wanted to flee from them, above all, to avoid the repulsive intimacy to which she would still be summoned, no doubt, once their anger had passed.

Her mind made up, she leaned on the windowsill a moment. The image of her lover came back to her at that point, distinct and frozen. She had no desire to see him again, sensing how useless it would be; the aversion she felt for people touched even him. His complete ignorance of what she was going through right now diminished him in her eyes, without her making the slightest effort to fight off this unjust thought.

The memory of the pleasure she had had in making love did not come back clearly, because only her memory strove to recall it, against her will. What an illusion she had had!

She imagined Durieux learning about this; she pictured the expression of worry on his face. Even if he was sincere the first few days, he would soon tire of defending her, and boredom would eat up his love to the point of leaving only the appearances. Automatically she closed the window, and at the same time the picture of her lover disappeared, after her vain effort to bring back his memory.

She groped her way downstairs and stopped behind the kitchen door. In order to find the courage to open it, she repeated to herself, “None of this is important… in a little while no one will be talking about it…”

Then she was into the room. The immediate silence swept down on her and left her disconcerted. The light was so bright that she instinctively shaded her eyes with her hand.

As everyone was sitting somewhat back from the table, they must have finished dinner. Without looking at him, she picked out Jacques, who was rolling pieces of bread between his fingers and throwing them into the fire. Near him, Mrs. Taneran probably wore the “ashen face” that her children well knew. The Pecresse woman was the first to speak. “You’re going to eat something, Miss Grant…” The little servant girl went to get a plate, which she put on the edge of the table, and then she put some wood in the stove.