Маргерит Дюрас - The Impudent Ones

Even if the Grant-Tanerans were only bourgeois folk without distinction, Uderan, their land, conferred on them a kind of nobility. And it was precisely because the property was in a state of disrepair that Mrs. Pecresse wanted it so strongly. The prospect of action intoxicated this woman. She wanted to act and to drag her son John into the adventure. What could be more exciting than to join in a common cause with the one who is dear to you? No one ever knew how far this hope led Mrs. Pecresse and in what delectations it caused her to bask in advance.

But she knew how to put the brakes on her imagination, which had never blinded her. Her passion took on an air of reflection naturally and expressed itself skillfully. The only error to which she fell prey was to attribute to Maud Grant the value and attraction of the land the young woman possessed. Without having done any calculations, from one day to the next, Maud appeared worthy of Mrs. Pecresse’s covetous ambitions for her son.

Even if Maud was not all that beautiful in the opinion of the Pardalians, did she not possess, in fact, traces of a race that was different from her own? She walked down the fruit path slowly, with an erect posture, without rushing, as if no one or nothing were waiting for her; no obligation bowed her down, except that of living life as it came. And Mrs. Pecresse, who attended to so many tasks that she wouldn’t have known what to do with a moment of leisure, found in that the true mark of an essential difference. The fact that she thought Maud was of a superior quality to her flattered her modesty and kindled even more her desire to see Maud marry her son.

Soon all of The Pardal had made the inevitable connection: the Grant daughter, with nothing to do from morning till night, was certainly looking for a husband. And after all, it was better that a good man from The Pardal get that uncultivated land in shape, especially because, of the Grant-Tanerans’ two sons, one was too young and the other incompetent…

Mrs. Taneran sensed these calculations, or rather these hopes. She didn’t want to displease either Mrs. Pecresse or the local farmers. Whenever she happened to be alone with her daughter, she kept herself from saying anything. But she had spoken about it to Jacques, as she always did with things concerning the family.

“So, who will you marry her to?” he had replied. “I’d be generous. I’d go away; I’d take a pass on the question of the land, which doesn’t bring in any profit and loses value every year; Pecresse would pay me something…”

Perhaps he thought that a solution of this kind would arrange his affairs. But his mother, usually so weak, so amenable, dug in her heels. She claimed she would prefer to see Maud become an old maid than marry her to a Pecresse. Since her arrival, moreover, his mother was easy to irritate. When obliged to defend her child, she was surprised that she cared so strongly about Maud, who didn’t show her any tenderness. In contrast to the spinelessness of her sons, this reticence comforted her, especially recently, since she had noticed that Henry, too, was getting worse. This was why, in the face of the danger Mrs. Taneran was discovering, Maud seemed to be so disarmed and so innocent that her mother felt all her energy was necessary to save her daughter.

Soon the rumors were flying. People became emboldened, for, either thoughtlessly or because they found it so comfortable, the Tanerans did not leave the Pecresse house for their own. Was it to give credibility to the general opinion? Mrs. Pecresse suggested to the Tanerans that they give a dinner at Uderan itself for all the Pardalians.

In reality, Mrs. Pecresse feared that her idea was crazy. “If it is,” she told herself, “I’ll see it clearly that night by the way they act…”

Although she lived apart from the Pardalians, whose daughters seemed too commonplace for her heir, she clung to them now, because she suspected that her idea was not just the fruit of the imagination of a disillusioned woman. Her dream frightened her, considering that it might happen, and considering that she might see John beside Maud, in the yard or at the table. She entertained this dream and marveled at it like a young girl who has not yet begun to live in reality. “Things don’t happen by themselves,” she repeated to herself. “You have to act on them.”

But nothing seemed to happen that was decisive or even seemed like the beginning of a realization. Thus, she naïvely put hope in this dinner…

Though they were already into May, they lit the fireplaces in all the main-floor rooms at Uderan two days in advance. The house lost some of its sad, musty smell. There was still one room somewhat inhabitable, furnished with a canopy-covered bed, too bulky to have been moved. Beside the big bed was another, a child’s bed, left because it was not usable. Maud, as a little girl, and then Henry had slept there. This room was at the extreme edge of the grounds, at the end of a pathway of linden trees. One of its walls overlooked an old greenhouse, which, for as long as anyone could recall, had been abandoned and left to hobos, who often spent the night there when passing through the region.

Maud decided to sleep at Uderan. Mrs. Dedde arranged the bedroom for her. Although Mrs. Taneran found Maud’s idea a bit preposterous, she didn’t remark on it. She let Maud do what she wanted, showing her incredible leniency…

It was decided that the Pecresses’ son would accompany Maud to Uderan that same evening. Having become extremely considerate, John guided her along the narrow road with a hurricane lamp, and she preceded him in the stream of light cast by the lantern. She wanted to thank him but didn’t find anything to say.

They had almost arrived when John Pecresse made the effort to ask her, “My mother hasn’t said anything to you, Maud Grant?”

Maud was unaware of all the intrigue that swirled around her. When she turned around, she saw his worried eyes shining. “No, nothing! I don’t know what she could have said to me. Good-bye. No need to go any farther. I know the road here, because from the hedge on we’re at Uderan. When I was little, I never went any farther. Thank you anyway…”

She went on her way. He was stupefied for a moment, but then ran back. His mother, who must have been following the light of the lamp, closed the shutters of her bedroom with such force that the din went as far as Maud. Mrs. Pecresse had no doubt put a lot of hope in this walk. It was her first disappointment, and her nervousness kept her from sleeping for a long time…

Maud, for her part, felt reassured as soon as she reached the grounds. She walked briefly down the pathways that crossed the premises and came back gently. The silence, which would have made anyone else flee, dense and mysterious as it was, enchanted her instead. Around her, the huge box hedges bristled, the pine trees took on gigantic proportions, and their summits wept gently, even though their moaning spread no sadness.

Maud heard her heart beating curiously at a certain point, as if it had been outside her chest. She heard it and made out another sound farther away that mixed with her heartbeat, sometimes becoming very perceptible and sometimes getting lost in the night, depending on the whims of the wind. With her hand on her chest, she held her breath. The noise soon plunged into the sunken road and circumvented the high, dark cliff formed by the grounds on that side.

“It’s a horse…,” she said to herself. “I don’t know anyone around here who has one. The farmers at Uderan don’t know how to ride a horse…”

When the horse and rider drew near, she remained motionless, as if the stranger, in merely sensing her presence, might have felt wary. She knew nothing of him but decided he was courageous because he wasn’t moving any more quickly than he had been before arriving at this road, which was black like an oven and overhung with tightly knit hedgerows. For an instant, Maud seemed to be attached to the hoofbeats, which descended toward the village. Once they reached the main road, they became clearer. Then no other noise troubled the silence, in which they left a kind of sound trail that seemed to fade with difficulty.