The Lost Estate (10 page)

The idler wandered for a while along the bank, which was sanded like a towpath. He was looking with curiosity at the big doors with their dusty windows opening on ramshackle or abandoned rooms, on storage rooms cluttered with wheel-barrows, rusted tools and broken flowerpots, when suddenly, from the far end of the building, he heard footsteps on the gravel.

It was two women, one very old and bent, the other a young woman, blonde, slender, whose delightful attire, after all the fancy dress of the day before, at first seemed astonishing to Meaulnes.

They stopped for a moment to look at the scenery, while Meaulnes – with what he would later feel was quite inappropriate surprise – thought: ‘This must be what you’d call an eccentric young woman, perhaps some actress brought here for the party.’ Meanwhile the two women walked past him, and Meaulnes stood quite still, watching the girl.

Often, later, when he was falling asleep after trying desperately to recall that lovely, vanished face, he would dream that he saw rows of young women like her going by, one with a hat like hers, another with her slightly stooping manner; yet another had her candid expression, another her slender waist, and another her blue eyes; but none of these was ever the tall young woman.

Meaulnes just had time to see a face, under a heavy mass of blonde hair, with features that were rather small, but drawn with an almost excruciating delicacy. And since she had already gone past him, he looked at what she was wearing, which was the simplest and most demure kind of dress…

He was puzzled, wondering whether to follow them, when the girl, half turning in his direction, said to her companion: ‘The boat will not be long, now, I suppose?’

Meaulnes followed them. The old lady, bent and trembling, carried on chatting merrily and laughing. The girl gently answered her. And when they came down on to the landing stage, she wore that same innocent and serious look that seemed to mean: ‘Who are you? What are you doing here? I don’t know you – yet I feel as though I do…’

Other guests were now scattered among the trees, waiting. And three pleasure boats pulled up, ready to take them on board. One by one, as the two women went by – they appeared to be the lady of the house and her daughter – the young men ceremonially doffed their hats, and the young women bowed. What a strange morning! What a strange excursion! Despite
the winter sun, it felt cold, and the women were wrapping around their necks the then fashionable feather boas.

The old lady stayed behind on the shore and, without knowing how, Meaulnes found himself in the same boat as her daughter. He leant on the rail, one hand clasping his hat as it was battered by the high wind, and was able to look as much as he liked at the girl, who had sat down in a sheltered spot. She looked back at him. She would reply to something said by her friends, smile, then gently turn her blue eyes towards him, with a little bite of her lip.

A great silence reigned on the nearest shore. The boat sailed on, to the gentle sounds of engine and water. It was like being at the heart of summer. They would disembark, apparently, at the fine gardens of some country house. The girl would walk through the grounds beneath a white parasol. Until evening time they would hear the doves coo… But suddenly, an icy gust of wind reminded the guests at this strange party that it was December.

They pulled up beside a wood of firs. The passengers had to wait a moment on the gangway, pressed against one another, while one of the boatmen unlocked the gate… What were Meaulnes’ feelings afterwards as he recalled this moment when, on the banks of the lake, he had so near to his own the face of this girl – a face that was then lost to him! He had stared at that exquisite profile with every atom of his eyes until they were ready to fill with tears. And he remembered seeing, like a tender secret that she had entrusted to him, a little powder remaining on her cheek…

Once on dry land, everything happened as though in a dream. While the children were running around shouting with glee, and groups were forming and spreading out among the trees, Meaulnes walked along an avenue with the young woman ten paces ahead of him. Before he had time to think, he was beside her, and said simply, ‘You are beautiful.’

But she hurried on, without replying, and set off down a side path. Others ran up, playing among the trees, all going off in
whatever direction they wished, obeying only their own whims. The young man deeply regretted what he called his clumsiness, his crassness, his stupidity. He was wandering aimlessly, sure that he would not see the delightful creature again, when suddenly he saw her coming towards him and unable to avoid them meeting on the narrow path. She was holding back the folds of her large cloak with her two ungloved hands. She was wearing open black shoes. Her ankles were so slender that they sometimes bent and you were afraid that they would snap.

