William Maxwell - The Chateau

One rainy autumn evening when he got home, he discovered that he had left his examination books at the school. And though he could have waited until next day to correct them, he was so anxious to find what mistakes his pupils had made that he went back that night, after his supper. A waning moon sailed through black clouds, and the wind whipped his cloak up into the air, and the familiar landscape looked different, as everything does on a windy autumn night. And when he opened the door of the schoolhouse, he saw that one of the pupils was still there, sitting on his bench. “Don’t you even know enough to go home?” he shouted. “One dies as one is born.” And the boy said, in a voice that chilled the schoolmaster’s blood: “I was never born, and therefore I cannot die.” With that he vanished.

Now I know what she’s like, Harold thought. This is her element—telling ghost stories. And this filtered moonlight. All this silveriness.

The supernatural shouldn’t be understood too well; it should have gaps in it for you to think about afterward.… What he missed because he didn’t know the words or because their bicycles swerved, drawing them apart for a moment, merely added to the effect.

The next day, the schoolmaster was very nervous when he came to teach the class. He looked at each face carefully, and saw with relief only the usual ones. But one thing was not usual. André, who had never in his life recited, knew his whole day’s lesson without a fault. Growing suspicious, the schoolmaster stopped calling on him. Even then the hand waved in the air, so anxious was he to recite. That evening, the schoolmaster walked home the long way round, and stopped at Andre’s house, and learned that he was sick in bed. So then he knew.

After that, somebody always knew his lesson, and it wasn’t long before the boys caught on. One at a time they played hookey, knowing that whatever it was—a ghost, a fairy, an uneasy spirit—would come to school that day looking exactly like them, and recite and recite. The schoolmaster grew thin. He began to make mistakes in arithmetic and to misspell words. He would start to say: “One dies as one is—” and then be afraid to finish. Finally, unable to stand the strain any more, he went to the curé one morning before school and told him his troubles. The curé reached for his hat and coat, and filled a small bottle with holy water from the font. “There is only one way that a person can be born,” he said, “and that is in Jésus-Christ. When the possessed boy—because it can only be a case of possession—stands up to recite, I will baptize him.” And that’s what happened. The schoolmaster called on one boy who didn’t know his lesson after another, until he came to Joseph, who was a great doltish boy with arms as long as an ape’s. And when Joseph began to name the kings of France without a single mistake, the curé said: “In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sanctus,” and uncorked the vial of holy water and flung it all in his face. The boy looked surprised and went on reciting. When he had finished, he sat down. There was no change in his appearance. The schoolmaster and the curé rushed off to Joseph’s house and it was as they feared: Joseph was not there. “Isn’t he at school?” his mother asked, in alarm.

“Yes, yes,” the curé said, “he’s at school,” and they left without explaining.

As they were going through the wood, the curé said: “There is only one thing you can do. You must adopt this orphaned spirit, give him your name, and make him your legal heir.” When they came out of the wood they went to the mairie and began to fill out the necessary adoption papers, which took all the rest of the day. When they finished, the maire took them, looked at them blankly, and handed them back. There was no writing on the documents they had spent so much time filling out.

So when the class opened the next day, the boys saw to their surprise that the schoolteacher was not at his desk in the front of the room but sitting on the bench that was always reserved for dunces. They were afraid to titter because of his birch rod, and when he saw their eyes go to it he got up and broke the rod over his knee. Then they sat there and waited. Finally one of the boys summoned enough courage to ask: “What are we waiting for?”

“For the schoolmaster,” the man said. “I have tried very hard to teach you, but I had a harsh unloving father and I never learned how to be a father to anybody else, and so you boys learn nothing from me. But I have learned something from the spirit that takes your place on the days when you are absent, and I know that he should be teaching you, and I am waiting now in the hope that he will come and teach us all.”

After a time, Joseph left his seat and went to the desk and in a voice of the utmost sweetness began to conduct the lesson.

“Are you the spirit?” the boys asked.

“No, I am Joseph,” he said.

“Then how is it you know the lesson?”

“I learned it last night. It took me a long time and it was very hard, but now I know it.”

The next day, the same thing happened, only it was André who went to the front of the class. And right straight through the room, they took turns, each day a different boy, until it was the schoolmaster’s turn. Looking very pale, he stood in front of them once more, and they waited, expecting him to say: “One dies as one is born.” Instead, he began to hear the lesson, which they all knew. “But are you really the schoolmaster, or are you the spirit that takes our place?” they asked. “I am the schoolmaster,” the man said sadly. “One dies as one is born, and I was born a man. But through the grace of Heaven, one is—one can hope to be of the company of spirits.” That was the last time they ever heard him utter this familiar expression, though he stayed at his desk and taught them patiently, in a voice of the utmost gentleness and reasonableness, from that time on.

IF THE RIDE TO THE PARTY SEEMED LONG, the ride home was too brief. Harold found himself pushing his bicycle into the darkness of the woods behind Beaumesnil long before he expected to. The courtyard, like everywhere else, was flooded with moonlight. There was a lighted kerosene lamp on the kitchen table. All the rest of the château was either white in the moonlight or in total shadow.

They piled their bicycles in a heap in the kitchen entry. Alix lit the other lamps that had been left for them. In a procession, they went through the pantry and the dining room to the stairs and parted in the second-floor hallway. They were relaxed and sleepy and easy with each other; even Eugène. It was as if they had come home from any number of parties in just this way (“Good night”) and were all one family (“Good night, Barbara”) and knew each other’s secrets (“Good night, good night”) and took for granted the affection that could be heard in their voices. (“It was lovely, wasn’t it?… I hope you sleep well.… Good night.…”)

ON SUNDAY MORNING, Harold sat tense and ready, his week-old, wine-stained, really horrible-looking napkin rolled and inserted in its ivory ring. He refused another cup of coffee and pretended to be following the history of the Allégret family that Mme Viénot was telling with so much pleasure. He was waiting for her to leave the table. When she pushed her chair back, he got up also and followed her out into the hall.

“If it would be convenient,” he began, “if there is time before church, that is, could we—”

“Yes, of course,” Mme Viénot said, as if she were grateful to him for reminding her of something she should have thought of, herself. She led the way through the pink and white drawing room to a room beyond it, a study, which Harold had not been in before. Composed and businesslike, she indicated a chair for him and sat down at the flat-topped mahogany desk in the center of the room. To be embarrassed by a situation one has deliberately contrived to bring about in one’s own interests is not realistic; is not intelligent; in short, is not French. As Mme Viénot opened a drawer and drew out a blank sheet of paper, she saw that his eyes were focused on the wall directly behind her and said: “That is a picture of Beaumesnil as it was when my father inherited it. As you see, it was a small country house. I find it rather charming. Even though the artist was not very talented. As a painting it is rather sentimental.… I spoke to my cook about the pommes de terre frites.”