William Maxwell - The Chateau

“Perhaps they are the cream of French society,” Barbara said.

“From the way Mme Viénot kowtows to Mme Carrère, I would say no. Mme Viénot is a social climber and a snob. And that’s another thing. Yesterday evening before dinner, Mme Carrère asked the Canadian to call on them. In Paris.”

“And did he accept?”

“He behaved like a spaniel that has just been petted on the head.”

“Probably if you were French the Carrères would be very useful people to know.”

“I found myself wondering whether—before they go on Monday—they would invite us to call on them,” he said.

“Do you want to see the Carrères in Paris?”

“I don’t care one way or the other.”

“Our French isn’t good enough,” she said. “Besides, I don’t think they do that sort of thing over here. It isn’t reasonable to expect it of them.”

“Who said anything about being reasonable? He gave Gagny his card, and I want him to do the same thing to us. And it isn’t enough that he should invite us to call on him at his office. I want us to be invited to their home.”

“We have nothing to say to them here. What point is there in carrying it any farther?”

“No point,” he said. “There’s no excuse for our ever seeing them again, except curiosity.”

They saw that they were being stared at by a little boy in the open doorway of the house across the street.

“If they did ask us, would you go?”

“No,” he said.

“It would be interesting to see their apartment,” she said, and so, incriminating herself, sharing in his dubious desires, made him feel better about having them.

“They give me the creeps,” he said. “Mme Carrère especially.”

“What did she say that hurt your feelings?”

“Nothing.”

“It isn’t raining so hard,” Barbara said.

He stepped out of the shelter of the doorway with his palm extended to the rain.

“We might as well be starting back or we’ll be late again,” he said.

He took off his coat and put it around her shoulders. As they went off down the street, she tried not to listen to what he was saying. In the mood he was in, he exaggerated, and his exaggerations gave rise to further exaggerations, and helplessly, without wanting to, analyzing and explaining and comparing one thing with another that had no relation to it, he got farther and farther from the truth.

They stopped to look at a pink oleander in a huge tub. The blossoms smelled like sugar and water.

“As soon as we’re outside,” he said, “in the garden or stopping to pick wildflowers along the road or like now—the moment we’re off somewhere by ourselves, everything opens up like a fan. And as soon as we’re indoors with them, it closes.”

“We could go to Paris,” she said.

“With the Canadian?”

“If you like.”

“And be there for Bastille Day? That’s a wonderful idea. We could run up to Paris and come back after two or three days.”

“Or not come back,” she said.

AT LUNCH Mme Viénot said: “We should leave the house by two o’clock.”

But when two o’clock came, they were on the terrace, leaning against the stone balustrade, and she had not appeared.

“I’d go look for her,” he said, “if it weren’t so much like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“Don’t talk so loud,” Barbara said, glancing up at an open window directly above them.

“I’m not talking loud. I’m practically whispering.”

“Your voice carries.”

He noticed that she was wearing a cotton dress and said: “Are you going to be warm enough?”

“I meant to bring a sweater.”

He jumped down and started across the terrace, and she called after him: “The cardigan.”

He pushed the door open and saw a small elderly woman standing in an attitude of dramatic indecision beside the white columns that divided the drawing room in half. She was wearing a tailored suit with a high-necked silk blouse. A lorgnette hung by a black ribbon from her collar. Her hair was mouse-colored. Like the old ladies of his childhood she wore no rouge or lipstick. She saw him at the same moment that he saw her, and advanced to meet him, as if his sudden appearance had resolved the question that was troubling her.

“Straus-Muguet,” she said.

He put out his hand and she took it. To his surprise, she knew his name. She had heard that he was staying in the house, and she had been hoping to meet him. “J’adore la jeunesse,” she said.

He was not all that young; he was thirty-four; but there was no one else in the room that this remark could apply to, and so he was forced to conclude that she meant him. He looked into her eyes and found himself in another climate, the one he had been searching for, where the sun shines the whole day long, the prevailing wind is from the South, and the natives are friendly.

She was not from the village, he decided on the way upstairs. She was a lady, but a lady whose life had been lived in the country; a character out of Chekhov or Turgenev. Probably she belonged in one of the big country houses in the neighborhood and was a family friend—a lifelong friend of old Mme Bonenfant, who had come to call, to spend the afternoon in quiet reminiscences over their embroidery or their knitting, with tea and cake at the proper time, and, at parting, the brief exchange of confidences, the words of reassurance and continuing affection that would make it seem worth while, for both of them, to go on a little longer.

When he came back with the sweater, the drawing room was empty and Mme Viénot and the Canadian were standing on the terrace with Barbara. Walking at a good pace they covered the two kilometers to the concrete highway that followed the river all the way into Blois. The bus came almost immediately and was crammed with people.

“I’m afraid we won’t get seats,” Mme Viénot said. “But it’s only a ten-minute ride.”

There was hardly room to breathe inside the bus, and all the windows were closed. Harold stood with his arm around Barbara’s waist, and craned his neck. His efforts to see out were defeated everywhere by heads, necks, and shoulders. It took him some time to determine which of the passengers was responsible for the suffocating animal odor that filled the whole bus. It was twenty-five minutes before they saw the outskirts of Blois.

Threading her way boldly between cyclists, Mme Viénot led them down the rue Denis Papin (inventor of the principle of the steam engine), through the Place Victor Hugo, up a long ramp, and then through a stone archway into the courtyard of the château, the glory of Blois. They saw the octagonal staircase, the chapel, and a splendid view, all without having to purchase tickets of admission. Then they followed her back down the ramp, through the crowded narrow streets, to a charcuterie, where she bought blood sausage, and then into the bicycle shop next door, where they saw a number of bicycles, none of which were for rent. They saw the courtyard of the ancient Hôtel d’Alluye, built by the treasurer of François premier, but did not quite manage to escape out onto the sidewalk before the concierge appeared. While Harold stood wondering if they should be there at all and if the concierge would be as unpleasant as she looked, Hector Gagny extracted fifty francs from his wallet and the threat was disposed of. Climbing a street of stairs, they saw the cathedral. There they separated. Gagny went off in search of a parfumerie, and Mme Viénot took the Americans to the door of the ration bureau and then departed herself to do some more shopping. They stood in line under a sign— Personnes Isolées —that had for them a poignancy it didn’t have for those who were more at home in the French language. They could not get ration coupons because Harold had not thought to bring their passports.