This time, he bowed and very quietly said: ‘Will you forgive me?’

‘I forgive you,’ she said, gravely. ‘But I must go back to the children, since they are in charge today. Farewell.’

Augustin begged her to stay a moment longer. He spoke to her so awkwardly, but with such confused emotion and agitation in his voice that she slowed down and listened to him.

‘I don’t even know who you are,’ she said at last. She spoke each word in an even tone, with the same emphasis on every one, but saying the last in a softer voice… Then her face became impassive again; she bit her lip a little and her blue eyes stared into the distance.

‘And I don’t know your name, either,’ Meaulnes replied.

They were now following a path in the open and, some distance away, could see the guests gathering around a house isolated in the open countryside.

‘That’s Frantz’s house,’ the young woman said. ‘I have to leave you…’

She paused, looking at him for a moment with a smile, and said: ‘My name? I’m Mademoiselle Yvonne de Galais…’

Then she was gone.

Frantz’s house was unoccupied at the time, but Meaulnes discovered that it had been invaded from cellar to attic by a host of guests. In any event, he did not have the time to take a good look at the place: they quickly had a cold lunch that they had brought with them in the boats, which was rather unseasonal, but was doubtless what the children had chosen; then they set off again. Meaulnes went up to Mademoiselle de Galais as soon
as he saw her come out and, replying to her earlier remark, he said: ‘The name I had given you was prettier.’

‘What? What name was that?’ she asked, with the same seriousness as before.

But he was afraid that he had said something idiotic and didn’t answer.

‘My own name is Augustin Meaulnes,’ he went on. ‘And I’m a student.’

‘Ah! You’re studying?’ she said. And they talked for a little longer. They talked slowly, pleasurably, in a friendly way. Then the young woman’s attitude changed. Though now less haughty and less grave, she also seemed more worried. It was as though she were anxious about what Meaulnes might say and was taking fright in advance. She was trembling next to him, like a swallow that has landed for a moment and is already quivering with the urge to take flight again.

‘What’s the use? What’s the use?’ she replied softly whenever he suggested anything.

But when at last he dared to ask her permission to come back one day to the beautiful estate, she said simply, ‘I’ll be expecting you.’

They came in sight of the landing-stage. She paused, suddenly, and said pensively: ‘We’re two children. We’ve been foolish. This time we mustn’t get into the same boat. Farewell, don’t follow me.’

For a while, Meaulnes stood there, saying nothing; then he began to walk after her. At this, the young women, far ahead of him and about to be swallowed up again by the crowd of guests, stopped and, turning back towards him, gave him for the first time a long stare. Was it a last farewell gesture? Was she forbidding him to accompany her? Or did she perhaps have something else that she wanted to tell him?

As soon as they were back, pony races began behind the farm in a long sloping meadow. This was the last event in the party. There was every reason to suppose that the engaged couple would arrive in time to take part, and it would be Frantz who took charge of everything.

However, they had to start without him. The boys in jockey costumes and the girls dressed as grooms brought out, the first, frisky ponies with ribbons, and the second, docile, very old horses. As they came there were shouts and childish laughter, wagers and long peals of bells: it was as though you had been transported on to the green, close-cropped grass of some miniature racetrack.

Meaulnes recognized Daniel and the little girls with the feathered hats whom he had heard the evening before in the avenue under the trees… He couldn’t follow the rest of what was going on, because he was so eager to spot the elegant hat with the roses and the long brown coat among the crowd. But Mademoiselle de Galais did not appear. He was still looking for her when a succession of ringing bells and shouts of glee announced the end of the races. One little girl on an old white mare had won the event. She rode past in triumph with the plumes on her hat dancing in the wind.

Then suddenly it all went quiet. The games were over, and Frantz had not returned. They stopped for a moment and held an uneasy debate. At last, they went off in groups back to the house, to await the couple’s return in a mood of silence and uncertainty.

