Маргерит Дюрас - The Impudent Ones

But that evening, Maud would have liked to speak freely to George, without holding back. The time had come for them to talk, and to put an end, one way or another, to the uncertainty of their lives. Boredom and solitude did not blind her, even though they made her suffer, and she knew that only time would bring a conclusion to their adventure.

But she was disconcerted by George, because he didn’t seem to expect anything from the days that went by. He didn’t talk about staying or leaving and fell more and more into silence. Even during the night, when he came to her, he stayed the same—harsh and inconsistent; as a result, she, too, came to share in his extravagant behavior, with a pleasure that always astonished her flesh and whose dark memories seemed barely perceptible when daylight came.

When he surprised her in the downstairs room that evening, she saw that he was tired and perhaps happy to find her. He brushed his hand across her face, slowly threw his hat on the couch, and then asked her, “What time is it? Do you know? These evenings never seem to end…” He collapsed on a chair near the table, obviously not expecting a response to his question.

“You came in earlier than usual,” replied Maud. “You see, Amelia hasn’t set the table yet. I came looking for a book on your bookshelf because…” She despaired again as she saw him distance himself from her, as little concerned with her presence as if he lived in a dream in which she had no part. However, he loved her. The proof of this was the desperate determination he put into having her each night, without taking the easy pleasure men usually so willingly allow themselves. But whatever she did, nothing counted in his eyes except that certainty that she did not feel strong enough to give him.

Nevertheless, she felt it was up to her to approach him, because he would never make any effort to understand her. Things weighed on him without his trying to react to them. Thus, at Barque’s, she had already noticed, shouldn’t he have gotten rid of John Pecresse for her? By the same token, during a very long month, he had fled her because Jacques had announced to him the engagement of his sister to John. Shouldn’t he have disregarded that and come to see her? Even if he was like Jacques in some ways, he didn’t have Jacques’s stubbornness, and Maud didn’t know quite what to think of him.

“Because?” he asked her, partially standing. “Because you want to read? Why would you want to? You must have a reason…”

“Because I’m bored,” she countered. “Oh, I’m terribly bored, you know! You leave me alone…”

He reflected, and replied in a soft voice, “If I didn’t leave you, our situation would be even worse. All you can do is be patient.” She didn’t fully understand the meaning of his words but guessed he was trying to speak kindly.

“So, what do you like to read? If you like, I can bring you some books from Semoic.” She grabbed the cover of the old hardback book and read aloud, “The Valley of the Moon . It’s by Jack London.”

“You haven’t read that?” he said. “You should read, Maud; you have nothing else to do here…”

“I don’t have much fun reading. Or else I have sudden urges to do it…,” she confessed.

George shook his head like someone digesting upsetting news. “I saw your brother Jacques at Semoic. He’s incredibly bored. I think that’s why he was so solicitous. He doesn’t care about scandal and has no self-esteem. He’s a despicable person. It makes me sick to let you go; you can’t imagine what it’s like… all the more so because he’s probably angry at you. You should have gone back to Paris a lot sooner; you’re the one holding them back…”

Once again, without seeming to do so, he was asking her the question in theory. She stopped him with a small, dramatic gesture. “I’m sure that if they aren’t leaving, it’s in order to sell Uderan. They wouldn’t put themselves out for me. Don’t give me that…”

He got up. She hadn’t responded, not yet. It was likely she wouldn’t stay. He made a weary motion and added with a calm and resolute voice, “I’m going down to the river, Maud, while I wait for dinner.”

She tried to hold him back and ran after him. “Just a minute, George, just a minute.” He looked at her for a moment, in the muted and sulfurous light of the setting sun: her summer dress, faded and too short, revealed her smooth bare legs in her black city shoes; her long, lifeless hair hung in disorder. Her eyes were truly an indescribable gray, which in the bright light showed off her slightly mauve pallor; that precious skin, more than living, was delicately active, only letting the most discreet nuances of her blood filter through the blues and the mauves… For the first time, he saw in her a deceitful look, in a pleading face with a forced smile.

“If you’d like, George, I could go with you. It’s going to be night soon; no one will see us…” He came back to her, caressed her hand and kissed it. “I haven’t gone out for two weeks,” she pleaded. “You don’t seem to understand. We could walk together until dinner, as we did in the past…”

He shook his head, remaining intransigent, and was a bit surprised that she insisted so much. He suddenly saw in her such beauty that it was, in itself, enough of a promise. This beauty was still unknown to her, moreover, and to most of the people who knew her, but the greatest of beauties needs to know herself in order to assert herself.

He refused to let her accompany him. “In a little while you won’t remember anything, whereas for me… You suspect as much, don’t you? Please forgive me for the nights… When I come home from Semoic, I have to admit, it’s impossible for me not to go up and find you—as long as you’re here, between these four walls…”

She lowered her eyes and didn’t insist anymore. In moving away from her, he thought that, even if she was still innocent in many respects, she was neither sugary nor sentimental like most girls her age. He was amazed at her slightly disdainful candor and her refusal to lie to him.

When he reached the road, at the end of the cypress tree lane, he turned around. She was still there. He remembered he had something serious to tell her and came back.

“I don’t know why I would hide from you a matter that concerns you. Uderan has been bought by the Pecresses… bought, in a manner of speaking. They’re crazy. They’re rich, of course, but all the same!… They must have put everything they had and even what they didn’t have into it. The conditions of the sale are outrageous…”

“I’ve been ready for anything, and I admit that I suspected something,” responded Maud.

“They say your mother is quite short on money; she’ll still be keeping the house in her name, as well as all the land except the vineyards, which she handed over. The Pecresses agreed to take over running everything and to pay her a usage fee, which the Deddes never paid. They also consented to an advance of almost fifty thousand francs on the purchase of the vineyards.”

Maud thought of the Deddes. What would become of them? “The Deddes left last week,” continued George. “I saw the daughter the night before last, at Barque’s; your mother gave them something to compensate them.”

When she was alone again, Maud mechanically picked up the book she had chosen. As she was going upstairs, the servant was entering the dining room to set the table.

Why did George find his revelations crazy? Certainly, the terms seemed advantageous for her family. But wasn’t her mother skillful in business affairs? It certainly didn’t surprise Maud. With the Deddes gone and the property divided up, everything would go downhill from there.

She thought of the radiant sunset, and of her missed walk along the river that was so green in the evenings and reflected the old elms of the Dior meadows. She could walk for hours in the valley, on the damp riverbanks, without getting tired of the strong odor of land and water and of the marsh where the waste of the summer was already rotting…