Маргерит Дюрас - The Impudent Ones

Her isolation had a greater impact on her than her brother’s meanness, or the unflattering treatment she received from Taneran, whose verbal attacks she could easily ward off. She would have come back to her mother, but Jacques, a formidable opponent, was probably standing guard against the new enemy, emboldened by her mistake.

Disgust kept her from returning, disgust for her brother and for the legitimate grievance he now had against her. What place did this man have in their familiar world, exercising more control every day! Since they had left Paris, he no longer inspired terror in her, because she judged him in a more detached way. It was hard to imagine how this aging child could ever leave his mother and the family that defined him, or the care and honor that surrounded him there. Elsewhere, he lacked boldness, letting himself be terrorized by other people.

It was difficult for Maud to think about Jacques without still feeling a sudden surge of horror. She couldn’t remember being able to look him once in the eyes or daring to confront him alone without trembling. He failed to perceive the repulsion his sister felt for him. Once his anger passed, he always willingly returned to her. This disarming forgetfulness, this self-satisfaction that nothing could disturb, exasperated Maud even more than his insults.

Since the death of his wife, their mutual animosity had worsened to the point that, in a way, their lives were simplified. The memory of the loan Jacques had never repaid and that Maud never talked about irritated Jacques like an unpardonable fault on his part. The night before, lacking in valid arguments, he had used this pretext, unable to countenance the idea that Maud could claim to have anything at all against him.

Until then, no excuse had seemed enough to justify the explosion of a hatred that grew more violent every day. What excuses would have been powerful enough to justify a resentment that had no need of motives? Jacques’s bitterness had become partially unreal or imaginary for them, and they had been ready to accept it, as one does in adopting dreadful but convenient hypotheses that leave one feeling comfortable if they are not examined too closely.

Maud was somewhat unhappy with her own futile behavior, which troubled the peace formerly existing between Jacques and herself.

Louise came back alone from The Pardal, and Maud understood by her demeanor that something upsetting had taken place. She walked toward Maud, cynical and determined. Louise’s eyes were swollen, and her face, bathed now in tears, was changed into a startlingly angry mask, bearing little resemblance to her normal appearance. All radiance had disappeared, suggesting that the glow that usually transfigured her was due only to the feverish expectation of pleasure.

“He didn’t even look at me!” Louise cried out. “He only had eyes for that big, silly goose, the Dedde girl, who was with him and your mother…” Louise’s pronouncement tore Maud from her daydream, obliging her to look at Louise and opine on what had just happened.

“Sit down a moment,” Maud finally said. “You can’t go in looking like that. You were saying that he was with the Dedde girl?”

Louise confirmed her account, shamelessly exhibiting her disappointment. It wasn’t her first letdown. The young people mocked her, and she sought in vain ways to get back at them. “Still, nobody has done that to me. He turned his eyes toward me, yet he didn’t even seem to see me. I didn’t dare approach him, because of your mother.” Maud guessed that Mrs. Dedde, the tenant farmer’s wife, had sent her daughter to inform Jacques and Mrs. Taneran of Maud’s visit. As to Jacques’s uncouthness, it had long ceased to amaze her.

“Don’t cry,” Maud said. “He’ll soon be tired of the Dedde girl and won’t be long in coming back to you. In two or three days at the most, if that’s what you want.” But Louise stood up. “You make me sick!” she screamed. “Maybe you would accept that! Of course you would, because you run around with Durieux, who’s had all the girls in the region after him. Oh, you people have no dignity, you’re just trash…”

On that note, Louise left. Any other words would have surprised Maud, but the sincerity, violence, and spontaneity of this way of talking satisfied her.

After Louise’s departure, solitude once again filled the narrow prairie invaded by shadows. In reality night was slow in coming, but for Maud its onslaught was brutal and decisive. She felt she was suddenly waking up in the dark. Lights shone in the distance on the horizon. The birds had stopped their chorus, but from the surrounding thickets came the chirping of crickets and mysterious sounds of flight. She heard a train whistle in the distance: the last train from Bordeaux, the one that left at nine o’clock. In her childhood, it was usually from a warm kitchen or during a peaceful evening that she heard the call of the engine. It whistled several times at regular intervals, separated by veritable gulfs of silence, at the bottom of which obscure dangers and muffled threats seemed to lurk. The train cars descended the slope of the plateau toward Semoic with the infernal screeching of metal. The curve was dangerous, as it was always enveloped in fog and hidden by the alders of Uderan. One could imagine the sudden appearance of this locomotive monster born of the mist and the woods.

Durieux’s house was reasonably far from where Maud found herself. To reach it she was obliged to descend and then go back up the pastures of the Riotor. She then took the sunken road along the flat part, cut across the fields of alfalfa, and crossed the village.

ARRIVING IN FRONT OF GEORGE DURIEUX’S HOUSE, MAUD stopped short, as abruptly as a machine. At the end of the lane of cypress trees, hiding the front door, a car was waiting. Friends, no doubt, having come from Bordeaux on this beautiful Sunday.

Maud hesitated. No valid pretext to justify her visit to George’s came to mind. Moreover, what excuses could shelter her from the perceptiveness of the visitors, who would guess, she believed, if only from her appearance, her pitiful affair. Her misery seemed to cling to her body like a stubborn smell. Her wrinkled dress, her dirty shoes, proclaimed her situation as well as her face, which she felt was tired and drawn.

Yet she couldn’t make up her mind to leave. Where would she go? She fearfully imagined the coming night, which she would spend trudging through the countryside. The thought of her stuffy bedroom at Uderan made her shudder with disgust. Hunger and fatigue were already tormenting her mind and body. Didn’t she overcome fear, just a short while ago, in climbing back up from the Riotor? After being alone, her own presence tortured her, and she wanted to be with George again.

Making her way halfway up the lane, she waited. George didn’t come out, and time went by without Maud admitting her impatience to herself. A moment passed and the moon appeared. Maud left the middle of the lane and went to lean against the side of the house. After the darkness of the twilight, the gentle light that suddenly illuminated the landscape comforted her.

On the side of the house opposite the one she was on, light shone out the open windows. Inside, people were talking and laughing, but she had trouble picking out George’s voice, which rarely mixed with the conversation. Her weariness was so great that whenever laughter broke out, she felt its impact viscerally in her body, painfully.

No specific thought engaged her mind, but rather, numerous contrary impressions arose, one after the other, disconnected and out of control on account of her weak, confused state. But as all these feelings flowed through her, they left her each time with a greater sense of calm and understanding.