XVI

FRANTZ DE GALAIS

The racing had finished too early. It was half-past four and still light when Meaulnes got back to his room, his head full of the events of that extraordinary day. He sat down in front of the table, with nothing to do, waiting for dinner and the party that was to follow.

The high wind of the first evening was blowing again. You could hear it roaring like a torrent or whistling with the insistent hiss of a waterfall. The hood over the fireplace rattled occasionally.

This was the first time that Meaulnes had experienced the slight feeling of anxiety that comes over you at the end of a too happy day. For a moment, he thought of lighting a fire, but tried in vain to raise the rusted hood. Then he began to arrange the room: he hung his fine clothes in the wardrobe and set up the overturned chairs along the wall, as though trying to get everything ready for a long stay.

At the same time, aware that he should be ready to leave at short notice, he carefully folded his smock and other school things on the back of a chair, like travelling clothes. Under the chair, he put his hobnailed boots, still caked in mud.

Then he sat down again and, feeling calmer, looked around the home that he had arranged for himself.

From time to time, a drop of rain streaked across the window overlooking the yard with the carriages and the fir wood. More at peace now that he had laid out his apartment, the boy felt entirely happy. He was there, mysterious, a stranger, in the midst of this strange world, in the room that he had chosen. What he had far exceeded his expectations. Now it was enough,
to lift his heart, for him to recall that young woman’s face, in the wind, turning towards him…

While he was daydreaming in this way, night fell, and he did not even think of lighting the torches. A gust of wind blew open the door of the adjoining room, which also overlooked the courtyard and the carriages. Meaulnes was about to close it when he noticed a light in this other room, like a candle burning on a table. He put his head round the door. Someone had come in, no doubt through the window, and was walking up and down with silent steps. As far as he could see, it was a very young man. Bare-headed and with a travelling cape thrown over his shoulders, he was walking endlessly, as though driven wild by some unbearable pain. The wind, blowing through the window which he had left wide open, was lifting his cape, and whenever he walked past the light, you could see the glint of gilded buttons on his elegant frock coat.

He was whistling something through his teeth – a sort of sea shanty of the kind that sailors and loose women sing to make merry in harbour bars…

Briefly, in the course of his nervous pacing, he stopped and leant over the table, looked in a box and took several sheets of paper out of it. Meaulnes, in the light of the lamp, saw the profile of a very aquiline face, clean-shaven, under a mass of hair parted on one side. The man had stopped whistling. Very pale and with half-open lips, he seemed breathless, as though he had received a sharp blow to the heart.

Meaulnes hesitated: would it be discreet to retire, or should he go forward and put a friendly hand on his shoulder and talk to him? But the other man looked up and saw him. He examined him for a moment, then, with no sign of surprise, came over and, steadying his voice, said: ‘Monsieur, I don’t know you. But I am pleased to see you. Since you are here, you are the one to whom I shall explain… There!’

He appeared totally distraught. When he had uttered the word ‘There!’ he grasped Meaulnes by the lapels, as through trying to keep his attention. Then he turned towards the window, apparently thinking about what he was going to say, and blinking – Meaulnes realized that he he had a strong urge to weep.

Suddenly, he fought back all that childish unhappiness and, still staring at the window, went on in a strained voice, ‘Well, there it is, it’s over. The party’s over. You can go down and tell them. I’ve returned alone. My fiancée won’t be coming. Whether from principle, or fear, or lack of trust… In any case, Monsieur, I’ll tell you how it is…’

But he couldn’t go on. His whole face crumpled. He explained nothing. Suddenly turning away, he went across the room in the dark to open and close some drawers full of clothing and books.

‘I’m going to get ready to go away again,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be disturbed.’

He put various objects down on the table: a toilet case, a pistol…

And Meaulnes, in some consternation, left without daring to say a word or shake his hand.

Downstairs, they seemed to have guessed that something was up. Almost all the girls had changed their dresses. In the main building, the guests had begun dinner, but hurriedly and untidily, as though on the point of departure.